I've been listening to an Introduction To The Hebrew Bible course on the website The Bible Project. It's explaining the Old Testament and how it was put together. At one point it talks about God's covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Joshua. That got me thinking about God's covenant with us through Jesus. Here's what I've found on our covenant. When Jesus came down from the mountain after being in the wilderness for 40 days, he came back and began His ministry teaching repentance.
As a lot of you know I have an issue with the sinner's prayer being the only thing some churches teach their members as a way to go to heaven, when Jesus taught differently.
So, here's my understanding on our covenant with God.
From the Hebrew Bible
Joel 2:12-13 12) Yet even now saith YHVH turn ye unto me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning, 13) and rend your heart and not your garments, and turn to YHVH your God. For He is gracious and merciful, and slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness, and repenteth him of the evil.
This wasn’t Jesus speaking this time but Peter, speaking the teachings of Jesus, is scolding people in the temple who are amazed that he and John healed a man lame since birth, for turning Jesus over to be crucified, tells them....
Acts 3:19 19) repent ye therefore, and turn again, so that your sins may be blotted out, that so there may become seasons of refreshing from the presence of the Lord.
The Hebrew noun for repent is Teshuvah meaning return or turning back. The verb is shuv, also meaning to return or turning back.
God made a covenant with Noah, Abraham, Moses and Joshua. Each time the Israelites were on there own they abandoned their part of the covenant, yet God always kept His covenant with them.
Jesus taught us to repent, that is our covenant with God. Turning away from our sinful ways. Yes, we slip up and can momentarily abandon our covenant, but having remorse for that sin is what brings us back to repentance and renewing our covenant.
I may start adding a link on here to my substack page also called Nite Reflections. Come find me there. Keep Searching,
Happy Thursday Everyone, Welcome to Thursday's Child
Today we'll touch briefly on chapters 7,8 and 9. The beginning of chapter 7 talks about Noah getting drunk with wine like the Protestant Bible. His son Ham walked in and saw him naked. He went out, told his brothers, they walked in with their faces turned away and covered Noah's body. Noah wakes up and knows that Ham had seen him naked and curses Ham saying he will be a servant to Shem. Not really understanding the culture at that time, it makes you wonder why he lost his temper so bad when it seemed like an accident and Noah was the one that had gotten drunk. After that it goes into how Noah divided up the land between his sons and grandsons, and teaches them to obey the all the commandments, ordinances, judgements, observe righteousness, to cover the shame of their flesh (maybe that was passed down from Adam and Eve when they realized they were naked after eating the fruit) and to Bless their Creator, honor their mother and father, and love their neighbor as their self, and to guard their souls from fornication and uncleanness and all iniquity. It talks about if you shed someone's blood then your blood should be spilled. However someone kills someone they should be killed that way.
Chapter 10 it talks Noah's sons being led away from the spirits of the giants that are now roaming the earth as demons and when Noah died. Noah's after flood drunken celebration was in the year 1317A.M. Noah died in the year1659 A.M. Between the years 1645-1688 A.M. the men had become evil and started building a tower so they can "ascend into heaven." Remember, angels are dictating this to Moses to write down, it says "The Lord our God said LET US go down and confound their language that they may not understand one another's speech." and THE LORD DESCENDED AND WE DESCENDED WITH HIM to see the city and the tower which the children of men had built, and He confounded their speech and they no longer understood one another's speech and they ceased then to build the city and the tower." Now the whole land of Shinar is called Babel and they were dispersed into their cities according to their own language.
I put those couple of things in bold italics because I've mentioned before how I haven't been a big believer in God being a Man with a white hair and beard in the sky. Here again we see that "He descended." How did He descend? In what form did He descend? We also saw in a previous post that there are angels in the various tiers of heaven. Some protecting the throne of the Holy One. Are they entities of light? Are they like we imagine and put in our artwork, that wear armor and carry shields and swords? What we do know is it says here The Lord descended and the angels came with Him.
From the tower of Babel in 1688 A.M. to 1876 A.M. to the descendants of Noah are Shem to Arpachshad to Peleg to Reu to Terah to Abram. Now we're in chapter 11, in chapter talks about Abram as a child starts to understand the errors of the earth, that all went astray after graven images and uncleanness. Here is something else that made me wonder how except for God guiding Abrams thinking. Abram was 2 weeks of years old, so 14 years old, he separated himself from his father that he might not worship idols with him, and he began to pray to the Creator of all things. What is unique, I was going to say weird but I guess it's not totally unheard of, but a 14 year old would probably have already been influenced by his father by now.
During this time of the men worshiping idols a fallen angel Mastema sent ravens to eat all the seeds when the men were planting so they had no crops. When Abram came along and started praying, as the men were planting Abram could command the ravens to leave. Everyone who saw were amazed. In the year 1891 A.M. Abram taught those who made implements how to make a plough to bury the seeds so they couldn't be eaten right away. In the year 1904 A.M. Abram goes to his father and says what does it profit you to worship these idols? They are dumb forms that have no spirit. (paraphrased) Terah said if he stops worshipping the idols and tells the people he did so they'll kill him, so keep quiet.
