Welcome~

Hello and Welcome~


The world is blind to these SEVEN, pivotal facts:

1. The Bible communicates Heaven’s 'multi-millennial, strategic plan for humanity'.

2. There are SEVEN ages appointed for humanity.

3. We are nearing the end of the THIRD age, a pivotal turning point in this strategy.

4. A GREAT falling away from the Christian faith is predicted during the ending days of this THIRD age, as a result of backsliding and general lukewarmness among the heretofore faithful. Look around and this you will clearly see.

5. Biblical prophecies have been and remain seeds of human history.

6. Yet-fulfilled prophecies, unfolding apace, are worthy of diligent study.

7. Now is the time to get and stay on ‘the right side of Bible prophecy’.

 

You can help open eyes of many by sharing this blog, specific posts and songs, thereby joining in The Lord's effort summarized in Psalm 68:11. Your feedback and support are greatly appreciated. Feedback received via email and texts may be summarized herein as being from Anonymous.

 

...Posts are listed in the reverse order of their publication date, so the most recent ones appear up front.

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…An alphabetical listing of all posts, and a separate alphabetical listing of poems are included at the top of the Topical Series list.

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Fasten your spiritual seat belts!

Mentally Magnifying

We greatly magnify whatever we focus on most mentally, and speak of often.  

Our imaginations are like the net Peter cast into the water at Christ's command.  We cast the net of our imaginations into the world of spirit, and draw from that world whatever is in abundance in our hearts (our spirits)...which is also what we believe and speak of most convincingly to others.  What we draw out becomes our physical actuality...whether good, bad or ugly.  

The bad circumstances of our lives are merely satan's fear-bait to get us to draw from the world of spirit more of his bad, ugly and evil stuff, than from the good treasures of Heaven.  

In this manner, ‘The quality of your life really is the harvest of your imagination, and faith does indeed uncloak the substance of your hope’.

What Do You See?

Through knowledge and diligent application of the Word of God to our lives, we learn to exchange our perspective and vantage point. No longer do we only see our circumstances from standing in our shoes. Rather, we stand behind and peer over The Lord’s right shoulder, and see them exactly as He sees them.   

An ole Christmas song asks,
Do you see what I see?
A far better question is,
Do you SEE what HE sees???

For more on Christmas, please see:

Peering and Perceiving


The Word of God (the Bible) is like a magnifying glass, a microscope, a pair of glasses, a pair of binoculars and a telescope -- spiritual lenses through which to peer into the spiritual world from which all things derive; lenses through which we can carefully examine the situations and circumstances of life in the light of God's heart, mind and eyes. In doing this, we "magnify" Him.    

In Jeremiah 9:24, God summarizes His current job description as being "in the earth exercising lovingkindness (grace), judgment (justice) and righteousness (goodness)." 

We can use the prism of the Word of God to peer behind the veil, and try to categorize 7,000 years of human history.... and especially our troubling current world and personal events.

Happy peering...

Uncloaking Substance


"Faith uncloaks the substance of your hope."  (Hebrews 11:1, paraphrased @ J!)

"The quality of your life is the harvest of your imagination."  (Proverbs 23:7, paraphrased @ J!)

Faith is the 'spiritual matter' of, or temporary stand-in for physical things hoped for, and the 'spiritual evidence' of physical things not yet manifested.

Go ahead!  Apply your faith, and with patience, reap your harvest....IMAGINE~

Ponderings

Given all the goings on in the Mid-East and Iran, ever wonder what the world order might look like just before God’s clock starts ticking on the long awaited 70th week (7 year period) of Daniel's vision? Ever wonder what will the generation look like who will be left behind after the rapture of the Church, and what will that particular generation of the Church will look like?

Heads up: Read the news. Read the future news (The Bible). Then…
Look in the mirror~

Garden of Eden, A Seed?

God patiently operates by the seed-time-harvest principle, possibly except for miracles which may interrupt or speed-up this principle.

In a sense, the Garden of Eden was the seed He planted with the intent of it growing under man’s care to cover Earth with goodness and the knowledge of God. Deuteronomy 11:12 says God cares for the land we now call geographic Israel, keeping His eyes on it always, all year long. But His eye is much more broadly cast, since 'the promised land' extends far, far eastward!

