Four Little Words of Power

There is a message that carries power even with four words used to express it but it only has power when heard by a believer. The four words are CHRIST DIED FOR YOU.
The meaning of the first word conveys much to a believer that Jesus is the Christ. It matters to a believer that there is a Christ set aside by God to convey saving power to a believer. If you get baptised into the grace of Christ as a believer and put faith in the grace of God and its ability to save you then to know that He died for you is to know that by sharing in Him you are sharing in the power of His death and you are made by His death into His possession to share the efficacy of that death on the cross. It means there is hope. It means He can save you now He is risen because His death counted for something with God and God will now save you as you are part of Christ. It makes the name He gave Jesus 'The Lord God saves His own' apply to you since God saves Jesus and you are part of Jesus because of His death for you and He being the Christ has all God's greatest blessing which you share. If you do not yet feel part of Jesus Christ yet you do believe then there is hope if you will be baptised into Him so you too can share in Him by His death on the cross. It also means you, as a believer and sharer in Christ, are an equal member of a body of believers who are His body. Be honest with them. They are part of the body you also are part of.

No More Fabricating

We have a tendency among Christians to present as true what we are not really certain is true. This is really a way to lie. Lies are not part of what God is about. We can believe this by learning from the Spirit of Truth put in our hearts when we believe. Peace from God is a guide into truthfulness and truth and it will not lead us into lying or fabricating. Fabricating lies comes as habit when we are under pressure from other believers to say certain things but we might say them as true before being sure personally that they are true. We might assert there is a hell before we are convinced of the truthfulness of scriptures that reveal hell. We are kind of being dishonest to do that. We need to rid ourselves of not just lying but of fabricating lies and tricking people by deceptive tricks into going along with our message. It seems honest to us if the end seems good and we think the end justifies the means but we need to be so holy that if we died we would not be those who practice falsehood who Revelation's message seems to warn have a bad future after death with the Second Death. Let's believe in Christ to save us if we unite with Him in His death and resurrection. Let us instead of fabricating dishonestly what we do not know for sure first find certainty in Christ then speak from this standing in what we really do believe, knowing from whom we have learned it. Christ Jesus is Faithful and True. I know this much. I know His testimony is true.

What is the Gospel Truth?

The gospel means the good preaching that Jesus gave following on from the preaching of John the Baptist which starts with this "Stop sinning" and "If the Son sets you free you shall be free indeed". The truth is that it is Jesus being Christ and dying and rising. This makes Him one with believers who identify with Him then we find Jesus is the Great High Priest who can set us free from being subject to the Second Death (the final judgment). The gospel is that we are called to be saints by being called and commanded to stop sinning. The gospel is completed in the last chapters of Revelation that some are not just called to stop sinning but chosen to succeed and escape the second death. Jesus made such people part of Him by dying for them and makes such people a kingdom and priests once they stop sinning and have the Spirit of holiness within them. It is good news to hear we can so escape the second death. The Spirit is to enter within our inner beings as we receive this teaching and preaching. If we believe it we will receive miraculous signs and the Holy Spirit as we meet and in private lives too. He gives us what we need to live forever and escape the Second Death Lake of Fire foretold by God in Revelation and we need to live by what comes from the Holy Spirit rather than by our human nature.

Opposition to the Testimony that Jesus Christ died and rose

The Quran has the following passage which gets quoted when I tell about Jesus Christ dying for our sins. "And [We cursed them] for their disbelief and their saying against Mary a great slander, And [for] their saying, 'Indeed, we have killed the Messiah, Jesus, the son of Mary, the messenger of Allah .' And they did not kill him, nor did they crucify him; but [another] was made to resemble him to them. And indeed, those who differ over it are in doubt about it. They have no knowledge of it except the following of assumption. And they did not kill him, for certain. Rather, Allah raised him to Himself. And ever is Allah Exalted in Might and Wise." (Quran 4:156-158)
My experience is (no lie or fabrication) that confirmation of the message of Christ dying for me was given me directly in truthful power of a spirit within me increasing power in my voice when I confessed truthfully and not when I spoke untruthfully which happened to me just as I prayed with a street preacher who preached 'Christ died for you'. The words hit home in me so I told him about it and asked his help because it never hit home like that before. He took my inside a church in Birmingham centre (UK) and prayed with me and let me pray. As I confessed in prayer in words of truth my voice suddenly became ten times stronger and when I erred from honesty the power went away but kept coming back when I spoke the truth with candour. It continued like that afterwards as I prayed with other Christians in a meeting after the street preaching finished. There have been many such things since teaching me that God is truthful and that the testimony of the gospels is truthful (as I must be).
That spirit power especially surged in my voice (I'm not lying) when in that meeting with Christians we sang this hymn   "And can it be that I should gain
An interest in the Savior’s blood?
Died He for me, who caused His pain—
For me, who Him to death pursued?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
Amazing love! How can it be,
That Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?
’Tis mystery all: th’Immortal dies:
Who can explore His strange design?
In vain the firstborn seraph tries
To sound the depths of love divine.
’Tis mercy all! Let earth adore,.."

Assurance Jesus Died and Rose Again

 Those to whom Jesus Christ discloses Himself testify that He is alive and is Lord and yet their testimony is not believed. Instead people believe a lie. The way by which I came to a place in which Jesus disclosed Himself and God disclosed Himself and the Holy Spirit disclosed Himself is the way of believing and obeying the testimony preserved in the Gospel of John and this testifies that Jesus died on the cross and when a soldier peirced His holy side with a spear both water and blood flowed out. So He, Jesus Christ truly died upon that cross and experiencing Jesus myself by following this testimony is evidence to me it is true so this is no fabricated lie. They fabricate a lie who boldly declare that Jesus never died on that cross.

