Man is depraved

Luk 18:9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: "Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: 'God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.'
But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, a sinner!'
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted."

Here we have the story of two men, one a good man by declaration, the other a sinner by humiliation. The objective of the parable is to demonstrate that those who are justified are so declared by God because of humility; we know that in and of ourselves we cannot be humble on our own, we need God to bring us to that place where we see our sin, our wretchedness.

Self righteousness will always cause me to despise others; this Pharisee had that in his mind, "thank you God that I am not like that guy over there; how can he be doing that? Doesn't he know you word? Thank you that I tithe faithfully, thank you that I am not in the dark, that I'm a religious man, and I know your word"; but humility prays like this: "have mercy on me oh God, a sinner".

Only the Holy Spirit can do that kind of work in the human heart; but it is only by design that any one can come to that point in life. God works, all the time, in His children; He engineers and designs all circumstances in our life as the ones He chose. He determines the time, the place, the family in which we are born into the world; we didn't have a choice but to be born from our parents; our parents did not have a choice either. God designed our life in advance, before the foundation of the universe, before time began; He knew and appointed the kind of father and mother we would have, the brothers, and their number, the sisters, the relatives, the schools we would go to, the kind of sports we would practice, the kind of schooling we would receive, the kind of jobs we would have.

At the same time He chose and determined what would the circumstances of our coming to Him would be, who would be the person to lead us to Christ; at what time and in what place we would believe; at what time and place we would realize that we could not continue with the kind of life we were leading, He had it all planned out.

He knows what kind of trials we need, what kind of suffering and sickness would come our way; who our doctors would be, what kind of medicines we would take. He predestined everything, the kind of boss we would have at work, who would be our co-workers; the way we would get fired, or laid off, what the injury would be to cause us to stop working; when we would loose our house, our car, our job and our insurance; He knew in advance how He would provide for our needs, what would it take to sustain our lives, He takes into consideration the way that He made us; the way that we think and perceive the world around us, our dreams, our goals, our plans, every single thought He knows; we are an open book to Him, and He turns the pages according to the pleasure of His will.

God in His mercy, and in His perfect knowledge of our lives from beginning to end, knows, and has ever known, what would it take for us to cry out: "God have mercy on me, a sinner"; we can only see that by, and through, the work of the Holy Spirit, convicting us of sin, and leading us into all truth;He knows our pride and arrogance, He knows our total depravity.

Col 2:20 If with Christ you died to the elemental spirits of the world, why, as if you were still alive in the world, do you submit to regulations-- "Do not handle, Do not taste, Do not touch (referring to things that all perish as they are used)--according to human precepts and teachings? These have indeed an appearance of wisdom in promoting self-made religion and asceticism and severity to the body, but they are of no value in stopping the indulgence of the flesh.

Human beings are completely rebellious against God and His commandments, against everything He is and says; it does not matter how much effort we put into controlling the flesh, we can never accomplish it. Our is a depraved existence without God. It doesn't matter what we do, how many times we go to church, how long we read our bibles, how many times we pray; if it is not done through the Holy Spirit connecting us to Christ, everything is in vain. The indulgence of the flesh, the desires of the flesh, of the mind, of the heart that is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, it can never be brought to subjection to God apart from God Himself doing it for us through the Spirit.

Rom 3:9 What then? are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God.
They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
Their throat is an open sepulcher; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.

All humans stand guilty before God, everyone is depraved; all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God; he who says he has no sin, is a liar, says John the apostle.

1Jn 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

That is the main problem, a fundamental problem with self-righteousness; that it constantly affirms to our mind that we have no sin; of course this is so very much pronounced in those who are "not bad" in their eyes, "I have never robbed anyone", or "I have never killed someone", or "I have never done drugs or got drunk".

And Jesus Himself states that all men are in darkness, not only are all in darkness but by nature love darkness, we love our depravity:

John 3:19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.

And who does the truth? Who comes to the light on their own? The whole world stands under the same judgment.

1Jn 5:19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.

Even Paul, the Pharisee, knowing the law, and being righteous in his own eyes, admits his own standing, and includes himself in this category, "we all walked according to the lust of the flesh".

Eph 2:3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.

We are sinners, completely unclean by birth, by nature, as Paul stated; we are by nature the children of wrath, even as others, even as everybody else in the planet.

Job 14:4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.

We will never be justified before God by our own righteousness.

Psa 143:2 And enter not into judgment with thy servant: for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.

We all have been weighted on the balance or justice, we have been found lacking, we are less than the dust that is at the bottom of the balance plates.

Psa 62:9 Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.

Man at his best is vanity, our best efforts, our best deeds of good for others, our best intentions, they are all as filthy rags before God.

Psa 39:5 Behold, thou hast made my days as a handbreadth; and mine age is as nothing before thee: verily every man at his best state is altogether vanity. Selah.

Not a single person in the history of mankind has been found to be good or to do what is right before God, no one seeks God's honor, no one seeks His glory, no one seeks Him.

Psa 14:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good.
The LORD looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, and seek God.
They are all gone aside, they are all together become filthy: there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Psa 53:1 To the chief Musician upon Mahalath, Maschil, A Psalm of David.
The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. Corrupt are they, and have done abominable iniquity: there is none that doeth good.
God looked down from heaven upon the children of men, to see if there were any that did understand, that did seek God.
Every one of them is gone back: they are altogether become filthy; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.

Isa 59:7 Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; wasting and destruction are in their paths.
The way of peace they know not; and there is no judgment in their goings: they have made them crooked paths: whosoever goeth therein shall not know peace.

God had to destroy the earth with everything in it because everything was corrupted, just as it is today, the imaginations of man's heart were only evil continually.

Gen 6:5 And YHWH saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

We lack faith, God had to give it to us, we are faithless, wicked.

Psa 5:9 For there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulcher; they flatter with their tongue.

We did not fear God at all, we didn't care, and man is still in that position.

Psa 36:1 To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David the servant of the LORD. The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.

We sinned every time we did something, our basic satisfaction of needs were even done in sin, when we ate food, we did not acknowledge God, we were not thankful for His provision.

Rom 14:23 And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.

Paul declares himself at a loss, without God to help us, to fill us with His power, to exercise His power in us, the same power that He used to raise Jesus from the dead; we were dead in trespasses and sins, we walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, we were doomed to destruction.

Rom 7:18 For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not.

It's depressing. If we dwell in these facts, we are bound to be depressed, physically, emotionally and spiritually; we come to see that apart from God, there is no good thing that dwells in us, we became unprofitable. But we should read on, because the solution to the dilemma of the flesh and the spirit has been provided for us in Jesus Christ; it has been provided by Him in His Holy Spirit that dwells in us through faith; we have now been translated from darkness into light, from death unto life, from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of the dear Son of God, the Beloved, the Bright Morning Star, not because of righteous things we had done but because of His mercy, He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewing by the Holy Spirit; whom He poured out on us, so that having been justified by faith, we have become heirs of eternal life.

Eternal life for the humble, for the one who cries out: "God be merciful to me, a sinner".