The Bible iteratively promises this land will be the capital of Jesus’ Millennial Kingdom, and possibly beyond. From here, the knowledge of God and His glory will spread to cover the earth, finally. (Habakkuk 2:14) Presuming this land may have been the Garden of Eden, then God’s original seed plan will eventually succeed.

Spiritual Mindedness

To understand what being carnally minded is, focus on the antithesis, i.e., being spiritually minded.
  • Be Word of God-conscious more than 'my problems' conscious.
  • Talk more of and about the Word of God than simply about problematic or even interesting situations and circumstances
  • Filter everything, especially bad news, through the Word of God
  • Love the Lord of the Word as well as the Word of the Lord
  • Be conscious of the working of the Spirit of Love in all things affecting you
  • Be God-inside conscious

Sandwiching Problems

I trust you are ‘sandwiching’ the problems of life between generous portions of The Word of God (The Bible) in all you think and say and do. It is God’s Power in our lives. As we continually honor it throughout each day (not just during devotions), He honors us. This is how we achieve His command/requirement to love and honor/respect Him with ‘all your heart, soul and strength’.

In fact, when we perceive problems are getting the better of us, this may essentially be God's invitation to ‘bear down/in’ and do this even more deliberately, rigorously and out loud. The natural temptation is to do just the opposite, to focus more and more on the details of the problems. This is the sure path away from victory.

Wanted/Needed: A Rod of Iron

'He shall rule the nations with a rod of iron...'
Psalms 2:9; Revelation 2:27, 12:5 and 19:15

It is instructive how The Bible confirms this prophecy in the mouths of 3 or more witnesses.  

In this manner, The Lord is underscoring His point, and adding the emphasis of 3 spiritual exclamation marks!!!  The wise will hear and understand.

Lord Jesus, our troubled world surely could use a bit of Your 
iron rod rule just about now~

http://deeptruths.com/random-dm/51.html

Life Happens from Inside, Out

Proverbs cautions us to guard our heart diligently, for out of it comes the issues of life.  

Life does not happen to us externally, but comes from seeds we and others have planted in our spirit via the ear and eye gates, including our words which enter our spirit via the ear gate. As we persistently dwell on these seeds, via the function of our imaginations, they germinate and eventually produce the fruits of beliefs on which we speak and act, shaping the contours and contents of our life. Thus, the content and quality of your life really is the harvest of your heart's imagination.  We really do reap what we sow~

The Best Promissory Notes

Money is a promissory note from a government of man.  

Ours is depreciating rapidly!  We are all working harder for "worth-less" dollars -- money that is worth less and less each day.  

The Bible is choc full of promissory notes from the Government of God.  Against the darkness and bad economy, God's promissory notes appreciate in value.

Isaiah 55:2 asks...why do we work for that which does not satisfy?  God's better promissory notes can do ALL money can do and much MORE!

As a Man Thinks


God says "...as a man thinks in his heart, so IS he". 

Let’s unpack this:
          …As a man persistently feels and thinks, so he imagines
          …On what he persistently imagines, he sows seeds of belief in his heart/spirit
…As these seeds take root, they bear word fruits
…On what he speaks/writes, he eventually acts
          …As he speaks and acts, he sows seeds (issues) of his life
          …From what he has sown, he reaps

Yep, God is not mocked.
Beware of what you persistently think and imagine!

Unconditional Respect Oxymoronic?


Contrary to popular beliefs, "unconditional respect" from a woman to a man is not an oxymoron; neither is such respect "earned".

Rather, it is a man's 'mother tongue' and the  language we men easily understand.  The woman who learns this Truth is wise beyond her years.

Check out Ephesians 5:33  and  www.loveandrespect.com

Man in the Middle

Carnally-minded people is unaware to the fact God has placed humans directly in the middle of an on-going, invisible, spiritual war. Though unaware, they are definitely responsive actors in this war, most likely as pawns of untoward spiritual forces.

Spiritually-minded people are aware of this fact, are armed with appropriate tools and weapons, and are skilled to respond accordingly...

