Athiests?

So once again we are reminded of the spew that comes forth from the so called, "Highly intelligent."

Interesting. Are they indeed athiests? There are many who claim this. There are many who claim not to be, and might as well be.

These people suppose that the believer is hypocritical, when indeed they are perfect examples of the definition.

Why would a person who thinks that God does not exist feel so threatened by those who do?
Because they are afraid. They are very afraid.

Hypocrites. They enjoy the blessings of laws in the land, the blessings of this creation giving them their needs. They enjoy a society of civilized beings, who, although godless, are constrained by The Lord Himself else be chaos, mayhem, murder, rape and the like.

Dorks, just trying to be cool.

These Clouds with no rain are the souls that the Word of God clearly explains. Creation itself tells of the Glory of the Creator, Amen. I personally believe that all men whoever walked this Glorious earth "know" that God exists. Because the scriptures teach it. According to the scriptures, eternity is written in mans heart, we are indeed created in our Masters image.

So, it is impossible for them "Not to believe"... they know,

These fools express this crap because misery loves company. I'm not impressed. As I said, they are afraid. Some of the greatest thinkers of all time who although claimed to be "athiests" clearly acknowledged "a greater source" "something divine" etc. Men who were smarter and wiser than these uncircumcised philistines with their sons of Oprah agenda.

They have joined the rebellion of many, the rebellion from days of old. They are not wise, powerful or deceptive. They have no affect on those who God will call out of darkness with his glorious might. They can only affect each other, hang out together and try and make themselves feel better. That is their goal in life "What makes me feel good about me"?

Only a fool says in his heart "There is no God"

Death is not dying

If you dare to see this video, make sure you have 55 minutes set apart; you don't want to be interrupted when you watch it. Here is the link, or just click on the title above.

http://deathisnotdying.com/eventvideo/

We are going to die someday, and I think, what should be doing with my time? and, where is God in my daily life? and, am I ready to face Him? and, why is time so short? and, God, make yourself my number one desire....forgive me...I am a wretch...

The Atheists are coming

We know is not true, but what if God did not exist? What if this Christianity stuff was all a lie? What if when we die we don't go to heaven or hell, and we just cease to exist?

The answer is easy: Romans 1:18-25.

If atheism was true, we would all be the most miserable people in the universe; all would be in vain, telling our children that Jesus loves them would be a lie; being faithful to husbands and wives would be useless, not killing my neighbor's dogs would make me happy, and buying life insurance would be a waste of money.

We have the witness of the Holy Spirit, and as Christians we are being deceived by some strange mental force if God, YHWH, Jesus, is not real.

Now ask yourself this question: why do I believe? Because we were chosen and predestined, and because it was not up to us to believe. God made us Christians, we had no escape; it is all His doing. His irresistible grace.

If you don't have 20 minutes don't read this

[Before I start, (I know what I'm going to say is going to sound like I'm railing, but just read on and be patient; I'm trying to make a point) you should know that I'm not trying to rail the church; but these "seeker-friendly" churches have missed the point completely about what real Christianity is. I know I'm going to get flak for the sarcasm, but so be it, I have armor.]

Why is it so hard to feel confident in the midst of financial uncertainty? The child of God shouldn't have to have this kind of problem; it is obvious that those who are not Christians should feel that way, but the children of God struggling to gain confidence? I really find that hard to believe.

Look at what the ad says (I've got it in the mail today by the way): "Join us for our new series: buck naked; finding financial peace in a stripped down economy".

What this church is really saying is this: your peace comes from the money you have, or that you have been stripped of; so we understand you are freaking out right now, and we want to help you recover that peace and those awesome feelings you had in the past when your bank account was fat. Don't worry, we have assembled a super team of experts; and all the wisdom we could find on this world; to make it available to you. You can learn to relax knowing that when you follow these men and their wisdom you will really be at financial peace; all peace comes from having financial peace first, we know this.

But that is not all; since your security stems from having control of the money you have (which we know you don't have it because tithing has gone down dramatically) we want to help you learn how to get a better job, and then be smart with your income so you can give more; we are starting to get behind on the electric bill and we can't afford to be hot, we need that A/C you know.

Now look at the order of the seminars; great amounts of money, for the marketing study and the consultants, were invested in these, so pay attention: first of all, first things first, we are going to start with "leave your loved ones the best" (carry out your wishes after you're gone); you are going to die one day, and you have to enforce your self even after you're dead, we are going to teach you how you can still have some control of your money after you have been taken to, well there are two options here: heaven or hell, but we don't want to talk about that, it might scare you and you might not want to come. But all that doesn't matter right now; you can still make decisions about your money when you're gone.

Do you feel urgency? You should, because you can die tonight and if your finances are not in order you are in danger, your loved ones are in danger, God can't provide for them, you have to do it.

The next one is "dress up your resume"; in order for you to make more money you have to "land the perfect job"; you are in control of your destiny and you have to learn how to secure your future; we are going to talk about 401K funds, about benefits; taxes and that kind of thing. You have to change the words in your resume so that it appears that you are a professional, we know you might be a lousy employee, but that doesn't matter now, the thing is to get hired in your dream job; they are out there, you just got to know how to get it. Working as unto the Lord is kind of irrelevant at this point, get the dream job first.

The following week is "you ain't got money 'cause you're broke!"; gee what a concept, but don't worry about it, we are going to show you; (well not really us but our very own "business guru", who doesn't have time to read or study the Word because she works like a maniac) how to make a new budget that this time will include tithing for sure; so that you can learn how to adjust to the cut "after living large".

We know it hurts when you have to drive a Sentra instead of the Mercedes, but hey, it is cheaper on gas and it's good for you. We know you can't tithe when you are in the red, so we are going to teach you how to get back in the black, and stay there for crying out loud, we need to pay for the doughnuts on Sunday, and we're not drinking anything but Starbucks.

Of course we will not talk about how wasteful you have been in your self-centered behaviors; we are not going to try to make you feel bad by reminding you that your lack of trust in the One who provides for your needs (you life, your job, your income, your food, your clothing, your health, your iPod, etc) is the main cause of your being in the red, we are not going to make you feel guilty about no being able to afford your half a million dollar home and your Audi A8, and the Mac Book Pro and still getting them, but hey the banks should have told you you couldn't afford it, so it's all their fault. Besides it is all Bush's fault; we voted for Obama, He will eventually rescue you by taxing you. He is the one to trust, it's all about change; you know.

Then, to tie it all up, we are having the "money study"; this is an intensive five week course to teach you how to finally achieve financial freedom, these are practical steps, you can do it; you have to believe in yourself and follow your dreams, you will be free if you follow our advise on this. We charge a small fee for this one, and this one is the one you cannot afford..... to miss.

Yeah, we said in the front with big bold letters, and in the back of the flyer in the heading, that these seminars are free, but we kind of lied to you, it is a little white lie to get you to read the flyer, no big deal; but we have to charge you for this one seminar. You know the guy who is teaching it is also broke and he has to make some money, besides we are going to give you coffee (Starbucks of course) and some cookies so you don't faint during the study.

We have to pay for the cost of having the lights on for 5 weeks in a row with the AC on, remember also that we have 5 services, it is a small fee, enough to put some gas in our cars so we can get there, plus the kids can go without milk for 5 Sundays in a row; so don't worry, you can also use your credit card since we are going to teach you how not to use it, might as well use it one last time.

Come on! Find the peace you need, come to our free seminars that are not really free, we promise we won't talk about sin, or hell, or repentance, or the cross you know, torture, blood, and that kind of thing, it's too gory; Jesus might be mentioned when we pray, but don't worry, He won't be the focus of our seminars.

Isn't it time that you get your money back in track and become a more giving person? You know, we might also mention how we rob God when we don't tithe, but hey, it is just a recommendation, it is in the old testament and we are not under the law anymore; so don't worry. So, come and find some peace, and cover, remember you are naked? It is a fact, without your security you are naked, buck naked, you got to go and chase that buck. Revelation 3:17.

