The Bodyguard

Once when pondering things of God, I thought about how often with enemies I made in day to day life bad things happened to them when they became a serious danger to me. It dawned on me that it was as if an angel was guarding me. A verse in a Psalm came to mind that might explain this but I could not think where it came from and wished it were confirmed to me that this was indeed what explained my experiences. "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them in times of trouble". Moments later a kind of voice of words spoken directly into my mind said simply "Daniel 3". So because it was so clear and striking I went to the lounge to see my Bible to look up Book of Daniel chapter 3. This Bible was one I was not at all familiar with having been given it as a gift. There was no mention in Daniel 3 until right near the end where the word "Angel" has a margin reference next to it. I looked up the reference and what did it say? I guessed already. A reference to the Psalm where it said "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them". So I knew this was an actual Spirit who gave me the simple words "Daniel 3" and so wisely proved to me that He was not a figment of my imagination.

Liability

When involved in a traffic accident that might have been your fault the usual advice given in my experience is to admit nothing regarding liability for having perhaps caused it because that might incur liability to pay recompense and affect your own insurance claims. They say "tell the truth and shame the devil" but in this case it is likely the devil will stand proud. So how did God set about destroying the devil's works since so much of life is like the accident scenario? He sent Christ Jesus His own Son from eternity into the world to tell the truth then pay the price of real sin so we need not be hindered forsaking sin and confessing it and telling the truth and learning to live a better way, His honest loving way.

Only Hope

There is only one hope for each of us and that is the hope that came along two thousand years ago in the Holy Land. Even still today we are all too bad to fix ourselves without the help that appeared back then. We are born and find ourselves badly broken and as we grow up we find we are in a broken world but Christ is presented to us, sometimes very poorly with misinformation right left and centre but we realise this Christ is the only sensible hope option there is that isn't broken except that His body was broken so we can be fixed so we rush (when the time in our lives comes that we can) to grasp this lovingly held out hope.

Honesty Towards God

God is only ever honest and invites us so to be and this is part of becoming a child of His. How is it honest if we let people force us to say things that we think are erroneous and unlikely to be true? Even in church this happens (and mosque and synagogue). To continue in God's way forward we cannot go their way too. How is it ever honest to be the person forcing another to say what they believe is unlikely to be true? Causing another to sin is something Jesus Christ warned very sternly about indeed. I always suspected as a child growing up in various churches that it wasn't as real as in the first century where people to whom the new testament scriptures were written lived out what we read happened. Nowadays churches are attended but in that time church was a life lived for real. I hope others get hungry for reality today and want firsthand knowledge of God and His Son and Spirit instead of all this speculative guessing at what Bible verses might mean.

Many Keep Saying Jesus is God

People are not wrong to point out the divine nature of the Word of God who is the divine Son of Man who became fully human and was born and named Jesus and recognised as Christ sent by God. It gets a bit ambiguous for people to start saying He is God because there is a danger they are replacing the Father with Jesus in their thinking and maybe do not know what they mean by it and whether they are denying the Father. Once God appeared to me in a dream and this was after I asked earmestly to see God like that but also to see Jesus too in some way (not with my eyes - He could blind me like He did Saul of Tarsus) - and the Holy Spirit too so I would preach with real knowledge of the heart and not just the head. God said in the dream "I am God" and told me things to happen that proved it was God. Weeks later Jesus worked a miracle out in a nearby street that showed Himself to me. Then the Holy Spirit gave me interpretation of tongues in church. It means I now know it is the Father who says He is God but Jesus appears as Son of God and the Holy Spirit proclaims and reveals Jesus is Son of God and by God answering my prayer this way He too showed me Jesus is His Son. Jesus never sought to usurp the place of the Father who is God but God gave Jesus the authority of Lord and Christ which is the highest honour given among men and Jesus has obediently become fully man to take our humanity to the height of the Father's throne where the Father will let Him sit till every tongue confesses Him. He has exalted priesthood to the highest place combining it with royal kingship in ultimate submission to God the Father.
"For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many “gods” and many “lords”), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live." -- Apostle Paul writing to one of his churches.
Scripture nowhere calls Jesus 'God the Son' and this is because mainly scripture focuses on the fact all things were made THROUGH Jesus but BY God so Jesus is called Lord but the Father is called God - this is a real Jesus and real God we are describing so we should get it right and scripture writers believed this.

What is Tough about Who Jesus Is

What is tough is that we are told Lord Jesus Christ is the new coming king over all world leaders. The gut reaction is to recoil because we did not elect Him and are rightly scared of Him. When He left it was after the world killed Him - but He rose. What He is today is the top boss drenched in the blood of judging the enemies of God including people close to us. This Lamb of God slain now has robes drenched in the blood of pressing the winepress of the wrath of God. He will rule. He is ready for it. Nothing will stand successfully against Him when He comes and that includes nuclear weapons and political and technological wizardry such as we have not even yet seen today. He will rule as God's own Son on God's own throne and the world has been His enemy and has to be put down under His feet. Then the throne will be given by Him back to God and God will be all in all. This will happen and has already started to happen. Some see Him exalted now.

Facts

Fact - the archeology of the Chalcolithic Age supports the introductions of technologies described in ths Book of Enoch as having happened at that time - predynastic egyptian eye painting started, writing started, new metal alloy production started, weapon production of maces and the like started, magic divination started, astrology started, sorcery started, terror started. All there is archaeology. All there in the Book of Enoch. All these truths about the Son of Man and God are there in this Book of Enoch and Jesus identified Himself as the Son of Man and the Dead Sea Scrolls include this Book of Enoch showing the Son of Man term was known from that book (quoted by brother of Jesus in a scriptural epistle - Jude). 

Where is the proof?

When someone says they are married to so and so there is never a scientific proof of it but it is true for them nonetheless and they live by that truth. A marriage ring and certificate are not scientific proof. God said of the Son of Man that God Himself regards Him as Son. Jesus is that Son of Man made flesh. God said so at Jesus's baptism and the Spirit of God says so by the things He reveals within believers. God does not need to prove it scientifically but would do so if He wished but He hides it from the 'wise' and reveals it to the child. Ancients knew such revelations and though science was regarded highly they regarded these revelations highly too. Modern wisdom is so much of it folly in God's eyes.

Mysterious Spirit

It is not so much the Spirit in a believer so much as the believer in the Spirit like being in a place. The woman of Samaria at the well was concerned she did not worship in Jerusalem but Jesus prophesied the place to worship would soon be 'in the Spirit'. John was in this sense 'in the Spirit' on Patmos when Jesus' angel came to him. Jerusalem on earth is a heavy rock and weighs on the soul and likewise the Spirit of God is a heavy rock and when He weighs on your soul you are in the Spirit. Judah of old was tethered to Jerusalem for site of worship whereas Israel and later Samaria broke the tether. Jesus foretold a new tether in worship tethering the worshipper not to a site but to the Spirit of God for worship. Spirit and truth. This must be why the disciples had to remain tethered to Jerusalem until the new tether for worship came - the Holy Spirit from above. At Pentecost. See how blind Israel tribes became compared to Judah who stayed in Jerusalem's vicinity and worshipped at the Temple. So the Spirit keeps believers who worship attached to Him in their spirit from becoming blind and wandering from truth. In practice this tethering works by gifts of the Holy Spirit whose leadings and resulting revelations of truth and into truth along with other manifestations of the Holy Spirit such as a still small voice like Elijah and Peter heard all is to be kept for reference and guidance and a prompting for the inner man and spirit which brings back that sense of being attached to the holy and to truth and to Spirit in worship and meditation. This is how I discerned then wrote this. And of course the Spirit attaches us when our spirit is connected to Him (to the seven Spirits) to the throne of God in the exalted heavenly Zion. Mixing metaphores it seems to me our own spirit is like a lightning conductor conducting the Holy Spirit to us once God gives us a visit from Him when we are believers of His message. (I could sense myself under influence of influence of and tether to that weighty rock of the Spirit when those things came to me. It is real.) Here is my own testimony that might help some to believe and understand. I wanted spiritual gifts all my life and eventually God heard my prayers and a local leader back in athe mid nineties took me to a church where he said I would receive what I so earnestly sought. At the meeting a leader gave a message at the mic in tongues. So beautiful the words and not babble but real angelic sentences in a definite language but out of this world. (Years later I learned a technical term for it is xenoglossia.) I had a feeling of pressure on me which was the Holy Spirit and as each sentence was spoken it inspired pictures and  English words in my mind which were a glorious prophesy about the glory of the power of the Lord Jesus' name and authority and how trees bud and produce leaves by it. I'd never heard such things. Then the speaker stopped and started speaking n English and his words were the very words I heard. I reckon this was interpretation of tongues. It is a gift. It is not itself tongues but was great and certainly the Holy Spirit. Since then I heard Him speak to me too and prove to me it was Him. I never spoke in tonges but it sure is the Holy Spirit God gave me. Here is how He proved He is real. Years later I was arguing on LinkedIn and had a lie down to think what I had been saying and contemplate things about God. I thought about how so many times the enemies I made at work and in day to day life got judged by God and bad things happened when they became a serious danger to me. It dawned on me that this was peculiar and as if surely an angel was guarding me. It popped into my mind that there was a verse in a Psalm (in the Bible scriptures) that might explain this but I could not think where it came from and wished it were confirmed to me that this was indeed what explained my experiences. "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them in times of trouble". Moments later a kind of voice of words spoken directly into my mind said simply "Daniel 3". So because it was so clear and striking I went to the lounge to see my Bible to look up Book of Daniel chapter 3. This Bible was one I was not at all familiar with having been given it as a gift. There was no mention in Daniel 3 until right near the end where the word "Angel" has a margin reference next to it. I looked up the reference and what did it say? I guessed already. A reference to the Psalm where it said "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them". So I knew this was an actual Spirit who gave me the simple words "Daniel 3" and so wisely proved to me that He was not a figment of my imagination. Now after years meditating on and pondering in my heart what the Spirit says over time to me I realise first hand that the Father (God) is wanting me and each disciple to have it from Him Himself that He regards Jesus Christ the Son of Man as His own Son who is righteous enough and faithful and true enough for the Father to say it with certainty and own Him for sure as His Son and wants it to be that we too become what He cam call His children through what Christ has done and does and will do and by our obedience in puttting away what is in our behaviour that is akin to God's enemy Satan the enemy of what is right.

