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Normally I would have waited until Father’s day to release this article but it was on my mind and so I decided to share my thoughts about it.
Anyway I believe that most normal people have a desire to please and identify with their father or a fatherly figure. However when this relationship is hindered from developing through some sort of dysfunction, such as with an absentee father through death, divorce, abandonment, neglect or abuse, etc. then this may have a profound effect on how they view Father God. This can promote a tendency to project such emotionally strong feelings of negativity as leading to a lack of trust with skepticism and hostility towards the ultimate authority and Father, namely God. Sometimes you experience this when you meet a person who reminds you of someone else who has mistreated you as influencing the way you think and behave around them as also including roles and gender.
Of course I realize that this scenario may not always describe all people who are able to positively work through this dilemma or on the other hand esteem their atheist/agnostic fathers as a role model in taking on their mantle of unbelief.
Yet even if a person is able to disassociate between Heaven and Earth there is another problem that emerges with the question of “How could God allow me to be victimized by life?” Respectfully, this predicament is the crux of the human condition as involving depraved, free will creatures who are ultimately responsible for their actions which I have written more about in another article dealing with pain, suffering, and evil.

Pain, Suffering and Evil

Another argument against the concept of an Almighty Father or God is by simply regarding it as “wish fulfillment” in strictly meeting their emotional needs and yet this is a moot point as this can equally apply to someone who also avoids God for psychological reasons e.g., immorality.

God is a crutch

Then there is the situation on how to reconcile the concept of Hell with a good Father who is both loving and just and all the questions that go with this matter which also becomes a non issue for those who are in a relationship with God as fulfilling the Creator’s will for their lives as His desire is that none should perish, 2 Peter 3:9, Mt. 25:41.

Is Hell Real?

What the Hell

Also whether consciously or subconsciously we all seem to have a tendency to want to make this intimate connection with our fathers even if it means substituting this heavenly/earthly model of a fatherly image to include counterfeits e.g., false religion and cults.

How to have a relationship with God

Furthermore in trying to get our fathers acceptance or approval we may also look for other avenues in which to please them such as our accomplishments or even by blaming ourselves for their failures so as to somehow win their favor. Yet whatever the situation might be, our earthly fathers, even at their very best is nothing compared to the Heavenly Father who loves you for the person He created you to be, Mt 7:7-11, Psalms 139:13-16.
Lastly if you have never received God’s love as your Heavenly Father I would ask you to reconsider your motives for rejecting Him. Happy Father’s Day my friend. #Godisgood

Romans 8:14-17 

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God. 15 For you didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”

16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God; 17 and if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified with him.

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My post is not about the historicity of the holiday but more about the modern way in which it is celebrated as usually involving family gatherings, good food, ball games and a turkey nap. This scene is typical and customary among contemporary American households and in my opinion doesn’t really exemplify a spirit of thankfulness as much as it does an excuse to get together with those we love over food.
Sometimes this kind of behavior is no different than a church service as seeing an opportunity for socializing as trying to stay awake during the worship festivities while dreaming about the potluck dinner afterwards.
Anyway I know I’m talking turkey here but my intention is to remind all of us to reflect upon the goodness of God, with gratitude, as in Him we live and move and have our being as giving us everything we need for life and godliness by which we should continually praise Him as the Bestower of great blessings upon our life. Are you truly thankful? Romans 1:21, 2 Peter 1:3, 1 Chronicles 16:34, Acts 17:28, James 1:17.

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Some may think of Jesus as a door to door salesman or a cold call telemarketer. So that when He phones or approaches your door you pretend not to be available or at home by not answering the call or knock, others may become disgusted as slamming the door in His face or hanging up the phone, or if caught off guard unexpectedly may just dismiss Him all together by simply saying I’m not interested.
Now I am know what you might be thinking, this is just like those annoying religious people who you try to avoid when they show up at your door step peddling their religious wares. But I’m not talking about joining some kind of man made religion, but rather, securing a loving relationship, not someone trying to pressure you like a greedy salesman who is only interested in stealing the deal with some sales pitch as promoting a heavenly gimmick while avoiding the pit fall of Hell just to get your money.
Rather it is a complete role reversal from a “what’s in it for Him” to a “what’s in it for me”, as receiving rather than giving, Mt. 20:28.
We have been conditioned to believe that such behavior should be treated with great skepticism as sounding to good to be true and yet when it originates from the perfect love of God then we should take the offer more seriously, John 3:16.
This reminds me of the story of the Samaritan woman in John 4 who sees Jesus as an opportunist wanting a drink of water not realizing that this was going to be the offer of an eternal lifetime as receiving His “living water” of which she would not thirst again. Thus the reality of this whole visit became disproportionately advantageous to what seemed to be a momentary inconvenience.
Anyway when Jesus shows up, and He will, I would kindly ask that you would at least hear Him out before taking your business elsewhere.

