Dignity and Prayer

       I was listening to a sermon and the preacher was talking about the leading of the Holy Spirit. How does it lead and how does it work? Peter was specifically instructed by the Holy Spirit to go with the servants of Cornelius without doubting, and he went in faith being led by the Spirit. Paul went into a city in Asia, but was forbidden to go by the Holy Spirit, so he and his company went to another city and was also forbidden by the Holy Spirit. Paul didn’t know what to do until he received a vision to go to Macedonia. God being all-knowing, and all-powerful could have told Paul where to go or what to do at any moment before being forbidden by the Spirit, but that’s not what happened. If God was all-powerful and all-knowing, why would he need us? Why need apostles to preach the gospel when God could just do it on His own? God wants man to be a part of His life’s story: to have the dignity of causality as C.S. Lewis said.

        God wants us to be a part of His life story that He’s writing for us. Jesus said that God knows everything that we need before we even ask Him, so why ask Him? Why not just have what we need given to us at that instance since God knows everything that we need? That’s not how it works. I’m beginning to understand this myself. God loves us too much to keep us as mindless slaves with no freedom to think and reason for ourselves. God wants us to have the dignity to come before his throne and affect events: that’s why Jesus chose disciples to go and heal the sick everywhere and to cast out demons. God was giving man dignity of causality to change people’s lives. That’s why Jesus said that Peter would catch men after the miracle of catching a lot of fish at Jesus’s word. That’s why He told Peter to walk on water to Him: to give him a dignity.

                I have been in the Sabbath-keeping church all of my life, and I have only recently began to understand this about God. I read the bible daily, and pray daily, but what’s really required of us is to stay in Christ: to love Him and the Father and others. Jesus said that if you love Me keep my commandments. He also said that if you stay in Him, whatever you ask of Him, He will do in order to glorify the Father. What if He doesn’t do what you want Him to do? What if He doesn’t heal the sick? Does that mean you lack faith? Or you haven’t abide in Him? Or is it simply because He chose not too? Whatever the reason be? Will you still believe Him and have faith that what He promised to do, He’ll do? God wants us to have freedom, dignity, and prayer to make a difference in people’s lives. Do you believe this? Or, do you believe that God is a harsh God, and His will is final. If you are destinied to die, is that all there is to life? I don’t believe so. Jesus said that it’s not the will of your Father that any should perish.

        There have been Christians who don’t believe as I believed, and yet had been Godly men and women of faith. The Methodist John Wesley, Polycarp, John Wycliffe, William Tyndale, Joan of Arc, C.S Lewis, George Mueler, and Mother Teresa to name a few, and they all had relationships with God—even though they didn’t believe as I believe. One such man of faith and dignity was George Mueler, who was born in Austria, but moved to England. He was born in the early 19^th century, and lived to an old age throughout the 19^th century. He founded orphanages in Bristol, England, and helped orphans raise their status in English society by teaching them scriptures and a trade. He helped these children to be good people in English society, and even helped them to get apprenticeships in trades. He was a man of faith, and asked God to help with funds and problems with the schools and even asked God to take away a fog as he was on a ship to go to an appointment in Canada, and at that time he converted a captain of the ship. He was a man of dignity and faith.

        I have just began to understand what God wants for me to develop, and began to realize what God sees in me. He sees a freedom-born, strong faith man who does the impossible with God living a life with dignity and love, and he can do this for you too—if you just stay in Him and be filled with His Spirit, and let the Spirit move you to action to change the lives of others through prayer and compassion and small things of glory.

Child-like Faith

        In the past few days, the LORD has been answering my prayers before each bible study in order to guide me in what He wanted me to learn. He guided me through His Holy Spirit that dwells in me to read about faith, and I take this by surprise because I don’t normally read the bible based on a topic. I normally read specific peoples and adventures of history, but don’t try to read based on a topic. I wasn’t sure what God wanted me to read about faith, but I was willing to see what He has in mind. The first thing He guided me to go was Hebrews 11: the faith chapter as people in Christianity call it. This was a good start because it defines what faith is. Hebrews 11:1 says: “Now faith is the substances of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen”. I am hoping I got the new king james version of that scripture right because I wrote it by memory through God’s Spirit. This scripture defines faith, but let’s go into the greek that the author of Hebrew says to get the full meaning.

