Still Here

Jesus came two thousand years ago and He is still with us today.

“A friend just wrote about his daughter in Florida, trying to make one of her grandma’s Christmas treats from the old recipe. It had survived in three handwritten versions. All three forgot to mention the most obvious thing: that you must line the baking tins with dough.
‘Hence,’ said my friend, ‘the fallacy of reading a text isolated from the community's living tradition.’ Or, what was called among the learned, the ‘Sola Scriptura’ fallacy. To understand it, you must both read and live.” DW on line.
I have seen the phenomena in the old recipe books too. There are cook books that have lists of ingredients but no instructions what ever as to how to combine them all into the finished product. Every one knew how to put it all together just from what was in the list. A pinch of this and a dash of that and what is a pinch? How much is a dash? When Grandma was cooking every one knew by intuition / experience how much it was.
The Bible is not the sole rule of faith and practice in Christianity. The Living Word and the written word combine to tell us what we need to live our life day by day. While it is true that we are here to learn to discern right and wrong and to exercise that acquired ability by ‘judging righteous judgments’ we are not left in charge of life. Jesus maintains an office in each christian who ever goes to church, if we actively negotiate the occupancy with Him. One member one Voice, under God. Grandma’s intuition was built with a pinch of conscience and dash of intelligence and some common sense and instruction from her mother and others and a list of ingredients and hands on doing it herself. The church needs all of the above And constant two way communication with “the author and finisher of our faith.” The Bible is hard copy memory of the basics.

To Die in My Name

Gen 3:7 And the eyes of them both were opened, and they {g} knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
(g) They began to feel their misery, but they did not seek God for a remedy. (Geneva Bible)
This is the story of people in general ever since A&E were expelled from the garden. People know their misery but they will not seek God for the remedy.

Gen 3:21 To Adam and to his wife also the LORD God did make coats of skins, and clothed them.

In order to make ‘coats of skins’ some animals had to die. Blood was shed. Life was given. “It is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” Heb 10:4 But God accepted the blood of animals as a token of their belief in the promise that Jesus would become a human and come to earth and shed his blood, die, in order to fulfill the law to the fullest extent as them. The law states that whoever sins dies. ‘And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission of sin.’ Heb 9:22 Jesus had to be a human in order to die as them. When God looks in the book of death He will not find Jesus’ name. He will find mine.

Rev 7:13,14 And one of the elders answered, What are these who are arrayed in white robes? These are they who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Is 61:10 I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness,

Rev 19:7,8 Let us be glad and rejoice, and give honour to him: for the marriage of the Lamb is come, and his wife has made herself ready. And to her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white: for the fine linen is the righteousness of saints.

Kin

Why did He Come.

The book of Ruth was one of the books that they almost left out of the Bible. It does not mention God, but it is one of the more important ones.

Naomi had been out of the country and the property of her former husband had been out of the family for some time but Naomi and Ruth could not wait until the land came back to them. Ruth and her mother-in-law were destitute. In Israel property that had been “sold” automatically returned to the family by law after a certain period of time. The case was compounded however by the fact that Naomi’s husband did not have an heir. Naomi was to old to have another son and even if she did would Ruth still be young enough to have a son with him by the time he grew up, and again they could not wait that long, they needed a life now. Enter Boas. He was related and he could and did marry Ruth and buy back the land. He was their kinsman redeemer.

God created the world, but A&E gambled it away, along with their own lives. God Himself could not redeem them or it because His own law required that the redeemer must be the closest relative. Jesus came to be our kinsman redeemer.

King

"A group of Polish members of parliament have submitted a bill seeking to proclaim Jesus Christ king of their overwhelmingly Catholic country.
They argued Jesus should be made king on both theological and historical grounds.

If the bill becomes law, Jesus will follow the path of the Virgin Mary, who was declared honorary queen of Poland by King John Casimir 350 years ago."

That is interesting.

Fiction Press

How to change fiction into fact in three easy lessons.

One, read the article below.

"The paper which addresses Robo-rights, titled Utopian dream or rise of the machines? examines the developments in artificial intelligence and how this may impact on law and politics.

The paper says a "monumental shift" could occur if robots develop to the point where they can reproduce, improve themselves or develop artificial intelligence.

The research suggests that at some point in the next 20 to 50 years robots could be granted rights.

If this happened, the report says, the robots would have certain responsibilities such as voting, the obligation to pay taxes, and perhaps serving compulsory military service. Conversely, society would also have a duty of care to their new digital citizens, the report says. "

Two, remember all the sience fiction books and movies that you have seen. Take special note how realisticly and convincingly they were put together. Be sure to say 'Wow!' everytime there is a quantum leap in computer power.

Three, never question why your great grandfather made you like you are. Make that great to the hundredth power.

He is Here

Emmanuel, God with us.
No one can say that Jesus was a good man and maintain that He was not God. He claimed to be many times so if He was not how could He be anything but nuts or an inveterate liar just in it for the following? The Jewish people knew at the time that He was claiming to be God, this we know because they tried a number of times to kill him and when they finally found a way to get Rome to do it for them they accused Him of blasphemy, claiming to be God.
God is not the frontal lobotomy. God is not everything. God is not something more than the total of everything combined. God is not a remnant of instinctive primal survival programming that is now redundant and useless. God is not an invention to keep us docile or as an opiate.
God is a person and He was here on earth two thousand years ago as a man. And He is still here.

thum thing to think about

God is not sitting up there waiting for us to do something wrong so that He can knock us into kingdom come !
God's plan of salvation does not include sin. It was formulated because of it and as the remedy for the disasterous results of it.
God took an enormous risk. If He had not given mankind absolute limited autonomy we would be nothing more than animals, but God did not bring sin into existance and A&E did not have to sin for God to put His plan into action.
God did say "be Holy" and He added "as I am holy". That is the Absolute Universal Norm and its illustration, 'this is what I mean by Holy'. But we can not be saved by obedience. We can not become better by obedience. Only by faith. Never-the-less if we in turn do not manifest the holiness of God we can not claim to have been recreated by the new birth ! Figure that one out and you will have a life that people will notice.

logic creation

"The idea that comets delivered the chemical 'seeds' for life to the early Earth has been given a big boost.
Scientists studying the tiny grains of material recovered from Comet Wild-2 by Nasa's Stardust mission have found large, complex carbon-rich molecules.

