Tag Archives: Questions

“I want to draw closer to God, but…”

We, at our office, regularly receive letters from people who would love to come to know God and want to feel closer to Him. Several people tell us how difficult it is for them to see God near to them when they are confronted with so many difficulties.

Especially during the Corona period, we received many requests to tell more about suffering, illness, life and death. The pandemic made many people reflect on the how and why of our presence here on earth and what would be after death.

Seeking God

Some days, it can feel like all of life’s demands are conspiring together to consume you. But, seeking God in His Word has the power to bring positive change into your life. We are convinced that God Himself has made the answers available by recording His Words and thus enabling them to be passed on through the ages.
So if you are looking for answers to the many questions in your life, we recommend reading the Bible daily. There you shall be able to find a “A living Word giving confidence“.

Daily rhythm

How can you find that daily rhythm?

By setting small, achievable goals… and taking them on one by one.

To help you, the Christadelphians provide some help to go through the Bible day by day in a year. They also provide next to the Bible Reading Plan or chart some inspirational texts in their “Thought for today“. That Bible Companion or guide developed by the Christadelphians to aid reading the Bible, is just a practical aid, encouraging people to continue their Bible reading in a way that they do not skip the same chapters, but go from one book to the other, chapter after chapter, each year. It was first produced by Robert Roberts when he was 14 years of age, in about 1853, and revised by him over a number of years into its current format.

Please do find a 2-page PDF document Bible Reading Plan

Bible apps

Modern technology also has provided several applications. You always could use a bible app to have it presenting some daily bible verses, to think about.

Did a particular Bible verse really speak to your heart? Highlight it, and you’ll unlock the Highlight Badge. Keep highlighting, and you’ll “level up” each time you reach the next milestone. Try the same thing with Bookmarks, and unlock and level up your Bookmark Badge!

Badges

Motivate yourself.

Complete one of our annual challenges (like the Christmas Challenge), and you’ll earn a Badge. Subscribe to a Bible Plan, and you’ll unlock the Plan Subscription Badge. Finish that Plan, and you’ll unlock the Plan Completion Badge. Keep starting and finishing Plans, and you’ll level up both.

Badges in Profile

Build momentum.

Your home feed shows your progress on Badges. Go to your profile to see all the Badges you’ve unlocked so far… and which other Badges are available. Once you’ve encouraged yourself with some of the smaller Badges, maybe you’ll feel inspired to chase the Whole Bible Badge.

Badges in Community Feed

And inspire others.

Your friends will see your Badges in their feeds, or you can share your journey and invite them to join you, on social media or by text. And, when you see your friends’ Badge progress in your feed, you can like or comment to encourage them.

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God’s Word is with you.

Tens of millions of people are using the Bible App™ to make God’s Word a part of their daily lives. Download the free app and access your bookmarks, notes, and reading plans from anywhere. Enjoy hundreds of versions, including audio, all on your mobile device.

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Preceding

Hide and Seek ~

In October-November People often too busy with death and the dead

You don’t have to walk through the fire

Knowledge of God by reading and willingness to open your mind to transform you

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Additional reading

  1. Souls and Religions with Nirvana and light
  2. Looking for True Spirituality 8 Measuring Up
  3. People Seeking for God 2 Human interpretations
  4. People Seeking for God 4 Biblical terms
  5. People Seeking for God 6 Strategy
  6. People Seeking for God 7 The Lord and lords
  7. Struggles of life
  8. When you don’t know what to do and hate yourself
  9. Major challenges and great things happpening in our life
  10. Isaiah 55-56, Revelation 11
  11. Being religious has benefits even in this life
  12. Healthy life can be found in sacred books
  13. Creator and Blogger God 7 A Blog of a Book 1 Believing the Blogger
  14. A living Word giving confidence
  15. Daily Spiritual Food To prepare ourselves for the Kingdom of God
  16. Bible
  17. Bible Word of God inspired and infallible
  18. Word of God
  19. Gospel or Good News – Evangelie of Goede Nieuws
  20. Questions on the Bible and Crossword Books
  21. Today’s thought “A New Year” (January 01)
  22. Today’s thought “Blessed the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly” (January 01)
  23. Today’s thought “Going with the right people” (January 01)
  24. Today’s thought “Jehovah God makes us dwell in safety and confident trust” (January 02)
  25. God is the strength of my heart
  26. Concerning prayer and thought for the day

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Related

  1. Seeking God; April 27, 2022
  2. Looking For God in Our Daily Lives
  3. God Did All This
  4. No Short-Cuts
  5. Finders, Seekers
  6. Sticky Note From God ~05.17.22~
  7. May 21st-a reminder to seek God diligently; we know not how we may be blessed along the journey
  8. May 22nd-Why not make a commitment to seek God through fasting and prayer for that situation that is right now giving us great concern?
  9. Quiet time, Part 1
  10. Connection is Vital
  11. Outward vs. Inward: A matter of heart
  12. Where do I  start reading my Bible?
  13. Did you remember to read your Bible? One Year Bible Reading Plan and Devotional Today’s Bible Reading: March 8 Download the full one-year Bible reading plan here
  14. Did you remember to read your Bible?
  15. Psalms 30 Day Reading Plan

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Filed under Lifestyle, Questions asked, Religious affairs

6 Startling Questions I Would Love To Ask You

Victor Uyanwanne with Victors’ Corner wants to serve as a reminder that You are a Victor. On his blog, you will find items on Inspiration, Christian living, lively Poems, Family, blogging matters and any other thing that tickles his fancy and then packaged to enrich your life.

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To remember

For sure every one of us has many questions. Some of them gets answered in our lifetime, others look like we have to fish for them in a dry pond.

Victors Corner Blog

Written by Victor Uyanwanne

talent, book, spirual

Have you ever asked yourself some serious questions? Has anyone ever dared to ask you any question that unnerved you? Are you making the best sense of your life now?

Are you satisfied with the status quo you found yourself in? Can the answers you get by asking yourself some unusual questions help improve your lot in life? Has any question ever challenged you to seeking better ways of leading a happier, healthier and even wealthier life?

You will agree with me that asking appropriate questions is good. That is exactly what I felt like doing in this post: ask you a few surprising questions.

You are free to ask your own questions as well. But first please spare a few minutes more and read to the end of this discourse. Then you can release your own repertoire of questions: to me, to yourself and…

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Knowledge & Wisdom, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Reflection Texts, Religious affairs, Welfare matters

Sometimes the best answer is a question

English: Poet Rainer Maria Rilke, former secre...

Poet Rainer Maria Rilke, former secretary of August Rodin Česky: Básník Rainer Maria Rilke, kdisi tajemník Rodinův (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The poet Rainer Maria Rilke exchanged special letters with a young, doubtful and novice poet.What he then wrote to Kappus , at the beginning of the twentieth century, is still true today.

Love your questions
Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart
and try to look at your questions lovingly,
like locked rooms.
Or like books written in a very foreign language.
Do not now seek the answers .
which cannot be given you ,
because you would not be able to live them yet.
It is about “living” everything.

Live your questions now.
And perhaps you will then gradually,
without noticing it
find yourself
one day
in your answer.

Rainer Maria Rilke
from :Letters to a Young Poet
Balans, 2009

Dutch version / Nederlandse versie: Soms is het beste antwoord een vraag

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Movement Without a Name

Silence is not an empty space, but is filled with answers

Every day, for the duration of a lifetime.
So many questions. So much doubt. So many thoughts.

Newspapers tell us about possible paths to take.
Friends give advice.
Books give insight.

What happens when you empty your head ?
What do you feel when it is quiet?
When you close yourself off from the outside world?

When you make everything go quiet, very quiet, as in hibernation.

The intense silence makes you restless at first.
Your thoughts go on raving.
And that is allowed.
Accept your doubts and your fears.

But then, listen…
Silence speaks.
Your inner voice becomes powerful.
You can quieten yourself.
In the Great Silence you find your own voice again.
And also your own answers.

Every now and then, become silent.
Be at home in yourself.
Silence is not an empty space, but full of answers.

 

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Dutch original / Nederlands origineel: De stilte is niet leeg maar vol antwoorden

sign for being quiet (Zeichen für Ruhigsein)

sign for being quiet (Zeichen für Ruhigsein) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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Related articles

  1. Negative state of mind – created by worry, anger, boredom, or
  2. impatience
  3. Screams of solitude
  4. Words
  5. Lent Reflection: Hiding Place
  6. Kierkegaard’s Remedy for the Modern World
  7. The Weight of Silence
  8. Shhh… Quiet
  9. Quietness (by Janet)
  10. Quietness (by Care giving marriage)
  11. Tranquility 
  12. A Quiet Moment
  13. Quiet the mind
  14. Feel
  15. Find Your Quiet Place
  16. Quietness Over Strife
  17. The Power in Quietness
  18. Within
  19. What calms and settles …
  20. Peaceful sands, quiet hands
  21. Mindfulness requires that we not over-identify with thoughts and feelings so that we are caught up and swept away by negativity.
  22. Little ways to improve your life
  23. Listen!
  24. Silent
  25. Silence…
  26. The sound of silence
  27. The Silence of Others
  28. Into My Stillness
  29. Spirit filled… Spirit led…
  30. Blissful 🦋
  31. Quote of the day: You may think I am small
  32. Loud-mouthed …..  –Hush Now
  33. Weekly Torah Commentary -Trumah March 3, 201
  34. Swift to hear – James 1:19
  35. Life is a candy shop
  36. Quiet Girl 
  37. Free time… what to do?
  38. The Forgotten Aspect of Prayer
  39. Stand Still And Praise
  40. The Cracks in My Silence
  41. Ode to Quietness
  42. The Thread

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Filed under Being and Feeling, Lifestyle, Movement Without a Name

Reflections on Existence and Teaching

Maria Gianna Iannucci at her blog Reflections on Existence as an educator at Mercy High School in Middletown, CT.  has written courses in Astronomy and Cosmology, Neuroscience, and Medical Botany for the High School level, wonders why she came to teach.

