Tag Archives: Christianity

Phenomenology Response

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Chart about the Hegel's "Phenomenology of...

Chart about the Hegel’s “Phenomenology of Spirit” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Sometimes (actually more often than not) the Lord directs our words with a specific flavor when we converse with others about the nature of Himself and the Gospel.  I wanted to share His reply to an individual who is searching out the meaning of (or in) life.  Perhaps you too will find it interesting and useful:

Chinny:  I had never heard of phenomenology.  But the concept has rattled around in my mind for decades.  I didn’t think the world would have a word for what comes natural.  But, go figure.

Every man can approach an understanding of life from any aspect he chooses.  Who am I to say we are wrong as we search out the truth.  On the other hand, when we find a helpful directive, it is wise to attempt to share what we know.

Please allow me to respond to the concept of understanding the ultimate meaning of and in life.  If we are striving to understand or grasp the absolute truth of any subject, we may toy with lesser values in the beginning.  But there is a place where diluted materials stop providing information.  I have reached that lack of answers years ago.  And was forced to turn to pure materials to develop a pure understanding of what is pure and true.  Scientifically speaking, we get the answers we deserve according to the purity of the experiment.

People, in their best basic format, are full of misunderstandings, differings of opinions, and tossed about by all kinds of misinformation.  It seems a bit crude to me that we should strive to understand the perfection of God truth by linking together a mass of fallible knowledge.  Therefore, I would suggest that we would be better served in our quest by searching out the purest truth available to man.

The truth we seek should not be a peaceful and joyfilled understanding.  We have both established that man’s relationships will be full of turmoil.  So we surmise that any understanding of purity will necessarily be a bit disquieting to a tumultuous creature.  Only after repetition and learning can we hope to endure that truth with any sense of peace.  In other words, we come to understand the value of purity by experience alone (assuming that we have found what is pure and make it our specific target of bending our will.)

This is a very difficult subject, as is proven by the amount of words men have employed to research it.  I believe you and I are on the cutting edge of balance between true discovery (of a personal nature).  Now what remains is the ability to willingly approach the subject minus that sickness of pride that attends every man.  Don’t misunderstand that comment about pride.  It lives quite vibrantly in every one of us, and often goes undetected by our own perception.  It is quite obvious to others, however.  And, in the end, we find that we have not reached the fullness of understanding simply for lack of true humility.

I hope I have added something to the conversation here.

No Choice?

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Vegetables

Vegetables (Photo credit: WordShore)

We go to the store to buy something.  When we get there, there is an amazing variety of choices for each product.  We get up in the morning and encounter choices.  We want to explain something and we have thousands of words to choose from.  In everything we encounter here, there are billions of choices.  We get accustomed to making choices.  And we begin to believe that everything has a choice to make.

But in the way of eternal life there is no choice.  You either have life or you don’t.  You either have Jesus’ blessing or you don’t.  There are many choices we can make as we work out our salvation.  But God is truth.  There is very little room for choice when it comes to truth.

There are variety of items in creation.  But there is One God, One Savior, One Holy Spirit, One baptism, One faith, and so on.  It isn’t up to us to create choices in our salvation.  It belongs to us to limit our appetite for choice and accept the Lord’s offer.

Learning to Be Happy With Chaos

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English: Quite the happy dog.

English: Quite the happy dog. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What I am about to write is beyond man’s ability to comprehend.  How then can anyone expect that my words will do it any justice at all?  Yet it is important to voice the following.  So, with your mercy, I will form these words with all the care I can muster.  May God bless every word so that He will be glorified in them.

My little dog is a bit slow.  I can dance my hand around her and watch her try to keep up with the speed of the movement.  In this way, she is like me.  The world is far too fast and complicated for me to keep up with.  It dances around me like an angry horde of bees.  Stings come far too fast for me to predict.  Defending myself is useless.

Now you would think that my little dog would become a bit dejected at not being able to play with me at the same speed.  But the contrary is true.  She seems to delight in the inability to predict the next move.  How amazingly beautiful is her spirit.  And it is right that I should envy her ability to embrace her lack.