Who Jesus Is

It is confusing to people who know little about Jesus and about God the Father if we simply state that Jesus is God without saying other things too such as that what is usually meant by God is the one Jesus calls The Father who Jesus also calls His God. The fullness of deity that is in Jesus does not mean He is not human and does not make Him a deity like the deities of the ancient Greeks but it is deity which stems from who Jesus has always been since time began - the Son of Man who is to God God's only begotten Son - and the fullness of the way in which God the Father fills Lord Jesus and gives Him all authority in the Universe. Also He has the Spirit without limit. There is no lack of deity in Jesus both from the fact He is the Son from of old from everlasting and from the relationship He has with God The Father whose fullness fills Him forever. Yet we need to avoid those who know none of this with certainty getting confused over our words because we are not denying The Father is truly the one even Jesus calls God. Jesus is not Son of Himself, which is what it sounds like to the ignorant to say on one hand He is Son of God and on the other He is God. I prefer to not say He is God as a logical doctrinal statement because of this possible misunderstanding it creates. It is wonderful though what we have in Jesus who has completely become human born in history to die and rise again and ever live in human body filled with the fulness of deity. We can truly know the very Son of Man who has been from everlasting Son of God and ever will be. The One who truly knows God His Father and makes God known to us. The Christ by whom God saves the people of God from sin and teaches what is right and acceptable to God.
[Acts 17:18 shows Luke did not consider Paul to be proclaiming Jesus as a deity like the deities of polytheists because Luke reported it as a misumderstanding that some thought Paul was preaching Jesus as a god foreign to the Greeks; clearly Luke reported this negatively as a misunderstanding of Paul's preaching.] If a spirit within you is assuring you that Jesus is fully human having become flesh like all humans though before that He was in heaven with God and was with God from the beginning then you listen to that spirit. We each have to find truth that Jesus Himself gives rather than any mere human philosopher. Then live that out. The truth I get from Him is that whatever He did on earth we too can do with faith like a mustard seed. He is so human the people who knew Him growing up did not know Him as anything special - even His close family. It is written in John 9:35-37 that Jesus asked a man if he believed in the Son of Man and said "He is the one speaking to you". I believe the only way Jesus might have expected the man could have already believed in the Son of Man would have been from the Book of Enoch manuscripts in circulation at the time (quoted by Jude in his epistle) and these tell of the Son of Man being the Son of God but tell of Him being with God, so not Himself actually God.

The Man Still

I do learn from what I preach. Now I know for sure that the Apostle Paul believed that Christ is still a resurrected man with fullness of deity living within His still existing and ever existing body - from Paul's letter to the Colosians. This is why Christ is the Teacher to heed above all others.

The Final Judgment

The final judgment by God will be final against many things normal to lives of normal people worldwide now and future and past. All sorts of things in society are morally wrong enough to warrant this lake of fire judgment. Salvation from it requires we find things to do in life that will not incur this judgment and requires we have actions we do in life that warrant being recorded in the Book of Life rather than the other books that will all be opened at that judgment. We need a source of motivation and direction that leads towards such actions. Christ was sent to provide this and to provide a sacrifice for things we did before we knew about His way of life. He taught and the Spirit teaches things that can motivate us and direct us aright in such veracity and genuine morality that is acceptable to God who will be Judge. The Good Samaritan is an example of such a teaching. The promises of Christ can motivate us to act according to such directives.

How I know

Here is how I know. My eyewitness testimony. I was arguing on LinkedIn and had a lie down to think what I had been saying and contemplate things about God. I thought about how so many times the enemies I made at work and in day to day life got judged by God and bad things happened when they became a serious danger to me. It dawned on me that this was peculiar and as if surely an angel was guarding me. It popped into my mind that there was a verse in a Psalm (in the Bible scriptures) that might explain this but I could not think where it came from and wished it were confirmed to me that this was indeed what explained my experiences. "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them in times of trouble". Moments later a kind of voice of words spoken directly into my mind said simply "Daniel 3". So because it was so clear and striking I went to the lounge to see my Bible to look up Book of Daniel chapter 3. This Bible was one I was not at all familiar with having been given it as a gift. There was no mention in Daniel 3 until right near the end where the word "Angel" has a margin reference next to it. I looked up the reference and what did it say? I guessed already. A reference to the Psalm where it said "The Angel of the LORD encamps around those that fear Him to deliver them". So I knew this was an actual Spirit who gave me the simple words "Daniel 3" and so wisely proved to me that He was not a figment of my imagination.

Secrets of the Kingdom of God

I tell you a secret: In the kingdom of God we learn by miracles and other kinds of works of the Holy Spirit which are not necessarily always meant to be put into words - truth comes by more than just words, as does faith - then we are bound to live by such truth and copy the love that made it known to us.  We find God points us to scripture too but it is a combination of this and words of grace and power that leads us.

Good News

Some good news. God loves a good wedding. "Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb" says God. And He is not going to let His Beloved Son miss out on one. It is not too far in the future to look forward to it now. The wait is going to be worth it but don't miss it. It is only for the ones who are not going to be part of the bad news:   "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." Wake up and make sure you don't miss this wedding!

Be Baptised

A baptised believer dies to sin and, risen out of commitment to sin, is able to offer themselves to belong to God and be led by the Spirit of God.
Baptism as an induction was not unique to Jesus. It is what you are inducted into and who that matters. Baptism into the teachings and 'name' ('name' being reputation and honour but also teachings, laws, commands, traditions and customs; see Wikipedia article on 'nomos') of Jesus is only unique insofaras Jesus is unique. Jesus had and has real authority in His name, as the miracles show. Other rabbis in the time Jesus was publicly teaching gave teachings the same as His, like that about praying in secret not for men to see but towards God. Jesus did live a real life in real times with real context and presented what He knew intimately of God 'The Father' to people who already had teachers who weren't all that bad and knew their stuff too. Even 'Messiah' is not reserved by God for Jesus alone but was also used to describe Cyrus as a Prince appointed by God to save His People. What is unique about Jesus is "Before Abraham was, I AM". And He will be forever as God's firstborn over all creation who before He came was with God at the very start of ALL creation. Who will be with God forever. From of old even from everlasting. Whose Kingdom and Throne will endure forever. Who will ever get to sit on God's throne with God the Father. Who was therefore unique in being sacrificed by the Father for sins of the world.

Christ died for us

Christ died for us. Imitate good. Do not imitate evil.

Mesîh ji bo me mir

Mesîh ji bo me mir. ¸Cev baş. Tu çavê xwe nede xerab. 

The days of visitation have come

"The days of visitation have come.
    The days of reckoning have come.
Israel will consider the prophet to be a fool,
    and the man who is inspired to be insane,
    because of the abundance of your sins,
    and because your hostility is great.
 A prophet watches over Ephraim with my God.
    A fowler’s snare is on all of his paths,
    and hostility in the house of his God." -- Prophecy given through Hosea

"Israel has sinned", says the LORD. "The eagle" [mass surveillance] " overhead is the sign."

"Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb" says God.

To Believers

We must imitate what is good; not what is evil in churches and church and synagogue and mosque history. I hate it that there are teachers that teach we are all children of God and can hope for the best if we just carry on living like we always did with no need to change or need to think there is any judgment to be feared in the future because Jesus taught differently - you find what Jesus taught in Gospel of John chapter 8 that if we lie we are children of the father of lies who is Satan and those who sin are slaves to sin and need to be set free if they are to become children of God with real hope - you have to actually stop lying and let the truth set you free from sinning and believe there is Jesus alive today to set you free or else you will die in your sins. I hope churches will teach this instead of the usual lies and their hearers will be saved from their delusions. But some will carry on. Some will perish who have deserted the truth and the means to truth - Jesus Christ's teachings and name. There will be a lake of fire.