Ok, I'm back; so think about what is really going on here. First of all the word "God" is not mentioned anywhere in the flyer, the absence of the name of Jesus is not surprising either since the wisdom you are going to get from this people is the wisdom of the world; Paul's words come to mind:

"Col 2:1 For I want you to know how great a struggle I have on your behalf and for those who are at Laodicea, and for all those who have not personally seen my face, that their hearts may be encouraged, having been knit together in love, and attaining to all the wealth that comes from the full assurance of understanding, resulting in a true knowledge of God's mystery, that is, Christ Himself, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
I say this so that no one will delude you with persuasive argument.
For even though I am absent in body, nevertheless I am with you in spirit, rejoicing to see your good discipline and the stability of your faith in Christ. Colossians chapter 2.

One would think that the Bible, the word of God, would appear to be the main source for wisdom for the children of God, but it is not mentioned either. Why would anybody who knows the truth and the source of all things come to a seminar of this nature? It beats me, but the church will be packed.

The real problem is that the word of God has been relegated to a secondary, or maybe even tertiary place in the agenda of this church; now please notice that these "seminars" are going to take place at the regular worship service times; what a trip, you are going to get it whether you want it or not, you need money and the church needs money. The bible is not used in this place, you know how I know? Because I went there for about a year trying to please my ex-wife, she actually dragged me there and I know, it's all about feeling good.

What you get is a "fill-in-the-blanks" sermon outline, you don't need your bible, except to use it to put the paper on so you can write, and fill in the blanks.

I refused to go back when they asked me to sign a contract to make me give certain amount of money on top of the tithe; I wish I had kept the paper so I can post a picture of it, but I threw it in the garbage, that is where their doctrine belongs. At the time they wanted to buy the building next door and needed 10.5 million dollars or something like that; they got the building eventually, long after I was gone.

I'm going to shut up now, but think about this: true peace comes only from Jesus, not from seminars on how to achieve financial freedom; and it comes in knowing Him, and knowing Him is only possible through His word, period. Why are they charging for a free seminar and lying about it in the process? I bet you I know the answer, but I might be wrong: the guy doing it is a non-believer and he charges to teach.

Blessed is the man who walks NOT according to the counsel of the ungodly, say Psalm one, read it, it might do some good; it talks about meditating in the word of God day and night so whatever the godly man does, shall prosper; and then we have Joshua 1:8.

Besides that, the word of God talks about money all over it, let me give you an example: there are 131 verses with the word "money" in them; 138 with "poor"; 86 with "rich"; 67 with "riches"; 81 with "wealth"; 27 with "provide"; 82 with "trust"; 30 with "tithe"; and 203 with "wisdom"; that is in the NASB, there might be more or less depending on the translation. Do you think you can find some wisdom in there on how to get your finances in order?

My point is that if anyone made the word of God his delight, just like the man in Psalm 1; he wouldn't have to need to go to these kind of seminars. Everything He does shall prosper. I'm not saying we shouldn't plan for things, and be good stewards of the money God gave us, but we need to realize that He is the source of all our blessings; if He is the first in our hearts, He will take care of us.

"Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you"; that is the King of the Universe speaking.

But there is also the other side; God is in complete control of everything that comes to pass in our lives; that is what the bible teaches, I didn't make it up. Our main problem is that we are disobedient to His word, and then we run to the ungodly for counsel. It doesn't work.

Now you might think, "yea it is easy for you to say because you're not behind on the bills"; well let me tell you, I had the half a million dollar home, and the Mercedes, actually two of them, and all those things; and then I broke my back at work and lost it all; I haven't been able to work for three years, and I know how to boast in the Lord for His provision, and no it is not easy for me to say.

Ok, I think I'm done; I think I'll go and check my stocks on eTrade, I don't want to loose what I don't have.

His compassions fail not

I haven't kept track of how many times I have read the Bible cover to cover, all sixty six books, all eleven hundred and eighty nine chapters; and I lost track of how many verses are there; who keeps track of these things? I don't know. I don't.

I started a challenge to read the Bible in 90 days about four days ago, and I have only read 26 chapters. I don't think I am going to meet the challenge but I'm not giving up yet, not yet, yet.

I like that word yet. Anyway, I keep on getting side-tracked, or track-sided, or tangent-thrown; bottom line is I trip out. OCD style. I should keep track of it, but I track side often. I can't.
I should though, just for the sake of tracking, but I trip, tangentially; spirally, like the galaxy in the picture...

I am so grateful that the Lord does not keep track of my transgressions; I'd be toast if He did, long ago, I'd be toast. Are you not glad He doesn't keep track of yours? You should be; they are many I bet, just like mine, maybe less, but still many; that means a lot, large in number, and so forth and so on.

The point is that as I was reading the book of Genesis; (I was seeing it from another point of view this time, the Reformed perspective); I have been noticing how God is so in control of everything that comes to pass. This is comforting since, and in the same way He doesn't keep track of my transgressions, He is absolutely sovereign in all the events in my life. Even though at times I freak out, I don't have to worry about anything.

Think about this: "For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build one another up, just as you are doing.
We ask you, brothers, to respect those who labor among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you, and to esteem them very highly in love because of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. And we urge you, brothers, admonish the idle, encourage the fainthearted, help the weak, be patient with them all. (1Thesalonians 5:9-14) ESV.

Thank you LORD; thank you, thank you, thank you. He has not appointed us to wrath but to salvation through Jesus, the Lord. We don't have the slightest idea about the kind of wrath the wrath of God will be like; we just don't; we couldn't even imagine the intensity of it. We read about it in the Bible but how can we understand it? Just erase mercy and grace from your life and you would have a little taste of it.

Let me make a point: run your mouse pointer over these verses, pray and see what the Lord shows you:

Proverbs 27:4; Proverbs 16:14; Isaiah 9:19; Isaiah 10:6; Isaiah 13:9; Psalms 78:49; Psalms 78:62; Psalms 89:46; Psalms 95:11; Psalms 110:5-6; Proverbs 11:23; Isaiah 13:13; Isaiah 14:6; Isaiah 51:20; Isaiah 63:3; Jeremiah 4:4; Jeremiah 10:10; Jeremiah 10:25; Jeremiah 23:19; Jeremiah 33:5; Ezekiel 8:18; Ezekiel 22:21; Nahum 1:6; Zephaniah 1:15; John 3:36; Romans 1:18; Romans 2:8; Romans 9:22; Revelation 6:16-17; Revelation 14:10; Revelation 15:1; Revelation 19:15. That should be enough to make a point.

And then think about this:

He has walled me about so that I cannot escape; he has made my chains heavy; though I call and cry for help, he shuts out my prayer; he has blocked my ways with blocks of stones; he has made my paths crooked.
He is a bear lying in wait for me, a lion in hiding; he turned aside my steps and tore me to pieces; he has made me desolate; he bent his bow and set me as a target for his arrow.
He drove into my kidneys the arrows of his quiver; I have become the laughingstock of all peoples, the object of their taunts all day long.
He has filled me with bitterness; he has sated me with wormwood.
He has made my teeth grind on gravel, and made me cower in ashes; my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is; so I say, "My endurance has perished; so has my hope from the LORD."
Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall!
My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me.
But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the LORD never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
"The LORD is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him."
The LORD is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.
It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the LORD.
It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth.
Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on him; let him put his mouth in the dust-- there may yet be hope; let him give his cheek to the one who strikes, and let him be filled with insults.
For the Lord will not cast off forever, but, though he cause grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve the children of men.
To crush underfoot all the prisoners of the earth, to deny a man justice in the presence of the Most High, to subvert a man in his lawsuit, the Lord does not approve.
Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it?
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?
Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins?
Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the LORD!
Let us lift up our hearts and hands to God in heaven: "We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven. "You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. You have made us scum and garbage among the peoples.
"All our enemies open their mouths against us; panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction; my eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of the daughter of my people.
"My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the LORD from heaven looks down and sees; my eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the daughters of my city.
"I have been hunted like a bird by those who were my enemies without cause; they flung me alive into the pit and cast stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, 'I am lost.'
"I called on your name, O LORD, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, 'Do not close your ear to my cry for help!'
You came near when I called on you; you said, 'Do not fear!'
"You have taken up my cause, O Lord; you have redeemed my life.
Jeremiah 3:7-58.

