Eyes of Fire:

                                   

One day the angels[a] came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan[b]also came with them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “Where have you come from?”

Satan answered the Lord, “From roaming throughout the earth, going back and forth on it.”

                  From going back and forth on it: that is what he  (Satan  )is doing daily.  

Do not think that he is not seen as the world thinks.  The one who has eyes as flames of fire sees everything.

We Have This Treasure in Earthen Vessels

     We are all "EarthMen" men and women...".mudmen" made of our home planet....Earth.   Composed of nearly 98% water and the rest minerals and molecular compounds put together in a marvelous and mysterious way.   When this body dies we go to dust and return to the basics we once were.   But in between this birth and our eventual death lies a great truth.  We are infused with Spirit.  That which is inside of us and makes each one of us unique lives and functions thru our  body/ or should I say the body functions thru the Spirit.  You see we  Americans have it all backwards.   We live in an extremely materialistic society and capitalistic so that our values are sometimes very surface.  It takes sometimes introductions to other cultures say even American Indian or Asian and Eastern cultures to awaken our inside and mystical selves.  To  be able to understand that this eventual decay and degeneration of this  body scares most of us.  I know it did me.
     To this end, I began early on searching for answers, and over a period of say a couple of years I had been approached by various religions and people from mainstream American Churches but found no adequate answers that were suitable for me.  None seemed to capitvate me or hold much of my attention, yet I still had a deep yearning to know.................the why of things?
      To quote a very old line from the Original Star Trek, when Voyager is taken onboard the Enterprise and Spock melds with it after it's monumental and 400 years voyage in space and consumes and takes in vast knowledge still it  says.....Is This all there Is?
     So too we are asking Is this all there is?    All that I am, all that I have learned,  and stored away, all of the intense emotional experiences  are they all dust? Of no account?  All the myths surrounding cultural belief systems....junk?   I know there is a distillation and a truth to be found in our experiences.   I have watched people afflicted with a devastating disease process lose themselves and go to nothing (Alzheimers) but I do not believe for one second that any of what that person has experienced in their Spirit is lost, it is there intact even though the mechanisms of communication and memory long since shot cannot be reached inside that person.   But God knows,that person intimately and preserves what the Spirit has done in that person.  How do I know this?  Because the Spirit of the living God, The HOly Spirit lives me and those who are believers In Christ's death on the Cross and what he accomplished for all of mankind. "Who knows the Spirit of a man except that Spirit of man and who knows the Spirit of God except God himself and those to whom he has made himself known."
     There is a promise to all who believe this, those who are near and those who are afar off this is the promise Jesus made to us.  It is a seal and promise and a gift to us imparting truth and a rest if you will to our fears of this mortal life slipping away forever into nothingness and losing all that we lived here on Earth for.  Friends, families, lovers and loved ones.   Brothers and Sisters we communed with in this life and will see again in the next.   Myth some say.....it is not.   Paul was concerned about the Thessalonian Church in that a false rumor had started about the issue of the coming of Christ and of the resurrection of believers.  Some were worried about those who had died, To which Paul address the following answer:
     13 Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. 14 For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him.

     There will always be those who will deny truth and have unbelief even in the Church.  So it was important for Paul to nip this untruth in the Bud immediately. 
If there were no resurrection then "We of  all men are miserable for Christ was preached in vain>".
      An exhortation....do not live life in vain....there is hope in this earthen vessel.....given by the one who tasted death for us first and rose again to eat and drink another 50 days presenting himself to his disciples and 500 others and then to.....heaven...he is due back soon
   