Jesus died for the sheep

Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it-- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins.
It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

According to the verses above, in the book of Romans; Paul is saying that the righteousness of God is being manifested, in all those who have faith in Jesus; God putting Jesus forward as a propitiation by His blood, the blood of Jesus, emptied from His body in the courthouse and on the cross where He was killed; and that is to be received by faith.

So what is propitiation? Propitiation is the removal of God's wrath against the sinner, which results in the flowing of His power through His mercy, to save the one who receives the faith that God provides him with. when God propitiates my sins, they are not punishable anymore, He declares me justified, as just as if I have never sinned.

So I see then that if God's propitiation was intended for everyone on planet earth, then every individual on planet earth, and all those who have died in their sins, could not be punished, but we know that this just does not match with what the bible says, for example, we have this:
Rev 14:9 And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, "If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand,
10 he also will drink the wine of God's wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb.
11 And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name."
12 Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.
13 And I heard a voice from heaven saying, "Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on." "Blessed indeed," says the Spirit, "that they may rest from their labors, for their deeds follow them!"

It is obvious that if everyone in the history of the world was intended to receive salvation through faith in Jesus Christ, and in His work of atonement and propitiation, then why are these people dying, why are these people in the future receiving the mark of the beast and worshiping Satan? Why is the Lord saying that those who die in Him are blessed? We know that it is a fact that every single day, millions of people die in their sins, some even cursing God; I personally know of at least one who mocked Jesus and His gospel, and after making my life miserable, or at least trying; he put a.45 ACP to his head and pulled the trigger.

Let's, for a moment, assume, that this guy, was the only one who has ever rejected the gospel of Jesus Christ; if every body was to be saved, according to the Universalists, then this single individual has thwarted the purposes of God, this guy alone was able to throw God's plan to the toilet, and now God instead of being sovereign, holy and Just, has become a reactionary; He now has to re-adjust all His purposes and plans to compensate for this event, God stopped being omniscient, and He didn't foreknew anything; and this guy, his name was Mark, took God by surprise, he had more power than Jesus, bummer.

But, I might hear someone say, why does the bible say that God wants to save everybody, all men? OK, what verse was that? 1 Timothy 4:10; For to this end we toil and strive, because we have our hope set on the living God, who is the Savior of all people, especially of those who believe.
1Ti 4:11 Command and teach these things.
1Ti 4:12 Let no one despise you for your youth, but set the believers an example in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity.
Paul is not saying that God wants all people to be saved, what He says is that God is the savior of all people, especially those who believe; the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, after He had been tortured, is enough to save all people, that is what He is saying; not that He saved all people, why does He say: "especially of those who believe"?. It says that because His sacrifice is enough for everybody but it is only intended for the believers, especially. Especially means this:

es⋅pe⋅cial⋅ly

/ɪˈspɛʃəli/

–adverb

particularly; exceptionally; markedly: Be especially watchful.

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Origin:
1350–1400; ME; see especial, -ly

Synonyms:
signally, notably; mainly. Especially, chiefly, particularly, principally refer to those cases that seem to be significant. Especially and particularly single out the most prominent case or example (often in order to particularize a general statement): Winter is especially severe on old people. Corn grows well in the Middle West, particularly in Iowa. Chiefly and principally imply that the general statement applies to a majority of the cases in question, and have a somewhat comparative force: Owls fly chiefly at night. Crime occurs principally in large cities.

If that is not clear let's see the definition for Special:

spe⋅cial

/ˈspɛʃəl/

–adjective

1.	of a distinct or particular kind or character: a special kind of key.

2.	being a particular one; particular, individual, or certain: You'd better call the special number.

3.	pertaining or peculiar to a particular person, thing, instance, etc.; distinctive; unique: the special features of a plan.

4.	having a specific or particular function, purpose, etc.: a special messenger.

5.	distinguished or different from what is ordinary or usual: a special occasion; to fix something special.

6.	extraordinary; exceptional, as in amount or degree; especial: special importance.

7.	being such in an exceptional degree; particularly valued: a special friend.

–noun

8.	a special person or thing.

9.	a train used for a particular purpose, occasion, or the like.

10.	a special edition of a newspaper.

11.	Theater. a spotlight reserved for a particular area, property, actor, etc.: Give me the coffin special.

12.	a temporary, arbitrary reduction in the price of regularly stocked goods, esp. food; a particularly worthwhile offer or price: The special this week is on sirloin steaks.

13.	Television. a single program not forming part of a regular series.

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Origin:
1175–1225; ME (adj.) < class="ital-inline">speciālis of a given species, equiv. to speci(ēs) species + -ālis -al ¹ ; see especial

Related forms:

spe⋅cial⋅ly, adverb

Synonyms:
5. singular. Special, particular, specific refer to something pointed out for attention and consideration. Special means given unusual treatment because of being uncommon: a special sense of a word. Particular implies something selected from the others of its kind and set off from them for attention: a particular variety of orchid. Specific implies plain and unambiguous indication of a particular instance, example, etc.: a specific instance of cowardice.

Antonyms:
1. general.

Usage note:
In American English the adjective special is overwhelmingly more common than especial in all senses: He will be of special help if you can't understand the documentation. The reverse is true of the adverbs; here especially is by far the more common: He will be of great help, especially if you have trouble understanding the documentation. Only when the sense “specifically” is intended is specially more idiomatic: The machine was specially designed for use by a left-handed operator.

"Especially those who believe".

That is a lot of reading, especially for "especially" and "special", but if after reading all that, I still want to argue that this is not what it means, then something must be wrong with me, or is just pride because I don't want to accept that I am wrong and that for the last twenty five years I have been listening to the wrong people with the wrong doctrines. To accept the fact that the bible teaches that Jesus's atonement was limited to those who were chosen, requires humility; it requires that I accept that God is sovereign and He can do whatever He pleases, whether I like it or not. We are special.

John 10:13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep.
14 I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,
15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
16 And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.

Joh 10:25 Jesus answered them, "I told you, and you do not believe. The works that I do in my Father's name bear witness about me,
26 but you do not believe because you are not part of my flock.
27 My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.
28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.
29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.
30 I and the Father are one."
31 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.


In this verse we have Jesus Himself saying that He did not died for everybody, but only for the sheep, read it again, it is very clear what He is saying. Jesus only has one flock of sheep, not two; and the Father gave them to Him, they are those that were appointed to believe.

John 17:3 And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.
4 I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do.
5 And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.
6 "I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. Yours they were, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.
7 Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.
8 For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.
9 I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.
10 All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

Ok, so we have Jesus saying here that; first of all, eternal life is knowing God, and Jesus whom He sent, then Jesus says that he manifested the Father's name to the people that the Father gave Jesus out of the world, they were the Father's and He gave them to Jesus to keep the Father's word. He is praying, not for the whole world but for those whom the Father gave Him; those whom the Father gave Him cannot be everybody else in the world, it is obvious, it is clear that only those the Father gave to Jesus are the elected, the chosen ones, the ones that were predestined to become like Him, the ones that all things work together for their good, the ones that nothing can separate them from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.

John 17:16 They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world.
17 Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth.
18 As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world.
19 And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
20 "I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,
21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.
22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.

