Strong Faith

Mark 10:46-52  Bartimaeus (a blind man) receives his sight by faith.

Jesus healed many people in his Ministry.  Many we know about from the accounts of the Bible, but there are so many more that we don't know.  Bartimaeus in this section heard Jesus was coming and called out more than once that Jesus the Son of David would have mercy on him.  Jesus used many different ways to heal people, but this one needed no more than a few words.  Do you know why?  Here is why.  Jesus says to Bartimaeus, "Go your way; your faith has made you well."  At that point Bartimaeus is healed immediately and follows Jesus.  Bartimaeus faith was all that was needed besides Jesus allowing him to be healed.  Bartimaeus knew that Jesus could and would heal him if he just asked.  He had heard the word going around about Jesus and he knew, without a shadow of a doubt that when he could get his attention he would ask for healing.  That is why he through off his cloak.  It was his beggars cloaks and he wouldn't need it any more after that.  Jesus healed Bartimaeus on the basis of Bartimaeus own faith.  Nothing else was needed.  So how strong is your faith?

I don't mean to say you can have anything and everything you want by your faith.  What I'm saying is that we need to have strong faith so that we can find the Will of God in our lives.  What we believe and have faith in has to be strong enough so that we can know that it will happen if it's in God's will.

Writing Exercise Part 3 - First Person

I'm Tobias Kefer.  I'm the person these two guys are talking about.  Since they have no idea what's going on with me and are doing a terrible of job of narrating, I figure I better just take over and get things set straight for you the reader.  Hey! We resemble that remark.  How come you get to explain everything to everyone.  Isn't that the job of the narrator(s)?  Yes it is, but since you two don't know half of what's going on I thought I would step in before this becomes some strange mess that needs some cleaning up.  Serious cleaning up at this rate. We can do the job, it's just that it's our first time doing this and we aren't entirely sure how to begin and where to go with this.  That's okay, I understand, but sometimes the narrator needs to be quiet and at all times the narrator needs to know everything about everyone and know what's going on at all times.  What kind of narrator(s) would you be if you didn't know the ins and outs of everything going on in the story.  Seriously?  So why don't I self narrate for a little bit and you guys can fill in the gaps?  Does that sound like a plan or not?  Silence......Thinking........Grbgrbgrbgrbgrb.......Whispering.......Conversing........Discussing........I think you have a deal.....under one condition if you don't mind?  Let me hear it and we will see.  That we reserve the right to jump back in when appropriate and add to the story as needed.  We figure while you are telling your part we can take some time and do some research and get the other background information that you don't know about ready for the appropriate time.  How does that sound to you?  Acceptable.  I think we have a deal.  Great we'll get out of your hair and move along and allow you to tell what you need to tell.  We will be watching and keeping an eye on you.  No funny business now and keep it honest and don't slander us.  We're doing the best we can as first timers.  We just need a little more time to develop our background info.  Will do.  Enjoy the break and the time doing your research.  We will!

As I said before, I'm Tobias Kefer.  I live in the house they told you about and one thing you don't know as of yet is that I go out every morning before I eat to come to this tree and enjoy some quiet time watching the sunrise and enjoying the view.  I watch the boats come in and marvel at the wonder that God made all around us.  Usually I arrive well before sunrise and don't eat until I get back.  This morning is a bit unusual since this ship is trying to outrun the storm and if not it appears to be bringing it along with it.

Same Sex marriage

The title alone is enough to start people talking and thinking and wondering what do I have to say about something that the Supreme Court thinks they have the right to litigate over.  The laws of man don't amount to much when it comes to the laws of GOD, yet these elected officials are our law makers.

Where do I begin?  Well, my son and I always quote Lewis Carroll "Begin at the beginning, the King said, very gravely, and go on till you come to the end: then stop".  So I will do my best to start at the beginning and when I get to the end I will stop.

I read the Bible almost daily.  It is my devotional each day and I'm working through the book of Mark right now and I'm in chapter 10:1-12 right now.  Jesus talks about marriage and divorce.  Right there you probably know where I stand on Same Sex marriage.  It would be interesting to see your face right now as you read this, or if we were to talk face to face about this topic and you and I were to discuss this at length.  Would it take us minutes, hours or days of discussion?  Hmm...I wonder.  If you feel so inclined you can stop reading right after I state my position on this issue.  I leave that up to you and your curiosity or lack thereof.

