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Showing posts with label God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label God. Show all posts

Thursday, September 19, 2019

There's nothing you can do

  Okay! This blog is going to be very different from all the others I have done before.

   First of all, I need YOU to participate in this blog and not just read it.

   Here are my instructions:  (better if you can have someone READ them to you if you can)


  1. Lie down in a quiet place (or sit if you can't lie down)
  2. Close your eyes
  3. Take 3 or 4 deep breathes 
  4. Imagine you are soooo weak that you can't speak, move or even open your eyes.  The energy in your body is sapped.  
  5. Now imagine you are on your death bed.  You are minutes away from taking your LAST    breath.  There is NOTHING you can do right now to earn your righteousness.  Nothing you can say or do.  You will be meeting God very soon.  All you can do is rely on your faith in his word that he has done it all for you.


Now open your eyes.   How did that make you feel?

The Bible says, "The Righteous shall LIVE by FAITH".    Yet for most of our lives we live our lives out feeling like we need to do something to earn that salvation.  However, on your death bed, when it all comes down to it, you have nothing to offer God and must rely on faith that he has done it all.

The same person who is reading this post now is the same person a few minutes ago was imagining themselves on their death-bed.  God accepts that same person, who could only breath a few minutes ago, who is now fully alive and awake.  There is nothing different between the two people they are one and the same.   God accepts you just as you are right now... not just on your death-bed.    He loves you right now!

Live your life by faith!
 

Friday, February 15, 2019

Glass half empty or full?

     Most people are familiar with the question about how they view a glass of water filled like that shown below


    Do you see it has half FULL?                                              Or do you see it as half EMPTY?

    The answer to that question dictates whether you are more of an OPTIMIST or a PESSIMIST.

     It's all about how we perceive something.  There is no right or wrong answer here.  Both are simultaneously correct in their own right.   We don't know what makes one person more optimistic than another person.  In our world we need BOTH kinds of people to balance things out.   We need the pessimist to tell us to save our money because we don't know what tomorrow will bring.  Maybe a job loss or an injury/sickness or maybe even death.   We also need the optimist to use and spend our money because what is life if all we do is hoard our money and never enjoy it.

     When we view God's word,  the same optimist/pessimist views are often applied without us even knowing it.  I think that most people who study the Bible already know at some level they are sinners and in need of forgiveness.   We carry this view with us as we read the Bible and sometimes miss out on what God is really telling us.

    Take for example this verse from Leviticus 19:2

Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.    

   How does that make you feel when you read those words?

   Does it strike some level of fear into your hearts?

   Maybe it makes you feel a bit uneasy maybe even angry because it seems to be an achievable demand by God upon you.   Me??  Holy?

    But when we look at these words in context of the Bible these words seem less like a demand and more of a declaration by God on us.    Take for example, Genesis 1:1,  "Let there BE LIGHT, and there was light".    God calls for light to be created and it is.  Another example is when Jesus calms the storm
That day when evening came, he said to his disciples, “Let us go over to the other side.” 36 Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him. 37 A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. 38 Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?”
39 He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves,  
 “Quiet! Be still!Then the wind died down and it was completely calm.
40 He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?”
41 They were terrified and asked each other, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!” 
     Jesus words to the wind have effect.   When Jesus speaks, things happen.  His words change things immediately.   In another story, Jesus heals a man with leprosy (Luke 5)

12 While Jesus was in one of the towns, a man came along who was covered with leprosy.[b] When he saw Jesus, he fell with his face to the ground and begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
13 Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” And immediately the leprosy left him.

     Jesus words of "Be clean!" changes the man immediately.  No fancy incantation or magic words.   Reality is what Jesus says it is!

     Yet Jesus, being the very Word of God, is the same person speaking the words of Leviticus 19:2 to us.  To me, God's words of "Be Holy" are not so much a demand but more of HIM declaring US to be Holy.   What God speaks happens.   We are HOLY because God declares us HOLY.    God can only do this because he will be the one picking up the tab of all of our sins on the cross.

    Prayer: Thank you God for declaring me HOLY in your sight and changing my life forever.









Monday, June 18, 2018

In the long term Hedonism cannot survive

   My wife and I love to watch "Wheel of Fortune" (we almost don't miss an episode).   At the beginning Pat Sajak goes around and interviews each contestant to find out where they are from, what they do, who they are married to, etc..   I personally use this information to choose who to root for.  We don't bet on it but it makes it more interesting.   I have a few deciding factors that help me decide.  If they are from the Chicago area, a government employee or a lawyer I automatically put them in the "don't root for" category.   One thing that used to put them in the don't-root-for list was if they said they were "proud parents of 2 (or more) fur-babies" (cat's, dog's, rabbits etc).   This phase is being used more and more by the Millennial generation.  In fact, research is showing married couples under 35 are more likely to have pets than children.

