We have a mission

The Bible is not the Gospel. The Bible contains the Gospel. Fortunately the Bible also contains some explanation of the Gospel. Why do we need Good News. When did all this happen. The Gospel can be summed up in three brief statements; Jesus died, Jesus rose back to life, and He did it for me but the application of what He did is not automatic. Therein lies the mission.

2 Cor 3:2 “you are our blog known and read of all men” said Paul. 2 Cor 6:16 “you are the temple of the living God” he also said. 1Pet 2:5 “you, as living stones, are built into a spiritual house” said Peter. In other words, once Christ’s work on our behalf has been applied to us, we are the book that people read; we are the temple, with all its liturgy, that people look at. We are what directs people’s attention to God. Once we have their attention we give them the Gospel. We are the adornment, the liturgy of the temple that leads to the veil, Christ, behind which is God. Since the resurrection and ascension of Jesus there is no other way for people to approach Him. Therein lies the mission.

In addition to generalized warnings I have seen three specific warnings to the US, warning of judgment. Because their motto has slipped. A long way. “In God we no longer trust”. This goes for the church as well as for the country as a whole. Dave Wilkerson in The Vision ‘foretold’ destruction for the US, that is quite a while ago. And now I have read a missionary from India who has given the church in the US a stern lecture about its worldliness and pride. I also have a friend who is blowing the trumpet. He has an IQ of me and his brother combined and has been with Wycliffe translating the Bible. He concluded that Revelation 18 is referring to the US. We do not agree with him but it may be that he has the judgment for the US part right.

In any case we ask the question, why has the church in the US and Canada gone so far down? Physically they say that we are in poor health because of lack of exercise and I think that the church has the same problem. Lack of exercise leads to apathy, attrition, lethargy, self-satisfaction, self-centeredness, immune deficiency, wow you name it. What is our exercise? Preaching the Gospel, therein lies the Mission ! !

The Hobbit

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/3971045.stm
So I was reading another article that says that bees 65million years ago were almost identicle to what we have now. WOW ! They just do not want to see that MAY BE those bees that are trapped in amber are not 65million but in fact are not more than a few thousand. I grew up in the public school where they taught evolution and they never once mentioned that lots of the "fossils" are not really fossilized but are in fact still bone! or that lots of fish "fossils" still smell fisshy! Now isn't that what you call fissshhhy? In 65million years the smell has not disipated? ? ? ! And why did they not "teach" those two FACTS at school? When my daughter heard about "Hobbits" her first rreeaction was "there are hobbits alive and well today, lots of people are not over three feet tall" !

The veil and church liturgy

Liturgy
“A prescribed form or set of forms for public religious worship.”
“An established formula for public worship, or the entire ritual for public worship in a church which uses prescribed forms; a formulary for public prayer or devotion.” wwwdictionary
I play chess. There are rules. Without playing according to the standard tournament rules no one can play chess. They are playing a different game when they play with different rules. I have heard people say, “Well every church in reality has its own liturgy”. When these people say that, I say that they are playing some kind of different game. Not every church has a prescribed form of worship! The word, and the concept, Liturgy necessarily requires a prescription, liturgy is not just “that’s the way we do things”.

There was a strict prescription for worship under the covenant that God made with the descendants of Israel which among other things was written in stone to prove to the people that they could not approach God. It was a form of godliness, which they could use to fend off God’s anger year by year and was not for their benefit in the manner in which they imagined it to be. It was created to make the people unique and preserve them long enough to produce the Messiah. He needed a family tree and a piece of real estate to call ‘home’. And it was created in order to drive them to seek the genuine route into the presence of God! That route was through the veil.

The veil is the body of the Messiah, which means His humanity and His death but mostly His resurrection. Freedom is a state of your own being. It is a state of heart and a decision of our own will. Our mind and emotions are most often fifth column and circumstances are not in the equation, we have all heard that over and over before. We can not get freedom just anywhere; we have to go to the one who holds the bonds. No one can give us freedom; we can not gain it by force or by our own will But we have to take it when it is offered to us. (How can anyone call that degrading the sovereignty of God?) The veil also represented all the liturgy of the Mt Sinai covenant. Everything that the descendants of Israel did in their religious observations led them to – the veil. To repeat, the veil could not forcibly keep them out but if they forced their way in they would not find what they came to get. To those who had eyes to see, the way was always open but it was manifested and demonstrated dramatically when the veil was rent at the time of the resurrection of the Messiah. So where does that leave liturgy? Jesus swept it all away when He died Lk 23:45.