Quantum:Believers

    I am a great believer in the sciences. (and in faith) They intrique me.  What lies hidden in the smallest and the greatest of substance is eventually revealed though not all: yet.
     I am fascinated by Quantum mechanics though because it's so uncoventional say as compared to natural Physics. Wave/particle theory for example ( Youngs Experiment) yielded a surprise when performed. Light reacted as both particle and wave at the same time? (Dual probability)  When light as in a laser was directed and shot through a slit it both was absorbed as a particle at the point of impact and caused an "interference pattern to form behind a screen showing light and dark bands?  So it was both at the same time.
     Now for the comparison to the miracles told of in the Gospel.  How did they occurr?  Water into wine,
Natural phenomena being stilled ( stormy seas) think Paul and Christ.  Invisible Spirits cast out, and finally resurrection of matter that was clearly dead and devoid of life back into life again.  Are these Quantum? Are these the very things God uses to befuddle the wise?  Does he and can he manipulate the very matter around us by himself and in himself to show himself?  I guess you be the judge. I don't know.  But I know this wilh all my being......he just does it.  The Big Bang theory....something from a point in nothingness (to us) some say a singularity like a black hole, and then Bang everything comes out and spreads across time, gravity, space and forms everyhing we know and feel and observe around us.  Why then is it impossible to wrap some of hour heads around a God who possiblly did this and refuse to believe that Sin that was our nature was there and now is supernaturlly dissipated or forgiven by a God who chose to reveal himself in  flesh and blood in a Son?  Born, matured, and raised by a man and a women chosen to care for God himself?  I defies imagination!!!!  But nevertheless, something happened on Pentecost.  Something invisible was imparted to the Disciples.......Spirit.....God's. the Advocate, Jesus talked about. He talked about this because the disciples were sorrowful knowing that he was about to be taken away for good.  They would no longer eat and drink with him, see his miracles, see his face break out in  joy when someone was healed, or see the relief when Lazarus came walking out of a darkened cave with wrappings all around his face, all the while struggling to pull them off as the light reached his eyes again.      How did he in the language of the Gospel " slip from within their midst"  when they tried to throw him off a cliff?  ( Because it was not his time?)  Why did he tell Mary" do not hold onto me.....because he had not ascended to the Father?"   What was his nature at that point?   After he came back and showed himself to the many he apparently walked through a closed door???  Well Quantum mechanics I guess could explain that I guess.......but I think I will just hold that in my heart and let God be God!     Quantum theory.....it rocks!

A moment in time: and a jello mold

     What course will today lead you on?  In the start of the day where will you ultimately be headed as the day progresses?  We don't actually really know...do we.  In the day's events there are many possibilities that will play out before us.  Meetings with others, always with  unknown possibilities of outcomes will happen.  Idle talk can turn into an unexpected turns, like the course of a river in a violent storm.  The thing you expect to do may be changed by the one in authority above you and so it goes.
     Is that why we take time out to say steal a smoke?  That one moment when I say,  this is my time, my absolute one and only minute when I can do what I want?  Probably I have done it and it feels good to assert that moment for my little pleasure, even though I know if I continue it in the long run it will harm me,
So there is that one idle moment in the course of our time here that we make a decision, ,make a plan and do it.  But we are like a jello mold.  Put together the right way, and jello has substance, firmness and form that appears somewhat solid.  But put a little heat on and it goes to goo, all over the place.  We are like that without the proper "putting together.  We go all over the place.  We can't help gossip, We can't help our sexual drives. We can't help our innate nature to say steal, rob, lie or whatever it is within that drives us to do so.  We are jello.  Though we are taught good morals from our parents....hopefully, we can stray and do so when we can.   I remember as a kid, my friend and I found a pack of cigarettes and for a week we would hide them under a rock (on a Church property no less) I didn't attend it) and we would try out our new experience....and cough and cough but we still did it.   Why?  Because we could.  Choice.
     The same cycle continues throughout our life. We make a choice and follow it and hope it leads to something good.  However there is still that unformed part of us that will flow and goo into areas of life that will be unpleasant if there is something lacking to hold us up.  What am I getting at? This...
     In the first letter of Corinthians, Paul has to write to his foundling Church to set straight some things that had already been addressed.  Having been sanctifed and become believers in Christ, there appeared again those things, in their behavior that should  have been taken care of.   They had been "wed to Christ and united with his Spirit and not again with the things they left behind.  Sexual immorality ( in whatever form it takes) and court issues, brother against brother etc. etc. In other words they strayed were made still of jello instead of something firm that stands and they resorted to their previous ways.   We all do.  However, if there is something binding, something stronger  in us than just ourselves, then we have a chance.  Paul knew this and he taught them how to avoid in practical ways these pitfalls of theirs and ours.
     That is why the letter from Corinthians is so basic and so much help to new believers who find Christ.
It is a blue print of direction and with the Holy Spirit within to guide it is invaluable. WE can be more that what we started out to be, formless jello in the beginning,  and now a good loaf of bread with all the right ingredients, mixed together, risen and a help to others who eat of it and find Christ within.

