The big principle

Disclaimer... I am not absolutely convinced of the truth of this post like I am of so many of my other posts... yet. This one is still in the trial stage.

Let's try to explain why things happen the way they do. Tall order, I know, but let's take a stab at it. I mean especially in our faith. Why is it that sometimes things seem to work like they are supposed to and sometimes they don't? Why do some people get healed and some people don't? Why does God seem to bless some people who do all the right things and not bless some other people who also do all the right things? Why do great men and women of the faith, who know God, and have served Him faithfully all of their lives, get Alzheimer's when they get old? And other such seeming contradictions? In other words, why don't things, or why doesn't God, work like He's supposed to? Like the Bible says He's supposed to?????

Well, I think it is because of this. If you read the entire Bible, and read it from God's perspective, then you will see that there is one seriously predominant and overarching principle that seems to govern every other principle in there. And this principle is love.

Love overrides everything else. Whenever there is a conflict between love and some other lesser principle, then the lesser principle will submit to the greater principle. So if you are acting on some principle of God's kingdom, and it is not going to be conducive to you knowing or understanding love, then it will probably be subjected and (in my opinion) held off til later. It will work for you, but there is something else much more important that you must learn first. God is not constrained by the limits of time and space.

Also, God himself is a free, autonomous, loving being. He does not want to be put in a box, just like you and I don't want to be put in a box. And I honestly think (opinion) that He places less value on things that are less valuable so that we will learn to place more value on the things that are of more value... namely, love. In other words, He wants to have a relationship with us, as love and friendship are His highest priorities, and so will bend all the laws of the universe in order to get us to that place with Him.

The minute I get more info on this one, I will let you know. Thank you, and good night.

Why people are afraid of the Bible

I think that people are afraid of the Bible because they are so unused to being loved that they can't see that the Bible is really all about love. In other words, people view the world through a lens given to them through their upbringing in this world. If they were given a lens of fear, then that is how they are going to see the Bible (and everything else). If they were given a lens of love, then they would see the Bible (and everything else) through that lens.

Because so much of the world is not used to being loved, and so can't recognize it when it happens to them or is happening to them, they interpret love as anything else besides love, mainly, through whatever lens they have been given.

So people view love, from God, or from people, as whatever lens that they were given dictates things to be for them. Specifically, when people read the Bible, it will appear to be something that it is not. I know, because this happened to me for years. It wasn't until after years and years and years of God's relentless assault on my fears that I began to believe that He really did love me. And now, after all that time, and all his relentless pounding upon my paradigms, I read the Bible, even the parts that used to scare me so much, and they are magically transforming before my eyes. When I read them now, they affirm God's love astonishingly. Which causes me to fall more and more in love with Him. God's love is feeding itself exponentially in my life. The more I learn about His love, and become convinced of it, the more all other things in life begin to do the same, and these feed the first ones, and vice versa, and they all create more and more of a lens of love through which I am learning to see the world! My lens is being drastically changed, at an exponential pace! I am in a serious upward spiral!

The matrix revisited?

I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems to me that so many thoughts and feelings that I deal with all seem to be geared toward convincing me that God does not really love me. And its all very subtle. Works off of the very real circumstances of my life. Almost seems like some sort of conspiracy!

The narrow path revisited

Must remind everyone (all three of you) that the narrow path that Jesus spoke about in the book of Matthew is being loved... something not a whole lot of humanity seems to know how to do! Some people are good at being strong; some people are good at being kind; some people are good at persevering; some people are good at working hard; some people are good at math; but who is good at being loved??

God will not...

...ever condone what is not of love. I have said this before, but I am becoming absolutely convinced of it. If you are doing any sort of religious activity, (i.e. fasting, praying, studying, etc.), and it is not conducive to love, His love for you and love for others, He's not going to bless it! Why? Because He is love and He cannot violate His law of Himself!! So you are better off stopping the religious activity than trying to push your way through it!

Pain

Was wondering why things can hurt so bad in life. Instead of just hurting a little bit, why do so many things hurt so much?

I think this is why. It is because God made everything so good, that when it is all messed with, and used improperly (anything in creation), it hurts to an equal and opposite degree that it was intended to make us feel good. As good as it was originally, is precisely the degree of how bad it is going to make us feel when we experience it incorrectly.

Now I don't know about you, but this gives me an awful lot of hope. Because this tells me more about the nature of God, and makes me trust Him more, and believe the lies of the matrix less. This tells me that the nature of God is incredibly cool, because if things that He created hurt this bad when handled incorrectly, then He originally made them so they they would make us feel incredibly good when handled correctly!