The Promise

A person descended from Abraham can look back in history for comfort to a promise by God. The promise was to descendants of Abraham so it seems to many of his descendants that this is enough. The news is that it is not enough but spiritual descent from Abraham is needed which is what Jesus came to bring - both to blood descendants and, wondrously, to blood non-descendants. I don't know which I am but I know it won't matter as long as He makes me a spiritual descendant as I follow Him and the Holy Spirit sent by God in Jesus' name.

Christ died for the sins you stop doing

The Crux

You can seek to put an end to your sin since Christ has provided His body and blood as sacrifice for you.

Come out and be Separate

"Come out and be separate" The Lord over all, Jesus Christ with God the Father, surely sees the kings and rulers subject to Him when He foretells how rulers will fawn with what seems so clearly to be Rome in Revelation. The city that rules over the kingdoms of the world, in a present tense written in Roman times yet still it has all that fashion luxury and sells luxury goods everywhere. Let us come away before it receives its end. Revelation 18 starts:
"After these things I saw another angel coming down from heaven, having great authority, and the earth was illuminated with his glory. And he cried mightily with a loud voice, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and has become a dwelling place of demons, a prison for every foul spirit, and a cage for every unclean and hated bird! For all the nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth have become rich through the abundance of her luxury.” And I heard another voice from heaven saying, “Come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues. For her sins have reached to heaven, and God has remembered her iniquities. Render to her just as she rendered to you, and repay her double according to her works; in the cup which she has mixed, mix double for her. In the measure that she glorified herself and lived luxuriously, in the same measure give her torment and sorrow; for she says in her heart, ‘I sit as queen, and am no widow, and will not see sorrow.’ Therefore her plagues will come in one day—death and mourning and famine. And she will be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her."

Balance

So many different understandings of the gospel message are preached today and even lived out yet few seem to grasp this as Jesus preached it in John 8 but the balance is between being by nature children of flesh and ways of Satan but being transformed by Christ and the spirit in Christ's teachings into children of God. We do need Christ to do this in us and keep us in it. That is why we hold to Christ's words and let the Spirit sent in His name lead us.
Jesus knows condemning people for their sins will not stop them sinning nor will lying to them and pretending the result of sin will not be severe. He told them stop and leads us to the truth that frees us to stop; He and the Spirit of God leads us when we believe and hold to the teachings God gave Him to pass on.

Because

Christ died for you. Because this is coming: "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death." - Revelation 21:8

The 'cowardly' keep losing their moral nerve,

'unbelieving' reject God-given faith,

'the vile' are repulsive in moral character,

'murderers' kill or hate without justification,

'the sexually immoral' sell their purity away,

'those who practice magic' sell illusions,

'idolaters' rent out worship for money,

and 'all liars' knowingly keep misrepresenting.

Academic curiosity takes a back seat when the real Holy Spirit of God starts directly revealing things of God when we individually take it to heart that Jesus of Nazareth, The Christ, really did die on that cross for us. Then sin gets relegated in favour of the righteous sinlessness revealed to be in God and in His Son and in His Holy Spirit. Then the words of Jesus need to be taken on board "Stop sinning". If you want academic confirmation there is the fact there were scrolls around in Jesus of Nazareth's time like the Dead Sea Scrolls among which were passages of ancient Apocalytic scripture such as this translated not too long ago from the Book of Enoch (ch 89:34ff) "... presence, who was one of the seven white ones, saying, Take those seventy shepherds, to whom I delivered up the sheep, and who receiving them killed more of them than I commanded. Behold, I saw them all bound, and all standing before him. First came on the trial of the stars, which, being judged, and found guilty, went to the place of punishment. They thrust them into a place, deep, and full of flaming fire, and full of pillars of fire. Then the seventy shepherds were judged, and being found guilty, were thrust into the flaming abyss. At that time likewise I perceived, that one abyss was thus opened in the midst of the earth, which was full of fire. And to this were brought the blind sheep; which being judged, and found guilty, were all thrust into that abyss of fire on the earth, and burnt. The abyss was on the right of that house. And I saw the sheep burning, and their bones consuming. ..."But these warnings only reach a few and those reached might not have time to escape. Escape if you can. You can seek to put an end to your sin since Christ has provided His body and blood as sacrifice for you.
Revelation is a precious book indeed because it is a testimony of the risen Jesus about the most holy revelation God His Father gave to Him. I have tried to quote it faithfully as it represents God better than any representation coming as it does from the very Son of God with God since before all the creation was created (a very long time) who truly knows God. I said too that Christ died for you and others too. This represents God by the very work God gave to Jesus the Christ His Son to do in dying for our sins we stop doing. This is therefore the representation God has given of Himself as it shows what He is and shows what His Son is, the Lamb of God.

A Great Prayer of Praise to God

"Blessed art thou, O Lord, the King, great and powerful in thy greatness, Lord of all the creatures of heaven, King of kings, God of the whole world, whose reign, whose kingdom, and whose majesty endure for ever and ever.

From generation to generation shall thy dominion exist. All the heavens are thy throne for ever, and all the earth thy footstool for ever and for ever.

For thou hast made them, and over all thou reignest. No act whatsoever exceeds thy power. With thee wisdom is unchangeable; nor from thy throne and from thy presence is it ever averted. Thou knowest all things, seest and hearest them; nor is anything concealed from thee; for thou perceivest all things."

     -- The Book of Enoch, chapter 83 verses 2-4

The Meaning of Life the Universe and Everything

I suggest there is no more meaning in our lives with God than without but I do have a reservation on that. Maybe Solomon didn't mean this when he famously proclaimed "Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless!" but life on earth does have a curious mysterious meaning to it as the Spirit who inspires some and inspired Enoch in ancient times reveals. The Enoch passage that shows the meaning that life embodies, I think, is this: "They consider how the trees, when they put forth their green leaves, become covered, and produce fruit; understanding everything, and knowing that He who lives for ever does all these things for you: That the works at the beginning of every existing year, that all his works, are subservient to him, and invariable; yet as God has appointed, so are all things brought to pass." -- Enoch ch 6:1-2
I would say the meaning in life is in how living things show a constancy in submitting to the authority that God puts over them and later Enoch describes revelation given him of what gets translated The Oath which seems to embody that authority and both then and today the Spirit seems to say this is the Name of the Son of Man. This might equate to Laws of Nature and might be what Pythagoras believed he discerned in the logic of the universe describable using maths. The Logos is maybe somehow a discernment of an almost human quality in the Laws of Nature such as in the unexpected reality that they can be discovered by human experiments and expressed by human thought. Hence the person embodying that logic is called The Son of Man and is maybe the reason God has made us in His image, so that this Son of Man could become flesh and blood as the Messiah or Christ. So here if ever is meaning in life itself and all things and that meaning is a rebuke to us that we do not constantly obey and submit to the wisdom of the commands of God and love this Son of Man whom God placed in authority over all things including us.

Why I Speak Out

I was once working in an office during a run up the a bank holiday when most would be leaving early and onto my desk came a card to sign. It was a wedding card for a dear colleague, a great gifted guy, and the card was in a circulation envelope that said the card had to back with a certain person by 4pm sharp. I guess if it was late they might not get it to the recipient in time before everyone would be away and the card would miss their wedding. It was 4pm. This taught me we are not islands but things need to circulate and be taken notice of and that includes things from God too like commands and prophecies from Him that people need on time. The time is short. When God showed all this to me and told me "Israel has sinned and the sign is the eagle over the house" meaning all His people and the eagle of surveillance, I realised the people need to remember His commands and the important one most of all so I was given resoonsibility to shout it from the mountain top. I realised later this eagle sign would not stop with surveillance but without any repentance would follow to worse and worse things worldwide, wherever the people of God are sinning and not stopping. That message came before me and like the card I must pass it on because the time is short and God is speaking. Jesus Christ is alive and is ever the answer and the Holy Spirit God sends in Jesus' name to reveal the things of Jesus which are the things of God.

Who Will Perish

Revelation 21:8  is translated "But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death."
The 'cowardly' keep losing their moral nerve,
'unbelieving' reject God-given faith,
'the vile' are repulsive in moral character,
'murderers' kill or hate without justification,
'the sexually immoral' sell their purity away,
'those who practice magic' sell illusions,
'idolaters' rent out their worship for money,
and 'all liars' knowingly keep misrepresenting.

Reality

The reality of God requires a reality in our love towards Him. The reality of The Lord, Jesus, who came as a human two thousand years ago and lives today and forever, this real man Jesus, died for you, this Jesus who is the Christ who God showed is His Son by raising Him from the dead two thousand years ago.