If God had made only three trees on a tiny little semblance of the world, the complications of keeping those three trees alive and thriving would be endlessly complicated.  But He has created billions and billions of plants, creatures, clouds, waters, and man.  Yet not one item in His creation lacks what it needs to thrive.  If the world is too fast for me to fend with, how much more is the nature of God beyond our ability to comprehend.

This would dishearten me if I hadn’t heard of His promise to embrace His people; caring for our individual needs as if we were the only creation.  Like my little dog, I am enthralled at His speed and ability.  I wait to see His next move in my life.  And I am thrilled when I hear His approach.   Another wonderful game of eternal Holiness is about to be played.  And I quiver with anticipation.

While man is so very proud of his accomplishments, he has only begun to define what God has been doing for eternity past.  Nothing we use or create on this earth can match the wonder of a may fly.  The entire mass of invention from man does not even come close to the amazing miracle of a single flower.  Man boasts that he can even create life.  But the tools he uses were already available from the hand of the eternal and Holy God who made all that is.  In this, man creates nothing.  He only manipulates what has been provided by God.  So where is the boasting?  It is everywhere, sadly.

Were man able to create a miniature universe, complete with a living breathing world within it, he would not be able to see what is on that planet.  Consider how small the earth is compared to the vast nature of the universe about us.  We don’t even know where in the universe we sit.  Yet God cares for the gnats and even germs that inhabit this place of glory.

All this, I wrote, only gives inspiration to consider the greatness of God’s work.  And to top it all off, we are promised a perfect place that we cannot even begin to conceive.  So the next time the world comes against you with a vengeance, and you find that you can’t cope with the speed and complicated mess it offers, take heart.  We are designed to be helpless from the beginning.  It is this helplessness that enables the transformation Jesus purposes for all men.  We are nothing.  He is everything.  And it is up to us to learn to dance before Him in this place of testing.

May You be Glorified by these words, O’ Lord of Life and Hope.  Your name is Jesus.  And You have caused me to be unashamed at that name.  Glory is Yours from beginning to end.  For the Father has given You this title, and endlessly more.  We who live in the Spirit You give salute You with joy filled sacrifice.  This is as it should be.

By His Grace, Amen.

What God Promises Comes to Pass.

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English: Woodcut of the Augsburg Confession, A...

English: Woodcut of the Augsburg Confession, Article VII, “Of the Church”. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

What God has promised to do will be done.  Though man counts time in days and years, God’s promise to transform His people cannot be broken.  We look at our lives and worry attends our thoughts.  We have come to believe that we have stepped over the line and now stand counted as an enemy of God.  How can that be so?

Look back.  How easy was it to believe when you first heard the Gospel?  What has changed over the years?  You heard the call to righteousness and holiness.  You allowed yourself to believe the message that those who live in sin can’t expect eternal life.  Your soul shook with fear and your responded with confession.  Remember how you felt that first touch of freedom from a guilty conscience when you embraced the promise of God to forgive?

We all know what has changed.  In our struggle against sin we have fallen to temptation.  At first it was a mistake to allow ourselves to be fooled into death.  But when we turned to God for help, didn’t help arrive?  He no more desires us to die now than He did when we first believed.  As long as you are in this bag of flesh hope remains.  What has changed is a gradual dulling of our hope, which is a direct result of a learned disobedience.

How do we reclaim that vibrant hope?  Refocus your efforts to believe.  It’s not something we can actually manipulate with our hands.  We simply give up our own struggle, confess our lack, and wait for His response.  The struggle will resume soon enough.  And you will be tested again.  But the renewal of our time of confession, and subsequent receiving of hope, will give us a strength we did not have at the start of our journey.  We will have proven to ourselves, once again, that God’s promise is stronger than our failings.

I do not say these things as a novice.  Over 25 years God has proven His ability to save me.  Though you have no need to trust the word of a man, the testimony I give here comes from a myriad of testings regarding this hope we share.  I testify, as do all who remain hopeful, that God is able and WILLING to cause us to live.  If you give up it is because you choose to stop believing.  Simply make the choice to believe again.  It’s really that easy, my friends.  You need not wallow in pig slop any longer.