        The Greek says it differently: faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Although I had to rearrange the greek to get that scripture, it’s a direct translation. Faith by definition is based on an assurance or a conviction of something you don’t see like a promise or a better reality. God promised Abraham that He would be a blessing and to be the father of many nations. Abraham saw something that was beyond this physical world, and saw that building whose builder and maker is God. He had faith that God would give him a son through Sarah. He believed God who told him the name of his son, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Abraham was assured and convicted that God will give him an heir and an everlasting home in the building God has for him and us. Hebrews said that the mighty men and women of faith didn’t receive the promise, but were assured of them and embraced them: making them want to be strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

        Pistis is the greek word for faith, and it accurately described some of the men and women of faith over time. People like Enoch who was taken away from death because of his faith in God. That didn’t mean that he didn’t die; it just meant that he never saw it. He pleased God because of his faith in an evil generation, and the author of Hebrews said that it’s impossible to please God without knowing that he’s there and that he’s a rewarder of those who seek Him. Enoch sawed Him, and was rewarded. Faith in God and His promises and the things that He does should give us an assurance based on the evidence of what God did and what he’s planning to do. David slung, with a stone, goliath by his faith in God. Jonathan went to the philistines with his armorbearer while God helped with the ark of the covenant nearby. Moses and the children of Israel walked through the red sea to safety while the Egyptians drowned. These things happened because of faith in God and His ability to work in their lives.

        Faith in God means faith in the impossible because God can do the impossible. That’s how the walls of Jericho fell while keeping Rahab and her family safe because her house was on the wall. This faith in the impossible made it so a virgin from Judea could bear the Son of God without ever knowing a man intimately. Faith in God is child-like faith; for a little child has a great deal of faith. Do you believe that the universe and the earth were created by the Word of God? Do you believe that all living things were made from the earth by God, or do you believe that we were all randomly generated by chance? Look at the evidence of creation: there’s design everywhere and you can’t escape it. Creation was designed to be beautiful, so a designer created something good to enjoy. There’s an intention for joy and goodness in creation because it was designed that way by God and Christ. Faith based on this conviction and truth in something unseen is what pleases God.

        There’s so much more to the faith chapter that meets the eye, but I didn’t stop there. I read Romans to learn that man is justified by faith apart from deeds of the law, and that faith was in Abraham who believed in the promise that God will give him an heir that’s named by God before he was born. Abraham grew in his faith in God because he believed that God was able to perform what He promised. He didn’t care about the deadness of himself or Sarah’s womb: he believed with every ounce of courage to believe, and that helped bring it to pass in God’s time. The impossible is possible with God as Jesus said after talking with the rich man. Abraham had a child-like faith in God that made him a mighty man of faith. Do you have this kind of faith? Do you believe that miracles can happen with assurance and conviction? Do you believe what’s written in the bible that God is who He said He is? I know it’s tough to believe in an all-powerful God when He doesn’t perform great miracles; the still small voice is what He uses more often than big miracles. Do you listen to that voice? Are you guided in the Spirit to have a child-like faith? Only you can answer that, O reader.

How to Serve Your Generation

        Several years ago, I wrote a blog about serving your generation based on Paul’s description of David when He served His generation while reigning as King of Israel. At the time of the blog, I couldn’t find any suggestions about how to serve your generation, but now I feel the need to give some practical suggestions based on the scriptures. There are some things that we can do to serve our generation for the purpose and glory of God above. One of those suggestions is from Jesus himself in the parable of the sheep and the goats in Mathew 25:31-46. Jesus talked in the parable about seating on His throne with sheep in His right hand and goats on His left hand. He told the sheep on His right hand that they are blessed and will be led into the kingdom of God with everlasting life because they feed the hungry, gave drink to the thirsty, clothed the naked, took care of the sick, and visited the people in prison. These were the righteous, and they told the LORD that they didn’t know that they were doing it to Him, and He said this: ”Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me.”. These little things for the little people in Christ gave a big impact on them and Christ, and that helped to serve them. These little things give a big reward to eternal life. Not doing these things leads to death as Jesus said about the goats on the King’s left hand.