In the 2nd week of the 7th year of the fortieth Jubilee, year 1925 A.M. Abram took a wife. Her name is Sarai. The daughter of his father. (Doesn't that make her his sister? 😲🤔) In 1928A.M. Haran, Abram's brother took a wife and 1932 A.M. they had a son and named him Lot. When Abram was 60 years old in 1936A.M. Abram burned down the house of idols. No one knew it was him. Haran joined the other people to try to save the idols and was killed. Abram and Terah and their families left to go to the land of Lebanon and into the land of Canaan until 1951 A.M. On this night he was up all night looking at the stars thinking We are in the hand of God. If He desires it to rain, it rains. If He doesn't He withholds it and it doesn't rain.
Then he said, and this stopped me from reading and really dwell on this because this is the place we all need to get to. He said...
My God, God most high. Thou alone art my God, and thee and Thy dominion have I chosen. Thou hast created all things and all things are the works of Thy hands. Deliver me from the hands of evil spirits who have dominion over the thoughts of men's hearts, and let them not lead me astray from Thee, my God. And stablish Thou me and my seed forever that we may not astray from henceforth and forever more.
At this point he also asked if he should return to the land that he came from. At that point the word of the Lord was sent to him to saying get up, leave your father, go to the land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation, make thy name great, thou shalt be blessed on the earth, thee and all thy families. Whoever blesses you will be blessed, whoever curses you will be cursed.
In the year 1953 A.M. he told Terah that he was leaving. Terah told him to take Lot since Lot's father was killed in the fire but leave Nahor til Abram finds a place to settle and he comes back for everybody else and they could all be together.
Now we have Abram and Lot heading out on their own to find what God has in store for them.
I just couldn't think of any more that should be said after that. I hope this impacted you as much as it did me, and that you'll take awhile and reflect of that prayer. Until next time.
Hi Everyone, Happy Thursday from an 85 degree day in Central Florida. Unfortunately in South Dakota where my kids still are and where I used to live it's noon right now and it's 12 degrees. Yikes! If you're also where you're still having a cold winter, Stay warm you guys.
The other day I was asked why I'm so focused on the Ethiopian Bible. I knew that there were many other books in the Dead Sea Scrolls that didn't qualify to make it into the Protestant Bible when the official list was voted on during the Council Of Nicea during the time of Constantine. Then I thought why weren't they included? I don't want to drag this on and be boring but I also feel everyone should know. We'll get into more book content after this explanation. This information is regarding only The Book Of Jubilees from questions directed to my friend Google Gemini, and not any of the other books. So here goes.
The Dead Sea Scrolls are a collection around 900 manuscripts found in caves near the Qumran settlement between 1947 and 1956. They contain every book in the Protestant Bible except Esther, plus many others that weren't allowed. If we go with number 900, and there are 66 books in the Protestant Bible that leaves 834 books that potentially had vital information that inquiring minds (old tv commercial reference) like you and I want to know, that were rejected. WHY?? I want to know what's in there. Some people are satisfied going to church 1-3 times a week, maybe having a daily or weekly bible study. That's okay. Personally I'm not, but then again I never have been satisfied with the status quo or being compliant for that matter.
When I read the guidelines for why books were excluded a couple of things were a little startling. Maybe it's something maybe it's nothing. But one document in the Historical& Textual category called Community Rule or War Scroll was specific to The Essene sect, granted this document was community specific not universal to everyone but it has become accepted by some that Jesus was part of the Essenes. I heard a guy this week named John Bevere say Mary was an Essene.
In the Jewish Rabbinic category some were excluded because they were written in the "post-prophetic" era or weren't written in Hebrew. Some were written in Aramaic. Also what Jesus spoke. The next category was Theological. These were excluded because they were either apocalyptic or Conflicted with the Mainstream Lunar Calendars and Temple practices at the time. We'll see more about this. Other factors were Sectarian Identity, too community specific for the general Bible, like The War Scroll. Were they considered Divinely Inspired or just helpful to read? And Popularity. Were they popular in the scrolls but rare elsewhere? Jubilees were in the scrolls 15 times.
This is the main thing that bothers me. Exodus was written by Moses. The Book Of Jubilees written by Moses being spoken by angels. Throughout history we've seen a division among people over things they just couldn't agree on. In this case the rest of the world has missed out on and ridiculed for reading books other than the standard canonized books of the bible. Admittedly, the Bible the Catholic church uses has the Apocrypha. Here's how the different sides looked at their solar and lunar decisions. As we'll see in the Book Of Jubilees God gave requirements that the festivals were to be celebrated on the same days each year, and the solar calendar allows for that.