My stance is that I'm Pro-Life on Abortion and I'm Pro-Marriage as a Man and Wife!  There you have it, that is my stance, but I'm not taking the time to write this just to state this position on this issue.  I want to offer some insight as to what GOD had in mind and what we as a world are putting aside.

First of all nowhere in the Bible does it advocate a Man and a Man being together.  It clearly states that this is against the normality of life and what GOD created.  No where in the Bible does it state that a Woman being with another Woman is acceptable either.  Neither is any type of sexual intimacy with Man and animal or Woman with animal.  All these are clearly stated in the Bible (GOD's Word) to be abominations against what GOD set forth for how people should live their lives.

Secondly, every mention of any of these acts is considered a Sin and is punishable by death.  In the Bible that death is immediate upon finding out that this is happening.  After Jesus came it meant that continuing in Sin will lead to eventual death since living in Sin, prevents one from going to heaven.

Seriously this is pretty straight forward.  Sin = Death.  The only real trouble we have these days is that people don't believe this anymore.  They think that everyone's way of thinking is right.  No one is wrong and we can all have a happily ever after.  That is the biggest lie that Satan has perpetrated on this generation.  Nothing that anyone says that contradicts the bible is acceptable.  The simplest truth is that what the Bible says is undisputed, accurate and correct and cannot be denied as being what we all should be following.  The Lie is that everyone is right and no one is wrong and the Bible is just an old out of date book that is too strict, too conservative, too restrictive and not liberal enough.

Jesus said that "What therefore GOD has joined together, let not man separate." Do you realize that only what GOD sanctions is going to last or stand the test of time.  It is GOD's foundation that shapes this world, shapes our lives and gives us the Freedom to be Free under his Will.  No Same Sex marriage will ever stand the test of time, because GOD does not stand for it or support it.  The Bible is very clear on this and no amount of Laws or decisions by people can change GOD.  The only thing that can stand the test of time is that which GOD supports.  All others will just fade away.  GOD does allow us to make our own mistakes.  This is one of many in our long line of mistakes, including the 1973 Abortion decision.

Someday the Judgement from GOD will be dealt on this people.  In the mean time we must live with our mistakes and this one will scar our generations for many years.

Writing Exercise Part 2

Well we are back again.  It's about time.  I was beginning to wonder if we would ever get back to writing since we had the breakthrough and found out the information about what's going on.  What too you so long?  Hmm?  Well I've been busy...now wait a minute.  What are you going on about?  You were there and you know how busy things have been.  Leave me be and I will explain what's going on.  Deal?  I guess so.  Deal.

As I was starting to say, we are back again and we have some new updates as to what was missing in the last post.  We found out that the person is Tobias Kefer.  He lives a little over a mile away from the edge of this cliff in a nice two story log cabin house.  The house is in a very deciduous forest full of pines, cedars, spruce and many other evergreens.  The forest of trees goes from the edge of the cliff several miles in all directions away from the coast and along the coast.  Due to the forest and it's location his house is well hidden and hardly ever visited.  He likes his isolation, but does go down to the nearest port for supplies occasionally.  The port is the only one on the south side of this land and it's called Kuraba.  In the bay of Sactickph on the southern side of the land.

That's a strange name.  So is the guys name.  Whoever heard of the name Tobias or Sactickph?  Where did you come up with these names? Hmm?  Well if you must know?  Yes I must know this is getting a little strange. I did the research while you were away so don't give me any lip!  Do you hear me?  Yes, but...But nothing.  You were out and I found out about the port, its name and his name and the rest of the information.  If you weren't out then you would know this too and not be questioning me about it.  Now would you?  No, I guess I wouldn't.  So let me tell what's going on and if you want you can do some more of the research next time.  Fine.