        Little things can do great things. In 1 Samuel 25, David sent his young men to Nabal, Abigail’s husband, to ask for food and drink for his men because they protected Nabal’s servants as they were shepherding the sheep. Nabal reviled them; they left empty handed. This little insult made a big impact on David because he told his men to gird on their swords as he did the samething: he planned to kill all the males in Nabal’s house. When David’s young men left Nabal, Nabal’s servant’s told his wife, and she made haste to prepare food and wine for David and his men. She left with the supplies on donkeys—not telling her husband. She finally reached David as he was approaching Nabal’s house, and told him that her husband’s insult should be blamed on her. Abigail reassured David that he’ll be king of Israel, and convinced him not to take vengeance with his own hand: this persuaded David to heed her voice, and leave Nabal’s family alone. This little thing that Abigail did saved the lives of her family and servants. When Nabal learned about what happened the next morning, He became as a stone and after ten days, the LORD struck him, so he died. When that happened, Abigail became David’s wife: one of two wives. This example in David’s life was a little thing that made a big impact on people’s lives, and little things can lead to other blessings in the lives of your neighbors, family, and friends.

        Another little thing that you can do is in Micah 6:8 which says: “He hath showed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” This little thing can do great things in people’s lives. How do you do justly in your life? Simple: it’s in Isaiah 1:17, which says: “Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.” God told us to defend those who are less fortunate than yourself: to plead for them and to relieve them of their distresses. Jesus did this all the time in His ministry when He healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, and gave sight to the blind as well as other miracles to help those oppressed by the devil. Will you not do the samething?

        Another little thing is to love mercy, and part of that is to be merciful to the poor among us. Solomon said in proverbs 19:17: “He that is gracious unto the poor lends unto the LORD; and his good deed will He repay unto him.” People with riches rule over the poor as was stated in proverbs 22:7, and in proverbs 14:31, it says: “He that oppresseth the poor blasphemeth his Maker; but he that is gracious unto the needy honoureth Him.” People who are merciful, and give to the poor will be blessed by God; even if you just have a minimum wage job, you are still more blessed in America then in other countries in the world. You can still give a little amount for a big impact in other countries. Jesus said in Mathew 5:7: “blessed are the merciful; for they shall obtain mercy.” If you love your neighbor as yourself then you’ll love them with mercy in your heart by forgiving their trespasses just as God forgave you. Help those who are in need, and relieve the needy and the oppressed.

        The last thing mention in Micah is to walk humbly with your God. Pride only leads to more destruction in your life and the lives of others around you, just as it says in proverbs 11:2, which says: “When pride cometh, then cometh shame; but with the lowly is wisdom.” Jesus said that those that humble themselves will be exalted, and those who exalt themselves will be humbled. He even said the parable to not want the best places to sit, exalting yourself, because someone with higher rank will come along bringing you lower. People who are humble seem to be better off than those who are prideful in their lives. A humble person is a teachable person, and a teachable person is a fruitful person: growing to be more like Christ everyday. A prideful person doesn’t want to learn to be more like Christ, and be a better person for it. God wants to give us eternal life in the end, but we need to be humble to receive the blessings of His wisdom and fruit of the Spirit in order to be prepared for that life in His family. These little things help us to serve others in our generation—even if they hate you for doing good. Bless those who curse you: as Jesus said. In the end, these practical suggestions on how to serve others in your generation seem rather small, but are really big things to God. Any little thing matters to the LORD, so do the little things in life: they are the big things.