The best we can hope for (sort of)

Because this is a fallen world, and we are all (to some degree) fallen beings, then the best we can hope for in our relationships is people who have adopted repentance (the willingness to change) as a permanent lifestyle. The humility to admit when we are wrong and be willing to change.

This, in the present age, is kind of the best we can hope for. Because this is the most fruitful and productive m.o. considering the world and the reality that we live in. If someone has this, then all of the correct ways of living are available to them! If someone does not have this, then they will be stuck in their incorrect ways of living.

In a marriage, if you and your spouse are both humble and open to correction, and to repentance (change), then there is hope for your marriage. In your friendships, if both you and your friend are open to being wrong, being rebuked, being challenged, being corrected, and changing, then there is great hope for that friendship. Because this humility opens the door to all of the correct ways of living.

And I say that it is the best we can hope for because to expect perfection, in any relationship, is totally unrealistic. So if you have a marriage wherein you and your wife are experiencing this, and hashing it out together... rejoice! And if you have a friendship, or more than one, in which you and your friend(s) honestly try to admit when you're wrong and be open to change... rejoice! Those friendships (marriages) will have the benefit of allowing the proper ways of relating and living into them, and you will both enjoy them! In other words, if you have these struggles inside of your relationships, rejoice, for this is the path to life! And if you don't... watch out! Because you are probably living in the darkness and it will probably bite you at some point!!

Don't throw away or regard as bad any relationship wherein you are struggling for the right reasons! Rejoice in them, because it is the path to life!!

God using you?

Ask any of your friends if they would use you. If they answer yes, tell them that it is wrong to use people. If they answer no, then this means they already know that using people is wrong.

Then, (if they answered no,) ask them where they got that standard from. Then, when you have gone through the ensuing philosophical discussion, if they haven't gotten the point yet, point out to them that this standard comes from God, and that God can't use people, otherwise He would be violating His own standards.

God doesn't use people. God loves people. And love (God) always values people over what it wants, over beliefs, over things, and over circumstances.

Good soil

Was reading about the parable of the sower and the seed that Jesus gave, and was wondering what constituted "good soil" such as the kind that He said was necessary to produce good fruit. Well, here it is. Good soil is a heart and a mind that have been loved, and know how to receive love. Because it is be able to recognize the good (the word of God) that is trying to be given to it, and receive it.

See how important love is? It underpins absolutely everything in God's economy.

The wrath of God

Well, here is another completely misunderstood concept. Maybe I can clear it up.

God only gets mad at the things that are worth getting mad at! Injustice, slavery, oppression, etc. All the things that make you so mad when you see them.

The wrath of God is only against the things that deserve it, and nothing else. Probably one of the worst abuses in the world is someone invoking "the wrath of God" onto someone or something who doesn't deserve it. And I bet you can guess how that makes God feel!

What we're believing

I have noticed that a person can be so stuck in a lie, and believe it to such a degree that they don't even know they're living in it. And, they try to figure out the issue instead of just ceasing to believe the lie.

For example, a lie could be that he or she had to figure out the absolute best way to tie his shoes. He could believe that he just had to figure that out. So he could spend all of his time, or at least an inordinate amount of his time, each day, trying and retrying to tie his shoes the absolute best way. He could tie and untie, and retie them a thousand times a day, trying to figure out the best way. But because he doesn't know that the thing to do is just tie them in a way that works and move on to bigger and better things, things of much more importance, he wastes a lot of his precious, irretrievable, God-given time, time which could be spent on loving people and changing the world for good, working on a problem that doesn't need to be solved.

The real, actual solution, is to abandon the thought process that has come about by believing the lie. In other words, just STOP BELIEVING THE ORIGINAL LIE. Abandon the thought that he needs to figure out the best way to tie his shoes. And move on to whatever life is beckoning for him to do.

Now, I know that this is of course somewhat of a silly example, but I use it to make the point. I believe that there are millions of people out there doing this exact thing, but with lies that seem important or true, but are not. They are either truly unimportant or just simply untrue.

I believe that this is what a lot of the world is doing. And that is the plan. That is the intent of the one who is lying to the entire world and keeping it in deception. Life here on this planet and during this time is just like (in principle) the movie "The Matrix". I believe that vast numbers of people are living in lies fomented and propagated by the enemy of our souls, in order to keep them in the dark, away from love, away from happiness, away from freedom, etc. And even those who have come out of it to any degree, still usually struggle to stay out.

