The World standing on three things – according to Simeon the Just

The Jewish High Priest during the Second Temple period, Simeon the Just also termed “the Righteous” because of the piety of his life and his benevolence toward his compatriots, was deeply interested in the spiritual and material development of the nation.

As a high priest of the Great Synagogue he used to say:

“The world exists through three things: the Law, Service (Temple sacrifice, and today prayer), and acts of loving kindness.”

We live in this world and do have to live with it. To guide us through life in this world, the divine Creator has given us His Word and His Law, or Torah.

Torah signifies divine revelation; either the fact of communion between God and man, or the wisdom so imparted. Though to Israel alone the Torah was given, yet Israel in this was representative of humanity. Intercourse between God and man is fundamental, and without it human life above the merely animal stage would be impossible.

The service; this is the service in the temple, regarded as the worship of God in the manner appointed by him. If one special element in the service be intended, that may be the sacrifices, as a symbol of obedience to the divine commands, or the priesthood as the appointed agency for performing the service.

Maimonides interprets the word in the former sense, and this lends itself better to generalisation. ‘Deeds of kindness’, denote unselfish beneficence in the fullest measure, to cover any good that one person can do to another.

The ‘three things’ which are declared to be fundamental in human life are thus found to be Revelation, obedience to God, and brotherly love. It is possible however that the second term ‘the service’ was intended to symbolise worship as a fundamental in human life, including in its meaning both obedience to divine precepts, and the functions of consecrated ministers. The saying is only true when thus generalised; but it would be hard to say how much of that more general meaning was present to the mind of Simeon when he uttered it.

~ Pirke Aboth, Sayings of the Fathers, 1:2 (Herford)

What are friends and friendship

Friendship.

According to Aristotle, a Greek philosopher from ancient times, there are three types of friendship,

I. Friendship of utility II. Friendship of pleasure, and finally, III. Perfect friendship

But what is a friend?

A friend is someone other than family that you share close affection with. A friend will share kindness, sympathy, compassion, loyalty, fun, common beliefs and values.
A true friend will celebrate the good times, and provide support during the bad times.

Ecclesiastes tells us

“You are better off having a friend than being all alone…..if you fall, your friend can help you up.” Ch 4 v 9-10

In the Bible there are many mentions of friends, and it is easy to see the attributes that make a good friend;

Loving, respectful, positive, forgiving, reliable, loyal, inspirational, vigilant, supportive, non-judgemental, trustworthy, cooperative, wise, and self- controlled.

We are told in Luke 6 v 31

“treat others as you want to be treated.”

Of course, the most powerful example of a friend, was Jesus.

John 15 v 12 -13 “Now I tell you to love each other, as I have loved you. The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them.”

Let us all remember the example Jesus gave us, and be the sort of friend to others that we would want for ourselves.

In a world where we can be anything, let us be kind, compassionate, sympathetic and empathetic, loyal, and fun to those around us, as we journey together towards the Kingdom. There, by God’s grace, we will meet our best friend.

 

Dear Lord,
Help us to be good friends to those around us.
Help us to show love and kindness to others, as you have shown us.
Help us to provide support and comfort to our friends as they have need.
Thank you for being our friend and comforter,
and for our many blessings.
Amen 🙏🏻🙏🏻

 

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Related

1. Learning from others
2. Growing Friendships, Changing the World
3. Part 3: Why Schedule People and People People Should Be Friends
4. Love Lust Break-up Friendship.
5. My Cute Friend
6. Meeting others in our mess
7. How do you know if your friend has your back? What if they the devil you need to run from? This scares me alot
8. rich
9. Who are your friends at work?
10. Slick Ways to Make Friends When You’re Targeted by Bullies
11. Happy Endings
12. Prioritizing Relationships
13. Visits with Friends
14. My thoughts to present Friends with benefits..
15. Into every life some rain must fall.
16. All the World’s A Stage
17. Despite the Let Down

Looking forward to a year full of Kindness

Christine Greenwood is an author, health consultant and business entrepreneur, who finds New years time to be a time for reflection of the past year and goal setting for the coming year. She is also a huge believer in reflection of the year past, distilling the wisdom of lessons learned and a big believer in prayerfully setting annual goals for the year to come and practical strategies of how to get there. {2019 – Our Year of Kindness}

One of the goals she likes to set are character goals, things that she would like to concentrate on her life for that year. For 2019 one she wants to share  is Kindness. She writes

I have discovered that every person that I deeply respect and love have has a common attribute. They are Kind. Deeply, consistently, and unapologetically Kind. {2019 – Our Year of Kindness}

Lovely to hear that those people around her have that common attribute. That is not so obvious or normal as many would hope for. Kindness becomes a rare aspect of our materialist world. Not many people are having empathy with others or are willing to show their good heart for them. Kindness is missing in a lot of discussions and talks on the social media. Over-there we can see a lot of ugly words and calling names. The way people talk today says a lot of the wrong going of our society. We have to admit in the so called civilised countries the way they treat people is not always better than in the uncivilised countries.

When Christine Greenwood tries to define kindness, she admits to falter.

If we would know her husband we, according to her, would know that he is gentleness and kindness personified in public. She tells us

I can assure you he is even kinder behind closed doors. It can be mildly infuriating, especially when I am feeling impatient or entitled. {2019 – Our Year of Kindness}

When looking at a person his or her “kindness” we can notice  this in the reflection of the way a person acts and reacts. Often kindness shows up before we have to ask for something.

I feel loved with acts of service. Knowing this he cleans every week till the house shines. Even when I am home from work, or on holidays. He does it as though it is his sole joy. He always takes the clothes out of the dryer and off the line and folds them as I also hate this job. These small things mean the world to me. {2019 – Our Year of Kindness}

And perhaps it is in the many small things that we can discover the pure and real love and kindness. It might be difficult to describe or define, yet kindness is easy to recognise in people around us.

If we all think about kindness a person in our lives will always spring to mind as someone who is innately kind. {2019 – Our Year of Kindness}

Kindness is an underrated quality that Mrs. Greenwood is seeking after in her life.

Before we can be kind to others we should be kind to ourselves. To do so we also have to know ourself and love ourself. Practice ‘Kindness’ to yourself is an essential part for making a good life for yourself but also for the others around you. As such a person has to learn to be kind for when he or she feels tired or sad, give himself or herself permission to stop to feel that there are others who care about him or her. Most important is it when the person comes to see how we have a much Greater Being that cares for us. It is when we start feeling and knowing that we have a  heavenly Father Who knows our heart and Who is close to the broken hearted and loves to comfort us in our grief. {Kindness In 2019 – Continued}

Christine Greenwood promises

I am going to practice Kindness and release myself from a drive to provide for our family and know that God is our provider and I need not strive for with the motivation of financial resource but rather the Kingdom and let God in his Kindness be our Provider.

I will practice Kindness to myself in everything I do, I refuse to compare myself to others. For I am unique and nobody can do what I can do. {Kindness In 2019 – Continued}

We should remember to

Practice Kindness and do not force yourself to do anything that you do not enjoy or that you cannot maintain. Find something that you love to do. That you would do for Fun. Whether it is walking, dancing, running or surfing and make time to do it. For it is being Kind to yourself.  {Kindness In 2019 – Continued}

Big problem in our society of social media is that lots of people want to shine in front of others and dare not to show their real “me”. Many people let their expectations about you known by presenting themselves better than they are or by pushing you should also have this or that, or wear this or that.

Practice Kindness to your body by giving your body permission to be whatever it decides to be and celebrate it. No one else cares about the muffin top over your jeans more than you. No one notices it. You are glorious.

Practice Kindness and wear what makes you feel beautiful and comfortable at the same time. Who cares about what the latest trend is. You dance to the beat of your own drum. No need to conform to anyone around you. Find your own style and flaunt it!   {Kindness In 2019 – Continued}

In all this, what surrounds us, we should place ourself as we want to be ourself. We also should remember that kindness is our greatest commodity and is life changing. Though it’s definition may be hard to profess.

Kindness is in the small things {Kindness – Our Greatest Commodity – A Poem}

Kindness is the outworking of the love one has for an other. It is taking time for the other and showing gratitude. Kindness also shows when a person is willing to show his dedication to the other and willingness for doing the unexpected things to help others or to be there for others, showing the agape love.

Kindness shows also by the way a person communicates with the other and by the way he or she chooses words and speaks with patience and love.

The best way to bring and show kindness is to give out kindness and friendship without expecting something in return. It starts by showing respect, compassion, positivity, and love. Kindness can come around when we treat everyone as we would like to be treated ourselves.

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Preceding

Inspiration to Boost your Karma in the New Year

don’t look at me in that tone of voice!

When remaining angry

High time to show the way to peace

Tunnel under resentment

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Additional reading

1. Created in the image of the Elohim to use their likeness properly
2. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
3. He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass
4. Call to help others
5. The truest greatness lies in being kind
6. Kindness
7. If you want to go far in life
8. Be kinder than necessary
9. Spread love everywhere you go
10. When we love we do not need laws
11. The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
12. A man who cannot forgive others
13. If there is bitterness in the heart
14. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
15. For attractive lips, speak words of kindness
16. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
17. Looking for True Spirituality 5 Fruitage of the Spirit
18. The Nazarene master teacher learning people how they should behave
19. Matthew 12:33-37 – The Nazarene’s Commentary: Judgment Day
20. Be sound in mind and be vigilant with a view to prayers
21. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
22. International Day of Happiness!

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Related articles

1. Death and Life in Our Tongue
2. What Love Says and Does
3. The Love We Have
4. Sometimes the World Worries Me
5. Be Kind Online. Please.
6. Be Perfect
7. Do you know what an empath is?
8. December 6 Clothe yourself with patience
9. Kindness to Yourself
10. Your presence in others (1)
11. Great
12. Terrific Tuesday #26
13. 5 People That Need Our Hospitality
14. Have You Said More Than You’ve Done?
15. Where It All Needs to Start
16. Forgiveness: Always Get Over The Last Hurdle
17. Good Stuff This Week | Vol. 14
18. Ran Into My Friend Tony
19. Thoughts
20. Heading Toward a Digital-Filled-Future?
21. Love Language
22. Kindness: it is always possible
23. 47 for 47 – Act of kindness #24
24. 75 Acts of Kindness that Are Sure To Inspire Others to Pay It Forward
25. His Kindness
26. Sermon on the Mount Part 1: Beatitudes
27. But the fruit of the Spirit is…
28. The Only Power to Change: Goodness And Kindness

 

It’s Time real lovers of God to Stand and Speak Out!

On one article we reblogged over here (and as such did not write it ourselves) and in which there were used popular words by youngsters, somebody felt offended. It looks like she could not feel any empathy with the generation we and the author of the original article were talking about and brought herself calling us stupid people, though missing the whole point of that article and the discussion around it.

Extended Coloured family from South Africa showing some spectrum of human skin colouration

In our world we see still too many people who want to differentiate between skin colour and race. They continue to demand that there would be called or named the differences between people who live at the same place, instead of accepting everybody who lives there for what he is and for how he looks like. They insist that people who live already for many generations in a certain country or area would still have a referral to that long ago place of origin as if that place of origin of so many generations ago brought a blemish on that person. It looks like many do want that lots of people keep running around with the stain of their past and long death ancestors.

Today we see again a movement going on to put on all people labels, like Moroco, Turkish,  Arabic, Berber, Afro-American, etc.. Though those people may already live here for the 3rd, 4th or even 5th generation. As we spoke about the trend the Dutch Press requesting not to use the word ‘blank’ (fair) but now to use ‘wit’ (white) opposite ‘zwart’ (black) instead of ‘kleurling (coloured). Whilst certain newspapers still shall continue words as ‘blank’ and ‘kleurling’ (coloured) not looking at the different skin colour as something negative. Clearly the colour of the skin has become again a point of discussion and we are back to the way of return and pre-Martin Luther King-times, or the time of racial segregation with Apartheid.

Iranian-Belgian human rights activist Darya Safai playtoy of the rightwing political parties trying to limit the freedom of expression and freedom of religion

Several politicians are doing their best to come back to such a time and many migrants are helping them without them having a proper knowledge of what is happening. As such we may find the Iranian dentist Darya Safai who is used as a plaything by the Flemish Nationalists and/or right-wing political parties. The Iranian-Belgian human rights activist grew up in the Islamic Republic of Iran after the revolution of 1979. We can clearly see how she got traumatised with her experiences in Iran. There she experienced at first hand how it was to live as an oppressed woman in a religious dictatorship. But now she thinks this would also be so in Belgium or the countries around us. She insist that parents would have no say on the religious education they want to give at home and want to prohibit any person in our country to wear religious symbols or to have traditional attire.  She finds the schools must prohibit any religious dress-code. By doing so she wants the freedom of religion, the freedom of expression and the freedom of clothing restricted. By doing so see also endangers our democratic freedom.

After she was temporarily released on bail, she decided to flee Iran together with husband via Turkey to Belgium.  Instead of seeing that we want to be a free country where everybody should be able to live next to each other she now wants to create an other Iran where she shall be on the side of the dictators or decision makers. Though she says she wants to fight against discrimination she tries to bring in discriminating  measures, having children nor their parents the right to choose their own religion and how they want to be religious.

In December 2016, Darya Safai was awarded the title ‘Women Of Peace’ by the Belgian Secretary of State for Equal Opportunities at the Belgian Senate, for her fight for women’s rights, though at that time it was already clear she had a more unpleasant agenda.

Last week when  a state school was ordered to let 11 young girls (age 12) to wear their hijab to school inspite their ban on all religious symbols Safai went into heavy reaction again helping to have a growing stir in the debate

because when a judge rules that specific people can ignore a rule that counts for everyone, it will cause more division.

It is true that now other Muslim, Sikh, Jewish parents can go to court and achieve the same override for their kid. On the other hand by Safai her actions to forbid head-covering we now have Sikh kids in Sint-Truiden (Haspengouw Hesbaye), who cannot go any more to a state- or to a Catholic school because they are not allowed in with their head covering. For them and for those who want to wear a head-covering the only solution is to go to a private school. Safai forgets that this would cost the parents a lot more and that such private schools of a certain religion endangers our society more, because than there is no control by the school directorate and then the way to indoctrination is totally free and would be unnoticed. We also could see what happened already in one of the Antwerp Jewish schools a few weeks ago. We must be very careful with an overprotection and giving the opportunity to have youngsters drifting away.

Safai seems to think the same rules count over here as in her birthplace. She argues that the choice to wear a headscarf is not made by girls themselves. By this she underestimate the strong will of many Belgian girls. She says

“It’s not a free choice, when I see six-year-old girls wearing headscarves, I really wonder how they could decide that for themselves-it’s imposed on you and you live with them.”

For Safai the girls their head-covering is indeed a symbol of oppression.

“Men do not wear headscarves, that’s the best proof,”

Orthodox Christian pilgrim

said Safai, to which Vanhecke replied

“With Jews, only the men wear a yarmulke, and that is not seen as a symbol of oppression,”

Safai also forgets or probably does not know that in West Europe all kids from the 1940ies to 1960ies have had to cover their head as girls and we as boys had to cover (like the girls also) our limbs. No bare arms or are knees where to be seen and women at to sit on the left side of the church.  It is all still clear in our head also, how our parents and when we went swimming in the sea we had to cover most of our body. (Later, as hippies we went against those restrictions and ran even naked in nature.) And now a few years later what had to happen then suddenly should not be allowed any more. She also does it as if the head-covering is only a Muslim matter, forgetting that still today many religious Christian groups prescribe head-covering for their members.

Roman Catholic nuns – Roman Catholic nuns singing in choir. – Smith2006

Throughout the centuries of Church history, women have worn head coverings during the meetings of the church – that is, when “praying or prophesying” take place. In Europe the wearing of fabric head coverings in worship was also universally the practice of Christian women until the twentieth century and in several Reformed churches, Baptists, Christadelphian, Brethren and various Mennonites it is still the custom for young and old. In the South of Europe we may find lots of nuns of the Roman Catholic churches with a covering of their heads, whilst many women in the South (like Spain and Italy) still often have the head covering by means of a headscarf. In Eastern Orthodox churches, all women still cover their heads. With the old believers this may only be a headscarf, with the other Eastern Orthodox it may also be a veil.

