Transformation

Back in my early days I was a horrible sinner. I broke God's laws, I lived for myself and I did not understand that love is not something which can originate in the heart of a man.

I built rules and guidelines for myself to follow, and in following them, I developed arrogance and pride. Well, more pride that is. I had my fair share already.

When I was tested, having claimed to live in Christ for most of my life, I failed. I proved whose son I truly was, and I was ashamed. My life in shambles, I finally understood humility, and I crawled in my shame and slime and death to the Creator. I asked forgiveness, and I repented.

Well, I said I would repent. I said I wanted to change. I said and prayed that my life would be different, not lived for myself.

Then, with this in mind, I continued to make decisions that were for my own pleasure. I did what I wanted to do, I thought how I wanted to think, and I continued to build up my life as I pleased.

Then I realized again all my pride and arrogance, the selfishness in which I chose to live, and all the sin I called "good" and I collapsed again. For there had been no advancement, no real change.

Devastated for a second time in my life, I raised my eyes again to the Creator, and asked what I was missing.

To be honest, I always knew what I was missing - it was God's spirit in my heart, guiding, directing, controlling. And I was missing His Word. Reading every day, seeking to learn more of His character, who He is, what He wants to be to me; what He wants of me. And to be more honest, I didn't want that. I wanted my own life, to make my own decisions.

I know what you're thinking -- I'll bet you've never said anything like that before. You never wanted to just make your own decisions. Right?

Once again, I decided to move and change. Once again, I failed.

Once again, God's spirit was absent in my life - by my deliberate choice. I won't say that there weren't times through this history where I saw glimpses of the life I knew I wanted and understood it to be what God wants. But I have come across a difficult Truth. At the beginning of this post, I mentioned, "In my early days" - and in reality, that was yesterday. And the day before.

We think that our purpose here on Earth is to "serve God." Yes, in fact it is. But that is as far as we go. We help people move, go to church, homeschool our kids, teach them to work hard, and keep them from poor influences as kids.

We assume that, when we pray, God will make our actions His own. Then we continue doing as we please, doing "our best" and assuming that God is in our actions.

When things go wrong, and it appears that life is falling apart, we cry out to God to save us.

Save us from what? We aren't sure.

Perhaps sadness? Perhaps pain? Perhaps financial complexity and misfortune? But surely, surely not our sin.

But it is from our sin that God will save us. He is praised and glorified to forgive our sin. In fact, He will not ever promise to save us from hard times; for it is through these times we are tested. But we asked to be saved, still unsure of from what we are to be saved. Not noticing from what we need saving. And again, here we stop. Once we think it's all better (God must be in our actions once again, since we prayed), we move on to "heal" and continue to live in our perceived service to God. Assuming He is in our actions, because this is what we pray.

Does this mean we are saved? Does this mean we are truly living the "Christian life"? Or does it mean we've added Christ to ourselves and carry him like a good luck backpack? In a recent visit to Disneyland, there were backpacks of various StarWars characters, and one of them was Yoda. When we carry Jesus along with us, while we go about our work, it's about as useful as carrying that Yoda backpack.

When we sin, 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

In this I have no doubt, nor have I ever had doubt. But I have a lingering question remaining. There is a word used in all of this which is given AFTER forgiveness. It's repentance.

My first thought on this was that this must be wrong. That repentance comes and then forgiveness. But the verse above carefully states that confession of our sins brings forgiveness - it does not mention repentance.

So what is repentance? Many, and myself among them merely weeks ago, would say that repentance is realizing sin, confessing it and asking forgiveness. I asked a friend her opinion and that answer was nearly verbatim what she said.

But this is not so!!

M-W.com gives the following (worldly!) definition for the word "repent":

"To turn from sin and dedicate oneself to the amendment of one's life"

This indicates something more than we dreamed - yet, it fits within what we know about God's character and what He requires of a righteous man or woman. Repent --- turn away. Not just now, but for EVER. Repentance defines, or rather, re-defines a lifestyle.

