Tag Archives: seeing

I had a revelation.(Again)

Well, I have been on a hiatus of sorts. I have been busy with a vacation, a motherly visit from mom and a ponderace of what my desire is, in the last three weeks. But I am back and a ready to go again.

Revealations are funny. They can be good or they can be bad. And sometimes they just come to you by the most awkward time, make you just sit there and let you just talk to yourself, and I would be just in amazement, in my revelation.

I have talked and written the same old things and told people that I read. Alot. My library is full of books of all kinds of topics of Christianity. But what else I have in my library, are bibles, different sizes, colors, shapes, and versions. I have read the whole bible thoroghly maybe 5 times. Now I don’t know if this has any barring on my revelation, but it might.

I am a product of a pastor’s life and home. I am a preacher’s kid. I have heard the “Word” all my life. Either on purpose, or just hearing it throughout my childhood. My ‘learning’ the bible has I think for me has been an ‘internal’ one. What I mean by that, it has been one where I have put the pieces together of everything biblical understanding in my head. I never ‘preached’, talked, or whispered my beliefs per se to anyone. Until about 15 yrs ago.

It is when at this time, I noticed what I had in my head, was not what the ‘local’ church was ‘preaching’! It was something different. There was no meaning to it. No direction. No life. I had questions, more than answers to the message that had shared with me. I was questioning everything with my response of “Why”?

I had queries of the local ministry, of multiple subjects and of even more importantly were the answers that they were giving. I then expanded my questioning of not just the ‘local’ church, but also to the denomination of said church, to see if it was adhering to ‘their’ beliefs. It was a journey to see that the last two ‘denominations’, which were very much alike in their beliefs, were very much ‘saying’ and ‘preaching’ the same thing. I had one of those ‘aha’ moments. It was then that I even expanded more to ‘other’ denominations of christianity to see what ‘they’ were ‘preaching’. It was then, that things or ‘beliefs’, or understandings of the Bible story started to unravel for me, it was an eye-opening moment(not my newest revelation) to realize that there was an different ‘format’ which everyone was using to ‘preach’ the quote ‘message'(gospel). This intrigued me.

It was then, that I realized that not only the message was off, but it was being done in the wrong format. The ‘format’ that I had swirling in my head, did not match the things that I was seeing at the local or denominational level. It was a cookie-cutter model in which it was obviously not working in which it was to be designed.

Let me explain something that might be confusing in what I said. What I was ‘hearing’ and being ‘preached’ to me in my early years of youth and the early adulthood, was my hearing and understanding the ‘storyline’ of the bible was ‘not’ what was being explained or ‘preached’ from my pew seat. Even tho, most of my life’s pew sitting was with my father in the pulpit. I was not ‘seeing’ what most people were ‘hearing’. It was being stored up in my knowledge bank for a complete expounding at a latter time. It was about 15 yrs ago that it finally came out.

I believe that thru all this ‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ things from various viewpoints that I have seen various things in the scriptures that just don’t add up to the ‘Message'(Gospel). It is then, that I felt like I needed to start saying things to people, thru blogs and random thoughts on social media, to get things rolling with people(christians) to double check their beliefs and their structure in the bible and God. What was the Bible really about? I have had my desenters in my take on my ‘seeing’ things different, than their views, but this was to be expected. The rut that christians have been in, is the cause, and the effect, of being ‘a sunday christian’.

The bible doesn’t say that.

It is so much more. It is a story. It has a storyline that is told in a narrative of God’s people, and their journey thru the annals of time. What is key to this story is the beginning, and the end! They are the same. This should be a clue to us! Every mystery book reader knows this!

It is in this storyline of God’s plan that has befuddled christianity(IMO) and it is not just coming from me, their are other people or groups that are ‘preaching’ this. Narrative stories are designed to ‘tell a story’, ‘tada’! LOL. In this narrative, God is not only telling an historic story but a story of everlasting meaning. This is where I will use a statement that always needs to be said. “The Bible is not written ‘for’ us, but ‘to’ us.! So what this should tell us is that these scriptures from God have to have meaning for alot of generations of people and years of social change to understand it.