Vanhecke, with good reason, thinks girls are also oppressed if they are not allowed to wear the headscarf.

“A religion obliges the headscarf, a society forbids it, that is the same principle.”

“You interfere in a fundamental right of parents to make choices for their children,”

says Vanhecke.

That what Safai tries to avoid she helps to create. One should avoid that we get such private religious schools as only possibility for religious people to give their kids an education. When we would have such specific Jewish, Hindu and/or Islam schools we make it much easier to have them a specific religious education or indoctrination and creating a generation which would be less adapted in our culture than those who grow up together with all sorts of kids from different nationalities and different religions. Instead of integrating them in a multicultural society Safai shall help to create a divided society with lots of racism.

So needless to say this situation actually causes the very religious division that the ban on head-covering tries to avoid.

Mieke Vanhecke (CD & V), ex-top woman of Catholic education, pleaded in Terzake for the right to wear a headscarf at school. Darya Safai (N-VA) continues to see it as a symbol of oppression. Vanhecke argues that not only Muslims are victims of the headscarf debate.

“A ban on headgear not only affects Muslims,”

says Vanhecke.

“In Sint-Truiden there were never any problems, the Sikh boys came to school with a turban, because of the ban they no longer have access to our school.”

Safia is convinced that children and young women can not make up their own mind what to wear. For her children nor women who wear the hijab impossibly can do that of their own will and impossibly can be happy clothing themself that way. Many like her she see misogyny and are convinced that they must be under dictation of a male dictator or male bully. Often we hear voices like

‘Her husband must have forced her’

‘Poor girl, she may not dress like she wants’

Safia like many right wing people can only think of suppression, seeing men’s orders and their power over women. Others love to shout

‘Unveil yourself’,

‘Hide not yourself”

‘Let us see your beauty’

Why should they have such a need to see the beauty of that woman? Why can they not respect that woman like she wants to dress herself?

Those people thinking women or girls who like to wear a head scarf of hijab are pushed by their family, do forget that there are enough strong women in Belgium who can make up their mind themselves. They do not need their fathers or their male partner to dictate what they should wear but even less should they have others to dictate what they should wear or may not wear. That last bit is what Darya Safai and many Nationalists and Neo-Nazis love to do.

Lots of those who call themselves Christian but oppose the freedom of other lovers of God, do forget that by doing so they go in against the Law of God. Their strong actions against Muslims and Jews also clearly show that they do not bear Jesus his teachings of love in their heart. Lots of them also do not understand that wearing a covering on the head may represent an ordainment from God and a submitting to the Most High. There are enough places in Scriptures which talk about such covering and reasons why and when to do it.

Those who are an atheist or do not believe in the One True God should not try to put their law above the Laws of God nor should they urge all others to live like them and to dress like them.

Many also do forget the use of a head-covering can just mean those women liberated themselves from the world and its attitudes. For many believers in the One True God it can mean just empowerment, liberation and freedom. Too many underestimate the European female and think they would be like the women in the Middle East used as slaves by the male figures around them. But we can see strong women who have made up their own mind and by their own choice and by their own intentions they dare to show their faith to others and are not afraid to be mocked at or to be looked at as of ‘not of this world’. They do not want to be of this world but of the world of God. For them that is more important than being a slave of this world where every body assumes he or she is free when they can have sex with as many as they can or drink as much as they want to do all the funniest things one can think of.

Mrs. Safai does as if those girls, when they would wear a head dress, never would be able to integrate in our society or would never be able to get work. When they would not get work because they wear a head covering, does that not tell more about the party who does not want to give her work? And does that not show how certain people do not want others to integrate in our community?

By the way, lots of right wing people do as if those Muslim girls who want to cover their head are foreigners, but a lot are girls and ladies who were before ‘white Belgian citizens’ and even belonging to Catholic families.

That many people are so much afraid that there would be so many converts to Mohammedanism tells also a lot about the weakness of most members of that faith. Lots of Roman Catholics and Protestants even not knowing the Name of God and never having read the Bible. If they would be standing strong in the faith we see no reason why they and others should be so afraid. The other way, Christians should come out and proclaim their faith to those who are no Christian. They should show people that Jesus is the way and show that Jesus his teaching is one of love and of comprehension and compassion. But most Belgians, Dutch and French people just show the opposite, showing their hate against immigrants and people who are different than they or who think differently than they.

Lots of people seem to have forgotten how we and our parents had to cover our body a few decades ago. Lots of them also forget that just because their western values don’t fit with a woman covering her hair and beauty, it still could be a personal choice for that person covering herself. Many do forget that their Western values are way out from our Christian Western values and norms.

Today so many oppose people who have an other opinion. We also see the right wing people wanting so much that every body would dance to their will.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said,

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

These days we are going backwards because several people want to push their will unto others. They want an exclusive white state for themselves with only believers in that what they believe and in that what they call Christian values, but are not at all Christian values.

In Belgium we can find  more and more Muslim children in community education, especially with regard to other educational networks we may find a larger influx of students from other cultures in general in the state schools. When these children want to show their own faith in the form of clothing, they often do so out of their own convictions, but because these young people are not yet adults, they often take over the prevailing morality of their immediate environment and of society. If we compare this with the Flemish youths of indigenous origin, we notice a big difference, but according to us that is easy to explain. After all, with many Flemish young people there is a great ignorance of the church, while the Muslim children are more often socialized in their ideology.
The total banning of religious signs would thus be a violation of religious freedom. We should resist such a thing.
That a lot of inhabitants of Belgium, Holland and France do not want to stand open for other cultures we should try to avoid in the next generations by introducing the various cultures from the early years in childhood.

Dyab Abou Jahjah in 2008.

The Belgian-Lebanese Arab political activist and writer Dyab Abou Jahjah, claims that

‘hatred in Flanders is mainstream’

and

‘racism determines the agenda’.

When you follow certain reactions and talks it gives the impression not enough people want to react against that dangerous trend.

Christian people should let others know that all people have the same value because we are created by the same One True God. We all are being allowed to live on this globe and are given talents which can be used to help others. All people in a community have to complement each other.
Each person should know that racism devalues people. Non believers should come to see that Christ has broken down racial doors and overcomes divisive thinking by creating for himself a new nation through his death and resurrection. Every Christian should help to build a loving world by showing his love for others, be them of no believe or any other believe than Christianity.
When the politicians are not doing their job properly to build a multicultural peaceful state, the Christians needs to lead the way.
When you are a Christian do not wait until it is too late!

Let your voice be heard and speak up for the weaker ones in our society and for those who humiliated and shut out.

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Preceding articles

What is important?

Enough with the Clothes Shaming of Muslim Women

Anti-Semitic pressure driving Jews out of Europe

The Mountain: Radical Love

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Additional reading

1. Vliegend spaghettimonster en Gelijke behandeling voor elke overtuiging
2. Parenthood made more difficult
3. Uncertainty, shame and no time for vacillation
4. Migrants to the West #2
5. On French beach French police forces woman to undress in public
6. Pew Research: How People in Muslim Countries Believe Women Should Dress
7. Allowing dress code according liberty of religion
8. Coverings Worn by Muslim Women
9. The Dress Code for Women in the Quran
10. Meditating Muslimah on “hijab to be a religious obligation”
11. French showing to the whole world their fear and weakness
12. Christians, secularism, morals and values
13. Trusting present youngsters who are not necessary evil
14. Overprotection and making youngsters drifting away
15. Today’s thought “And he counted it to him for righteousness” (January 12)
16. Listening to the lessons of the Bible and looking for ways to please God

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Related

1. Hijab 1
2. Hijab 2
3. The Meaning of Hijab
4. I Tried Wearing a Hijab (sort of)
5. The hijab of ignorance
6. Cultural Bias
7. An Imagined Offence
8. The Irony of Hijabs!!
9. Transition: My Hijab Story
10. Hijab: Oppression or Freedom?
11. Hijab in Islam and other religions
12. Hijab | Zanzibar, Tanzania
13. Women unite for World Hijab Day, which is Today
14. Happy World Hijab Day 2018!
15. Pearls and swines – loose priorities – the hijab-saga in perspective
16. Hidden Pearl Hijab Review
17. Hijab ‘Attack’ Condemned By Canada’s Prime Minister Was A Hoax
18. My Hijab Story
19. The Secret Hijabi
20. What My Hijab Means To Me
21. Perspective: Hijab is Oppression or Freedom?Newspeak and the politics of fear

Summer holiday time to knock and ask, and time to share

In the daily Bible readings our chapter in Matthew today unfolds to reveal powerful personal lessons – principles we must live by, though in the chapters of the first book of Samuel we also see that it was not always easy for the preferred one of God, David! He also was victim of human jealousy [v.8-12].

In these summer-months we do have time to examine ourselves and the situation we are living in at the moment. We can check if we kept to Jesus his sayings or if when we had certain needs or wanted to receive knowledge if we did ask like Jesus advices us. Often when we are at work we do not have time enough for God’s Word. It might not always be easy to have us every day to pick up the Bible and to read in it and to take time enough to let our thoughts wonder over the Biblical text. Now when the Summer holiday comes to us we have no excuse. Now we should have enough opportunity to read in the Bible but also to talk to others bout different things, including the Word of God.

Summer time often gives us opportunities to come at other places, where nobody might know us, where we do not have to fear talking about our faith and to show others how we love God.

We can ask God to help us to get insight ourself but also to give us strength and opportunities to give others insight in His infallible Word. We might be assured when we dare to ask Jehovah God will provide, when our heart is in the right place with Him.

⁷ “·Ask [Keep asking], and ·God will give [^Lit will be given; ^Cthe passive verb implies God as subject] to you. ·Search [Seek; Keep seeking], and you will find. ·Knock [Keep knocking], and the door will open for you. ⁸ ·Yes, [^LFor; Because] everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who ·searches [seeks] will find. And everyone who knocks will have the door opened.

⁹ “If your children ask for bread, which of you would give them a stone? ¹⁰ Or [^Lwhich of you] if your ·children ask [or son asks] for a fish, would you give them a snake? {Matthew 7:7-10 Expanded Bible (EXB)}

When we long to have knowledge in the Holy Scriptures God is not going to withhold it. He is not going to detain us and leave us without Biblical knowledge if we really want to have such knowledge. Though in such circumstance God wants us to open our mind and when we encounter matters which we have learned at school or in the past in our religious environment, but which are based on human doctrines, God wants us to choose for the Biblical doctrines and to put those human and false teachings aside. We have to show to God that we are willing to learn what He wants to say to us and what the Bible puts openly in front of us, words black on white and no misty myths of the world.

For many it may not be easy to put away all such false human teachings, but that is what God requires, not to be of the world but to belong to the world of God.

Knowledge will be given to you when you are prepared to seek honestly and with the will to learn Godly Truth. When you open your mind, ask God to help you, He will provide and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened to you.

Keep Pursuing What You Need From God. He Will Give You Good Things

⁷ “Be asking, and it will be given to you; be seeking, and you will find; be knocking, and it will be opened to you. ⁸ For everyone asking receives; and the one seeking finds; and to the one knocking, it will be opened. ⁹ Or what person is there from-among you whom his son will ask-for bread— he will not give him a stone^[a], will he? ¹⁰ Or indeed he will ask-for a fish— he will not give him a snake^[b], will he?

1. Matthew 7:9That is, something useless.
2. Matthew 7:10That is, something harmful. {Matthew 7:7-10Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)}

For everyone, also you, who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds. So you only have to be prepared to be willing to find and to ask God to help you find it. But you too should help others to find it. So what you have uncovered may not only be your secret. Even when we will realize our failure to see the Biblical truth because we wanted to hold fast so much to denominational teachings, noticing it so late in our life, we better accept it that it is better late in life than never, to come to the Biblical truth.

Out of compassion and love for the other, we should try to let others know the Word of God and show them what is really written in it. One of the tasks given by Jesus was to go out and preach. When we do understand what the Nazarene man Jesus has really done, we should tell others of this incredible act of self-renunciation. We should tell others about his self-sacrifice and how he is not the God we should worship but the Way to God, the Only One True God of gods Whom is the Only One to be worshipped and praised above all.

Jesus expects everyone who hears these words of him to do them!

²⁴ Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and is doing them will be-like a wise^[a] man who built his house upon the bed-rock.

1. Matthew 7:24Or, prudent, sensible. {Matthew 7:24Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)}

Let us be wise in the Lord and show the world how we want to be partakers of the Body of Christ and follow the same God as Jesus had. In the knowledge that the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, we should be aware that though salvation is given to all the world also shall have to see that those who find that entrance to the Kingdom of God shall be just a few. We should know and let others know that wide is the gate and broad and easy to travel is the path that leads the way to destruction and eternal loss.

¹³ “Enter through the narrow gate. [^LBecause] The gate is wide and the road is ·wide [broad; spacious; or easy] that leads to ·hell [^Ldestruction; ruin], and many people enter through that gate. ¹⁴ But the gate is small and the road is ·narrow [or difficult; hard] that leads to true life. ·Only a few people [And there are few who] find that road. {Matthew 7:13-14Expanded Bible (EXB)}

For those few we have to invest our free time and do what Jesus expects from us, making sure that we are not a foolish person in his eyes, because he shall watch us and in the end days shall judge over us. Let us listen to Jesus his words:

Matthew 7:25-29Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)

²⁵ And the rain came down, and the rivers^[a] came, and the winds blew— and they fell against that house. And it did not fall, for it had been founded upon the bed-rock. ²⁶ And everyone hearing these words of Mine and not doing them will be like a foolish man who built his house upon the sand. ²⁷ And the rain came down, and the rivers came, and the winds blew— and they struck-against that house. And it fell, and the falling^[b] of it was great”.

The Works of The King: Divine Power In Action²⁸ And it came about that when Jesus finished these words, the crowds were astounded^[c] at His teaching. ²⁹ For He was teaching them as One having authority, and not as their scribes.

1. Matthew 7:25 That is, rivers of flood waters.
2. Matthew 7:27 Or, collapse, downfall.
3. Matthew 7:28 Or, overwhelmed, amazed, astonished.

{Matthew 7:25-29Disciples’ Literal New Testament (DLNT)}

When having found Jesus his words and having gone deeper into them, finding the Words of his heavenly Father, we should build our own life on them and create the foundation for ways for others also to come closer to God.

There are many ways – travel in our world has never been more readily possible, but whether nearby or further afield, we must, as we read two days ago in Matthew 5,

¹⁶ In the same way let your light shine ·before others [for people to see], so that they will see ·the good things you do [^Lyour good deeds/works] and will ·praise [glorify; give honor to] your Father in heaven. {Matthew 5:16 Expanded Bible (EXB)}

Take some time this holiday to have some work done for Jesus and his God that they and the world may see your good works and glorify your Father in the heavens.

Let us also make sure that we tell others what is in the Word of God and have us honestly trying to have our faith in God shine as a strong light before others, so that on that day when Jesus returns we do not have to be ashamed and do not have to say like many who will say to him

… Lord, did we not prophesy (preach) in your name…?”

Having Jesus to look at them and responding that they have to depart from him because he does not want to know of them.

²² On ·the last day [judgment day; ^Lthat day] many people will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, ·we spoke for you [^LDid we not prophesy in your name…?], and ·through you we forced out demons [^Lcast out demons in your name…?] and did many ·miracles [^Lmighty works in your name…?].’ {Matthew 7:22 Expanded Bible (EXB)}

We do not have to show extra-ordinary things to others, not doing miracles. We only have to honestly tell them what we believe and show them what the Bible says.