The Battle of the Calendars
To understand why this led to the book's exclusion, we have to look at the "Calendar War" happening in Judea at the time.
The Solar Calendar (Jubilees) ☀️
The Lunar Calendar (Mainstream/Rabbinic) 🌙
364 days exactly.
Roughly 354 days, requiring "leap months" to stay in sync with seasons.
Holidays always fall on the same day of the week every year.
Holidays shift days (like your birthday or modern Hanukkah).
Claims the lunar system is "corrupt" and leads to sin.
The standard used by the Temple authorities in Jerusalem.
The Jubilees proposes a year that has exactly 52 weeks. Every date falls on the same day of the week every year. The year is divided into 13-week seasons. One Key Point, In this system the first day of the first month of the New Year always falls on a Wednesday, which I didn't notice it saying, but that's the day, sun, moon, and stars, were created and made the first day. I still don't know why the time frames are called Jubilees, but it really doesn't matter, I don't know why we call a week a week, or a year a year. So to continue on, another copy and paste from our friend Gemini
The "Units" of Time 🧱
The author breaks time down into specific mathematical blocks:
The Year: Exactly 364 days (52 weeks).
The Week of Years: A 7-year period (based on the Sabbath year cycle in Leviticus).
The Jubilee: A 49-year period (consisting of 7 "weeks of years").
The Total Calculation 🧮
If we multiply these units, we can see the grand scale of the book's chronology:
50 Jubilees X 49 years = 2,450 years
By using this rigid system, the author ensures that every major event—like the birth of Noah, the Flood, or the life of Abraham—falls on a mathematically "perfect" year and day. This was a direct challenge to other ancient calendars that relied on the moon, which the author felt were messy and prone to human error.
This calendar does however have 1.25 missing days over the course of a year. One early 1900's scholar R.H.Charles has what is regarded as a very accurate interpretation of Jubilees, has said he thinks the author of Jubilees was so blinded by "theological dogmatism" that they prioritized mathematical perfection over the actual movement of the sun, and possibly didn't account for the shortfall at all. Because to add a leap day or extra month somewhere would break the 7 day cycle and ruin the Sabbath nature of the calendar. Charles supposedly shows in his 1913 interpretation of Jubilees that the Flood lasted exactly 364 days and not 370 like in a Masoretic Text of Genesis which is considered to be an authoritative text of the Jewish Bible.
As we saw in the last post A.M. is used to signify a period of time in Jubilees called Anno Mundi. It's a system used to date events based on the number of years since the creation of the world. With that in mind, the world, and everything in it was created in the first week of the first Jubilee {1-7A.M.} The first week of the first 7 year period based on the Sabbath year cycle in Leviticus.
The first week of the of the first year of the the first 49 year Jubilee. Adam and Eve were in the garden a full 7 years exactly, the 17th day of the 2nd month the serpent came to Eve. {8A.M.)
Next time I was just going to give a lineage list of from Adam to Noah but well see how it goes breaking it down to include Jubilees. Until then,
Hi everyone, yes I know it's been awhile. Saturday will be 4 weeks since my Search For God post. Andrea and I got home from Christmas Vacation. Thankfully it was a whole lot better than the movie. Northwest Arkansas had record high temperatures in the 70's. That was nice. The day we left to head to Oklahoma it got cold and was cold in Oklahoma. The next day we went down to Dallas then the next day a town near Austin where we spent New years Eve and day, then headed home. After getting home I caught up on some work, now I'm ready to become more focused on sharing all the things I'm learning.
In Eureka Springs Arkansas there's a Play called the Passion Play. It recreates the Jesus' trial, crucifixion and resurrection. There are others but this one is the largest in the country. There isn't a play in the winter because it takes place at an outdoor amphitheater. At the same place there is a huge statue of Jesus called The Christ Of The Ozarks, (tap the link, It's pretty cool) some gift shops and a Bible Museum. I've been interested in The Ethiopian Bible. In case you aren't familiar with it, the Ethiopian Bible has books in it that weren't allowed in the western Bible that we call The Holy Bible. During the council of Nicea and Constatinople the determined that 15 books didn't make the cut to be included in the Bible, even though The Book Of Enoch is mentioned a couple of time in the Bible. There is a Book of Thomas and some that the Catholic faith do include called The Apocrypha. I asked the lady working at the Bible Museum gift shop if they had the Ethiopian Bible. Her feathers got all ruffled and asked if I have ever read The Holy Bible. I explained my background, told her I had heard the Ethiopian Bible included other teachings that weren't allowed during those councils where we were told what we were allowed to learn, and I want to find out what was in those other books that made those religious leaders back then so worried that called the heretical and banned them from being in the Bible.