31 Now is the time for judgment on this world; now the prince of this world will be driven out.

     These words are the words spoken by Jesus just before his crucifixion was to take place.  Judas had just partaken of a meal with his fellow disciples and now is on the verge of betraying Jesus.
                                                         The battle is on!
    For Jesus  the hour is about to take place and his suffering on the cross is about to bring in redemption and a reconciling to God for the whole Earth's population.  The short three year ministry of his performing miracles, teaching and feeding thousands and showing untold mercies to those with sicknesses and maladies are at an end.  To the those who saw and believed him they became "witnesses" and continued on the ministry in the new power of the HOLY SPIRIT.  The Prince of the world (The DEVIL) was defeated by the shed blood of our savior...so begs the question........what is happening in our world today?




     Down through the ages the Christian movement has produced countless champions of faith, changed the course of history and while doing so brought in a mulitdude of new Christians with it and it's ideas as well.  Moralities have been embraced and the course of many,many lives have been changed by this humble man endowed with the Spirit of God himself and was God incarnate, Immanuel with us.
     Along with this move of greatness, and growing along side of it are the "tares" those nasty little things that won't go away. Seeds of doubt, selfcenteredness, and lawlessness within all those who don't even notice it on a day to day basis.  We are involved in a major showdown, a tremendous Football game, if  you will, that requires the long game approach by those who are in it to win.  And I mean us, those who believe in the one who has already driven the Prince of this world out!!! Why then is there still a fight??? If indeed he has been defeated 2000 years ago? It is because of a very simple and profound belief....if you do not believe it then it has no place in the average person and the Prince will continue to reign as evidenced by the tides that are raging and changing the nature of our Democracy. Right in front of our eyes.  
     Men that are born men, no longer have to be that, and can be a woman if they want to. A new and "third"gender neither male nor female is emerging and has no natural drawing to either male or female.  New religious laws are beginning to appear in various states across this country in the effort to stem legally and with law and protect those who do not wish to do business with "others" of a different nature other than their own..and could backfire for Christians as well.  Law cannot in a democracy such as ours protect all and every nature of man we can and do reflect.  While we strive for balance and" equality for all" it cannot I think be legislated.  It is deeper than that.  It is in the Depth of Christ and all of his teachings for us that begins in the human heart where the change must take place.  And so the battle rages, The Devil know this and though he has been defeated,  it's like using a handyman's tools for instance,,,,"The right tool for the right job"
      We have forsaken the actual power that has been granted to us  The Holy Spirit" and our "advocate" the one who has sought to bring to our rememberance Christ and all that he did.  \
     That conviction that he brings is the true engine of change, the one that tore off the scales of Paul's eyes and allowed him to see Jesus for the very first time and become a mighty engine for change in his time.

      The Church is down, the enemy is on the 20 yard line and ready to score, 30 seconds left to make the run and will they fumble?    Revelations reveals much about the Church's condition... are we weakening or are we strengthening the things that remain?  

                                   " The Prince of this world has been driven out"
                                                       John chapter 12