    This used to bother me but now I see it as a blessing.   I see our country divided differently today.   It's heathen verses non-heathen.   In a hedonistic society everything is about YOU.  It's all about YOUR pleasure.  It's all about YOUR life.  It's all about YOUR career.  It's all about YOUR experiences.  For non-believers the world is a very scary and short-lived place.   It's all about sucking all the marrow out of life that you can before you are turned back into dirt.   This fear guides all your decisions.   You feel you have to get all your ducks in a row before you can even BEGIN to think about kids.  You need your career in place.  You need to get your 401k fully-funded.  You need to get your McMansion set up and see all the major sites in the world because kids take that away from you.  First they date for 5 years, then they live together for 5 years, then they get married and live another 5 years before they start to the process of making babies.   But then you find your 38 years old and your eggs aren't worth crap or his sperm count is diminished to almost nothing because of all the "stress" you endured working for the McMansion and the career.   For many young couples today pets replace children.  They dote on them, train them, feed them, take pictures of them and show them off to others.  They are cheaper too.   No clothes to buy (unless you feel you need to), no college to save for, no piano lessons or dance recitals to go to.   No nasty notes from the teacher that require you to have meetings with them.   If you need to run off to Bora Bora then it's off to the kennel for them.   Easy Peasy!

    I looked around me and made an interesting observation.   The only young couples around me that I saw having kids were Christian couples.    You see, they are not living in fear of the future.  God has their back and their children.   He is with them all the way.   The Bible says, "Perfect love drives out fear!".  That is what God does in our lives.  He drives out fear much like Jesus drove the money changers from the temple who were making God's house a den of thieves.   They are not living in fear of death for they know there is much more that awaits them after death.  God has promised and has made it known to us by the resurrection of Jesus from the grave.

   But that observation showed me that there in lies the answer to hedonism.  Ultimately hedonism is it's own worst enemy.  The heathens encourage their side to not have children.  They tell them that they can have it all without children and the world will be better off too.   But this means that the heathen eventually will die off and it will be the non-heathen (the Christians) who will repopulate society.    It may take 2 generations but eventually things will change.   Currently our country is still dealing with the most Hedonistic generation to have ever lived: the baby-boomer generation.  This generation is now moving into their end-years and are now in it's final convulsions of trying to accomplish all they can before they take their last breath.  Baby Boomer 1.0 gave birth to Baby-Boomer 2.0 which felt families should only have 1 or 2 children.   Now Baby-Boomer 3.0 is being taught to have 0 or 1 child or not get married at all (most 20 year old are living together instead of getting married).   Eventually the hedonist generation and their ill-thought-views will be wiped from the face of the earth like a nightmare that is soon forgotten. 

    Hedonism is really the source of it's own destruction.   

Sunday, May 6, 2018

Universal Constants

    From the very creation of Physics, certain things were thought to be unchangeable.  When Newton first developed the laws of physics he said that mass, time and space never change.  It seemed reasonable that these aspects of the universe were unalterable.  The mass of an object should not change and everyone who measures the mass should measure the same amount (note: he never defined what "mass" was).  Time also, should be unchangeable and it too should always be measured the same by everyone everywhere.   It makes sense!  Why would your watch run different from mine?  Space as well should not change.  If my ruler is the same length as yours, why shouldn't we both measure the same distance?  It all makes sense!

   250 years later Einstein showed that mass,space and time are not constants at all, but the speed of light ("c") is a constant and is measured the same by all observers despite what speed or direction they are going.   For 250 years the scientists were wrong, they just didn't know it yet.   At first Einstein was lambasted for his ideas.   Did he think he was greater than Newton??    Yet, eventually he was proven right anyway.

   Sometimes we are like that to God.  What makes sense to us is not what makes sense to God.   What we think matters to God, really doesn't matter to God at all.  In mathematics we refer to a variable that has no effect on another variable as being an "independent variable".   The function "y" is not altered by this variable.   Take for example,

    y = 5x + w

    The function below has two variables: x and w.  If I asked you what effect does "s" have on the function you would have to say that y is independent of s as it doesn't even factor into the equation.

    In the Psalms, David often writes about the "steadfastness" of God's love.  It is steady and strong no matter what we do.  It is "independent" of our actions or lack of love.  It doesn't change.  It's constant like the speed of light.   What we think changes God's love of us, doesn't really change it at all.   We think God should be like us.  Makes sense right?   But like Newton, what makes sense isn't always reality.