So much of the world is just believing the lies. They spend all of their time within those lies, trying to sort them out, when they really don't need to. They have believed that it is something which needs to be figured out, when it's not. The real solution is to exit the lie entirely!

I am convinced that the world exists in a matrix like state, and once it is finally and fully torn away, everyone will stand back in absolute horror and disbelief at what we were believing and the ways we were living, as a race, as a result of those beliefs.

The four most powerful words in the world

The four most powerful words in the world, and in spiritual warfare, and in your spiritual life, and in your day to day struggles, are, as follows... I RECEIVE YOUR LOVE. Place any of the following Names before this statement; Jesus, Father, God, Creator, Yaweh, Jehovah, Yeshua (Hebrew name for Jesus), Holy Spirit, Great Redeemer, Prince of Peace, Counselor, etc. etc.

And when you struggle, repeat this phrase, over and over, and over, about one or two hundred, or two thousand, times.

And then you will get whatever you need. If you need correction, you will get it, because correction is a part of love. If you need comfort, you will get it, because comfort is a part of love. If you need provision, you will get it, because provision is a part of love. Whatever you need, you will get, from God, because love always does what's best for you. Whatever you need, at that point in time, you will get, because that's what love does.

Love tears down every lie. Love defeats fear, guilt, shame, confusion, anger, etc. etc. Love is the cure and the antidote to every weapon that the enemy can throw at you. The Bible says at at least two different places (Proverbs and First Peter) that love covers a multitude of sins, and this is how it does it!

Whatever you're dealing with, that is hurting you, love is the answer. Love contains in it everything necessary to tear down any lie and meet any need. God is love. God has everything you need.

And here is the key to receiving it. You need to receive it just like you would receive anything here in this world. When someone here on earth gives you something, you will not receive it unless you reach out your hand and take it. This is so simple, but we have lost it in the haze of religious (and non-religious) lies that we've believed. It is the same as receiving anything here in the physical world. You must reach out your hands and take it. If someone gives me a glass of water, I will not be able to drink that water if I do not reach out and physically take that glass of water from the person who is handing it to me. As it is in the physical, so it always is in the spiritual. When you receive something from God, you have to reach out and take it. When you ask for something, and you know it's something He wants to give you , i.e., peace, grace, love, truth, help, correction, wisdom, provision, food, money, his Spirit, etc., don't just ask.. receive! How? BY YOUR WORDS. Say, literally, "Thank you Father for the ________ (insert whatever you need here), I RECEIVE IT FROM YOU." Then thank Him that you have it!!

And if this is hard for you to grasp right now, then just do this, over and over and over--Say, out loud, over and over and over and over and over again, "God... I receive your love!" If you don't know what else to do, then just literally do that for as long as you need to do it!!

Hours, days, weeks months...... years....! (:

The Key

Is Love. It is the key that makes everything else work. That makes prayer work, that makes reading your Bible work, that makes your works of service work, that makes your life work. If things are not working for you in your life, then there must not be enough love flowing into you. You don't need to work harder. You need more love. Open up and allow God to love you.

You need to be loved. It's critical. I know I've written about it a zillion times, but it's that important. You need love. It's the glue of life. It's the stuff. That holds it all together. There was a band that used to preach that in one of their songs, that love was (is) what is holding it all together, and they were right!

I am coming to believe that at a subatomic level, the stuff that is holding it all together, the atoms and the electrons and the quarks and the neutrons of the cells of your body and the cells making up the wooden table in your living room, is, literally, the love of God.

Love is the key.

Love (again)

Since trust leads to love, then logically speaking, that stuff we feel at the beginning of our relationships with those of the opposite sex must not be love. Because there has been no trust established yet.

Love is what happens over a long, long period of time... years and years and years, as trust is established. That emotional excitement and attraction at the beginning of a relationship is God's way of getting us into a position where we can learn what love is, and experience it. It is the initial catalyst, to motivate and prompt us into getting into a relationship so that we can eventually discover love. My grandparents, who were married for fifty plus years, and had learned to trust each other... THEY were in love!!

Stick that in your pipe and smoke on it.

The biggest deception in the world

That god is not love. And that being a Christian, or any other religion, for that matter, is about anything else other than love. Namely, MAKING YOUR LIFE WHAT WE THINK THEY'RE SUPPOSED TO BE, instead of falling in love.

One more why

Why is it that so much teaching from religious sources sounds good and right but lacks real power or oomph to change you or grab you? I believe it is because of this. It is focused on quality of life, rather than on love, which comes inside of a relationship.

I believe that most of the world is living for the wrong goal, which is quality of life. This is a very secondary goal. The first should be relationship, with God and with your brothers and sisters.

