The Nuts and Bolts of Faith

[JohnD]

Most of us go through life balancing our expectations and fantasies about "the way things should be..." never quite finishing that phrase.

I recall an episode of M*A*S*H when a fellow was dying on Christmas day and the team fought to keep him alive until after midnight when Christmas had passed. The man never regained consciousness so it was not a cruelty thing... making him suffer so the others did not have to endure his death on their holiday of peace. And I recall Major Houlihan saying in a moment of melancholy as the man slipped into eternity, "And that's it. One moment you are here, and the next you aren't. No music, no fanfare, no sparkling lights..."

Isn't that typical of the way we go through life expecting certain things to be a certain way... and then being disappointed or underwhelmed with the real thing? Or even in some cases we wonder if we experienced the real thing or not (whether good or bad). In 1991 Mike Tyson's defense raised the issue that Desiree Washington could not have been raped by him and done a live dance performance only hours later. The defense was keying in on public perceptions of that most heinous act rather than Ms Washington's confusion over what had just happened. What that it? Did I just get violated? And the defense team of lawyers did what lawyers do best try to free their client of guilt over human perception. Thankfully to God Tyson was convicted of rape.

An extreme case I bring up to make a point, I'll grant you. But sometimes, as we have learned from scripture, it takes a dark background to make a shining light shine brighter.

We do the same with good things too. I hear men and women all the time saying they love their families but being a husband or wife or mother or father is not all that they thought it would be. There is the fantasy or ideal picture and then there's reality. Actual life being lived. And IMHO it is the basis for 99% of divorce or abandonment (which can occur in an unbroken home with two careers and daycare and latchkey childhood).

Advertisers have capitalized on this aspect of human perception for decades. Want to sell a sports car? Sex it up with a bathing beauty and a checkered race flag. You want to sell butter? Get Fabio to go shirtless and give the leering glance...

The same is true about faith and salvation.

I had an interesting conversation with a Jewish Rabbi I had been witnessing to some years ago who gave me his most basic objection to believing in Jesus as the Messiah (God incarnate). He said, "I just have difficulty believing in a God who has to go to the bathroom."

Human perception. Preconception... based on intelligence and individuality and a fallen nature of sin and evil...

Most of us go through life balancing our expectations and fantasies about "the way things should be..." never quite finishing that phrase to read: "the way things should be... according to me."

And that is the rub. Granted, we are given a certain amount of suspicion about things in order to protect and preserve ourselves. But we must also be suspicious of our own perceptions and preconceptions.

On matters of the spirit, matters and areas that transcend the physical... life after death, is there life after death? Is there a God? Which one of the many gods (all being hailed as the real God) actually IS the REAL God? And which is the true faith? And how does that faith play out? or feel? or how can I know it is the real deal?

First we must begin by realizing we can skew our investigation with our own presuppositions or wants. I want God to be a big Teddy Bear or a Grampa that never says no to me or I want there to be lightning when I "see the light." Or when God speaks to me I want to hear an audible voice...

The Bible says those who diligently seek me (God) will find me. Ancient man heard a rumble in the night and a flash of light in a rainstorm and said "God must be thunder and lightning." Others were visited by the messengers of God (angels) and they worshipped the angels thinking they were God... I can only imaging God seeing these things thinking "Nope... BIGGER... must bigger..." We now have the technology to peer into the vast distances of the universe (God's handiwork) and we begin to realize just how much BIGGER. And in all that, he hears the silent prayer of a mother struggling to make ends meet or of a repentant sinner who is at the end of his rope... even with the interference of human preconception / presupposition... this God this Creator of a vastness we cannot fully conceive actually cares... he cares enough not to leave us in the despair and depravity and doom of our own devices... he gave his own Son to die on the cross to pay for our sins and raised him from the dead that we may also be raised from death to life eternal with him.

So, now let the investigation begin...

[JohnD]

It is without doubt that if God had not taken the initiative, we would not even know there is a God or a heaven or a hell. But he has placed eternity in the hearts of mankind.

Ecclesiastes 3:11

(NASB95)

11 He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.

This he did so that mankind would seek him.

[Zemke]

We are told in 1 John that this world is in the hands of the wicked one. He is the same serpent who deceived eve. Jesus said to be as wise as a serpent and harmless as a dove. Of all people on this earth we believers in the messiah should know the difference between the truth and the lie. Paul said that if he would have anything to boast in it would be the cross of Jesus Christ for it is what has separated the world from him and he from the world.

We have a crossless Christianity being preached today. Phsycology, new age, God wants you rich, give and get, me me me. Jesus said deny yourself, pick up your cross and follow Him.

Divorce in the church is close to the same percent as the world. And I agree that it's because of the world, we are attached to the things of this world.

The church is making the same mistakes as Gods people in the days of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Both foretold and Jeremiah witnessed the Babylonian captivity. Today it's ecumenical unity. Leaders won't listen to the truth, they love Bill and Rick, they like all the numbers of people and delusions of service. As the leadership in the days of the prophets didn't listen so too do the leaders of most of the church today do not listen.