Covetousness and Greed

Covetousness and Greed: In my understanding covetousness is wanting what is not rightfully ours and giving that want free reign whereas greed is giving free reign to a want of whatever we can get that we feel is rightfully ours so greed is even harder to reign in and guard against because we feel we have a right to what it can gain us. This is where leaders can fall because they feel they have a right to their fair share of the income of those they lead. If they wanted what was not their right that would be covetting and the command of God forbids that. Yet against greed there is no commandment among the ten commandments so it takes devotion to Christ and the word of prophecy to counter it. "Be on your guard against all kinds of greed for a man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions" said Jesus when asked to tell a man's brother to divide an inheritance with him. Leaders beware. Nobody can impose a law upon us telling us to guard against greed and serve reasonably with pure minded reason: That is a yoke of Christ we take upon ourselves as we choose willingly (bond service) to keep and guard His teachings and let the truth that comes from them flow out into our actions and lifestyles. With this yoke we find it is light because there is a teaching of faith too that nothing is impossible to those who believe in God to make good what is asked of Him. This is a victorious yoke.

Unity Truth and Truthfulness

Do not sacrifice honesty for the sake of unity. A lie is a lie, whether you or I or the whole church tells it. The light of Jesus and life of God dispel lies but not necessarily with all people all at once so some have His light in them more than others. We who commit to this gradual dispelling of darkness are committing at the same time to a unity with each other as each is tied to the same Spirit of truth who brings this light. As with marriage, unity is based on commitment and covenant. We commit to God's covenant in Christ. This unites us. If any denominational position prevents repentance from lying this kills unity too because unity depends on keeping united with Christ and Christ commands first of all that followers stop lying (John 8, Ephesians 4-5). If a church forces attenders to lie you cannot attend it and stop lying too. Unity starts with The Door into which all must enter to be in Christ and united with the true Body of Christ.

I just missed a bus today because it was already pulling away and did not stop for me. Church leaders are mostly, probably like that bus driver who probably was not being mean but merely had to weight my need against the need of other passengers. That driver lost a customer because I walked and spent the money on a morning coffee. Churches cannot afford to lose members of Christ though. God wants nobody lost. So a leader cannot force one disciple to lie and stop them entering into life through Christ The Door just to please the rest of the congregation. If you force someone to affirm what they believe is false or do not believe is true then you force them to lie and hinder their unity with Christ for the sake of unity with you.

Why is love towards God put last?

What is most striking in the message of Jesus is that love of neighbours is not top of His command of God priority list; love towards God is. This should be a test of whether we have been listening to God's word or merely our own thoughts. If we listen to Jesus we will find love towards God tops His agenda and if we love Jesus we will love God the Father too. God is not just about love of each other but wants love towards Him to be top priority. We might want to spend all our time finding ways to please each other and friends and family and work colleagues and country but Jesus said love towards God is the first commandment. We have to set aside time, even occassionally perhaps for a little while apart from closest family, to set our compass how best pleases God and to prioritise our love for Him. This leads to life. Then love towards others will be better because it will come from a pure heart and sincere faith and clear conscience.
I so love this God: "Vengeance is Mine, and recompense;
Their foot shall slip in due time;
For the day of their calamity is at hand,
And the things to come hasten upon them.’" (Deuteronomy 32:35)
The same God in scriptures of old and new testaments: "Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but rather give place to wrath; for it is written, “Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,” says the Lord." (Romans 12:19).
When He does act it is so decisive and incisive and wise and perfect, you just have to love Him, in awe of Him. 'Love you LORD'. I wait for that day to come around again. Well worth the wait. As Psalm 18 starts: "I will love You, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer;
My God, my strength, in whom I will trust;
My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;
So shall I be saved from my enemies."
Acts 13:8-12 "The proconsul, an intelligent man, sent for Barnabas and Saul because he wanted to hear the word of God. But Elymas the sorcerer (for that is what his name means) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul from the faith. Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said, “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right! You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery. Will you never stop perverting the right ways of the Lord? Now the hand of the Lord is against you. You are going to be blind for a time, not even able to see the light of the sun. Immediately mist and darkness came over him, and he groped about, seeking someone to lead him by the hand. When the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, for he was amazed at the teaching about the Lord."
I personally do have very real enemies living near by and the prayer I pray to God when they triumph over me is that God my Saviour will judge them. God is judge. Enemies of the message God gives me that I pass on as faithfully as I can are for God to judge too. I will love this God when He rescues me and even when He delays. This God commands all to love Him who know that He is God and He commands all to know this: 'He says, "Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."' (Psalm 46 verse 10). As for judgment of believers: 1 Corinthians 5:10-12 (New American Standard Bible)
"... I did not at all mean with the immoral people of this world, or with the covetous and swindlers, or with idolaters, for then you would have to go out of the world. But actually, I wrote to you not to associate with any so-called brother if he is an immoral person, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or a swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Do you not judge those who are within the church?"
I am reminded that love for God means 'guarding His commands'. That is a great translation: 'guard His commands' of a tricky phrase of scripture to translate, where the translation 'keep His commands' is a bit ambiguous. Love towards God does indeed compel us to do some serious guarding, inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly our sinful ways trick us into downplaying what God has commanded, perhaps when we are too lazy to want to change those ways if it takes a long period of concentrated self-adjustment. We can love God such that we overcome this laziness by reasserting to ourselves those commands and seeking understanding of them. Outwardly the commands and guarding of them results in backlash from believers and unbelievers who either have forgotten them or been overcome in their own battle and object when we still persist in guarding things of God. We have to be ready for this and overcome it too by persistence in our faith.

Key Questions

Have you ever believed? Ever been baptised? Ever received baptism in the Spirit? Ever devoted your life to God? Ever repented? Ever prayed? Ever spoken in tongues or prophesied? Ever sought to build others up?

How I Personally Follow Jesus

Someone asked me: Do I bother looking things up as I try to always follow Jesus? All I 'bother' doing is trying to keep in memory the teachings of Jesus taught me since my mother taught me 'on her knee' as it were and try to obey all the commands within my power and lean on all the promises that seem to apply. I rarely look things up because I think few today do the same who write articles online so online definitions are often unreliable or worldly. I prove the reliability of what I have been taught in church and reading scriptures like interlinear translations over the years because in response God and Lord Jesus keep up their side of the promises such as those in the Gospel of John and Revelation. God one or two times spoke to me in visions and a couple of times the Spirit spoke to me and once even Jesus Himself spoke to me from heaven. They can keep pointing me in the right direction and helping me point others too.

The Anguish on the Cross

"About three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”)." Matthew 27:46

When a baby looks for his/her mother and cannot find her usual comforting presense, the baby cries. A righteous adult instead of crying like a baby can use words of the holy psalms to express those same feelings toward God as a baby has towards a mother sometimes even of dismay mingled with love. Jesus is the most righteous adult of all and God gives Him as an example to all (even an example to angels) of how to stay holy and stay right with God even when under extreme stress when that relationship gets pushed to the limit. Like Job, Jesus did not accuse the Father of wrong doing and trusted Him still but did not deny the anguish of the absence of God's usually present comfort and salvation in trouble. Sometimes God has to withold it but always for a righteous reason in love for us all. Jesus has been there and can sympathise now with us. He also shows how the scriptures can be a comfort to us even when other comforts are taken away because there was a sense of someone else having been through the same turmoil giving a sense of company and fellowship that Jesus needed and we need at times, and the scripture He quoted kept Him encouraged not to sin, which it can do for us too.

Vice is Vice

The Book of Revelation (The Apocalypse) teaching of the lake of fire has reasons people will be judged with it and they include things we call 'vice' (porn and drugs, lies, theft, murder and the like) but notice that God made no mention of legal or illegal. Laws of the world do not come into it. (ref Revelation 9:21, 21:8, original Koine Greek or interlinear translation recommended here). Some of these vices are tough stains on our clothes not easily removed. The stain remover is truth we get to know by holding to these teachings in Revelation and other such teachings of Jesus. (ref Gospel of John 8:31-34).

Do Not Rush the Truth

God through Christ and the Spirit teaches us at the pace we can handle if we let Him and do not rush ahead of Him. As Jesus said it to His disciples (John 16:12-15) “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

Resurrection

The caterpillar does not know what it will become and nor do we but unlike the caterpillar we can have hope by what Jesus has become.