To sanctify means to separate, to consecrate, to dedicate in the truth, the Word of God is truth, and we were born of God and we worship in spirit and truth; the amazing part is also that He, Jesus, has given us the glory that the Father gave Him; for those He foreknew, He also predestined, those He predestined He called, and those He called He justified, and those He justified He also glorified with the same glory He had before the world began.

The believers, the true believers today, are the ones that believed through their word; we are the the ones that Jesus prayed for.

John 17:23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.
24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.
25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me.
26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them."

We also have the following verses in the book of Revelation:

Rev 5:8 And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
9 And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,
10 and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth."

My imagination takes me now to heaven when John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, is watching and behold, a scroll with seven seals, and the question is asked: Who is worthy to open the scroll and brake its seven seals and read it? John says he wept loudly, cried because there was none worthy in heaven or earth or under the earth to open the scroll, but one of the elders, one the twenty four, says to him: " "Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals." Rev 5:6 And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth.
Rev 5:7 And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.

See, besides Jesus there is no other who is worthy, He is the one who redeemed us by His blood, the one who made peace for us, The one who ransomed us from every tribe and language and people and nation.

John is listening to the elders and the creatures in heaven, they worship the Lamb, and what they are saying is that the Lamb purchased, with His own blood, people from all countries around the world, from all tribes and languages; John does not hear "the Lamb ransomed everybody in the world", but "from all tribes and nations, and languages"; how can we ever think that everybody was meant to receive redemption through His blood; when it is clear that only some would be appointed to receive it?

Jesus said it: Mark 10:45 "For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."

Talking about Jesus return, the writer of Hebrews, whom I think was Paul but is irrelevant to what I'm saying, says:Heb 9:27 And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, 28 so Christ, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him. You have to carefully read or you'll miss it: "the sins of many", not the sin of everyone in the world.

Speaking of Jesus, at least seven hundred years before He came; Isaiah the prophet says:
Isa 53:10 Yet it was the will of the LORD to crush him; he has put him to grief; when his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days; the will of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.
11 Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities.
12 Therefore I will divide him a portion with the many, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors.

Here the sheep are mentioned as the "many", the many that Jesus Himself said He would ransom. Isaiah doesn't say: make everyone to be accounted righteous but, make many to be accounted righteous; he doesn't say: I will divide Him a portion with everybody, but with the many, the many that Jesus died for.

That should be enough to make my point; I can go on but I won't because I'm tired and I need to eat and read my bible. But the next time someone says to you that God loves everybody the same, remember that God didn't demonstrate His love by dying for everybody, but by dying for the elect, for the sheep, for the ones He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, for the ones chosen before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before Him. Jesus did not die for everyone in the world; read and search the scriptures; it is just not possible according to God's own word.

May you have sweet dreams tonight.

We worship

What some people understand about worship has nothing to do with worship; Jesus made this point clear when talking to the Pharisees and the scribes; Mat 15:7 Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, 8 This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoreth me with their lips; but their heart is far from me.
9 But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
10 And he called the multitude, and said unto them, Hear, and understand: 11 Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man.

When we draw near to God, our whole being needs to be drawn, not only our mouths. Devotion, passion, dedication, consecration; the mouth can only express, with words, true worship when in fact the worship is real; but our hearts can be far from Him if we are religious. We usually think that worship is singing praise songs to God; and we even do it automatically sometimes; but true worship is not singing only; singing becomes the maximum expression of what the heart is doing; the mind is involved, the body is involved, the heart becomes one with His heart, we lose the view of the world and our surroundings; all our problems disappear, we disappear.

To enter into His courts with thanksgiving in our hearts; to leave the flesh at the gate, to kill and crucify self with its passions and desires outside the camp; to bring the offering with pure hands; these we cannot do in our own power. Do I bring with me all my problems? Am I looking for relief from affliction? Do I want to be cleansed from sin? These are the wrong motives for worshiping YHWH. It is not even the high I will get, when I come, that should draw me to His presence; if He is not the focus of my thoughts, and all my desires, then my heart is far from Him; it becomes lip service.

We want to serve, we are ministers, they say; but we come with the wrong motives, it becomes futile, unprofitable, it becomes the doctrines of men; devotion becomes perversion and our heart never draws near.

So it is evident by our own deficiency, that we lose perspective. The focus of our life has become our service, what we can do for others; we pat ourselves in the back thinking that we served, and our service becomes transgression; when our hearts are far from Him. We don't even know what we're saying anymore, our singing is not a sweet smelling aroma anymore, it becomes a stench.

True worship starts in the morning, when we wake up; our sacrifice is that of thanksgiving, always; and then we bring ourselves as a living sacrifice; the fruit of our heart is our worship with our lips. We start our worship when we open our eyes, and we thank God for His mercy, for His unfailing love, for His sacrifice, for His thoughts toward us; for His mercies being new every morning, and for His faithfulness at night. We thank God for our bed, for our coffee, for our eyes, for our hands and our feet; we thank God for hot water, for soap, for toothpaste and for brushes; we thank God we have senses, that we can embrace our children, for our mouth to kiss their little cheeks, for our ears to hear their laughter, for our eyes to look into theirs, for our skin to feel the warmth of their love, we thank God the Almighty for our mouths to taste that He is good, for our noses to smell the flowers in the backyard, and the bar-b-q; we give thanks for our brains to be filled with thoughts of light, for the sun to warm our weary bones; for our capacity to read and understand His word, for the power of God that is at work in us who believe.

We are grateful that He chose us, before the foundation of the world; that He had pleasure in foreknowing us, that He finds pleasure in our beings, that He made us for His purposes, the He delights in us, that He predestined us to become His children, we thank Him for adopting us into His family, we thank God for giving Himself completely, for us, for our transgressions, for our sins, for our iniquity. We thank God the Father for not allowing anything in His creation to separate us from His love, from Jesus Christ; and for all things working together for our good. We thank Him for giving us the faith to believe, and for keeping us to the end.

We worship when we walk as He walked, when our words and our deeds become one, when we find ourselves thinking, realizing that we don't deserve anything from Him but death and torment; when we thank Him for rescuing us from the cesspool of destruction; for casting our transgressions as far as the east is from the west, for His loving kindness, His chesed, being higher than the heavens above the earth; we remember His holiness, we thank Him for preserving the souls of His saints, for delivering us from the hands of the wicked, for healing our diseases, for satisfying our mouths with good things so that our youth is renewed like the eagle's; we thank Him for crowning us with loving kindness and compassion, for remembering our frame, that we are dust; for making known His salvation and for imputing His righteousness unto us.

We thank God for He reigns, we thank Him for His presence melting the mountains like wax; we give thanks that He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, and for making us the sheep of His pasture; for His rod and staff that comforts us, for setting a table before us in the presence of our enemies, for anointing our heads with oil, for overflowing our cups; we thank Him that his goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives and that we shall dwell in His house forever, we thank Him for making His rain descend upon the righteous and the wicked, for His sun shining in our hearts; for the heavens rejoicing for His judgments, for His wonderful works to the children of man; we thank God for His goodness, for the seas roaring at His voice, we thank Him for showing His righteousness openly in the sight of the wicked; we are grateful for His mercy is everlasting, for His truth enduring to all generations; we thank YHWH for executing righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed; we thank Him for being merciful and gracious, for being slow to anger and plenteous in mercy; we thank Him by worshiping Him with all that we are.