The Ethiopian Bible includes those books because they didn't fall under the authority of the Roman rulers. They protected ALL the scriptures. We'll get into the Ethiopian tradition and why they felt the need to preserve the scriptures, and why they felt it was actually their duty to do so, but today, part of what's been filling my brain is, I've been reading the Book Of Enoch. It talks about 200 fallen angels coming to earth to mate with humans. Other Archangels are designated to watch over the earth and they reported back to God all the devastation that was creating, and God handed out punishment for the angels that rebelled. What I was struggling with was, I can understand the angels being in their angelic form and even changing their form, like when they appeared to Mary to tell her she was going to get pregnant with Jesus. What I couldn't grasp was, when they reported to God who did they go to? What did "HE" look like? What form did "HE" take? I've mentioned before that I don't believe God looks like our images of God, a man with white hair and white beard sitting on a golden throne in the clouds. So naturally in today's technology I, as Andrea says, I asked the robot. While coffee was doing whatever you call what it does in the French Press I asked Google Gemini
"According to Edgar Cayce's readings what is the source of creation made of, energy, vibration, angelic or matter? Here is the response.
"According to Edgar Cayce's readings The source of creation is fundamentally vibration. Cayce often stated that life in it's essence is Vibration. While he did use terms like energy, spirit, and mind to describe the creative process, he viewed vibration as the underlying mechanism or language of existence. Cayce taught that everything in the universe, from the most solid matter to the highest spiritual realms are made of the same "One Force". The only difference between a rock, a human soul and a star is the rate of vibration. Low vibration results in what we perceive as dense physical matter, high vibration results in spirit, light, and God Consciousness." In some of Cayce's readings he mentioned that angels are a higher vibrational expression of the same "One Force."
That helped me to put into perspective the heavenly realms, and with our limited human understanding, and other video teachings from Cayce and Yogananda that I've listened to, astral plane and the angelic realms don't communicate like humans do. Communication is telepathic or just "A Knowing." If we think about the heavenly realms in that context, and if God/The Divine is the highest vibration possible, then maybe the Angels answer to that highest vibration.
Last night when I woke up at 2:45 and didn't get back to sleep til after 3:30 I was pondering this and asking/meditating on receiving the answer to this and how to explain it. Hopefully this is the message The Divine has given for me to give to you. This will help me, and hopefully you guys as well, as we get into the Book Of Enoch and we talk about the angels. Since there are 3 Books Of Enoch, I'll refer to the one we'll be discussing as 1 Enoch. It is actually the one that describes Enoch as Noah's great grandfather and the knowledge he had. The other 2 expand on the flood and other stories in the Bible.
Sunday or Monday we'll talk about the Ethiopian Bible and their role as protectors of the scriptures because of their connection with Solomon, then next week we'll get into the 1 Enoch.
If you live in the US north of Florida, stay safe warm this weekend there's suppose to be a serious winter storm. If you're somewhere else, it is winter everyone be safe and warm and as always,
If you celebrate Christmas, I hope you had a had a great day and if you have kids, I hope their's was everything they hoped for. If you don't celebrate Christmas I hope you had a wonderful day as well. Maybe you had the day off from work to take advantage of the holiday. Maybe you celebrate Hanukkah. I love that tradition also, I never took part in the Hanukkah tradition, but it always seemed more meaningful than a jolly old man somehow sneaking into your house. When my kids were little Santa brought presents, but we never were super serios about making sure they sat on his lap and all that other stuff. They wrote a letter and left cookies and milk out for him so he could get fatter, but we never really made too much fuss about it. We did make them go to bed early so we could have a reason to have some quiet time 😊😊
Since last week I bought the Nag Hammadi. It's a compilation of books discovered in an area in a town by the same name in Upper Egypt. A local farmer discovered scrolls in pottery as he was digging on his land. The Gospel of Thomas and a bunch of other books that we'll get into. I also bought a couple of Edgar Cayce's books. A Search for God Books 1 and 2, and The Story Of Jesus. I started reading all of them but A Search For God is the one that has sparked my interest first. In some recent posts I mentioned meditation and that maybe not everyone can sit crossed legged, for an long period of time. If you're focusing on the pain in your legs or back then you wouldn't be getting the benefit of your meditation.
The first chapter in the book is called meditation. You may have heard the saying "Praying in talking to God. Meditating is listening to God." Cayce mentions that in this book as well. In the very first line he says, "In the material world we are conscious of the phenomenon of growth. We should be equally aware of spiritual progression that includes both a broadening of understanding of the relation between the Creator and ourselves." He also says, and I'll paraphrase, some people are just content to go through our day to day lives hoping that things will work out for the best, but other people seek a better way, searching for a light that renews hope. "Prayer is the concerted effort of our physical consciousness to become attuned to the Consciousness of the Creator."