First Things First

The same message is to all, irrespective of religion. God has taught that we are to put away from us the bigger 'sins' (Jesus noted lying and murdering) in the immediate term and the lesser sins will be removed from us in the longer term. Eventually we need to no longer be doing the things that characterise those who will go into the lake of fire forever and we need to be forgiven things like that before we die. Otherwise Jesus called it 'dying in sins'. It takes belief to get this far, belief that Isa al-Masih to Muslims, Jesus Christ to Westerners, really is, right now. and was and will be, because we need the assurance of His priestly support. He died for sins as God's sacrifice for us then rose from the dead so we need not die in sins.

The Greatest Thing

The greatest thing is the smallest that grows to become the biggest - the greatest next to God Himself, that is.

How We Must All Change

How should God's light affect me? The fact I have been a liar and have hated people when angry with them is the starting point from which I now have to progress as soon as I realise God is saying to stop doing it. First I have to understand that this is indeed what God is saying and a good way to understand this is to read The Gospel of John chapter 8. Now it is a big change to stop lying and angrily hating so I need assurance Jesus is alive as priest to help me change and assurance His death has been a sacrifice for the way I have lived. When I have these assurances I must keep hold of what He said and move forward to put away lying and hating and know that telling the truth is God's way.

Dabela

"The eagle shall instruct them."
This comes from a translation of what might actually be the oldest prophecy in the world apparently describing our time. The eagle is the instructor to the other birds of prey who attack targets including sheep and lambs. Could it not be describing surveillance aircraft passing instructions to drones and other attack aircraft and oppression being metered out on believers in God who are kind and gentle? The prophecy goes on to describe one who is unstoppable who supports the lambs and sheep. God preached through Christ and prophets and others He sent that people should be kind and gentle like these lambs and sheep and not return evil for evil let alone evil for good. The gentle non-violent lambs are not always protected though from ruthless and over-zealous attacks from leading nations equipped with air attack technology and mass surveillance methods to guide such technology. Yet God not only instructed through Christ Jesus His Son to rely on God for help without being violent but He also taught to pray to Him for justice and believe He would give it against an enemy. The prayer of a believer who does not doubt can do more than all of mankind's forces put together. It can even raise the dead. Submitting to authorities except in direct contravention of God's commands then praying to God for justice and vengence rather than taking it upon yourself can make a believer so powerful that authorities will try hard to prevent such faith but like Pharoah up against Moses and his God, the true and living God, mere human leaders can only dig a deeper and deeper pit for themselves. This power in God's help must surely have been prophesied if one does learn to weild it like Moses did and yes it seems it is indeed foretold that it will excel in an individual called the dabela, not to say it does not reside to a lesser extent in others too. The dabela will be alive ehen Jesus Christ returns, if one interpretation of this prophecy is correct in identifying the return of Christ with one who is in heaven comes to the aid of the dabela in full view of all the world. Enoch 89.

Hell

What is Hell? Judging using religious faith from a combination of sources including Sumerian prophecies (taking The Book of Enoch as Sumerian) and testimony of Jesus Christ along with visions such as John related in The Book of Revelation where God gives His word on the matter, there are two physical places described as places of punishment after death. There is one place existing now and it will be replaced with another in the future (centuries from now). The place of punishment existing now is called Hades and it is described as like a huge underground chamber, perhaps an empty magma chamber, where billions of souls or ghosts of the deceased from all time of human existence are held as if they haunt it but are unable to leave it. It can be seen from this place that at least one other similar underground place exists where souls or ghosts of humans are held without punishment but none can go from one place to the other or others. The place that does not yet exist is called Gehenna or Hell or The Lake of Fire and it seems it will be like a huge magma or larva (perhaps even plasma) area that will emerge close by the site of present Jerusalem. This place will receieve people from Hades and from the living too who will be raised from the dead for a little while for their final judgment before they are assigned there permanently. After this Hades will itself be assigned to such fire, perhaps the very same place of fire.

Three Problems in Church Life

Three problems lead to failure in church life after people hear that Jesus is God's lamb who was raised high on a cross to die for them as sacrifice for their wrongdoing. First Jesus said 'unless you believe that I Am you will die in your sins' and that is the first problem - so many church attenders die 'in their sins' tragically still destined for the second death. This first problem makes it so important to understand what Jesus meant by 'before Abraham was, I Am'. (John 8). The second problem is people not being told in terms and logic they understand to stop doing this and that - stop lying, stop hating when angry and wishing ill on people, stop lusting, stop practicing falsehood like having false objects of worship and stop magic arts like astrology, seances and divination. Then they always need to hold to the gospel teachings to be free and fruitful. This is the third problem that so many hear the preaching but fail to keep holding to what Jesus, His apostles and the Holy Spirit and prophets have taught. It needs to be held to in loyal faith all through life.
So the three steps or three problems to overcome once each individual is presented with the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ are these. (John 8). First to believe Jesus is and was and is to come, the Christ. Do they really get challenged as to whether they believe it. Second to be called to stop doing things that lead to death such as the key ones first that is stop lying and hating and lusting. Third to learn the teachings of Jesus and those He sends and not just accept them but loyally hold to them in faith as being what God has said in truth. Do they get challenged to never think they have outgrown the need to keep hold of these things? Yet so many are immediately introduced to step three but bypass steps one and two. Straight into detail without being called to believe and live as saints and be one with Jesus Christ who is one with God. It has to be in order for each person. Else they will think they have life when they don't.