Therefore, when the second goal of life is placed ahead of the first, it is literally like trying to put the cart before the horse. Because nothing will work correctly without love, since we are beings created for love. We are, literally, spiritual love machines. Love is what makes us work. Nothing else. And lack of love is like trying to run a car on kerosene. It may go, but it's not going to go right.

So, all of these teachings are telling you truths... so you know that they are correct. That is why they sound so correct, because they are. But they are also missing the one key vital ingredient that makes everything else work.

Therefore, I say, to anyone who will listen... Go for Love!! with God!! And with people!! It is the most worthwhile goal!!

How to repent for real

Romans something states that "it is the kindness of God that leads men to repentance."

This is true. You cannot properly repent unless you know how kind and good and loving God is. Otherwise your "repentance" will be full of all kinds of other sin anyway, like fear, and mistrust, which can lead to insincerity, and dishonesty.

David knew how to repent so well because he was so in love with God, the one whom he was repenting to.

Repentance, like everything else of God, works only through love.

The Greatest Weapon In The World.

What is the most powerful weapon in the world? The greatest thing you can possibly do for yourself, for anyone else, and for the world? What is the one thing that does the greatest amount of damage to the forces of darkness in this world, and tears down the most lies, and brings in the most truth, and heals human beings the most, and brings them together, and causes hope to spring up, and joins people together in unity and purpose, and brings peace, and does all of the other things that everyone knows that the world needs, but prove to be so elusive? What would heal all of the people in institutions, and convince (motivate) people to change? What would stop wars? What would convince bad people to stop what they are doing, and be good??

What would do all of this?? And more??

Being loved.

Love cures all problems. Love has the ability to cure all people. Love has the ability and the potential to cure you. And when love cures you, you begin to love others, which in turn cures them... and they cure others... and they cure even more...

Love never leaves you, never forsakes you, never forgets you, never quits on you, never uses you. Love ALWAYS does what's best for you. Love ALWAYS benefits you at its own expense.

Love cures your hangups. It ends your confusion. It sets you free. Love is the answer to your life!

More on my favorite verse out of Romans

I love this verse. Romans 1:20 "what can be known about God can be seen in what is made." Every time I see a neat little quirk of human nature, (that is the same to us all), I smile as I see another aspect of God's beautiful nature. For instance, was talking to a friend today, and we were discussing how you can't force people to do anything, and that whenever you try, they respond by pushing back just as hard. It's just natural. The more you try to force people to do anything, the more they are going to push back just as hard to say no. Which tells us something about God. Namely, that He is just like that. Free, and never willing to give up His freedom! Which, of course flies in the face of religion, which tells you that you must give up your freedom when you come to God. :) :} :]

Fire

Everything physical is a picture of something spiritual. Fire, in the natural, is a picture of fire in the spiritual.

Fires burn every year in nature. Usually at the end of the growing season, late summer and fall. These fires are designed to burn off any dead, unhealthy or unnecessary branches or foliage. This is how nature keeps the earth clean.

When fires are not allowed to burn, or extinguished before they can do their work of cleaning the forest, or the desert, then dead, rotten, unhealthy and unnecessary branches (foliage) clog and choke the environments. This makes for unhealthy forests/deserts etc. They are filled with dead, useless, in the way branches, leaves, foliage, etc. Environments in this state are not as pleasant to be in as healthy ones.

And then, when a fire does find its way to these clogged ecosystems, because their is an overabundance of things that need burning, the fire burns so hot that it kills everything. And if you've ever seen an area where this has happened, it is occupied mostly by weeds, as the absence of healthy, natural plants makes room for them.

As it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual. God's correction (part of His love) is often referred to as fire. This is for a very good reason. It is so we can understand it. It burns away all that is dead, unhealthy, or useless in our lives, spiritually speaking in our souls. It is for our good, to keep us healthy. We are supposed to let Him do this for us on a regular basis (notice that it only happens once a year in nature... God is not out to spend any more time than is necessary on this process in our lives). We need to let Him examine us and burn away all that is dead and unhealthy on a regular basis. And this will greatly help us to stay healthy.

And, as it is in the natural, so it is in the spiritual. When we extinguish His fire, we let all of that dead stuff build up until there is an overabundance of it, and our lives become unhealthy. And, then, when His fire finally does reach us (as it will reach everyone eventually), it hurts much more than it's supposed to! Not because He's angry or vengeful, but just because of the logic of the situation.


So, my point, as is my point with everything else I say, is to let Him love you. Go to Him and let Him do this for you. It is for your own good.