The Son of God

Acts 17:18 -
'And also some of the Epicurean and Stoic philosophers were conversing with him. Some were saying, “What would this idle babbler wish to say?” Others, “He seems to be a proclaimer of strange deities,” - because he was preaching Jesus and the resurrection.'   The Word was divine but the Word became flesh.
We only belong to the truth if what we live out is the real truth so the real truth gets seen in us. We need to be of good courage to admit to ourselves and to others what the real truth is - that the Word was divine, the Son of Man and Son of God from before all things were created, but the Word became flesh, Jesus, still the Son of God but now flesh and blood and resurrected in the love and power of God the Father. Such He is still. He who is seen and heard and looked upon and touched by humans such as He has become. Luke did not see it appropriate to call Him a deity because deities were thought of as above such human interaction and neither flesh nor blood but spirit only. Jesus still has flesh and blood. We need to live out this truth. He became like us so we can now live like Him and if we hold to this truth we must live as He lived. "If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth." John's first epistle chapter 1 verse 6.
Once upon a time the followers of Jesus were deemed a cult. I guess it changed when Catholicism became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Personally I take up the cross of the disgrace of being deemed part of a cult and outside of the official religion of the equivalent today of that Roman Empire if it comes with following Jesus. The alternative is to deny that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh, which is the spirit of antichrist falsehood.
Jesus ceased to be a deity when He was incarnated. He truly became a human like all humans - a sinless one - yet still Son of God loved by God. That is how it is we can copy Him. That is how it is He died when crucified. That is what a marvel it is that He became the resurected firstborn from the dead and lives forever as Great High Priest over God's House and sits on David's Throne.
This Jesus Christ Himself taught a monotheism where only the Father is to be worshipped as God. This Father is the One Jesus proclaimed as indeed His own God and Father and also His disciples' God and Father.
Luke in writing the passage I quoted in Acts did not think regarding Jesus as a deity was correct - I can tell that by his description of the comments of Epicurians and Stoics who he writes 'thought they were preaching a new deity' when they preached Jesus. Clearly he is denying that it would be correct thinking to regard the preaching by the Apostles as preaching Jesus as a new deity. So clearly he too knew that Jesus becoming flesh at His incarnation was leaving behind the divinity to fully become a child and grow to be a genuine flesh and blood man with DNA and the like. They think they might have a bone fragment of Jesus' cousin John the Baptist and if they sequenced it they would see something close to Jesus' DNA sequence being so closely related. That is how human He is. So He can be the way that we too can come to God His Father. Now He is Lord too.
Not everyone is philosophically inclined to split hairs. The truth is for all though that Jesus is the Word made flesh and that before He was made flesh He was divine and known as the Son of Man and this identity He made clear He retained by identifying Himself as the Son of Man repeatedly before His crucifixion and then God raised Him which God did because Jesus is the Son of God. To say He is a deity is to miss or confuse of obscure the truth that He has become flesh and blood. Luke in 'Acts' (Acts 17:18) pointed out that this mistake was being voiced by Stoics and Epicureans after hearing the Apostle Paul preach.
As Christians many perpetuate a lie that Jesus has not fully become a human setting aside His former deity yet remaining The Son of Man. As Muslims many perpetuate a lie that Jesus is not the Son of God. Both know the teaching that liars will perish at the Judgment in the Lake of Fire.
So a third of the world might hate me for turning from other gods to serve One true God and a third might hate me for confessing truth that Jesus is this one God's beloved Son and is alive from the dead having died on the cross and now a third might hate me for confessing truth that Jesus is man and has become fully man though before this He was the divine Word of God and was together with God in the beginning. It is not being shunned by anyone I should fear but the God who can put me in that Lake of Fire on Judgment Day.

Promises Fulfilled

Whenever you experience a promise of Christ fulfilled you can rejoice because you are proving this corrupt world wrong and thus escaping its influence.

Sign: Huge Scale Earthquake Darkened Sun Then Pause And Then Middle East War Spreading Destruction

Signs of the impending Apocalypse: Huge Scale Earthquake Darkened Sun Then Pause And Then Global Grass and Tree Burning and Huge Middle East War Spreading Destruction. Revelation chapters 6 to 9. Then the Empire you MUST shun will arise. Revelation chapters 11 and 13.

Gospel Truth

Gospel Truth: It is normal to recoil from being told we are enslaved to sin but the words of Jesus Christ ring true about lying and hating. (See 'The Gospel of John' chapter 8.) As I believe in and seek to follow Jesus I find the Spirit making me stop and meditate on the sacrifice Jesus became on the cross and leading me to renounce what the Spirit of Truth showed me is contrary to God and know that the blood of Jesus means I can leave that sin and stop doing it. God provided the Lamb sacrifice of His Son. God being father and God wants us to wash our own clothes in that blood. He might do the first bit for you when you believe but He wants you to do the rest. And the words of God the Father? The Father points out sin ("Israel has sinned" He says) and teaches "In repentance and rest will be your salvation; in quietness and confidence will be your strength". The Father points to Jesus of whom He said "This is My beloved Son; listen to Him." The Father shows Jesus and Jesus leads to the Father.

Apocalypse Now?

We could be seeing democratic US plus Kurds plus Iraq starting a new empire. The leopard might be a democratic force since democracy started with ancient Greece. We might see an alliance with Iran too as time goes on. The sign of it being the beginning of The Beast would be firstly a big apocalyptic catastrophic event including an earthquake darkening the sun with say dust or the like then a pause then an apocalyptic burning of trees and grass by another huge event then a huge scourge from the Iraq and Iran area spreading worldwide killing a third of the world's population including perhaps the Armageddon of prophecy against Israel but failing and leaving Israel intact and hugely encouraged and everyone left in fear of God. The Beast would appear out of this as Satan gives an alliance of western forces plus Iraq and Iran his full power.

Believe the Truth

Lord Jesus the Christ did not come to make it not matter what we do; He came to make us do what matters. The way Lord Jesus (and now the Spirit sent from God) makes us do what matters (and it so matters what we do) is to first get us believing in this Jesus who is same yesterday and today and forever. The belief has to go on always. The next stage as He makes us do what matters is to tell us or show us what is evil and sinful and command that we stop doing that. The next stage is to tell us we might find we are serving sin and therefore need freeing from doing this and He tells us the way to Him freeing us is by our becoming disciples of Him by holding always forever to His teachings and so finding knowledge of truth that sets us free. The teachings then make us into children of God who are always free from being servants of sin. This is forever as we always hold to His teachings and to the things of Jesus now given by the Spirit sent from God in Jesus' name. The freedom and teachings lead us to truth and doing what the truth requires and this is what matters as the truth is God is love.

Do not believe the lie

Lord Jesus the Christ did not come to make it not matter what we do; He came to make us do what matters.
Jesus never lies. I believe that. The lie is when people think and teach that Jesus came so that it does not matter what we do. The truth is that He came so that we do what matters. What matters is to do what accords with the truth: The truth is that God is love.

Lake of Fire and Fear of God

Lord Jesus the Christ said the future existence and purpose of the lake of fire should make us fear God and the Spirit says we are protected by God if we fear Him. The details are for God to explain since this is His word and it is for Jesus to explain because it is His testimony and for the Spirit to explain because He takes from what is Jesus' and makes it known to us who live by the testimony.

How to Stop Sinning

How do we stop sinning? "... in your faith supply moral excellence, and in moral excellence, knowledge, and in knowledge, self-control, and in self-control, perseverance, and in perseverance, godliness, and in godliness, brotherly kindness, and in brotherly kindness, love ..." wrote Peter in 2 Peter chapter 1. We find we believe in Jesus believing He is the Christ sent into this sad world by God. We believe His testimony that there is going to be lake of fire where sinners will go unless we stop sinning (in this life). The faith that Jesus Himself died for our sins leads to holding fast to the hope in His teachings and leads to awareness of true virtue which makes sin appear evil. The command of Jesus is that we put away such evil. The teachings of Jesus make us wise to what is true. We need to follow through with self control which is an inner struggle we each know with our emotions and thoughts and actions and applying wise avoidance of things that might cause us to sin. Jesus guards us but even so it can be that sin crouches at the door desiring to have us and we must conquer it. The promises in Jesus' teachings spur us on and strengthen our minds against desire and habit but we need to learn to control our inner feelings and thoughts and habits. We each have our special situations and weaknesses though these we find are common to all. There is no special trick or unfailing code. We fight and struggle and keep doing so all our lives holding to Jesus' teachings and those of servants He sends. Church life can help but sometimes can hinder. We add the need to pray and respond better to what God does in our lives. We add the kindness of behaving nicely to others as part of the way to the ultimate goal of being loving saints who do to others as we would have them do to us and love the God who sent Jesus to make this way possible by the shedding of His holy blood. As I believe in and seek to follow Jesus I find the Spirit making me stop and meditate on the sacrifice Jesus became on the cross and led me to renounce what He showed me is sin and know that the blood of Jesus means I can leave that sin and stop doing it. God provided the Lamb sacrifice of His Son. God being father and God wants us to wash our own clothes in that blood. He might do the first bit for you when you believe but He wants you to do the washing too.