A Theological History of Time

Having studied the arguments for and against regiously gained knowledge compared to scientifically gained knowledge I have the following idea of the history of time and the universe. It is a derivative of the religious Logos Doctrine. It is adjusted for modern scientific knowledge of the universe from advanced telescopes but hinges on faith which is helped and honed by such knowledge. The universe was made through the Lord Jesus Christ back before His life as a human: Back at the start of time and space when He was purely a God called the Word (Logos) and the Son of Man. The Logos Doctrine stated that He came into the Universe as a human being born of a virgin and by the workings of the Holy Spirit (a major mystery). It seems that now the plan is that He will fill the Universe as a Human Being (2.0) raised from the dead and eternal; the universe His powerful logic and honour maintains. This in accordance with God's will and predestining sovereign power in the love God has for Jesus His Son. So God existed before anything else and has from the beginning had this plan all along. There must be a sense in which everything changed when Jesus came to the extent a new phase was begun in the history of time itself.

Science and Religion Paradox

The paradox in Cartesian science is that to keep the Cartesian rules you have done break the Cartesian rules so it fails. Science becomes inherently religious about not being religious if it follows Decartes. Decartes, or his followers anyway, tried to rid science of human influences but by following this you allow his human influence. So I recommend breaking with these 'mere rules taught by men' as Christ taught, in favour of keeping rules taught by Christ. Lo and behold the hyopcrisy goes away. Then mix theology back in with physics but only good theology and only good physics.

Crucifixion of Christ as a Sign

The sign of Christ's crucifixion is a sign of Jesus Christ's washing all who look to Him with a heart to believe. He was lifted on a cross after flogging covered Him in His own blood. The sign is like the Roman practice of putting a natural sponge dipped in vinegar on a stick to wash the body with it. The body being washed by Jesus is the collection of those who believe that 'He is' and who hold to His teachings, wanting Him to wash them and letting Him wash them. He said "Unless you let me wash you, you have no part in me." His body bloodied by scourging and nails and spear raised on a wooden cross became like the sponge dipped in vinegar put on a stick. In short it was a curse on sin and human nature and promise by God of Jesus washing it clean of sin and freeing it by the power of spirit, first in Jesus' words of spirit then in Jesus' blood, holy blood of one with no sin, God's lamb, then in the powerful Holy Spirit sent by God to come alongside believers as a holy advocate.

Anthropomorphic

In a special kind of dream with proof it was a reality beyond a mere dream I certainly with zero doubt saw the 'force' people call God and He exactly has 'human' characteristics. Of course He must be more than He briefly showed me but there is no doubt in my mind He would not 'lie' in what He showed of Himself. I'm sure we have this folk memory of Him as anthropomorphic because He always appears to people like that. It isn't because people were uneducated or primitive. I believe being made in His image is about more than such appearance but it does seem to include such appearance and characteristics. Intelligence of course and language expression and so on although spirit communicates with pictures and forces as well as words and God is spirit. The picture of the Logos prophets like Enoch had was of a Son of Man. The picture we get is that God and the Son of Man are as father and son and together said 'let us make Man in our image'.

Source of Truth

That all things known to man were created as seen in all obeying the same set of rules is a plausible dogma but it is not merely the plausibility that makes some believe it but primarily the source of it and the history of how that source was known in ancient times until today. The source is primarily Christ Jesus and the Spirit inspiring believers in Him. We accredit the source with being trustworthy and true. So when we find that this is a consistent dogma they preach we tend to feel the obligation to accept it. Scientists are historically among those accepting it. Who is then to say this is not science?

Dream Messages

Remember those rulers mentioned in scriptures who had messages given them in dreams from God (not too rare an event for a ruler) and were surrounded by perhaps well meaning but deficient advisors who gave mere opinion interpretations of the dreams which the ruler could not trust. One ruler solved the situation by forgetting the dream so no false interpretation could be given because the interpreter needed also to tell what the dream was. Only a true interpreter could do it. Fortunately one was at hand, gifted by God. Rulers have always had such problems with getting true unadulterated messages from God and filtering out the spin and flattery and cunning but false advice. Ordinary folk have this too when wanting to be saved and truly saved. 

Christian Children

Christians have children. What do churches teach such children and think of such children as they attend sunday school or equivalent? Scripture says the children of at least one believing parent has holy status before God. What if their parents do not clearly stand out as believers, for instance they might doubt but then so did the Apostle Thomas. I grew up a son of a pastor and grandson of a missionary pastor and was expected to be a believer, which to some extent I was as far as a child can be completely sure of anything. Yet I sinned quite a lot you might say (and I would agree) but in church they thought me above all that and I didn't like to argue about it (well at least not about that, but I argued a lot about most things!). So I was trapped into lying. I hated it and longed to be known as I was and helped to repent. I was forced to pretend to be a saint. Until someone sent me away and while away I got 'saved'. When I say 'saved' I mean I heard a simple gospel message, confessed to the preacher a bit of real truth instead of the usual lying to fit expectations, confessing I realised the truth of Christ dying for me like for the first time and realised I might not really be a Christian, he prayed with me, I prayed, the Spirit came on me powerfully breaking the hold of lying by teaching me with demonstration practically of power within to tell truth and not lie, I confessed to other believers and saw more power, it stopped when I went home but the lesson was learned. Just step one of many to come. Still seeking to break further holds of sins. So sanctification takes time but starts somewhere - the message of Christ crucified. Now I overflow with joy in certainty based on power - certainty Christ died for me. But more sanctification has to happen and that is partly up to me to 'stop sinning'. Thanks be to God. Each Christian parent has to tell the basics to their children and this could be a kind of preaching. The people who make it into the kngdom of God all become a kind of priest and priesthood requires answering questions about God. I found that many preached to me but didn't do so well enough when I was a young man to help me repent. They mixed the gospel with their opinions about me which were too easy on me. I needed a gifted and called stranger away from anyone who knew me to filter out all that noise and tell it as from God so I could receive it as from God. Then the Holy Spirit anointing came and the preacher was familiar enough with it to let it happen. All this took gifting and a true sending to preach. The preaching by well meaning but all too human folk might only have been hardening me. I would say they were relating gospel concepts but not really directly preaching the gospel. The real preacher simply used a board and paper in the street and wrote 'CHRIST DIED FOR YOU'. Perhaps all the preaching people who knew me weren't at all at fault but were not enough for me to believe because they simply had opinions about and I needed someone who had no opinion or knowledge of me to tell me God's message unhindered by personal opinion. So I needed there to be someone with nothing except preaching of the gospel to do. Friends simply could not help, just because faith needed a real preacher.