See? Trials are not wrath; and He has ordained good and bad in our lives; so we don't have to worry about anything, for His mercies are new every morning, they are more numerous than the stars; and no one can snatch us out of His hand.

Of Black holes

(If you are reading this in facebook you will probably not be able to see the video clip so go to http://makariotes.blogspot.com to click on it. btw, I have no idea how all my posts here ended up going to FB)

Have you ever seen an orbiting star? It turns out that at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way; there is a super-massive black hole; and the star in the video clip is orbiting around it. WOW!

Now think for a moment about what a black hole is; "Black holes are places where ordinary gravity has become so extreme that it overwhelms all other forces in the Universe. Once inside, nothing can escape a black hole's gravity — not even light". Hubble.org

All this is so amazing to me, that my mind obsesses with it, kind of an OCD thingamabobitt; but think about it, God is so amazingly powerful, and so amazingly pure, and so amazingly holy, and so amazingly wise; He really deserves all worship and praise and adoration from us, who are we?

Who are we, that He thinks about us, He thinks about me, this worm of a man. You know, I really see the parallel between black holes and us, we are, by nature, so selfish and self centered, that if it were possible we would suck the light around us just so that could feel better.

Everything turns around our tiny universes; everything we talk about is the way we feel, what we think, what we like, what we don't like, what makes us feel good, what worries us, what kind of music we like, what kind of feelings we have, what our little plans are, etc, etc; it is all about we and ourselves, it's ridiculous.

Did you notice that I said "by nature"? That is the way we are apart from God living inside of us, we are like children trying to get a lollipop and if don't get it, we cry, we rent, we throw tantrums. It's horrible. It's actually disgusting. Just like a black hole, our self-center overwhelms all other forces in the universe, at the end we remain black.

But thank God for Jesus; He has delivered us from the gravity pull of our natures, and He has made us a new creation: 2 Corinthians 5:17 . We have been reconciled to God. Now we can shine as stars, now we can be light in the darkness, now we can be the salt of the earth.

I don't want to start tripping about salt, so I'm leaving you here; are you still thinking about yourself? I don't want to be a black hole anymore, I'd like to be a supernova (see I told you, it's all about me).

Ciao bambino.

In Brokenness....

Click on the image to feel small and insignificant, and broken perhaps.....


Children will absolutely break your heart, one day or another, they will; it's a fact. What do you do? Getting mad is beyond being a good solution; ignoring it will only make it worse, getting sad is more like it, but not enough to fix it; crying should fix it for a few hours but it will get you depressed, complaining does absolutely nothing to remedy it; confronting them only drives them away if you're upset; praying is the main thing, it is the only thing, it is the first thing.

So I pray. In all my praying, all I can see is how I brake God's heart all the time, I am the center of my universe, self is the addiction of my heart; the self sufficient love of self; a mad disease, a pervasive malady. Only one remedy for that malady exists: the sacrificing love of God in Jesus, I need to be washed in His blood.

If you have children, brace yourself to be broken; though it won't come as long as you have the control of their lives, but it will come, and will you be ready when the day appears?

Then there is that old song: In brokenness I come to you, to worship at your feet, your mercy Lord I receive, to meet my every need, you are the Holy One, you're the First and the Last, you are the Only One, you're the Shepperd of my soul.....in brokenness....I come to you..I sing it in my mind, that is all I can think about, brokenness.

Then I turn from self to Christ; no temptation (or trial) has overtaken you, except that which is common to man...1 Corinthians 10:13; that runs through my head, God is faithful, not to me, to Himself, He will provide a way of escape so that you might be able to bear it; I see it, He is the way of escape. There is no escape except through Him, and how I want to escape!

"Lift your eyes and look to the heavens, who created all these? He who brings the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of His great power and mighty strength not one of them is missing" Isaiah 40:26

My turning from self to Christ is willed and worked in me by Him, it is Him who works in me to will and to perform of His good pleasure; so my turning is His turning, and the lifting of my eyes to observe the greatness of the starry host, and know that He knows them all by name, and that He calls me by name; is the lifting of His grace at work in me.

Without brokenness I can't see that; without escaping this suicidal love affair with self through Him, there is no starry host to see; no awareness of His great power and mighty strength. Without brokenness there can be no holiness, and without holiness no one will see the Lord.

Children will help you come to brokenness, but only God can help you stay there. If you don't have any children, your trials will help you. A broken heart and a contrite spirit God will not despise.

In brokenness I come to You....to worship....

Can't Resist The Beloved

When I read: "this galaxy measures 400 million light years across"; my mind wants to explode in tiny little thought fragments and be scattered across my living room. I feel boggled, amazed, very small and in awe of who God is.

When I read: "and this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom He has sent", John 17:3; I feel boggled, amazed, very small and in awe of who God is, and I feel like that because implied in that statement by Jesus is the fact that He wants me to know Him. Doesn't that blow your mind away? God wants you to know Him and in doing so, in knowing Him, He gives you eternal life.

One of God's attributes is being unknowable, so how am I supposed to know God? Simple: by knowing Jesus; there is no other way because Jesus said "I and the Father are one" John 10:30; so I have to know Christ in order to know God; He, Jesus, is the express image of His person.

That I might know Him, that is my desire. The more I know Him, the smaller I feel; the closer I draw to Him, the more I see my depravity; the more He increases, the more I decrease, and the more I think about Him, the more glory He receives.

In the same way in which the universe declares the glory of God and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands, we declare His glory and proclaim His work of grace in us. God has given us His image and put His Spirit in us so that we can reflect it back to Him; His excellency rebounding back to Him to fulfill His desire, His sufficiency in all things.

Jesus is the maximum expression of the glory of God; no one and no thing created can accomplish what Jesus has accomplished; He is in fact the apex of the glory of God's grace; demonstrated, to all things and beings in the universe and in the heavenlies, by His work on the cross.

It is not possible to know what God wants us to know; until we know the depth of the darkness and depravity from which He has rescued us, not with the purpose of decreasing our value in His sight, He knows there is nothing good in us and that our righteousness is as filthy rags; but with the intention of increasing His value in us, and the extreme glory of His grace. The more we see how unworthy we are, the more we will value the riches of His grace and our acceptance in the Beloved.

The Beloved, we are accepted in the Beloved, only in Him we can be accepted unto God, only in Him we can have redemption, only in Him we can have an inheritance, only in Him we can be chosen, and predestined, and called, and justified, and glorified. Only in the Beloved; Jesus, the Son of The Living God.

He has made us beloved in the Beloved; can you see it? Can you delight in Him as the Father delights in Him? Is He your pleasure? Is He the motive of everything you do, and everything you think? Is He drawing you to Himself in trials and tribulations? Is He getting more of you and you of Him?

Give up, there is no use in resisting Him; He will get His way in you, He purchased you with His blood, you belong to Him.

I agree, I give up.

God thinks about you

Click on the picture to amplify it.

I am convinced, because of the way that God exerts His mighty power in us who believe; that someone out there in the sphere of this internet, and in the sphere of the world in which we live; is thinking the same things I am thinking.

We no longer live lives that are disconnected by the forces of nature, physical barriers or by the circumstances, but we live lives that are intimately united by the power of God through faith, unto salvation and His glory.

We Christians, as vessels of mercy prepared before hand to be recipients of His glory, are no longer solitary cells in this organism we call the world; but as members of Christ and of His body, we suffer with each other in tribulations, and rejoice with each other in the amazing grace of our creator; being united, as Paul says, by what each ligament supplies to the edifying of itself in love (Ephesians 4:16).

This universe and everything in it, exists with the sole purpose of shining and reflecting the glory of God; He has had the pleasure, and continues to have it, of determining in advance, that we as His children would become the recipients of the ultimate of privileges; His grace.

Becoming the recipients of His glorious grace is not something that we as humans can attain on our own; as Peter says, we are kept by the power of God through faith, (1 Peter 1:3-5); and if kept by His power, there is really nothing we can do to separate ourselves from Him, can we?

Psalm 19:1; The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament proclaims the work of His hands. That is a mind boggling statement; do you know why is mind boggling to me? Think about this, our galaxy, the Milky Way galaxy; contains approximately 100 billion stars; and the universe is hundreds of billions of galaxies greater, larger, bigger than ours.

