Tag: God

Tree of Life

“I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing.” ‭‭John‬ ‭15‬:‭5‬ ‭NASB

Healing, Protection, Everlasting life

From Genesis to Revelation, the Tree of Life stands firm and strong as a wonderful through line.  It brings to us a great mental image and great expression of the fullness of God through Jesus Christ.  

The Tree of Life is full of meaning of healing, protection, everlasting life, and abundance of God’s great love.  The Tree of Life shows us harmony and togetherness with God through the image of roots, vines, branches, leaves, fruit and more.

The Tree of Life is represented in Jesus Christ. His life, death, and resurrection is the offering of healing, protection, and everlasting life. Jesus Christ is the promise, given to us by our Father God, seeded in the conveyance of Abraham’s personal heartfelt faith, which intently grew into blessings for his descendants, and the promise continued through to all the nations of the earth grafted in.

Jesus Christ, the branch of David, leads us from sin and death in Adam and Eve in the book of Genesis through to everlasting life as the way to healing of the nations in the book of Revelations.

The Vine

We, now being like trees with roots, branches, leaves and fruit are called by Jesus Christ to remain in Him who is the vine.  He causes us to survive and thrive with the fruit of the Spirit. He invites us to this transformation. 

In the Garden of Eden, where we so innocently once walked with God in His presence, and having access to the Tree of Life lived forever in peace with God, there we came to find ourselves in the midst of radical change- the regenerative plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. 

And though distanced from the Tree of Life in the book of Genesis, we press on to what lies ahead, having access to this grace in which we stand- the bountiful grace of God- which blooms the Tree of Life.  Be covered, eat, and be transformed by the Tree of Life that in revelation heals the nations.

Fulfillment

“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” Romans 5:1-5 ESV

Love and Sacrifice

The feeling and action of fulfillment is satisfaction and completion.  Fulfillment derives from something that was accomplished and the resulting integrity of that accomplishment. Fulfillment remedy’s debt- it counteracts and eliminates something owed.  The necessary steps that were taken to meet a requirement or condition was successful according to a process.  And in the midst of the process of fulfillment is love and sacrifice.

Our debt was paid long ago on the cross in fulfillment of God’s law.  Jesus Christ died for our sins.  He fulfilled the law of sin and death by taking the burden of our sins upon Himself and defeating death in resurrection.  God made Him who knew no sin to be an offering for our sins so that we could be made right with God. And since this time of fulfillment in Christ, we have been brought close to Him that we may attain absolution and the resulting joy associated with His promise of forgiveness. 

Our Advocate

In Jesus Christ we have an advocate who intercedes for us as we stand before God in judgement. Jesus Christ clothes us with righteousness and lives within our hearts as we are in Him also.  He testifies to God on our behalf that we have been redeemed by His sacrifice- the shedding of His blood, and our receipt of grace and mercy through faith in Him who died for our sins.  This fulfillment brings us atonement and reconciliation with God through Christ.  

We are justified, and the promise of this fulfillment is everlasting. We have moved from a place of sin and injustice to the state of grace and justice.  And when we receive justification through faith, our obligation changes from slave to sin to freedom from sin.  

The Courts of Heaven

There is a cost for sin < the price was paid < fulfillment made.

And in the courts of heaven God sees our condition. Have we moved from a state of sin to a state of righteousness? Has the accuser of Job, the enemy of God and man succeeded in his accounts to discredit us before God? Or are we confident in our position- having joy and peace in believing the fulfillment of Jesus Christ, His forgiveness, and God’s everlasting love.

“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us.” Romans 8:31-34 NKJV

The Fear/Belief Dichotomy

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”‭James‬ ‭3:17-18‬ ‭

Exacerbating Feedback

The  world has a knack for feeding fears, and even at the heights of civilization, the world still devolves to meet our fear mechanism. As the world positions, engineers, and ensnares in an assault on our sympathetic response, it configures and inputs a type of ordered chaos and outputs an unstable feedback loop.  And one small disturbance in our internal or external environment- exacerbates.  One seemingly ineffectual but exacerbating feedback building upon another if the internal system does not value a steady state.