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Being this time of the year I thought I would write about Halloween, or as my wife calls it Helloween. Anyway the purpose of this blog is not to debate the nature of this holiday but to discuss how some people treat Christ as a “Trick or Treater” who comes knocking at our door thinking of Him like some kind of folklore spirit that needs the sweet appeasement of our personal peace offerings so as not to be tricked to Hell.
So when greeted from behind closed doors they dress the part in their relationship to God as stating, I am a good person, I do good deeds, or I am trying to do better. They may even mention their yearly attendance of services around certain sacred events, performing the mantra’s of confession and creeds with rituals performed and monies given. Their seasonal devotion may include decorative statuaries, symbols, and wall hangings.
Yet these measly kind of sacrificial offerings are trivially characteristic of cultus religious activities as adding to the bag of different goodies in hoping to find another year of peace and prosperity,  Ephesians 2:8-9, Hebrews 10.
Yet what God desires is to Cross over the threshold of our homes rather than fearfully being kept at arm’s length as a costumed stranger, Revelation 3:20.
Therefore God is holding out to us with the intention of receiving a personal relationship rather than  securing the benefits of a one night fest.

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My wife recently went to an optometrist due to a flash of light that is intermittently occurring in one of her eyes. Before conducting a more thorough examination to find the source of this problem he first gave her an eye exam in which the optometrist discovered that her eyes were worse off than the “over the counter” reading glasses she was using. To determine her visual acuity he checked her vision with the phoropter by asking her questions as he changed the lens, such as, how does that look or appear, is that clearer, is that better, so on and so forth.
Apart from this subjective questioning he also would have used a more objective method by utilizing a retinoscope or autorefractor to project light into her pupil as to measure and study the light reflex. This is pretty much a standard procedure to determine the refractive error of the eyes with the intent of correcting her vision to a more normal condition.
As a starting point, another basic and quick method to see how well our eyes are functioning is by using the Snellen Eye Chart. By reading lines of letters the standard or optimal range for our eyesight is determined to be somewhere around 20/20 whereas most humans are unable to see any better than 20/10 and anything worse than 20/40 means that a corrective lens is needed just to drive a vehicle.
What really got my attention to this whole process was a dialogue that took place between the optometrist and my wife who was having difficulty in understanding his point of reference as English is not my wife’s first language or culture. This disparity over word usage challenged the patience of the optometrist in trying to explain the matter that at one point he asked me if I could make her understand what he meant.
One comical exchange that took place was when the optometrist was trying to convince my wife that her vision needed correction in order to see better and my wife in turn told him my vision is just fine, so better than what? The optometrist said that her vision was not normal according to his examination which she had agreed to as looking through the various lenses as contrasting her normal vision to an enhancement made available through his instruments. There were other side conversations that took place as well which contested his judgments but basically the outcome of his trained and experienced observation was that she was losing her eyesight regardless of denial or unawareness and her first clue should have been the purchase of her reading glasses.
This is somewhat like the human condition in that just like our eyes, which typically function better when they are youthful, so does our moral aptitude which is generally more insightful as seeing our true condition which isn’t blurred or distorted as damaged by living life. I am told that the eye has the capacity to adapt to trying to correct our visual handicaps much like we try to do when we don’t quite measure up to the standard of God’s law which is plainly written upon our hearts so as to correctly see the chart of right and wrong, good and evil, as either justifying or condemning our behavior,Romans 1: 18-32, 2:14-16.
What happens as adults we challenge the Eye Maker through sophisticated adaptations or arguments as denying we have any seeing problems to begin with by avoiding the eye doctor all together, redefining our own way of looking at the chart through the subjectivity of relativism as seeing an E as possibly an M, W or an F, by comparing our sight with others as average or a little better or a little worse, or by outright not wearing our glasses at all for whatever reason or excuse, etc., etc.
However the conscious is God’s visual cue to the inner eye to view the symptoms of guilt and shame in our lives. God’s light manifestly reveals this in a language that we all can see and understand so that we are without excuse. The good news is that by examining His revelatory word we can more perfectly recognize that He has given us eyes to see the hope of Truth as in Christ apart from the condemnation for those who refuse to see it God’s way.