This is what worship is: proskuneo; to kiss, like a dog licking his master's hand, to fawn or crouch to, that is to prostrate oneself in homage, to do reverence to, to adore. Therefore, when we worship our Master, the King of the universe, we consider ourselves dogs; licking our Master's hand, we prostrate ourselves in homage, we do reverence Him, we adore Him. What else is there to do?

John 4:23 But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father is spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship Him; God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth.

We walk in the Spirit and we don't fulfill the lust of the flesh, we worship the Father in Spirit and truth. The question we must ask, every day at every moment is, do I really worship? Are my thoughts His thoughts, are my ways His ways?

God's Holiness

Is it no true that we consider ourselves as wise most of the time? The pride of life is a poison that permeates our being in such a way, that we are usually convinced that our own goodness exceeds that of the Scribes and the Pharisees; when in fact we do not possess any goodness or righteousness of our own, and the wisdom that we thought we achieved is, by comparison to that of the world, dark and ostentatious; it is not worth mentioning the wisdom of God because is too lofty and pure.

I remember when I was a teenager, how prideful and arrogant I was, as everybody else my age; and how in my ignorance I broke my parents hearts more than once. Thinking me as wise I became a fool, and in my transgression I became dark in my imaginations, and in the thoughts of my heart. I made a habit of breaking God's law and man's laws. Anybody would think that as the years go by, we would become wiser, but is all to the contrary, because when we become young adults, in our twenties; there is not a soul under the sun that can point the right way to our pride.

Things change by when the thirties hit, and we see the reality of years gone by, and of so much wasted time; still we think that we are in control, and we continue to deceive ourselves, unless we are confronted with the majesty of God. As we have discovered, we are nothing compared to the King of the universe; and the words from Isaiah the prophet: "your righteousness is as filthy rags" become more and more true in our minds.

I have continued to discover that we are still far from the goal of being conformed to the image of His son, to which we have been predestined; but it only appears to be that way because we now realize the depth of our depravity, and the blackness of our minds. It is because of His mercy and grace that we usually do better than we think; but in my mind, I'm doing worse and worse; it is a mystery.

Some, and this must be by reason of insanity, still think that they are righteous; to consider one to be right in any way is the same thing as thinking ourselves to be righteous; proving true the word of God: they became fools. God does not have any other choice but to give them over to their own desires and to do what is not fitting for a fool to do; the newscasts are full of cases that illustrate this continually.

Still some, as Paul says in the book of Romans, are paying the penalty due their ignorance and the hardness of their heart. Some people contract HIV or AIDS, or some loathsome venereal disease; some fall into a deep mental anguish and depression; and some cannot take it anymore, being isolated from God by their foolishness, they see no other option but to blow their brains out.

Rom 1:24 Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonor their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.
And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient; being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful: Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

God is always right, and He will always prove Himself true and everyone else a liar; He is most Holy and Righteous, and we really don't have an idea of what that means; I hope and I desire to be like Him, and my flesh cries out, and my mind and my whole body thirsts and hungers for His righteousness.

I know that God sees me in a different light, that is what Paul means when he says that we have been raised with Christ and made us to sit together with Him in the heavenly places. If He has done this, seated us together with Christ in the heavenly places; it is not possible that He would look at us and see us, but Christ, and we together with Him, vested in His righteousness, and imputed by His holiness. That is why we strive to fulfill God's desires, when He has put those desires inside of us; we come to the place of delighting ourselves in the Lord, and He giving us the desires of our hearts.

If any of my brothers says they don't like Calvin, because of whatever washing of the brain they subjected themselves to; or because their pastor has been trained to follow the thoughts of Arminius and not Christ; or because they just cannot understand Calvin's point of view on the nature of God and the doctrines of grace; I have to say, please inform yourself and then express an opinion. Everyone has an opinion, and all opinions are based on darkness, unless they are based on the righteousness of the word of Christ our God, and God His Father and our Father. All thoughts of God are pure, and all His ways divine, therefore we try to think like He thinks and walk as He walked.

The following thoughts are form the Institutes of Christian Religion, by John Calvin; I am inserting them here to make a point, first about my own thoughts, and second to illustrate the genius and depth of understanding this man Calvin was gifted with; to my surprise and amazement, I never read Calvin before, which is surprising because I was often proud of having being taught by some of the best teachers ( I thought), and amazed because only one of my pastors, Barry is his name; has ever recommended this book to me. I can without a doubt say, that I learned more from Barry, than any other pastor I have ever listened to; so I praise God for him, here is Calvin:

"For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, so long as he is unknown to himself; that is, so long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.

On the other hand, it is evident that man never attains to a true self-knowledge until he have previously contemplated the face of God, and come down after such contemplation to look into himself. For (such is our innate pride) we always seem to ourselves just, and upright, and wise, and holy, until we are convinced, by clear evidence, of our injustice, vileness, folly, and impurity.

Convinced, however, we are not, if we look to ourselves only, and not to the Lord also - He being the only standard by the application of which this conviction can be produced. For, since we are all naturally prone to hypocrisy, any empty semblance of righteousness is quite enough to satisfy us instead of righteousness itself.

And since nothing appears within us or around us that is not tainted with very great impurity, so long as we keep our mind within the confines of human pollution, anything which is in some small degree less defiled delights us as if it were most pure just as an eye, to which nothing but black had been previously presented, deems an object of a whitish, or even of a brownish hue, to be perfectly white. Nay, the bodily sense may furnish a still stronger illustration of the extent to which we are deluded in estimating the powers of the mind. If, at mid-day, we either look down to the ground, or on the surrounding objects which lie open to our view, we think ourselves endued with a very strong and piercing eyesight; but when we look up to the sun, and gaze at it unveiled, the sight which did excellently well for the earth is instantly so dazzled and confounded by the refulgence, as to oblige us to confess that our acuteness in discerning terrestrial objects is mere dimness when applied to the sun.

Thus too, it happens in estimating our spiritual qualities. So long as we do not look beyond the earth, we are quite pleased with our own righteousness, wisdom, and virtue; we address ourselves in the most flattering terms, and seem only less than demigods. But should we once begin to raise our thoughts to God, and reflect what kind of Being he is, and how absolute the perfection of that righteousness, and wisdom, and virtue, to which, as a standard, we are bound to be conformed, what formerly delighted us by its false show of righteousness will become polluted with the greatest iniquity; what strangely imposed upon us under the name of wisdom will disgust by its extreme folly; and what presented the appearance of virtuous energy will be condemned as the most miserable impotence. So far are those qualities in us, which seem most perfect, from corresponding to the divine purity". John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion; Book 1, Chapter 1, 1. 2. Excerpt taken from E-sword, Topic Notes.

After reading that, there is no more to say; if the guy is not brilliant, then I don't know who is.