Balancing feedback

Without a competitive balancing feedback– without a system that is extremely sensitive to counteract each and every rudimentarily deployed fear tactic; without a neutralizing, stabilizing, negating effect in response to this overstimulated world which knows it has found its technological sweet spot; without an active program for peace in our internal environment which extends outward- we are outmaneuvered into an onslaught of misleading fear.

“I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.” John 16:33 

The Call to Memory

“Yet we do speak wisdom among those who are mature; a wisdom, however, not of this age nor of the rulers of this age, who are passing away; but we speak God’s wisdom in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God predestined before the ages to our glory;” 1 Corinthians 2:6-7

Remembering

Before you were born, you were inspired, breathed, and known by God.  Every bit of information that is your intricate genetic makeup is known and stored within you by God.  You are of a reverberating lineage; one that is vibrant and resounding in space and time. Who still remembers? 

As human beings we think, we develop, and grow.  We acquire knowledge, we reflect on things, we seek answers to questions, we form ideas.  Our knowledge about the world is robust, but the things not yet known are wide and varied; curiosities about the nature of reality that will take you to the very limits of your intellectual ability.

Understanding

Perceiving beyond our knowledge of the natural world with finite sensory experiences is not rational by any means of material standards. It is going beyond all reasonable doubt to its certainty; to confront all of that which is unreasonable doubt.  It is maneuvering paradoxes and coming to that which is the belief in God as the first cause.

Innatism suggests that the mind is born with knowledge, ideas, and beliefs. Memory that transcends our experiences.  Could there be memories encoded before birth?  An intangible faculty of memory stored prior to all mind body experience.

Although the mind is not a blank slate at birth, we need our senses and experiences as keys to unlocking what is stored knowledge and intellect, and even remembrance.  Things that are innate to you are things that you naturally identify with through sensation, reflection, and memory.

Grasping

As human beings, we grow in wisdom and knowledge that springs from an inquiring mind. There springs an eagerness to know how the world works. And God sustains this developmental process all the way through.  There are however many traps, in this world of duality– in a world that increasingly contradicts what is good and true as fallacy, to further us from our intuition and knowledge of our intrinsic value.  

It is as though the world is trying to remember what is true as we grasp at illusions.  The good is absolute, but the world debates the moral good and argues for moral relativism.  How then can we remember eternal truth? 

By sensing it as it connects to memory. 

Knowing

Memory is your brain’s capacity and function to encode, store, retain, and recall information from sensory experiences.  The collection of our experiences since birth and our innate sensibilities.  Every experience and memory shapes us in purposeful ways.  And although specific memories may be forgotten, those memories that truly shape us are never completely gone. 

Sensing

We sense what is true from hearing what is good and true.  From sensory to genetic memory. Firstly, with unaided intellect, then being appropriately receptive to make sense of what’s out there. “For with the heart one believes unto righteousness” Romans 10:10. 

There is a call to remember. But who remembers, and who does not?

“For what had not been told them they will see, And what they had not heard they will understand.” Isaiah 52:15

Nihilism- the Undoing of Belief

“Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it.” Ecclesiastes 12:6-7 

Nothing has meaning

Nihilism- the undoing of belief, where belief is nothingness.  It is the story of annihilation of the human spirit.  The plot and ploy to instill nothingness– to determine that nothingness be willed in the heart of man. Life has no meaning or value (existential nihilism); there is no right or wrong, no good or evil (moral nihilism); all knowledge and beliefs are baseless (epistemological nihilism); reality does not exist (metaphysical nihilism).

Removing God

Modernity says there is no God, and the might of reasoning reigns supreme, and if wisdom is not found there, war is found where wisdom is not.  Where modernity declared there is no God, postmodernity will have its nihilism, and you will have nihilism, detached from all relativity. 