These days when we might have more free time, let us make sure that we take some free time for God and to show our love for God to others.In the knowledge that “many are called, but few are chosen” let us belong to those “few” that will hear the words we read today in Isaiah 62,

Isaiah 62:11-12 Expanded Bible (EXB)

¹¹ The Lord ·is speaking [announces]
    to ·all the faraway lands [^Lthe end of the earth]:
“·Tell the people of Jerusalem [^LSay to the daughter of Zion; Zech. 9:9],
    ‘Look, your Savior is coming.
He is bringing ·your reward to you [^Lhis reward with him];
    ·he is bringing his payment [his recompense/reward is] with him.’”
¹² ·His people [^LThey] will be called the Holy People,
    the ·Saved People [Redeemed] of the Lord,
and Jerusalem will be called ·the City God Wants [^LSought After],
    the City ·God Has Not Rejected [or Not Abandoned; Deserted]. {Isaiah 62:11-12 Expanded Bible (EXB)}

If you knew how much God loves you, you would be happy to receive and share His love with others and would be pleased to have others also coming to know Him and His great Love.

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Preceding articles

Summer holiday

May we have doubts

Facing our existence every day

What Are You Seeking?

High time to go out telling the world about Jesus

7 Ways To Become A Better Christian

What Should I Preach ?

Daring to speak in multicultural environment

Crisis man needed in this world

Refusing to Be Silent

Go Ye!

To proclaim the day of vengeance

Proclaiming: a task given to Christians

Go! Proclaim! Testify!

Scriptures and Thoughts about: Proclaim

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Additional reading

1. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
2. God let my compassionate affection be tolerant and kind
3. Do You Expect God’s Answer
4. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #17 Sorts of prayers
5. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #18 Fulfilment
6. Jehovah steep rock and fortress, source of insight
7. We should use the Bible every day
8. Bible in the first place #2/3
9. Loving the Word
10. Necessity of a revelation of creation 8 By no means unintelligible or mysterious to people
11. Necessity of a revelation of creation 11 Believing and obeying the gospel of the Kingdom of God
12. Atonement And Fellowship 6/8
13. Not about personal salvation but about a bigger Plan
14. Fragments from the Book of Job #3: chapters 21-26
15. Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still
16. Obtain favour from Yahweh
17. The road to success is dotted with many tempting parking places
18. Blogging in the world for Jesus and his Father
19. Sharing thoughts and philosophical writings
20. Going deep into cultures to reach lost people
21. Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
22. How do I know if I’m called to ministry?
23. Priest, scribes and others with authority
24. Learn how to go out into the world and proclaim the Good News of the coming Kingdom
25. Oratory Style
26. What Should I Preach ?
27. When not seeing or not finding a biblically sound church

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Further reading

1. Here for a cause, anointed with a message the world needs to hear
2. Motives behind Criticism are often more Important to deal With then the Criticism itself.
3. Special Sundays!~Matthew 7:7~
4. Which Story Do You Want To Live?
5. Share Jesus
6. Are you judging people by what they look like?
7. Do to others…
8. There is a wolf nipping at your soul
9. “Don’t bargain with God. Be direct. Ask for what you need.” ~Jesus
10. Matthew 9 – Stepping forth in courage
11. Matthew 11 – Praise and trust
12. Matthew 14 – Prayer, Faith & Action
13. By His Grace
14. The Journey of Love and Commitment 
15. Strengthen Yourself In Your God
16. “Following Jesus” (Matthew 4:18-22 sermon)
17. “What We Have Seen … We Proclaim”
18. “Reaching, Teaching, Caring: Following the Footsteps of Jesus” (Matthew 4:23 sermon)
19. A Day in the Park
20. The Goodness of God
21. Count Your Blessings
22. The call to serve
23. See you next time
24. Christianity is a Learned Experience
25. Biblical Application
26. Biblical Revelation Knowledge On Spiritual Warfare
27. The Gospel of The Kingdom
28. Do We Really Know God?
29. Bible Study: Insights on the Sermon on the Mount: The Contrasts
30. Awaken
31. 8. Doors and Destinations
32. Meditation – Choices
33. The Path of Love
34. Life’s Narrow and Wide Gates
35. Love, Entering the Narrow Gate.
36. The Narrow Way
37. Religious Theology – The wide gate!
38. Shifting Sand
39. Exodus 10, Job 28, Luke 13, 1 Corinthians 14
40. How to choose between the wide and the narrow
41. The Narrow Gate
42. against the stream
43. Taking responsibility – the narrow gate that leads to life
44. How to choose between the wide and the narrow:part 3
45. Difficult is the Way that Leads to Life
46. Those Who Find It Are Few.
47. Guard My Feet Lord ~
48. Two Gates
49. The Narrow Gate
50. The Protestant – Catholic divide – The Narrow and the Wide Gates
51. The Crumb That Turns Stale With Time
52. Only dead fish swim with the stream
53. The narrow gate and the postmillennial hope
54. The Grand Reception
55. Lord, will only few people be saved?

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Related articles

• What is a cult?
• Get ready for God’s restoration
• The Growing Hatred Against Biblical Christianity
• Dreisbach: Founders drew on Bible in quest for independence
• How should a Christian view climate change?
• New Flemish tryptich for those who want to know more about God
• Do you purpose that your mouth will not transgress
• Asking the Most High for forgiveness of sins and ignorance

Witnessing because we love

Yesterday we saw how Jesus spoke about God His second commandment and how Jesus ordered us to keep to a Royal Law.

In the readings of this week we can find an other work than the brotherly love we have to do. Though that work should be part of brotherly love. Out of love to others we should go out into the world and proclaim the Good News. Witnessing to others is a way of showing our love to them, because we want them also to be saved.

God’s abundance is for the furthering of His will here on earth. God wants all people to know Him and to worship Him. We, when we are thankful for what God provided for us, will love to serve our God and shall do our best to be workers in the name of Jesus, following his orders to preach.

The Lord Jesus stripped himself of everything save love, that he might more readily meet each human soul on its own level. Jesus emptied himself, humbled himself, only wanted to do the will of God, his heavenly Father and asked us also to put our own selfish will aside. That will demand some work. Like Jesus became obedient unto death, even the death at the stake, for our sakes, we should offer our selves, working hard to bring others also into the knowledge of God.

Jesus was set on proclaiming the Gospel so that even the dying thief might enter Paradise, and that not one prodigal in all the human family should think that he had sunk too low or gone so far as to be excluded from the hope of salvation.

One of the duties of friendship is just to lend an ear to others and our second duty is to try to give them right answers. Those answers are given by God in His Book of books, the Bible, which we should carry in our heart. To keep it only for ourself is selfish. We should share it with others around us.

The first followers of Christ Jesus were very well aware of their responsibility. They also knew it was God Who had given Jesus authority and also given them responsibility of serving His church by proclaiming the word of God in its fullness. Paul wrote.

Colossians 1:21-29 The Scriptures 1998+  (21)  And you, who once were estranged and enemies in the mind by wicked works, but now He has completely restored to favour  (22)  in the body of His flesh through death, to present you set-apart, and blameless, and unreprovable before Him,  (23)  if indeed you continue in the belief, founded and steadfast, and are not moved away from the expectation of the Good News which you heard, which was proclaimed to every creature under the heaven, of which I, Sha’ul, became a servant,  (24)  who now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in Messiah’s afflictions, for the sake of His Body, which is the assembly,  (25)  of which I became a servant according to the administration of Elohim which was given to me for you, to fill the word of Elohim,  (26)  the secret which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His set-apart ones,  (27)  to whom Elohim desired to make known what are the riches of the esteem of this secret among the gentiles: which is Messiah in you,1 the expectancy of esteem, Footnote: 1See Messiah in you in the Explanatory Notes.  (28)  whom we announce, warning every man and teaching every man in all wisdom, in order to present every man perfect in Messiah יהושע {Jehsua},  (29)  for which I also labour, striving according to the working of Him who works in me in power.

Even when the mystery may have been hid from ages and from generations, now for us it should be clear, having been made manifest to the Elohim His saints. When having received the blessings of the offering of Jeshua we, out of thankfulness should be pleased that we got to know what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the non believers. Having Christ in us we do have the hope of glory and should be so overtaken by joy that we shout it out and call others to become partakers of the same joy.

It is that Messiah, given to us, without us having to do something for it, that now our turn has come to do something in return. The Grace is given for free, but now we have to act when we have come into the faith and want to make the faith alive. It is the Messiah whom we should preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus, whereunto the apostles also laboured, striving according to his working, which works in believers of Christ mightily.

The message kept secret for centuries and generations past has been revealed to God’s people. And the secret “Christ in you is the hope of glory!’”  should be sounding all over the earth.

Our task is to get this hope of glory with Christ in us. Having his presence and power in our life, because it is the only way we will ever become all that God has created us to be. That is the great secret that is now made known to all! And this is why we we have to do the work of faith proclaiming Jesus, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully grown, mature and complete in Christ. It is to this end we like the apostle Paul have to labour, struggling with all his energy, which so powerfully works in the followers of Christ.

Like it was the great Life Lesson Philemon learned from Paul, and how it has made all the difference for him in everything he did, we too should be inspired by Jesus’ teachings and by the power of God’s Spirit should inspire others as well.

We were made for a purpose; one that will never be realized apart from our Lord Jesus Christ. Once Christ puts his presence and power into our lives – then we can do whatever Christ can do through us if we are opening ourselves to him! Paul’s timeless words should become our very own,  so that we too can say

‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!’

This is our hope of glory!

In Christ – the defeated become victorious; the weak become strong; the poor become rich! In Christ – the lame are made to leap and dance; the blind are made to see; the enslaved are set free and rejoice!

In Christ – the lowly are raised up; the brokenhearted are healed; sinners are forgiven, and backsliders are restored! In Christ –dreamers are envisioned; builders are empowered; and all are strengthened with might in their inner man!

To become in Christ we should give ourselves to him, which demands works.

To bring others to Christ also demands works. Though we do have to show others others that Christ is the Way.

We do have to open our ears so that others can open their hearts. We then should try to show them the answers God provides. Like David did not brood on his problems in solitary bitterness we with those around us should bring them before God.

We ourselves must not be ‘puffed up’ because of the way our careful reading of God’s word has led us to increasingly comprehend the ‘big picture’ of the meaning of life and the spirit of genuine love for God that must be part of this.

Let us be like the scribe who knew that there is only one God; and there is none other but He and to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the soul, and with all the strength. To love God demands action or work. But when we do love we first of all have to love His creations as well because when we do not love our neighbour as ourself, we do not show appreciation for the creation of God, because each person is a created being, allowed to live here on earth by God.

Mark 12:26-33 The Scriptures 1998+  (26)  “And concerning the dead, that they rise – have you not read in the book of Mosheh, at the bush, how Elohim spoke to him, saying, ‘I am the Elohim of Aḇraham, and the Elohim of Yitsḥaq, and the Elohim of Yaʽaqoḇ’? (27)  “He is not the Elohim of the dead, but Elohim of the living. You, then, go greatly astray.”  (28)  And one of the scribes coming near, hearing them reasoning together, knowing that He had answered them well, asked Him, “Which is the first command of all?”  (29)  And יהושע  {Jeshua} answered him, “The first of all the commands is, ‘Hear, O Yisra’ĕl, יהוה {Jehovah} our Elohim, יהוה {Jehovah} is one.  (30)  ‘And you shall love יהוה {Jehovah} your Elohim with all your heart, and with all your being, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ This is the first command.  (31)  “And the second, like it, is this, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ There is no other command greater than these.”  (32)  And the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one Elohim, and there is no other besides Him.  (33)  “And to love Him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the being, and with all the strength, and to love one’s neighbour as oneself, is more than all the burnt offerings and offerings.”

We should clearly understand what is being said here. There is only One True God the Elohim Hashem יהוה {Jehovah} and this we should believe and practice with all our heart, offering our love for God to others.

Do we feel as thankful as we should for the wondrous blessing of being spiritual children of God – in this godless world? Let us make sure that we do – and then – how soon will we see and experience – for ever – “the salvation of God”.

Paul challenges us when he looks at the call of Christ to go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. He expresses this responsibility in the bluntest terms,

1 Corinthians 9:16 The Scriptures 1998+  (16)  For if I bring the Good News, it is no boasting for me, for necessity is laid on me, and it is woe to me if I do not bring the Good News!

Youngsters listening to a preacher

Let us not overlook that it is for necessity is laid on us as well.  ‘A necessity’, etc.: i.e. having no choice. The compelling force was twofold, love of god and love of Christ plus fear of being held responsible for the loss of souls. Woe: calamity, in this case, eternal death. So explicit and solemn was Christ’s commission that Paul could not retain his favour if he refused to obey it. 1 Corinthians 9:17 shows how this impending woe, and the necessity it laid on Paul, make the mere fact of his preaching no ground of exultation. For if we do this of our own will, we shall have a reward. But if not of our own will, we will have a stewardship entrusted to us.

1 Corinthians 9:17 The Scriptures 1998+  (17)  For if I do this voluntarily I have a reward, but if not voluntarily, I am entrusted with a management.

Stewardship “stresses obligation, responsibility, and faithfulness of the servant to his master in carrying out the entrusted task” (Rienecker and Rogers, p. 415). In other places such as Luke 16:2-4 this same term is used to describe the management of property.
We have to do the preaching or witnessing as a matter of duty, because God has entrusted us with this task.  And this is something too many Christians forget or do not want to see.

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Preceding

Your position about materialistic desires having conquered the world

When believing in God’s existence and His son, possessing a divine legislation

Looking for a shepherd for the sheep and goats

A Royal Rule given to followers of Christ

First man’s task still counting today

He who knows himself, is kind to others

Luther’s misunderstanding

January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works

Our life depending on faith

Romans 4 and the Sacraments

Is Justification a process?

Letter to the Romans, chapter 3

Letter to the Romans, chapter 4

Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans

Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4

Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works

Which is worse–works without faith, or faith without works?

Leading people astray!

Crisis man needed in this world

Preaching Christ Is Not Enough

Beautiful feet of those who announce the good news

Preaching by example

A Christian has to have eyes and ears and a tongue to use in good ways

Daring to speak in multicultural environment

Perishable non theologians daring to go out to preach

What Should I Preach ?