In the book of Isaiah, we can read the account of the prophet having an encounter with God in a vision: Isa 6:1 In the year that King Uzziah died I then saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple.
Above it stood the seraphs; each one had six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is Jehovah of Hosts; the whole earth full of His glory.
And the doorposts moved at the voice of the one who cried, and the house was filled with smoke.
Then I said, Woe is me! For I am undone; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, Jehovah of Hosts.
Then one of the seraphs flew to me, having a live coal in his hand, snatched with tongs from the altar. And he laid it on my mouth and said, Lo, this has touched your lips; and your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.

R.C Sproul in one of his series about the Holiness of God, says that in our language, when we want to stress the importance of something we are saying, when writing we use bold letters, underlines, exclamation points, etc; in the Hebrew language, and in general when the Jewish people wanted to stress the importance of something, either in their writings or speaking, they would repeat the word twice; as an example we have our Lord Jesus starting several of His teachings with the words "verily, verily", or "truly, truly, I say unto you"; this is to stress the importance of what He was about to say. As throughout the bible, when God repeats something twice, we need to pay attention.

Only in the case of the Holiness of God, the repetition is done three times; Holy, Holy, Holy is YHWH, the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory; when YHWH talks about His Holiness, the Holiness of God is taken to the maximum expression, and to the number of the trinitarian nature of Himself. Three times the cherubs are saying to each other: Holy, Holy, Holy!!!

In the book of Revelation, we have another instance where the following takes place: Rev 4:8 And each one of the four living creatures had six wings about him, and within being full of eyes. And they had no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, the Almighty, who was and is and is to come.

This is of the utmost importance even in heaven. This activity of worshipping God by saying Holy three times, is being executed by these living creatures day and night, there is no rest, they would not stop saying it, even if they could stop, because this appears to be the reason they were created in the first place.

God's holiness will make anyone that comes face to face with Him, either to dissolve in His light and die, or to become undone in the extreme and supreme holiness of the King of Kings. In the book of Isaiah the cherubs are before the throne of YHWH, and they not even look at God directly; they cover their faces with a pair of their wings; even these angelic beings in their pure and holy state cannot look into the Holiness of the Lord.

Is God an egocentric entity that demands to be worshipped? Did He create all He has created with the purpose of basking in His creation's adoration? It appears to be the case, and why is that so?

Look at this verse in Revelation: Rev 4:9 And when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne, who liveth forever and ever, the four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Did you catch the last part of that verse? We were created for His pleasure; as farfetched and whacked out that sounds to me, that is what He says. How is it possible that I could ever give God any pleasure, if when I look at myself all I see is darkness and a heart that is deceitful above all things? I am not even worthy to be called a child of God; but see, it is that way because of Jesus Christ, because of what He did for me, because of His blood covers my multitude of sins, because of His Love; like I said before, He did not set His love on me because I think I'm cool; He sure didn't think I was cool when He had to come and die in my place. All this is so becasue of His mercy.

Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Once again, I have to close this post with the only expression that I can come up with, and it is also from Him and for Him: to the praise of the glory of His grace.

You have a good night.

Chosen

I welcome myself back to the blog by exclaiming: His mercies are new every morning!

I had a horrible night due to extreme pain, but I am grateful I was awakened by my body and was actually able to read my bible, sit here in my garage and meditate on how good God is; I looked at the sky last night and thought about Isaiah, Isa 40:25 To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things, that bringeth out their host by number: he calleth them all by names by the greatness of his might, for that he is strong in power; not one faileth.
YHWH brings the stars out one by one, He knows every single one by name; that is a mind boggled thought to me; in our Milky Way galaxy, one of the smallest, there are by scientists calculations 100 billion stars, that is just one galaxy. If I believe that, it shouldn't be hard to believe that God chose me before He created the stars; I hope is not hard for you either.

I am still thinking about this, if this is boring to anybody, well, they can just stop reading and cruise to some other website about cars or shopping; to me this is fascinating, and so I think about being chosen all the time, and so should every believer.

Mat 24:31 And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. We all know by what the Bible says that we are the elect, here Jesus Himself is talking about the elect. You can tell me that the context is talking about the Jews, but why is He saying "the elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other?"; does heaven have an end, or two ends?; food for thought.

Mar 13:22 For false Christs and false prophets shall rise, and shall show signs and wonders, to seduce, if it were possible, even the elect. 23 But take ye heed: behold, I have foretold you all things. 24 But in those days, after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light, 25 And the stars of heaven shall fall, and the powers that are in heaven shall be shaken.
26 And then shall they see the Son of man coming in the clouds with great power and glory.
27 And then shall he send his angels, and shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from the uttermost part of the earth to the uttermost part of heaven.
Here is Jesus saying that, if it were possible, even the elect would be seduced by the signs and wonders that the false Christs will show. Therefore we know that the elect will not be deceived, it is impossible; the reason is because the elect have been chosen by God the Father of glory, and it is impossible that anybody could snatch them out of His hand; they will be gathered from the ends of heaven, meaning from under the atmosphere of the earth.

Luk 18:1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; 2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man: 3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary. 4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man; 5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.
6 And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith.
7 And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? 8 I tell you that he will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?

God's vengeance will come one day; but it will be to avenge His elect, speedily. Jesus' point is that the elect, God's chosen people, should have perseverance and pray for deliverance because it will come at the appointed time. By asking the question: "will the Son of man find faith on the earth?", He is implying that the elect would not have any faith except for the power of God; Peter says that we are being kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation. Since God gave us the faith in the first place, and the gifts of God are irrevocable ( Rom 11:29 For the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable ), then it is impossible for our faith to escape us; on the other side, if we are not here when Jesus comes back because He has already taken us out of this world, then obviously He will not find faith on the earth because the faith that dwells on the earth dwells inside the believers, no believers, no faith. This also proves the fact that no one comes to Jesus except the Father draws him, because it is the Father that supplies the faith to believe in Jesus.

Now, His point is that if an unrighteous person relents from stubbornness to supply justice to one of the elect, how much more will God give justice to His elect when they ask, He will do it speedily, not reluctantly. I need to remember also, that the non-believer, even when having freedom of choice, He stands under the ultimate control of God. Paul says that we were dead in trespasses and sins, we walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, so all non believers walk under the influence of Satan, but Satan himself is directly controlled by the power of God; he needs permission to mess with the elect.

Rom 11:2 God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel?
3 "Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life."
4 But what is God's reply to him? "I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal."
5 So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.
6 But if it is by grace, it is no longer on the basis of works; otherwise grace would no longer be grace.
7 What then? Israel failed to obtain what it was seeking. The elect obtained it, but the rest were hardened.
God did not reject His people whom He foreknew, the elect obtained grace, the remnant is chosen by grace; the elect, His people, the remnant, chosen, they are all the same; this is he point I was making in my previous post. God foreknew the elect, He chose them by grace, for free, with no actions on their part; basically election is the same as foreknowledge in this case; because it is by grace. Deu 9:24 Ye have been rebellious against the LORD from the day that I knew you. Did God meet this guys one day, and is that what He is saying? Of course not, He knew them before the foundation of the world, and He knew they were rebellious.
Deu 4:37 And because he loved thy fathers, therefore he chose their seed after them, and brought thee out in his sight with his mighty power out of Egypt. So God chose their seed because of His love for them.

