Showing posts with label Christian thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Christian thoughts. Show all posts

October 1, 2018

Just thinking aloud: mind deception and truth

My thinking has a lot to do with where I go in life. God is a lot more concerned with where I am going than where I came from. God is in the spiritual realm. He has the best thoughts for me. If I do not begin to think there, I cannot go there in the natural. But if I begin to think in a different realm, that is, the spiritual, my thoughts will help me go there and bring back to the natural every spiritual blessing and prove the perfect will of God in my natural life.

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The way we think influences the contents we speak of. Some people may prefer their life colors remain in varying shades of grey. But there are times in lives we stand at the watershed between truth and untruth and need to make a clearly demarcated decision.
A current news event has stirred up my memory of a story I read sometime ago about a young woman uncovering her unmarried aunt’s reason for remaining single. She still could not forget her first love from junior high school. She did not marry him because she was ambitious and felt that he could not possibly give her the financial freedom she yearned for. They separated and lost contact for decades. She became a famous commercial artist in her own right. The young niece did some sleuthing and finally tracked down the man in question. He turned out to be a very successful but reclusive industrialist manufacturing highly sought after exquisite glassware. He had married, divorced and remained single. He soon detected this young girl stalking him and confronted her. Here is the anti-climax: when she told him she was trying to reconcile him with her aunt, he categorically denied having ever known her aunt!
What really happened? The girl was disappointed and puzzled. The aunt told her the name of her first love and this man bore that name. But this man had no idea who the aunt was and denied ever loving any woman of that description. The girl finally found and showed him the faded photo of her aunt and her young lover from high school. It dawned on the industrialist that the young man was his classmate and good friend then. Apparently the aunt remembered a wrong name. The girl was shocked. All these years the aunt was stalking/thinking of the wrong man when she kept abreast of news about his development and achievements in life.
But what happened to the other man? The undistinguished real lover? The girl eventually found him, an ordinary man at his death bed in a hospice. He had married, propagated, widowed, retired and lived with his grown-up son and family. He thought she was her aunt because of the resemblance. In the story she let this poor man hold her hand until he breathed his last.
I know my memory cannot be classified as totally objective, factual, accurately organized and stored like untempered computer data. I used to think otherwise. But one day my younger sister unknowingly challenged the accuracy of my facts. I overheard her recalling a historical family incident to our younger relatives. I remember everything just as she narrated except for one crucial fact. In my memory I was the hero who did that act of charity. In her narration she became that charitable person! How can that be? I was stunned. I stayed silent. Either one of us has to be wrong. Who is it? She is an honest person. I know that as a fact. So am I. But one of us remembers an untruth.
What affects my memory? How do I remember things? I use ways to memorize different details, often by associations which are not entirely reliable. Despite being a very careful reader of maps, when I am driving in a less familiar terrain (and without GPS), suddenly realizing that some familiar landmarks have changed without my previous noticing, I would find myself stopping my car in the middle of the road, pulling aside to figure out where I am on the map, because I cannot rely on my internalized auto-pilot system anymore.
I personally find that faces, names and places are the most difficult items to synchronize when recalling. Often I have to put memory pieces like jigsaw puzzles (real and imagined?) together to form a coherent (in my thinking) narrative picture. Association can be misleading and deceptive too like the story above of the two young men and their names being mixed up in the memory of a young girl.
Being fond of writing and reading words, I realize that my thinking formulates pictures the way I see them in my mind which is in turn influenced by many variable factors, some real, some unintentionally and often unconsciously creatively imagined. After awhile, I even speak as if they are real. I am thankful that I have a family and loved ones with enough common sense and who are not afraid to point out where I err in this memory-recalling processing task.
What matters is how God sees us. Knowing how He sees me and aligning with His view will be the best guide for every aspect of life. What about memory? Leave it aside unless it fits the following happy thoughts.
So keep your (my) thoughts continually fixed on all that is authentic and real, honorable and admirable, beautiful and respectful, pure and holy, merciful and kind. And fasten your (my) thoughts on every glorious work of God, praising Him always. (Philippians 4:8)

November 4, 2016

Today’s Sword of the Spirit: “No weapon formed against you shall prosper”

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Today’s Sword of the Spirit for the side who aligns with our God.
For the mountains shall depart
And the hills be removed,
But My kindness shall not depart from you,
Nor shall My covenant of peace be removed,”
Says the Lord, who has mercy on you.
11
“O you afflicted one,
Tossed with tempest, and not comforted,
Behold, I will lay your stones with colorful gems,
And lay your foundations with sapphires.
12
I will make your pinnacles of rubies,
Your gates of crystal,
And all your walls of precious stones.
13
All your children shall be taught by the Lord,
And great shall be the peace of your children.
14
In righteousness you shall be established;
You shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
And from terror, for it shall not come near you.
15
Indeed they shall surely assemble, but not because of Me.
Whoever assembles against you shall fall for your sake.
16
“Behold, I have created the blacksmith
Who blows the coals in the fire,
Who brings forth an instrument for his work;
And I have created the spoiler to destroy.
17
No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue which rises against you in judgment
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is from Me,”
Says the Lord.
(Sword of the Spirit from Isaiah 54:10-17 NKJV)