If I started counting the stars in the universe, if I could do that, I would die before I could even get closer to reaching a tenth of them, or maybe one hundredth of the number of stars in the universe.

When I think about that huge number of stars, and the space between them, which in some cases is hundreds of light years, even thousands of light years, (a light year is the distance that it would take for light to travel during one year at the speed of light, which is 186,000 miles per second; per second! Now multiply that number for the number of seconds in a year, and that gives you the distance in miles of a light year), I realize that this place, this universe is very very big, and that really makes me feel insignificant, I am insignificant, indeed. We all are.

If I keep on thinking, then I realize as David did, what is man, oh God, that you are mindful of him? But He cares, He cares for you and me; He knows the number of hairs you have on your head, nothing escapes His attention, if a grain of sand moves in the beach, He knows it; if a sparrow falls from the sky, He knows it.

There is not a single atom in the whole universe that is not under His control, in fact He is the one who makes the electrons and protons and neutrons spin around the nucleus at the speed of light, His power sustains them and keeps them from flying off from their orbits. He reigns absolutely; He is King and He loves you.

He created this universe and placed the planet Earth in its orbit around the sun; He created you and placed you on this planet, He chose you before the foundation of the world, and He predestined you to be conformed into the image of His Son.

The Lord God Almighty, the One who inhabits eternity, knows you by name, just as He knows every single star by name and not one of them is missing; read Isaiah 40:26, you will see and know His awesome power.

And there is a power even greater than that, you can know about it in these words: Ephesians 1:15-23; this power says Paul, is the same power God the Father used to raise Jesus Christ from the dead, that is the power that is at work in you; because you believe. See this power is even greater than the power of creation, why didn't Paul say, according to the power He used to part the Red Sea? Or, the power He used to create the stars?

No, but the power He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead; resurrection power, there is no power greater than that, and that very same power is at work in you. Do you realize what this means? It means that nothing can separate you from the love of God which is in Christ.

Knowing this then, nothing else really matters; nothing else can ever bring you and me down, nothing can take us back to darkness; so why do you fret? Relax, be still, know He is God.

Psa 40:5 Many, O LORD my God, are the wonders which You have done, And Your thoughts toward us; There is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, They would be too numerous to count.

He thinks about you more than you can ever know, you can't count the number of His thoughts towards you, that is what David says there, He has total control over your life and that alone should be our source of peace, but there is more, it is all over the bible; His amazing grace and love, who can understand?

Children are a gift

I recently attended a men's fellowship at the Midway Baptist Church in south bay; and besides the fellowship I really enjoyed meeting new friends. During the course of the study, which was mainly a prayer session, and a conversation about many topics, the issue of children came up.

My comment was that ever since my two girls were born, I haven't ceased to pray for them, day and night. It is not an overstatement to say that I have agonized in prayer for my children; many times with tears and pain in my heart.

I am not the perfect father by all means; I have failed in many ways, I still fail, I don't communicate enough, I don't tell them how much I love them often enough, I don't hug them enough, I don't kiss them enough, I don't tell them how proud I am of them enough; I fail.

I am an ex-alcoholic, and an ex-drug addict, Jesus delivered me from that; but my character defects remain; it's not an excuse, it is just the way it is, I am a sinner.

But with all my defects, and with all my sin, I do love my daughters, even more than life itself; and I am powerless over that love; there is nothing I can do to change that, I don't want to change it; there is nothing is this world that can ever change my love for my dear children; the same way that there is nothing that can ever separate me from the love of God which is in Christ.

It is impossible for one to know the love of God unless one has children; what I'm saying is that without children you will never understand how deeply you hurt your Mom and Dad when you were rebellious, you can't understand the implications of disobeying your parents and the pain it caused, unless you have children.

I'm not saying that you cannot know the love of Christ, you can, but children give you another perspective on life, they make you become humble, and intimately related to the sufferings of Jesus and His love for you.

I received a note from a dear sister in which she says she couldn't stop crying when reading one of my posts, "the imagination of the heart"; and that I was just trying to be objective is besides the point, God used those words to speak to her and touch her heart, and make her realize how great is His love for her; I am honored by that because God is the one who got the glory, and I am blessed to bless.

Whether you were an addict or not, it is irrelevant, we all remain powerless to love the way God loves us; we can't. Unless He reveals His love in you, unless He becomes the object of your affections, unless He makes Himself sovereign over your heart, and over your thoughts, and over your all.

Children are a gift from God, a gift that keeps on giving as long as you are alive; we didn't choose our children, their sex, or their personalities; we didn't choose when they would be born, or the color of their eyes, or the shape of their faces; God did, and He knew exactly what they would teach us.

Having children is more than taking care of them for eighteen years, it is more than providing food and shelter for them; having them is God showing us His mercy, and His grace, and it is a picture of His great predestining Love for us. Having children is also heart ache and pain, and disappointment, and worry, and sleepless nights, and tears, and agonizing prayer, and bleeding hearts; and humility, and God-dependence; and anxiousness; but it all translates into a gift of joy inexpressible.

If you have kids, enjoy their innocence while it is there; and never cease to pray for them, and hug them and kiss them and tell them how much you love them; and after all that is done, rejoice that you remain a child of God; and that He chose you forever.

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More cool code, on the right side below the blog archive, you can find a reftagger control panel, if you want to change the version of the tool tip scripture display, you can do so with this control panel, just choose the version of the bible you want to see when you hover over the reference, and click save; all the scipture references will be displayed in the version you chose.

Very, very, cool, like OCD cool.

HTML Code

I have just added some very cool functionality to the blog: RefTagger.
I know you might not know what HTML is or what it does but basically it stands for Hyper Text Markup Language.

What it allows is to add a small code line, or large, it all depends what you want to do, to your website or blog, to display or perform certain functions. For example, everything you see displayed here in the blog is made up of HTML code, the template, the pictures, etc. HTML also might contain Java Script code, which are small programs that add functions to the site, like that feed burner animated link in the middle right below the picture of the exploding star . Anyway, it is cool.

Now when you see any references to the bible, like Philippians 4:6, you can hover with the mouse over the reference and it will display the bible verse in a tool tip bubble, this so you can see what I'm talking about.

For example, I can write: The word of God is like a sword that pierces your innermost being, and it is alive, and it gives you life, Hebrews 4:12, but Jesus is also the Word of God, see John 1:1, Jesus is God. So when you place your mouse pointer over the scripture reference, now you will see a bubble with the bible verse in it. How cool is that? I think it is extremely cool.

So, taking advantage of this post, I would like to remind you that your comments are welcome, I really dig it when someone says something, it makes me feel like I am not talking to the wall; but if no one says anything, that is cool too, it makes feel that everyone agrees with what I'm saying.

At any rate, enjoy the new functionality of the blog and be blessed.

New Book by John Piper

A letter from John Calvin to five young Frenchmen about to be
martyred in 1553 for carrying the gospel into France:

We who are here shall do our duty in praying that He would glorify Himself more and more by your constancy, and that He may, by the comfort of His Spirit, sweeten and endear all that is bitter to the flesh, and so absorb your spirits in Himself, that in contemplating that heavenly crown, you may be ready without regret to leave all that belongs to this world.

Now, at this present hour, necessity itself exhorts you more than ever to turn your whole mind heavenward. As yet, we know not what will be the event. But, since it appears as though God would use your blood to seal His truth, there is nothing better for you than to prepare yourselves for that end, beseeching Him so to subdue you to His good pleasure, that nothing may hinder you from following whithersoever He shall call. . . . Since it pleases Him to employ you to the death in maintaining His quarrel, He will strengthen your hands in the fight and will not suffer a single drop of your blood to be shed in vain.

Your humble brother, John Calvin

Excerpt from John Piper's new book, Filling Up he Afflictions Of Christ.
You can get the whole book (download) for free, click here.

the imagination of the heart

Once again, I have been faced with the issues of life this morning; I wake up to my grand son's screams, as usual, and I think "why is the little boy crying"? And I am sitting down on the toilet, sorry, that's too graphic but hey, it's true, and so I think, why is he crying? I need to wake up, I'm sleepy, I'm getting old, my back hurts, entropy sucks.