Deut. 7:7 The LORD did not set his love upon you, nor choose you, because ye were more in number than any people; for ye were the fewest of all people: But because the LORD loved you, and because he would keep the oath which he had sworn unto your fathers, hath the LORD brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you out of the house of bondmen, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt. Know therefore that the LORD thy God, he is God, the faithful God, which keepeth covenant and mercy with them that love him and keep his commandments to a thousand generations and repayeth them that hate him to their face, to destroy them: he will not be slack to him that hateth him, he will repay him to his face.

The LORD, YHWH, the Great I AM, did not set His love upon you and me, nor chose us because we were special, or good looking, or because we would believe, or because we can play guitars and do bible studies, or ride motorcycles, or because we are cool and have no money, or because we are American, or even because He knew us; but because of His mercy, because that is the pleasure of His will, and I have to say it once again, because it gives praise to His glorious grace.

Have a nice day.

Appointed to believe

Coming back to my previous trip; I had already written a long dissertation about foreknowledge, the foreknowledge of God, and guess what; the auto-save function of the blogger stopped working and I lost everything I had written, it was what I thought was one of the best things I have written, but it was predestined to be lost in the labyrinth of the digital world; the Lord in His omniscience and omnipotence and according to His foreknowledge purposed that such workings of my mind should be erased forever, this is because I can't remember what I said and I didn’t have a copy of it; it probably doesn’t matter; because it probably completely misrepresented who God is; I don't think it did, but He did prevent me; I really believe that everything that comes to pass in my life is completely controlled by God; it's beautiful. If you don’t believe that, then I assume that you are probably stressed or worried most of the time; I don’t mean to say that I don’t stress or worry, but usually the Lord brings me back to that thought through His Spirit, He reminds me of Philippians 4:6, we should all have that one memorized.

Anyway, my previous post started with the following verse: Act 13:47 “For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, "'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'"
And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed”.

And then I said:

I had to be appointed to eternal life, and after, and only after; I believed. Rom 8:29 For those whom he (1) foreknew he also (2) predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also (3) called, and those whom he called he also (4) justified, and those whom he justified he also (5) glorified.

I said that I would reason the points in bold, and I sort of reasoned number one; at this point I am hesitant to continue with that trip, because the Lord already shut me down once; it would be very embarrassing to have to suffer that again, I can’t take another blow to my ego, but who am I? Does the clay argue with the potter and complain: why are you making me like that? God is sovereign, maybe I should talk about that, or maybe not; auto-save is working, so I might; I can also be double minded to illustrate James chapter one, and just talk about how I need wisdom; lots of it; or I can just be a double dork.

Anyway the Greek for foreknowledge is prognosis, which means to know beforehand, a forethought; when God fore-thinks something, it becomes a reality in the moment He expresses that thought, even though it has not taken place in the space/time domain yet. Human foreknowledge must be non-existent, because we, as human beings, cannot know what is going to take place in the future, we can make assumptions, and guesses; but that doesn’t mean that we know for sure what is going to happen.

When we pray for something or someone, according to God’s will, Jesus said that the Father would give us whatever we asked for (in His name); so at that point we can say that we foreknew whatever we were praying for, but we never know if God is going to allow us to see the answer to that prayer; we might even be dead when it’s answered; or the prayer might never get answered in the way we expected, meaning the answer was “no”; so in reality we cannot foreknow anything.

I said before that I foreknew that I was going to have dinner with my grand kids, and that I also predestined that to happen; but that statement was only used to illustrate my point; in reality I cannot have foreknowledge of anything, or predestine anything because I am not God, as much as I would like to be, there is only one God, and His name is YHWH, the great I AM, and I am not Him, and can never be Him, I am in Him, but that is another topic of discussion. One day I should be like Him, like Jesus, but I can never be Him.

Deviating from my train of thought; a cultural brief: in metaphysics, they used to teach me that when we use the term “I am”, we are using the power of the presence of God inside of us; There was a little book that my Mom gave me called “The Golden Book of Saint Germaine”; this little book talked about the “presence I am”; now think about that for a minute, how appealing is that to the flesh, you and I can be, and are, according to this guy Saint Germaine; the presence of God, everybody is God in miniature, so that we have the power to create our own circumstances or materialize anything we put our minds to. Another thing that has become a fact in my mind; is that they denied the deity of Jesus Christ by stating that He was just an ascended master or teacher. Yeah, right; I am so glad to be out of that stuff; of course this happened during a time in my life in which I was eating mushrooms and peyote; so if you came to me and told me I was God in the flesh, I would believe it.

Maybe Adam and Eve were eating some hallucinogenic fruit after Satan approached them dressed as a serpent, and therefore believed the lie. Of course I am saying this to make a point, I’m not really saying that’s what happened, so don’t go around saying that I’m blaspheming to your friends. This is basically eastern mysticism encapsulated into a more modern thought form; but is of course the old lie: “you shall be like God”; of course they tell you that Hermes Trismegisto, an ancient Greek, had already thought about it, and that he actually was the reincarnated Saint Germaine. Like I said in another post, my Mom who gave me the book, meant it for good, and God used it in my life so that when I finally became a child of the light, I could see that all that stuff belongs to the darkness; on the other side is a blessing that my Mom is a child of God and she has come to the knowledge of the truth, she remains a mystic though, just like me and you.

Anyway; God is good, and the fact of this whole matter is that God foreknows, and when He foreknows something, is just like it is a reality; no matter how small our lives and our brains are and we cannot comprehend it. We really don’t need to understand a lot of things, one basic thing that God in His mercy and grace has given to us through His spirit is the understanding that God chose us, that He predestined us according to His foreknowledge.

Here is another verse to trip out on: 1Peter 1:1 Peter an apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who are elect exiles of the dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in the sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and for sprinkling with His blood: May grace and peace be multiplied to you.

So I see, these Christians in Asia Minor were elected according to the foreknowledge of God, being elected according to the foreknowledge of God can only mean one thing, that these people, as well as you and I, the believers, have been chosen because God foreknew us; that means according to prognosis: the thought God had in His mind of choosing us; it is clear that when God thought about choosing us we became known by Him, so we were foreknown as a reality in God’s mind, for Him we became into being at the moment He thought about us. How much clearer, or plain can this be?

We have already agreed that our foreknowledge is null, only God can foreknow something, because He is God, and because that is the pleasure of His will, all this, Paul says in Ephesians, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

Ok, I think that should be enough about the foreknowledge of God; if there is any doubt as to what foreknowledge is, you should get some commentaries on the book of Romans, like Donal Grey Barnhouse, Matthew Henry, Albert Barnes Notes on The Bible, Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown, or even John Calvin’s commentary; Calvin’s commentary should be enough but just in case you are an Arminian, get the other ones so you don’t get turned off by the name Calvin.

As an additional study or pondering matter, here are some more verses to ingest:

Act 2:22 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God the Father; in the same way the we were created and chosen for salvation according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God the Father; if the foreknowledge of God was not a reality at the time He foreknew to deliver Jesus up for crucifixion, then what is it? What Peter is saying here is that even though Jesus was crucified by the people's wicked hands, at the same time God had planned it, Jesus having agreed, He delivered Him up for death. God the Father foreknew this event; His Son agreed, and Jesus Himself said, no one takes my life, I lay it down on my own accord.