What is the Power of The Gospel of Jesus?

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Power Lines

Power Lines (Photo credit: shaundon)

What is the power of the Gospel of Jesus?  How does it manifest itself among men?  What is its target?  And how do we know we have entered into the envelope of salvation?

The power of the Gospel is that The Sacrifice necessary to gain The Holy Father’s smile has been paid.  We are now free to live our own interpretation of the “Good Live”.  We who believe have gained a confidence to live that others cannot own.  Not only eternity is promised, but guidance and protection is extended from the only One who can give it without reservation.  So the power of the Gospel of Jesus is a powerful peace, confidence, freedom, and hope that cannot be taken away by anything.  It is God who gives it.  Who can strike His Kingdom and rip away what we have?

The manifestation of this Gospel among men is a violent love.  It does not care what others think about what we do.  Those who love as God loves are not bound by the laws of men.  Social norms of men are but a shadow of a tree in the darkness of night, while the norms of God’s rule are like blazing explosions of good in the streets of the city of blind wickedness.

God’s good works among His people cannot be hidden.  But they are never announced with pride.  The Gospel does not announce itself to men, as if to say, “I am about to do a good thing.”  The good work begins and comes to completion; power displayed and unrestrainable.  Do the clouds announce that the sun is about to rise?  Doesn’t the sun simply come up every morning?  While men will praise their light bulbs, they also complain that the sun is too hot, that there are too many clouds, or that it came up too early.  But the Gospel moves forward despite the desires of men.

This is the target of the Gospel:  That God should receive all praise for what has been established.  Men will contrive many means to manipulate what He has ordained should be.  They will build houses to shield themselves from the elements.  Men curse the night.  They curse the day.  They curse the cold and heat.  But the elements are established by God.  And it is praise that is due what He has caused to be.  Many other elements of life here in this place of testing are cursed by man.  But it is those who trust Him completely that find release from this cursing. They learn to accept what comes upon them without murmur.  This is the target of the Gospel of Jesus: that His people should learn to live with God as their leader, no longer listening to their complaining desires.

This is how we know we have entered into the envelope of salvation; that we no longer perceive our life as a victim.  Through belief in the message of hope we are transformed from hopeless men to partakers in God’s lovely scheme of transformation.  We endure without complaint.  And when we find our hearts complaining we also hear a restraining voice within, compelling us to reconsider our attitude.

Violent love attacks all sin in the heart of the believer of the Gospel.  As if someone were to step in front of our folly and push it back, while pulling us forward to trust at the same time.  Refinement of thought toward what is good grows.  Restraining of stupidity holds us back from the things that lead to death.  And, in the end, the believer of the Gospel of Christ grows from a walking dead fool to a semblance of a righteous man.  We know we are His as we witness this occur in our very bones.  It does not announce its presence.  And there is no written word that appears on our forehead, marking us as those who are being transformed.  Yet the transformation will be obvious; first to the believer, then to all who know who we were.

“Do-Less-Ness” is Not a Gift of the Spirit

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My Work Bag

My Work Bag (Photo credit: pennuja)

One of the hardest lessons for the chronically poor to learn is doing what needs to be done when it needs to be done.  I know there are many who are poor yet are very diligent in what needs to be done.  But it has also been my personal experience (and observation of others) that a certain “do-less-ness” attends the daily routine of many.

Perhaps it’s fear of confrontation that blocks dutiful behavior.  Perhaps it’s just that they focus on matters they deem more important.  Perhaps there are other reasons.  But the bottom line is that when we know what we ought to do and do not do it, we encounter a guilty conscience.  This guilt leads to introverted behavior in many fashions. And, in the end, we own a large portion of “sucky life”.

This is a truth that should be embraced by every Christian.  We expose our faith by our living habits.  And we often drag down the Beautiful Lord Jesus’ reputation by allowing our own to become soiled with neglect.  I can’t imagine what this place would look like if God took on that same “do-less” behavior.

I’m not chiding anyone with this post.  I’m pointing out a truth we should all consider as we serve the Lord.