Something that came to me that blew my socks off:
"Before Abraham Was, I AM" (Jn.8:58)
I had never understood this but suddenly tonight I believe the meaning came to me. Why did Jesus say I AM? Why didn't he just say I was? I think the answer is that God inhabits eternity. He cannot say I was, or I will be as God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. He never changes. God is outside time!
Attitude Control
You might have heard the term “attitude control” in the news when referring to a plane crash – that the plane lost “attitude control” and crashed. In the world of aviation the term “attitude” refers to the direction in which you are pointed. 0 to 90 degrees is positive attitude while 0 to -90 degrees is a negative attitude, with 90 degrees being straight up, 0 degrees being perfectly level, and -90 degrees being straight down. There is a Godly principal in this idea as you will soon see.
If we replace the believer with an airplane, when we get saved we get our wings (faith) and take off. The engines are the Holy Spirit and the fuel is the written word of God. It is impossible to climb without POWER (the engines). If we try to climb and go higher in the things of God without POWER this is a stall and we will drop like a rock until we regain lift (our wings). As we fly the terrain beneath us is things of this world, our circumstances, and our problems, and the sky above is heaven. With a positive attitude our gaze is toward heaven, while with a negative attitude our gaze is toward the earth. If we have a negative attitude for too long we are in a dive and need to “pull up” or we are going to crash on our circumstances and problems. However if we keep a positive attitude we will go higher in the things of God.
If we climb high enough the air becomes thin and a constant positive attitude is required for level flight. Also as we go higher heaven is revealed (the sky becomes black and you can see the stars (the angels)). The higher we go the smaller the world below gets . Eventually when we go high and fast enough we reach escape velocity and leave the earth realm and enter heaven (when God calls us home).
The unbeliever on the other hand must “hoof it” across the terrain (their circumstances and problems) under their own power, an arduous and dangerous task. They can't see things from heaven's perspective and rarely get a glimpse of anything except the next mountain (their problems); but our faith (wings) allows us to soar above our problems by God's power (lift) and not our own.
If there are dark clouds that block our view of the sun (Son) we can climb above them to where the sun (Son) is always shining.
From an earthly perspective storm clouds look dark and foreboding but from heaven (high altitude) they look harmless (white and fluffy).
So the moral of the story is if you want to go higher in the things of God take in the written word of God (fuel), maintain a positive attitude, and soon by the power of the Holy Spirit (the engines) you will begin to use your God-given wings (faith) and will start to climb.
Space Time
X, Y, Z space flows through T time to form the 4 dimensional Space-Time Continuum. Each of us is an “observer”, always located at a single point in Space-Time known as an event. All the events in your lifetime, including birthdays and graduations, are assigned coordinates on a map of Space-time, a single point designated by Width(x), Height(y), Depth(z), and Time(t). The path we are on throughout our lives, called a Wordline, consists of a series of connected events forming a path in space-time from birth to death. Once you have discovered the “Wordline” for an object or even a person it cannot be changed, it is the complete “story” of it's or their lives. Everything that has ever happened to you is located on coordinates in the space-time continuum in your Wordline, from your first day in kindergarten, to that test you failed in grade school, to your first car, to when you got married, to the day you die, everything you do. The bible says that we will each be judged after we die based on the things we have done in our lives. Could this be the spiritual equivalent to the “Wordline” in the laws of physics? If we are on the wrong “path” in life (the Wordline) we can choose to repent and change our Wordline for the better! In physics the Wordline cannot be changed, it takes a miracle to do that (salvation)!
A Star is Born
Something just came to me and I started doing some research- it is regarding the birth of stars. There is a parallel between the birth of a star in outer-space and the birth of a human here on earth. A star is born in a huge cloud of gas in space called a nebula. This functions as a “womb” for stars to be created. The “womb” provides the raw materials needed for the formation of a star. A star is formed when a ball of gas condenses into itself and begins to get bigger and bigger due to it's ever-increasing gravitational pull. The core temperature gets higher and higher due to friction of the gas particles running into each other until it gets high enough for nuclear reactions to occur. In this stage there is a parallel to a human baby, like the human baby (embryo) being knit together in the “womb” as the cells divide, the star also continually gets bigger and bigger as it feeds off of gases and the core temperature climbs even more. When the core temperature of the forming star reaches 10 million degrees Celsius nuclear fusion begins and like a human baby, a star is born! This newborn star is called a protostar. The protostar is then ejected from the stellar “womb” (the nebula) out into space and begins it's life as a mature star! The life cycle of a star and that of a human being are seemingly totally unrelated but there is a strong parallel between the two! This is God's fingerprints on His creation!
God's Power is Like Electricity
Last spring semester at community college I took a class on the basics of electricity, and God showed me another example of Godly principals at work in nature. We were learning about conductors and insulators (conductors are substances that allow electricity to flow through them, while insulators are substances that don’t allow electricity to flow through them). We were learning about what happens on the atomic level when electricity flows through something and the Lord showed me that there are also Godly principles at work in the behavior of electricity.