Act 2:39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." We cannot come to God, unless He calls us to Himself; we also know that we cannot come to Jesus unless the Father draws us, and no one comes to the Father except through the Son; is beautiful.

Act 2:47 praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved. Here it says that it was God who was adding those who were being saved to the church. Obviously salvation is of the Lord, He foreknows, predestines, calls, justifies, sanctifies and glorifies those whom He wants, according to the pleasure of His will, not our will. We are born not of the flesh, not of the will of man, but of God.

If after reading this, and praying and searching the scriptures, anyone is still proud enough to deny that God is the author and finisher, not only of our faith, but also our salvation, from beginning to end, the I dare to catalog such a one, in the "foolish" category.

I said it before, and will do it again: to think that we can have any predisposition to anything holy, or that we can assume that we believed in the Gospel because of our own goodness, or because we had a corner of our heart that was clear of sin, and trespasses, and darkness; not only are we deceiving ourselves but we are also offending the righteous God who bought us with the precious blood of Christ.

Just as a note, I have no idea how the font changed in some of the paragraphs above, maybe the same reason why I lost my previous thoughts, at least I can read the whole thing.

The temple destroyed

Act 13:47 For so the Lord has commanded us, saying, "'I have made you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.'"
And when the Gentiles heard this, they began rejoicing and glorifying the word of the Lord, and as many as were appointed to eternal life believed.

I had to be appointed to eternal life, and after, and only after; I believed. Rom 8:29 For those whom he (1)foreknew he also (2)predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined he also (3)called, and those whom he called he also (4)justified, and those whom he justified he also (5)glorified.

In this post I'm going to reason about point number one, I'm going to make it short so I can go and have dinner with my grand kids; this is because I have foreknown that I will have dinner with my grand kids; and my free will has predestined that it should be so. Well, that is what I think, but in reality it was God who has foreknown me having dinner with my grand kids, and He also predestined dinner with my grand kids as part of the good works that He prepared before hand that I should walk in them. That should be enough to make my point, but at any rate I will still write more on this topic; maybe tomorrow, I will attack number 2, and so on; it all depends on God's will, because I am not sure I will be here tomorrow.

(1) Foreknowledge means to know before hand, to know something before it happens; when God foreknows something, it is bound to happen with all certainty. This verse does not say that because He foreknew that I would believe, He predestined me; but that He predestined me because He foreknew me. In other words, God the Father knew in advance who I am because He created me with the purpose of believing in Him; that is why He predestined me.

If I say that He predestined me because He foreknew that I would believe; then the possibility exists that I would not believe; that is leaving the decision to believe up to me and on my free will, on my choice; and He would not have the power to exercise His will and chose me unto salvation. That means that I could, on my power, thwart the plans of God, and if I could do that, then He is not sovereign anymore. Now, on the other side, if God is sovereign and He knows all things, is because all things have been ordained from eternity to come to pass according to the pleasure of His will, God knows that I would believe because He purposed that I would believe, putting it in any other way would mean that God is just waiting for somebody to believe and then He chooses that person, but that argument takes God's omniscience (the knowledge of all things, past present and future) and renders it obsolete.

It is a known fact to all Christians, because the infallible and inerrant word of God says so, that for God, time is non existent in His dwelling realm, He is Spirit and He is not subject to the physical properties of the universe He created (time and space); He lives outside of time; therefore He can see time from beginning to end as if it was all in the present tense for Him, it is indeed present in His sight; if this was not true, then all prophecy would be subjected to chance and God could not predict that you and I will be raptured, and if that is the case, how can we trust that we are indeed saved to start with?

When Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem, everything came to pass, not only because He predicted it then, but also because it had been predicted before:
"After the city was taken, Josephus says that Titus “gave orders that they should now “demolish the whole city and temple,” except three towers, which he reserved standing. But for the rest of the wall, it was laid so completely even with the ground by those who “dug it up from the foundation,” that there was nothing left to make those believe who came hither that it had ever been inhabited.” Maimonides, a Jewish writer, has also recorded that “Terentius Rufus, an officer in the army of Titus, with a plowshare tore up the foundations of the temple, that the prophecy might be fulfilled, ‘Zion shall be plowed as a field,’” Mic_3:12. This was all done by the direction of divine Providence. Titus was desirous of preserving the temple, and frequently sent Josephus to the Jews to induce them to surrender and save the temple and city. But the prediction of the Saviour had gone forth, and, notwithstanding the wish of the Roman general, the temple was to be destroyed. The Jews themselves first set fire to the porticoes of the temple. One of the Roman soldiers, without any command, threw a burning firebrand into the golden window, and soon the temple was in flames. Titus gave orders to extinguish the fire; but, amid the tumult, none of the orders were obeyed. The soldiers pressed to the temple, and neither fear nor entreaties, nor stripes could restrain them. Their hatred of the Jews urged them on to the work of destruction, and thus, says Josephus, the temple was burned against the will of Caesar. - Jewish Wars, b. 6 chapter 4, section 5-7.

If God's foreknowledge means that He knows something in advance, but it depends on the will of man for it to happen, God would have to be constantly adjusting His plans for the redeemed and for the universe in general. In the previous account of the temple's destruction, we see how, even when the general of the army (Titus) gave orders to extinguish the fire, God's will overruled the general's desires, all soldiers being now directed by the unsurpassed power of the Almighty to accomplish His will and His plans.

As I said, if God's foreknowledge does not establish the events foreknown; prophecy would not be prophecy but reactionary language, always being adjusted according to what man decides to choose to do. God does not have contingency plans, I said this before in another post, and I challenge anyone to show me anything in the Bible that speaks to the contrary; He does not have a plan B.

So to wrap it up, when the Bible says: "For those He foreknew, He also predestined"; means that His foreknowledge establishes His foreordination; we have been predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son because we have been foreknown in the mind of God, by the pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace.

My Mom's Bday

Today is my Mother's birthday; she turned 78 years old. Her name is Daisy; a godly woman, a real blessing to those who have the fortune to ever come across her path. You have to know my Mom to experience what true love is, the love only a mother can give, the love only a 78 year old mother of five can share. But you might already know her kind in your own mother.

My mother was born in March 22nd, in the year 1931; my father was born in 1925, he would be 84 years old if he was still here, but he is not; he is in heaven with Jesus, having a blast. He is in a place where he doesn't have to take medicines for high blood pressure, he doesn't have to use insulin, and he doesn't have to have dialysis to cleanse his blood. He is in a place where there is no pain, or hypodermic needles, or sorrow, or tears, or worry; he is in a place where his mind is free from the tyranny of sinful desires and self.

He was a good man, a godly man, he deserves to be free from all the pain. Okay, I have to correct my last statement, no one deserves to be in heaven; we all deserve to die a horrible death and then suffer for eternity; it is only because of Jesus and His sacrifice that we can be in the place where my Dad is in right now, let's not forget that for a minute.