And then it hits me, everything is decaying, we are all getting old, the three year old boy is growing up, sin is bound up in his little heart; he wants his way and he cries when it doesn't happen; when he doesn't get his way; gee, we are all the same.

But then Romans 8:28 comes to my memory: and we know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose. For a three year old, everything is easy to believe; that little boy believes God is real and He made everything, he knows Jesus loves him. Everything is working together for his good. I need to be like him.

Then, I come to my read-the-bible-in-90-days challenge, which I started today after procrastinating for 4 days; and what do I find? Gen 6:5 And GOD 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.

Ok, there goes the theory that man is essentially good, but I bet I can find something in the bible that says that my grand son is good by nature, after all he is only three; so I keep on reading and guess what: Gen 8:21 And the LORD smelled a sweet savour; and the LORD said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake; for the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; neither will I again smite any more every thing living, as I have done.

Evil from his youth? Ok, it is futile, we are all under the same condemnation; and I'm still thinking; that is why he cries every morning, and every afternoon, and every night, he is not free to do his little will, and so he suffers; I see it.

But really, what is GOD saying there? Basically that man is evil by nature and it is pretty much useless to destroy everything again for man's sake, because that is not going to change anything in man. No wonder Jesus did not commit Himself to any man since He knew what was in man.

I remember when my girls were little girls, I am grateful I didn't have to spank them often but I did spank them; with all the pain in my heart, I had no choice, I did it; the more when I read the book of Proverbs 22:15, Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child; but the rod of correction shall drive it far from him. Ouch.

My God is a loving father, and He does what a loving father does, He corrects those whom He loves, says in Hebrews; and then He says, rejoice that your Father chastises and corrects you, that demonstrates that you are a son, and not a bastard.

Now, don't get this wrong, I am not advocating that we should spank our children for everything they do wrong; God doesn't, neither should we, He is patient, and merciful, well said Jeremiah: it is because of your loving kindness that we are not consumed, your mercies are new every morning, great is your faithfulness. Thank you God.

Anyway; every morning I have to remember, His mercies are new, and mine should be also.

I hate it when I get spanked by God. It hurts.

OCD

I am convinced that I have OCD; it might be the way God made me, or it might be the way I turned out to be, or it might be a consequence of my sins, or it might just be that that is the way it is.

I have OCD, I have OCD, I have OCD, I have OCD, see I told you , I have OCD.

OCD stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder; and I am convinced that I have it, I have OCD, I know I have OCD, in fact I know that I know that it is certain, and irrefutable, and precise, that I have OCD; see what I mean? I can prove that I have OCD.

Seriously, I think I have OCD, I don't know why, but I think I have it, I feel it, I see it, I sense it, I believe I have OCD.

Really, what I mean to say is that my character and my personality and everything I do, reflects that I have OCD; and since I discovered it, yesterday, that I might have or have OCD, I just can't stop thinking about it. Darn it, I think I have it.

The mind is a horrible thing to waste, and I have OCD.



See what I mean? That code above, which translates into that link, or banner or whatever you wanna call it; shows that I have OCD, I don't know where it came from, and the more I try to get rid of it, it just keeps on coming back, and I know it's the OCD, it is embedded in my genetic code, I know it, OCD is bad, it's not good, and it's also terrible, and not only that but it is also displeasing and not attractive, and repugnant, in fact it is evil, defective and reprehensible, and it is also inferior, defective and non satisfactory, and did I mention that it is defective? I thought so.

That is exactly my point.

Get it?

I should go to sleep, OCD is tiring.

Choosing

Choices and more choices, how to choose what is good? A decision is basically a choice, and when we make a choice, we are making a decision; decisions are always based, as choices are, on the things that the person is inclined to consider better, not necessarily good, but better between the options to choose from.

When I read my King saying "why do you call me good? There is no one good but God"; do I still consider myself to be "good"? My problem had been, for a long time that I thought that man is (was) basically good, as everyone else who is in darkness believes, because I never killed anyone, or because I never...., mmm, I think that is the only one; I think I broke all the commandments, in fact I also broke the one that says "thou shall not kill" when I cursed those guys that cut me off on the freeway the other day; I also called some of my brothers "raca"; meaning idiots, I can say that I didn't mean it but I did, in my mind. So I broke all the commandments of God and I still considered (past tense, like twenty years in the past) myself to be a good man.

The fallacy still remains in society today; that man is inherently good, his own goodness will allow him to make the right choices; and sometimes man makes the right choices, like drinking water instead of beer, or eating more vegetables, or helping the little old lady across the street, but his motives are far from being the right motives, and therefore that which was apparently good became an inherently wrong choice because of the motivation behind the act.

I seldom watch TV, I find nothing interesting in it, but the other day I turned it on and the channel that was playing was broadcasting this show about what the rich people do with their money; it was disgusting, first of all, because I started coveting, I felt my flesh started to tweak hard; and second of all, because some of these people really buy stupid things, or just flat out waste their money.

Anyway, they showed the second richest man in the world, according to their calculations, and this guy, I forgot his name but he has more money than Bill Gates, this guy, gave to charity something like 34 billion dollars, I think it was like 80 percent of all his money, and he gave it to the Gates foundation (Microsoft); imagine that, 34 billion bucks, ok don't imagine it, you can't, but the point is that surely the motive of his heart was not to please God; this guy is a non believer and so his giving is, in the scope of eternity, pretty much useless and pointless; I wonder what his motive was, maybe a tax deduction? Who cares.

Anyway, when I consider all the choices I make, I discover that self is what compels me to make them; and to choose what is good I find not within myself, exactly as Paul says in Romans 7, and exactly as he says, I find myself thinking: oh man, what a wretched man I am!

Then, still pondering, I see that the only way to choose what is good, and actually perform it, is to completely depend on Jesus for the power to do it. I consider that, again just like Paul, with the body I serve the law of sin but with the mind the law of righteousness.

Now, by experience, which is a subjective matter; I have discovered that the more I immerse myself in the word of God, the more I think the word of God, and then I reason that if I am thinking the word of God, then I am thinking like God thinks. Of course this is not something that I, or anybody, can boast about because it is God working in me who actually makes me will to read His word, I know this because my flesh is completely opposed to it.

I heard John Piper recommending a book, which I have to get to read it, called "the freedom of the will", by Johnathan Edwards, Edwards is considered the greatest theologian that America has ever produced, that is what the critics say, I think God produced him but anyway, in it Edwards is supposed to talk about the nature of the will. At any rate, I have to buy it someday, but my point is that God has provided all things for me to learn what I need to learn, it is just a matter of making the choice and doing it; that would be a good choice.

God made us all different, some of my brothers show no interest in these things, which is fine with me, but I am eager to learn so that I can know God better; I really desire that, it is like a longing in my heart, and I know it's not me, I know it is God working in me to will and to do of His good pleasure.

People trip out when I say "God told me to do this or that", so how do I know it was God? For me it's very simple: if it's good and noble and praise worthy and of good report, and just, and lovely, and pure, and if it doesn't contradict the word of God; then it was God who told me. Whether it was a thought or His word, it was from Him.

The dilemma is when I hear something from Him and then I hesitate to do it, or just flat out refuse to do it; I consider that to be disobedience, and I am scared of that, because obedience is better than sacrifice and disobedience is like the sin of witchcraft and idolatry. And I still disobey sometimes.

Oh how I wish that I was obedient one hundred percent of the time! But God is working in me, and I will accomplish obedience to Him, and through Him and for Him, eventually.

Ok, before I start rambling I will end here with this note: do you know who said "I turned my will and my life over to the care of God"? I can't remember where I heard that, I think it was in an AA meeting, but what a cool statement, hu?

See you next time.

the choice of the will

All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, no one seeks God, there is none good no, not even one, we all like sheep have gone astray, the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?

The will of man can only make choices based on what it deems favorable, or good, or better to it, but all choices have to be subject to a cause for the choice, there has to be a condition that is met for that choice to be effective, that is, choices are always based on previous choices, being that there is always a cause for the choices that are made.