“God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spoke in past times to our fathers by the prophets has in these last days spoken to us by His Son,” Heb 1:1,2, who is the real way into the presence of God; “Old things are passed away …”. “If the Son shall make you free you shall be free indeed”! We begin the Christian life by faith, accepting God’s gift of freedom, and each day we live it by faith; did God prescribe a liturgy for the church? NT says, “God is a Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth”! Once a couple is married is there any reason for the wife to keep putting a veil on when she intercources with her husband like as if she were still single?

Where has it gone

"For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse" ~ Romans 1:20

There was an interesting article on BBC about the birds, godwits, that meet in Iceland. "There's only, on average, three days between the male arriving and the female - even though the whole population of godwits takes about a month to get back to Iceland." This is apparently quite amazing to the scientists who were studying it, as it is to me, to think that although the birds have been in two widely separate places for months they can meet within days to take up family matters again. (see Willena’s blog)
There was an equally interesting article about a finding of a skull which belonged to a ‘definitely humanoid’ that was only three feet tall. They nicknamed it the Hobbit and went on to speak of all the places in the world where there are stories of “the little people”. Part of the interest is that it was only posted for a day on BBC and now I can not find it again. Lots of, well, er, stupit articles are on there for a month but this one that I was interested in has evaporated into cyberspace – so I can not get aall the details. Why has it disappeared? Anyway back to the other interesting thing they quoted a guy who said something to the effect of “ with a find like this how could any one continue to believe in creationism?” So we comment yet again. With all these amazing things that science is finding, bird timed to the day, little people, how can they believe in evolution – it all happened by chance?
I wonder why they yanked that article so fast?

Subtle

The link doesn't seem to be too subtle. There is an interesting article on the link on my blog to Willena's blog Ramblin' Rose, that brings to light the use of close contact with a parent for preme babies. Now if you put that together with the articles on the Kinesionics web page you get - subtle energies at work again. Oh the value of a hug. At a convention that we were at recently we learned how to hug. Not the A frame, not the beat on the other person's back just a good ol' heart to heart hug. If the heart does have 'brain' cells then it may be that the only way that it can communicate is not audio but heart to heart subtle electric energy fields.

The Veil

The essence of living according to the New Testament is Faith. When Jesus died we are told, the veil of the temple was torn open. What was it that stood between Israel and God during all the years that they lived under the covenant that they had made with God? It was the veil in the temple. The purpose of a veil is to keep people from discovering what is on the other side of it. Only one person once a year could go inside the veil of the temple, although it was not like it was physicaly impossible for someone else to get in, a veil is by definition not high security. Paul says that the veil was a picture of the body of Christ, so we see that the veil was something that was a barrier of understanding, belief, faith. Will you commit your way 100% to God ? If you can get past the concept of being born again you will have freedom of access into God’s presence. In fact there were those before Jesus came to earth, died and rose again who understood this; the phrase “the just shall life by faith” in Hebrews is an echo of a statement that God made to one of His prophets quite a few years before Jesus was born. Once I understood that Jesus did not die for Himself or even as Himself the significance of the torn veil became a ticket of freedom to me. It was me who hung on the cross. It was me whom Jesus took by the hand and lead back up and out of the bondage of death to wing my flight to the unlimited freedom of heavenly places, soaring over the earth bound minions toiling in the shackles of unbelief. The torn veil opens up such vast vistas and yet in a way it also exposes the quietness and comfort of a small space shared with someone you love. What is christian living? It is walking through the veil into the Holy place ! What is it that stops people from passing a veil ? Not the veil. It is the understanding that the other side is private. Locks on doors do not stop thieves just like user names or passwords do not stop computer crackers; they have no concept of privacy. People crassly violated the Holy place of the temple of the Israely people, thought like all those who rape and plunder they did not find what they wanted; but if they had had the eyes to see that the veil was open they would have. It takes Faith and nothing else to become and to be a christian. Ps 37 ‘commit your way to the One who is on the other side of the veil (He will open your eyes to the way in) and He will give you ____’ (you fill in the blank). No picture ID, no pledge of alegiance, no Herculian work required, just by faith walk through the veil.

Best Kids

We have THE one and a half dozen BEST kids in the world ! ! ! I take no credit at all for that. Our kids are wonderful, we wonder how it is that we can have such a good bunch.

Kids !

I brought home a computer to add to our collection. Not a new one, it had only a mouse and keyboard with it. The box as usual was still sitting in the living room so Nathaniel (5 yr old) tipped it over, put it over his head, and sat down. Andrew came into the room and discerning where Nathaniel was said, as we do, "Wheeeeresss Nathaniel!"
"I'm in the computer room !"