It is here that we have change our ‘understanding’ of the scriptures. To express God’s eternal purpose, he has to change it so ‘everyone’ will ‘see’ the meaning and ‘truth’ of his desire. God uses different methods of doing this. God uses ‘types’, ‘symbols’, ‘imagery’, ‘foreshadowing’, ‘metaphors’ and ‘Allegory’.

It is allegory that has been missed in the ‘churches’ hearing in the scriptures.

This is where ‘one’ of my latest ‘revelations’ of the christianity’s downfall has been a glaring feeblemindness. Not ‘seeing’ Allegory in the scriptures. Maybe, just maybe it will come to us, when we have the ‘mud’ wiped off of our ‘eyes’ that we may see it.

The ‘revelation’ that I am saying is that the ‘story’ of the Israelites of being God’s people of Israel, and their subsequent disobedience of ‘worshipping’ Him, by being banished to ‘Egypt'(Babylon,the world), is the allegoric story of mankind as a ‘whole’ that has ‘left’ God for their own ways(worldly), and are now slaves to it. It is then that God pulls his people back to him so that ‘they'(mankind) can worship ‘their’ God.

Exodus 9:13 Then the Lord said to Moses, “Rise up early in the morning and stand before Pharaoh and say to him, “Thus says the Lord, the God of the Hebrews, ” Let my people go, that they may serve Me.

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Let’s get past ‘face value’

Studying any book or subject takes more than just reading the item. It is opening our eyes and looking at the similar or contrasting word pictures that are being shown throughout the book or the bible. We have to look diligently and keenly into everything that is being presented to us.

God is mysterious in all his ways. He is spiritual in all His directions. The scriptures are a narrative storyline of God, His Kingdom and His people. If only it could be so simple. But it wasn’t, or isn’t. This is why our interest should guide us to want to dig deep into God’s word. This journey is not just a quick remedy of doing one thing to say that you have accomplished it. It is a long and tedious journey to get even close to say your even started on the journey.

I believe that in my journey, that I can say that I have learned alot in my own personal study and research,reading books, listening to authors,speakers,new information, old information,things I agree on and things I disagree with, but I have always ‘looked’ outside the box of my usual understanding or what you could say was my traditional belief. My view is now wide and open to all of God’s influence with people and things.

*I was going to expand on this subject in another blog, but I have decided to add it here*

I believe that we have a christian problem of staying in a box, once we say we are a believer. We are caught up in ‘denominational’ thinking or at least a ‘concrete’ and can’t be influenced by anything I hear or see that we hurt ourselves by not being open to anything, and I mean anything that we deem out of another box. It is this kind of constitutionalism that can kill christianity in a heartbeat. I can see that this is what did happen in the time of Luther and his revolt from Catholicism. It started with a thing that was different from another and just expanded from there.

What we need to know and understand that ‘Christianity’ has not yet been perfected in it’s perfect state, no matter what we ‘americans’ think! It has been a work in motion! It will not be in the Holy and Perfect state until God says His bride is ready. I have come to realize these last few months that this constitutionalism of any particular religion has created alot of damage to christianity. We have been put ourselves in this little box of an ‘identity’ and refuse to been seen as anything else.

One aspect that I have noticed that we have done is to do the ‘church hopping game’ where we go and just hop to another ‘building’ to see if it satisfies our ‘needs’,for now. But it is much worse than this, we are set in our ways of ‘believing’ in ‘something’, whether it be the stance of believing in God’s plan for salvation, His way of doing worship, or something that is an immovable concept in your mind and you will not move on it.

I do believe that some where down the road we will be all in agreement on What God’s eternal purpose is for all of us will be. But it will take some groundbreaking moves on our part to change, our understanding, our ‘seeing’ God on who He really is.