Betonwerksteinskulptur "Lehrer-Student&qu...

Betonwerksteinskulptur “Lehrer-Student” von Reinhard Schmidt in Rostock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Lots of educators do feel they have a calling. You might even call it a drive which brings them to put themselves at the site at the service for others. Many may have different reasons why they choose to become a teacher. But for sure one can not be a good teacher when one does not love the matter or subject one chooses to bring over to others. In a certain way the one who wants to teach properly must be

in love with God’s new creation. {Why I Teach…}

Every year again the teacher gets to see youngsters which have many questions and lots of aspirations, but also many who do not see the reasons of existence any more and do not know where to go to. It is up to the teacher then to show them some light and many reasons to go forward.

With each generation that moves forward on the earth, hope is born.

when one teaches in class or comes to write a blog, sometimes an other way of teaching and preaching,

It takes contemplation, inspiration, creativity, consistency, and commitment…all those things add up to one thing…love. {A Note To All My Followers}

Without commitment and love for the other one can not bring such life in teaching that can inspire others to continue to do further research and to grow in the knowledge of science, arts, and so on. Without the commitment to the good of others, wanting to give oneself to the other  and to give as much usable information as possible. This free giving, with the knowledge that one can not know everything, that each of us is limited, but by sharing information we all can grow.

As teachers we do also have a mission which should make us to do our utmost best to fulfil the mandate given to us. Our direction should inspire those in front of us and should make us to want to go further than our generation.

Sometimes at the expense of your own wishes. I am committed to holding space for peace and real love in a world that often does not understand what that means. Our behest should also be to bring knowledge and peace, living for the moments “when our students wake up and look at us with new eyes”

as the universe expands beyond their capacity to comprehend. {Why I Teach…}

Maria Gianna Iannucci stands with the young at the threshold of possibilities, when they begin to realize their true purpose.

They catch a brief glimpse of a Love so expansive it leaves them breathless and in awe. I teach for the moments when they see in each other a reflection of the cosmos and the Love that animates it. {Why I Teach…}

I teach to awaken those who slumber, to comfort the grieving, to rejoice with those who dance, to bring hope to those who believe they live in a meaningless world. {Why I Teach…}

for many it may seem a meaningless world, and today with not many prospects. But by opening their eyes to the past and showing them it is a continuous act of reflecting back to mankind and to each of us, individually and in group, that we may come to see much more clear and see that there can be a line of continued hope.

English: A special education teacher assists o...

A special education teacher assists one of her students. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The female writer might, like I have done throughout the years I was teaching them, trying to show her pupils the beauty of our world, always referring back to the master Hand behind it,

so that they see with clarity, the beauty of the gifts they were given by the Eternal One. {Why I Teach…}

I can only hope students remember something from what their wanted to teach them plus from what he or she wanted to show them how we as human beings had to move on in this world. I sincerely hope that

Maybe my students will remember the unconditional love and respect, the feeling of being safe and cared for, being known and cherished for who they really are …and carry that out into the world. {Why I Teach…}

Whatever our purpose here on earth, we having been placed here, have to be fostered, guided by others, who want to guide us thorough our growing up process. even when many do not want to know that

We are brought into existence together for the purpose of growing into the very Love that created our hearts and the stars {Why I Teach…}

each educator has to show that way, with lots of patience and hope for the future.

Maria Gianna Iannucci one of her aims of her classes is to show young people the value of the plants for food and medicine to help keep these spaces free. When we look how far people have grown away from nature this is essential. We should have more teachers showing kids how man should be united with nature.

It is sad that nature is not appreciated in its own right, that we have to extract something from it.

Educators should continue with their unending efforts of trying to bring the parts of the chain of knowledge to youngsters and showing them the tools to handle everything that comes in front of them.

I always hoped that by personal endurance or forbearance I could bring some sparkle to lighten the brains of those in front of me and to get them to look for new ways of building up their own life and a new future. Sometimes our way of looking at things, or way of speaking, perfidies that we are a teacher.  (Even on holiday so many asked me if I was a teacher.)

“Once a teacher, always a teacher”

is how Steve Schwartzman see and I it.

The blogster ends her article

To teachers past and present who have dedicated their lives to the restoration of earth and the cultivation of the human. Why I Teach…

with a quote from the French philosopher and paleontologist known for his theory that man is evolving, mentally and socially, toward a final spiritual unity, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

“As soon as humans have woken to explicit consciousness of the evolution that carries them along, and begin as one to fix their eyes on the same thing ahead of them, are they not, by that very fact, beginning to love one another?”

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Additional reading

  1. The first question: Why do we live
  2. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #7 Education
  3. Too many pupils for not enough teachers
  4. Passion and burn out of a teacher
  5. A learning process for each of us
  6. For those who make other choices
  7. Fools despise wisdom and instruction

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Further reading

  1. Live List of Education Books
  2. The Simplest Question Needs the Simplest Answer
  3. Science: A Great Source of Metaphor…
  4. Teaching ruminations
  5. What My Student Teacher Taught Me
  6. Oh, The Power You Have…And Yet May Not Even Use.
  7. Banning teachers from work
  8. 5 Educational Concepts We Need To Eliminate In 2017
  9. In memoriam George Aditjondro
  10. Thoughts About How I’ve Just Finished School Forever
  11. Reflects the core values of Career Toppers
  12. An Open Letter to My Firsts
  13. What Is a Traditional Teacher?
  14. Critiques of Groupwork in ESL Classrooms
  15. Native Speaker Privilege and Unprofessionalism within the ESL Industry by Kevin Hodgson 
  16. Conversation with my favorite teacher 
  17. Worried
  18. There is Only One First
  19. Shakespeare and High School English Teachers
  20. Tempest-uous Spring Planning
  21. The Girl on the Piccadilly Line
  22. Dear Students
  23. About Me (miss Natalia)
  24. About Me (miss Lindsey)
  25. Teaching the Pre-Modern Post-Election
  26. Organisational Challenges are Usually Technology Related
  27. From business administration to midwifery education: Sara’s midwifery journey
  28. The little school in Huilongguan
  29. Feedback – perfect this and everything else falls into place!
  30. grading
  31. Internet Roundup: Education Part 7
  32. Teacher “number 4”
  33. Shock! My blog has been neglected again.
  34. Clashes with Colleagues.
  35. I have applied for a new job.
  36. Let’s Sum Up – My First Term.
  37. First Semester Down #madeit
  38. Maybe Sunday School Would Be Better If It Were Actually School
  39. Grateful the Time is Near
  40. I’m sure what you meant to say in that email critiquing my repertoire choices was thank you…
  41. New Day, New Start, TEFL wobbles stabilised
  42. Why are languages being taught like math?
  43. First Semester Review
  44. Time to recharge
  45. A Tale of Two Educators
  46. Teaching Others about Jesus

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Filed under Activism and Peace Work, Cultural affairs, Ecological affairs, Educational affairs, Food, Nature

A Place for Questions

On this platform, people who may have many questions, might find lots of answers.

Honestly, I am a very difficult and nervous type of person always full of questions. I can understand that my parents sometimes sat with hands in their hair, which probably could be quicker grey, by my innumerable questions.

Today, the medical world has such a beautiful labels for people with my personality or as many would call it, personality disorder. Being enormous busy, all the time full of energy, constantly with a barrel full of questions running around, I, here and there, have sometimes to find an outlet. But why would I not share some of those questions with others?

Nederlands: Logo Handboek Geo-visualisatie (th...How many people are not daily tampered with countless questions, but do not know where they can go with it? For them (and me) there is now on WordPress also a place where they can find questions that are common to many. Also there they may find questions by which they themselves also can pose other questions or give reactions. They may give their opinions on those questions. It is a place for Question and Answer, which hopefully shall be liked by some people. But they will first need to know to find that spot.

All the readers who come along here, are hereby also invited to meet my site Question Time.

Opening's article of Questiontime - Allereerste artikel op Questiontime - Vragenuurtje: 2016/11/30

Opening’s article of Questiontime – Allereerste artikel op Questiontime – Vragenuurtje: 2016/11/30

Question Time – Vragenuurtje was born on November 30 of the year 2016, and will occasionally posit some questions, which I hope some readers will not mind to give some answers to them. Not really being a forum it just brings some musings and questions to the forefront. The articles are provided with links to other sites which can provide some answers are go deeper into the subject. Complementary to the information supplied by visitors or comments, this should give you and me the ability to dive into the given material and to become somewhat wiser and spiritually richer.