"Meditation is the emptying of ourselves of all that hinders the Creative Force from rising along the natural channels of our physical bodies." These natural channels are sensitive spiritual centers in our bodies. Some practices call them Chakras. Meditation is not daydreaming but connecting our mental and physical bodies to their spiritual sources. True meditation is arousing our mental and spiritual attributes with our creator. Will we always receive an immediate answer every time we pray and meditate? Probably not, but like Jesus says in Matthew 6:8, The Father knows what you need before you ask. Praying and meditating shows The Father we are anxious for His guidance. I know sometimes we feel like we wait, and wait and feel like we never get an answer.
Sometimes when we try to make things happen, it seems like we try over and over. Then finally when nothing seems to work, we say OK GOD, what am I suppose to do? The answer comes immediately. That is what Cayce means by attuning ourselves with God. If we can sit, in our most comfortable position. Maybe listen to some soothing music. I like to burn incense. There's no right or wrong way. Just put yourself in a position where you aren't distracted. There's a spot in our backyard that I call my spot. I can go back there under the trees and just have a peaceful feeling. Also in the pool. Whatever works for you is the way you should use to connect with God/Spirit/Creator/Universe or whichever term you like best.
I've also been listening to videos about the Ethiopian Bible. They talk about getting back to the Old Testament names of God. YHWH, and all the names of Jehovah. Through the years we have gotten to where we just say God and that has lost it's personal touch, like when YHWH told Moses to tell Pharaoh I Am sent you to free the people.
There's a lot I want to share, the Lord's Prayer video was way cool, but for I want to focus on Edgar Cayce's teaching on meditation so we can all start connecting to and feeling the presence of Christ Consciousness in our lives.
The next section of Chapter 1 in A Search For God is preparing the body for meditation. We'll get into that next time.
Continuing on with the book The Prodigal God by Timothy Keller, today we're going to look into the personality of the Older Brother and the issues that he had. First though lets understand who Jesus was talking to. The first 2 verses of Luke 15 says "the tax collectors and sinners drew near to Him (Jesus) to hear Him." The Pharisee and Scribes complained saying "This man receives them and eats with them." This means the Pharisees were there as well. The Pharisees were almost always always where Jesus was to try to catch Him doing something wrong. Since Jesus knew His audience He intentionally told this story.
To review, the younger brother came home after blowing all of his inheritance that he received after his father had to sell 1/3 of his land to give him. His father sees him down the road and runs to welcome him home and threw him a lavish party. The older brother gets to the house hears the music, sees the dancing, the feast in the dining room, blows a gasket and won't go inside. I get the image of when a cartoon character gets angry, their face turns red and smoke comes out of their ears. That's how angry you can imagine the older brother is. The father comes out to talk to him to persuade him to come inside but he refuses. He says, still my imagination, I work my butt off around here, do everything I'm suppose to do, barely so much as have a glass of wine or look at a girl, and HE pointing through the window at the party, makes you sell some land so he can get his inheritance early, disowns this family, goes and blows his money doing God knows what, and you welcome him back. NOW, I'll have even less inheritance because he'll get a third of what he left me with.
Without directly saying so, Jesus was letting the pharisees know they were like the older brother. The Pharisees complained about Jesus spending time and even eating with "sinners." The older brother acted all righteous complaining about the sinner younger brother, seeing his moral lifestyle as superior. By rejecting the father's request to come into the party he's portraying himself no better than the younger brother. Both brothers showed their lack of love for the father. The younger for flat out rejecting his family, and the older by rejecting the father thinking he was morally superior.
As we look at this earthly father being in the role of our Heavenly Father, we can see how we sin against God by doing things that would obviously be wrong in the Father's eyes. What isn't as obvious is the holier than thou people thinking they're superior because they're in church every Sunday or every time the doors are open, teaching classes, raising their hands worshipping, yet they're looking down their noses at the girl who has a couple of little kids and no husband, or a full parking lot at a bar on Saturday night. But let them notice a guy walk out of that bar and the same guy come into church Sunday, or the girl with the kids, and see how they treat them, or the whispers they start about them.
Jesus is letting us know that the righteous that don't show love and compassion are no different than the blatant sinner that the righteous love to look down on. There were two other parables that Jesus told before this one that tie into this. We'll talk about these next week.
Hello Everyone, I hope you've all had a good week.
Welcome to Thursdays Child,
As I said Sunday, this week we'll start going to through a book I started reading called The Prodigal God written by Timothy Keller. As we start let's review the story, parable, in Luke 15:11-32 that Jesus told. Instead of writing out 21 verses word for word, to summarize it...
There was once a very wealthy man that had 2 sons. The younger son went to his father and said give me the share of the estate that falls to me. He divided the wealth between them. This younger son took his inheritance, left home, went to another town and started living the partying lifestyle. Booze (whatever they had in that day), hookers and an all around wild lifestyle. Eventually his money ran out. To make matters worse it happened at the same time there was a famine in the land. He did get a job tending to some pigs but he still wasn't able to get food and satisfy his hunger. One day he was so hungry he started eating the pig slop and decided he better swallow his pride and go home. He'll at least be able to eat there. His father's servants were living better than he was. He figured he used up his inheritance so he still didn't have any money but maybe his father would let him be a servant.
