Thinking Aloud

  Ecclesiastes 7:29 NLT God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path. There, you have the history of mankind in a nutshell!  When God created man, He did not create him like a robot, but designed him into a creature of thinking, reasoning, remembering and planning, with a free will to make choices. He placed at the depth of man’s heart the knowledge of God (Romans 1:19), but man was expected to exercise his free will to love God. God never intervened in this. In the worst scene, even those who were called by God for a specific purpose rejected the path of righteousness and followed the dictates of their hearts. Let us examine a few examples from the Holy Bible: Solomon : David was a faith mountain, God's chosen servant, called by God ‘’a man after my own heart’’. Out of his many sons, God had chosen Solomon to sit on the throne of the kingdom Israel . He also enabled Solomon to build a magnificent temple in Jerusalem for...

    Psalm 37 authored by King David is a response to the problem of evil. Spurgeon  calls it "The great riddle of the prosperity of the wicked and the affliction of the righteous". Why do the wicked prosper and the good suffer? The Psalm answers that the situation is only temporary; God will reverse things, rewarding the good and punishing the wicked here on earth.  The Book of Psalm is a prayer of the persecuted who has taken refuge in God. Psalm 37 concludes with a plea to God for those who honor him, to bless them with his justice and to protect them from the snares of the wicked.  Verse 11 of this Psalms was quoted by  Jesus in  Matthew 5:5 , “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth”. The sentiment is repeated 5 times in Psalms 37! The Psalm contains many other features that make it unique. Primary among them are the great numbers of rewards promised to those who have placed their trust in the Lord. 1.     ...

  There are many among us who find it difficult to prevail long in prayers or to “pray at all times”; they think not all can become men and women of prayer, that it is a sacred communion which only a privileged few are expected to perform. They shy away from prayers and are happy to leave prayer to trained workers and leaders. This is just an excuse for laziness and for difficulty in concentration. We must remember that in the   New Testament all believers are declared priests of God.         1 Peter 2:9 says we are a chosen people, royal priests , a holy nation, and God’s very own possession. Consider carefully the following Scriptures: ·       Ephesians 6:18, “And   pray in the Spirit on all occasions   with all kinds of prayers and requests.” ·       1 Thessalonians 5:17 , “Pray without ceasing.” In other words, “Pray at all times” or “Pray continually.” ·   ...

  Isaiah 55:8 “ For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways," declares the LORD . God is the personal Spirit, perfectly good, who in holy love creates, sustains, and orders all. He is the absolute personality--an object of worship. There can be no definition of the idea of God, because we can have no idea of Him, no knowledge, in the strict sense of knowing. No one can know His mind, St. Paul says in Romans 11:34 . If it were not for the fact that God reveals His thoughts to us, we would know nothing about them. God, however, does reveal to us some of His thoughts, sometimes. He is under no obligation to reveal the fullness of what He knows to us. While nothing is more certain than that God exists, His being is to human thought utterly mysterious and inscrutable. Any attempt by philosophers to bring clarity into the matter of God’s personality results in only confusing the matter further! As humans, we often attempt to apply human logic to God and fai...

  1John 5:6, 8 This is the one who came by water and blood--Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies because the Spirit is the truth. The Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. Crucifixion was usually intended to provide a death that was particularly slow, painful, gruesome, humiliating, and public.   The victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden beam and left to hang, perhaps for several days, until eventual death from exhaustion and  asphyxiation . The victim was stripped naked and put on public display while they were slowly tortured to death so that they would serve as a  spectacle and an example . It was used to punish  slaves ,  pirates , and enemies of the state. Victims were sometimes left on display even after death as a warning to any other potential criminals. Often crucifixion was preceded by scourging , in order to hasten impending death. T...

  HEAVEN IS THE ABODE of God and of the hosts of angels although the Almighty’s presence is not really confined to any region ( 1Kings 8:27).   In   Isaiah 66. 1  the Lord asserts “Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool. Could you build me a temple as good as that? Besides, Could you build me such a resting place?”  Psalm 11:4   says “the Lord is in His holy  Temple ; the Lord still rules from heaven. He watches everyone closely, examining every person on earth”.   St. John’s  vision in   Revelations 4:2   reports ‘’And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and  One  sat on the throne’’ . The structure of heaven itself is never fully discussed in the Bible. Old Testament envisioned the heavens as having multiple layers.  St. Paul  describes three layers. There is almost no mention in the Old Testament of heaven as a possible afterlife de...