The absence of a cause would deem the choice a self-determining event of which only God is capable of attaining, all things have a cause, and choices have to be included in the scope of this irrefutable statement, therefore I can conclude that the choices of the will are not really free but enslaved to the cause for them.

So what I see in the statement 'freedom of choice' is a contradiction because choices are not really 'free' per Se, but always dependent on the inclinations of the heart, now, since the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked, then choices that are made by the natural man through his will can only be desperately wicked choices, is it really freedom of choice when man can only choose what is wicked?

This is number 99

That is Eastlake about three years ago, a very cool place.

I didn't realize it before but I have posted to this blog almost one hundred times, I don't think this one should count but what a pleasure it is anyway to be able to think and say whatever I want, whenever I want, to whomever....well, to myself.

I know maybe just about 3 or 4 people are reading consistently, but that is OK; my intention was and remains to be, that I would cause someone else to think and that we would learn and provoke one another unto love and good works; and I thought something the other day: I am leaving my thoughts behind, which is not a bad idea since that is the only useful (maybe) thing I can leave behind for my children.

I can imagine a few years after I'm gone, they might read this and think about how crazy I was; maybe they will remember how I love Jesus, and how He became the center of my all. It is all His work and for His glory alone.

But I think it is a good legacy to leave behind, your thoughts on paper. I think everybody should write a blog and share it with people who matter in their lives; otherwise it would be a waste of storage space in Google's servers, or word press or whoever is your hosting company.

So with this in mind, I remain the crazy thinker I have always been.

Men usually talk a lot less than women, it is a fact; I think and I don't remember the correct figure but, men only speak about 10 thousand words per day on average, women on the other side tend to speak about 30 thousand, but in my case I think I speak about 100 per day, the rest are just floating in my brain.

My point is that, since I am not married, I don't have to speak a lot, which is a good thing because of the way I am made; I bet I will get married with a woman who speaks a lot, that is if I ever get married again. Who knows.

Anyway, 99 posts is a good thing, I think. Thank you Jesus.

We were made alive first

Justification is by faith, Rom 5:1 Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: 2 By whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.

Then we know that faith is a gift from God: Eph 2:8 For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9 Not of works, lest any man should boast.
10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.

Or is it not? What is Paul saying? Is the "not of yourselves" the saving grace or the faith? It is obvious: it's all. Grace and salvation and faith are a gift, and so if it is not of ourselves then it is the gift of God, and if it is the gift of God, then we cannot boast that we did anything, right? Right. That is why we are His workmanship, His work of art, His poema.

So, justification, the work of God in which He declares us "just as if we never sinned", is by faith; but this faith is the gift of God; so then where is boasting? Paul asks; it is excluded, he says, if boasting is excluded from the equation, then we cannot say: "I made a decision", can we? Rom 3:27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

I think, and reason, that regeneration must precede faith because how can a man who is dead in trespasses and sins believe? In order for a man to exercise faith he must be alive first, based on Paul's statement that our mind is at enmity with God, and that it is not subject to the law of God, and that indeed it cannot be in subjection to Him; and since this mind is in the flesh and cannot please God (see Romans 8); then it is evident, ie. truthful, that this mind (and the man), must be made alive, regenerated in order for faith to be exercised.

By faith, He says, we understand hat the worlds were framed by the word of God; the word of God is the instrument by which all things were created, regeneration is included, must be included in the scope of that statement. Paul says: faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God, so the word is instrumental in enabling the hearing.

What is this hearing? I ask. The law of God must be the word of God; but the natural mind, the fleshly mind is not subject or in agreement to it, it cannot be. So what next? Hearing. The point is that a dead man does not hear anything; I said it before, you can go to the morgue and talk to the corpses there and give them the gospel, you will not get any response; that is the picture that Paul is using in Ephesians chapter two when he says, "and you who were dead in trespasses and sins......were by nature the children of wrath even as others".

Dead people can't hear a thing. And we were dead in trespasses and sins, so how is it that we came to believe if we were dead? We had to be regenerated, or as Jesus said, born again; not of the will of man, or of the flesh, but of God. We were made alive, see Ephesians 2 again.

Our misconception is that we think that we believed and then we were made alive by that faith; but it is not the way it is, it is not only illogical but also impossible. It has to be the other way around, we were made alive and then we believed; this belief is what enabled us to make a decision to follow Christ, this faith through the Holy Spirit is what God used to engage our intellect, our mind, to see and understand our dire situation and that we needed a savior.

So, I say, regeneration; the new birth, must precede faith, though it appears that this is not a time dependent event, so it appears to me to be a simultaneous event. Spiritual events are not dependent on the time domain, they belong to another sphere, to another reality, to God's reality.

I remain amazed to see how many people have not been taught the right things at church; there is the pervasive tendency to place man at the center of an impossibility: that we were the initiators of our translation from darkness into light, because we had in ourselves a small island of righteousness that allowed us to see the truth of the gospel, and we responded of our own accord to the wooing of God, as if we had any ability to do anything to get closer to Him.

It robs God from His glory, and He will not give it to another. Think about it; and tell me if I'm wrong.

An Important Mark of a Sound Conversion

I read the following in Reformation Theology dot com, and how do I agree, and how can I not:

We turn from our own RIGHTEOUSNESS. Before conversion, man seeks to cover himself with his own fig-leaves, and to make himself acceptable with God, by his own duties. He is apt to trust in himself, and set up his own righteousness, and to reckon his pennies for gold, and not to submit to the righteousness of God. But conversion changes his mind; now he counts his own righteousness as filthy rags. He casts it off, as a man would the verminous tatters of a nasty beggar. Now he is brought to poverty of spirit, complains of and condemns himself; and all his inventory is, 'I am poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked!' [Rev 3:17]. He sees a world of iniquity in his holy things, and calls his once-idolized righteousness but filth and loss; and would not for a thousand worlds be found in it!

Now he begins to set a high price upon Christ's righteousness. He sees the need of Christ in every duty, to justify his person and sanctify his performances; he cannot live without Him; he cannot pray without Him. Christ must go with him, or else he cannot come into the presence of God; he leans upon Christ, and so bows himself in the house of his God. He sets himself down for a lost undone man without Him; his life is hid in Christ, as the root of a tree spreads in the earth for stability and nourishment. Before, the gospel of Christ was a stale and tasteless thing; but now—how sweet is Christ! Augustine could not relish his once-admired Cicero, because he could not find in his writings the name of Christ. How emphatically he cries, 'O most sweet, most loving, most kind, most dear, most precious, most desired, most lovely, most fair!' all in a breath, when he speaks of and to Christ. In a word, the voice of the convert is, with the martyr, 'None but Christ!'

Excerpt from Alarm to the Unconverted by Joseph Alleine, 1671

The Endeavour Lifts Off

This happened today (see the side bar: NASA Pic of the day) you can read the story by clicking on the side bar picture, it will not be there tomorrow so hurry up.

Ok, just in case you miss it, here is the link: click here.

Again, have fun, and in your fun give glory to whom it is due: Jesus.

The Big Rip

"2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up".
The Bible


Source: Hubblesite.org

"When the word first got out that the expansion of the universe was accelerating, many astronomers questioned the results. They felt that the observations must be wrong, or the interpretation must be flawed. The whole concept was so difficult to believe because it requires significant changes in our understanding of the way the universe works.

Say you step outside and throw a baseball up into the air. The gravity of Earth begins immediately to act on the baseball, slowing it down even as it rises into the air. The upward speed of the baseball slows until it stops at its peak, then gravity's pull causes it to drop down at an ever-increasing speed. What you can't see is that the baseball also has a tiny gravitational pull that acts upon Earth. Gravity always acts to pull matter together.

Now consider a spaceship. If launched with enough speed, a spaceship will escape Earth's gravity to the extent that it will not fall back to the planet. However, it hasn't escaped the pull of Earth entirely. Though it travels away, the spaceship will be continuously slowed — just not to the point where it stops.

These same concepts apply to the expansion of space. That expansion was launched in the Big Bang, and ever since then, each bit of matter in the universe has been attracted to every other bit by the force of gravity. This should have been slowing down the expansion.