His father happened to be outside the day he was coming home and saw him walking on the road toward the house. He ran to meet him and, hugged him and all the way back to the house they talked. The son asked the father if he would hire him as an apprentice to one of the handymen. If he did he could earn money and pay back his inheritance. The father didn't agree to that. He gave him back his status as the son, told the servants to throw a party inviting all the community and to even kill the fattened calf. When the older brother come back to the house the party had started. He heard a lot of people talking and music playing. The father saw him at the door, went and talked to him to come to the party because "his brother was lost but now he has been found." The older brother was so angry he refused. That's where the story leaves us. It doesn't elaborate on what happens with the family in the future.
What the Bible doesn't tell us and what we need to understand, according to The Prodigal God book is, in that day, the inheritance wasn't divided in half. The older brother would have gotten a double portion of what the younger brother would have gotten. So he would have gotten two thirds and the younger brother one third. And for the younger brother to ask for his share now was essentially telling the father, "you are dead to me." Also in that culture the father would have just kicked him out. Instead, to give them his inheritance he had to sell off some of his land to give the son his share. This would have infuriated everyone. The older son and the whole community. so you can imagine the whispers and even the uproar when the younger son came home. Everybody would have been in disbelief that the father would have welcomed, and reinstated him back with full family benefits
When we're taught this story this is usually where we're left off. It teaches the forgiveness of God and no matter what we do, we will always be Children Of God. Never kicked out of the family of God. An important thing I always like to stress is that we all have the same benefits that Jesus had. All the abilities that Jesus had. The ability to heal, and to be directed by the wisdom of God. God will never disown us no matter what we do.
This is also where I'm going to leave it today, but WAIT there's more. Next week we'll get into the righteous, holier than thou attitude of the older brother. Check it out between now and next Thursday
As I mentioned last week earlier this year, after quite a few years of soul and spiritual searching, the teachings of Paramahansa Yogananda starting showing up on Youtube when I was looking for something to listen to while I worked. I was immediately hooked. They're in many countries so they have many channels. Even now, after months and months of listening a few days a week, I can always find something I haven't heard. This week I listened to Ananda Sangha India. Since I knew I'd be talking about Jesus in India I decided to go back and refresh my memory on that. This time it was from a different teacher than I listened to before.
When we think about Jesus as a baby we're taught that He wasn't conceived in the typical human way. That the Holy Spirit placed the seed in Mary, He was born perfect, and lived a sinless life. We tend to read all that superficially though, like a history book. Like it's a nice marvelous story that doesn't affect us, and all that really doesn't affect us. But, if we think about that in a different perspective, let's think about that baby relying on his mother for milk, and food in general as he grew older, his parents for protection because there were death threats on his life. He had a brothers and at least 2 sisters that aren't mentioned in the Bible. What kind of things did they do? Were there sibling rivalries? Did He wonder why he was able to learn the Jewish laws and scripture so easily? We have to think, as a child, he didn't just realize at 5 years old "Hey I'm God!!" As a human with the Christ Consciousness, I would imagine that ego wouldn't have been an issue, so He probably wasn't a jerk to his family.
In the biblical account of His birth it wasn't the elite that got the word that he was born. It was the shepherds, the lower class of people. It was the Wise Men IN THE EAST that found out He was born. They said they followed the star in the east. That's important because according to Yogananda, when you think about it it makes sense, they were in the East. How did they go east when they were in the East? The fact that the wise men came to see him is important because it was a reminder that Jesus was born in the Orient and His teachings bore the influence of the Eastern Culture and customs. In fact the Wise Men were great sages. Like I mentioned in the post to lead up to this one, there are manuscripts that say Jesus went to India when He was 13 to stay with and learn from these sages til He was in His late 20's. This is where His own God-Realization reawakened and was reinforced in the company of these masters. During these years He traveled around India teaching what He was learning to ultimately fulfill His mission to return home and teach these things to the Jewish people. One of, if not the main focus of His teaching was "The Kingdom Of Heaven Is Within." When His people didn't see an earthly kingdom to deliver them from Roman rule most of them rejected Him, even to the point of accusing Him of blasphemy and handing Him over to be killed.
In the next few weeks we'll be discussing The Kingdom Of heaven Within, Reincarnation and the fact that Jesus actually taught Yoga.
The underlined parts in this post are taken from the book The Second Coming Of Christ, The Resurrection Of Christ Within You by Paramahansa Yogananda. I've included images of the paragraphs from the book where I took those quotes.
I hope you find this as interesting as I do and you continue to pursue it even more. You can count on finding more here and there are so many videos out there if you're also an audio learner.