The Case for Parables

Ever wonder why Jesus used so many parables and stories to get His points across? Why is the Bible choc full of stories and tales? On one hand, we left-brain leaning types may frequently be impatient to get to the bottom line as quickly and efficiently as possible, and move on. ‘Hey, what’s the point, and what are the facts and figures to support it?’, we might ask. The more right-brain thinking among us may tend to get lost in a myriad of interpretations of the twists and turns of every fine point in the story, seemingly never reaching meaningful, practical conclusions.

So why did Jesus choose to communicate in this manner? Here’s my take.

1. The Bible is a book for all ages and cultures. Though it includes many facts and figures, these are most relevant to a specific age and/or culture, and may lose some of their significance as time and cultures change. Stories and parables, however, are timeless. Moreover, they respect the manner in which God designed us to think - in pictures, painted across the vast canvas of our imagination, leapfrogging across the boundless expanses of time and space. Try doing this with recitations of facts and figures. No wonder many of us tune-out when we bump into the Biblical genealogies, the begats. Thank God for more interesting stories and parables!

2. Parables challenge the highest element of our being – our spirit. As we listen to these stories and parables, we embrace the opportunity to personalize the context, to size, shape and strategically place the characters as we like; and to create and colorize our own believable stage sets to accompany the story line. Setting our mental stages in this manner frees our minds from distractions and defensive responses to frontal ‘thou shalt…thou shalt not…!’, thus enabling us to perceive into the story or parable without too many hurdles. We attribute the spiritual factors of attitudes and motivations to the characters, and in doing so, subconsciously inject a bit of our own spiritual baggage into the story line -- good, bad or indifferent.

3. Parables prompt relational understanding. The Bible reveals God’s deep-rooted interest in us knowing Him as God…
And you/they shall KNOW that I AM…’

God declares this 68 times in the Bible, 57 of which are in one book – Ezekiel, the ‘Know that I AM’ book. We can see just how critical this is when considering the Biblical principle that every important point or matter is to be ‘established in the mouths of two or three witnesses’.

But knowing God is God is simply the first step in an eternal journey that begins with knowledge, and progresses to wisdom, and ultimately settles on understanding. This three-step progression is oft repeated in Proverbs. Facts and figures – the primary interest of many left-brained thinkers, mostly promote knowledge (mind/mental). The insights of wisdom are required to apply such knowledge effectively (soulish, i.e., the mind, will, emotions, intellect/intelligence and imagination). Understanding, however, aims for a much higher level ‘relation between the knower and an object of understanding’. (Wikipedia) 

And this is what God desires and requires, as revealed in Jeremiah 9:23 – 24:

This is what The Lord says:  ’Let not the wise boast of (be proud about) their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know Me, that I AM the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,’ declares The Lord.

So parables and stories help to free us from endless recitations of mind numbing, time or culturally irrelevant facts and figures. They are captivatingly entertaining, engaging us in the theatre of our minds. Most important, parables and stories invite us into a relational understanding of some important characteristics of our timeless God and Creator, and in doing so, they challenge the excess spiritual baggage with which we are so heavily laden.

The next time you encounter a Biblical parable, relax and enjoy the upward ride.

There Is a Way

During a game, Andre Parker, football player for Kent State, recovered a fumbled ball and took off like a bullet, running a whopping 58 yards, but.....in the WRONG direction.  An opponent player finally tackled him, but easily could have let him continue running...all the way to the end zone!

Life is often just like this.  We frequently encounter situations in which we recover from our own fumbles or from the fumbles and grumbles of others that have impacted us, and we TAKE OFF RUNNING....  But as we advance, God allows someone or something to tackle us.  Then we slowly and reluctantly realize, OOPS!, we need to do some serious back tracking, eat a big slice of humble pie, apologize and see how to recover.

In such times, though reluctant, we need to realize, "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death (or some form of loss)." (Proverbs 14:12)
Praise God for allowing me to be tackled when running head-strong ... in-the-wrong-direction!

Can You Hear Him Now?

An oft heard, technology-induced question is, ‘Can you hear me now?’

God’s oft unheard questions are:
·      To the unrepentant sinner:  ‘WILL you trust me now in this mess of a life your sin has created?’

·      To the Christian:  ‘CAN you trust me now through this mess of a world we are traversing together?’

Irrespective of your relationship with God, please hear His question to you. 
Can you hear Him now?