Please do find my invitation, here with, to come to visit and to discover my site Questiontime.

Find the first English articles:

  1. First blog post – Eerste blog post
  2. The first question: Why do we live
  3. 2nd question: What or where is the beginning
  4. and the page telling more about Questiontime -Vragenuurtje
Questiontime-Vragenuurtje website: 01 December 2016

Questiontime-Vragenuurtje website: 01 December 2016

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Dutch version: Een Plaats voor Vragen

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Further reading

  1. Question Time
  2. Question time! #1
  3. Question Time from Stirling.
  4. Being in the audience of Question Time – a few thoughts
  5. Is It Just Me: Horrified After Question Time?
  6. Six Things you might not Know about BBC Question Time 
  7. Question Time panelist pauses for applause which never comes
  8. Is Question Time really biased?
  9. Growing old gracefully
  10. Well…
  11. Get To Know Me!
  12. More lame excuses
  13. Question – Who do you look up to?
  14. Question – What is the one thing that you want to accomplish tomorrow?
  15. Question time!
  16. Where are you on your Goodreads Challenge?
  17. Starting something futile | Question Time
  18. What Is The Meaning? #99
  19. When should you use first principles thinking? When should you avoid it?
  20. Today’s question
  21. ask not how but why – musings on ‘the interview’
  22. Do I want 
  23. I’m going through a whole thing.
  24. 25 Questions That Will Tell You Immediately Whether He’s ‘One Of The Good Ones’
  25. The First Thought;
  26. Personal Development Interaction.
  27. Being Okay with the answer NO!
  28. Answers
  29. Not Everything You Need Is Necessary.

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Filed under Announcement, Being and Feeling, Headlines - News, Introduction

Solitude

Rattlesnake Pete from the Umatilla Indian Rese...

Rattlesnake Pete from the Umatilla Indian Reservation (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Everyday we all should detach ourselves for a moment from this world and find a secluded place for some set apart time with God.

From East Texas we can get Ed Christian’s World from an Indian whom seems to have had a wise grandfather. This man told him several times

“You best learn from the mistakes of others for you just plain don’t have enough time to make them all yourself.”

Growing up on an Indian Reservation, that proved to be very good advice for him he and his family were constantly in hot water over something. However he did put his advice to task and has learned several lessons in life that saved his skin and kept him out of trouble. {Choices we make in life}

He is aware that sometimes we can become so mesmerized by a “golden carrot” that we overlook the risks that are associated when we do have to make the right decision. It is nice that we can have an outside voice speaking into the situation. If we are willing we shall be able to find answers to our questions spoken by a Voice which is much mightier than any human voice.

According to that blog’s writer that time of chat can bring us a sort of a miracle drug when we also take some time to pray for others.

Not only does it bring results to the person you are praying for, it also lifts your spirits at the same time. {On Prayer}

Through prayer he has learned never to under estimate the power of God!

His compassion and love is overwhelming to us here on earth, but it is through His love we are even here. He is the referee of our troubled hearts and the source of all our joy.
Prayer is our medium to talk with Him and the gentle whispers and nudges come from Him in answer. He will listen to our cries of sorrow and the tears of joy. He is always there to provide an answer or a path of guidance and He never turns a deaf ear. {On Prayer}

Paul encouraged the Colossians to “continue earnestly in prayer, being vigilant in it with thanksgiving” (Col. 4:2).

Our prayers are a powerful force in the universe! {Prayer and Love}

But he reminds us that faith and love are essential to each other and that we may not forget the Golden Rule. In the Sermon on the Mount, when speaking of the sixth commandment, the master teacher, rabbi Jeshua, taught his disciples that acceptable worship of the Father was impossible if everything was not right with one’s brother.

After having taught us to pray,

“Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,”

Christ added,

“If you forgive not men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

The writer of Ed Christian’s World is reminded of his younger days when his grandfather would tell him:

“Just because you don’t see His hand, don’t question His plan.”

God has a plan for each and everyone of us, we just have to be patient and listen to what He whispers to our hearts. {Silence}

In the bible every time Jesus prayed he went away from the crowd and prayed in seclusion. We are instructed in the bible to pray in a closet or some other place of privacy. The reason for doing this is so we can hear what His answer is. When He whispers in your ear or into your heart, it is best to be in a quiet place so you have no distractions from hearing His words. {Silence}

Are you willing to find some silence in the day where you take the time to be with the Most High? Are you prepared to follow Christ’s example and like him want to pray unceasingly?

Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1Thessalonians 5:16-18)

For me this has been the most efficient way to talk with God. He is always there to guide my every move and I am always looking for ways to share the blessings He has given me. We are in continuous conversation with each other. {Prayer and Love}

At the close of the parable of the unmerciful servant, He applies His teaching in the words,

“So likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother their trespasses” (Matthew 18:35). {Prayer and Love}

Throughout the day we can ask the Most Almighty for guidance. When we come to a rough area it is Him we may trust and count on. He leads us through it. Let prayer be a continuous conversation. Come to see that His answers are always within reach.

The importance of listening can not be overstated. He is always there and always has the correct answer.

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further reading

  1. Be Still and Know I am God
  2. Keeping promises
  3. Quote of the day
  4. Sunday Worship: Proverbs 27:17
  5. From the Slavery of our Desires to the Slavery of Allah
  6. Call to Worship
  7. Five Important Moments
  8. In Time
  9. Sunday: Morning Prayer
  10. 5 Reasons Why I Can’t Wait for Sunday
  11. rest
  12. Anxiety Attacks and Peace Pleas
  13. 10 Prayers for Great Parenting
  14. Study: Prayer Reduces Temptation to Drink Alcohol
  15. How Simple Faith and Prayer Can Lead Others to the Lord
  16. Invitation
  17. Should We Pray to Jesus?
  18. Praying For Your Significant Other
  19. A Prayer Through the Storms
  20. Morning Prayer
  21. Just a thought on God’s care (05/29/16)
  22. Daily Bread – Call Upon The Lord

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Filed under Lifestyle, Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs

Inner voice inside the soul of man

What fellowship hath the voice of God inside of the soul of man with unrighteousness

asked Cecil J. duCille (1922-2009) in one of his devotionals. He looked at the human beings who did perhaps good but did not follow that inner voice they had to hear in themselves.

He continues:

No one who continues to move in self-motivation is of God. The average American woman is a woman who loves to rule her husband. It’s unfortunate for me to say this in a world-wide sense and let the people in the world know that is how we Americans are. The average American woman is taught to have her own way, to have her own bank account, to have her own business going. She does not go in accordance with the scriptural description of a Proverbs 31 woman.” {Come out of Sinning, Come into Righteousness}

English: A statue of Jesus Christ at a church ...

A statue of Jesus Christ at a church in India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This preacher who according some was commissioned by Jesus Christ as an apostle of our time and a minister of the Gospel in 1948 clearly had a certain idea about the role of woman. Throughout the course of his life, both him and his wife, carried the Gospel of the Kingdom of Jesus Christ worldwide establishing congregations throughout the globe. They first started in the Island of Jamaica. Then in 1969 they were sent by God to the United States to warn the people of God of the destruction that was coming. They founded Sonlight Ministries International and established works throughout Europe, Africa, India, and many other countries. They travelled tirelessly through the entire world, teaching and preaching wherever the doors would open to receive the revelation that God had given to them. {Sonlight devotional org/about}

He asked woman to turn from the natural trait of their generation to turn to God and do God’s work rather than that of their generation. Today we could still ask man and woman to turn away from that what the majority considers a natural lifestyle of fun. He writes:

Men and women, stop doing your own thing. If you want to do what you want to do, you must realize that you are not doing what God wants you to do. Then, somebody, after he goes and does his own thing, gives a good tithe or a good offering to the church. God doesn’t care for your offering. God wants your soul. When He gets your soul, He gets everything. {Come out of Sinning, Come into Righteousness}

In many churches we do find preachers calling for giving money so that blessing can come over you. We can assure you that are not the right ways. Man can not bribe God. There is nothing you can purchase from God, who you can not buy over either. God is not corrupt and you can not corrupt Him.

In this world we can see lots of people who have lots of questions and are looking for some answers. Some parents can not follow their children or do not understand why they go certain ways. Often they forget how important their example is in the course of their children.

Now, sometimes it is hard for us to believe that our own children are unbelievers, but sometimes our children are unbelievers. Their only deliverance is for us to walk in righteousness. {Come out of Sinning, Come into Righteousness}

Though we should not think too fast they are unbelievers. Perhaps they are in a stadium of questions and will coming in a later stadium of asking questions. They are aware that “our Earth” is not such a stable and unchanging home as we would like nor a “sure stronghold” which could never be substantially disrupted.

As such people shall have to come to ponder. They can not find the real answers in their communication with man and then they may see those people who believe in such an unseen Higher Supreme Being. This can give them a Question to Ponder : Communication with God. In this world of communication we see that lots of communication gets lost in the ‘fog’. Workers and bosses seem drifted away from each others understanding and seem not able to communicate properly any more.

They find it strange that there are such silly people who have an Almighty God as their friend. They wonder how that can be. How can people believe in something they can not see nor hear? There, they forget that the Works of that God can be seen every day around us and when man opens his or her ears to the Voice of that God they will hear that God speaking to them.