The reason we read the Bible is naturally to get some inspiration from God. As we read, thoughts come to mind, and some people say "God spoke to me." I prefer to say "God showed me." I have been known to say God spoke to me, but only because that is such a common phrase some times it just slips out. In reality I have never heard an audible voice from the heavens, and although I have heard of it happening, I believe it is very, very rare. I believe everyone gets inspiration and God touches our hearts when we read the Bible. I only say this because, I've noticed that as we go through the book of John, God has been showing me the human side of Jesus, and John 2 18-25 is no exception. Imagine the looks on the people's faces after Jesus went ballistic on them. They asked Him(vs 18) "What right do you have to do these things? If you have this authority from God show us a miraculous sign to prove it." "Alright." Jesus replied. "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up." Now imagine the new look on their faces. "WHAT!!" looking at each other. What the heck is He talking about. "It took forty years to build this temple." I just imagine them thinking- we're not going to tear down our temple to let you prove a point. So they just walked away shaking their heads, mumbling derogatory things about Jesus. He did however do some miraculous things at the Passover celebration, and many people were convinced that He was the Messiah, but since He was refering to His body as the temple, they didn't understand that statement until He was raised from the dead. Verses 24 and 25 says, He knew human nature so He didn't trust them. I also think, He knew human nature, and because of His own human qualities He decided to mess with their heads. He knew they wouldn't understand it so He decided to have a little fun with them. It was a joke only He understood, but I'm sure He got a kick out of watching them walk away confused. Since He had the advantage of divine and human qualities it must have been fun to mess with them. As we search we have the benefit of knowing that Jesus is God and human, so it's fun to see both sides of Him. Thanks for searching with me, Paul
I was glad when I saw the scripture for todays Thursdays Child is an angry Jesus. John 2:13-17. I have always liked this scripture, because once again it shows a very human side of Jesus.
To summarize this passage, Jesus goes to Jerusalem for the Passover, when He goes into the temple He finds merchants selling their merchandise. He becomes very angry, pushes their stuff onto the ground, turns over their tables, yells at them and drives them out of the temple.
I have always liked this because Jesus shows us it's okay to be angry, and to show anger. one thing that has always bothered me is that a lot of times people are taught that it is okay to feel anger but, don't hit, don't stomp your feet, don't scream, don't slam the door. Well, how are we suppose to express our anger? It seems we're not. So we suppress it. So we have a bunch of angry people walking around not able to vent their anger because they are told it's wrong. I say WWJD? I think What Would Jesus Do should apply to everything. Not just the warm and fuzzy things. I have mentioned Neil Anderson of Freedom In Christ Ministries before. He is a biblical counselor. He really stresses taking every thought captive from 2Corinthians 10:5. Lets not forget Ephesians 4:26. Be angry but do not sin. So where do you draw the line? Who determines what sin is? Would some people consider what Jesus did sin, because it was somewhat violent? But, Jesus never sinned. So again where is that line? At what point do we cross it? Violating a law maybe? Assault, murder. I believe we should be able to go to the gym and take our frustrations out on a punching bag, or if you can't go, punch your pillow or something. If you are a crier go have a good cry, go somewhere and scream as loud as you can, just get it out. Notice I have not said anything about punching a hard stationary object. Definitely not a good idea. I've thought before I would like to start a place for people -my thought was mainly youth -to have a place to just go vent. To have people there to listen if they want to talk. But also to have punching bags and other methods to just to be able to release that anger. Why do you think that arcade game whac-a-mole is so popular? Okay, maybe that's not the real reason but it could be. Keeping anger in, can turn to bitterness. It has been proven that bitterness that is allowed to grow and fester can lead to various kinds of health problems. The true cure to all anger and bitterness is forgiveness. You cannot be angry after forgiving someone.
Search yourself today is there someone you're angry with? It's okay to vent but don't let that anger build up. As soon as you figure the source of your anger forgive that person. They don't even have to know you have forgiven them, all they will see is the change in you.
This is always a tough one to get a handle on so, thanks for searching with me, Paul.
Welcome to another Sunday edition of Thursdays Child. I'm excited about it after last weeks disappointing look at our Christian community. This week is fun because I was able to see Jesus as the obedient son. Instead of typing it all out, a summary the wedding feast miracle would read, Jesus, his mother and some of the disciples were at a wedding feast. Jesus' mother came to Him and told Him they had ran out of wine. He asked her "What does that have to do with us?" "My time has not yet come." She told the servants "Do what he tells you." He told the servants to fill a bunch of pots with water. All of a sudden the water was wine.
My question is, why did He make the wine? He told her no, it was not His concern. Was there more dialogue than is written? I am only going to base this theory stricktly from this scripture in the book of John. I haven't searched any of the other books. I'm thinking she could have said something like "You may be God but I'm still your mother young man." What I've really been wondering is, Did she give Him the "MOMMY LOOK?" You know she had to have one. I don't believe there is a parent in history that doesn't.
What do I think? I think she gave Him the look, raised her eyebrows at Him or whatever, immediately turned to the servants and said "Do what He says." and she walked off. In other words this conversation is over, you will do it. Then like a good boy, He hung His head and told the servants to go get water.