The Penultimate Empire

Our Lord Jesus, by revelation from His God and our God, has left us in Revelation 13 a powerful sequel to the prophecy given to Daniel in Daniel 7. The angel showed Daniel that the lion in Daniel's prophetic vision was Babylon and the bear was to be Persia and the leopard was to be Greece so when God showed the future Beast empire as a mixture of leopard and the lion and the bear it is quite clear what this means. When the beast empire is shown coming out of the sea this too recalls the same detail in Daniel's prophecy of the lion, Babylon (Neo Babylonian empire led by Nebuchadnezzar), coming out the sea stirred up previously by the four winds of Heaven. The nations around the world were in turmoil as Nebuchadnezzar took power after decades of rebellions and scourges and city sackings all over the world (Scythians, Medes, Egyptians and the like all scourging the earth). In the Revelation vision it is a sea not said to be whipped up like this but with Satan as a dragon newly cast out from Heaven standing there on the shore of the sea. This Revelation beast combines those empires as one combined empire. The terrifying reality worse perhaps than the world-ending turmoil of the decades before Nebuchadnezzar's rise is that the dragon will be furious having been forced down to the earth out of heaven and will vent that fury like never before by how totally he gives his power to this new beast. When? Of course we do not know the timescale but to be sober about it, these empires of lion (Neo) Babylon and bear Media-Persia and leopard Macedon-Greece did not last much more than 50 to 100 years at their height with each having a few successive 'kings of kings' (Persia having four) with reigns of up to a few decades on average. Nor did the appear overnight but took a decade or two for the groundwork to be set down before they gained territory and took their first gains of conquest. So on one hand a brand new combination of such empires would take a decade or two to develop and could last fifty to a hundred years before being defeated at Christ's coming in power. We might have decades before a hint of such an empire's rise appears and that time could be greatly clouded and darkened for unbelievers by the horrendous apocalyptic events preceding it and Satan being cast to the earth from Heaven. Such events occurring along the lines of Revelation's first twelve chapters would enlighten believers who see their redemption drawing near. Revelation 11 is key to knowing whether its apocalyptic events are happening because there is clear reference to the literal city of Jerusalem ("where our Lord was crucified") and there is mention of a literal, physical temple there: It is at this time that the Beast Empire appears; when two martyrs it slays will rise from the dead in full view and ascend before an earthquake splits the city into three. It all seems literal in this passage. If this hasn't happened then the following chapters have yet to happen too. So since a literal, physical Jerusalem Temple is not built with Gentiles trampling its outer court like chapter 11 relates it is pretty clear we are not seeing yet the events of the following chapters and the Beast is still to arise as a world empire of the order of those ancient world empires. I reckon decades of Empire rule have not yet started and will not start until that Jerusalem Temple is built and we will see it rise when the two martyrs rise. The Beast is primarily a leopard. It has a lion's mouth and bear's feet but primarily it is like a leopard. The angel told Daniel (Daniel 7) the leopard is the empire of Greece. Look at how the original leopard grew. The Ancient Greek Empire took shape by alliances between cities (perhaps the leopard's spots?) that happened quickly led by one ruler Philip of Macedon and it may well be that the new Greece Empire will form as alliances are quickly made between cities while maybe Iran (the bear) and Iraq (the lion) are only joined with later. It might be like the first such empires where it took two or three reigns in succession to fully form as other empires are either conquered or united through alliances and marriages by these successive rulers. It might be the leopard's first powerful rising ruler forms alliances as before then fights major battles and later successors bring in the lion as head and the bear as feet. All over decades like before. An indicator it is happening is Rev 11 where there is rule over Israel and Jerusalem has a Temple. Revelation is what Christ says so this applies: (2 John verse 9) "Anyone who runs ahead and does not continue in the teaching of Christ does not have God; whoever continues in the teaching has both the Father and the Son." We have to keep reigning in our thoughts and keeping them if they are in line with the teachings of Christ (and the revelation of Him within us and hope of future revelations of Him) and dropping them when they are contrary. (1 Peter 1:13-15: " Wherefore having girded up the loins of your mind, being sober, hope perfectly upon the grace that is being brought to you in the revelation of Jesus Christ, as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves to the former desires in your ignorance, but according as He who did call you holy, ye also, become holy in all behaviour,") So this Beast will arise when Jerusalem has a Temple and the Beast will reach a pinacle of power where for a short time it has power of all the world. How long it takes to reach this maturity might, I think, be similar to the time the original beasts of Neo Babylon onwards took which was rapid at first but prolonged over decades to reach full power. But what will happen between now and then to indicate the approach of it? I think it is still to come the revelation in Revelation 9. A third of all mankind being killed by forces of evil originating at the Euphrates with the loosing of powerful spirits bound there. Maybe we have it beginning with the Iraq violence we see but it will grow, it seems to be saying, until it affects the whole world enough to kill a third of it - billions. Evil apocalyptic torments will lead up to this but maybe then there will be a high chance of not surviving to see the awful rise of the Beast. Maybe this violence will be the Armageddon foretold by Enoch and Ezekiel. When the third of trees and of all grass on earth gets burned up we will know it is starting soon because of what is written in chapter 8. Maybe Islam is merely incidental and maybe democracy is more characterstic since the beast is like a leopard (like the Ancient Greece Empire) but only has mouth like lion and feet like bear (Iraq and Iran). The leopard seems the main component and with dragon's power (Satan). I think what we see in present IS is a hint at the dragon power it will have but we are not at a stage of seeing it yet but some components might be forming decades before the full manifestation. What we see is chaos and enmity against Israel so this might be chapter 9 prerequisites forming which might put us before chapter 8 or at its start with the four angels at the Euphrates about to be released after a period of natural massive catastrophes some in answer to the prayers of the people of God (chapter 8 beginning). Out of it chapter 9 will grow and might result in Armageddon enemies of Israel attacking but Ezekiel 38 fulfilled with their demise preparing a way for Temple to be built as Jerusalem is strengthened by victory from God, preparing way for chapter 11. So I would conclude Islamic enemies of Israel supported by Russia as in Ezekiel 38 could rise up led by the four spirits released at the Euphrates (after a period of huge disasters burning up trees and grass - sun turning dark in smoke of it - like Joel 2) but war heightened in Megiddo (Enoch and Ezekiel) and all these turned on eachother to their destruction and leaving Israel to rise and Jerusalem to be dominant with a Temple but still so corrupt that saints try to flee it in adversity hence called Egypt spiritually in Rev 11. By this time the Beast will have risen with Satan empowering it so it kills the two witnesses in Jerusalem.

I tend to think the sixth seal is probably to haapen next and soon: Sun turning to sackcloth because of some massive apocalyptic event (Rev 6). Then perhaps soon after that (after a pause with protective spiritual sealing of the saints) the next seal (seventh, Rev 8) being a burning up of the third of the trees and all of the grass. So the Beast might be forming at early stages but it might be some time before it has its time of power (Rev 11 and 13).

Pankration

In the book 'Revelation' given from God through Jesus Christ to John, there is a word for God which is pantokrat translated Almighty and in ancient Greece there had been an olympic sport called pankration with similar meaning "all of strength". The sport required two contestants to wrestle with all their strength using every way they could by both kicking and heaving at eachother to gain supremacy. This seems to be alluded to in the word for Almighty which shows God is full of such power as to be able to use it against any opponent and win fairly. So it seems God has chosen to make us as worthy competitors to contest with all kinds of strength so as to come out on top fairly. This is seen in how Jacob wrestled all night with what he thought was a man but later found to be God so he was called 'Israel', and the rest is history. We are made in the image of God as those who can wrestle with God fairly as worthy sporting opponents but not enemies. All for God's great joy. Oh the scariness of the thought that here hidden on this planet resides the being who made the entire Universe and we are made so we are like this person enough that we can appreciate and dwell with Him. Such a thought requires us to have the likeness in our minds and souls and spirits in the image of Him just to survive and understand the awareness of it; all so that we can live side by side with Him in a future city like His Son lives side by side with Him now.

Studying Scriptures

If our goal is merely to study and know the Bible scriptural books and letters but not to act regularly and daily on what we read we are deluding ourselves and better off not reading scripture. I had a leader at university who challenged us 'what have you done recently because of something you read in scripture? how have you changed your behaviour because of something you read in scripture?'. This made me try to spend longer making sure I obey than I spend studying scripture. To obey you need more than knowledge, you need understanding. To understand it you need to meditate on it day and night and hope God in time grants you insight. But be warned: reliance on keeping the Law of Moses makes some Bible readers stumble and fall away from reliance on the grace of God that Jesus gives. Some Gentile readers even stumble into having their male children circumcised so they can keep the Old Testament feasts. Just reading it can be hazardous without guidance of grace and proper explanation. Just think - it is a set of thousands of years worth of historic sacred documentation and needs learning to read safely and even many learned have stumbled in reading it, as Saul did even under Gamaliel's guidance before Saul saw Jesus and became Paul.

