August 15, 2007

Man's tension is seeking a known good in a world of wrong.

Without guidance, he ends up destroying what is right in order to explain what is wrong.

August 15, 2007

Does God determine every single event in the universe? If He does, this raises some real thorny questions one must answer. Why will one person's life be spared and not the other? Why will one person be healed and not the other?

These days, you hear from the pulpit a lot about God's destiny and divine will for your life. God has a special plan for your life and if you will just seek Him, it will be shown to you.

The problem with this special plan is what about now? Here you are listening to someone telling you to believe God to show you your way and suddenly you realize by default, you're not in God's plan.

You may be married and suddenly you can ask if this is the one God meant for you to marry. What is happening is, you are being told to find a plan from God and really a plan has already been made. Who gave this person the right to say you are not in God's plan now? You may have raised children and put them through college and what are you to do now?

This is a form of manipulation to appeal to your sense of wanting to do right, especially if you are in a church and acknowledge a God to whom you have pledged an allegiance.

You find this a lot in the TV evangelists when they ask for money. They say give what's on your heart or whatever God speaks to you about. This is putting you in the situation of proving God would speak to you personally. If you do not give something, you cannot possibly be spiritual. Crowd mentality is real and anyone can succumb to it.

July 19, 2007

Having to assume/believe in the historical authenticity of the Bible, physically written by men and yet claiming to be God's communique to man, is a total act of trust. Unless one comes as a child, he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven.

Man's intellect grows on assumptions fed to him through knowledge and experiences.

God has compiled His testimony in such a way as to appeal to the reason of man and to demand trust from the reason of man. By accepting the Bible as what it claims to be, you are putting your entire life and trust in the assumption of men from antiquity claiming to have seen the Christ raised from the dead.

If your eternal life is based on this assumption, you had better make sure the claims these men make are cogent with the reality you live in. After a while of studying the Bible, you understand man could not produce such a consistent discourse through the time in which the Bible was written. You begin to see your trust is not in the hands of men who physically wrote the Bible but in the God they claim. Assuming something is true is done every day. Having adequate reasons for your assumptions is quite another matter.

June 27, 2007

People are trying to credit God with these acts {i.e. hurricane Katrina} against sin when sin has already been taken care of at the cross. To say sin is the reason for a particular event or condition of a country is to forget that sin will be judged by God in the future.

May 19, 2007

We do not proclaim a formula but a hope. Christianity today is more about leading people into a formula to believe rather than of a hope to believe in. We attract people to our churches with programs instead of truth. I believe if you want to get people to be interested in your philosophy [concept of truth] do not try to make it relevant with the current competing philosophies but make it rational.

May 15, 2007

The Bible speaks of spiritual realities but it does not promote a method of how to perform spiritual realities. All these preachers who go to college and learn how to interpret scripture get jobs where all they seem to do is allegorize scripture. They present meaning in metaphors and similes instead of teaching their flocks how to read scripture themselves. I think we as a flock have become accustomed to hearing what we think is inspirational instead of understanding inspiration [encouraging] comes from intellectual understanding. Real inspiration believes in something with courage, and knowledge is the only way to know what you believe in. Without a confidence in what we believe we can't stand for what God has taught.

May 2, 2007

I am not worshiping a God who will not pour out His wrath. I am worshiping a God who desires not to pour out His wrath.

The Bible is about what God has done, not what you are to obtain.

I [cleaned the carpet at a] house today and saw all the pictures of his late wife. The fact of her being alive even now was just overwhelming. I know she is as alive as I am and if she is in the presence of God, she is even more so. I understand you can go to her grave site and pull up her body today. I also know when people remember her, they don't necessarily consider the physical body as who she was. It will be the personality who will be discussed and remembered, not her body. Her person is alive now wherever she is.

April 30, 2007

Today I was thinking about how the world promotes change as always coming from or through rebellion. It got me thinking of Hollywood and stars like James Dean, Marlon Brando, and the movies never seem to point to conformity as a good virtue.