'Whatever it took to get life started, the more variety of molecules you had in the mix and the more they looked like the kinds of molecules that life uses now then the easier it should have been,' Dr Scott Sandford from Nasa's Ames Research Center told BBC News."

Up the chances that it happened but it is all meaningless chaos anyway. It all started by chance and it all evolved by chance and if that is true then there is no real form to it now. What this guy is calling "life" is not. He is delusional - "Psychiatry. a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact." (dictionory.com)

Artificial

"A Canadian judge has ordered the removal of a Christmas tree from a Toronto courthouse lobby, saying it might offend non-Christians.
In a letter to staff on Wednesday, Justice Marion Cohen said the decorated tree made non-Christians feel "they are not part of this institution" and was an inappropriate symbol to greet visitors. The artificial tree was moved to an administrative corridor in the courthouse.
More than 70 percent of Canadians identified themselves as Christian, including almost 13 million Roman Catholics, in the last census in 2001. Muslims account for about two percent of the population. Jews, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs each represent about one percent."
Another one of those double paradox situations. What does a christmas tree have to do with Christianity? Nothing, glad to see it go. It was artificial anyway. Artifical?
But wait ! How much can we compartamentalize our life? Be a christian only and exclusively in church. Be secular every where else. All white skin people should dye themselves brown?
Swearing in God's name should bring a fine or even a term locked away.
But wait ! We are all for freedom of speach. But swearing in God's name IS wrong. And what about offending someone who does not believe in God? 'Course on the other hand, funny thing, but lots of them are the ones who do swear in His name. ???
Don't we have freedom of religion? But hold it ! All freedom does need guidelines if not hard law.
Best to be ourself where ever we are. God is my friend

Eschatology

“Opening the conference on Monday, Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said the aim of the conference was ‘not to deny or confirm the Holocaust’. ‘Its main aim is to create an opportunity for thinkers who cannot express their views freely in Europe about the Holocaust,’ he said.

Mr Ahmadinejad, president, has repeatedly downplayed the extent of the Holocaust, describing it as a myth used to justify the existence of Israel and oppression of the Palestinians. He has called for an end to the Israeli state.

In recent months, newspapers have been closed, journalists jailed and students penalised for engaging in any sort of political activity in Iran.” Many Iranians must be wondering why they have the right to deny the Holocaust with impunity, but not to question their own leaders without risking jail. If the Iran President can discredit the holocaust then he has justification for calling for Israel to cease to exist. He seems to forget that Zionism predated WWII by quite a bit.
“A handful of Orthodox Jews have attended Iran's controversial conference questioning the Nazi genocide of the Jews - not because they deny the Holocaust but because they object to using it as justification for the existence of Israel.
The book of Jewish law or Talmud, they say, teaches that believers may not use human force to create a Jewish state before the coming of the Messiah. However, he also argued that the genocide had been Divine will. "The Zionists, with their secular pompous approach behave in complete opposition to this philosophy and dare to say 'Never Again'. ‘They have the audacity to think that they can prevent the Almighty from repeating a Holocaust. This is heresy."
Do you have your eschatology right? Should Israel exist or not? Was it God who took the Jews back into Israel? Will there indeed be another holocaust? I have an interest in this question because Prince Charles and Israel and I share the same year for our birthdays.

jeans or what

“Top tenor Roberto Alagna has stunned opera-goers at La Scala in Milan by storming off stage in the middle of a performance after he was booed. The Franco-Italian singer, who was playing a leading role in Verdi's Aida, walked off minutes into the second night of the opera house's new season. His understudy rushed on wearing jeans and carried on Sunday's performance.”

So there is a place for jeans. Curious. It seems that the exit of the premier was more stunning than a pair of jeans amid all the pizzazz of that dazzling stage for Verdi's Aida. The VIP-studded audience applauded for more than 15 minutes after the final curtain. What a world.

Oh the pain of it all

Science is so proud of themselves. They always figure things out … a couple of millenniums after ye ol’ wives did. What do you know Babies DO feel pain. And even of all things a Fetus does too ! Imagine that ! So, explain to me again exactly why it is that a fetus is not a human being.

a matter of belief

Fifty to one hundred light years. Most of the stars that we can see with the unaided eye. That is how far away science can ‘prove’ that certain stars are. After that it is extrapolation - to infer (guess; speculate; surmise, conclude or judge from premises or evidence) an unknown from something that is known; conjecture; (the formation or expression of an opinion or theory without sufficient evidence for proof.) After fifty to a hundred light years measurement by parallax does not work any more, the angles are too small to accurately measure. It is possible that light is affected by gravity. Question. If you were to set up a telescope and point it at a star, how would you go about proving to me that it is where you say that it is? Suppose you claim that it is a mere ten billion light years away. OK. The light only has to swerve past one teeny tiny little bitty black hole half way here and viola it really is half a sky away from where your telle scope is pointed. And how are the chances that in ten billion light years it will only encounter One black hole? No matter how much you want to believe it …