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Additional reading

1. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
2. Bible in the first place #2/3
3. Hope by faith and free gift
4. Salvation, trust and action in Jesus #3 as a Christian
5. The Right One to follow and to worship
6. Illuminating our minds and watching out
7. Those who love Jesus
8. Follower of Jesus part of a cult or a Christian
9. Paulus to Philemon
10. Bringing Good News into the world
11. Proclaiming shalom, bringing good news of good things, announcing salvation
12. First Century of Christianity
13. Looking on what is going on and not being of it
14. Let us make sure we are not stiff-necked
15. Priest, scribes and others with authority
16. Breathing to teach
17. Witnessing
18. How should we preach?
19. Showing by the scriptures that …
20. Necessary to be known all over the earth
21. Church sent into the world
22. How do I know if I’m called to ministry?
23. Not all ability to preach
24. A Synod to speak freely and to listen without reservations
25. Preachers should know and continue the task Jesus has given his followers
26. Necessity of a revelation of creation 10 Instructions for insight and wisdom
27. Risen With Him
28. Looking for True Spirituality 7 Preaching of the Good News
29. Missionary action paradigm for all endeavours of the church
30. Engaging the culture without losing the gospel
31. Counting sands and stars
32. The Big Conversation
33. The Big Conversation – Christadelphians in the United Kingdom
34. The Big conversation – Antagonists
35. What Should I Preach ?
36. How to Choose a Bible for Preaching
37. Positive Preaching Day 2015
38. Soviet Witnesses
39. Using the name Jehovah but not a witness of that name
40. Why we do not have our worship-services in a church building
41. Why we do not keep to a Sabbath or a Sunday or Lord’s Day #5 Not law binding
42. Sunday 7 September service: Imitate prophets and Paul
43. Begin by carrying away small stones to remove a mountain
44. Signs of the Last Days

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Further related articles

1. The Sum of our Stories
2. The Gospel Addresses the Culture
3. Baptism and Temptation
4. Are You Ready For Jesus’ Return?
5. Can you be faithful?
6. Learn It, Do It, Teach It …Preach it?
7. Preaching on the Subject of Heaven
8. John Newton on the Practical Effects of Faith
9. “forgiveness is not a legal action”
10. Into the Wilderness
11. 1 Peter 2:1-3, What about Milk?
12. Preaching
13. The Power of Place and Story in Preaching
14. Consecutive Expository Preaching
15. Stop Teaching
16. What’s red and furry and climbs trees? (avoiding the Sunday School answer)
17. Train of Thanks 14-15
18. ‘Body Language’ in 1 Corinthians
19. Sound Bytes or Substance? (Part 2)
20. The Essential Element to Church Health and Success
21. Sermon in a Sentence
22. What’s Pastor Kevin Reading: Will Willimon’s “How Odd of God”
23. Dulcis Loquela, Dulcis Oratio, or Un-Umming Your Speech
24. Preaching – Prof K J Mathew – Shalom Night Vigil – February 2016
25. Preaching – Fr. Roy Palatty – Shalom Night Vigil – February 2016
26. “Today You Will Be With Me” – A Sermon Starter
27. “Where is the promise of His coming?” (part 2)…
28. Expository Preaching
29. New Network Show; Preachers of Infernum
30. Dressing for Church: Which Way Does One Go?
31. How Will You Listen to Your Pastor This Weekend?
32. 3 Essentials of A Good Sermon
33. QotD – Speaking from the Heart – 2.11.2016
34. Almost Spiritual, Almost Revived
35. My Library // Dangerous Calling: Confronting the Unique Challenges of Pastoral Ministry
36. One Anothering – The Ministry of Mutuality
37. “Powerful Preacher”
38. 6 Ways Bible Reading Enhances Your Church Experience
39. One wild preacher!
40. The Dilemma of Balance in Preaching
41. Unlawful Arrest for Preaching Gospel
42. Post-Preaching Inscape
43. Benefits of Expository Preaching
44. 4 “Non-Sin” Sermon Practices
45. Are Red Letters More Important than Black Letters?
46. Preacher, Do You Tremble before the Word You Preach?
47. A Christ-Centred Life And A Christ-Centred Ministry
48. The Ministry of Reconciliation
49. Acts 4
50. Acts 10
51. Challenge: Find Somebody to Love
52. Time for a Great Poem (evangelism)
53. Don’t just give up, give out! #Lent
54. Faith’s Checkbook: A Constant Witness
55. Simon Peter
56. When We Struggle
57. February 8th-Love your neighbor as yourself. And, our unruly society has about as much difficulty with that as did His chosen people back then. Yet, as His children, we are required to be different.
58. Leading Souls to Christ, Part 6 (Onward Christian Soldiers #116)
59. Are You Sitting?
60. We Are The Body!
61. Equipping the Saints (Part 2)
62. Life Expectations
63. Rude Witnessing
64. Feb 4 – That’s What Friends Are For
65. Thankful
66. How evangelism rests on trust and what you possess
67. Eleven Trust in Jesus
68. So, What Is Good News?
69. Parking Lot Salvation
70. My Utmost For His Highest: The Key To The Missionary’s Message
71. Friendship Born By God
72. He Died For Us Let’s Live For Him
73. Is being a humanitarian enough to convey the full love of Christ?
74. Go Ye!
75. Let’s Proclaim The Gospel to The World
76. 1 John 1:3 What To Proclaim
77. 2016- A year to teach the masses about our Lord!
78. Rejoice, Not Criticize
79. εὐαγγέλιον – And God Ordained Encounters
80. The Work of God
81. #AdventWord #Proclaim
82. Get The Word Out
83. Joy Never Goes Silent
84. Good News From The Bad News
85. Walk before many people with good tidings and the gospel of peace
86. There Is A Fire
87. God Energizes Our Efforts August 27
88. Refusing to Be Silent
89. How Beautiful
90. A Passion To Proclaim Him

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Related articles

• LISTEN: Peyton Manning: ‘My Faith in Christ has Been #1 in My Life Since I Was 13-Years-Old’ (Gospel Light Minute with Daniel Whyte III)
• Scripture Verse of The Week ‘Romans 5 Verse 1’
• Revelation 2:1-7 Keeping Christ As My First Love
• Overwhelming Joy
• Does The King James Bible Reveal The Identity Of The Author Of The Book Of Hebrews?
• To die is gain, no. 1
• Which is worse – works without faith, or faith without works?
• the Bible – God’s guide for life #8 Looking to Jesus #1 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus
• Judge every preacher by his preaching the gospel of your salvation
• Not everyone in the churches of Christ are “ungodly”

A Royal Rule given to followers of Christ

In our series of faith and works we also want to remind the readers to Jesus sermon on the mount and on the many accounts he gave how we should behave against others.

This painting is on display at the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) in Vienna, Austria (site). (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This week we will read in Mark 12 and must note Jesus’ comment about the second commandment

– “You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these” (verse 31).

In this present society it happens in places that people even do not know their neighbours. Hopefully you do talk to your neighbours. In case you believe in god, do you dare to talk about your faith?

Today many people feel ashamed of what they believe or do have the excuse to think that others would not be interested in their faith. From the gospels we get to know that rabbi Jeshua was not at all afraid to talk about his faith in the Only One True God of Israel. He asked his disciples to overcome their shyness and even to put their daily work aside to follow him and to go out into the world to preach the Kingdom Gospel.

From Jesus teachings we also get to know an other important work we have to do. Witnessing is an important task, but it has to be done properly with full seal. Each follower of Christ should, like Christ did, not putting his own will on the first place, but the Will of God. Real Christians should set their mind on the things of God.

Let us try harder to set our minds on the things of God. In doing so, we will recall that even in the Law God gave through Moses; there is the command

 

“’You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.” (Leviticus 19:18 NAS)

We call it a Golden Rule or Royal Law
This has been a command for all ages. What a different world this would be if that command was carried out! And who can doubt but that it will be – by those who live in God’s kingdom.

Let us be in training for God’s kingdom now! What better way to show your love for your neighbour than by encouraging them to believe in the words of Jesus! We must try to speak to them in the spirit of love, a desire to share something precious; the pearl of great price!

This will be reflected in our attitude as well as in the words that we use, for we ‘communicate’ as much by what we do – as by what we say. The world has a word for it, “body language”. We must seek wisdom from above as we set ourselves to do this. Remember what James wrote,

“the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere” (3:17).

 

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Preceding

Letter to a Non-Christian Nation

The Mountain: Radical Love

The Mountain: Radical Obedience

Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works

He who knows himself, is kind to others

Our life depending on faith

 

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Please find also to read:

1. When having found faith through the study of the Bible we do need to do works of faith
2. יהוה , YHWH and Love: Four-letter words
3. Inculcate God’s words and speak of them
4. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
5. Kindness
6. Angry but not sinning
7. God won’t ask
8. God loving people justified
9. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends
10. We Are The Children Of God
11. Do not forget the important sign of belief
12. Christianity is a love affair
13. The Law of Christ: Law of Love
14. To be chained by love for another one
15. Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience
16. A Living Faith #2 State of your faith
17. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
18. A Living Faith #5 Perseverance
19. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness
20. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
21. The task given to us to love each other
22. The Greatest of These is Love
23. If we love one another, God lives in us
24. Agape, a love to share with others from the Fruit of the Spirit
25. Love turns one person into two; and two into one
26. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
27. Incomplete without the mind of God
28. Nurturing a close relationship with God
29. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
30. Our way of life
31. Golden rule for understanding in spiritual matters obedience
32. Observing the commandments and becoming doers of the Word
33. Sharing a common security and a common set of values
34. Love and cultivate that which is pure
35. Right to be in the surroundings
36. Built on or Belonging to Jewish tradition #4 Mozaic and Noachide laws
37. Reflection for today: hating your brother
38. The one who has not had a taste of love
39. If You want to start winning the war
40. Engaging the enemy
41. What Jesus did: First things first
42. Love envieth not
43. No fear in love
44. Live …
45. Luck
46. Work with joy and pray with love
47. Blessed are those who freely give
48. When we love we do not need laws
49. The Spirit of God imparts love,inspires hope, and gives liberty
50. Self-preservation is the highest law of nature
51. Growth in character
52. Spread love everywhere you go
53. Love is like playing the piano
54. Love will cure more sins than condemnation
55. Tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair
56. Those who make peace should plant peace like a seed
57. God let my compassionate affection be tolerant and kind
58. He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
59. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love
60. God demonstrates his own love
61. Unconditional love
62. Unarmed truth and unconditional love
63. A treasure which can give me everything I need
64. Life and attitude of a Christian

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Related articles

• Message to Pope Francis to End World Slavery!
• The Most Important Rule In Life [It’s Not What You Thought]
• Contemplating Love
• Right Obedience = Genuine Happiness
• Movement…
• A Group Study on Religious Ethics in Daily LIfe
• Non-Christians in Heaven
• Robo-evangelism

Paul giving notice of the works we have to do

 

 

“3 For it is God’s will that you should keep pure in person, that you should practice abstinence from sexual immorality, 4 that each man among you should learn to take his own wife out of pure and honorable motives, 5 not out of evil passions as the heathen do who do not know God; 6 that no one should do wrong and defraud his brother in this matter, because the Lord takes vengeance for all such things, as we told you before and solemnly warned you. 7 For God did not call us to a life of immorality, but to one of personal purity.
8 So whoever rejects this teaching is rejecting not man but God who continues to put His Spirit in you.

9  Now as to brotherly love, you have no need of anyone’s writing you, for you have yourselves been taught by God to love one another, 10 as you are practicing it toward all the brothers all over Macedonia.
We beg you, brothers, to continue to live better and better; 11 also keep up your ambition to live quietly, to practice attending to your own business and to work with your own hands, as we directed you, 12 so that you may live influentially with the outsiders, and not be dependent on anybody.” (1 Thessalonians 4:3-12 Williams)

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Please also do meditate on chapters 1 & 2 of James about faith and works and also look at

1. Leading people astray!
2. Restitution
3. Comments to James remarks, about Faith and works
4. Luther’s misunderstanding
5. January 27, 417, Pope Innocent I condemning Pelagius about Faith and Works
6. Our life depending on faith
7. Romans 4 and the Sacraments
8. Is Justification a process?
9. Justification – salvation is by grace through faith – JI Packer
10. Faith itself not the cause of justification – Louis Berkhof
11. Letter to the Romans, chapter 3
12. Letter to the Romans, chapter 4
13. Additional comments to the 3rd Letter to the Romans
14. Additional comments to the Letter to the Romans 4
15. Which is worse–works without faith, or faith without works?
16. James 2:14-23 — Justified Dynamic Faith & works
17. James 2:24 – You see then that a man is justified by works, and not by faith only.
18. James 2:25. Likewise, was not Rahab the harlot also justified by works when she received the messengers and sent them out another way?

and read also other articles as:

1. A god who gave his people commandments and laws he knew they never could keep to it
2. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
3. Christ’s ethical teaching
4.  Being Justified by faith
5. Faith Alone Does Not Save . . . No Matter How Many Times Protestants Say It Does
6. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
7. A Living Faith #6 Sacrifice
8. Faith and works
9. Bearing fruit
10. Observing the commandments and becoming doers of the Word
11. The first on the list of the concerns of the saint
12. Be holy
13. She who sows thistles will reap prickles
14. Love for each other attracting others
15. Outflow of foundational relationship based on acceptance of Jesus
16. Faith, storms and actions to be taken
17. The longer you wait

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Related articles

• The Character of the Christian: A One-Woman Man
• Most Profound Bible Verses Are The Simplest!
• Let there be no!
• How is your gentleness and concern?
• Guarding One’s Life Against Immorality
• 10 Bible Verses Every Small Business Owner Needs for 2016
• Redefining Beauty for the Struggling Self-Image
• THE NATURE AND END OF EXCOMMUNICATION – Jonathan Edwards
• A Prayer of Gratitude
• Your Word for This Day: “A NEW Attitude!”

Helping each other with prayer to start the new academic year

It is a tragedy, as we will read tomorrow, that

“the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel …” (2 Corinthians 4:4).

We have no other choice than to live in this world where so many are blinded. We also do have to do with the many pains we may have to endure. Though we should know many pains and discomforts could be helped to be lessened or being softened by others.
Each of us is here in this world to help the other. Though not many are interested in doing that.

2014 – 2015 school year opening ceremony at Hanoi – Amsterdam High School

Once again a new academic year has started and we are off again on the roads, having the children back to school, having the parents back to work after their Summer holiday.

How many of them can see which wondrous blessings we have that

“God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness’,

has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ? (verse 6).

2 Corinthians 4:5-10 UKJV  (5)  For we preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord; and ourselves your servants for Jesus’ sake.  (6)  For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.  (7)  But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us.  (8)  We are troubled on every side, yet not distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;  (9)  Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not destroyed;  (10)  Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our body.

Our world was created out of the void when there was only darkness, but God called for light. That ‘light’ shone physically as creation began so long ago, but the wondrous fact for us is, as we will read in chapter 5,

“if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation” (verse 17).

The apostle Paul in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians makes so many points which also requires our attention in this 21st century. He shows the interaction of events and the great value of prayers in all the difficulties they and he are experiencing.

All the kids who went back, or for the first time to a ‘new’ school’ shall have to learn to face different situations which are not always pleasant. Even for those who became a Christian there is no escape, they too shall have to share abundantly in Christ’s suffering. But we can give our kids some hope because we also do know that through Christ, we share abundantly in comfort too.

2 Corinthians 1:2-5 UKJV  (2)  Grace be to you and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.  (3)  Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort;  (4)  Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.  (5)  For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ.

It is, writes Paul,

“the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction …” (verses 3,4).

This is a comfort we have a responsibility to pass on to others.

This passing on to others is too much and too often forgotten. Many do want to have the blessings, but do not want to do anything in return. They want the grace but do not ask them to tell others about it.

To find people who are willing to preach is very difficult. To find people who are willing to share their knowledge about certain things of this world, like geography, history, ways of constructing a house, or how to keep a healthy family seems to be very difficult. For some time we have been looking for some extra writers on this website, though nobody seems to be interested to join us and to share his or her knowledge for free.

Let us meditate and reflect on the interaction of events we have personally experienced. It seems when we start talking about God and about his son and show others our love for them, we seem to get a negative response and to be kept aside. Suddenly co-operation or interest seems to stop at all sides.
The more we have been active in the service of Christ, the more clearly we will perceive this.

In Paul, the Corinthians saw the most outstanding example of service.

“The afflictions we experienced”,

writes Paul, was such that they were so utterly burdened beyond their strength that they despaired of life itself. We in our regions do not have to be worried so much about that, but several people in several countries, like Syria, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and many African countries are facing prosecution. We may not be unaware of the affliction many experienced in Asia and Africa.

2 Corinthians 1:6-8 UKJV  (6)  And whether we be afflicted, it is for your consolation and salvation, which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we also suffer: or whether we be comforted, it is for your consolation and salvation.  (7)  And our hope of you is steadfast, knowing, that as all of you are partakers of the sufferings, so shall all of you be also of the consolation.  (8)  For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life:

We, in our safer regions also have to undergo problems, shunning and are not always facing a nice life. But we have set our hope that Jesus will return and that he and his God, Who is also our God (the God of Abraham), will deliver us again. Though we have to remember that like at the time of the apostles,  they had to be helped by prayer, so that many will give thanks on their behalf for the blessing granted them through the prayers of many, we too need such help.

2 Corinthians 1:9-10 UKJV  (9)  But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead:  (10)  Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;

We cannot just rely on people. We like Paul have to realize that we must rely not on ourselves but on God (verse 9).

2 Corinthians 1:9-11 UKJV  (9)  But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raises the dead:  (10)  Who delivered us from so great a death, and does deliver: in whom we trust that he will yet deliver us;  (11)  All of you also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.

Having set our hope that he will deliver us again, (verse 10), does not mean that we do not need each other, and that we should not help each other. We still have to be loving for each other and helping each other.

Paul makes an appeal that we should specially take notice of. He tells the Corinthians,

2 Corinthians 1:11-12 UKJV  (11)  All of you also helping together by prayer for us, that for the gift bestowed upon us by the means of many persons thanks may be given by many on our behalf.  (12)  For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly toward you.

Other apostles came with similar requests to their flock.

Romans 15:30-32 UKJV  Now I plead to you, brethren, for the Lord Jesus Christ’s sake, and for the love (o. agape) of the Spirit, (o. pneuma) that all of you strive together with me in your prayers to God for me;  (31)  That I may be delivered from them that do not believe in Judaea; and that my service which I have for Jerusalem may be accepted of the saints;  (32)  That I may come unto you with joy by the will of God, and may with you be refreshed.