The Need for Good Advice

If Science and scientists were reliable in advising then maybe we would not feel a need to preserve scriptures down the generations. Too much conflicting so-called scientifice advice surrounds us about how to live and work and especially rulers must find this upsetting so some have enough wisdom to reach beyond it to seek a true message from a true and wise God who we feel is there. These messages are rare enough that we want to preserve the best of them so we preserve and filter (select) them as scripture and God helps this and actually leads it and provides it. The Jews have been supreme in this over the millenia as priests to all the world effectively. Now some who aren't Jews are involved more than in the early civilisations. Before the Jews some like Enoch did it and Egypt and Babylon sought to preserve such wisdom as that which had come through Enoch and others. The coning of The Christ was a crucial moment in all this. 

A Created Universe

There is hardly a verse in scripture of the evangelically accepted canons (66 books of OT and NT) in which to find anything hinting at God creating more than planet Earth and its atmosphere. This is not saying a created universe is not believable doctrine but it does not primarily come from scripture but more from a review of spiritual insight into the Apostolic faith in the light of relatively modern knowledge of the existence of space beyond the Earth. To my mind the only scripural basis of any certainty beyond forced or contrived interpretation is the Logos doctrine. Christ holding all things together with a law of Christ to which all created things adhere. All things obeying these laws must be so created. The maturing of scientific knowledge leads to an understanding of a common set of Laws of Nature or Mathematical Principles behind all things known to natural sciences so it follows that the Logos belief applies to all these things equally and therefore that all were made by God through Christ.
Considering traditional evidence given for creation taken from Genesis chapter 1, I believe there is evidence that even long before the time of Moses the knowledge of the universe may have been quite advanced. Constellations were recognised. Stars seem to have been understood to be very distant. Explanations of seasons and even the comparison between the lunar and solar calendars were known to Sumerians with knowledge on a par with that of ancient Greek philosopher scientists such as Archimedes and later the magi who visited infant Jesus. God could have explained more detail about creation than is given in Genesis and probably did. Genesis chapter 1 seems to be a very brief summary by way of introduction to the history of Abraham.

Gospel Wisdom

When gospel preachers preach to you do you find it offensive if they declare you sinful without even knowing you? Another way of expressing the gospel is to charge people with being human in nature when we should be spiritual in nature. The cross of Christ curses the human nature that leads to the kinds of 'fruits' that lead to death and so by Jesus being raised on a cross and dying there God was using this as a curse (like the bronze snake raised up on a pole by Moses to curse snake bites and so heal people bitten). This curse of the human condition is to cure us of it. The life lived by the human nature with its deeds that bear fruits that kill us spiritually is cursed and therefore cured by the holding up on a cross of wood of the sinless Christ so we can be free to live a spiritually fulfilled life bearing far better life-giving fruit. Gospel preachers have to admit to a kind of magic in what God does sometimes that is not hocus pocus but a real magi-like way of achieving things. It is worth remembering God is like this. Not all wisdom is ungodly wisdom. There's God's wisdom

The Divine Logic

Of course it would all be futile if Jesus was just a great teacher. There would be no virtue in such a sacrifice from God for our sins so why then the resurrection. The resurrection and His testimony demonstrate that Jesus was and is and will be the Son of Man who Enoch Enmendurana in Sumeria described as being there always with God. Jesus is the one through whom God made all things that exist and He was always known for righteousness and lived in a body in Roman times and never sinned and so was a perfect sacrificial lamb for sin and when He died God therefore saw it as enough and raised Him to life again on the third day to be High Priest over God's House.

Sponge Dipped in Vinegar on a Stick

The Romans putting sponges dipped in vinegar and put on the ends of sticks to clean 'themselves' after the lavatory means it is no accident they put a sponge on a stick and raised it up for Christ on the cross to drink and no accident John recorded it in his crucifixion account (the one disciple to be there at the cross and see it). The raising of that embarrassing cleaning sponge paralleled what God had had His Son become then be put on a pole or stick, the cross, so our embarrassing dirtiness could be cleansed and healed. A while ago I kept getting a message in spirit 'the state of the toilets' which I took to mean God is concerned with the state of filthiness in our lives and now I recognise this is true that The Spirit does say this - that the cleaning of us needed is like the cleaning of lavatories or our bodies after visiting lavatories (rest rooms) and Jesus had to become like that cleaning brush on that awful cross to cleanse us in real dirtiness we have. He has done the dirty job. Now He can help us be clean and deal with living real lives with His Mastery over us. So Christ Jesus became a depiction of a body cleanser for the dirtiest parts and disinfector like the vinegar raised on such an object to His pure lips made dirty for us. Now we owe Him our lives. Now He is Master over us by rights as well as by true nature. Such love that did this for us. Becoming like that sponge on that stick. Dying. But of course it had to be that God would raise from the dead the Son He loves once this work for love of us was completed to perfection.
Just as reporting for a royal family doesn't make one part of it, so reporting this doesn't make me part of it. Faithfulness to it makes me part of it. We hold to it and then have to remain ever faithful to it, or if like Peter we fall we have to be restored and continue to be faithful after that.
You and I have to choose. Either the eternity that you get from what you hsve done till now and will do before you die, or the eternity Lord Jesus the Christ has bought you by dying on a cross whereby He rose from the dead to the new life of resurrection He has now. You choose for yourself. I choose the latter even though it was bought for me by another and not my own doing. I hope He gives you grace to choose the same. God bless you either way but blessings can be yours that last forever if you choose right.