When you truly press in to know God and you prayerfully study His Word (meaning you sincerely ask God to reveal Himself and what His Word means,) you will discover that God is Almighty God, He is our Heavenly Father, and He is our friend. There is a balance important to our relationship with God if we hold these three truths in appropriate perspective. {Part Two: The Voice of God Within You}

Pastor Tim knows:

Jesus reveals that God is our Heavenly Father.

Matthew 6:31-33 says, “So don’t worry about having enough food or drink or clothing. Why be like the pagans who are so deeply concerned about these things? Your heavenly Father already knows all your needs, and He will give you all you need from day to day if you live for Him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” {Part Two: God Speaking To You}

Whilst we have people looking at their phone, constantly following all the sms pop-ups on that little screen, they forget to use their brain message sending to the More Important Message Receiver and Replier.

Do you hear me? Anytime you turn to God and begin to walk according to that covenant that God has given you, walking it in righteousness – look at your children and you will see that it has an effect upon them. The devil cannot stand your righteousness and whenever you speak a word, it rebukes Satan from your own children if you are in righteousness. If you are not in righteousness and you speak a word, it does not rebuke Satan from your children. Therefore, your children are dependent upon you for life. If you think that you can save them by giving your time and your attention to them, you are making a very sad, sad mistake. Your time and attention to God will save them more than anything else. {Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September, 2009}

All those who look for the pagan solutions or think the atheist world can bring the right answers perhaps could also have a look at the other side. In case they would listen to their inner voice they could be surprised to hear other voices, other ideas and can come to discover that there is really something more special, which (true) we can not always or fully understand. But giving time to that inner voice and taking time to come to know what is written in that Book of books we can come to know God as our Heavenly Father – the perfect father that none of us every had. You shall be surprised that you even shall be able to experience greater intimacy with Him than with any other person.

It doesn’t mean we should become less reverent toward Him. It means that we see His awesomeness and reverence it but also realize that the most powerful being in the universe –perfect and Holy in nature is also deeply in love with a fatherly love toward us. How awesome is that and how much more would it elevate our faith and trust in Him to watch over us?  {Part Two: God Speaking To You}

Most everyone would agree that a good and especially and intimate relationship is not going to happen between two people unless there is good two way communication. I think most people get that. We get the fact that it takes good two-way communication to build an intimate relationship yet with God, somehow we think we can build an intimate relationship with Him as a one-way conversation where we talk to Him and He listens but never responds? Honestly, that is lunacy!   {Part Two: God Speaking To You}

In heaven we do have somebody speaking for us. We have a mediator coming up for us. God listens also to this man his intercession. Jesus is that mediator who sits next to God. He defends us and can explain how we really feel and what we really want, though God knows this all, but is willing to listen to that intervention by His only begotten beloved son.

God calls Himself a “Father” to you. You can’t get more intimate than that. 2 Corinthians 6:18 says, “And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”
God sweetens this revelation of intimacy saying, “So you should not be like cowering, fearful slaves. You should behave instead like God’s very own children, adopted into his family—calling him “Father, dear Father.” Romans 8:15 (NLT) {What Makes Faith Perfect}

When man goes looking for God the Most High Supreme Being is willing to come to man. when we are sincere in our search He will be there to give us answers. We then only have to listen to our inner heart and react accordingly. This means that sometimes, not to say ‘often’, we shall have to make a choice, setting human traditions aside and taking those human teachings as false teachings. We when we hear that Voice of God shall have to make the proper choice to listen to that Higher Voice or to prefer continuing to listen to man’s voices.

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Preceding articles:

Of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something

Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities

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Additional reading

  1. Do you believe in One god
  2. God of gods
  3. Attributes to God
  4. God is one
  5. Does there have to be a Holy Trinity Mystery
  6. The Trinity – the truth
  7. One mediator
  8. Who was Jesus
  9. Bible Word of God, inspired and infallible
  10. Incomplete without the mind of God
  11. God is positive
  12. Let us not forget it was God who chose us
  13. God Helper and Deliverer
  14. Jehovah my strenght
  15. Life with God (video)
  16. Faith because of the questions
  17. Doing the works of God

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18 Comments

Filed under Knowledge & Wisdom, Lifestyle, Religious affairs

Engagement in an actual two-way conversation with your deities

Today we can find lots of people who are not at all interested in The God sole Creator of Heaven and Earth or in gods, though often they create themselves many gods and worship lots of idols, mainly from the little screen which has become a huge screen in these days (some have measures like the cinema screen of our childhood).

Driver in a Mitsubishi Galant using a hand hel...

Driver in a Mitsubishi Galant using a hand held mobile phone violating New York State law. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A 32 year old single girl who lives alone with three cats, in the process of trying online dating pagan, and likes to think about ‘big’ questions occasionally, currently trying to learn to read the tarot, writes:

Everywhere you turn within Pagan circles these days it seems like you are surrounded by people who have a direct connection to their Gods. They seem to be in possession of their very own ‘Godphone’ (to steal a term I have seen floating about) and are God-bothered on a seemingly constant basis. {G is for Gods}

She is not talking about that strong ‘godly communication‘ we talked about in our previous article. Though the mobile phone may be the new god of many, and lots of them do hope to find with that electronic tool with many gadgets or applications to find the real god app of their life.

Lots of the youngsters put all their aspirations in that mobile phone or their i-pad and are willing to cue all night just to have the latest i-phone or Apple McIntosh gadget. Several i.t.-meetings have taken the place of the old Eucharist celebrations and today we do find high-masses especially for electronic wizards.

After some time many get the feeling they are standing in a becoming colder breeze or getting a ice cold shower, putting them in the Hitchcock thriller were the blood runs in the gutter, taking all their so called (Facebook) friends with it. They do not start wondering if their godphone collection has gone wrong but think they must be at fault.
For sure they must be doing something wrong. The Gods must be ignoring them for a reason,

or you are just not open enough, or maybe you’re on the wrong path.  This is obviously the experience of ‘real’ pagans, so maybe you just aren’t pagan enough. {G is for Gods}

Perhaps there lies the fact: “being not pagan enough”. So this could perhaps give some hope for the many people who felt disillusioned after their internet experience. Perhaps this will give them enough reason to look for other and better values than those that internet can offer them.

The pagan lady writes she is not in possession of a Godphone,

I am not God-bothered, and I can’t think of a single time when I engaged in an actual two-way conversation with my deities. Sure I get a feeling about things sometimes, I know they appreciate the incense I offer her for example, but it exactly that… a feeling. This doesn’t mean I am not pagan enough and it is actually a perfectly normal experience for a large number of Pagans.

Those pagans we would offer a better solution. If their gods are not such listening gods and not so much answering gods, why would they not try to come to find the real Supreme God of gods? Why going second hand when each of us has the opportunity to go first hand 5-star quality?

Many of those not satisfied with what their mobile can bring, are looking for something more sacred or divine. Divination is something they are interested in.

I have spent some time looking at different types and trying to find one that works for me. I’ve tried runes, the pendulum, crystal gazing and even tea leaf reading but I am always drawn back to the Tarot. I am beginning to think it must be for the artwork, as I seem to have little to no skill in reading them! {D is for Divination}

Often we notice people are going to look for it so far away, when it is easy to grab for in front of their nose.

I have had all sorts of advice about reading cards, not just Tarot but oracle as well, but they tend to come back to either ‘learn by rote’ or ‘trust your intuition’. Having tried both, and continuing to flip between the two, I can see that I have problems with both. {D is for Divination}

Japanese mobile phone keyboard

Japanese mobile phone keyboard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We would say, it is not in those cards you shall find the right answers. You may find and see lots of symbols in it and find word-games made up by human beings, but when taking up a Book of books, written down in very old times, they would be surprised what it all has to tell, also about things happening today. In that Book of books, short “the Bible” they and we can find the answer on many of our daily questions. With that best-seller we get the best guide and best manual for life we ever can get.

When looking at it and giving it more of your time, you shall come to notice that it has not to be a one way road to seeing letters forming words, words forming phrases and phrases forming ideas. By reading all that old stuff we shall get ideas for our life and find out that it is not only our reading effort but also our taking down information out of the book that shall bring us to a two way system of communication.

When we are prepared to listen we shall find answers and we shall get replies.

Paganists looking at their own pagan books may find that when they have tried reading from intuition they went blank. The 32 year old lady writes:

I don’t trust myself enough to just open up and ‘say what I see’ as it were. I am so worried about getting it wrong that I just can’t allow myself to go with it.

Communication Centre, Kimbolton - geograph.org...

Communication Centre, Kimbolton – geograph.org.uk – 1572042 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, that opening up is something which is necessary for everything, to see the good but also to see the bad. We are all created in the image of God and as such we also have the inner feeling of good and wrong. Since the fall of man, having eaten the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil mankind, like the animals have their instinct, but they also received something more which is that inner feeling which gets deep down to them. Lots of people resist that inner feeling and that inner Voice. But as soon as a person wants to open him- or herself to that inner Voice he or she shall be able to come to hear the Voice of God. The Voice of the real God of gods, Who is a much better option than to go for all those other gods.

Go straight ahead to the Only True God of gods, the Most High Elohim, Hashem Jehovah!