As in the early centuries of this common era there was a need of preaching, the apostles going around in the region to tell the Good News, we too today need some people full of hope who are willing to go into the ‘fields’ and to let others know about that Good News. We do want to tell others the Gospel of the Good News, but we too need help from others. We can use some backing.
Not only could we use some additional authors willing to share writings with people from all over the world. We, like the apostles need also your help with prayer.

As the apostles asked for help we also dare to say like the apostle Paul did:

“You also must help us by prayer so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us by the prayers of many” (verse 11).

Many are aware today through the almost instant communication the internet provides of the desperate situations some Iranian believers have experienced. There are also Pakistani believers who are experiencing persecution, and a few truth seekers who have felt it wise to return to Afghanistan. Let us help them by prayer.

Also, may we, as Paul writes in chapter 2, spread

“the fragrance of the knowledge of him everywhere. For we are the aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved …” (verses 14,15).

We may be unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish, but should we also not show that we are willing to step in the footsteps of that masterful rabbi?

As of God, in the sight of God we should not hesitate to speak in Christ and to show others the Way to God.

It is not because we can see so much tragedy, having so many people living in a way God would turn His eyes away, that we can not live according to His ordinances and want to show others there is a different way than the way this world has chosen.

On this platform we do want to show others this different way. To do it just on our own is not so easy. We could do with some extra hands.

Everybody has some field in which he or she is good. So everybody should be able to find something to write about which could be enlightening and educating for the others.

Having a new academic year, would this not be a good start to provide your input?

From your professionalism is there nothing you can contribute to our community and to bring some more knowledge to others, believers and non-believers in God?

Is the time not ripe to take up the pen and to join those who believe we should share more with others? It is out of love that we should share more with others. And believe it, there is lots to share about, and it has not all to do with religion.

In case you are not good at writing, you too can help, by praying for us and by letting others know our site. Promotion is always something that can help as well and motivate to continue our work. (Be sure it does not harm to motivate others now and a while.)

We do hope we can go into a fruitful new academic year in which we shall find some interested souls to join us and to share with us the love for this globe where we may reside in peace.

Please do pray for all those in need and also pray for our work, that we also may reach people in need and help them.

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You may find about prayer:

Praying and thinking positively

Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything

God, my father, my closest friend

Laboring in the Vineyard or Sitting on the Hillside with Jonah?

What moves mountains?

 Trust!

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Additional readings:

1. Walking alone?7000 to 20000 words spoken each day
2. Natural inclinations and Praying and asking
3. Praying and acts of meditation without ceasing
4. Praying is surrendering in all circumstances
5. Be sound in mind and be vigilant with a view to prayers
6. Be vigilant with a view to prayers
7. Looking for True Spirituality 6 Spirituality and Prayer
8. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
9. Do You Expect God’s Answer
10. Being sure of their deliverance
11. Old Man of Prayer
12. Biblical Prayer at Tabernacle Site Shilo
13. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #15 Exposition before the Creator
14. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #16 Benefits of praying
15. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #17 Sorts of prayers
16. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #18 Fulfilment
17. Praise Jehovah
18. Always rejoicing
19. Praying constantly Giving thanks for everything

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Further reading of interest:

• School’s out for summer
• ::Summer’s Over & The “Routine” is Back::
• Twas the night before school starts…
• Keeping Things on Track: Organize for Success
• New leaf
• Keep Your Momentum
• Back to School
• Already, school year?
• School’s back…Here’s some tips for this year!
• Bring on the Bouquets of Sharpened Pencils!
• What is the most effective way of preparing young children for primary school and beyond?
• And So It Begins, Again
• Another Beginning
• On top of things …
• It’s Time for College: How to Make the Grade You Want
• Some Minnesota Students Head Back To School
• Should Wilmington Start School Before or After Labor Day?
• Opening academic year Wageningen University
• Upon Graduating: When the World Goes Back to School (and I Don’t)
• #Sameface-Much More Than Just a Game
• #10Highlights as a Deputy Headteacher by @TeacherToolkit
• How to improve your grade in your least favourite subject
• Keep the High Road and Say Good Bye!
• Charging Up in June? Say It’s Not So!
• The Road to 65, Miles 173 and 174: Preparations
• It’s that time of the year …
• Happiness in the Midst of Falling
• Love At First Site 27 – From blue to red
• Winter Break!
• Autumn days when the grass is jewelled…
• NWCCI 2014-2015: Highs, Lows, and New Beginnings
• Do You Know Which New Parents will become Great Prospects?
• Kindergarten Quips
• There Will Always Be Lions…
• Standards and Values
• Proclaim Jesus with Loving Hearts this School Year #CISVA
• A Bright Journey – on the First Day of School
• Best-Laid Plans for This School Year: Only Slightly Awry (So Far)
• What this is all about, or my journal and I
• Have A “Wand”erfully Magical Year!
• Our First “School Year” at Daycare!
• Back-to-School Tips for Parents!
• Driving in America
• Teaching: Year Two
• I Want More Time
• 15 Ways to Get and Keep Your Life Together
• Our Year-Round Homeschool Plan
• Small Groups to Kick-Off in September
• School districts get jump on school year

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Related articles

• What’s So Amazing About Grace? (lifevesting.com)
• Don’t let inner fear interfere with you . . . enjoy the ice cream! (stevesimms.wordpress.com)
• The Truth And Nothing But The Truth… (thetruelight2014.wordpress.com)
• Beware September 2015! A Great Deception is Brewing! I Know What is Going to Happen and it is Not What You Think! (libertybalance2014.blogspot.com)
• Wednesday, 2 September 2015 : 22nd Week of Ordinary Time (First Reading) (petercanisiusmichaeldavidkang.com)
• The Daily Gospel and Readings 2 September 2015 (prayersandmeditations.com)
• P2R | 1 Peter 1:1-5 (Week 1) (timmybrister.com)

Time Has A Way Of Healing

Human beings are often not patient enough and do not want to give enough time to heal their body and their soul.

In case we would be willing to use the ‘cover of time‘ and the ‘cover of love‘ and understanding we would not have to worry such a long time about arguments we had and words which crossed our paths. Instead of being annoyed such a long time about arguments we had or heavy discussions, we should use the time to think about it and use meditation-time to give us some answers to heal the psychological wounds.

Often it is by lack of love for the other that so many bridges stay blown up and roads do not get repaired. To forgive is for many so difficult that they even can not cope with the thought of it. They should know it is a sort of weakness when you are not able to forgive and not able to swoop the sponge over the arguments you had.

Let us go for the better. We do not have to forget, but we should prefer to leave it as a thing in the past which we would preferred not to have happened. so why to stand still so long by it? Continue your way and reach out to the other in loving-kindness. Show the other you are strong enough to stand up again and to continue your way with him to better pastures.

With our mind we can do much more than we think. Everything is in the mind. and we should know that we do have received our minds to get to know the wonders of the world and to come to a good relationship with everything of the creation. For being able to come to a good relationship we do have to open our minds to the positive things of this life and should mend as we may need help from friends or well intentioned professionals.
“Let love and healing conquer for all of humanity”

And let us not forget:

He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass

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Find also to read:

1. A time for everything
2. Patient waiting
3. Allowed to heal
4. Your Sins Are Forgiven
5. Oh god, this is never going to end!
6. Putting your feelings into words and sharing them
7. See the conquest and believe that we can gain the victory
8. Doest thou well to be Angry?
9. A man who cannot forgive others
10. He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass
11. Growth in character
12. Love is like playing the piano
13. Forgiveness is a blessing for the one who forgives

+++

Related articles

• Living Mindfully for a Healthy Body, Mind, and Heart (goodtherapy.org)
  If this were your last day on earth, how would you spend it? Would you spend it inside an office or with your loved ones? While this may seem like a drastic question, I believe it helps us put things in perspective. Instead of living from a reactive stance where we’re putting out fires, obsessing over the future, or striving to do more, we pause and shift into the present moment. As we connect to body, mind, and heart, we open to our moment-to-moment experience in a nonjudgmental manner. This pausing to intentionally connect with the present moment can be challenging, but it’s an important step toward restoring balance between body, mind, and emotions.
• Anti-Confusion (avirtuousmetalk.wordpress.com)
  My natural eye can only see what surrounds me. My spiritual eye when focused on God, can see that He is moving on my behalf within every aspect of my life. I no longer choose to be a mute witness or deaf believer. I want to make an alarming and resounding sound in the troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and thermosphere that signifies my life’s devotion as a living sacrifice to God.
• Forgiveness (kadalyn.wordpress.com)
  Being able to forgive those who have wronged you is a mark of spiritual strength and confidence. When you forgive, you grow, your heart begins to heal, your back straightens up, your eyes clear so you can see the road ahead.
• Forgiveness vs. Restoration of Trust by Rick Warren (christianmotivations.weebly.com)
  Forgiveness does not mean the instant restoration of trust. Forgiveness is instant. Trust must be rebuilt over time. Forgiveness is based on grace. Trust is built on works. You earn trust. You don’t earn forgiveness.
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  Forgiving a person does not mean you have to trust them. It means they have to earn the trust.
  +
  Restoration of a relationship takes far more than forgiveness. It takes repentance. It takes restitution and a rebuilding of trust. And it often takes a much longer time.
• Daily Inspiration – Forgiveness is a Wonderful thing. (transformyourlife4ever.wordpress.com)
  Release all your anger, fear and resentment and move forward with a positive frame of mind. Let go of the past as it is impossible to change it, you can only learn from it. When you forgive you release the ties that bind you to hurt, pain, mistakes, heartache and anything that is negative and destructive in your life. When you forgive yourself and others you create a space that allows love and hope to exist.
• Jesus Heals Broken Hearts (frommyheart2u.wordpress.com)
  The first step to healing is forgiveness. An emotional wound cannot heal without forgiveness. Unforgiveness and bitterness are like an infection;without removing them you will not recover.
• Forgiveness: An Act of Self Love (consciouslifenews.com)
  When someone that matters to us is hurtful we will naturally feel painful emotions such as anger and sadness. We may find ourselves dwelling on the injustice of the situation and holding grudges. Gradually these negative feelings overshadow the positive feelings in our lives, leaving us filled with resentment. That eventually leads to spiritual paralysis and detrimental physical destruction.
  +
  Forgiveness is a promise we make to ourselves to change our life. It is about releasing ourselves from the grip that hinders our well-being—the negative hold we have essentially allowed the other person to have over us.
• Is Forgiveness The Key To Happiness? (lifechris.wordpress.com)
  In the pursuit of true happiness, there are many stumbling blocks that the Universe likes to throw our way. If happiness is a choice, should we also choose to forgive those who have hurt and upset us in aid to achieve it?
• Forgiveness (bishopcraig.com)
  There’s nothing about forgiveness that implies being a doormat or placing yourself or anyone else in danger. In fact, if that’s a possibility then forgiveness is inappropriate and premature.

Thursday Phrase Night for Palace Poets

Let Us All Heal
.
In nature time has a way of healing all wounds,
Unless the wound is fatal or the only cure for certain diseases

Is death, a sad state of affairs
The white blood cells in our bodies do their job  and rightfully so

Compassion for our fellow person should rule our day and
We should really care
.
Anger consumes many a soul who

Cannot find it in their hearts to forgive
The pain, the madness eating them inside making
Them bitter, no way to live
.
Of course there are some transgressions that
May be unforgivable but
We must seek out ways to cope
The hardest thing sometimes is searching one’s own soul

A worthy goal  turning hate into constructive hope
.
The link between physical and spiritual should
Never be forgotten or even discounted

Our bodies for the most part have a miraculous way
Of…

View original post 2,279 more words

Lonely in the crowd

Population growth rate world (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

When I started writing this article there where 7 238 080 161 people on this globe. When I finished writing there where already 7 238 100 805  living human beings, thriving on only 17% of the earth its surface. Find out how many there are now when you reading this, at Worldometers info: world-population. Current UN projections show a continued increase in population in the near future with a steady decline in population growth rate; global population is expected to reach between 8.3 and 10.9 billion by 2050. {“World Population Prospects, the 2012 Revision – “Low variant” and “High variant” values”} {“World population projected to reach 9.6 billion by 2050 – UN report”}

World population (Photo credit: Arenamontanus)

With the millions living around us we are like a very tiny ant or even more like a microbe. But those microbes which we know are often more in symbiosis or unity than those human beings.  With six of Earth’s seven continents being  permanently inhabited on a large scale, we may find Asia as the most populous continent, with its 4.3 billion inhabitants accounting for 60% of the world population. In our own region many people do think they are already with too many living on the small space which is around them. Though finding themselves living in an overcrowded area, many of those people do feel so lonely. Even when they search on the internet and add so many people on their social media profile, many people feel very lonely. You could not say they are really isolated, but what matters is that there is no real connection with the others in their surroundings.

Many invite people they meet on the internet to join as ‘friends‘ and to ‘register’ on this and that and to ‘vote’ for this and that. Voters can start and join voting blocks for the issues, sites, and groups they care about, and gather massive followings. But hose followings do they bring up something? And do the joiners really feel connected, supported or find they all can work for the same good cause?

Looking at this world Darrell Creswell notices that there are many people who never happy with where they are at in life. He recognises that many dwell on the negative, instead of visualizing the positive. In the midst of this Saswata Mitra admits he is feeling lonely.

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have 509 friends on Facebook, but I still feel lonely.

he writes in Look Up and See the World Around You at his jukebox of writings by him and by the straight forward and happy go lucky girl of sixteen Navneet Kaur. Saswata Mitra is an eighteen year old (or was) who declared himself to be selfless and caring about everyone. He also feels like everybody else the need to feel that others also would care about him. And that is normal; We all need that feeling. We all need to feel that somebody else cares about us. this feeling or want to be cared and loved does not always get answered. People to get more satisfaction from having the assurance that many like them, got so entangled or chained by social media where they can build up friends like nothing.

facebook (Photo credit: dkalo)

On that virtual platform many “friends” are made, but not so many contacts made into silver and even less are converted in silver or redeemed for gold.

I see what they do everyday yet I barely know them. In this Global Neighborhood, we share and post everything we see, hear and experience. We have somehow managed to convince ourselves of the illusion that updating everything we do will get us connected to everyone around us. But hey, life your head from your screens and look around you. You’re alone. {Look Up and See the World Around You}

Having 509 friends on Facebook does not say anything about having real friends or having real communication with others. As such in this world there may be many who have lots of connections on their social media sites, but who still feel very lonely.

The whole virtual worlds sucks many into a world of belief but even more of a world of wishful thinking. On one site there are those who boast with their holiday trips to far away places and with all the gadgets they may retrieve. Lots of chit-chat and backbiting or malicious gossip can be found at those social media platforms.

We may see what they want us to or like us to see. Do they let us see their own self? Give they really something from their own which they want to share to get into a better relationship with the other?

Do those people in their everyday postings on that Global Neighbourhood really share and post everything they see, hear and experience and how much are they involved with it or want to be involved with it?

How many do not live in that illusion that updating everything we do will get us connected to everyone around us? Or is that really the intention of many?

As you say we better come to look for real connections by looking around us in the real world, living our head from our screens, seeing but also willing to become connected with that real world.

Though I think lots of people today prefer to stay connected in their virtual world, playing games and ‘doing as if’. They seem to find more indulgence by enjoying the distraction by the games and chit-chat, instead of going to spend time in having serious discussions or a real serious talk. Lots of youngsters can not read or concentrate on long texts any more. It has to be all telegram style short messages, and by preference not asking too much thought.

In a certain way all those people looking for friends do have in common that they want to be loved. They ask themselves mostly the same questions others everywhere in the world ask themselves. In the quest for life we are all the same. In our hearts and minds uncover very similar ideas and are fired the same questions day in day out. All over the globe we can find people who worry, who have doubts created in their own minds.

some of those questions may be

“I wonder if there is something better for me in life than this?”