Embarrassing Reality

The real trouble with truth is that it is so dirty some of it. Our lives have muck in them which we have to deal with. We want the truth to be clean and tidy. We want Laws of physics to be so too. But our lives tell us things are messy, embarassing, sometimes or even often downright shameful and any real answers have to be as real as our actual lives. Jesus took all that and had to live a human life in a human body to be a real priest for us. They offered Him wine on the cross but they put it not as wine but as effectively disinfectant (vinegar was used to mask smells by Romans and maybe kill germs even before they knew what germs were) on what was normally used as a lavatory brush or butt cleaner after the lavatory (a sponge on a stick) and raised it to His lips on the cross. Love is real and gets messy when necessary for those loved. God in Jesus did that for your sake. God is prepared to meet us where we are. Jesus was like us and can come to us in our real lives to really help us.
You see, God's magic was that making His Son and human with the filthiness that entails and shame of real human life and putting it (Him, Christ Jesus) on effectively a pole of wood and having it be raised up God was providing a cure to look at and be healed of guilty shame. Now Jesus can truly mediate. You and I have to choose. Either the eternity that you get from what you hsve done till now and will do before you die, or the eternity Lord Jesus the Christ has bought you by dying on a cross whereby He rose from the dead to the new life of resurrection He has now. You choose for yourself. I choose the latter even though it was bought for me by another and not my own doing. I hope He gives you grace to choose the same. God bless you either way but blessings can be yours that last forever if you choose right.

How to Live Forever

I recommend an in depth look at what Jesus taught in public just before His awful but sacrificial crucifixion. It is recorded for all to read in John 8. The answer lies not in guesses or trying not to contradict scripture but in believing that Jesus is first and foremost for all time ('believe that I AM') just like The Father, then holding firmly to His teachings. 'Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.' You need to be set free from lying and angrilly hating and any immorality in this life through holding all your life to the spirit words of Jesus. He said so. You have to have a real inner knowledge of truthfulness that is found in the real spirit called The Holy Spirit in order to realise the virtue of truthfulness and to let belief in its virtue set you free from lying. The truthful speech you will be able to practice with other believers will set you free and you will realise that being like Satan is unsavoury and unnecessary and in fact all you speech can be devoted to being truthful and then angry fearful hatred can go out of the window too because it is of Satan. The freedom will be a first step towards surviving the Second Death (Revelation 19-22) and toward sanctification while you believe that Jesus truly was and is and is to come who died and truly, truly is alive. You will see Him and He and the Father will come to you and make their home with you and give the Holy Spirit to accompany you in life while you hold to Jesus' words of truth and God's words of truth. 

Death

Surely the fearful thing about death is its inevitability, its relentless progress towards us as life goes on, the loss of function as each gets wrenched away. We might not fear a choice involving risk of death because we feel in control. But if we survive it we still have to face a greater enemy which always threatens to ruthlessly take more and more from us irrespective of our own will to live. It is at enmity with us. It hates us. It will not even stop when we pray. Our prayers do not prevent its advance against us. God alone can truly save us from it. This does not stop death being an enemy. It is always our enemy. We can overcome it by trusting God. This will not make it a friend but it makes it a toothless enemy. Resurrection is the only weapon against it. If you or I want to overcome the enmity of death we have to first overcome its chief weapon, guilt. Denial of guilt does not work. It still remains along with the extra guilt of denying it. The ways to kill guilt are twofold; first overcoming the cause - wrongdoing and shameful practices, then overcoming the effects of the guilt we already have. Getting rid of existing guilt while eradicating the causes that might create future guilt or add to what is there already. We need good priests for this, not bad scientists. Not all science is bad and not all priestliness is good. Bad scientists destroy good priestliness. Bad scientists side with death against us (and against themselves) by hindering priesthood from helping us overcome guilt, the chief weapon of death. Thus they side with the devil. Then there is the Second Death, God's great judgement of the living and the dead to come when the time is complete. Resurrection by Christ will be the answer to this too for those worthy to be raised and those who are worthy but still alive when Jesus Christ returns.

Science

Einstein made it his own decision to introduce the cosmological constant. Later the Hubble telescope showed it was wrong. If he had not had this happen in his lifetime he would have died in a world which thought the cosmological constant was a scientific fact. Some would have thought it was a true fact. But we know it was just a choice of human decision, just that it was a revered human who decided on it. Science is very much about prevailing human decisions. In this sense it is designed by clever fallible humans. The same is true in all times until perfect knowledge replaces it. The Hubble telescope forced humans including Einstein to revise the science. This happens all the time. Science of today may be abandoned tomorrow as more is discovered. Science is never known with certainty. Only God's word and Jesus' testimonies combined plus Holy Spirit enlightenment bring real truth to us. Even these are further expanded over time but do not change, being true.

Believe

 We should not focus on imagination to be religious but on reality and we can see bad reality in our lives like false thinking and hateful anger. These are our real enemy. These are where we need to eliminate what is of the devil. Reality regarding God is glimpsed when God chooses to make it known to us. We need to have a believing heart in such times and as we look back on them. There is a scientific instrument we all have - our inner being. God is made known to it. God is recognised by truthfulness and adherence to truthful words. Believe them when you have these glimpses. Hold onto them as a compass. If you doubt, Science cannot help you believe. You have to believe from these glimpses and truthful words.

Finding the Logos

 'The Logos was with God and the Logos was Divine.' The nature of God is that from before all things He had the 'Logos' with Him and through the Logos God made all things. Pythagoras recognised a logic behind all things. The Apostles of Jesus were inspired to use the word Logos with all its manestic meaning to describe how everything was made. This Logos was in the making of everything from the start and Pythagoras wanted to discover understand it in all things. Science could focus on that instead of money then thank God and glorify Him for it. Jesus embodied it but the Universe runs on rules which come from the Way of this Logos. The faith from God says by Spirit that this is Jesus' Way, His Name (nomos). So religion has already found it in Jesus where Science despite Pythagoras has failed.

