It has been said that we are to love our enemies, pray for those who despitefully use us. What does all this mean?
Jesus quotes as saying, if you... you to go one mile, go two miles. Give to him who asks of you.... and your Father in heaven.
In aother place it says that we are to be as wise as serpants, but be as harmless as doves
This morning I read the forward in a book that gave me some answers to a question that was within me, that I hadn't yet put into words. This has to do with the connection between belief and knowledge. Here is a copy of that forward:
"THIS IS JUST INFORMATION
This book contains just information. All information can be (partially or completely) true or false regardless of where it is found. "Great spiritual master", "enlightened guru", TV, a book, Internet and others are sources of information. None of these and no other source of information can give you (real, true) knowledge.
Knowledge is something you build by experience, using the information you receive. The information itself is not knowledge. To build your own knowledge, you can use information from different sources. Having checked the information out and having experienced it, you can say: I know. Until then you were believing, you did not know.
Today that thought came to me "evidence based religion". After that thought came to me I did a Google Search on that phrase "evidence based religion." There showed to be 83,500 hits. Evidently I wasn't the first person to have that thought. The website on the top of the list was called Evidence Based Religion. While there wasn't much on that blog, I did find these two useful definitions below.
In the middle of the night I was laying in bed and had these thoughts running around in my head. I as unable to sleep and was keeping my wife awake by my being awake. I finally got up and went to my computer and started writing. I basically had this one question, "What does it mean to love God?" How can we love God, who is Love Himself? This is what came out as I wrote.......
In trying to plan a new type of project at work I had asked for advice from other professionals. On of the responses was "Ask the Holy Spirit to show you..... He is the best teacher." The person was kind and considerate in her response and meant well. But her response got me to thinking. What is meant by that response?
Does that mean that:
This morning I was doing some research about ethics on the Internet. One of the articles I came across was called "Teaching Values in School: An Interview with Steve Johnson
I mainly started this website to have a place where I could think out my ideas, to explore what do I believe about various subjects. A large part of this process has been my trying to untangle myself from various erroneous religious ideas and beliefs. I would suppose that many young people have went through a growing up and thinking out who they are at a much younger age than me. In my writings (perhaps necessarily) on this website I've written a fair amount against religiosity and man-made religion and false beliefs about the Bible.
Lately I've been thinking that if God is holy and just, and He is truly loving, then his way of salvation would be to bring all mankind into his will. What glory would God get to have a large number of his creation go to"hell"? This would mean that God had failed in his creation of mankind.
I've read some writers who said that God is sinless, holy, and just...
Today I turned 61.
I was raised in a distorted form of Christianity. As I became older I left that and spent many years in one branch of Christianity or another. I went to countless church services and many Bible studies. I had many Bible verses memorized and I thought of myself as a "strong Christian". I was very judgmental in my mind of "fallen" people. I spent many years searching, but now knowing that I was searching, and not knowing for what. In the midst of this I wasn't living a meaningful or Godly life.
Today I began to think about Jesus as an idol and I began to do a Google search to see what others have said about this. Among others I found an article titled "Smashing the Jesus Idol of Churchianity"
As I thought about it more I began to realize that idol worship is anything that takes us away from living the life of service that God intended us to live.
When we willingly make a sacrifice for someone, we open our hearts towards that person. When we make a sacrifice, we move other things, other thoughts, out of the way. This enables a clear channel between us and that other person.
On the first Friday of each month we open our home to our friends, neighbors and people from church who want to come over and play table games. Last night was game night at our house. Our living room and kitchen were filled with food, tables, chairs, games, and people. It was a lot of fun.
During the earlier part of the night I had been playing another game. After that game ended, I looked around at what the others in the room were playing to see if there was some game I could join.
In the recents past weeks I have been getting back into exercising with an aerobics exercise video. Even though I used this same video a year and a half ago, it's almost like I'm beginning again. I've going a little slower and paying careful attention to my foot placements, my steps, arm movements and the like. As I begin new exercises I still make lots of mistakes. In addition I've only put a medium amount of effort into it, largely because there are times when I'm unsure about foot placements or hand movements etc..
I've been giving a lot of thought about how to reach people and to teach them how to live godly lives, to live correctly and honorably. It is all to easy to "condemn that which is evil", but is that really helpful? It is very easy to destroy and to tear something apart. It is much more difficult to build something of value. I looked up the saying "overcome evil by doing good. I found where in the Bible it says this: Romans 12:21. As I was looking it up I read the verse in context and saw that this was all good, so copied the whole section here:
