Morning News Flash

May 19, 2024

Trying to find where to start an essay is always difficult for me. I really don’t know the tricks of the trade, but the word “trick” doesn’t appeal to my sensibilities anyways. I don’t want to trick anyone. There’s too many deceptive practices going around already.

Maybe I could take the angle of making a few bucks. However, the love and pursuit of money is full of all kinds of evil — just like the Jewish King, Solomon, observed. Not that there is anything wrong with earning a living. We are actually supposed to work to earn our keep… It’s something about dishonest gain, and in my case, my subject is all about God, Jesus, and the Bible — the Bible which has this from the apostle Peter:

“But there were also false prophets in Israel, just as there will be false teachers among you. They will cleverly teach destructive heresies and even deny the Master who bought them… …And because of these teachers, the way of truth will be slandered. In their greed they will make up clever lies to get hold of your money…” — 2 Peter 2:1,2,3 (NLT)

So, that is a cautionary tale in my book.

Again, there’s nothing wrong with earning money to provide for you and yours, but as Christians there are a few stipulations in the contract, the New Testament, which we need to understand and guidelines we should follow. It is a contract, Greek, “diatheke,” which we need to read thoroughly.

So, as for myself, I cannot be too immersed in reading through its pages. After all, it’s all been written down for our benefit.

Waking up, as usual, with too much on my mind, popping up in such fast succession, my easily distracted and failing memory has a lot of trouble keeping up… I always struggle to recall what I hear, but, as always, I need reminders from the One who planted the ideas in the first place, and I certainly need God’s help to sort them all out.

I should explain. You see, I believe Christianity is a personal, ongoing relationship with God, and just as in any relationship, there has to be conversation. Of course, it’s easier to talk at God than listen for His voice…

Yet, even though I am a poor listener (just ask my wife), I have learned to discern God’s gentle voice. It started after I became twice born and while consistently reading the Bible. At first, it was like being a newborn and not really picking up on every word, hardly any words, in fact…

Here’s a Bible excerpt to illustrate what I am trying to say:

“Go out and stand before me on the mountain,” the Lord told him. And as Elijah stood there, the Lord passed by, and a mighty windstorm hit the mountain. It was such a terrible blast that the rocks were torn loose, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire there was the sound of a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And a voice said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” — 1 Kings 19:11–13, NLT.

Don’t believe me? Perfectly understandable. It was pretty new to me but seemed so natural as if such an occurrence was normal. So, I really didn’t think twice about it… Looking back at that complete acceptance, I figured it is because in the Garden of Eden, God walked and talked with Adam and Eve — and that is the whole point of Jesus coming to Earth — to restore people’s relationship with God. I just hope that I never take this relationship for granted… God’s plan for Humanity is to restore us to the natural relationship of walking and talking with Him as it was in the beginning.

Nevertheless, what I am writing just might be important for readers to consider thinking about, and as for what I have already said, it doesn’t make me special. No way. It is Jesus who has been and always will be more than special.

Enough… I feel like I am drifting far and away and not getting to the essentials of what I am supposed to be writing, that is, what I woke up hearing in my mind…

Now, another word for Heaven is Paradise. God created Paradise for us and gave us dominion over all He had created. That dominion made us kings and queens of a sort.

So, from that perspective, Mankind was living in the original Kingdom of Heaven.

But everyone screwed that all up — starting with Adam and Eve — and Humanity has been screwing everything up ever since. Just look around. It doesn’t take a genius or an out of body revelation to realize that.

In that decline, we lost contact with God. Mankind has always, at least, sporadically, tried to get it all back… but with our own intelligence and efforts. Did those efforts ever work? Perhaps for an instant…

Over the centuries, from the Tower of Babel, to the Renaissance, to the Psychedelic Sixties, and all the eras in between, efforts have been made to get back to or to recreate or to rebuild that Paradise, that Kingdom.