July 26, 2016

demanding a miraculous sign

Why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign?
I tell you the truth, I will not give this generation any such sign. Jesus said this. Mark 8:12
Prior to this He had performed many miracles. He displayed His supernatural power over sicknesses, evil spirits (spiritual realm), physical and natural elements. The news about His miracles had spread far and wide, and vast numbers of people came to see Him and followed Him. They were His eye witnesses. Mark 3:7-8
He healed a man with leprosy. 1:41-42
He healed a paralyzed man. 2:8-11
He healed a man with deformed hand. 3:3-5
He had healed many people. Power came out from Him to heal the sick and cast out demons. All the sick sought to touch Him. All who touched Him were healed. Those possessed by evil spirits too were delivered. 3:10-11. 6:56
He sent out His disciples (apostles) to preach the Kingdom of God and He gave them supernatural authority and power to cast out many demons and heal man sick people too. 3:14-15, 6:7, 12-13
The wind and waves obeyed Him. 4:41
He healed a demon possessed man. 5:1-20
He raised from death the daughter of a leader of the synagogue. 5:22, 35-36, 41-42
He healed a woman who had suffered for twelve years with constant bleeding. 5:25-34
He fed 5,000 men and their families with five loaves and two fish. 6:41-44
He walked on water and stopped the raging waves and wind. 6:47-52
He healed a deaf man. 7:32-35
He fed 4,000 people with seven loaves. 8:6-9
He healed a blind man. 8:22-26
Coming back to the question, why do these people keep demanding a miraculous sign? More show of the power of Jesus? Why do they still want proof of His supernatural authority to show that He is from God? Why do people see the power of Jesus but still continue not to believe in Him?
I ask this question too today. Here is the answer I received from Jesus:
“You are seeing things merely from a human point of view, not from God’s.” Mark 8:33 (Jesus rebuked Peter for listening to Satan-influenced humanistic reasoning and not to the Holy Spirit. Jesus reprimanded Peter, “Get away from Me, Satan!”)
Peter was doing well when he listened to the Holy Spirit. But he lost his supernatural discernment the moment he switches back to his human mind. Jesus called that as being selfish, trying to hang on to the life he could see, not knowing that what he could see and feel (body and soul) could not save him. He was ashamed of Jesus talking about dying on the cross and resurrecting after three days. He considered Jesus being not politically correct. Mark 8:31-38
It is so clear that the minute a Christian resorts to using a human point of view to explain or question a supernatural miraculous sign from Jesus, he or she loses the spiritual privilege and faith that come only from the supernatural realm. The authority and power of Jesus would be of no use to them. They may still get healed or see their loved ones get healed but they would still be excluded from the Kingdom of God. Without faith in the supernatural God-Jesus, one just cannot get saved. Without faith one cannot please God. Without believing in the spiritual reality of Jesus one cannot connect to Him and interact with Him in a relationship. But the children of God must join to the Lord and be one with His Spirit. The children of God must be led by the Spirit of Christ. Believing in Jesus requires spiritual faith, and a belief in a realm human eyes cannot see. Unless we can see with our spirit the reality of God, we cannot enter. It is easy for many to believe in a historical Jesus who existed during a period on earth as a human but not a Jesus (in Spirit) who is still living today. This is the dilemma of many who choose the wide, easy and popular road today. Is there hope for this group? Yes, as long as you are still open to Jesus through the Holy Spirit and His words.
Bible verses: John 3:3, 5-6, 3:16, 4:23-24, 5:24, 26-27, 37-40, 6:29, 35-36, 40, 63; Romans 10:8-12, 8:1-2, 8:9, 8:11, 14, 16; Galatians 3:2, 26-29; Hebrews 11:1-3, 11:6. 1Corinthians 6:17.

June 24, 2013

Remnants’ Story: there is nothing in between waiting and traveling





For a mindman: This is most unthinkable. A day or even a period of blanks. No mind activity or any activity? Well, there are plenty of activities. In the spiritual realm.
For the remnants at end times, there is nothing in between waiting and traveling, the mindman has learned.
The mindman had spent a most unusual three days’ trip to an island.
The trip: One and half days of traveling by land, sea and then by land again.
In between: one day of haze.
There was nothing else. The bulk of the time was spent in preparing for travel, actual on the road and on sea, and waiting in between the travel.
Why was he put on such a trip? He asked. It is like the current theme for the end times remnants is: prepare to travel by land and by sea, including climbing mountains, up and down mountains; actual travel by land and by water; and waiting.
What about the in between? The mindman asked. The in between is just in between. There is nothing there. This is a mere beginning...
(Excerpt from my book on End Day Remnants.)

Bible verses quoted from Isaiah 11
11:2 And the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him—
The Spirit of wisdom and understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and strength,
The Spirit of knowledge and of the [reverential and obedient] fear of the Lord—

The Restored Remnant
11:11
Then it will happen on that day that the Lord
Will again acquire with His hand a second time
The remnant of His people, who will remain,
From Assyria, from [Lower] Egypt, from Pathros, from Cush (Ethiopia), from Elam [in Persia], from Shinar [Babylonia], from Hamath [in Aram],
And from the coastlands bordering the [Mediterranean] Sea.
11:12
And He will lift up a signal for the nations
And assemble the [a]outcasts of Israel,
And will gather the dispersed of Judah

From the four corners of the earth.


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