Before the discovery of dark energy, scientists had two models of how the universe's expansion would work. In one scenario, there would be enough matter in the universe to slow the expansion to the point where, like the baseball, it would come to a halt and start to retract, everything crashing back together in a "Big Crunch."

In the other scenario, there would be too little matter to stop the expansion and everything would drift on forever, always slowing and slowing but never stopping — like the spaceship. The galaxies would drift apart from each other until they were out of view. The universe would continue growing larger as countless generations of stars faded and died out. It would end in a vast, dark, and cold state: a "Big Chill," if you will.

Does the Matter Matter?

By the early 1990s, astronomers had calculated how much mass was in the universe, and decided on the Big Chill as the most likely end of the universe. But then dark energy showed up in our observations.

According to the Big Chill, the universe should be expanding more slowly today than it did in the past, because gravity has had time to work on slowing the universe down over all these billions of years. But astronomers found that the universe is moving faster today than it was a billion years ago, meaning something must be working to speed it up.

This result seems crazy because gravity always pulls and slows — it never pushes. Yet some force appears to be pushing the universe apart. Astronomers, concluding that we just don't know what this force is, have attributed it to a mysterious dark energy.

The Big Rip

With dark energy, the fate of the universe might go well beyond the Big Chill. In the strangest and most speculative scenario, as the universe expands ever faster, all of gravity's work will be undone. Clusters of galaxies will disband and separate. Then galaxies themselves will be torn apart. The solar system, stars, planets, and even molecules and atoms could be shredded by the ever-faster expansion. The universe that was born in a violent expansion could end with an even more violent expansion called the Big Rip.

So out of the three scenarios for the fate of the universe — re-collapse to a Big Crunch, expand ever more slowly to a Big Chill, or expand ever faster to a Big Rip — we have managed to narrow the possibilities down somewhat.

Evidence has ruled out the Big Crunch. The Big Chill is probably the least that will happen. Whether or not the universe goes all the way to a Big Rip depends on what dark energy really is, and whether it will stay constant forever or fade away as suddenly as it appears to have arisen. And that we do not yet know.

No matter which scenario is right, the universe still has at least a few tens of billions of years left — which leaves us plenty of time to look for the answers". The Hubble Space Telescope Website

I told you so, God is the creator of the big bang and the creator of the big rip; and He is the one responsible for the dark matter, that really doesn't matter because the universe as we know it will end; God said so.

The scientific community does not have to form theories or wait a few million years to know the answers for their questions, all they have to do is read the bible and know what the future holds.

Visit the Hubble Space Telescope website: http://hubblesite.org/

Have fun.

The thoughts of the blessed

It is very interesting to note the wisdom of King Solomon; he was an amazing individual, check this out: (before you keep on reading, remember that what I write here is my opinion about different things, I'm not a scientist, a doctor, a scholar, or a teacher of the law; so your comments are valuable for me, they are your thoughts)

1Ki 4:29 "And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore".

"And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about.
And he spake three thousand proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five".

"And he spake of trees, from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall: he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, which had heard of his wisdom".

Solomon knew things about things, a lot of things, he was a thinking man, and a learning man; he also liked to talk, like some people I know.

He spoke three thousand proverbs, his songs were one thousand and five; who counted them? Probably someone who was writing everything the king said? I need to do some more studying on this; I don't know, but that is peculiar, it is peculiar because in the same book it says that there is another book with all his acts: 1Ki 11:41 And the rest of the acts of Solomon, and all that he did, and his wisdom, are they not written in the book of the acts of Solomon?

These are some of his proverbs:
Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.
2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes; but the LORD weigheth the spirits.
3 Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.
4 The LORD hath made all things for himself: yea, even the wicked for the day of evil.

Solomon was the wisest king of all the kings of the earth during that time, I doubt that there has ever been another king as wise as him; except of course Jesus the King of Kings (Luke 11:31 The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and condemn them: for she came from the utmost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here). The wisdom that Solomon had was granted to him by Jehovah; the fountain of all wisdom and understanding.

When I think of God as being the supreme source of wisdom and understanding, I have to also think about Jesus because is in Him that all treasures of wisdom and understanding are hidden and spring forth into the human mind; and this is only given to man (the Christian man) through His mind, the mind of Christ.

It is true that there has been a great number of men that have enjoyed a wisdom greater than that of the common man, but these only possessed an earthly wisdom, not a wisdom that was pleasing to God, like Plato, or Pythagoras.

In contrast, those men that during the ages had possessed a wisdom that exalted God and His attributes; were endowed by God Himself with the ability to put into words what the eternal mind of God conveyed to them; and they were also enabled to be humble and ascribe to Him the source of the same wisdom they received.

Wisdom is a gift from God; as well as knowledge and understanding. Wisdom is the ability to exercise and put knowledge into practice; but all these only come to reality through the use of the mind, namely thinking, or thought-ing.

I mentioned before that thinking is a privilege of the highest order; at least that is what I believe because we were created in the image of God; but thinking thoughts that are pleasing to God is only possible through the knowledge of Him through His word.

Knowing God, and thinking thoughts that are pleasing to Him, is only possible for those who are enabled by God though His Spirit.

This applies to every spiritual activity that we are involved in; God is the source of our wanting, and God is the enabler of our actions. Paul often referred to this when he talked about our actions; for example when talking about praying in tongues he says:

1Co 14:15 What is it then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will pray with the understanding also: I will sing with the spirit, and I will sing with the understanding also.
16 Else when thou shalt bless with the spirit, how shall he that occupieth the room of the unlearned say Amen at thy giving of thanks, seeing he understandeth not what thou sayest?

In other words; we are to pray in intelligible words so that those who hear can agree with our prayer; the same thing he applies to worshiping God through singing; sing words that people can understand so that they too can give glory to God in praise, at the same time that we are understanding what we are praying or singing. If I am in a room with people who speak English, I shall pray and sing in English so that all can understand; it is a contradiction to sing praises to God in Spanish when no one understands; it causes disorder in the worship we are giving; God cannot be honored with chaos and disorder.

His point is that we need to think before we speak and act; ask God for wisdom and then allow Him to speak to us and give us direction. In my case I believe that God speaks to me through His Word, and also through my thoughts; I remember countless times when God has said something to me in a thought; and I know it was Him speaking because first of all, I couldn't think that kind of thought on my own, and second because later on whatever He said came to pass or it was revealed to me; for example I can look into my daughters eyes and know what they've done, the reality of this is undeniable. I guess they call that word of knowledge, and I believe it is true. I'm not boasting, it is just the way it is. I know I'm not the only one who is able to do that; and I recognize it is a gift from God.

Another example is that many times I have called my Mom, and when she answers the phone she says,"I was just thinking that you were going to call me"; synchronicity divinely appointed, we are connected.

It is obvious that since we have the mind of Christ; we are to use our minds in a way that reflects His character. I am not saying that we can think pure and holy thoughts all the time, because that is an impossibility as long as we live inside this fallen body; even with that mind that the new man possesses. It is, I believe, because of this that we are given an exhortation from Paul that we should be renewed in the spirit of our mind: Ephesians 4:21 If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus:
22 That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; 23 And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; 24 And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness.

I have always been impressed by how many times Paul mentions the mind or the thoughts of the heart, and in general the bible is full of allusions to it; the heart is central in the covenants of God with His people, "I will give you a new heart, I will circumcise your heart, I will take your heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh", etc.

What I see, then, is not only the command to change our minds, but to actually renew them; the term metanoia, from which we get the word repentance, is in fact a changing of the mind for the better; this change is not something that the natural man can accomplish because Paul also says that the natural man, and his mind, are in total rebellion and opposition to God: Romans 8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. 8 So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God; and Acts 11:18 When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life.

I think that the renewing of the mind is, therefore; the changing of one's thinking by taking hold of the thoughts that God thinks; allowing them to permeate everything that springs up from our minds; from the simplest forms of adoration to the most sublime forms of worship and thanksgiving.

What I am saying is that in view of the command to renew our minds (Romans 12:2 And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.) the realization of our powerlessness to change has to become obvious, it is the will of God; we call this humility; and that the only way we can ever attain to have any thoughts that glorify God, is to depend on Him to empower us to do it through the dwelling of His Spirit inside of us. Obedience here is essential; or "be filled with the Spirit". Dependence, obedience, and being filled with the Spirit is achieved through thinking, or is it not?