There is Sin but There is Jesus

The Gospel of John chapter 8 verses 10-32: "... When Jesus had stood up and saw no one but the woman, He said to her, “Woman, where are your accusers? Did no one condemn you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more.” Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.” The Pharisees therefore said to Him, “You bear witness of Yourself. Your testimony is not true.” Jesus answered them, “Though I bear witness of Myself, My testimony is true. For I know where I came from and where I am going. But you do not know where I came from or where I am going. You judge according to the flesh. I judge no one. Yet if I do judge, My judgment is true. For I am not alone, but I am with the Father who sent Me. Even in your law it is written that the testimony of two men is true. I am One who bears witness of Myself, and the Father that sent Me bears witness of Me.” Then they said to Him, “Where is Your Father?” Jesus answered, “You know neither Me nor My Father. If you knew Me, you would know My Father also.” Jesus spoke these words in the treasury, as He taught in the temple. No one arrested Him, for His hour had not yet come. Again, Jesus said to them, “I am going away, and you will seek Me, and you will die in your sins. Where I am going, you cannot come.” So the Jews said, “Will He kill Himself? For He said, ‘Where I am going, you cannot come.’ ” He said to them, “You are from below; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world. Therefore I said to you that you will die in your sins. For unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins.” They said to Him, “Who are You?” Jesus said to them, “Just who I have been telling you from the beginning. I have many things to say and to judge concerning you, but He who sent Me is true. So I tell the world what I heard from Him. They did not understand that He spoke to them of the Father. So Jesus said to them, “When you lift up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am He, and I do nothing of Myself. But I speak these things as My Father taught Me. He who sent Me is with Me. The Father has not left Me alone, for I always do those things that please Him.” As He spoke these words, many believed in Him. Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you remain in My word, then you are truly My disciples. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.”..."

Erratum

Must correct my earlier comments about Revelation with respect to what is signified by the beast. A sister corrected me. The first beast in Rev 13 is clearly signifying a mixture of three beasts in Daniel 7 since it combines the lion and leopard and bear in Daniel 7. It arises out of the sea as in Daniel 7. The angel already interpreted it for Daniel as to which empires were signified and so it is safe to understand the Rev 13 beast in this light: There is no mention of EU or UK or USA here but rather Babylon and Persia and Greece. The Babylon the Great can be regarded as the same Babylon which is the lion in chapter 13. The second beast comes out of the land so maybe this is where the mystery lies.

How Holy Is Your Faith?

How much of a blessing is the real spiritual gift of speaking in tongues by the Holy Spirit? What does scripture say? "Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God, for no one understands him; however, in the spirit he speaks mysteries. But he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation and comfort to men. He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but he who prophesies edifies the church. I wish you all spoke with tongues, but even more that you prophesied; for he who prophesies is greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets, that the church may receive edification." So wrote the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:1-5. There is more to it that is not in that passage though, such as this in an earlier passage in the same epistle: 1 Corinthians 2:4-6 "and my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, so that your faith would not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God. Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away;" We might well want to have the holiest faith in which to build ourselves up and this kind of faith had best come not from human words of wisdom and cleverness but from demonstration of the Spirit's power, one manifestation of which is the genuine gift of tongues. Then when maturity comes closer as that faith builds us up we need real wisdom from God and one way this comes is through true interpretation of said gift of tongues by the gift of interpretation of tongues. Leaves a question: How holy is your faith? You need to build youraelf up in faith that is truly holy. Even if churches do not encourage such faith, real holy faith is wiser than human wisdom or anything that depends on human wisdom, even wiser than some of the wisdom encouraged in churches who might actively discourage the holiest faith.

Way to Go

There will be a new city of peace with Jesus and God reigning directly and places in it will be going to those whose deeds written from their lives are in the book of life. If we are only ever sinning slaves to sin in this life, typified by the slave of Abraham, we are not children of the promise and our names are not written in the book of life. If we follow the words of Jesus and holding to them we over time put sin away from us as He sets us free then we will fill our lives with deeds that are worthy of being recorded in the book of life and our names will be found in it at the Judgment so the new city of peace will have a place for us. John 8, Galatians, Revelation 21-22.

Due Care and Attention

Although we are to cast our cares upon God He does not want us living and working without due care and attention for our needs and happiness and for the needs and happiness of those we live with and those we work with. To call Him our God and then ignore careful attentiveness is to deny His own care for not just us but others too. This is why Jesus, Son of God, refused to condemn the woman recorded in The Gospel of John chapter 8 caught in adultery - because God cares for sinners too. One caring provision God has made for man is the Sabbath. 'The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.' Even though enshrined in the Law of Moses, the commands in the ten commandments are to us like executive orders we obey even though not under Law but under Christ. The Sabbath was directed towards the Jews but extended in the prophets towards Gentiles living amongst Jews but here in the words of Christ who is over the Church His Body we have application of it in God's care 'for man'. So in love for God we can obey His commands, His executive orders, and live in the care He has lovingly provided and revealed in the coming and ministry of Jesus His Son. 

How I Know Jesus Is God's Son

After decades trying to simply follow the apostles teachings with Jesus' teachings I asked God over and over to do what it seemed Jesus promised He would do for those obedient - I asked that instead of me having to convince myself about God all the time, instead of that God would show Himself to me (in a dream say) as Father and Son and Holy Spirit. Then one night I saw in a dream God standing there in a long gown like you see in pictures and He said "I am God" before telling me things that would happen the next day and what I must do. They happened like He said and I was astounded it was indeed God. Then days or weeks later (Jan 1995 I think) I was going to a river near home in a torrential rainstorm with a huge umbrella up and as I came back a voice clearly said "Put down your umbrella" and as soon as I did that torrential downpour stopped dead. I just remembered the miracle of Jesus giving a great catch of fish and how the disciples said "It is the Lord" and I said the same. I asked that night that if it was indeed Jesus He would do such and such by the morning and amazingly He did and I was stunned. Weeks or months later the Holy Spirit showed Himself to me in an Assemblies of God church when tongues were spoken and an interpretation of the angelic words given me describing how by the authority of Lord Jesus' name all creation persists. To me this proves that Jesus is truly the Son of God, or more precisely, it is God proving in action to me that Jesus is His Son. I was asking God to show me God the Father and God's Son and it was God and Jesus who showed themselves. The Holy Spirit sealed it all by His manifestation too. The fact it verifies teachings like John's shows me too that Jesus died like John says and the fact it verifies Jesus is alive now verifies He is raised by God, and that again shows He is God's Son. This is important since many and even the Muslim interpretation of their scriptures, deny this. Seeing Jesus Son of God need not be with the eyes. A blind man can 'see' a person by perceiving them. Jesus can reveal His power and glory with a miracle and a whisper. He said 'blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe' so when I asked God that God's Son would show Himself to me I was troubled by the loss of blessing it might be so (probably misunderstanding Jesus' saying) I asked not to see Him visibly. He was careful to show me so my inner soul could perceive Him but not my eyes. I 'saw' an awful lot though. Wonderful! I saw Him like a blind man would see Him. I perceived Him because He made me perceive Him.  God, Son of God, Spirit all three (yes, united as one, it is true) showed absolute wisdom in the ways each showed Himself to little old me by overcoming so wisely my obstacles and defenses and proving things I had no idea could be proven like that. This was not me imagining things. They each made that clear. Very very wise and with absolute power but gentleness too. These guys do not mess around! Why not go the way to seeing Him for yourself: Jesus at the last supper was sayingbthese things John 14:20-23 New American Bible (Revised Edition) "On that day you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and observes them is the one who loves me. And whoever loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and reveal myself to him.” Judas, not the Iscariot, said to him, “Master, [then] what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?” Jesus answered and said to him, “Whoever loves me will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our dwelling with him."   When I asked Jesus to confirm it was Him I was back indoors. I was about to go to sleep. I saw a dressing gown hanging on a nail in the wall which I had never used because I never got up in the night. I asked that if it is Him who was appearing to me that the dressing gown would be off that wall by the morning. In the night something inside me forced me to wake up and get up. It was like it got past my mental defenses. Like the outer door of my mind was ignored and the inner door knocked on without opening the outer door. I got up immediately and took the dressing gown off the wall and suddenly remembered my request for confirmation. How clever He is. I knew He knew my mind better than I did as having the Master keys. He is the Master of me. Jesus in Revelation 3:20-22 "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him, and he with Me. He who overcomes, I will grant to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame and sat down with My Father on His throne. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’”

Who Else Could It Be

A voice came out of heaven, out of the sky, at Jesus of Nazareth's baptism. "This is my beloved Son". We know who spoke. Who else could it be.
A voice came out of heaven, out of the sky, as Saul of Tarsus rode to Damascus. "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Saul had to ask who was speaking but who else could it be.
A voice whispers into our minds teaching us about the fear of God and glorifying Lord Jesus' name but does not introduce Himself and merely speaks out of the blue. Who else could it be but the Holy Spirit sent from God.
God needs no introduction. Jesus needs no introduction. The Holy Spirit needs no introduction. Who else could it be.

Look at Jesus

When God said at Lord Jesus Christ's baptism and later transfiguration that Jesus is His only begotten Son He said to listen to Him. Now Jesus has been crucified as Lamb of God for the sins of the world and is risen, raised from death by God, God shows us still that Jesus is His Son and that we are to look at Jesus. And as Jesus the Son of God was from beginning, and with the first, so He will be to the end and with the last. This the Spirit shows us.