We are currently facing east and watching the sunrise over the ocean, which is one of his favorite things to do in the morning.  Get out to the cliff edge before the sun comes up and watch it rise from his view point on the top of the tree.  The rock/boulder will have to stay a mystery as we have yet to ascertain the reason, origin and how it got to be there.  But since there are storm clouds out there they are slowly swallowing up the sunrise and creating some very red skies right now.  The ship appears to be either trying to outrun the storm clouds, which are brandishing the occasional lightning or it's bring the storm right along with it.  Pulling it along you might say.  The storm clouds are definitely following the ship in to land fall.  From what I could make out the ship is a sloop/schooner with a 5 man crew.

Tobias is climbing down from the tree and taking his leave of the scene to head back the way he came.  Home.  It's time to break his fast and continue his day.  A ship and storm clouds are of no importance to him or have any bearing on his day.  He lives alone and likes it that way.  He is planning to head to the port in a few days for more supplies, but other than that he is going about his business as usual.

Well are you satisfied with the results of my research?  Yes it was satisfactory.  When will we know more and what else is there?  I 'm not sure right now, but I do believe there will be more to come soon.

Writing Exercise

Why exactly am I doing this?  'Cause I need to develop my writing and it's a good...Wait a minute! Did you say develop?  What are we developing?  I meant to say grow.  Now what are we growing?  This sounds very suspicious!  Okay, let's just say that it's a writing exercise.  Wait how can we exercise our writing?  It's not like a muscle or something is it?  I thought that it was just words put on paper or in this case words put to a screen?  Besides, who writes anymore?  Isn't it all just regurgitate words over again?  Nothing original, just someone else's thoughts, rehashed?

No, that's not what I'm saying at all.  Look it's even in the title of this post "Writing Exercise"!  How do you explain that?  Listen, calm down and let me do what needs to be done.  All this bickering is getting us nowhere and we are going there faster than I care to go.  How can we go nowhere fast when nowhere is actually nowhere, so technically it's impossible to get there and we can't get there any faster at any point in time? Okay, okay.  I concede.  Your questions have hounded me enough to throw in the towel and surrender.  It's a writing exercise to see what's in my head and to put it to words to see what comes of it.  Maybe I will find a novel in all this mess that runs around in my head or maybe I won't.  That's for me to find out and for you to just let me get there on my on.  Can you be satisfied with that explanation and just leave me alone for now? Sure that sounds acceptable.  No guarantee I won't come back to visit sometime later on, though.  That will just suit me fine, as long as you can let me be right now so I can see what's rolling around in my head.  Now that we have that out of the way, let's see where we go from here.

There was a time....No that's not how to start.  It was a dark and stormy night....too cliche.  Where do I begin....how about in the beginning and then go from there?  In the beginning has been done before, too.  Just saying.

I'm going back to "There was a time" and start with that.

There was a time.  Maybe in the future or maybe in the past, it all depends on when you are reading this.  So there was a time that a man appeared.  He showed up on top of a rock that was on top of a very tall deciduous (pine or cedar can't make it out from here) tree that was on the edge of a forest that happened to be on a very tall cliff over looking the sea.  Which sea, we don't know from this vantage point either, but if you've seen one sea you've seen them all.  It's all salt water anyway.  Now we aren't sure where this man came from either since our view is a little obstructed and there are a lot of trees in a forest.  Also we don't exactly know how the boulder came to be on top of the tree either.  There's a lot to be taken at face value for right now until we can get some better information.  We shall see if we can get any better information shortly, but since this is all we know this is all you get for know.  Stay tuned for updates.  In the mean time, what I can tell you is that this gentleman, well let's call him a person since we don't know his general disposition, is staring out to sea at two things, okay maybe three things.  One is the sun either rising or setting.  We don't know which since we just got here ourselves, only moments ahead of you the reader.  Two is a ship on the water. Can't tell what kind, 'cause it's too far away.  Three is some very nasty storm clouds near the ship.  Don't know if they are coming or going either.  You know for a narrator/writer you certainly don't know a lot about this event, or scene or moment, do you?  Well do you?  No.  Okay then, don't quibble with me right now, it's not helpful.  For now, just know that this is what we have to work with and more will be coming.  I still need to track down this persons' origin and place of residence.  Since we need more information we will leave it here for know and come back to fill in more blanks as soon as we can.