What Happens After Death?

Wish there were someone to tell us about what happens after death? Two living people know about life after death but we might not like how they tell. Jesus and Enoch. Enoch has never died as such but he visited the realms (huge underground chambers) where the spirits of the dead are and to tell, he wrote the books we have surviving in The Book of Enoch. Jesus told even before dying because He had been Son of Man before He came and because even after the weakness of be a baby and learning like we do He still had the Holy Spirit to teach Him before He in turn taught the whole world. Then He died on a cross and was dead three days while He too went to visit the ancient dead from Enoch's time. Now He is back in charge of angels including the archangels who rule the dead. So He knows. Since this rise back to glory and power He had instructed believers and has written through John the Book of Revelation too. It tells of future Second Death more the thing to be scared of than the first death we all think about with curiosity. Fear God who gives Second Death.

More to Reality

There is more (much much more) to reality than science tells us. But we have to remember some of it is scary. A baby seeing the reality of the world we see gets scared by it and cries bitterly from time to time. It needs comforting and help as it learns this world by experience. So reality hidden from science but still around us is scary too and we need to be helped and comforted as we learn it by experience (and to some extent by other people's accounts like mine here).

Chess Miracle

First time I was ever given a miracle (God working it in me) was sat with a friend now a respected scientist married to the daughter of one of the world top highly awarded scientists and he saw what I saw and knew the fear I knew. We had just been discussing Einstein's theories of relativity and Genesis, age of Universe, light from stars, etc What he and I saw that made us fear was direct evidence of God. Telling it might not be enough to be evidence for you to make you fear so you might despise it and wonder why it would make myself and an intelligent budding scientist fear. It was quite simple and I probably related it in the thread about heaven so you might have already had the details so no need to give them all. I hope my friend will not object as I have not given enough to identify him. The voice (I never told anyone for years and never told my friend lest people think me some kind of sorcerer and judge me but now other events have assured me it was divine like Holy Spirit and not magic) the voice told me to choose something when we were doing that thing you do when playing chrss to determine who is white and plays first. It said 'choose the hand that looks whitest' when my friend held the white pawn out in one closed hand and the black pawn out in the other after shuffling them behind his back so even he... evn he didn't know which was white. I did this thirty two times in a row and every time I chose the white pawn. We stopped because enough was enough and it proved to us there is a hidden God. The outcomes were clearly being determined by God who alone can determine such things, I realise now. At the time I was more ignorant than today (!) and was scared to tell in case this was seen as magic but niw I have more confidence only God can work in chance to determine an outcome so it was God working in me to show us His power as we considered what to believe about science and creation. It was in no way planned by me that this would happen. It was out of the blue - literally.

Speaking in Tongues

If the gift of tongues or xenoglossia has been a sign in times past of judgment by God, it makes you wonder then, regarding sign of judgment, what judgment it tells of now because it does indeed happen today. God is wise in ways we cannot fully understand. He was wise when His Son whom He loved was put by His will up on a cross of wood to cure the believers of the effects of sin and guilt of sin and power of sin but can we fathom that wisdom? No. It seems foolish. Yet love for us prompted it in God. Why a cross? Why such a cure? Why the similar snake on a pole in the desert with Moses? Why Jacob setting up poles with stripes in by his sheep where they drank and so increasing his share of sheep with stripes? All weird and wonderful but wisdom from God. So too is tongues weird and wonderful and wisdom unfathomable. A sign yes but a sign that God will have us speak even to those who cannot believe. "Mene mene teckel upharsim" If judgment has started with Israel and with the house of God what then will it be when it comes to all the world. "Weighed in the balance and found wanting" For unbelievers it is a sign their unbelief is sin. We need to think about the judgment implicit in tongues. It warns us that God could harden us and others as an extreme punishment. If He speaks incomprehensibly we would get hardened in our hearts unless He gave interpretation, like Moses' Pharaoh was herdened by God as a deliberate act of wrath by God. We would end up ever hearing but never understanding and would harden our own hearts against God. This gift is like a message at gunpoint. You have reminded of this. If God withdraws it with a people and speaks clearly or if He always includes interpretation it is like Him putting away the wrath and only showing the mercy. But the wrath is still there as a reminder to listen while we can.

True or False

How to discern true or false when someone claims to be a prophet or presents what they say as it being as if God Himself had spoken it. If God Himself speaks we need signs to know it is Him speaking else we probably would doubt it is God Himself. This is natural and how we are conditioned. Our defense mechanisms. So we have difficulty telling when someone speaks whether it is their own thoughts they speak or whether God Himself or Christ or the Holy Spirit has spoken to them and they are passing it on. The voice of God or Christ or the Holy Spirit always comes to me with a sign. Ask for signs but beware your inner greed and selfish ambitions might make you tend to label them false or true without faith being given prominence. The eye, said Jesus, can be misleading and give false light to you when it is bad and corrupted by greed and other evils. Be sure your light within is good when you want to use that light to discern another. Even how we use scripture can get corrupted by our selfishness and greed. The Pharisees were experts in scripture but still being lovers of money and human praise they labelled Jesus false. The sign can be important as part of a message of prophecy. A manger was the sign for the shepherds at Jesus' birth and pondering it I would think of a lamb (especially being a shepherd) that this baby is a lamb - the lamb for sacrifice for the temple. A  false prophet might try to trump a sign, like one did with Jeremiah's yoke by breaking it. The profundity of God's wisdom is found by pondering a true sign, as the spirit within finds the sign life-giving. I never really doubt true signs given me because they speak to me so well and show how wise God is. The sign of the manger given the shepherds about baby Jesus shows God knew exactly what He was doing when He provided Jesus' birth as His lamb, and in announcing it to shepherds. They say the main business of shepherds in Bethlehem so near Jerusalem was lambs for sacrifice.