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Preceding article: Of old and new ideas to sustain power and to feel good by loving to be connected and worship something

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Articles of interest:

  1. Do you believe in One god
  2. God of gods
  3. Attributes to God
  4. God is one
  5. Does there have to be a Holy Trinity Mystery
  6. The Trinity – the truth
  7. Bible Word of God, inspired and infallible
  8. Incomplete without the mind of God
  9. God is positive
  10. Let us not forget it was God who chose us
  11. God Helper and Deliverer
  12. Jehovah my strenght
  13. Life with God (video)
  14. Faith because of the questions

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29 Comments

Filed under Being and Feeling, Knowledge & Wisdom, Lifestyle, Religious affairs, Spiritual affairs

May we have doubts

Not all of us are sure about all things. Lots of matters may bring questions onto our mind.

Some may say doubt originates in a double minded person. Others say it is because a person is not enough believing in God. Others say he is not believing in Christ. Several Christians look at a doubter as a person not trusting Jesus.

Is this really so. Are we less better than other Christians when we have questions about certain matters? No, not at all.
Is doubt a sign of lacking faith? Perhaps. But it can be that you really do your best to walk in faith.
Is it because you do not believe in Jesus his victory over circumstances and trials? Perhaps, but not necessary so.

Is it because you cannot see the victory in your life you are seeking? Did you try already to check if you are really looking for the right victory?

Have you ever tried to think that what you would love to have and to see for yourself might not be in God His Will?

We are all human beings with our limitations and ‘malfunctions’.  We all have our little problems and as such we should know that every house carries its own cross.

Having all those difficulties coming over us, no wonder that we sometimes worry and question of we are doing it right or if we are following the right coarse.

In the Holy Scriptures we are advised to question everything. This means that God does understand that we more than once shall have questions with what we hear or read, and that is good, because we should question all those sayings.

For many life is an ongoing cycle of wandering and restoration. And though many would wish it were otherwise, this makes many sometimes going to and fro, coming close to God and at other moments being far away from God. Though some may desire to never depart from God, they keep losing track. Also for Jesus it seems for many Christians often difficult to keep feeling him nearby. On many occasions confronted with the realities of life we may have lots of doubts about many things.

The reality of our sinful human condition makes it so that we also have periods where our relationship with other human beings, with Christ and/or with God is disturbed a lot.

In our technological age of communication it looks like many have lost the good communication with the Most High Divine Creator.

James Paulgaard, a fellow traveller on the journey of life, also sees some problems of this time and age. He writes:

For centuries, up until the Sixties, the Church was perfectly designed for our culture. When a group of immigrants settled in a new area, one of the first things that they did was to build a church in the centre of the community. People valued going to church as a good thing. It made people into good citizens. Encouraging the Christian faith was seen as a valuable in our society at the time. There were benefits to going to church. You could build your network of social and business contacts and perhaps even meet your future spouse there. The church was perfectly designed to develop people in that environment into followers of Jesus. {Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things}

Today people have found other networks which they do find more important.

Choluteca Bridge

This bridge was a well-designed and fully functional bridge, but in 1998 Hurricane Mitch dumped 36 inches of rain on the area in just a few days and amidst all the other damage caused by the hurricane, the deluge of water carved a new channel for the river around the bridge and the bridge now spans dry ground. It is a perfectly designed bridge that doesn’t work anymore because the river moved. (Photo from the article: Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things)

Now, being part of a Christian Church is no longer seen as a desirable by our culture. Encouraging the Christian faith is no longer valued by our society. People do not need the church for social or business contacts or to find a spouse. We have websites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Plenty of Fish for all those things. A church that was perfectly designed to make disciples in the world of sixty years ago and older struggles to engage with the mission of Jesus Christ in the world of today because the river has moved. {Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things}

When you follow the articles on Our World and perhaps form your newspapers or journals on television, you are probably aware how bad the state of church attendance is. All over the industrialised countries we do find a secularized community. In some countries there may still be a solid core of people continue to value faith; but a growing core do not. { find a.o. Reginald Bibby, A New Day: The Resilience and Restructuring of Religion in Canada (Lethbridge: Project Canada Books, 2012), 5, 10, 34.}

Lots of people got to hear from their preachers that Jesus is God because no human being is ever able to follow God’s Will. Because of that lie, people have no trust in that Jesus any more and do find it rubbish that at other moments priests or pastors say they have to take the armour of Christ and become like Christ. That then would mean they  had to become like God, which is something impossible.

And in case it is impossible fro any human being to follow the Will of God, what use would it than be to even try, if no man ever could succeed.

Lots of people do forget that Jesus was a man who lived some two thousand years ago. He was a real person, others could see and not fall death (In the Bible is written that people cannot see God and live). That man, born in an Essene family from the tribe of king David, had to learn everything. People should know that God knows everything but this Jesus did not. He also had to disappoint those who wanted to know where they would be seated with him in God’s Kingdom. In case Jesus was God he could have told them because he would have known, but Jesus did not know it and had also to disappoint those who wanted to know when he would come back. Jesus always wanted to do the will of his heavenly Father and did not want to lie, like his heavenly Father does not tell lies. Not knowing when the end times or Last Days of this time system would fall, Jesus could not tell them, nor us, when he would be coming back.

In the Gospels we also can see that Jesus at moments had doubts and even wondered why God had abandoned him. So, in case Jesus dares already to ask God why He had left him, why should not such thoughts may or could come up in our minds.
What is important is how we cope with such thoughts. How we cope with our questioning God? And how we dare to question God.

We may ask God lots of things, but we have to do it in a proper manner. We also may request Him things, but we should know that God knows best for us.

Jesus has already done the hard work of living a perfect human life, dying on the cross and rising from the dead to reconcile all of creation to God. Jesus is the one doing the supernatural work of drawing people close to him and planting faith in their hearts.

as Greg Finke, {Joining Jesus on His Mission: How to Be an Everyday Missionary (Tyler TX: Tenth Power Publishing, 2014), 42-43} and James Paulgaard  {Following Jesus on His Mission: Doing the Simple Things} puts it.

English: A statue of Jesus Christ at a church ...

A statue of Jesus Christ at a church in India. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Jesus paved the path to God; He restored the relation between God and man and has become our mediator, now sitting at the right hand of God (notice: not on God’s throne).

The problem of today is that most people do not know the real Jesus.

To help to find Jesus and to get to see better the importance of what he really did, dying for us all, whitewashing our sins, there has been started a new website. “Messiah for all” wants to show the world that Christ Jesus was and is there for the whole world. He does not want to miss any body. He gives everybody the opportunity to get to know him and to get to know the way to the Kingdom of God.

“Messiah for all” is there for you to help you find Jesus and to find he is worth all your trust and all your faith.

Please do find that site for you and me, and start reading: Are people allowed to have doubts

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Find additional reading:

  1. What’s church for, anyway?
  2. Obstacles to effective evangelism
  3. To be prepared and very well oiled
  4. Impediments in our way
  5. Evangelisation, local preaching opposite overseas evangelism
  6. Looking for Free Blogs and blogging
  7. Those who love Jesus
  8. Humbleness
  9. Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God
  10. Humility and the Fear of the Lord
  11. No time for immorality

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  • Augustine on the Difference between Christianity and Platonism (booksontrial.wordpress.com)
    The difference between Platonism and Christianity is not merely a difference of interpretation, but the difference between perception/speculation on one side, and reality/true knowledge on the other. To use a Biblical imagery, there is a great gulf fixed between them. It is the difference between death and Life, between an inanimate object and a living being. Though philosophy may delight man with a magnificent picture of truth and beauty, it is nevertheless dead, and so the greatest philosophical ideas cannot be compared with the smallest life-giving word of God.
  • Most Blessed State of Being for Now (relijournal.com)
    A Christian is saying “I’ve got to be me” when the Holy Scriptures indicate we are to be crucified in Christ? I have to wonder how much spiritual damage was done to other by that worldly thinking. What “Christian” singers sing does not supercede the written Word of God. The Holy Bible does not indicate we have got to be “ourselves,” but it does state we are to be like Christ.
  • Living in the Wrong Time (histruthwillsetyoufree.wordpress.com)
    The best days are when I live in the present,  with my friend, the Holy Spirit of Jesus Christ.  With Him, there is no room for Regret or Worry.
  • Evangelists Want to Convert Heathen Computers To Christianity, Create Army Of ‘Robot Pastors’ (addictinginfo.org)
    On Wednesday, Gizmodo’s Zoltan Istvan reminded us that, soon, the world will be full of “autonomous, self-aware super intelligences” created by humans. Obviously, some Christians see this as an opportunity to convert something to their religion.

    Evangelists told Gizmodo that these sciencey, autonomous computer brains probably can, and definitely should, be saved by the blood of Jesus Christ.