Meditation #3

        Have you ever thought about being in an epic poem or epic story? Have you ever thought about being in the Iliad or the Odyssey or Gilgamesh or Beowulf? Have you thought about being Frodo in the Lord of the Rings, or Bilbo in the Hobbit? These are stories with heroes and villains, adventures and epic lives, and live and death situations? They give you a life of living beyond yourself and your personal issues, and to be a part of something heroic and transcendent. Well, there’s a true tale that tells you an everlasting story that is written by God through His many prophets and people of faith. God has an epic story to tell to save fallen man from themselves, and those He called are a part of that story. I love reading the bible because everyone who lived and knew God had a part in this epic tale of God’s glory. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph and His brothers, Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the Judges of Israel all had a role to play. Men and women played a role in this epic adventure of God’s story, and God doesn’t play favoritisms between the sexes or class or race or anything that can separate us from each other and Him.

        God’s story is a love story: more specifically a story of God’s love for fallen man, and that love back to God and Man’s fellow man. We will have to face sirens like the hero of the Odyssey, and the monster like in Beowulf, or orcs like in Lord of the Rings, but that’s inevitable in a world that is influenced by satan and his demons. God’s story is an epic story that I want to be a part of. God calls us because He’s writing our history and story about our lives, and He wants us to be a part in His story: to play an important role in His epic tale. Some of us do not know what that role is, but some of us do know that role, and should live up to it with all our might. Rahab helped the spies of Israel, and then married into the lineage of Jesus. Ruth became a widow in a foreign land, and married into a rich man’s heritage becoming the lineage of David and Jesus. Gideon used a little fleece to test and see if God will save Israel through His hand, and He did though 300 men that lapped. These people played a role in God’s epic story.

        I’m sure you are sitting in church listening to a sermon, or sitting at home going on facebook and or possibly reading this blog, and you don’t feel like anything epic is happening in your life. I understand the feeling, but that’s not how life should be. Life is a story full of great adventures: some stories are bad and wicked with moral lessons, and some are good with heroism and good moral lessons. If we have love for God and love for self and others, we’ll have a role in God’s epic story. You maybe a father or a mother or a grandparent or someone whose disabled or you are a small child just learning about life. Whatever stage you are in in life, God has an exciting and epic role for you to play—even if it’s just a small little adventure that’ll make your family and friends smile from it. Maybe it’s a joke that only God can share with His beloved that can make everyone smile: like giving Sarah a son with a name that means laughter. Whatever the situation, life isn’t about self, or violent movies or violent video games or porn, but God’s story for you and me. I have been in this journey with God for 11 years this day, and God hasn’t left me since He called me—even through the good and the bad in my own vain life. God has given me a rich history, and wants a rich history to come to you, so that you can have many tales to tell your children with lessons for each trifle tale. I do believe that God loves a good story, or Jesus wouldn’t have said so many parables to people. This is the God whom I serve, and I hope to find that role in His epic story, and I pray that God will show you your role in His epic story.

A Meditation #2

        Let me ask you something. O reader, what do you want out of your life? Do you think that God wants you to have freewill and to have wants and desires in life? There are some that believe that God’s will is set in stone, and that whatever He will to do that will would be done and your will doesn’t matter. If that’s true then what’s the point of praying to God then? If Moses believed this theology then the children of Israel would have been dead a long time ago. In Exodus 32:9 – 13, God was responding to Israel’s Golden Calf sin saying that they were a stiff-necked people and that He wanted to destroy them in His wrath. If Moses believed this theology that God’s will is set in stone, then He would have let it happen, but that’s not what he did. Moses didn’t want Israel to be killed, and argued with God about making sure that He didn’t consume them. He told God to repent—which was a very courageous and bold move on his part. The most remarkable part was that God did repent and stopped His own wrath against Israel.