Healing Human Nature

The cross of Christ brought healing "he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes healing was provided for us." but indeed the message of the cross brings healing too. Just as pharmaceutical companies do the work to create medicines but it still needs that doctors administer those nedicines else the work would not benefit the sick. The Holy Spirit testifies, yes, but "You also must testify". Christ builds the temple but the Holy Spirit commands in Jesus Christ's name "Build the temple". We can build and heal by preaching prophecies of the word of God and especially the word through Christ that "Christ died for all, the just for the unjust to bring you to God". This heals people of the sickness of the human condition and mortaility. But yes, God willing for Christ to be put up high on a cross where He bled died so all can consider Him there and live - this brings the healing. God raising Him from the dead brings life hope to all too. 

The Cure

Jesus Christ taught that our greatest enemy from which we need saving is our own sin or as the apostle Paul put it, deeds of our own human nature. The cure God sent is the Lord Jesus Christ born a human and even having John the Baptist baptise Him to show His willingness to follow the teachings John was preaching. He was made human so He could be put up on a cross of wood and bleed and die and those who look to Him now are saved from their greatest enemy, that human form Jesus had taken. Receiving this new way of life is about holding to what Jesus taught as God His Father gave Him to teach and being given knowledge of truth and a Holy Spirit to live by, safe from the tyranny of our own human nature.
The prophet Isaiah wrote, centuries before Christ came,  "He is despised and rejected among men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with weakness; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Surely he has borne our sicknesses and suffered our pain: and we considered him stricken, smitten of God, and cast down. But he was wounded for our rebellions; he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and by his stripes healing was provided for us."

Bible Translation Choices

What is the best Bible translation to read? If you read the 'Koine' Greek of Revelation it is so coloqial it is unlikely any translation will ever do it justice. There are barely sentences used but rather a few words which evoke tremendous meaning. You would need to have Koine Greek as a first or second language to grasp the full meaning. Best to read it in Koine and try to learn it if you can. Same with other books of John. Look at that last sentence I wrote - grammar missing but the meaning is clear if my coloquial English is well understood. I should have worded it 'it is best to read it...' This skipping of grammar and leaning on how words are combined to evoke meaning is how Revelation seems to be worded. I therefore think you are best reading scriptures in 'Interlinear' because translating into sentences results in words being added to introduce grammar which isn't really there. If you rely on translations into grammatically correct sentences you risk taking to heart words added for grammar that are not in the 'original'. On the other hand I learned a lesson from the Holy Spirit Himself (I believe it was Him) about Bible versions that means I take whatever translation is at hand (but wary to put over reliance on words and grammar). My lesson was that during some meditation on a verse pondering its relevance to my situation but needing assurance, the still small voice gave me a Bible reference. Just book and chapter. Sure it was the Spirit I hurried to the other room where a Bible was open which was given me not too long before by a church and this Bible not a version I have heard about before. I leafed to the chapter and could not see the relevance but I persevered and saw a word related to the verse I had pondered. There in the margin was a cross reference to that very verse. So I was sure the Spirit knew this very Bible had that reference and was showing me this. Plus the cross reference itself had the assurance I needed of how it applied to me. I now recognise the Spirit will use whatever is at hand. It seems traditions of doctrinal positions exagerated can distort whatever version we read so once we are sure of a good understanding of a text we should cling to what it teaches us rather than cling to the translation of words. The letter kills. If we cling to the faith and certainty rather than the letter of the text the Holy Spirit can confirm our faith and so strengthen it. So I find to be true anyway. Not to detract from the supreme importance of keeping, say, the words of Jesus in our hearts. They do a mighty job within us to transform us. Yet as I let the words and teachings and sayings do their work as I live my life they do it no matter what version I ponder. It isn't the text I ponder but the spirit in the words. This is what kicks me the way I need kicking inside. This is their power, not the text of the words but the spirit of them - their affect and influence within me. To prepare the heart for these effective spirit words it is important to have understanding and for that the translations can help. To understand that Jesus is the Christ I found the Septuagint a big help because in its rendering of Daniel's vision of the weeks it uses the word Christ and this woke me up to see it actually does prove Jesus to be the Christ. http://www.linkedin.com/redir/redirect?url=http%3A%2F%2Fstudybible%2Einfo%2Finterlinear%2FDaniel%25209%3A25-26 . Here the fact it is the Septuagint is very important because it predates the coming of Jesus. Other OT texts are from centuries following Jesus' coming. 

To Save Me From Myself

Thousands of years ago when the new Israelite people were leaving Egypt they were at one point afflicted with a deadly plague of snakes while camping on their journey through desert lands. It was so deadly it might have wiped them out had their leader, the famous Moses, pleaded with God their God for their salvation. The God to save them commanded Moses to have bronze snake crafted and put on a pole and held high for all afflicted with snake bites to look at and this healed them and saved them from the deadly snakes. Over a thousand years later a great teacher, Jesus Christ, came and taught that our one greatest enemy from which we need saving is our own sin or as the apostle Paul put it alter, our own human nature. The cure God sent is the Lord Jesus Christ born a human and being so human as to even have John the Baptist baptise Him to show His willingness to follow the teachings John was preaching. He was made human so He could be put up, not on a pole, but on a cross of wood and those who look to Him now are to be saved from their greatest enemy, that human form Jesus had taken. Receiving this new way of life is about holding to what Jesus taught as God His Father gave Him to teach and being given knowledge of truth and a Holy Spirit to live by to save from the tyranny of the human nature we all share.