  • Equal to Christ. Septuagesima 2015 (deprofundisclamaviadtedomine.wordpress.com)
    Jesus gave Himself for us to make us His own people who are zealous, eager, passionate about doing good works.  Christians have been born again so that they may live a new life of service to God in good works.
  • The Journey of Love and Commitment (vineandbranchworldministries.com)
    When we wonder about in life, do we ponder the meaning of the many gifts before us and offer praise and thanksgiving or do we literally take life for-granted.  Sanctification sets us apart and instills our hearts and spirit with the desire to follow the pattern Jesus gave.
  • Excuse My Scepticism (pastorcharleschipere.wordpress.com)
    In our Christian Faith, we are taught to believe rather than to be a doubting Thomas. We are taught to trust rather than mistrust. We are taught to give a person the benefit of the doubt before we dismiss them. But my journey of faith has had some encounters with reality leading me to embrace some sceptical attitude towards some things I have observed in the land of the living. Before I delve into my observations, please excuse my scepticism. But this scepticism does not take away my faith in God.
  • An Unfathomable Gift (connywithay.wordpress.com)
    “All other religions and sects teach that man has to perform many good works in order to gain bliss – salvation is dependent on man. The Christian faith is completely the opposite. It is God working salvation on behalf of man – salvation is dependent on God,” Jan Blonk writes in his book, The Unfathomable Gift: God’s Astonishing Grace.
  • The Other Side (culturalatheist.wordpress.com)
    Do you have a people or place that you have determined God is not present and the places and people are demonic and unclean?
  • The Call of God (mississippipep.wordpress.com)
    If God were human, how sick and tired He would be of the constant requests we make for our salvation and for our sanctification. We burden His energies from morning till night asking for things for ourselves or for something from which we want to be delivered! When we finally touch the underlying foundation of the reality of the gospel of God, we will never bother Him anymore with little personal complaints.

21 Comments

Filed under Being and Feeling, Religious affairs

The I Am to explore

When looking at the world man and animal can be seen moving around, sometimes men going about more than wild beasts.

In that universe where everybody in his worldly life is so busy with working and with earning money to be able to buy as many gadgets as they would like and to make their material dreams realised, lots of people consider those who have faith in a Supreme Being to be loosers or people who live in fantasy worlds. Lots of them do believe that when in faith you just have to accept everything blindly. For them and many faith is a mystery, where you need to ask any questions.

It is true that we mortals can not understand everything. We could even say that we should not even try to understand everything. Question is if you may look at faith on a rational way. Can you believe in a Higher Being Which or Who created everything. And do you have to approach all the saying about It/Him rationally?

Portrait of René Descartes, dubbed the "F...

Portrait of René Descartes, dubbed the “Father of Modern Philosophy”, after Frans Hals c. 1648 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The last few years focus has been on the rationale. René Descartes with many followers could say “I think, therefore, I am”, and we can only agree because when you are not in existence you can not “be“. When born and not able to think the being of that person is also like as if without life and can not do anything. To be able to do something a creature (animal or man) has to think or to use its/his/her brains. Without the use of the brain, without letting the ‘electricity’ go through the nerves, creature shall not be able to do much. It has to receive something, analyse it, act and react to it. But before it can go into action and reaction it has to have knowledge of the self. It has to have a working ‘I am‘ and has to feel as an ‘I am‘.

Though man faces some problems.
First there is the “I am”, the “Self” which it has to come to face and has to try to understand.
Secondly it has to come to see that the “I am” is only part of a bigger part of “I Am”. When it comes to know that it can go searching for that Bigger “I Am” and hopefully shall come to recognise the “I Am Who Is” without nothing can exist.
Thirdly each little “I am” has to recognise that manifesting the “I am” demands interaction, but that such interaction is never ending. One word only points to another word and never to reality itself. Having brains thinking, receiving interpretations and having to make interpretations itself, it shall have to come to the conclusion that no one interpretation can ever be regarded as final.

As in interpretation, so in life: everything becomes undecidable.

Now there is a difference between all who want to understand and try to approach the many “I ams” in this world. Into this decidedly undecided world, there are people who have opened their eyes and have come to see what is behind the ordinary “I am”. They have found The Bigger “I Am.” They might have found it by listening to their inner voice or by coming to read, see and hear the Word of God. For them the curtains have gone open and the biblical message as reasonable thinking person has come to them with common sense. They have come to see and understand that Faith and logic are not really opposites.

Genesis 1 tells us that man was created in God’s image (Genesis 1: 26-27).

“26  Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 And God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” (Genesis 1:26-27 NAS)

Diagram from one of René Descartes' works.

Diagram from one of René Descartes’ works. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Being created in the image of God, means also each person we see around us has something which might be found also in God. Each person we do encounter can carry something from God with him or her and can share it with others. The person who has come into the faith, believing there is a Creator Deity, and who has seen the Works of that God (Source of knowledge) shall also come to the understanding of the importance of sharing the knowledge of that “I am” with others. For the one with faith it is like being with child, incredible exiting and giving lots of energy. It is as an extra breath given to you.

In the past many man of all sorts of professions have already felt the special awareness and consequences for them of having faith in the Elohim, Divine Creator of heaven and earth. The “I Am Who Is” or the “I Am that I am” is the Most Almighty God of gods, Who overshadows any other god or “I am”. He is also One God Who demands recognition for His important Pole Position. He does not like to see that His creatures do love other gods more than Him. Believers, man of faith, should recognise that and take it into account, worshipping only that One and Only One True God.

To help us to understand that Bigger “I Am” and our own “I am” This Eternal Being has given His Words and let it hem be notated by the many faithful men. All those writings about the “I Am” are bundled in the Book of books, the Bible, the infallible Word of God.

In the several books of the Bible we can find a.o. the Book of Psalms in which we can find the answers:

  1. God gave us the Psalms and other Books of the Bible
  2. as a prayer book for our lives.
  3. to show the friends of God.
  4. to learn through poetry and song.
  5. to experience the transcendence and the imminence of God at once
  6. to affirm the mystery of life
  7. to educate and to exhort ourselves
  8. to show us our sins
  9. to remind us of the brevity of life
  10. to remind us of the necessity to live the right way
  11. to show us the way to a better and easier life
  12. to express our heartfelt longings
  13. to discover God His Character
  14. to discover God His Will for our lives
  15. to learn to direct ourselves to the utmost important things in life
  16. to learn how to behave
  17. to learn to pray aright
  18. to reveal His sovereign grace to us
  19. to show us the Way to Salvation
  20. to show us and give comfort in finding the Way to the Kingdom of God

Created in the image of God, the image of the Big “I Am” this is not just an outward likeness, for God is Spirit, and is only for our understanding presented in a description which is derived from that of a human. Upon further reading in the Book of books, the Bible, we can see that God’s Word reveals that humans, unlike animals, are provided with rational. Man can think and reason logically, but above all he is able to know God; and the latter goes. An animal has no sense of higher values, let alone God, a man does. But that is also exactly what sets him apart. A man who does not have these capabilities, or does not use them, is indeed no more than an animal:

“Man in [his] pomp, yet without understanding, Is like the beasts that perish.” (Psalms 49:20 NAS)

In fact, it is precisely this ability to abstract reasoning that,

according to the apostle Paul, makes the infidel shall not go unpunished because when he looks around himself he should be able to see the many things God provided. It might be true that the invisible things of God can not be seen, but even his eternal power and deity, has been clearly perceived since the creation of the world are working with the mind, so that they are without excuse.

“For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:20 NAS)
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Preceding articles:

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Additional readings:

  1. What is life?
  2. Looking at three “I am” s
  3. Creator and Blogger God 2 Image and likeness
  4. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
  5. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
  6. Looking for True Spirituality 2 Not restricted to an elite
  7. Being Religious and Spiritual 1 Immateriality and Spiritual experience
  8. Being Religious and Spiritual 2 Religiosity and spiritual life
  9. Being Religious and Spiritual 4 Philosophical, religious and spiritual people
  10. Being Religious and Spiritual 5 Gnostic influences
  11. Being Religious and Spiritual 6 Romantici, utopists and transcendentalists
  12. Improving the world by improving the Faith
  13. Are you religious, spiritual, or do you belong to a religion, having a faith or interfaith
  14. Faith because of the questions
  15. A Living Faith #9 Our Manner of Life
  16. Fear of failure, and fear of the unknown
  17. Looking for something or for the Truth and what it might be and self-awareness
  18. Leaving behind the lives we have touched.
  19. Only the contrite self, sick of its pretensions, can find salvation
  20. God won’t ask
  21. Pieces
  22. There is no true and constant gentleness without humility
  23. For those who make other choices
  24. Do you believe in One god?
  25. Revelation 1:8 – Who is Speaking?
  26. Use of /Gebruik van Jehovah or/of Yahweh in Bible Translations/Bijbel vertalingen
  27. Without God no purpose, no goal, no hope
  28. Only worhsip Creator of all things
  29. A great man does not lose his self-possession when he is afflicted

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  • Love: Reuniting the objective and subjective… (thosecatholicmen.com)
    The modern world has fallen into a dualism of body and soul in many ways. Descartes, a founding father of modern philosophy described the soul as a “ghost in a machine.” It is only too easy to focus on the body in an animalistic fashion, focused on pleasure and gratification. The opposite extreme is to fall into emotionalism or even a spiritualism that sees no compelling connection to the body.
  • Descartes and the Begining of Modern Philosophy (joshpcb.wordpress.com)

    n the 17th and 18th century Western philosophy was in strife – split between British empiricism (figures such as Locke and Bacon) and continental rationalism (such proponents as Leibniz and Spinoza), both camps disagreed with one another on the topic of epistemology and metaphysics.