Doing this will many times keep you from enjoying where you are in God’s plan for your life.

writes Darrell Creswell in God’s Will and Design For Your Life – Inspirational Bible Verses, who is well aware that one of the problems might well be that most people use not their eyes to see further than this world around them personally and do not want to grasp a little bit of what the Plan of the Planner of this universe might be.

We only see mere seconds in part of God’s plan as a whole. As such we cannot grasp what is the blueprint for our life. We all have a definite past, but with God we have an indefinite future that is infinite by His grace, full of hope and wonder. There is unity and harmony in God’s plan for our life and we must embrace it. So, have faith in the Lord and in His providence as all things work together for good for them that love Him and are called according to His purpose. {God’s Will and Design For Your Life – Inspirational Bible Verses}

How many people ask themselves this question

  “How did I get so blessed to be where I am in God’s will for my life?”

How many people in their life are willing to place themselves in an open environment where they are willing to allow God planning their life? Most of the people do want to be in the centre of their own world. Everything has to turn around them. How many are willing to turn around the others? Even more important, how many are willing to give themselves to the Creator of the universe and to allow Him track their path and to bring them in contact with the right people?

Lots of people forget that being in the centre of God’s will, no matter the circumstance, shall make them as one of ‘the luckiest persons on earth’ (if I may use that expression). Luck is hidden in a little corner. Happiness is hidden in each of us. It are we, human people who create borders and difficulties to get in constructive personal contact with others.

Being so self focused many of us have you become so tired, worn out, broken down, frustrated, stressed out, hopeless and discouraged that they feel like they can’t even make it through the day and dread facing tomorrow.

We all know that feeling of being pushed in the corner by others, or by awkward situations. Many of us even have the impression it are they who are in the picture for the bad.

Sometimes in life it seems that the only experiences that we are having are all bad ones. There are times that it seems that today is worse than yesterday, and we are in fear of what tomorrow will bring. Life seems to be one disaster after another, and we seem to be going from crisis to crisis. There are times when life drains all the energy from us and we find ourselves wiped out from the stress we are dealing with on a daily basis. {Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

All of us seem to grow fearful and anxious as we wait for things to get better. {Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

Many think they shall find answers in their virtual world of the internet social media. After work, or many already at work, do not mind forgetting what they really have to do at the workplace or at home, and get into their own little world of virtual friends and games of building farms or villages. They try to forget the real world with its many stressful situations.

We rush through life without stopping to check where we are going, or what we are doing.{Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

We should know that we better get into the real world and dare to face all its problems. We for sure can not solve all those problems. We should not worry that we are not able to solve everything. We should just try to do our best and get together with others to help each-other to grow strong in this tempting world.

The Nazarene Jeshua (Jesus Christ) was a Master-teacher, who was totally not concerned about himself. He put himself totally at the side and only wanted to do the will of his heavenly Father. He brought the Words of his Father to many and asked them to spread the same Good News he gave them. Jesus asked them to go out in the world and to look for like minded people who are willing to share the same hope as he gave them.

He warned them they also could feel lonely and hated, because others would not like it they being followers of him, worshipping the Only One God of gods. But he assured them that when they would come to look for each other and join in meetings, they would find the brotherly love he gave them and which could bring us all united in a world where there would be no war or pain any more.

By sharing that love Jesus gave to us, and finding believers who also want to worship that Only One God we shall be able to find those friends who can build us up and together would be willing to build up that community in which Jesus is the cornerstone. There we shall be able to find the real friends, who we shall be willing to call ‘brothers‘ and ‘sisters‘. With them we shall be looking forward to the fulfilment of God’s Plan.

Part of the process of God’s wondrous ability to bless our lives is you and I taking the time to slow down petition the throne of Grace and listen for His voice. As we slow down and wait on Him, we will be reminded of our complete and utter dependence on His strength. When we take the time to stop, pray; slow down and wait on Him – He will bring the resolution to our problems as and reveal His plan for our lives. {Bible Verses for Hurt, Broken, and Discouraged Lives – God Has a Plan}

As disciples of Christ we can come to counting lives and friends dear to us. Today this can happen in a less dangerous manner than in the first century of this era. The message did keep the same and the reason to make friends in Christ has become to be quickened, because time runs out. Day by day we shall be coming closer to the end times and when World War III will be a fact, it would be to late. Today our priority should be to form a loving brotherhood. It is now that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us by sharing true riches with as many as we can. Knowing that tenderness and kindness are not signs of weakness and despair we should be giving out our hand to many around us in love speaking words of kindness. Willing to walk with all kinds of people in love by faith, not by sight, together making church as united people under Christ.

When you are feeling lonely do know you are not alone. Tsundukani Baloyi writes:

The thing about feeling lonely is that it doesn’t matter who you choose to waste your time with whether it may be with friends, a lover or any significant other, you will still feel lonely. You could be in a room filled with people and still not feel as though you are part of the crowd. I don’t know, feeling lonely sucks at times. It drains the living hell out of you and the worst part of it is that you won’t even know why you feeling lonely in the first place. {Lonely}

When you are feeling lonely then, it is perhaps because you do not feel the mediator Jesus close to you, nor his heavenly Father who shall always be there by those who are looking for Him.

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When this article was published there where: 7 238 140 550 people on this earth.

Additional literature:

1. Internet absurdities
2. Changing screens
3. Words to push and pull
4. How long to wait before bringing religiousness and spirituality in practice
5. When you think you have nothing to say or to show
6. Sharing thoughts and philosophical writings
7. Putting your feelings into words and sharing them
8. Hello America and atheists
9. Message of Pope Francis I for the 48th World Communications Day
10. Be Honest
11. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #12 Prayer #10 Talk to A Friend
12. From Winterdarkness into light of Spring
13. To be chained by love for another one
14. God won’t ask
15. Man’s plans prevailed by God’s purpose
16. A goal is a dream with a plan
17. If You want to start winning the war
18. Engaging the enemy
19. Intellectual servility a curse of mankind
20. We should use the Bible every day
21. People Seeking for God 2 Human interpretations
22. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
23. A participation in the body of Christ (CdEcclesia)
24. A participation in the body of Christ
25. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
26. Congregate, to gather, to meet
27. Meeting – Vergadering
28. Parish, local church community – Parochie, plaatselijke kerkgemeenschap
29. Reasons to come to gether
30. Fellowship
31. Integrity of the fellowship
32. Feeling-good, search for happiness and the church
33. Making church
34. What’s church for, anyway?
35. The Church, Body of Christ and remnant Israel synonymous
36. Many churches
37. Synagogue, Church or Ecclesia for the Christian
38. When we love we do not need laws
39. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
40. Priority to form a loving brotherhood

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Related articles

• Not So Lonely, After All (galinbluejeans.wordpress.com)
  I thought you came back for me. So I’d not feel lonely, especially ’cause Priya & Sahana weren’t at school, and neither was Shyam. It was really sweet of you, RB
• Now 7.2 billion humans, and counting (earthsky.org)
  United Nations demographers declared a day last week (July 11, 2013) as World Population Day, at the same time saying that our global human population has now reached 7.2 billion and counting. The 7.2 billion number appears in the most recent of the biannual reports from the UN Population Division called World Population Prospects, which you can find here. This report also gave current projections for future population:
• Nigeria’s population will outstrip US as world’s population will rise to 9.7bn in 2050 (vanguardngr.com)
  The world’s population will rise to 9.7 billion in 2050 from the current level of 7.1 billion and India will overtake China as the world’s most populous nation, as Nigeria’s  population will outstrip that of the United State  a French  study said Wednesday.A bi-annual report by the French Institute of Demographic Studies (Ined) projected there would be 10 to 11 billion people on the planet by the end of the century.The projections ran parallel to forecasts by the United Nations, the World Bank and other prominent national institutes.A UN study in June said the global population would swell to 9.6 billion in 2050 and the number of people aged 60 and above would catapult from 841 million now to two billion in 2050 and nearly three billion in 2100.
• Think the U.S. Is a Crowded Place? Check Out This Cool Map Showing Where Nobody Lives (theblaze.com)
  Unless you live in the middle of nowhere and witness this first hand, it’s probably hard to imagine that inhabitants haven’t covered the whole of the U.S., especially if your abode is in a city where it might feel like humanity is so dense that people are living on top of each other.But a new map drummed up by mapsbynik shows just how much room there is left in North America to spread out, where not another soul is reported to live — where the population is exactly zero.
• My Poem ‘The Lonely Word’ (poetofthesphere.com)
  You can sometimes think you are walking alone
  even when you are in a crowd;
  you can sometimes feel you are hearing nothing
  even when the world sounds so loud;
  you can sometimes see the world distorted;
  you can sometimes hear the distant call
  of someone who you may not have seen for a long time,
  who is nowhere even near you at that exact time-
  like the voice of a ghost,
  but even though you can’t see that person
  you have no doubt as to its origin,
  and you will swear on your life
  that you heard the person that you heard say what they said
  in the way and in the voice that they said it.
• You’re so used to (lynneadam.wordpress.com)
  You’re so used to being lonely.
  Not alone, but lonely.
  Lonely,
  Because alone is only for a while,
  But lonely is a state.
  Lonely is forever.
• Philly’s Population Still Growing (phillymag.com)
  “In its estimate for 2013, the Census Bureau put the city’s population at 1,553, 165, an increase of about 25,000 residents – or two percent – over 2010.  … Nineteen of the nation’s 20 largest cities rose in population between 2010 and last year. The lone exception is Detroit, which saw its population decline by 3 percent.” Here’s the full list of America’s biggest cities and their growth since 2010.
• ‘Lonely’ bacteria increase risk of antibiotic resistance (scienceblog.com)
  Scientists from The University of Manchester have discovered that ‘lonely’ microbes are more likely to mutate, resulting in higher rates of antibiotic resistance. The study, published today in Nature Communications and jointly funded by The Wellcome Trust and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, explored the mutation rates of E.
• Lonely (tsundukanibaloyi.wordpress.com)

Love and forgive this friday

Everyday again we should remember that some 2000 years ago a man was willing to do that what his Father in heaven wanted to be done, and offered himself as a lamb to wash the world of the gravity of sin by his blood.

Still every day we may have to face many struggles, pain, sorrow and many minor and big problems. Often we may see things around us which can annoy us, sometimes people may work on our nerves, but then we see that Light of the Lamb of God that showed us the way to treat others and to step over our boundaries of limitations.

Though living in this world we have decided not to be part ‘of this world’. From our inner soul the light of Christ Jesus, who died for us, is able to transpose us and to bring us to greater waters where we can swim forwards to to ‘isle of rescue’.

In the land prepared by Christ we are to be the example for others, so that they could see how we can be united in peace and show each-other brotherly love. We do have to show those around us that we are not the ones to judge. But we are the ones who are willing to forgive and to reach out our hand of loving-kindness and helpfulness, so that we with many can go together on the way to the opened gate of the Kingdom of God.

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Find additional reading:

1. Poetry of Peace
2. Your struggles develop your strengths
3. Pain and Suffering is inevitable but Misery is optional
4. From pain to purpose
5. Compassion and Discipline
6. Man’s plans prevailed by God’s purpose
7. A Great Gift commemorated
8. An unblemished and spotless lamb foreknown
9. Servant of his Father
10. The Seed Of The Woman Bruised
11. The day Jesus died
12. The Song of The Lamb #1 Visions, symbols and suggested meanings
13. The Song of The Lamb #2 Sevens
14. Kingdom Visions of a Man, Throne and Great crowd
15. Kingdom Visions of Rainbowed angel, Lamb in Mount Zion
16. Kingdom Visions of God’s judgements and Marriage of the Lamb
17. 14 Nisan a day to remember #3 Before the Passover-feast
18. Ransom for all
19. In the death of Christ, the son of God, is glorification
20. Ember and light the ransomed of Jehovah
21. The Song of The Lamb #5 Revelation 5
22. The Song of The Lamb #7 Revelation 15
23. The Song of The Lamb #8 Revelation 15 Lessons for us today
24. God’s Comfort
25. Promise of a Comforter
26. Give your tears to God
27. Everything that is done in the world is done by hope
28. Change
29. Growth in character
30. Breathing to teach
31. Prayer has comforted us in sorrow
32. A Living Faith #7 Prayer
33. A New Jerusalem
34. Judge not according to appearance
35. Belonging to or being judged by
36. Vengeance
37. Forgiveness
38. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #15 Exposition before the Creator
39. Doest thou well to be Angry?
40. Forgiveness always possible
41. A man who cannot forgive others
42. He who cannot forgive breaks the bridge over which he himself must pass
43. Love is like playing the piano
44. Forgiveness is a blessing for the one who forgives
45. The Greatest of These is Love

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Related articles

• Forgive? You’re Kidding Me, Right? (inspirationalchristiansfortoday.com)
  The concept of forgiveness can be a hard thing to digest.  If someone wronged us, granting forgiveness can feel almost as if we’ve been hit twice.  The first time when we were so generously issued the wrong-doing; the second when we struggled to set-aside our ill-feelings and extended the gift of forgiveness.  After all, he/she may have deserved anything but a gift.
• A new identity (poetryjoy.com)
  God already sees us as perfected, beautiful and whole in Christ. The hard part is seeing, accepting and believing it for ourselves.
• Un-forgiveness is the means by which we securely bind ourselves to that which we hate most. (lisconnect.wordpress.com)
  Free yourself, ask God for a forgiving heart.
• How to Overcome a Bitter Spirit (familyencouragement.wordpress.com)
  There are devastating consequences in the personal life and relationships of a bitter person.   The Bible speaks about the development of bitterness in Ephesians 4:31 and the following verse deals with it’s consequences and solution.
  +
  God tells us we are to be “forgiving one another”.    This is the key to dealing with being resentful over past hurts.   Our bitterness and disappointment in people can only be resolved through forgiveness.   Period.   A bitter person refuses to forgive the offender.
• Forgiveness (po11ycheck.wordpress.com) Reposted from Courageous Christian FatherForgiveness it can be easier said then done. Do you easily forgive others when they do wrong to you? Have you ever had anyone not forgive you and you wished they did? What does it mean to forgive?
  +
  Christ casted our sins into the sea of forgetfulness. Our sins were cast as far as the East is from the West. Our sins to be remembered no more. So where is the sea of forgetfulness? Well, it is a place that I wouldn’t want to know where it is. Because all is forgotten there. How far exactly is the East from the West? Well just think the Earth is round so, you can keep going and going. Just the same, God’s forgiveness keeps going and is everlasting. If God can forgive our sins, shouldn’t we? See Ephesians 4:32; Colossians 3:13
• Bible Verses to Comfort – It Hurts Me to Forgive – Forgiveness (darrellcreswell.wordpress.com)
  When we have been wronged by someone, a barrier is formed in our hearts. We put up a wall to the offense that hinders us from forgetting, letting go, and moving on.
  +
  Jesus said we should forgive unconditionally. In contrast, humans put conditions on forgiveness.
• The first to apologize is the bravest, the first to forgive is the strongest, the first to forget is the happiest. (pastormikesays.wordpress.com)
  Actually, forgiveness is not only about others, but also about our own spiritual growth. Love and forgiveness cannot be separated. If we choose to live out the love of God as the purpose of our life, then forgiving is an option that cannot be avoided.
• Forgive Us Our Sins…… (coarpk.wordpress.com)
  Some sins are more easily forgiven than others.  We can forgive a lie, depending on how big it is.  We can forgive a false word, as long as it’s not said against us.  We can forgive a little anger, as long as we weren’t embarrassed by it.  But what happens when the sin that we’re called to forgive is more significant.  What if someone steals from us?  Breaks into our house?  Hits our car?  What happens if someone takes the life of someone we love?  How do we forgive them?
• Does the Bible say that you should forgive someone who does not repent? (winteryknight.wordpress.com)
  “It is a common human assumption that the violator of the rights of others must ask for forgiveness before the wronged party can be expected to accept the apology and grant forgiveness…But Jesus here asks the person wronged to forgive the one responsible for the wrongdoing when when there is no confession of guilt… There is a voice from the cross that echoes across history to all saying ‘Father forgive them for they know not what they do.’ Neither Pilate nor the high priest nor the centurion offered any apology to Jesus, yet he prayed for divine forgiveness…(p.125)”
  +
  I think it is a helpful tool for people to insist on seeing some sort of repentance and restitution from someone who wrongs you before you trust them again. If they are not even sorry for what they’ve done, and they refuse to explain why what they did is wrong, then they can’t be forgiven, and you can’t trust them again.
  +
  When I raise that with the unconditional forgiveness crowd, they want to insist that there is a difference, that the word “forgive” means different things. I’m not convinced.
• pure and light (madelineranda.wordpress.com)
  I let the enemy convince me my sins are trivial and he lulls me into complacency. he whispers that I’m fine and dandy, that we all live in darkness together and that is a-okay. But this morning as light flooded through my window, over a warm cup of coffee, my lonely and impure heart was brought a beautiful reminder speaking to both lies.

sheetal sharma

Sunlight slits open the dark clouds,
Crushing down my sins and bondage alike.
With Him we too were crucified that day –
Not as mere slaves or rebels but as Sons.