   I remember when I had to fly down to Southern California because my son had crashed his car into a tree.  It was the 3 am phone call you don't want to get as a father.  Our son was always a handful and a challenge at times to raise (he would even agree to that).  I remember vividly walking into that hospital room and seeing him laying there with his head all stitched up and his arm in a sling.  I remember feeling nothing but love for him at that moment.  Not disappointment.  Not despair.  Not anger.    Just love.   His actions had no bearing on my feelings for him.  I would always love him no matter what.

   God loves you too.... no matter what! 



Tuesday, March 14, 2017

General Relativity and God's Law

  In 1666, Sir Isaac Newton developed the first laws of gravity based on his observations.  He hypothesized that all matter has a gravitation "flux" emanating from it outward to other matter and this "flux" was responsible for attracting other matter.  From this he was able to derive his basic Law of Gravitational Attraction


   Of course Newton could not prove the existence of this invisible flux but based on planetary motion and other experiments it all seemed to fit.   Newton's laws were also based on some basic fundamental foundations that seemed to make sense to the scientists of his time.  The first assumption is that all space can be described in a simple 3D (height,width,depth) Cartesian coordinate system and all observers would measure the same distances no matter their orientation or movement.  Second, all observers would measure the same amount of time to pass regardless of their location or movement.

   Both of these basic assumption all seemed to make sense.  Why wouldn't we all measure distances the same and all of our watches run the same?  No one could see a reason why not, and so for over 350 years those assumptions were never challenged.   That was until Albert Einstein came along.  His observations of light bending around the Sun revealed that Newton was not 100% correct in his assumptions.


   Therefore, because Newton's basic requirement was wrong, all the laws of motion, momentum , energy etc. all had to be re-evaluated leading to Einsteins greatest achievement: The General Laws of Relativity.   This paper showed that gravity is not some mysterious invisible "flux" but instead a bending of space-time by mass which causes objects moving in a straight-line to appear to be moving in a curved line to us.  Like marbles rolling on a large stretched sheet of rubber that has been indented by a large heavy bowling ball they appear to be changing their trajectory because of the curved rubber, but they are trying to stay on a straight line that has been changed by the bowling ball.


  
    So what is that to me?

    We are often like Newton and the scientists of his time.  We have basic assumptions of up,down,left,right and that all our watches are the same.  It all makes basic sense to us.  How we see the world and how we THINK it should work are not always correct.  For some of our decisions, like Newton's Law on Gravity, it works fine.  Newton wasn't 100% wrong but he wasn't 100% right either.  His law was "good enough" to get us to the moon and back but if we used it to get to a nearby star we would miss it by a billion or so miles.   We also, spiritually think we have it all figured out.  We know what is best and what is not.   Adultery?  That's just a new loving relationship being formed.    Pornography?  That's just extreme art.  Lying?  That's just an alternative form of the truth.   Stealing? That's just an individuals attempt to reapportion wealth from those who don't need it as much.

   But that is not how God sees it.   Like Newton thinking the world coordinate-system is all straight lines, what matters is how the universe sees the coordinate system.  So also, how we THINK the world should work and how God sees it are different, but in the end what matters is how God sees it and not you.

  Let's take sex outside of marriage for example.   To our "enlightened" world sex before marriage is perfectly okay.   We have been taught to not hold back our urges and that it is filling our basic needs for physical contact with other human beings.   Movies and TV shows promote endless examples of men and women having no-holds-barred sex and no-strings-attached either (just close the door when you leave!).  But now studies show that men who later decide to "settle down" cannot seem to "attach" themselves emotionally to their mate.  It's like the "glue" has all dried up in the bottle.  Could it be that we have gone against what God had designed us for?   Could it be that he knows how we operate?   Even when some try to have-their-cake-and-eat-too by living together it doesn't seem to workout.  Study after study shows that those who live together before marriage are 30% more likely to get divorced later.  Much of this is because while living-together, the men do not fully develop into men of substance.   They keep their childish ways (going out with the boys, watching porn, playing video games etc...) and those ways become more ingrained in their way of life.  So when it comes time to marry, those ways are "expected" to be put away to help in being a spouse and father, but now it's even harder to adjust because all those attitudes were thought to be acceptable to the other are now deemed unacceptable.

    God is not some irrational angry being.  He has reasons for his law and when we take the time to try to see things from HIS perspective we see that he is right.  Like Einstein seeing that space is really curved and not straight like how our brains feel it "should be" so also, we wee that God's law is really how things should be and not our interpretation.