    Important to add to the context is that in this time, scholasticism was the most prestigious method of education; it entailed Aristotelian values with a significant religion input. Scholasticism used logical methodology to deduce and then resolve contradictions. It was also qualitative, looking at objects and people and how they worked behaved, i.e., their qualities, and it was this manner in which Descartes was educated

  • Last lecture of the semester: Foucault and Derrida on Madness (foucaultnews.com)
    We need a history of that other trick that madness plays—that other trick through which men, in the gesture of sovereign reason that locks up their neighbor, communicate and recognize each other in the merciless language of non-madness; we need to identify this moment of that expulsion before it was definitely established in the reign of truth, before it was brought back to life by the lyricism of protestation. To try to recapture, in history, this degree zero of the history of madness, when it was undifferentiated experience, the still undivided experience of the division [of madness and reason] itself. To describe…[what] allows Reason and Madness to fall away, like things henceforth foreign to each other, deaf to any exchange, almost dead to each other. (my emphases)

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Filed under Health affairs, Knowledge & Wisdom, Lifestyle, Religious affairs, Spiritual affairs, Welfare matters, World affairs

Looking for Answers

Made in the image of God, we all have been implanted with the gene of looking for God. He, though humankind does not want to know of Him and rebelled/rebels against His Power is till prepared to come closer to those who are willing to find answers to their many questions. God already provided lots of answers to human’s questions. But not many do want to find those answers in the very old books. God’s Voice is still resounding all over the earth and many people are trying to bring others to God, but each individual has to make the own choice to prepare himself to hear and to listen to That Supreme Voice.
Let us find that Voice of God in the Book of books, not as such in the writings of human beings, being it philosophical or so called theologian works. Let us go back to the Word of God He gave us with the Bible and take the words in it for what they are, not twisting them with human dogma‘s.

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To remember:

  • “Everybody’s looking for answers!” = mantra in journey.
  • Everybody’s looking for answers
  • we’d like to understand more than we do = part of human nature.
  • son of man = reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being
  • God spoke in the past & God speaks now
  • Son has delivered ultimate answer of our salvation

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  • Sermon on Bible scripture: “Ye are Gods” (prayerupdates.org)
    If God created you in His image this means you have the attributes of God. And the attributes of God includes power of imagination, creativity, innovation, deep thinking, excellence and ingenuity.
  • Listen…. (thelivingmessage.com)
    Many people don’t want to hear someone preaching from the Word because it is God’s Truth. Some don’t think that it is true or that it is God’s Word, they think that the Bible is just a book of stuff, stories made up by some bunch of old guys which tell a little about historical figures and some of them are good stories but that is it, nothing more. Have you ever really listened to it, really sat down and read it? The Bible is about much more than Jewish history and the kings which ruled Israel, it is a condensed history of the world itself, from the viewpoint of God’s chosen people.
  • “It’s a great tragedy when the Bible is interpreted by those who are not in love.” ~~Bill Johnson (quotesthoughtsrandom.wordpress.com)
    God is all about relationships. His goal for us is to love Him.
  • Holy Spirit: The Presence of God (charleefelice.com)
    The Holy Spirit resides in each of us that believe that Jesus died for our sins, that He is our redeemer. It guides us, makes us conscious of our words and actions, convicts us when we sin, and grants us peace when we do right by Him, by others, and by our own selves.
  • The Power of the Spirit (histruthwillsetyoufree.wordpress.com)
    Where the words in the bible will point you to God, and help you know about God and Jesus, the Holy Spirit within you will help you know God and Jesus. The words have no power, only direction. The power to make the words real in your life comes from the Holy Spirit, within you.
  • What Does God Say About Your Spirit (yourgodmoments.wordpress.com)
    Christ Himself revealed both His Father’s true nature and how we must relate to that nature: God is a Spirit (a spiritual being) and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth (reality). Jn. 4:24 AMP
  • Affirmation of God: The Holy Spirit uses what I have. (tomraines.wordpress.com)
    Let us all trust that the Spirit will take what we have and complete God’s purpose through us. He will provide us the words to say and them the ears to hear. He Will fall on those we are to help.
  • There’s Nothing New Under The Son – Not Republican Nor Democrat (gunnyg.wordpress.com)
    There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.  And as most Christians understand, the lost not only refuse to see, but hate those offering sight. It’s always been so.
  • Blog for Week of November 16, 2014 (oldgreenbrierbaptistchurch.typepad.com)
    Would humankind be restored? The question of restoration is left open. What next, we might ask? God must step in to provide a way for sin-tainted human beings to come back to him. He starts his plan of restoration by choosing a man, Abram, and his wife, Sarai, through whom he will build a family and ultimately a nation.
  • In the Beginning… (herose4grace.wordpress.com)
    the Bible is Old.  It is an act of communication, written for us but not “to” us.  It is pre-science, pre Darwin, pre astro physics, pre, pretty much anything in our knowledge and perspective of the world today.  It is written for a culture that is thousands of years away from us in not only time, but culture.  Too often, we correspond the Bible to our way of thinking. Christians and atheists alike tend to their own world view or ego.  In order to truly grasp the words of this work, you have to step outside of our minds, our entire style and influence of thinking; discard science as we know it, culture as we know it, and meld into an ancient civilization that is overrun with beliefs and day to day encounters more foreign to us than stepping off of our planet and into a civilization of aliens on the other side of the universe.  In this time, the world was the product of a violent gnashing of gods; disorder and chaos at its core.  It was a world saturated in violent and destructive means.

bothfeetblog

One of my favorite movies in recent years is “O Brother, Where Art Thou”, and adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, set in rural depression era South. In fact, it’s led me to re-read “The Odyssey” and enter once again into this classic tale. The main character in the movie is one of three escaped convicts, who travel back to his home in search of treasure.

As in Homer’s epic, these characters have a host of lively encounters and danger filled adventures throughout their travels. The main character, (taking the role of Odysseus) says repeatedly throughout the quest, “Everybody’s looking for answers!” The phrase becomes quite the mantra in the journey.

Everybody’s looking for answers…in some way or fashion. The zaniness of this movie reminded me of that simple fact; we don’t know everything, and we’d like to understand more than we do. It is part of human nature.

“Long ago God…

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Filed under Re-Blogs and Great Blogs, Religious affairs

Lonely in the crowd

Population growth rate world

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

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 

Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook

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

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.

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}

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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  • 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)
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Filed under Being and Feeling, Religious affairs, World affairs

In Defense of the truth

Like the former Christian minister, writer, musician says “You can lead a horse to water, but sometimes you just have to drown them.” (or something like that) we should remember that it is important how we want to use our mind and find or bring logic and reason to the forefront of the place where we live and in our conversations with those around us.

Facing the difficulties in life we are always surrounded with many questions and most of us are looking for what we call”the Truth“.

In that quest for Truth most people are also confronted with religions and with ministers who work for certain denominations. Their attitude, their response to the many questions, often shall take the questioning person to take his or her next steps and shall bring on an attitude for the future.

We can not deny that probably “every single pastor (and pastor’s wife), every evangelist, every church planter and self described theologian” that has come certain persons their way over the past few years may have “slithered away like a de-fanged, de-rattled snake, back into the night where they came from.” Is that not a shame?

Have those ministers or priests had to go in the darkness again because they could not explain what really happened in the garden of Eden? Was it not because they could not show the writer of this reblogged text that there is not such thing as “a child murdering, rape endorsing, slavery promoting deity”?

God is a god of love. Out of love He has given the right for the people who took adversary on Him to rule the world and to arrange the things themselves. Though now they want to blame Him because He does not play the dictator and interferes, making everything like He wants it to be.

We may not forget that it is not God who is the cause of all those diseases and disasters which hit the world. He is not ruling this world. It are the adversaries of God (Satan) who are ruling this world now.

We just have to be patient enough until the third World War and the thousand years afterwards. Only then, after Jesus his return and the fulfilment of the promise of the Great Reality of the renewed Israel and the handing over by Jesus of the Kingdom of God to God, those who had their faith in this hope of Unity and Peace and did everything to live according to the Laws of Christ and the Law of God, shall be able to enter that Kingdom of God and enjoy a world without pain and without difficulties.