I won't forget my father either, he loved me and my brothers, he was funny and wise at the same time; he was a good provider, my mother never worked. Even before he became a Christian, he was a righteous man by worldly standards; he was a man of integrity, a man of principles, and honesty, he acknowledged God during all his trials, and all his joys; he was always grateful for God's mercy towards him and his family and he would say it to his children. I learned to be grateful to God because of him, even though I didn't know who God was, I did give thanks to Him for his blessings. One of his classic statements was: "God is extremely good to us; let us remember to be thankful for His blessings".

He was a director in a national bank, and people respected him; they honored him for his willingness to help others; he was loved by many people, hundreds of people were at his funeral. When I was a teenager, I borrowed his car and so I had to take him to work and drop him off. At the security gate, at the entrance of the bank's main office, in downtown Mexico City; he stopped the car to find out how the guard's family was doing, he asked about this man's son, from that conversation I knew that the guard's son was being sent to school because of my Dad; they guy was almost weeping, he said: "muchas gracias Don Roberto, estoy eternamente agradecido" (thank you very much, I am eternally grateful); my father's reply was, "dele gracias a Dios, El nunca nos abandona" (Give God thanks, He never forsakes us). "Don" is a very respectful term, used only to address people of the highest esteem in Mexico; my father was known as Don Roberto; he loved others with actions, he was genuinely interested in other people's suffering; he knew about suffering himself. Don Roberto loved Daisy, and he loved his children.

Because of my mother, I learned to love books and read them; it was because of her that I was interested in spiritual things since I was a little child. It was her who introduced me to the Bible; my grand father's Bible; she also introduced me to the study of metaphysics, and everything esoteric.

It was my mother who also introduced me to meditation, and I became a vegetarian because of her; she was searching at the same time I was searching; and we both were found by God because of His mercy.

My mother is a woman of sorrows, acquainted with grief; she gave birth to 4 boys and raised my oldest half brother; and she had my oldest brother die of AIDS in her arms, she was there when my father died; but she was also there when my father and my oldest brother were born again; she has cried millions of tears for her children, for her dear husband, the man of her love and for her own sins.

My mother is a true servant of God, she continues to give her life away for others. I call her every weekend, and we talk about Jesus; her King and my King, her God and my God; my Mom is not only my mother, but my sister in Christ; she is one of the elect, one of the chosen. My mother is a godly woman, she is a godly mother, she is a godly sister, she is a godly widow.

God, her creator, her King and her passion; has a special place for her in His heart; for her and all those mothers who suffer, who cry silent tears; God has a collection of beautiful bottles where He holds all their tears, like precious pearls from heaven, like precious stars in a constellation of super novas; like precious diamonds in a collection of gems. I am convinced that God has a special shelf by His throne where He keeps these containers, of suffering tears, prayers and joy, I am confident He honors my mother, along with all mothers who love Him and His children, their children and husbands, their brothers in Christ.

Today, I honor my mother; this woman from heaven, this sister of Love. Today is my mother's birthday, and there is a celebration in my heart; and in God's heart for creating her. Her name is Daisy, a flower of joy.

The cart wheel galaxy; created, originated in the mind of YHWH; just as everything else in the universe, it is sustained in a cohesive state by the power of the Logos. In the extent of my imagination, is hard for me to picture something as beautiful as that without looking at a picture of it. A thought of God exploding into being.

My mind is a unit, existent within another unit, my brain; this in turn is a part of another unit that appears to be a whole of the sum of the parts which is my body. I think my being is like a hologram; every single cell comprises the essence of my soul. I'm probably wrong on that one, as on many other things, but I still think is fun to think about these things.

The following is an excerpt from the latest Koinonia House news letter: For example, when the French physicist Alain Aspect and his team in France and Switzerland experimented on photons in the early 1980s, they found that a change in the polarization of one photon could be detected almost instantaneously (faster than light speed) in another photon miles away. Discoveries like this were not new; Niels Bohr had argued that subatomic particles were interconnected back in the early part of the 20th century, even while Einstein insisted that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light. This insta-communication between particles has created a series of disturbing questions: How could two distantly separated photons communicate instantly? What connected them? Are the laws of physics absolute? What is the ultimate nature of reality?

What is the ultimate nature of reality? Well, it all depends on which reality they are talking about; see, I have a reality inside my brain that extends beyond my brain; how is it possible that my eyes can transmit light through the optic nerve, (reflect an upside down image in the back of the eye), and then convert this light into electrical and chemical signals that my brain processes as the Cart Wheel Galaxy? And not only that, but then my mind further processes this image and ascribes to it the concept of beauty; this in turn causes a reaction in my thoughts, affecting all of my being into a feeling of awe towards God.

Forget about the photons and subatomic particles, just think about what I just said. Now what makes this important, is that it demonstrates the existence of my being as a spiritual entity; animals cannot sit there in the middle of the jungle or in the desert at night; or in my backyard for that matter, and after looking at the stars exclaim: The heavens declare the glory of God; or the firmament proclaims the work of His hands! (Psa.19), that is also an impossibility for the natural man, because the natural man rejects the witness of the stars.

After all, the Bible is true in declaring and proclaiming that the natural man with his natural mind, is at enmity with God, is not subject to the law of God, and never indeed can be. Our beings had to be transformed into children of the light, so that we could see the light. A new nature had to be implanted into our hearts, and our thinking had to be renewed, not in the sense of making something old new, but in the sense of something that has been created new; so that we could appreciate the beauty of the statement above, (Psalm 19), it is a marvel, a miracle that we can observe an image like that, and be taken away to the presence of the Lord.

To give another example of the wonder of God's power and wisdom, we don't have to go too far, all we have to do is go into our backyards and look around us; there is so much beauty within the space inside those fences, that we miss the obvious because of our disinterestedness. Self and the power of the will, vanity of vanities.

Thinking about how these subatomic particles are interconnected, and then remembering Paul's statement that all believers are part of the body of Christ; causes me to think, and that is a good thing, about how the Spirit of God that is at work in us, reminds our intellects that whatever we do affects the other parts of the body. How can the hand say to the eye, I don't need you? He says, then, that when a member suffers all parts suffer with it, and when a member is honored all parts rejoice with it.

We are connected to each other by the same Spirit that we have been baptized into, the same way that subatomic particles are connected to each other, so when a photon suffers, another one feels the effects. So going along with this vein of thought, I ask: do I suffer when my brother suffers? Do I rejoice when he gets blessed? If I don't, is because of self-contentedness.

Looking at stars and galaxies should always make me think how connected I am to my brothers; and sisters. Some of them are walking around this earth not even knowing that they have been elected, chosen. Their time will come, they one day will know what we know.

Let's look into the sky in a cloudless night, and stand in awe of the Majesty on high; let's remember that we are one body because Jesus died on a cross two thousand and nine years ago, because He was slaughtered before the foundation of the world, before the beginning of time and space; before there were any subatomic particles or any Cart Wheel galaxies or Alpha Centauri stars; before He gave us life and were but a thought in His mind; hold your wife's hand, or your daughter's or your granddaughter's, or your friend's, and be ravished by the beauty of the glory of God's love for you; to the praise of the glory of His grace.