Attempting to remove beliefs, morals, ethics, knowledge and wisdom, of universal truth itself, is, in itself, to annihilate the innermost compass in humanity. To remove our resiliency.  To disassociate our seeking souls and inquiring minds.  Our inquiring minds are our sparks to remembrance of faculties inherent in us from before birth, prior to all experience.  The creeping system of nihilism would have belief undone, to separate God out from the human psyche.  God is in us and they want Him out. 

Replacing God

See it now commonplace that belief in God is counted as stupidity, unintelligent, flouted as ignorant to the laws of science and the enlightenment of philosophy.  

The intelligentsia is carved out elegantly, into a chasm.  The intellectual and pseudointellectual alike have been cornered into eviscerating the inner compass that leads to conscious thought, for a pyramid scheme of rationale to disqualify God.  Scaling the hierarchy to negate God, avoiding God in microscopes and telescopes, they find they are weighed down by their evolution.  Because where nihilism is found, denial of the human spirit is found also. Nevertheless, nihilism, in all its futility, with its determined stare, has its trophied gaze upon us. 

Prayer, Meditation, and the Bible

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” 

Philippians 4:6-7

Build Relationship

Through prayer and meditation, we communicate and build a relationship with our God and Savior. This is a very important practice, one that is essential to understanding the very specific work God has for us. It is how we are guided by God to become our best selves, body, soul, and mind, in order to carry out our God given purpose.

Follow the example of Jesus and how often He prayed- early in the morning before daybreak (mark 1:35), alone at night (Matthew 14:23), in the wilderness for 40 days before his ministry began (Luke 4:1), earnestly in the garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:44). Jesus encourages prayer, He says to “always pray and never give up” (Luke 18:1).

Build Connection

When we pray and meditate we give thanks and praise and make the request of our hearts known to God. Prayer and meditation also puts us in a place of deep thought and reflection, as in the gospel, “I will meditate on the glorious splendor of Your majesty, And on Your wondrous works” (Psalm 145:5) also “I meditate on all Your works; I muse on the work of Your hands” (Psalm 143:5). Through prayer and meditation our connection with God is strengthened and we are able to receive clearer direction on what is best for our lives.

Start.Find a quiet place where you can pray and meditate without distraction. You can have your bible or a note sheet with you in case you are inspired to find a passage or remember something God sparks in your thoughts. Speak to God, cry out to Him, whisper to Him, thank Him, praise Him, sit silently with Him, feel His Spirit and let His Spirit flow through you. Make the most of your time with Him, God delights in this time, it pleases Him. 

Exercise and the Bible

“Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God” 

1 Corinthians 6:19

Exercise Regimen

An exercise regimen is an important inclusion to your way of life if you want to improve and maintain your overall health. Having this routine is not only good for your body but it is also good for your soul and mind. People who exercise regularly benefit with a positive boost in mood and improved self esteem. This is due to the release of endorphins in the body that trigger positive feelings. Exercise also reduces risk of diseases such as cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, and some cancers. God wants us to maintain a healthy body strong enough to fight diseases and resilient enough to heal from hurt. We are God’s loving creation and we should appreciate how intricate and remarkable our bodies were made, and how intelligently it functions. The specific way God built our bodies enables us to strengthen it through exercise and physical activity. God means for us to be active and purposeful, that is why our bodies react positively to physical activity and poorly to inactivity. Finally, the act of exercising in itself is good affirmation for the soul. By taking care of it, it confirms your belief and love for God.

Start.  A good way to maintain a continuous exercise regimen is to choose something that is enjoyable and something that you can handle, whether its running, walking, swimming, strength training, or a combination of all. Then create a flexible schedule that you can stick with. Set your goals moderate at first and set goals in which you are optimistic of not giving up. As Paul says in the gospel, “run in such a way that you may win” (1 Corinthians 9:24). When you begin to incorporate this routine into your life, do it not only for yourself, but as a living sacrifice to God. As it says in the gospels, “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). This is a part of your success.