We are deluded, we are poorly discipled if at all. I am with a group of people starting at square one. It isn't easy but did David and all his rejects have it easy? And that is what I have met, rejects. Rejected from the community service organizations that are the Leodecian church.

Might be a bit heavy but it's Sunday.

[gdemoss]

We are deluded, we are poorly discipled if at all. I am with a group of people starting at square one. It isn't easy but did David and all his rejects have it easy? And that is what I have met, rejects. Rejected from the community service organizations that are the Leodecian church.

I wonder how much of this we will be seeing in the near future. I am at home asking God to help me find others like myself who are tired of the lies within the modern churches.

JohnDB, thanks for the read.

Gary

[JohnD]

We are deluded, we are poorly discipled if at all. I am with a group of people starting at square one. It isn't easy but did David and all his rejects have it easy? And that is what I have met, rejects. Rejected from the community service organizations that are the Leodecian church.

I wonder how much of this we will be seeing in the near future. I am at home asking God to help me find others like myself who are tired of the lies within the modern churches.

JohnDB, thanks for the read.

Gary

You are welcome.

[JohnD]

We live in a time when the traditions of men in the church have caught up with us. This isn't the first time or era of this doing so. Every ancient place where the church was or prevailed succumbed to the humanism of the faith. Check that, for the first three centuries it was actually driven underground for survival. For a long enough interval that the Jewish leadership could dissuade Jews from believing in Jesus. And without that natural (born to the task) leadership the faith was legalized in the Roman Empire... when Constantine and his mother could have a leadership influence.

God was not endeavoring to build a new religion with the New Covenant (Christianity). The Old Covenant (Judaism) was in part to show the futility of religion. The New Covenant is about a personal relationship with God and the individual believer. The New Covenant was intended to be a kingdom of priests. In fact, the Old Covenant was intended to be as well (Exodus 19:6) but the rebellion in the wilderness changed the direction of the Old Covenant to have one priestly tribe among the people of God. In the New Testament Greek, the concept is transliterated "kings and priests" in Revelation 1:6 and Revelation 5:10... but it is clear the same thing is intended. To verify / clarify:

1 Peter 2:3-9 (NASB95)

3 if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.

4 And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God,

5 you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

6 For this is contained in Scripture: “Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed.”

7 This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone,”

8 and, “A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvelous light;

Each are to have and develop their individual spiritual gifts and calling into a personal ministry serving our Lord Christ individually with the overall ministry of spreading the Gospel to every generation.

The traditions of man has stymied this spreading of the Gospel to miniature bursts and revivals to follow with backsliding and post Christian eras that dot the globe.

It is a mixture of the traditions of man and the bumbling mishandling by Gentile leadership (I was born a Gentile so I'm not being prejudice here)... who do the best they can but they are institutionalized by a Church organization that has squelched the Church organism for a thousand years now. And despite all this God does in fact save many... but nowhere near as many as we would be if we were all carrying out our ministries (our spiritual duties) rather than filling some sophomoric role as "laity" while institutionalized clergy are the ones people pass the buck to (after all they are the "professional" Christians)...

[JohnD]

God established some things in the Old Testament (technically in the Old Covenant) which he did not wish to be removed in the New Covenant, like the feasts which all point to Jesus. It was not a commandment for NT believers to keep OT feasts, but bear in mind that the feasts were in what amounted to the entirety of the Bible until the NT was canonized 3 centuries into the New Covenant. So one reading the Bible to learn about the God who saved them would read about the feasts. The "last supper" is a portion of the Passover Seder.

Revelation 2:17 (NASB95)

17 ‘He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To him who overcomes, to him I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows but he who receives it.’

This refers to the afikomen in the Seder. Three pieces of matzoh (unleavened bread sometimes large squares sometimes large disks of a cracker like substance) are put in a three pocket bag or cloth. The center piece is taken and broken in two. Half is wrapped and hidden for the children to find and receive a prize. This is the piece of bread that is broken and given to all to partake of. All of this points to the triune God and the one who became a man and how he died and was wrapped in grave clothes and later found alive and partaken of in the New Covenant. Nearly none of which is reflected in the last supper / communion / certainly not the Eucharist.

[JohnD]

Jump in, folks.

I am certain I am not the only one who sees these things and more.

[Guest]

.... Three pieces of matzoh (unleavened bread sometimes large squares sometimes large disks of a cracker like substance) are put in a three pocket bag or cloth. The center piece is taken and broken in two. Half is wrapped and hidden for the children to find and receive a prize. This is the piece of bread that is broken and given to all to partake of....

And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 18:3

[JohnD]

The over all point I am getting at is if we'd stop interfering... either by trying to "help" God, or to insist upon our will being done over God's will, or that our understanding is of paramount importance...

And we simply be still and know that God is God (and we aren't)... we think we are... more than we may even realize... by interfering we think we can improve upon God... by helping God we think he's incompetent somehow... by making "getting our head around" things so important we elevate our self and our understanding to that of God... as certainly with our stubborn belligerent insistence on things being done better by doing them our way... wow... what fools we are!!!

If we would but simply take God at his word... oh how much easier and simpler everything would be!