Battle over the Hearts and Minds

One reason why I admire Mohamed Gandhi, and Marten Luther King Junior is that they they choose not to fight the evil that was present with violence, but choose to fight the evil in our minds.

I heard a speaker talk about his interpretation of the last battle that John talks about in revelation and he interprets it as a figurative language. The battle as mentioned in revelation takes place at the centre of the world. A crucial strategic point that would control the world. He understood John to be saying that the last battle is over the hearts and minds of people. Where we all take a place.

Now I don't know if he is right but I think he makes some good points. The battle is not against people but it's one step deeper. The battle is over the hearts and minds of people.

We find this through out scripture.
King Hezekiah when he faces an overwhelming force of Assyrian coming to destroy him and Jerusalem prays to God "Now, O Lord our God, deliver us from his hand, so that all kingdoms on earth may know that you along, O Lord, are God."  Isaiah 37:20

Where would the western world be with out the battle over the hearts and minds of the people in the enlightenment age. No matter how hard rulers tried to snuff out revolutionaries the printing press proved the better weapon.

God is God

I have been struck lately how we humans seem to think it's all about us.
It is so easy to start thinking that God's blesses those that obey him, and doesn't bless those that don't but we find something else in the bible

Ecclesiastes 8:14
righteous men who get what the wicked deserve, and wicked men who get what the righteous deserve.

I believe because God is calling us to something deeper, something more important that physical blessing. God is calling us into a relationship with him no matter what happens.

I have just finished a book called "The boy who came back from Heaven" and really liked this book. This is the words that the father Kevin received from an Angel in the nonfiction book

"Speak of Me,forMe, and about Me
Use Alex to show who I am
I have chesen him as a screen upon which to show Myself
I am unity, the trinity, a complete circle,
Your story will lead to praise an worship, ther willbe alter calls
Your bills are the least of My worries
I will be with you all the days of your life
I will speak to you
I will guide you
I am in you
I am about you, you be about Me
My love is unconditional
My vengeance is restricted for the holy
My apostles died for Me, will you die for Me?
I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last."

What I learnt most while reading this book is that it's not about us. Miracles are not to save a person from death but for God's power to be shown to the world.

Read the book If you can!

God lead us,
God protect us,
God lead us to your green pastures,
God lead us to believe and trust in you
God I love you!

Job

I'm reading a book on Job and I find a striking story of loss and through all of the loss we find Job response.

Job 1:20-21 (The Message)

20 Job got to his feet, ripped his robe, shaved his head, then fell to the ground and worshiped:

21 Naked I came from my mother's womb,
naked I'll return to the womb of the earth.
God gives, God takes.
God's name be ever blessed.

I find this is a beautiful response. He strikes the truth and shows his true love for God.

All is God's anyways, it's all on loan, so if you will to take it all away, I trust you and love you God. Job is a man of heroic endurance.

I think when ever reading this story we have to remember the end of the story. That God has more to his plan than what it seems in the moment.

East is from the West

New Living Translation (2007) Psalm 103:12
He has removed our sins as far from us as the east is from the west.

It's funny how God works. I wonder how the author choose east and west, and not north and south. In a world that you believe is flat, there would be no difference. Yet us in the 21st century understand the world as round. So we can mark the distance between the south pole and the north but can you mark the distance from east to west.

I find God sometimes uses the subtle hints to show his power, his leading in peoples lives such as this author. It's like a treasure that is buried until we discover the truth but the world.

That reminds me of something I heard from someone I look up to. We live in a world that is a fine line.
We live in a world where it is possible to believe that there is no God, but it is impossible to do so.

This verse highlights that. It could be just chance that the author picked east and west.

God lead us to green pastures
God bless us with your presence
God help us shine for you
God protect us from all who oppose you

Born Again

It seems to me over and over again that Jesus is about rebirth.

John 3:5-7
5Jesus answered, "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7You should not be surprised at my saying, 'You must be born again.'

Jesus calls us to give up our flesh. A rebirth from the old to the new. I dislike rebirth, it seems that I like the old familiar ways but everything I see in our world is about destruction and rebirth. It's written into every part of our lives.

Jesus I believes calls into all parts of our life wanting to create a new life. He wants to be so much more than just an addition to us humans. He wants to create new life a rebirth.