Even as a young Christian, I was rebellious against the way the church or the way I was taught to do things. Nietzsche taught this as the superman theory; a way of calling into question the weakness of humility taught by the Bible.

There is a t-shirt that has Christ on the cross and below that is the word "rebel." The implication is that Christ rebelled against something in order to bring change. However, Christ came to do only what the Father commanded him and Christ was obedient in suffering and unto death.

People see things as to rebel against in order to find truth, when really what ought to be understood is, truth is already here. Our submitting is the only way to truth and restored relationships.

When Martin Luther went up against the Church of his day, he was submitting to the truth of scripture, not rebelling against something. The reaction of the church leaders was rebellion against the truth of scripture.

April 29, 2007

Next time your finger is cut, suspend your praying over it to see if it heals without a request to God. Then when you get cancer or some other incurable disease, hold off on that praying and see if it heals itself.

The reason we pray for the cancer and not the cut finger is because of fear. Fear causes us to mix superstition in our prayer requests by adding formulas to our prayers.

Formulas are indicated by idioms like:

"if we send up enough prayers they will break through"

"if YOU have enough faith or if you will only believe"

"if you pray hard enough".

Prayer has become a metaphor which has lost its true meaning. It is as to say "God bless you" after sneezing. There is only the connotation of a god and no meaning is needed because we are acknowledging the sneezing, not the reality of a deity. "Pray for the situation" has become more about the situation than the deity I am praying to.

Date: Wed, Oct 28, 2009 at 9:44 PM
...on dying...

I think this is why we both have so much peace.
It doesn't mean I can't be sad or mad about the situation,
but I don't waste time and energy telling God how to handle
things. I rest in him.

Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 8:18 AM

We are asking, Why God allows evil. The question is based on a false premise. We should be saying God allows free will and man is responsible for the evil. God reveals in Genesis everything He created is good. Freewill not being created because it is the essence of God can not have anything to do with evil. We posses the ability to love but love is not a created thing. It already existed in the God head (Trinity) and we just emulate love. It is not something we posses in out essence. We emulate freewill but we do not posses it in our essence, therefore it cannot in anyway be responsible for evil. Okay I'm exhausted now.........................

from July 23, 2009

One thing you cannot do is use the Book of Proverbs to make a specific doctrine and there is a lot of the Old Testament which is not meant to teach but is a narrative. Making dogmas from narrative and poetic writings is very dangerous.

in his own words.....and spelling

While clearing out John's facebook messages, I found this one dated Oct. 28, 2009, about two months after his first seizures and surgery. His spelling and words show the effects on his brain. This message shows beautifully his frame of mind about God, life ending, and being at peace with it all. --Laura

If I was independently wealth I could just live out the last 4 years relaxed until I died. However, I am not capable. The doctors have been real honest and I really appreciate it. They told me the tumor was what they expected and at the most optimistically I have is 3-4 years if the tumor response. The slim possibility is past 5 years. I really am glad to have time to plan so I am getting things ready now so those close to me want have so much to do.

It could be a lot worst. There are kids up there who have not really expected high school. I have already done all that. The greatest thing about my situation dieing is my world view. I have taken the last 7 years and examined what I have been taught and found it to be true. Christianity is the only philosophy which makes more since compared against all the other positions. I am following a logical and rational position which Jesus the man/God taught was rational. If this would have happened to me 10 years ago I would have been on my knees crying to go to heal me thinking I could convince Him to do it. Now I am content. With the teaching past down by the inspiration through the Apostles (12) that allows me to be content I will not die. My person will never stop existing. When I leave temporarily my physical body I am promised to return not only to my body but with the Christ in His second advent.

It has been a great last 50 years because I fond God is knowable and He revealed Himself rational.

goals

It is my goal to transcribe John's voice recordings of his beliefs and thinking into posts for this blog. I'll probably get a start on it this summer, but maybe one or two will find their way here before then. They will be new to me, too.
~Laura