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It’s a process

As with the understanding of the Word of Lord, there is a process, I believe that it is morphing into the identity of God and man, as God intended it to be.

Anyone that has studied the bible and the institution of Church, knows that it has gone thru alot of changing in what we have thought what the bible(God) was telling us. It started right after Jesus’ resurrection and question that everyone was asking “Now what?” or What did all this mean to us or to the world? It wasn’t until Paul came along to put his take on things to say, that It was Jesus’ death on the Cross and His resurrection from the grave that there was a reason for this. But What?

Paul, being singled out by God to chastise him one day while just walking down the road doing what he thought he was supposed to be doing for the Lord, that God points out to him that he wasn’t helping but hurting Him, by way of hurting him, by way hurting his body(the church).

It was when Paul understood this from God, thru the changing of his mind(set) of what really is the ‘Kingdom of God’. We have to stop here and go the verse in Romans 12 verse 2 it says “And be not fashioned according to this world but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” This verse I believe is the key for the christian world to realize that we have not renewed our mind from the fleshly thinking of this world in which we are supposed to be thinking,acting or being of “Christ”.

It is the human ways that we have forever and ever been ‘thinking’,’doing’, ‘believing’ and just ‘being’ in what is supposed to be of the “Kingdom of God’! Our failure of understanding of this has just led us down some bad backroads of christianity that is nowhere near what God has wanted us.

If we were designed to be in the “Kingdom of God”,it is different that the “kingdom of Man”,totally!! Man!! lol There are different rules and regulations for each of these kingdoms, just ask man, he will tell you how you have to act,do, and think on everything! (ha,ha) God’s kingdom is different, you cannot carry over the things of man’s kingdom to God’s Kingdom. Not one thing is transferable. sorry folks. Different all together.

It all starts with Romans 12. 2. The changing of our thinking. We are of God. We cannot think or do the things of this world in God’s world. It will be apparent to us if we renew our minds to the ‘New Man’ of the Kingdom of God that we will not do the things of the old man.

I am ‘seeing’ mankind ‘renewing’ parts of their world here and there around me and even far away from me. Take time to look around you, and see people renewing their minds by doing, thinking, or just ‘being’ different from the world, they are ‘standing out’ from the world in everything they do. They are the ones that are renewing the minds and they are proving what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God!! Amen and Amen.

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How many times have you read the bible?

I really hate this question.

By saying you read something, what does that tell you have accomplished? That you have read?

By saying that you have a read a book, is like saying you have seen a movie. But did you understand it?

This is also why I have hated in the institutional church the annual awareness of getting people to read the bible in a year, or two years. So what! Ask them what they read for a ten page report on why God came to earth in the form of Jesus, or why was Jerusalem the focus of the Israelites in the old testament, or what did it mean that the curtain was rent in the Holy of Hollies? And see if they could hand in at least one page. Most people when reading anything they just read, couldn’t tell you what they read. Reading the bible is not to be contrasted to be a medal of honor for the year, or for every year as a prize.

The Pharisee’s were reprimanded by Jesus for so called supposed to be the ‘experts’ of the scriptures, but yet Jesus asked them for meaning to them and their response to Him was ‘We don’t know’ (paraphrased by doug). Their job was to study and to make meaning to the scriptures that God had given them and to follow that meaning. Even the disciples were baffled in Jesus’s words to them in their daily walk with them. It even was even worse when Jesus started to talk in parables to them, their minds where in a state of ‘Whhhhhhat’?

It is with this thought that as christians and our community that we need to get together and talk about the word of God, and really ‘see’ God’s storyline for his people. It is not the ’20 minute snippit’ that we could get once a week that will even get us to ‘know’ God in our lives. He is so much more than this.

This might be the problem with the said ‘church’ that just keeps doing the same thing over and over and thinks that we will get a different result.(We know what this is called,right) We have to be vigilant in our ‘seeing’ what we are reading in the scriptures. It isn’t just black and white. It is what God meant in his spoken words that just point to Him.

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