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*Aspects of this blog post are paraphrased

We recently took a vacation in Missouri with my daughter/son-in-law and my parents. The part of Missouri that we visited was in the Ozark Mountains at Roaring River State Park.
mostateparks.com/park/roaring-river-state-park
My family stayed in a log cabin and we trout fished, barbecued, made S’mores over a campfire, and just basically had some good family time.
The highlight of the trip was the trout fishing which started in the morning and went all day; finishing in the evening with a siren which meant you needed to quit fishing and make it to the cleaning station to take care of your fish.
We had to purchase a fishing license and a daily permit which only allowed us to keep four trout a day which were primarily Rainbow Trout.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_trout
Anyway the water was crystal clear and you could often see the fish that you were catching before you even got them to the bank. Some used real bait while others used an artificial bait such as a “Power Bait” which simulated salmon eggs with various colors/scents or artificial lures such as dry flies and spinners, etc.
When utilizing man-made materials the concept was to trick the fish into thinking they were getting something real, as naturally occurring, which corresponded with the spawning season as many of the trout we cleaned had egg sacks or perhaps something that mimicked the insects in the area. Furthermore, the secret was to use a very light test fishing line with a 907 gram fluorocarbon leader along with a very small hook (No.8-12), for concealment, which is undetectable to the fish as they have a very keen sense of sight.
One way to fish was to place a lead weight, such as a split-shot, about .3 to .6 meters above the bait and throw the rig upstream allowing it to naturally drift down with the current. The eggs and dry flies are designed to float so as to give it a very attractive and appealing approach to the fish which are competing for food in the river.
We happened to be fishing downstream of a hatchery so there was plenty of fish you just had to make the right presentation to catch them.
Of course, I like to use analogies when living life as to correlate activities to that of a spiritual reality or truth. In this instance, I see that our culture often presents us with a worldview(s) which we often find alluring for various reasons. What usually gets our attention is something which we as humans often find attractive; of which we innately hunger for in respect to sustenance, beyond that of local cuisine, as something that is properly basic to the human psyche as to give ultimate purpose and meaning to life as to discover “Who am I” and “Why am I here” as attaining such universal values as love, joy, and peace.
I think that many times we find ourselves taking the bait (a.k.a. hook, line, and sinker) when we find something that at first glance may seem to satisfy these primal instincts as becoming hooked, not realizing that such superficiality can result in being reeled in as caught off-guard only to be exploited by the Catcher who steals, kills, and destroys, John 10:10.
The bible portrays such a character as Satan who is the personification of evil as an adversary and deceiver of humanity who presents an array of various tackle in the form of false religion and philosophy as to satiate the cravings of our sinful soul to capture us in deceit as enticing us, without revealing to us its artificiality, in presenting it as authentically true or as half-truths e.g., Adam and Eve in Eden and Jesus in the Wilderness.
Antithetically Jesus enlisted some fisherman whom he called ‘Fishers of Men’ who had kind of a catch and release method as relocating the fish, unharmed, from such dangerous waters to inhabit streams of living water, John 7:37-39 and John 10:10.
The final question isn’t whether or not we will be caught but rather who or what has caught us. I have written more articles about this very subject at
jesusandjews.com/wordpress/category/seekers/

 
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Death is a reality we all have to face sooner or latter. Most of us never really know when that fatal moment is going to be and therefore we should be prepared to face the possibility of life beyond the temporal physicality of this life.
I have a couple of reputable friends that have had near death experiences (NDE’s) and have spoken to me of a heavenly experience.
Anyway even though I can’t confirm every story or testimony I would still encourage you to be open to the possibility of the afterlife.

www.godtube.com/watch/?v=KYD7DPNX

www.godtube.com/watch/?v=F1JJCMNU

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