        If God’s will was so arbitrary and He believed that His will was final then He would have killed Moses for trying to change it, but God isn’t that way at all. God was probably pleased to hear Moses make His case for Israel, and talk with God as a friend with full passionate arguments from his own will. Do you believe that God wants you to have a will of your own? In the Greek new testament, prayer in the Greek is two words meaning will or wish and toward, so a prayer is your own will and wish toward God. God has a will, and you have a will: Jesus had a will to not go through with His suffering and made it known to God the Father, and the Father’s response was to send an angel to strengthen Him. It’s clear that the Father didn’t want Jesus to deal with the suffering by Himself, but He also knew that what He had to go through was absolutely necessary to save Mankind. Jesus prayed three times for God’s will to change: fulfilling His own parable of the persistent widow. However, after He realized the will of His father, He faced the suffering like a real courageous man of God.

        Just because the Father’s will wasn’t exactly what the Son’s will was in this circumstance, doesn’t mean that Jesus had no will of His own and didn’t have the courage to let it known to His Father in prayer. Prayer is what’s required to make known your own will to God, but what if you don’t know your own will is in life? Will you be timid to let it be known to the Father—if you don’t know what it is yourself? Also, on the other side of the coin, if you know your own will for God to know, why would God give you what you want? I have been praying for a job that I love and that I can see the good in my labor as Solomon said about a worthwhile life, but why would God give it to me when there are others out there who don’t have the samethings I do? In fact, they probably don’t even have a job at all to pay their bills or support their families? I work with people from other countries that came to the U.S. because they want to support their families and get the money that America has because of God’s covenant with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob that was given to this nation. The people I work with have next to nothing in their old country, but in America they have a lot of blessings that this nation offers. I am blessed to be in America, so why would God give me a good job that I love? I don’t have an argument to give God for this, but I realized now that I need to persuade God—even if it’s may not be His will. For the most part, unless we read it in the bible, we don’t know God’s will for our lives. If someone says that they know God’s will for your life, then I wouldn’t talk to that person—they are probably deceiving you.

        God is often silent—which is the reason why the proverb is so profound: “It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the honor of kings to search it out” (Proverbs 25:2). But, God is not so distant from us that He doesn’t work in our lives and doesn’t have a freewill, imitate relationship with us. God wants to be near to us, and wants to share the responsibilities of making decisions in life—even if we believe that our will doesn’t matter. Jesus told us to be persistent with God in the parable of the persistent widow and the parable of the friend who went to His friend at midnight to give him bread for his other friend. These parables were for us to bring our heart’s desires to God. The truth is: We are not robots or animals that have no will of our own, and have instincts to eat and drink and mate with everyone we see. We have a will to do right and wrong, good or evil, live or die, and even make mistakes or be wise. I wouldn’t want it any other way in this life because God doesn’t want us to be His slaves, but to be His freewill sons in Christ. Jesus told us to ask, seek, and find because God wants us to have the best in life. We are blessed to be in a country that loves freedom because freedom is what man needs to come to God.

A Meditation #1

        I was listening to a sermon about the topic that this blog is about. I was moved by the sermon into doing some of my own meditations; for I haven’t done them in such a long time. I, like every other Christian, have been planted by God into this cosmos just as Jesus said in the parable of the wheat and the tares. We live in a mindlessly ruled orderly arrangement of society, and that system that rules this world was designed to take our time and to keep us busy with the cares of this world: jobs, entertainment, political discussions, even family and friends. The cosmos steals our time away from God, and satan loves it that way. The less time we spend with God the happier satan is. Everyone under this cosmos is born, lives a short while, and then dies. It’s vain, as Solomon said in Ecclesiastes; for he said about this life: “Vanity of vanities all is vanity.”

        I find myself in Solomon’s shoes lately: trying to find the reason that God planted me on this earth. Solomon searched for the reason all of his life, and couldn’t find it. I pray constantly for God to show me why I am here. As I was thinking about the sermon and learning about this world and what it really is, I realized that I wasn’t meant for this world. I was meant for God’s world when Christ returns, and as long as God planted me in this world, I am supposed to be a light to it by making small influences in the world to inspire God’s way of life in others. God has a plan to end this cosmos system that has no meaning, and give it to His Son to tend and keep it forever. In God’s world, life will be meaningful and valued, and the people of this world tomorrow will have their problems solved by their Creator.