Well, the good news is that God has always had a plan to do that very thing. The plan has been revealed in the Good News of Jesus who at the very beginning of His mission to Mankind took this approach:

“… Jesus began to preach, ‘Repent of your sins and turn to God, for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.’ “ — Matthew 4:17, NLT.

You see, God has always planned the way for Mankind to get back to Paradise. However, it must be made clear to us all that there has to be a screening process, which seems absolutely reasonable and entirely necessary to me. That’s why the Bible stresses Judgment, the screening process.

There will be no more devilish serpents there or other deceivers.

There will be only two Trees of Life — no tree for people to fall.

There will be no one who causes each other harm or hurt or pain.

No more hunger.

No more wars.

No more diseases.

There will be a new Heaven and a new Earth for everyone to experience and to enjoy. So, we ought to pay attention to the Good News:

“For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him. There is no judgment against anyone who believes in him. But anyone who does not believe in him has already been judged for not believing in God’s one and only Son. And the judgment is based on this fact: God’s light came into the world, but people loved the darkness more than the light, for their actions were evil. All who do evil hate the light and refuse to go near it for fear their sins will be exposed. But those who do what is right come to the light so others can see that they are doing what God wants.” — John 3:16–21, ibid.

I see herein an important point. In our own actions we are more than likely to be judging ourselves.

For example, when we destroy the environment we live in, we are condemning ourselves to extinction. Isn’t that a form of Judgment?

Countries create wars to destroy one another, and the reasons often escape the people who live there, people who are just trying to live a life with family and friends.

Isn’t that also a form of Judgment?

But we blame God for the consequences of what we choose to do.

Grow up.

This also reminds me of another point…

There are many who have made it their mission to destroy all kinds of Christianity and Biblical precepts and especially those of us who have been born again.

Why? There are no good answers, but maybe personal vengeance?

Jealousy?

Life’s frustrations?

Prolonged illness and pain?

Lifestyles?

Pridefulness?

Hypercriticalness?

You could probably go on to fill in the blank.

All the same, from my perspective, I think that a lot of unbelief comes from misperceptions and misunderstandings of God, Jesus, and the Bible. That is why most of my essays are trying to correct that dynamic. If I claim to have the love of God for everyone, this is the only way I know of expressing it.

So, my purposes involve my viewpoint that everyone should have a clear choice.

Further, the attacks on Christianity that I’ve read are from behind battlements constructed of such misconceptions and misunderstandings, or personal disappointments in others or their previously attended churches, or a life that has knocked them down and not what they had hoped. Or maybe they are just mean, miserable, and foolish for whatever reason, though I believe that such people are a very small but very loud community.

Now, there are basically two philosophies at work in people’s minds. Theism or Atheism, that is, God exists or God does not exist.

The Bible is a whole History of people, real people, who lived with God in their lives — or, if you will, God excluded from their lives. Nothing in their lives is hidden, deleted, augmented, or enhanced. Believers, unbelievers… it’s all described therein. Everything is there for our benefit and our education. Those two philosophical mindsets are recorded. Everything is there — the good as well as the bad, and furthermore, all the ugliness is exposed in its pages, too, not just the beauty of it all.

Read it.

However don’t be like those negative Neds who the apostle Peter warned about while referring to the apostle Paul’s letters

“…speaking of these things in all of his letters. Some of his comments are hard to understand, and those who are ignorant and unstable have twisted his letters to mean something quite different, just as they do with other parts of Scripture. And this will result in their destruction.” 2 Peter 3:16, ibid.

I would recommend that people read to learn, not to deconstruct… to read for edification, not callow self-justification.

Finally, to conclude this effort, not only do Patty and I have personal confirmation of the living God who is an active reality in our lives, there are thousands of others who share in the same amazing, though undeserved, life, and they share their personal testimonies in song and assembly and thankfulness expressed in praise and worship and thankfulness that Jesus has saved us from ourselves and our hurtful and harmful lives.

I’m told that that last expression is a “run on sentence” and not grammatically sublime prose.

Just the same, I believe you all know what I am trying to say.

Seek the presence of God in your life. He is seeking your presence in His!