The Secret of Life

Not only heeding the teachings of God through Jesus (and the Apostles) but firmly holding to them all our lives sets us on the road to complete freedom from the tyranny of the human nature and keeps us on a road to life of longlasting fruitfulness to achieve our greatest potential to the glory of God. We might not understand or be able to accept all their teachings but we should accept what we can and hold to it. To heed these teachings should be easy now Christ has died for sins as God's sacrificial lamb so we know God is love. Love towards God who loves us so much should smooth the process of accepting Christ's teachings. It should be a simple matter to love God in obedience to what Christ calls the greatest commandment. You might merely be uncertain that the death He died was for you personally and just need assurance of it. Then it will be a change of things as you let yourself be assured that is was for you as well as for others that He died. Then the teachings may be so much more acceptable and comprehensible. Gifted gospel preaching with genuine faith may be all it takes to give you the assurance you need that it is for you that Christ died. Then a simple seeking of His teachings can set you firmly on the path to the best way to live. So given this need of personal assurance, is there a message to meet the need? Fortunately there is a teaching of Christ which points to such a teaching: That it is 'as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness' that the Son of Man was to be lifted up. This applies the crucifixion of Christ as widely to individuals as when Moses lifted up a bronze snake on a pole for anyone who was bitten by a snake like the lifted one to look at it to be healed. A peculiar wisdom of God easily mistaken for folly unless we have better faith in God. Jesus Christ taught too that our greatest enemy from which we need saving is our own sin or as the apostle Paul put it, deeds of our own human nature. The cure God sent is the Lord Jesus Christ born a human and even having John the Baptist baptise Him to show His willingness to follow the teachings John was preaching. He was made human so He could be put up on a cross of wood and bleed and die and those who look to Him now are saved. The Lord Jesus, the Son of Man made human and mortal, was on that cross as God's cure from deeds done according to human nature which lead to mortality and death. Both the sinful tendency of human nature and death itself are lifted up on that cross as emblem and sacrifice provided by God in His love for whoever will look to Christ crucified and believe.

Is it your Time?

The apostle accounts of Jesus' work report a miracle at a wedding party in Canaan, Galilee where Jesus turned large quantities of water into wine and very good wine at that: It was the best wine the master of the banquet had tasted all evening. The time, though, Jesus had said, was not even the right time for Him to do His first great miracle; Mary His mother made Him do it, really, despite His objections. In our lives we can do all we can over years to keep the sayings of Jesus and the Apostles and we can be baptised and attend church yet never see let alone do a miracle. The time has to come for us because miracles are works of God The Father who is the Lord of Times. Yet it can be forced. Mary forced it and only got a mild rebuke for that. When the time is not full for it to happen it can still be urged to happen by loving fellow humans, apart from divine plans and actions. It is OK. But if we wait for God's fullness of time it is better.

God's Son

Once, when trying to be a lay gospel preacher, twenty or so years ago, I earnestly asked in prayer to see God and to see the Son of God and to witness the Holy Spirit so I could preach what I really knew. In showing me over the following months what was granting me the answer to my prayer, God was very effectively acknowledging to me that Jesus is His Son. The sign Jesus did was commendation of Him to me as His Son by God the Father. The coming to me in church of the Holy Spirit soon after confirms it. So now to know that God commended Jesus as His Son those days when two thousand years back Jesus mnistered in Judea and Galilee and to know that God showed Enoch more than four or maybe five thiusand years ago that Jesus known then as the Son of Man is His chosen designated Son by preincarnate Jesus' righteousness and faith, knowing all this makes for a poignant meditation on truth. Having witnessed Jesus myself I know it to be true that Jesus truly is God's own real Son.

The Humbling and Exaltation of The Christ

Why did Jesus, the Christ, die in the manner of execution by crucifixion? Why was He baptised by John the Baptist's baptism? Born an ordinary baby and placed in a manger in a stable? Why such identification with the commonest of human beings? This Jesus is what was known to ancient Sumerian prophet Enoch, long before pyramids were built, at the end of the Stone Age, as the Son of Man who the prophet saw beside the God who is Lord over all spirits. This Son of Man is the One this God over all gods called His very own Son. The sacrifice was more than death of His Son for you and I to pay our past sin's price when we repent and believe in Jesus the Christ, it was for this Son of Man in status and very nature second only to God, it was, I believe surely that He become like the very least and unworthiest of us sinners by being first born a humble birth then being obediently baptised a repentant sinner's baptism then dying a worst of sinners' death. So that worst of us could be atoned for. The sacrifice was a sacrifice of His heavenly glory and status to the very fullest extent in having only the life of a sinner in baptism under John the Baptist and sentencing under Pontius Pilate and death by crucifixion. All heavenly honour and status removed. All for us. So it was such loss that is now so fully been repaid to Him by God whom He so pleased and now He is truly made Lord over all and Christ for all to look up to. Exalted to the highest degree. Placed on a seat beside God Himself. Soon to come as King of kings over all. This is the true righteousness and faith of Jesus the only worthy sacrificial lamb of God. Years ago I got to have a great answer to prayer when asking to know by experience the God who is The Father, The Son of God and The Holy Spirit. God granted it over the following months so this proved to me that He Himself still acknowledges and commends trithfully the Jesus who died and rose as His very own Son. Having witnessed Jesus myself I know it to be true that Jesus truly is God's own real Son. The fact God sent the Holy Spirit who is, I know myself, a spirit of only truthfulness, and witnessing first hand this Spirit in a local church within weeks of these visitations to me, this confirmed it all the more that it is Jesus as written of in scripture who is Son of God. So I have to testify of it and this is the right thing to do from what God has given me to know. For me it took a message in tongues (xenoglossia) in one church and a prayer by someone in another church to lead me to realise that before all things (all the Universe, not just this planet) Jesus was with God and is completely like God so the sonship of Jesus to God goes back to the very start of things.