It seems that sometimes I would rather drag the whole world into how I believe the world should be rather than transform myself into what God calls me to be.

It's been summer!

Sorry I've taken so long to send a post, but well ... it's been summer.

Recently at a bible study we go to we watched a video about samson. He pointed out a few interesting points that I'd like to pass along.

Background:
Philistines had control over the Israel. They were called sea people who had immigrated from the north. They had advanced culture, science, and buildings. Israel was still in tents, and it appears that philistine culture was invading the culture of Israel.

God blesses a son and he is told to be a Nazirite. Someone who doesn't shave, doesn't drink, and doesn't touch anything dead and so on (appears very rough and backwards to me when compared with the Philistines). Samson is very strong, he steals the gates from the philistine city and carried them a long distance, kill many Philistines.

But then Samson breaks the commands of the Nazirite, is caught and held and eventual dies. You can read the full story in Judges 13-16.

It seems to me God was painting a picture. God's people then and today are like Samson. We are not the most cultured, smart, artistic ... people but we are like Samson with God's power we can and do great things.

But once we start fitting God into our life instead of giving God rule our life we fall apart.

I wonder sometimes if I am trying to be cultured, smart, ... instead of letting God rule my life. I believe if I do what God he calls me to do whether it's culture, science, art ... and so on no one can stand in the way of God as Samson shows us.

In the Beginning God Created Freedom

I think one of the marvelous creations by God is the creation of freedom. If God is in everything and created everything imagine trying to create something that can do something separate from God. In a sense ignore the God that created it. He gave this freedom to many things not just humans, He gave it to the angels.

But the trouble with freedom is that it comes with responsibility. If you are free to do what you want, you are now free to cause pain. Free to limit other peoples freedom. Free to cause other people pain. God isn't going to limit this ability all the time because then we wouldn't be free.

So what does God do about this tragic situation was not his intention when he created freedom. He doesn't change the rules of freedom, but rather He gives every believer the ability to overcome. He gives every believer everything that they will need.

I believe God had in his mind, beings that out of there own free will would trust God, Worship God, and serve God. I believe He is still intent on seeing His plan through.

Those are my thoughts for today!

God bless us,
God lead us,
God protect us,
God lead us to green pastures.

Footprints in the Sand

Footprints in the Sand
One night I dreamed I was walking along the beach with the Lord. Many scenes from my life flashed across the sky.
In each scene I noticed footprints in the sand. Sometimes there were two sets of footprints, other times there was one only.
This bothered me because I noticed that during the low periods of my life, when I was suffering from anguish, sorrow or defeat, I could see only one set of footprints, so I said to the Lord,

“You promised me Lord, that if I followed you, you would walk with me always. But I have noticed that during the most trying periods of my life there has only been one set of footprints in the sand.Why, when I needed you most, have you not been there for me?”The Lord replied, “The years when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.”

Mary Stevenson, 1936

Sorry I have no pictures of steps in the sand

I pray your having a great week!!

Recently I have been re-introduced to the concept of chaos.

Lets go back many years right to genesis 1:1+2
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters."

Once I was told that people in the middle east, especially in the past didn't understand water as we do. We go to the beach, jump in the water. But people in the past thought about water as chaos. That is where boats where lost, and things disappeared beneath the water line.

So God hovered above this chaos. This destructive unlivable environment and created life.

We are the anomaly, we are the divine inspiration that God breathed into existence from the deep waters.

How great how awesome is our God.

God you are creator and ruler of this world.
God help us,
God lead us
God be with us.

Many Members

1 Corinthians 12
 12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

14Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 17If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20As it is, there are many parts, but one body.

21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” 22On the contrary, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and the parts that we think are less honorable we treat with special honor. And the parts that are unpresentable are treated with special modesty, 24while our presentable parts need no special treatment. But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

I find this is the hardest thing for us to do. Many times I think the hands are saying to the feet why don't you be more like a hand. I guess the trouble comes from how do we determine that is an action that is lead by God and one that isn't. Is it possible for a hand to know what a ear should be and shouldn't be doing?

I guess this is where we have to read verse 18, and pray to God for guidance that he we exalt what he has planned and stop everything else before it gets started.