The New Worship

The Passover was only allowed in one specific place of God's appointing because it involved sacrificial killing of lambs. Now we have no such specific place for Gentile believers but Gentiles are included in Christ nonetheless. We have no enduring site for sacrifices. Even the Jews have had centuries without a Temple for sacrifices such as Passover sacrifices. Jesus Christ, the Son of Man, has had blood flow from hands and feet and head and side. This Lamb of God was chosen for this by God as the only worthy pure sacrifice. So no need exists for Passover lambs sacrificed yearly nor any yearly feast requiring male participants to have been circumcised in their body. Hebrews 2:17 "Therefore, He had to be made like His brethren in all things, so that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people." Yet He could say to them "Before Abraham was, I am" and now He has again the glory He had before the world began. Jesus has taught that the way to live to please God is to worship or serve God in Spirit and truth or as it is written in Philippians 3:3, to worship by the Spirit of God. Does the Spirit teach we who are Gentiles by birth but brought into Christ by faith to keep yearly feasts? No but He teaches the wonder of Jesus' Lordship and Authority and teaches the fear of God the Father of our Lord Jesus. Jesus said in John 4 that worshippers God wants will worship in spirit and truth. At that time the Holy Spirit was not yet given. Now the Holy Spirit is given but not to all. But as then and so too now those without the Holy Spirit given to them can if they believe still worship or serve God in spirit and truth. Jesus' words are spirit and truth. Jesus testified of God's word " Your word is truth". God spoke in the hearing of a few as recorded in the Gospels about Jesus "This is my beloved Son. Listen to Him." This then is truth to live and worship by. The words of Jesus in the Gospels and spoken these days too are all for us spirit and truth to worship and live by. The Holy Spirit brings it closer to home as He manifests Himself to believers. All this is truth and spirit by which to worship God, to serve God and to live to please God. Feasts year on year are not part of it for Gentiles but only spirit and truth. Feasts were only for Gentiles whose male family members were circumcised. This is not the way Jesus teaches to Gentiles. So rather than worshipping God with feasts which for Gentiles and Jews requires circumcision of male family members (Exodus states this) the way for us to worship is by the Holy Spirit or the spirit of the words of Jesus and what God says through Him and by glorying in Jesus. Philippians 3:3 "For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh". This was surely written to both Jews and Gentiles who were believers living in the vicinity of Roman times Philippi. So believing is now so important and vital because it is to believers in the message of God that God gives the Spirit. Through following this way of Christ Jesus we find the truth in which to glory, that God Himself shows to us and demonstrates to us that Jesus is His Son, the Son of God. Then the Holy Spirit leads us into more truth about Jesus being made by God the Lord in whose name all creation fulfils God's purposes and is sustaimed and by this sustenance we too are sustained. And so we glory in Jesus. This is the way to please God in faith as our worshipful service to God whether Jew or Gentile. God makes things sometimes happen in our lives making us exclaim 'It is the Lord' and by the Spirit we then understand and say that it is Jesus who is the Lord. We say 'surely this is the Son of God' and again it is by the Spirit. So we continue and again our continuing is because we hang on the Spirit. All this and feasts not a part of it nor anything requiring anyone to be circumcised in their body but we have the Spirit instead who is all we need to fit us to God's new covenant requirement for this new way of worship that God gives us. 

What to do

The God we call our God is real. Find out lovingly what He wants us to do, how He says to live our lives (bought by Christ's blood) and stick to that.
What it seems to me God wants is our loving responsiveness to what we see: First when we see God and His deeds and words; then when we see His Son and His God-given deeds; then when we see the deeds and needs of His disciples. This is what matters to God.

Stop Sinning

A true perception of Jesus Christ (by faith in Him) is the perception that He is, from God,  a message to you 'Stop sinning'. 

Tell It

The Holy Spirit comes to us in Jesus Christ's holy name and tells us things to shout out so all can hear. 'Shout from the rooftops what is whispered in your ear.' Yet how much of His revelations and the Revelation of Jesus Christ that all the people and governments need to hear is shouted like this? Still there are major things we need all to hear but do not tell like Jesus tells. The ancient sins of humans continue because few acknowledge or know they are sins. Jesus told us all but do we pass it on. If they don't listen then we are blameless but if we hear but do not say we have to accept blame if God intended us to tell it to them. Let us not be blamed merely because we are afraid to tell what Jesus told and the Holy Spirit confirms. 'Let him who has ears to hear, hear what the Spirit says to the churches.'

United With Christ and Separate From the World

Fully united with Christ we are not separated from other followers of Christ spiritually but to be fully united with Him does involve separation from the world and the world may include close friends and maybe even family and some we thought were Christians. That is the pain of separation that comes with knowing Christ but knowing Christ more than makes up for it and God comforts us.

In Short

In short: Our lives are messed up; and Lord Jesus is the High Priest; and we have to be His disciples to be set free.

Religion and the Cross of Christ

Religion is primarily about putting up with something that runs counter to pleasure and self-interest such as by fasting or endurance of the restrictions of a feast by not working and by setting aside personal common day practices and activities. When a person identifies with Christ Jesus they endure a share in the suffering He endured when He was crucified. This supercedes all other religious feasts and fasts because it is the day after day suffering that satisfies the demands religious duty imposes to set aside self-interest for the sake of higher duty. We can allow the suffering endured by the Righteous Christ to affect us too as we have become bound spiritually to Christ so what affected Him affects us too. This takes the place of any feasts and fasts in the religious requirement of self denial.

Butterfly Set Free

BC = caterpillar and cocoon  AD = butterfly set free

A Real Child of God

There are over-simplifications given to describe a child of God. Three aspects are to be called and chosen and faithful in following Jesus Christ. Called to stop sinning and learn to do right is first and that means belief in what Chist says: "Stop sinning". Those believing it find they are given the Holy Spirit and miracles by God Himself. The calling is to many but the grace of receiving the calling is given to far fewer people. Having received the calling to be a saint with Holy Spirit leadership it is vital to continue to the end of life, holding fast to the calling and teachings of Christ and truth of the Spirit and if we do we know we are really what God describes as children of His. Of course other aspects of real faith are rewarded or recognised by God by His giving miracles and the Holy Spirit: Simply believing that He is the Creator is a starting point of faith. Believing that Christ died for you is another instance of faith that God rewards. Still the faithfulness is required to continue such a progress into faith through all of life. That is being called and chosen and faithful. And letting it lead how you live. The example we are given is Abraham and in Galatians Paul taught that such as these who live by faith are children of Abraham. I also find a good description of living by faith is John Bunyan's "A Pilgrim's Progress" allegory and the hymn of his "Who would true valour see" or "To be a pilgrim". This is an individual Christian but the body of local believers which is a church or assembly (or some other term depending on culture) is something again when the individuals believe themselves to be joined spiritually in Christ. Yet it does not substitute the need for the individuals to walk the eternal life of faith as children of Abraham and become transformed and sanctified as children of God. When travelling with a coach party in foreign countries each individual still needs their own passport. Finding you were mistakenly relying on the group for your passport is a nightmare scenario, like the man in the parable who finds himself at a banquet in the wrong clothes.

The Faith of the Apostle Paul

The Apostle Paul left us a legacy of Christian Churches and scriptural letters and from the letter to the Galatian Church we find evidence of his belief that the God who is Father of Jesus Christ gives the presence of the Holy Spirit that comes from Him to people when they believe the testimony of the message from Jesus Christ and the Apostles of Jesus Christ. Today the same seems true, that God still rewards faith by giving the presence of the Holy Spirit. Manifestations of this Holy Spirit are recognisable by their inherent holiness and purity and by acknowledgment of the truth that Jesus is the Christ and that God the Father calls Jesus His own beloved Son. The Spirit who is aligned with such truth is clearly sent by God. This Spirit comes to lead the believer in the way of knowing the truth that comes from God the Father. What faith is rewarded this way? The certainty within that Jesus wants each one to turn from lies and other such unethical behaviour and only behave ethically in a way that will not be judged by the future Lake of Fire which will burn up forever those who refuse to stop such unethical practices that God the Father hates and refuse to learn to please God by learning to do what God regards as right. And the death Jesus died was to free people from they unethical ways to be free to please God. They resurrected Jesus lives forever to keep people living in this way of pleasing God. So the giving of the Holy Spirit is the way God confirms people in this faith. Here is an extract from a modern translation of Paul's letter to Galatians (chapter 5) showing this faith "Are you so foolish? After beginning by means of the Spirit, are you now trying to finish by means of the flesh? Have you experienced so much in vain—if it really was in vain? So again I ask, does God give you his Spirit and work miracles among you by the works of the law, or by your believing what you heard? So also Abraham “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.” Understand, then, that those who have faith are children of Abraham."
So who is this man, Abraham? A mysterious figure from the very distant past, in very ancient times he was famous but known mainly for being the biological ancestor to the modern Jews. He might be the person who invented a seed drill found by archaeology in ancient Babylon and now known for his departure from ancient long popular religious concepts such as sun worship who believed there must be a creator spirit we nowadays call God. Back in ancient times there was so much false religion based around idol worship and much wickedness associated with such lack of faith in a single true creator God yet Abraham sought out a true creator God and was chosen to find this God and learn to love Him and worship Him in truth.