Forgiveness like a Balm to to my bruises,
My heart and soul now rejuvenated –
Speak – “Let the inner voice choose –
Forgiveness over vengeance !”

Harsh neighbors unite,
Arch rivals dialogue,
Nations come together –
As citizens of Humankind.

Judge Not ,nor be judged.
Condemn Not,nor be condemned,
But forgive and be Forgiven,
For Love is the only Balm for my pains.

View original post

Being a Light in the World Award

We for sure can use some more people who would like to bring some sunshine in this grim world. Lovely that we can see more people trying to spread some Light in this world full of jealousy and hate.

It would also be nice to find those bloggers who would love to bring messages of inner peace, brotherly love, and unity between people and different cultures and religions, together sharing their ideas and notifying others of their readings and writings. Hopefully many will let others know of such blogs which try to make the world a little nicer one day at the time.

°°°

And the nominees for the

the very first nominees for Being a Light in the World Award
are:

1. Dr. Rex
2. Shaun
3. HuntForTruth
4. Inavukic
5. Dear Kitty
6. Mungai and the Goa Constrictor
7. Quiall
8. BusyMindThinking
9. SeaAngel4444
10. PurpleRaysblog
11. Al
12. The Libertarian Hippie
13. Moorbey
14. The Unity of Souls
15. Crowing Crone Joss
16. CravesAdventure
17. Cassidy Fraezee
18. Ivonprefontaine
19. SueDreamwalker
20. OldPoet56
21. Michael Lai
22. Willowdot21
23. HitandRun1964
24. Professions for Peace
25. ViewsSplash
26. Blackbutterfly7
27. Amaezed
28. Tanveer rauf
29. PetiteMagique
30. Joe Bradshaw
31. Terry1954
32. Lilmisspoutine
33. a star on the forehead
34. Andy1076
35. iithinks

Followed by:.

1. Marlyn http://kintal.wordpress.com/
2. Sheri http://theothersideofugly.com/  
3. Kindness Blog http://kindnessblog.com/ 
4. Brother Murf http://brothermurf.wordpress.com/
5. Tom Huff http://tomhuff.wordpress.com/ 
6. Eve http://sathyasaimemories.wordpress.com/ 
7. Jerry http://jerry792.wordpress.com/
8. VWoods http://vwoods1212.wordpress.com/
9. Suz http://suzjones.wordpress.com/
10. CeeLee http://swimintheadultpool.com/
11. Michele http://lifeasagarden.wordpress.com/
12. Sherri http://sherriofpalmsprings.com/
13. Stephanie http://happinessheals.wordpress.com/
14. Brooke http://kundalinidotorg.wordpress.com/
15. Nadine http://soulofagypsy.me/
16. Gede Prama http://gedepramascompassion.com/

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• ‘Being a light in the World Award’
• I’m a Nominee!!
• Light of the World Award
• The best gifts
• Wonderful Team Member Readership Award
• Awarded, Yippee !!!! 🙂 🙂
• Sunshine Award
• Shauny Award and Friends and Followers Award
• Awards that I May Not Deserve!

the Hunt for Truth

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Being A Light In The World – awarded by Barbara Mattio at Idealist Rebel

Thank you Barbara. 

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Click the image to link to Barbara’s award page.

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Wonderful people in the World spread Light, and love, hope and peace.  At WordPress, there are bloggers that consistently promote these qualities and work to be a force for peace and light in our world.

My friend Barbara is diligent in posting on topics in the areas of creativity, women’s issues, and spirituality. Her blog is making the world a little nicer, one day at a time.

The Rules:

1. Thank the person who gives you the award
2. Spread this award around to the people who you know who are doing this work, so that the work continues and the light is spread
3. Let your nominees know
4. Never give up on your fellow human beings

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And the nominees for the
Being a…

View original post 56 more words

We all have to have dreams

Dreams (Photo credit: hufse)

Without dreams we are nothing. As a child we bring our aspirations to live in our dreams. We are convinced that we have the right to dream whatever we want. In our dreams we any place ourselves in any role we want. We are also convinced the dreams are totally ours. In our mind and our soul we want to sojourn and create our own world. We claim it to be our individual right to dream as big as we want.

Who cares if it never amounts to anything ? But who knows ? It doesn’t take away our right to do so one little iota.

Claim your great individuality.

Why is it that so many adults do not want to give way to their dreams any more? why do so many adults laugh with the dreams of others, and mainly with the people who would love to share their dreams with others. On this platform we do hope to present dreams of many people. For us all the writers who join us may dream as if they’ll live forever. Live as if they’ll die today.

Here we do not mind dreaming aloud. Here we want to give a voice to the many dreams of people somewhere on this globe. We want to say to all that they should believe in the power of their dreams and should strive to get their dreams becoming true. The people joined here together may have dreams of which others think they never can become true …. but when everybody would think this way, it is unfeasible we shall never see the seeds of making something grow. The writers over here may believe in peace and unity between all folks. It may look utopian, but by holding strong on the dream they want to spread the message of those dreams and bring inner peace to many all over the world.

Who knows where such dreams may lead to? Who knows where such belief leads to?

If there is no peace in the future it is because not enough people wanted it. It is that simple.

It will happen. Make no mistake. No way to avoid it. It is a cycle and for those who believe in the Divine Creator, they received the assurance of that world-peace and can count on the prophecies coming true, even when they still shall have to face the third World War and an other thousands year before the end goal shall be reached.

Lubok-style cover of a Russian dream book. The book is solemnly named The Dream-Book, or an Interpretation of Dreams by Sundry Egyptian and Indian Savants and Astronomers. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

For those who chased several dreams which never succeeded, they shall also be able to say they enjoyed them and perhaps they still have  fantastic memories by them.

We may never give up dreaming, and we better take more efforts in sharing our dreams and living them to come true.

Oh so many people have become frightened to dream. Perhaps we should accept that dreaming requires courage.

A courage to strive towards a mirage, to build castles, to go to many worlds, and a courage to trust the ones who are willing to give you a hand on their voyage or to trust that whatever you may find when you finally get there, that it will be worthwhile.
After all, although reality can never match our dreams, neither can a dream ever fully describe the complex and unpredictable reality.

Some of the writers in this club of guest-writers may have fought for their dreams in World War II, in the 1968 upraising or in some other contestations or in one of the many worlds which killed so many people. Also much  younger voices we would love to see here, because they are the future. As such people who could have been at actions like Occupy Wall Street the  Arab Awakening or Arab Spring might join us in the future. They had their voices going loud on the marches for peace, power and freedom. They marked recent decades but saw many dreams scattered and saw how the world present a backdrop for today’s human conditions of stress, anxiety, insecurity and turmoil.

There are as many civil wars and wars between nations. From the individual perspective, the cry for peace is heralded as respite from the turbulence of today’s hectic lifestyle. In the past four to five decades we have lived in such a way as to create challenging situations in our lives and create even more havoc as we try to solve the resulting problems. {Peace In Troubled Times}

World Peace Flag of the Universal Peace Congress. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today in certain countries we may not see so many “No War” “Make peace” stickers as we saw in the time of the Vietnam War. but we might still see somewhere a popular bumper sticker that states, “Peace begins within,” and a hymn that is sung in thousands of churches world-wide on Sundays, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.”

Yes, peace begins within the heart and mind of every person. Until we reignite the flame of peace, love and unity there can be no lasting peace in individuals, among people and nations of the world. {Peace In Troubled Times}

Those who have had or still have so many dreams of friendship and peace should dare to give their dreams a voice. We all should ask ourselves whether or not we have lived responsibly in recent decades and if we really tried enough to change something in the world around ourselves.

On this platform we would love to give a voice to all who are interested to dare to out themselves and to give a voice to their dreams, prepared to spawn national and international debates. With the widely reported impending consequences of global warming, catastrophes of war and economic collapses, the outlook may be bleak. but we do believe whenever each individual would like to take up the figurative ‘arms’ and do something against our ‘pollution‘ (in a broad sense) we shall be able to make turning points.

When we are with many we may give some impact and create some fertile ground for the human condition as they are fed in large daily doses at breakfast, dinner and all throughout the day. Conditions of fear, stress, anger, frustration, rage, insecurity and strife are the results of the negative thoughts and the materialism of this world, but the humbleness, the brotherly-love and the sincere care for nature, can bring solutions by which future generations can continue to build a better world.

When we conform to the world we allow the dictates of the world and its appearances to control our lives. The real of man is spiritual and divine, not the ego driven personality that responds to the whims and fancies of every Tom, Dick and Harry. Stress and conflict occur when the inner spiritual self and its outer personality self are in opposing viewpoints.

Frankl theorizes that mans search for meaning is a primary force in his life which is unique and specific in that it must and can be fulfilled by him alone. Our greatness as human beings lies in our ability to change our minds and the conditions of our lives. What is so great about living in a free, democratic country is that it affords us the privilege of freedom to be all we want to be. Individually we must desire freedom and make the choice for freedom as we live our life. The great author and self help guru, Stuart Wilde, teaches that we should “Concentrate on ourselves and leave the world alone. As we strengthen ourselves we save all of humanity, because we are all linked to one another.” {Peace In Troubled Times}

By getting to know ourselves better and by allowing others to know us better as well and to share our love for others, we can reach even more if we do not leave the world but would embrace it as if it is the thing we love most and we do care as our little baby. Fostering as a little child we should educate it and show it the different ways it can go.

It is true that we must desire a change from the stress and turbulent lifestyle we live today.

We must dare to rise up, declare, pursue and claim peace for ourselves. This will impact the lives of family and friends and spread out to our communities and our world. The pursuit of peace is perhaps the most followed path to spiritual enlightenment. A peaceful disposition calms the rough and tossed seas of turbulence, strife, fear and discontent. {Peace In Troubled Times}

We should join hands and not stand still, but walk together hand-in-hand, radiating out to touch the lives of others and willing to transform our world.

Individually transformed lives will create a mass consciousness of peace and there will be peace on earth, beginning with every one of us. {Peace In Troubled Times}

The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.

-Eleanor Roosevelt

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Become a co-author of “From Guest-writers” and join the Bloggers for peace
and find 5 Steps to Peaceful Resolution, plus
7 Random Acts of Peace for Random Acts of Kindness Week
striving for happiness
regardless of material conditions, relationship status, or past history,
Re-hydrating Your Spirit,
sharing the miracles of everyday life to inspire, instruct, and supporting others and ourselves,
as one big family of this universe.
Friends and Enemies: The Malleable Keys to Peace

We Can Make a Difference–Right Here, Right Now
Letting others know that
The Universe Is All of Us

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Additional reading:

1. Live …
2. Be happy that the thorn bush has roses
3. Feed Your Faith Daily
4. A Living Faith #8 Change
5. In A World of Balance There Is Peace and Justice
6. Memories are important
7. Courage is fear that has said its prayers
8. Justififiable anger or just anarchism
9. The Y generation in conflict with itself
10. Violence or an other way to win
11. I want to be a better man than the one I’ve become.
12. Reflection for today…The Roots of Peace -Thich Nhat Hanh
13. Reflection for today…Compassion Is The Key To Enlightenment -Buddha
14. Reflection for today…Invite Peace
15. Reflection for today…Compassion Is The Key To Enlightenment
16. 1st Qtr-2011 World Peace Card Meditations
17. Next World Peace Card Meditations
18. There’s More to Life Than Being Happy
19. An Artist For Peace
20. Pass the Peace Post
21. Exercise for Spiritual Fitness
22. Steve Strother on Blogging For Peace
23. Bloggers for Peace March Challenge: Forgiveness
24. Teaching Children Peace – A Bloggers for Peace post
25. The Missing Peace
26. Let There Be Peace on Earth
27. The Peace Garden
28. The “Pursuit” of Happiness
29. Living Life to the Fullest
30. Professions for Peace musings on life, love and peace
31. Happy Birthday to a Warrior for Peace
32. Let us watch carefully the decent of mankind into the situation we see around us today
33. By counting our blessings we not only feel good, but we multiply our good

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Related articles

• Queen Trishala Mata and the Fourteen Auspicious Dreams (youngjainprofessionals.wordpress.com)
  The story of Trishala Mata revolves around the fourteen dreams she had after the conception of her son, Lord Mahavir. It is believed Mahavir’s soul was conceived by a Brahmin lady named Devananda. However, divine powers transferred the fetus to Trishala. After having the dreams, Trishala’s husband, King Siddharth, summoned the scholars of the court and asked them to explain the meaning of the dreams.
• Don’t Give Up On A Dream (justinjms1988.wordpress.com)
  Dare to dream / Only you can set the course / Navigating your destiny / Take the steps to make it reality / ~ Give your dream wings / Invent, conceive, believe / Venture out / Elude discouragement /Understand each dream can be yours / Positive attitude is a must
• Dreams (crossfittoddler.com)
  I was friends with dragons, and I could fly, and I had magic powers, and I was immortal. I was always either saving the world or ruling it with a wise but firm hand (it was amazing how quickly things fell apart when left unattended). My dreams had no beginning and no end – once I sketched out a world in my mind, I’d land myself in the middle of some situation and watch it unfold, inevitably falling asleep before it was over. They didn’t need to: the fun lay in the no-holds-barred freedom of creation itself.
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  For an adult, dreaming can be one of the scariest things in the world.  It helps to remember that if a five-year-old can do it, you can do it, too.
• Dream Big, It’s Important (robertjrgraham.com)
  As children, we all had our own big, crazy dreams for the future. Some may have wanted to become the first astronauts to land on Mars, while others wanted to end all wars and achieve true world peace. But where have those big dreams gone? As we grew older, looked at those old dreams and dismiss them, believing that they’re unattainable or that they were just products of a child’s naïve fantasies. The sad thing is that these days, even the children seem to be afraid to dream big. Research has shown that only 10% of Americans actually set a goal in public school, and this is actually closely related to the very low percentage of rich people in America. People seem to have forgotten the importance of dreaming big, which can be summarized into three key points
• Dream, Act, Believe (perseverance366.com)
  What is it that you would like to accomplish? That’s the question I would like you to ask yourself if you have not already done so.
• Dreams (stillsortingthisout.wordpress.com)
  One day this dream that my brain categorised as “good” will one day mean nothing to me and be shifted into the “neutral” section of dreams. The kind that you dream about, and wake up (if by chance you remember it) and feel nothing about.
• What are dreams to us? (oceanelacroix.wordpress.com)
  We all have one and your dream is different from mine the same way that it is different from someone else’s. So what are they? Are they something we find inspiring and a reason to live, or is it something that we just call foolish and childish? An impossible fantasy or a rocky road?How many of us have grown up hearing people laugh at our dreams? And how many of us have had people support?

Awards, prizes, Peace and Working together

On the 25th of April 2013 I wrote, on my personal pages, the page Bloggers for Peace. Over there on Marcus’s Space I wondered if it would still be possible to get several people come together to share like-minded thoughts of love and peace. Nearly a year later I must admit I am a little bit disappointed with the meagre result.  On the 29th of March 2014 there were only 4 likes and not one real response or reaction, though there were 9 Pingbacks.

Linking to peacebloggers

Give Peace a chance by promoting it and by sharing your positive thoughts.