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Preceding: Cancerous Black Holes

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Please do find also to read:

  1. Our way of life
  2. Pain and Suffering is inevitable but Misery is optional
  3. From pain to purpose
  4. The blessing of a broken leg
  5. Partakers of the sufferings
  6. Foreword to Suffering
  7. Suffering (Cd art)
  8. Suffering – through the apparent silence of God
  9. Suffering continues
  10. Suffering leading to joy
  11. Seems no future in suffering
  12. Learning from suffering
  13. Facing disaster fatigue
  14. The soul has no rainbow if the eyes have no tears
  15. Character is built
  16. Your struggles develop your strengths
  17. Reacting to Disasters
  18. Dying or not
  19. Frank risks taking
  20. Remember there’s a light in the next day
  21. If your difficulties are longstanding, try kneeling
  22. Even in tough times remembering the blessings
  23. Words from God about suffering
  24. Self inflicted misery #1 The root by man
  25. Self inflicted misery #2 Weakness of human race
  26. Self inflicted misery #7 Good news to our suffering
  27. Self inflicted misery #9 Subject to worldly things
  28. Welfare state and Poverty in Flanders #3 Right to Human dignity
  29. Science, belief, denial and visibility 2
  30. Faith and trial
  31. A Living Faith #4 Effort
  32. Fragments from the Book of Job #1: chapters 1-12
  33. Fragments from the Book of Job #2: chapters 12-20
  34. Fragments from the Book of Job #3: chapters 21-26
  35. Fragments from the Book of Job #4: chapters 27-31
  36. Fragments from the Book of Job #5: chapters 32-37
  37. Fragments from the Book of Job #6: chapters 38-42
  38. Fragments from the Book of Job #7 Epilogue
  39. Bad things no punishment from God
  40. Profitable disasters
  41. Salvation, trust and action in Jesus #1 Suffering covered by Peace Offering
  42. Miracles in our time of suffering
  43. Offer in our suffering
  44. Patient waiting (Cd art)
  45. Be like a tree planted by streams of water
  46. Suffering produces perseverance
  47. Moving mountains
  48. Rejoice even though bound to grieve
  49. Suffering redemptive because Jesus redeemed us from sin
  50. Surprised by joy
  51. Surprised by time in joys & sufferings
  52. Destination of the earth
  53. Expiatory sacrifice
  54. Crucifixion for suffering
  55. From pain to purpose
  56. Old age
  57. Temptation and its conquest
  58. Pain and Suffering is inevitable but Misery is optional
  59. Light within
  60. To be chained by love for another one
  61. When the wind blows hard on a tree
  62. Your struggles develop your strengths
  63. The inspiring divine spark
  64. Disappointed with God
  65. Not sure there exist a God
  66. Seeing or not seeing and willingness to find God
  67. Trusting, Faith, Calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #15 Exposition before the Creator
  68. God’s Comfort
  69. Only one God
  70. Some one or something to fear #6 Faith in the Most High
  71. Commit your self to the trustworthy creator
  72. Getting out of the dark corners of this world
  73. God should be your hope
  74. Our relationship with God, Jesus and eachother
  75. Nuturing a close relationship with God
  76. Give your worries to God
  77. Let us recognise how great God is
  78. God is the strength of my heart
  79. God Helper and Deliverer
  80. God is positive
  81. God’s design in the creation of the world
  82. God’s instruction about joy and suffering
  83. God’s promises
  84. God His measure not our measure
  85. God’s non answer
  86. God’s promises to us in our suffering
  87. Gods hope and our hope
  88. God’s salvation (Cd art)
  89. You God hold the future
  90. Hope (Cd art)
  91. Hope for the future
  92. Importuning for suffering hearts
  93. Incomplete without the mind of God
  94. Is God hiding His face when He is seemingly silent
  95. Jehovah my strenght
  96. Kingdom of God what will it be like
  97. God His reward
  98. Chrystalised harmonious thinking
  99. Epitome of the one faith
  100. Life with God
  101. Meaning of life
  102. Some important differences
  103. True hope
  104. Working of the hope (Cd art)
  105. A love not exempting us from trials
  106. Songs in the night Worship God only
  107. Gospel = Good tidings, good news, a good message
  108. That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us
  109. Preaching to an unbelieving world
  110. To Live Gratitude
  111. For those who make other choices
  112. A concrete picture of what is to come in the future
  113. Greatest single cause of atheism
  114. Change

+++

  • Labor Pains of Human Life (prayersofmysoul.wordpress.com)
    Nothing can permanently interfere with God’s plans and purposes. The delay in putting an end to our grief is not proof that destructive forces are conquering God. Nor is it due to an uncaring attitude of God. He uses it all – the good and the bad, the angels and the demons, the easy-going days and the hard times – to bring salvation to untold numbers of people.
  • *The purpose of our lives of faith* (correctunderstandingofshinchonji.wordpress.com)
    The world is full of religious scholars, but what do they study? Supposedly, they are studying the true will of God and the true meaning of the Bible. Which of them, then, knows the true will of God? The truth is that none of them know it. They study the Bible because they do not know. Only God knows his true will, and God does not reveal this mystery until the time he has appointed arrives (Eccl 3:1; Dn 12:8-9; Jn 16:25).
  • On Hope (storiedwithgrace.com)
    how we can’t hope in ourselves or in anything in this world, only in Jesus, His Word, His Kingdom Everlasting. The pastor said if I hope in “having it all together” here on earth—a life of total freedom, without trouble or persecution or any harm, then I’m hoping in the wrong thing. That hope is not possible, for as the pastor pointed out, as a Christian, I am bound to suffer, in some measure as Christ suffered.
    +
    What is the proper attitude to have, then, in whatever caliber of suffering I endure? It’s to be totally optimistic. Totally hopeful. Always thinking good thoughts. Maintaining ultimate self-control. Embracing the ones who hurt you. Enjoying the experience. Being patient when there is no way out, when you are truly doomed. Believing in the unseen, no matter how impossible. Having faith that you’ll breathe again, even when blood is clotting in your lungs. Loving. Simply loving. Jesus revealed all of these traits while suffering on the cross. He did so at so great a cost. He wagered Himself, and all His character, for His enemies, who had none. It is sobering to consider my Savior’s attitude when He held His arms out for me as I butchered Him.
  • Reflecting on Suffering (barefootpreachr.org)
    Did you hear the story of the little boy that wanted to share in Christ’s suffering? One Sunday he heard the preacher talking about Jesus’ walk to Golgotha. And he heard how Jesus’ walked the streets of stone. And he heard about the man who helped Jesus. Then the little boy went home and began to think. The next morning he picked up a small pebble (he WAS a small boy) and he put it in his shoe so that he too could walk with Jesus. Well, that story ends something like this: “And little Johnny walked for miles that day with that pebble in his shoe and he did it for God.”
  • “Sanctify them in Truth” (disciplesforlife.wordpress.com)
    Christians are to be in the world (vs. 18) yet not of the world (vs. 16). In this way our mission is like Christ’s (vs. 18) who was sent into the world by the Father.
  • 400 people in a plane – how many will enter the Kingdom of Heaven? (allanblog.me)
    I wondered, how many of these people would actually be interested in knowing how someone can get into the Kingdom of Heaven. Especially if I told them the truth. You know, the price they need to pay. Dying to themselves, and allowing Jesus Christ to be their Lord and Master of their lives. No longer doing what they want to do, but what He wants to do in them and through them.
    +
    400 people on the plane. How will I go about trying to get them to listen, to what most people would say is, ridiculous, fanatical, asking too much?
  • Religulous Freaks (venitism.blogspot.com)
    Every week, Ulster Christians flock from across the province to the 3,000-seater auditorium, there to hear Pastor James McConnell preach his Christian message. Not the Christian message of the BBC’s Thought For The Day, however; you may hear Beatitudes at Whitewell, but it’s not a place for platitudes. This is the real deal, fire and brimstone; damnation and salvation. If you’re not going to Whitewell, you’re going to Hell.
    +
    In an interview with the BBC’s Stephen Nolan, McConnell refused to back down, claiming that all Muslims had a duty to impose Sharia law on the world, and suggesting they were all merely waiting for a signal to go to Holy War. A subtle examination of modern Islamist and jihadist politics this was not.
  • Towards a Safer and a More Secure World (politicsfromthemiddle.com)
    The truth is that not all problems in the world can be solved. A requirement for peace is to have at least two willing parties who are willing to talk when a conflict is pending or when two parties are in active combat.
  • The Beginning of Truth…. Chandler’s Story (branditrent3.wordpress.com)
    There have been times that we felt like we could not get up and go on. And, yes. I have been rescued. In fact, I am rescued every, single day. I have had to learn to rely on God. I have had to set my hope in Him. And, you have played a significant role in this for us. Your prayers. They have protected us. The prayers have led us to put our trust in God and His ways. Not our own.
  • Twelve Leadership Lessons from a Hike with a Fellow Leader (Part IV) (hikerdude.wordpress.com)
    As Pastor Todd and I talked while we walked along the trail, he shared some of the things that had greeted him at the threshold of his 50th birthday: the sickness and death of his father, his mother’s brain cancer and recent death, and diagnosis of his executive pastor with stage 4 lung cancer. And just a few years earlier he had lost much of his retirement savings during the “economic downturn,” even though he had invested heavily in bank stocks, which had been thought to be one of the safest, most secure investments. Then, both is daughters had gotten married within six months of each other (joyous, yet stressful events). All of this was going on as he was leading one of the largest churches in West Georgia. It would have made him want to pull his hair out, if he had any left to do so.
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Center For Reason

I like to argue. Anyone who knows me at all knows that I will debate anyone but what I really enjoy is a good argument where I don’t have to be polite or patient and I especially enjoy arguing with pious self righteous bigots who have made a career of selling heaven for profit like monopoly real estate.

So I woke up this morning like usual around 5 am. And like usual I reached for my phone to check my Facebook and Twitter accounts for comments.

I saw a couple of posts from friends a few conversations were going on about science and reason but today there were no heated arguments or comments from professional fucktardery profiteers offering prayers for my soul or proposing to change my mind about evolution or show me the error of my apostate heart and being me back to the feet of jesus at the…

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