It really is not rocket science, but common sense. Common sense that is not common in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, but only in those who are predestined to be conformed into the image of God's Son.

Humility, the realization that we are powerless over our sinful nature, and repentance, the ability to change our mind from darkness into light; are both gifts from God. The scriptures are very clear about this, and they are also clear that once you have been made a Christian there is no way out, one is sealed into the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit; I say this because one of the first actions of the Holy Spirit in us, is that He allows our minds to work in the light, our eyes open to spiritual truth and we start thinking in a more pleasing way unto God, just as Paul said: oh wretched man that I am! Who can deliver me from this body of death? This question he answers by saying Rom 7:25 "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin".

The enmity of our minds has been removed when we are given life, and we can then think clearly about our sinful condition and about our need for change; these thoughts are in fact caused by the operation of God's Spirit in us, and these thoughts are the seed that gives birth to change in our minds. That is the transformation Paul talks about; the renewing that he asks us to take into effect. An acceptable paradox.

I see the same parallel, in a negative way, in the book of James. He says in chapter one that God does not temp anyone, or God does not cause anyone to sin or fall into temptation: James 1:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

So I see the two sides of the equation: lust brings sin and death, that is the natural condition of man; then on the other side we see that the new birth brings about change from within; faith and thoughts that are pleasing to God and bring new life, metamorphosis life, change from death unto life, from darkness into light.

Just before making that statement, James says that when we pray we need to ask with faith, here it is: James 1:5 If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed. 7 For let not that man think that he shall receive any thing of the Lord. 8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

According to what I read there, faith allows me to think correctly, and it is my thinking that allows me to pray with faith and resolve; James is making a connection between faith and the activity of the mind, the thoughts of the mind. Do you see it?

To be double minded is to think contradictory thoughts about the same thing, just as James says, when we are double minded we are being tossed as by the wind, like a wave of the ocean, back and forth, God loves me, He loves me not, I believe but I don't, and so on. God doesn't honor our request for wisdom if we really don't believe that He will grant it to us, or that we don't really need wisdom; the same applies with everything else we pray for. I must not forget that the context in which this is said, is trials, or temptations, and the testing of our faith; which in the KJV could mean the same thing, but I think that is the subject for a whole different dissertation.

Faith is intimately related to thinking, even in the definition of faith, in Hebrews chapter eleven, we find this: Heb 11:1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. 2 For by it the elders obtained a good report. 3 Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.

Now notice what Paul says in Hebrews eleven (I believe Paul wrote Hebrews, but I can't be sure of it): by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God (verse 3); "by faith we understand", he is not saying "by faith we believe", is he saying that understanding and believing are the same thing? Not at all; faith causes us to understand, but to understand, we must think, there is no way out of that one; then on the other side we believe in things that we don't really understand, like the Trinity, or election, foreknowledge, predestination.

There are things that we cannot think or imagine about God and His kingdom; "eye has not seen, nor ear has heard, nor has entered into the heart, the mind, of man, the things God has prepared for those who love Him".

When I think about thinking, I think thoughts about thinking, right? And how does that work? Think about it, what happens when you think about something? Thoughts are images in your brain, if I ask you to think about a palm tree in the beach, and ask you to hear the waves of the ocean and feel the sand in (or on your feet, I have a problem with "in and on", remember?) your feet, and the sun on your face, what happens?

You can ignore me, or you can see a picture of the beach with a palm tree and the ocean behind it and the sun shining, etc, right? In fact your thoughts can be so intense using your imagination, that you could actually feel it. So what happens when you think about God? Do you associate an image to Him? Do you think about a cross on a hill? Do you see a body hanging from it? Blood running down the center plank? What kind of image do you associate with God? Maybe a white throne flashing with lightning and thunder? Neon signs? What?

Jesus said that God is a Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth; what kind of images do we associate with spirit? Or with truth? or with worship? How do you define these things in your mind?

We define things by reasoning, by thinking, by associating pictures with the thoughts, thoughts that are images. All this happens in a millisecond, that is how the human brain works. Isn't a wonder how we are made? The cells in the brain, the neurons, are connected to each other by chemicals, neurotransmitters; I am not a doctor or a biologist, but when I read how the brain is made it amazes me.

When we read, what happens? We look at these symbols, marks on a paper, that we interpret as letters, we make words out of those letters, and we make sentences out of the words; how they relate to each other, and what they mean, it is all processed by the brain in milliseconds; these black marks on the paper mean something, they create images in our minds, they cause us to feel something.

It is a miracle that we can do that, now think about the different languages that we can interpret in our minds, with our brains; a word that means nothing to you could mean a lot to me; like "love", "amor" in Spanish, if you did not know Spanish, the word is just that, a word, symbols, sounds, it means nothing. This is even applicable to translations; for example in the KJV in John chapter one verse one, it says: in the beginning was the Word; but in Spanish it says: in the beginning was the Verb; there is a big difference between word and verb, and you can go on a trip here, that is if you know Spanish.

The bible is a book that could be understood by the natural man, with a natural mind, but the natural mind cannot understand the things of the Spirit because they are spiritually discerned and, Paul says, they are foolishness to him; but when the bible is read with the mind of Christ, it becomes a living instrument, a breathing document that gives life, that changes the way the neurons in your brain work; it actually changes your behavior because it changes the way we think, I am convinced of that.

I recently read an article in a Jewish News website about a study, a scientific study, about how prayer changes the way the brain functions, and how it releases certain neurotransmitters that help with depression; the same thing I bet happens when we think the word of God.

So the renewing of the mind is not only the thinking of the right thoughts, but also the reconstruction of the neurons in the brain, I believe, we are transformed into new creatures; our paradigm changes. If I read the bible everyday, the bible will get into me, into my brain, into my mind, and the more I think about what it says the more I will change.

Psalm 1:1 Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.
2 But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night.
3 And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.

Here the picture is someone who is blessed because he not only does not listen to the ungodly but his delight, his pleasure is in the word of God, and he meditates in it day and night. Meditates in it day and night; what is to meditate? Meditation in this sense is not what the eastern mystics teach, to put your mind in a blank; I used to do that in my tree-hugging days; but to murmur, the Hebrew word here describes to murmur something. The picture is that of a cow that eats some grass and then regurgitates it to chew it some more, gross, the cow actually throws up to chew some more and then swallows it again.

But that is what is meant, to turn something in the mind with the purpose to understand it better; so we see this man's delight is the word of God constantly running through his mind; that looks like an impossibility to me, how are we supposed to do that? How are we supposed to live then? If we should think of God and His word all the time, how are going to think about anything else?

It is simple: memorization is the key to meditation. Think about it. Memorize Psalm one and see what happens. I know the future, I know what will happen; you are going to be placed in a situation in which you will be forced to remember that Psalm, that is going to happen, guaranteed.

I dare to guarantee that because what is the purpose of memorizing God's word if you are not going to apply it to your life? This is where obedience becomes critical to life, in the application of knowledge into practice: wisdom.

God, as always, is the initiator of our thought life, reaches out to His children and in the book of Isaiah He says to the people:1:18 Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

What is He saying? He is saying, come on let's use our minds together and think about this, even though your sins are red like crimson, they are to become as white as wool; see He is using objects to describe their situation so they can understand what He is saying; that He is going to change them from one state to another. That is the way the brain works, with pictures, images that are projected on the screen of our mind, He made us in a very clever way, it's beautiful.

God asks us to think, to reason so that we can understand; but He not only asks but also enables the thinking, He directs the thoughts, He gets the glory. Pro 16:1 The preparations of the heart in man, and the answer of the tongue, is from the LORD.

All thoughts and dreams I have should be to the praise of the glory of His grace, all things and thoughts I have are for His pleasure, for His glory; for the expression of His excellent nature in and through me, and you.

If you made it this far reading, I appreciate it, I hope I made you think. Well that could be a problem since some of us won't stop thinking, but the key is, I think, to take a hold of those thoughts and change them. Paul also mentions that in 2Corinthians 10:3: For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) 5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

So what do you think?