        The poverty, disease, refugee problems, and problems with people not living up to their full potential will be solved in God’s world where everyone will be full of love and truth taught by God. The mindless cosmos will have a humble, freedom-giving, and loving mind directing everything from the top, and everyone in the world will keep God’s way of life from the heart and mind. There’ll be no more war. I look forward to that day, but until then I live on in this mindless, meaningless cosmos that satan uses to keep us away from God—if we love it more than God. I find myself not loving this empty world, but to look forward to the building whose foundation is laid by God in the New Jerusalem. I have to live in this world, and this world will have its influence on me, but I try to keep it to a minimum, and influence the world as much as possible with the love of Christ.

        I hope to encourage my readers with this meditation, and any further meditations about life and other things to think about. Meditation is something that we need to do more of; To get away from the world, and just think about God and other things in our lives: to listen to the Holy Spirit as we think about things in a focused meditation. I need to do this more often in my own pilgrimage to the Kingdom of God, and I hope to continue to do it on a regular basis. Joshua was told by God to mediate on God’s law day and night in order to have good success. I hope to continue with further meditations about God, His law, and His way of life working in me. God willing, He can influence and inspire others to do the same with this and other blogs.

The Heretic

        I was watching a video of California’s legislatures debating over a bill that’ll ban religious books including the bible from the state. This goes directly against the bill of rights in America giving us freedom of religion in this country, but the democrats in California have a communist agenda in mind—which is to turn America into a communist country without God and the bible. But, we were born heretics in this country, and I mean that in a nicest way because the Pilgrims were considered dissenters and heretics in British Anglican society. The pilgrims wanted freedom of religion in a country of their own. At first, they moved to Holland to find it there, but couldn’t find it because they feared that the place would corrupt their children, so they decided to go to the New World as Virginia Company’s indentured servants. They were servants for 7 years on the land, but they were free to believe in their beliefs based on the bible.

        The democrats are trying to rewrite history, but any good historian can see the truth for what it is. This nation was a Christian nation based on the bible, and now they want to ban that book in California. California had a brief history of evangels ruling that state in the 1960s giving rise to Ronald Reagan who became Governor at that time. The Christians of the time were against communism and were for national defense having been a part of the Military Industrial complex that ruled America during the Cold War with the Soviet Union. These Evangels wanted to live secure lives without communism and be able to worship God in peace and safety like their Pilgrim forefathers before them. Ronald Reagan didn’t become president until the 1980s, but the power of the evangel vote was there in California and all across the U.S. So, what went wrong in that state that they’ll go from believing the bible to banning it entirely?

        When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, there was no need for the military industrial complex anymore, so under Clinton’s presidency the nation turned to a consumeristic society based on investing and profits. Nixon started the tread in the 1970s when he put us off the gold standard, but that’s a different story altogether. California gave in to the gay and lesbian movement in San Francisco as well as the liberal Hollywood communist agenda, and the Christians moved out of the way and it became a democrat-run state ever since. The gays and the lesbians don’t want the bible to be read in school or in public because it goes against their way of life, but their agenda goes against freedom of religion that the founders put into the heart of this country. The government there wants people to believe the same things they do and not go outside their orthodox theology of communism. Christians will be persecuted in that state if the law gets passed and they’ll leave the state.

        This idea of banning the bible was not new because it was done before in Europe and England. John Wycliffe translated the vulgate into English, and after he died the authorities at the university he taught banned translating the bible into English—this happened in the 14^th century. About 200 years later, a man named William Tyndale translated the bible into English during the reign of Henry the VIII and was burned at the steak for doing it. His response was a prayer to God to open the eyes of the king, and God did because Henry VIII started the Anglican Church and spread the bible throughout the lands of England—which were Tyndale’s translation of the scriptures. These heretics died for their belief in the bible, and America needs men and women of faith to step up and be heretics for God because the more communists come into powerful offices in government the more they’ll want to persecute Christians for their beliefs. Christians need to speak for their faith and restore the foundations of the nation to biblical Christianity of the Pilgrims; for that’s the only way to have religious freedom in America again.