Jesus vs. Christ

This might seem odd, but I feel that society/satan/the world are trying to minimize Jesus.  If you really think about it we know for a fact that his name is Jesus.  J-E-S-U-S!  It's not Christ, which is his title, and His last name is not Christ.  We honor Jesus at this time of the year by taking an old pagan holiday and Christianizing it and calling it Christmas.  Mass for the Christ.  It's a mass for the only Savior (Christ), Messiah of the world.  It's His title, not a part of His name.  It would be like calling me Marc Network Administrator.  Or calling me Network Administrator.  We do give people honorary titles, do show respect sometimes, like boss, chief, chef, mother, father, pastor, brother, sister, friend, but why do we not call them by their title all the time.  We have names and sometimes we take the time to not use people's names so much to the point that we forget their real name.

We are slowly replacing Jesus with Christ in a lot of our speech.  We say "come to know Christ", "Christ came to set us free", "the only way to heaven is through Christ", and many other ways.  It just feels like we are trying to cover up Jesus with a title so we don't say His name any more.  The only way it's said no a ways is with irreverence or as a curse or in a derogatory way.  We can't seem to keep Jesus in Christmas, because we are to busy trying to keep "Christ" in Christmas.  Jesus is the reason for the season, not Christ.  We took Jesus out of Christmas before we got into trying to take "Christ" out of Christmas and wishing everyone a Happy Holiday.  You can keep Christ out of Christmas for all I care.  I want to keep Jesus in Christmas and keep it that way.  I will continue to say Merry Christmas, because this is the reason we have Dec. 25th.   It's not about Boxing day or Kwanzaa, both are not as old as Christmas which dates back to 336AD.  We are talking about the opportunity to celebrate the birth of the Savior of the World and we bicker about His title more than what the day is about.  Atheists want to remove it from the calendar along with Easter.  What are they so afraid of?  That's it right and they are wrong?  You can't remove the celebrations to fix your feelings.  It will always be there no matter what and it will always be the only way to be free and live.  Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life.  There is no other way.  The sooner you learn that and live by it the better.

My point is just this.  Jesus is the person to worship.  The one who is part of the great Three In One of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Not His title of Savior, Messiah or Christ.  We are here to show the Love of Jesus, not Christ.  We are Brothers and Sisters of Jesus, Children of the Living God.  Why can't we use his name with respect instead of degradation?  It's with respect that we call others by their name.  We need to do the same with Jesus and not keep using His title.

Healing Our Image of God and Ourselves

This is from Chapter 1 of "The Relentless Tenderness of Jesus", by Brennan Manning.

"Religion is a matter not of learning how to think about God, but of actually encountering Him."

"Don't Put God in a Box"

To encounter God we must strip off all allusions of God that have been purported onto us.  We can't grasp the infinite that is God with our human finite minds.  God is the one and only God.  He is Love and so much more.  When we think about God we need to think outside our boxes.  Outside the box we try to put Him in.  We need to think big.  We need to know that our ideas aren't anything that God is, but He is so much more and bigger.

Look at the parable of the farmer and the workers.  It's in Matthew chapter 20.  Their is a crazy farmer hiring workers and it doesn't matter what time of day they start working for him, they all got the same wage.  All got a full days pay, it was "divine generosity".  Do we grumble when others get a break?  Why do we say "it's not fair" or someone "got a lucky break" when something good happens?

What about the parable of the prodigal son?  It's about a reckless, spendthrift who is a wasteful person.  Those are definitions of the word prodigal.  Yet the Father is also a prodigal.  Instead of treating the returning son the way we expect him to be treated, the father acts as a prodigal and is wasteful, reckless and a spendthrift in welcoming a disgraceful son back.  I think a more appropriate title would be "The Wayward Son and the Prodigal Father".

This is how our image of ourselves and of God need to change.  God is that farmer giving everyone the same pay and He is the father of the prodigal, welcoming home the wayward son.  We are that wayward child and we are the workers for the farmer.  We are getting what God wants us to have regardless of our lives or our actions as long as we come to God, He will take care of the rest.

Our images of God and ourselves change when we see Him as merciful, caring and more importantly loving.  Then we can we see ourselves as worth God's time and in need of His Salvation.  Try to look at things a little different.  You might surprise yourself.