Repentance is an ongoing action which dictates by its mere existence as a state of living whether or not a man or woman is truly following Christ. If I sin, then ask forgiveness from God, then fall into the same sin again, there is no repentance! So why do we not turn away from our sin? Why do we not live in repentance?

A man named Paul Washer taught at a session once and I listened to a recording of the session. In it, he made a simple and profound statement that gave me further insight.

If a man could truly experience the awesomeness, power, sovereignty, justice and perfection of the Real Living God, YHWH, he would be changed simply by the observation. For this is what we lack! We see God as a man. Someone we call good, but soft. Someone we know is willing to forgive us and, yes, give His son for us. But most importantly, we see God as a man who couldn't possibly send "good" people to hell. Yes! Even so-called "Christians" believe this!

But this is not real. This is a false god. The living all-powerful, all-knowing, just God of all of creation is astounding! Terrifying! Why else should we fear Him? If this is not who God is, what is the point in even calling him a God? A true understanding of this God should be enough to bring anyone in any state of mind, in any walk of life and with any state of heart to their face on the ground, immediately realizing the purity of a Holy God. They would find themselves worthy only of the eternal perfect judgement and punishment He has prepared for those who hate Him. Furthermore, this person would understand that our nearly insignificant existence here should be spent entirely in worship and honor of this incredible being. And finally, one would realize that this God is so worthy that not only are we compelled to praise, worship, honor and call out the holiness of His Name from earth and heaven, but even from the depths of hell. Even when a just God would place us, "Good" people, in rightful eternal judgement, still is He worthy of this same honor and worship from the depths thereof -- He IS worthy!

I must conclude, with these musings in mind, that I have very rarely ever repented; though for forgiveness I have asked many, many times. I realize that my life has been lived from the perspective of a man who has never seen or believed in the real and living, loving, worthy, just and terrifyingly awesome King of all places which contain small things such as the Cosmos.

I also realize that if I really believed on this God, that I would have a sudden absolute need and drive to make repentance my entire life - and the example I lead for all to see. For repentance from sin breeds a Godly and Righteous man who may understand what it really means to serve God.

Verse of the Day - Isaiah Chapter 55

1 “Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no money come, buy and eat.
Come, buy wine and milk
Without money and without cost.
2 “Why do you [b]spend money for what is not bread,
And your wages for what does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good,
And delight yourself in abundance.
3 “Incline your ear and come to Me.
Listen, that you may live;
And I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
According to the faithful mercies shown to David.
4 “Behold, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
A leader and commander for the peoples.
5 “Behold, you will call a nation you do not know,
And a nation which knows you not will run to you,
Because of the LORD your God, even the Holy One of Israel;
For He has glorified you.”
6 Seek the LORD while He may be found;
Call upon Him while He is near.
7 Let the wicked forsake his way
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
And let him return to the LORD,
And He will have compassion on him,
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
8 “For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” declares the LORD.
9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways
And My thoughts than your thoughts.
10 “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
And do not return there without watering the earth
And making it bear and sprout,
And furnishing seed to the sower and bread to the eater;
11 So will My word be which goes forth from My mouth;
It will not return to Me empty,
Without accomplishing what I desire,
And without succeeding in the matter for which I sent it.
12 “For you will go out with joy
And be led forth with peace;
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.
13 “Instead of the thorn bush the cypress will come up,
And instead of the nettle the myrtle will come up,
And it will be a memorial to the LORD,
For an everlasting sign which will not be cut off.”

Morning thoughts

There are clear standards laid out in the Bible, healthy and moral for anyone of any belief to follow (thus the use of those principles by our founding fathers, a few, but not all, of whom were followers of Jesus). But to truly understand the nature of the Creator, one must realize that there is more to life than following laws and judging other people.

In fact, life has very little to do with either of those two activities.

In reality, the absolute baseline of what life should be is simply this: reflect to all humanity the character exhibited by Jesus Christ's example while he was here on Earth. If every single person truly did desire to do this, all evil would disappear. Sadly, we are fallen still and will never reach this point until judgement day, where all hearts will be revealed, judged, and the world as we know it will be finished.