Was it an appropriate use of His powers? Who knows? Who cares? I think it has more to do with Deuterotomy 6:16. Honor thy mother and father. His mom told Him to do it, He did it. Not only did He make the wine He made the best wine possible.
That just gave me a thought. If you've ever known someone having self esteem issues and told them "God don't make junk." This is a good example of that. Even when the people were already drunk and the less expensive wines were usually used God made the best. He is perfect He can't make less than the best.
It was fun to look at Jesus as a momma's boy, but most of all it was interesting to see that even though He was God, He was on this earth as a human and had to live according to the laws set up for us
Well, I've taken a bit of a detour from the Thursdays Child. I had to relieve some of the pressure building up, if you remember the post, Spontaneous Combustion Declining. I thought this week would be a good week to get back to it. James MacDonald at Harvest Bible Chapel posted an interesting blog this week about the rapture. To refresh your memory he is one of the ones who started churches helping churches, mainly for the people of Haiti. He is going through Revelation at his church. He gave scripture supporting the post tribulation rapture. Matthew 24:29,30. All of chapter 24 talks about the end times but verses 29 and 30 say "immediately after those horrible days end, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers of heaven will be shaken. Then at last the sign of the coming of the Son of Man will appear in the heavens, and there will be a deep mourning among all the nations of the earth. And they will see the Son of Man arrive on the clouds of heaven with power and glory.
All of us who were taught a pre tribulation rapture were taught 1Thesalonians 4
I got interrupted that's why this isn't posted on Thursday. I decided since I wasn't writing I'd check out more pre-trib scriptures. What I found really bothered me. I found a whole bunch of web sites supporting both positions. That wasn't necessarily the disturbing part, I mean isn't that what we're all doing. What I did find, was that some of them would go so far as to undermine and talk bad about the other. This won't be cleared up 'til it happens, if it happens. And we won't know until then. So gee, can't we act like children of God? Does the phrase Love One Another ring a bell? I did come across a prophetic one that said the body of Christ will join together and there will be no more talk of the rapture.
What I would like to remind everyone is that it boils down to we are suppose to live like it will happen now, or maybe now, or now or......
What I really wanted to share with you Thursday when I started this post is, on James MacDonald's post he coined the greatest phrase,
Don't be a part of the planning committee, be a part of the welcoming committee
I named the weekly posting Thursdays Child as a personal growth tool, because we all have so far to go. My original thought was to go through sections of the Bible and share with you my version of the Bible according to Paul, with God's direction of course. Well, I learned last night there are other things I would like to share with you as well. As I have said before, I have a big interest in martial arts. Some people in the "Christian Community" are skeptical of the martial arts because they are rooted in other religions. I have found that people's prejudice are usually based on ignorance. As I said in the previous "Inner Self" we should take a little time each day to quietly reflect and search for our inner self. I have as much time as anyone else to do this. That's why Tai Chi is a good escape for me. Tai Chi doesn't focus as much on punching and kicking as other Arts. It focuses alot on the mental aspect with a little emphasis on the fighting aspect. Well, last night night at Tai Chi we went through a mental exercise that dealt with finding you within yourself. The exercise itself isn't as important as the end result, which is what I really want to talk about here. As we began the exercise there was a period of deep breathing to relax and focus and once we began searching for the true person within, I personally felt a sense of sadness. It was weird, in a circumstance like that when you're not affected by outside influences and you are aware of true feelings and emotions, it will surprise you what you can find out about yourself. The question is, why the sad feelings? What was it about myself that I possibly didn't want to see as I looked inward? What was I going to have to fix once I saw it? Well, there were no clear cut hidden demons in my inner closet. I did however emerge from the meditation, I was reluctant to use the term for fear of freaking out the vast hardcore christians that would get the picture of sitting around chanting Buddhists chants, with a brighter outlook or perspective on life if you will. I was going to say more enlightened but I didn't want to push my luck. The point is, although it can be scary to look, once we do search for our true self we come away pleasantly surprised. Possibly, hopefully having a better, more forgiving attitude toward those around us and the world in general. So remember, keep searching, any change we can make has to be for the better. Thanks for searching with me, Paul
Welcome to Nite Reflections. A place where hopefully we will find some answers as we search this tug-of-war we call a christian life. A place where we can talk about some of the things that bug us about the modern day "religious community," and periodically I'll throw in a short story that hopefully you'll find interesting. There are links at the bottom of the page of friends, family and other teachings I enjoy. Don't forget to check them out. Thanks for searching with me. Paul
Although I have strong background in Christianity I believe there is alot we can learn from each other. As a martial arts enthusiast I'm interested in the Chinese culture and their religion. This photo is from my facebook page. Please join me over there if you would like to. The other three religions above are ones I don't necessarily practice but enjoy learning about.