I myself did some search and placed links to several other “Bloggers For Peace”, but they never gave me a personal sign or contacted me further to really take further action. Perhaps because I placed it on my personal blog, nobody dared to join. So, I do try at this place. Perhaps a Club does not frighten them off and would give more people confidence enough they may say what they want and write when they want. Those who want to join the guest writers shall be able to publish when they want and how much they want, so they should not be so afraid of restrictions.

Awards givers and receivers

I do find it strange that I can find a lot of American blogs where they throw with all sorts of Awards and Prizes, and do seem to appreciate others writings on peace, spiritual and religious living. But I do never see them getting together and taking action with others or really sharing articles. To me it more often looks like an adventure of getting free advertisements for certain websites or blogs (the initiator of the award). Mostly they say to feel free to accept the Such or such Award, like the Inner Peace Award and to add it on your blog, asking you to keep to just one or two rules. The one to pass the award on demanding to share some kind words with that person, is not a bad rule and can help to spread some nice words, which this world for sure can use more. Some present other rules where we can question what it has to do with peace or happiness. We can see that by a lot of such awards the interest is more placed to the persons themselves, having them to tell about themselves, what they like to eat, read and watch on television or in the cinema. Not really about the project or telling more about their action how to bring peace to others and how to contribute so that people could live better together.

Altogether it looks like the maker of the award can receive more readers to his blog by all the links back to his or her blog.

We are not so much interested in awards, but we would love to see many more people coming together and sharing their ideas, bringing understanding joy and peace to people from all over the world.  This is the magnificent element of the new technology of internet.Everywhere in the world people can read and get to know people from everywhere in the world.

Big mess, noice and information overload

When we look at the world we may find one big mess. For many uncertainties about the future increase every year or even every month.
Our world has, to some degree, got used to living with uncertainties about the future – so much so nearly all plan for the present, for this year and maybe next, especially if they have children. There may be a lot of problems in the families and in the world, but every where may be living people who can shed some light in the darkness. When you would put all those little candles, those little light-bulbs together, you would find a major light attracting more people.

Internet offers a lot of noisy and spectacular things and tries to lure people into many adventures looking at certain things and buying lots of things. Insistent invitations to look at a picture, video, or the latest trend lots of people come to live in a sub-real world stuffing themselves with the junk food of audible and visual ‘noise’ and ‘information’.

QuietKeepers correctly points out:

No longer are there pockets of peace in the places we frequent.  Medical waiting rooms, once havens of quiet where the only sound might be the pages of a magazine turning, now have blaring televisions, sometimes competing with music from an overhead sound system. Even the relative silence of libraries is interrupted by clicking keyboards.  Places of worship, too, have become stimulating, noisy spaces in their congregations’ quest to become relevant. And, when was the last time you saw a sign that said, “Quiet. Hospital Zone”? {The need for quiet}

Instilling moments of silence and reflection

QuietKeepers has similar aims like some here at the club of writers. It wants to contribute to instill more silence and quiet in our sometimes busy lives. When we  look at the masses we can see them rushing from one place to the other, having no time any more to take time to stand still, to contemplate, to look at nature, to talk with each other, to share ideas and to share feelings. That last element has nearly become taboo. Most people hide their feelings and hide their own personality by running with the majority of the population and with tradition.

We would like to find more souls who do not mind sharing ideas with each other and getting others to know such blogs where time is taken to look into the soul of man, and to look at wonders of the world. Nature has so much to offer, and so many people are gifted to bring the beauty of nature closer to the heart. It would be lovely if we could have such persons who would not mind to bring their talents together on a place like this one, and enable those interested to go from here to the many proposed interesting sites.

Because time flies and we do not have much time it would be marvellous if we could have some people who present us with their selection of interesting material. Yes you perhaps could call it a “Readers Digest” of contemporary times. If you have qualities you would not mind sharing with us, why hesitate, and not join us? You may find here a place where you can place articles which could not find a place on your personal blog or which ad to or even may direct to your blog(s) and blogs you feel could be of interest to others. By presenting your selection you can help others to save time searching, but also wasting time reading less interesting blogs. Because of our limited time short presentations, reblogs of interesting articles will be more than welcome by many readers which can be build up, because there can be found several authors at one place.

Month of Peace

Image of the Oslo Business for Peace Award (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

In a few days time we are facing the month of April as “Peace Month”. Perhaps lots of activity shall take place in the press and in your neighbourhood. Perhaps more people also would like to look fro more information or would like to do something against all the controversy and  fighting which is going on in this world. Serious teen problems like bullying, violence, drugs, depression, and suicide shall be able to find some more attention. and this would be some subjects we would love to see spoken off on this site. But what also could be interesting is to hear personal experiences how people could cope in live and how they think they could make their live and that of others better.

Looking at the world and reaching to the world

Whilst my lifestyle magazine “Stepping Toes” is more concerned about the way we are spiritually living and looking at it all, from a more religious point of view, here at “From Guest-writers” all subjects can receive a place, seen from non-religious as well as from religious points of view. Most interesting can be also to find some writers, who would not mind to bring up political issues and show us different ways how a society could work, to become a better place to live for every body.

We would like to offer young and older writers the opportunity to reach more readers. The writers themselves shall also be able to ‘earn more’ from writers of every colour, ethnicity, religious faith, sexual orientation, political viewpoint, and country of residence or origin. The public finding more writers in one place, willing also to direct them to still more other writers, by presenting links and reblogs to interesting articles can enrich us all.

Speaker and audience

Here the writer may be the guest-speaker and the audience at the same time. As such he or she will have the responsibility to engage the audience (internetters from all over the world) and triggering the debate, discussions and conversations, this in a world where there is a lot of competition in a (virtual) world where it is not easy to engage the head and heart of the audience which has a short attention span.

By sharing each others work we also want to world to show that there is more unity in the universe than many think.

Our common goal will be to show that by increased focus on each of core areas of expertise we shall be able to give a broad spectrum to our public, and shall be able more successfully bring over our message of understanding and peace.

Getting our of comfort-zone

In order to collaborate, many of us will have to get out of our comfort-zones. Those of us working in the non-profit sector have to learn to operate effectively along side each other so we aren’t trying to “do it all”. We do have to trust that others can do that what they are best in. Each having an other speciality or an other main interest is best to concentrate on the subjects they are good at or which are not yet been tackled or spoken off. We need to focus deeply on our core capabilities and trust others to fill the gaps. But naturally there have to be others willing to come to full those gaps. Therefore we would like to ask all who come along this site and who read this article, to think about joining us and helping everybody to create a way to reach more people with our message for making a better world for all around us.

Better than giving awards and prizes we let others know those sites which could be of interest and do take actively part in spreading good news, up-building words, uplifting stories and designs or pictures, showing the world the beauty which is to find if we want looking for it and seeing it.

Caring people

All those who join us should be people who want to care or who have the right spirit to look and find the “unlimited loving kindness of others”. It should be people who carry the “caritas” in them, the philanthropy and charity, to help others and reduce inequity and suffering while in process becoming caring individuals.

I am convinced, though we may not know the persons individually, with our writings we can reach them and have something to bring to them which can relieve them. In the articles we can point out roots of problems and show solutions to problems. Seeing and recognising the problems in the world, lying them in the “open”, we do have no other choice than to act and react, to relieve the pain of our neighbours. Looking at giving chiefly through the lens of amount of money is inappropriate and belittles the efforts of those who are giving far more of themselves.

Giving is about helping humankind and becoming better people in ourselves; It is a willingness to know your own position and to be aware of the position of others. You shall always find people who are better off and also whoo are worse off. there also would always people you like more than the other. It even can well be there are persons you hate. there are many people in this world who loose a lot of energy hating someone. We would love to bend that energy in the positive sense. We do believe that the more you start to care for that person the more each of you will be growing to each other respecting for what you are.Showing love not hateShowing to the world that we care, this will in the end bring some changes. Every little change will be worth the effort. Whether or not they will react, if they are going to say something to you, and whether they actually feel something towards you.

Hate takes to much time out of your life. It destroys your relationships and makes you a person you don’t want to be. {Hate is for the Weak}

We would like to bring the message to the general public:

Why hate someone and show them that you care more than you say? Why put in all that time and energy for someone you don’t want apart of your life? {Hate is for the Weak}

We want as many people as possible to become part of our world. We would love to see a rainbow-nation, where many ideas may find their appreciation and may construct something nicely.

Nothing is wrong to have an own opinion and being passionate about it. We do hope more people shall be coming out of their shell, to be wanting to become more determined to come out on top and show people they have the right to be where they are or stand in their life.

Jukebox of positiveness

Saswata Mitra tries to bring a box full of shimmer, being fresh, imaginative and alluring, like a jukebox, their perhaps you may ask and get, but also here we would like to offer such a sort of jukebox. We do believe the best medicine is the positive thought. We would love to find more writers and photographers or plastic artists who can share their positive ideas and beautiful pictures to inspire others.

The blog “The Mystic Sandbox ” initiated by Saswata and Navneet, revolves around crisp and precise about stuff that you will be able to relate. We too would like to find writers who manage to offer enough material to which many could relate and get inspired from.

We do not mind presenting people here who may have notions that are contradictory to mainstream conjecture. We do not have to go along with the majority in life. We also could try to convince others they are not so strange or mad to have other ideas than the mainstream. We would like to show others they might have confidence in the way they are thinking and the way they want to go, though it is not how the majority wants them  to go.

Saswata wrote:

“In life, we come across many challenges. Some of them make us who we are while some tell us what we should be. Sometimes it is the opposite. There will be struggle, there will be bad days. Days which would never seem to end. Days which would go on and on, which would keep hurting us till the end. Many of us actually most would give up but the people who wont will be the ones to face the brighter side of the day. The night is darkest before dawn but how can we forget the rainbow after the rain? We understand to love, to give, to endure, to find pleasure, to please but what we do not understand is ourselves during all of this. Life can lie to us and no one will stop it, it can play all sorts of games with us without us even knowing because there is no one controlling it. But whatever happens in life happens for good. Good of all in it..” {Sorry For The Long Absence and What’s Been Going On In My Life!}

We would love to let others see that we all can learn from our own bad experiences and turn them into something good. By sharing each-others experiences we would like to show the love for our neighbours and allow them to have a peep in our own bad and good experiences so they might learn from them as well.

Internet enabling us to bring over a message of peace

We may be happy we do have such great instruments, like the internet and WordPress, enabling us to put our fragile words on the internet and embracing the blogging world a little more each day, savouring the words of other bloggers, practising control from inundating you as a reader, inspired by the blogs we follow. Together we can unite and show this union by having group blogs next to our own private blog. There we can bring a short overview of what we published or of what we found interesting the last few days.  It is in such group blogs like Stepping Toes and From Guestwriters that people may bring many voices together and show their main interest and give others chances to connect with other writers or people from all over the world, of many cultures, minds, lovers, in short: writers and humanity.

Let us all always remember:

“Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”
-Martin Luther King

and that: when we do not speak, we also give a voice or “speak”, and enable that good, but also bad things, can happen.

Therefore I do hope many will be willing to join and give a voice to spread nicer messages than all the violence we hear every day on the wireless. We also do hope some will like to share some nicer pictures than the awful images we every day get to see on the screens of television and computer.

A small word or many words

We invite everybody who would love to spread a thought of love and peace to join us. Even when they only would contribute once a year, with having twelve writers this would give once a month a thought bringing some positiveness to others. It might be telling about something positive that happened somewhere in the world. Not focussing on all the bad things that happen in this world but giving once attention to something positive, the media may forget or put it somewhere forgotten in a small corner of the so ‘maniest’ page. We sould love to find some facts, but also would appreciate some fiction as  well, that can make us dream or look at the world in a positive way. We would love to see stories that may have a human connection. A real life story. Please remember no story is big or small. Every story matters.

Every one may come forward to share their stories or pictures.  they may do it by acting or reacting on something what is published here or they may offer their services as a co-author. It is a free choice. We also offer a platform where people are invited to share ideas and to talk their heart out.

In case they would prefer to stay anonymous they are also welcome to send in material and we will publish it not disclosing their identity.

In the hope to find many people who would like to come along here to read and to share,

I do thank all those who came along and took some time to linger on this site, and do hope to see them coming back again.

Looking forward to find more people from all over the world willing to share their contributions and letting us know other interesting websites, writers and artists,

Yours sincerely,

Marcus Ampe

You too may join a movement the world needs.

We are having a “membership drive” so-to-speak, and we would really love you participation.

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Interesting reading:

1. Inner Peace Award
2. In A World of Balance There Is Peace and Justice
3. Absolute truths and simple truths.
4. February Post For Peace
5. Poignant Imagine
6. Peace Takes You
7. Bloggers for Christ and Bloggers for Peace
8. Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate
9. Martin Luther King Jr. – Biographical
10. The need for quiet
11. The habit of being quiet
12. Project Inspiration is Key: What Inspires Me
13. Learning in Peace-Time?
14. Migrants to the West #7 Religions
15. Why I Am Praying for Putin–and Obama
16. Disunity in Christ (Part 1)
17. Disunity in Christ (Part 2)
18. One Unholy Divided Church
19. Friday Fruit (03/21/14)
20. Nelson Mandela – By Their Strange Fruit
21. In Mandela’s Own Words – By Their Strange Fruit
22. Mandela the ‘Terrorist’ (Part 1) – By Their Strange Fruit
23. Mandela the ‘Terrorist’ (Part 2) – By Their Strange Fruit
24. Microaggressions – By Their Strange Fruit
25. When discouraged facing opposition
26. Several quotes about peace.
27. Not to speak is to speak
28. Be still and listen
29. No More Awards Please
30. Peace Action
31. All I want is peace!!!
32. Monthly Peace Challenge – We Are Family
33. Monthly Peace Challenge: Peace Child
34. Peace Child – A Bloggers for Peace post
35. Pax Nation & Peace Child #B4Peace
36. March B4Peace Post–A Peaceful Resolution
37. Perspective
38. Who is the enemy?
39. What is in your reach?
40. Members of the ecclesia uniting and seeking God’s help in tribulation
41. Unity a Sign of Spiritual Maturity
42. Am I Crazy?
43. I’m Confused About My Spiritual Beliefs.
44. Looking for True Spirituality 1 Intro
45. Looking for True Spirituality 2 Not restricted to an elite
46. Looking for True Spirituality 8 Measuring Up
47. How Does One Measure True Spiritual Satisfaction?
48. Determine the drive
49. Bringing Good News into the world
50. Testify of the things heard
51. Trying to get the youth inspired
52. Still, Small Voice
53. In spite of insight
54. Knowing where to go to
55. Do No-Thing: The Power of Self Love.
56. Crazy Messy Love: [Insert Faith Here.]
57. Legacy of peace
58. Its Never to Late
59. I Was to write about love
60. Peace Prevails
61. Being At Peace!
62. Guard well within yourself that treasure, kindness

Some Fellow February B4Peace posts:

1. (everydaygurus.com) – The man behind the idea. Monthly Peace Challenge: Mad Men Plus another post
2. (farawayinthesunshine.wordpress.com) – February post for Peace – help
3. (professionsforpeace.com) – Happy Birthday to a Warrior for Peace
4. (professionsforpeace.com) – loving february
5. (fecthis.wordpress.com) – Please Empower A Compassionate Earth
6. (ejjudge.wordpress.com) – Kindness — a Bloggers for Peace post
7. (kmhubersblog.com) – I’ll take the unknown
8. (taochildseye.wordpress.com) – Weekly Photo Challenge – Love
9. (300dayjourney.wordpress.com) – Monthly Peace in a Poem
10. (gloriousmettle.wordpress.com) – A Peaceful Goodbye
11. (delusion247.wordpress.com) – The Secret to happiness
12. (taochild.wordpress.com) – A true friend
13. (heartflow2013.wordpress.com) – Living Love; Day 9 – Daring
14. (picturesinlivingcolor.wordpress.com) – The Peace Garden
15. (leazengage.wordpress.com) – one more person promoting peace
16. (spiritualworldtravelerblog.com) – Peace & Love Are Eternal

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 >>> This club of writers was initiated by Marcus Ampe founder of the Lifestyle magazine Stepping Toes. <<<

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