Then will the bodies of those who believe AND obey (or exhibit faith in God) be transformed. As our souls may now be transformed, also into His image will our bodies be changed and evil will be no more. For nowhere then will there be an absence of YHWH, the Creator in whom is all Life.

There is always a choice, but it is a simple one. It is made every single day. One may either serve the Creator, God, the Father, sustainer of all things and life itself, or one may choose to serve his or herself. If this choice of service is not actively made, daily to serve God, then one IS serving ONLY one's self and his or her life is absolutely worthless.

[Edit]
Having had my dad read through this, he pointed out to me a very important point. We may wish all we like to reflect the character of Jesus, and we may even manage to successfully exhibit a good, moral and ethical life. But without the empowering of the Holy Spirit and the indwelling Life of Jesus, our attempts, no matter how benevolent or "good," will fail.

Dark Matter

Dark Matter

Occasionally, in an abandoned fashion, I wish that I could be smarter and more intelligent. I wish that I could be as capable as the person who created FaceBook, or that latest genius hacker kid who broke into the Homeland Security's server and was offered a job making a fortune (as an alternative to going to prison for life). Sometimes I wish I could calculate the eonal change in rotational velocity of Saturn's seventh moon without breaking a sweat. All in my head.

But I can't. And really, if I think about it logically, I have to take into account the other side of each of their stories. For every capability of the mind, there seems to also be a handicap. Whether it be common sense or general cordiality, there is always a trade off.

But perhaps if you knew me, you would never suspect how disquieted I am in my current place in life. For these things, except likely in jest, are not what I would express in every day conversation. Or would I?

To look around, we may imagine that we see most of what there is to see in our physical world. The objects we encounter on a day-to-day basis seem to be everything our world has to offer. The stars we see from a distance, their matter exceedingly great in comparison with anything to which we may compare it, appear at first consideration to be all that there is.

However, in reality, we only see and consciously interact with a very small portion of what exists - even just visually. According to Newtonian (classical) physics, we discover that as much as 80% of all existence is not visible or observable by any human sense, or even any scientific measurement to date. The closest we can come to it, in fact, is to study the absence of what we know, attributing all this to the dark matter of which I speak. All of creation ("the Universe") has a unique balance. For every action, there is a precisely opposite reaction. Would that not also suggest that for every piece of matter, there is an equal and opposite absence of matter? And for every physical void or empty space, there is an equal and opposite matter?

Another important thing to note regarding dark matter is that it does not exist as a separate world; it is present to influence and affect all that occurs in the known universe. And change in either light or dark matter must have an effect upon the other, regardless of humanly observable behavior.

My curiosity, however, questions whether this phenomenon also exists for our own human existence. Specifically, personality.

When I meet someone for the first time, I almost always discover, after working to get to know the person further, that my first impression of them was completely wrong. Why? Well, there could be multiple reasons. Among them, our propensity to assume. We assume a person is a particular way if we think they matching up with what we would expect from actions they perform or words they speak. And once that opinion is formed, it is not easily broken. But in doing this, in forming our opinion based on a complete lack of actual data, we not only create someone who may not even exist, but we cheat the actual person about whom the opinion is formed.

Sometimes there are people who make more effort. On occasion, there is a person who chooses to avoid all prejudice and quickly formed opinion. They work hard to learn about the person in question, and allow their opinion and understanding of that person to grow, expand and change as necessary. Yet, even here a person may remain unknown throughout a relationship with another.

There are yet still several more reasons this is the case, including  our very finite, yet chronologically dependent, nature. But I believe there is another reason for it, and I would compare it with dark matter.

We all have areas of our lives, our thought-life, our preferences, desires and even our present, past and future actions which we both do not wish for any others to know, and are even incapable of communicating. Dark matter. What exists without direct reference, yet which has dramatic influence and effect upon all that is visible and observable. How much is there about each other that we will never know? And more frighteningly, how much is there about ourselves which we either do not know or deliberately suppress?

I, for one, know there is much about myself to which this idea may be applied.

Is it possible to really be able to say we know one another?

Can we really even know ourselves?

Good night all,
Me