Electricity is made up of free electrons, electrons that are not attached to an atom. When electricity flows through a conductor such as a copper wire the free electrons bump into a copper atom that is part of the copper wire and knock the copper atom’s own electrons out of the copper atom. These newly freed electrons then slam into the adjacent copper atoms in the wire, knocking their electrons out of the copper atoms and electricity flows through the copper wire in one big chain reaction, like a set of dominoes.
In the class we were learning about the differences between conductors and insulators on the atomic level. An insulator (such as plastic, rubber, or glass) which does not conduct electricity holds onto it’s electrons very tightly and keeps them close to the nucleus. It won’t let go of it’s electrons and if electricity tries to flow through it the flow will come to the insulator and stop since the free electrons can’t knock the insulator’s electrons out of orbit from their nucleus. On the other hand, a conductor (copper, aluminum, gold, silver, water, etc) which does conduct electricity does not hold onto it’s electrons tightly and they are further from the nucleus than with an insulator. It easily lets go of it’s electrons and if electricity tries to flow through it the free electrons will knock the conductor’s electrons out of orbit from their nucleus and electricity will flow to the next atoms. God showed me that His power functions much like electricity.
If we are like an insulator and are selfish and won’t let go of our “electrons” and want to hoard them all for ourselves it stops the flow of God’s power. However if we are like a conductor and don’t hold on to everything we have and freely give our “electrons”, then like electricity God’s power will flow through us.
Another thing I learned is that interestingly enough the best conductor of electricity there is in the world is silver, which is exactly what God compares the nation of Israel to in Isaiah 1:22-23: 22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water: 23 Thy princes are rebellious, and companions of thieves: every one loveth gifts, and followeth after rewards: they judge not the fatherless, neither doth the cause of the widow come unto them.” –Isaiah 1:22-23 The Lord does it again in Ezekiel 22:22: “As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the LORD have poured out my fury upon you.” –Ezekiel 22:22 In both cases the nation of Israel had rebelled against the Lord and were facing impending judgment. They had all become “dross” as the Lord said in Ezekiel 22:19: “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem.” –Ezekiel 22:19 And in Isaiah 1:22: “22 Thy silver is become dross, thy wine mixed with water:” –Isaiah 1:22
I did some research on silver dross and it is made up of impurities in the metal. Because pure silver is the best conductor of electricity in the world, any foreign substances in the silver will lower it’s conductivity. The silver with impurities in it must be melted and purged of the dross and then it will conduct electricity better than it would have otherwise. This is exactly what the Lord figuratively said He would do to rebellious Israel in Isaiah 1:25: “24 Therefore saith the Lord, the LORD of hosts, the mighty One of Israel, Ah, I will ease Me of mine adversaries, and avenge Me of mine enemies: 25 And I will turn My hand upon thee, and purely purge away thy dross, and take away all thy tin: 26 And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning: afterward thou shalt be called, The city of righteousness, the faithful city.” –Isaiah 1:24-26 God could have said gold or iron or tin or another metal, but being the creator of the elements He knew exactly what He was doing when He spoke these words to the Old Testament prophets. Nobody knew anything about electricity or conductivity or the properties of silver back in the days these books of the Bible were written, but God did!
Ezekiel Bread
Just recently I was at Giant and I spotted a new type of bread, called Ezekiel Bread. I took a look at it and it turned out that someone had taken the recipe for bread God gave Ezekiel to eat during the 390 days he was to bear the sins of Israel, in Ezekiel 4:9, and made it. “Also take for yourself wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet, and spelt; put them into one vessel, and make bread of them for yourself. During the number of days that you lie on your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it. –Ezekiel 4:9 I read some more on the label and they had analyzed it for nutrients and found some very interesting things about it. There are 9 essential amino-acids (types of protein) that the human body needs to build muscle tissue. Some types of food lack 1 or more of these amino-acids so we must eat different types of food to get all 9 amino-acids in our diet. For example wheat is lacking in the amino-acid lysine so we must get lysine from somewhere else or else it will be impossible to build muscle. If we ate nothing but wheat, we would be malnourished. Most bread does not have all 9 essential amino-acids, but the recipe that God gave Ezekiel does. In fact, it has 18 amino-acids along with other vitamins and minerals. Back in the days of Ezekiel this was probably one of the healthiest foods you could possibly eat (obviously there weren’t any vitamin pills or nutritional supplements back then). Because it has all 9 essential amino-acids it is basically the same as eating meat, milk, or eggs. If our bodies don’t get the nutrients they need to function from the food we eat then our bodies are forced to eat themselves to survive and we slowly waste away until we start getting enough food again. I’m not an expert, but I think if Ezekiel had eaten nothing but regular bread for 390 days he would have been in very bad shape physically by the end. However the bread recipe God gave Ezekiel is much healthier than regular bread because of all the different types of grain in it and would have been basically the same as eating meat and taking a vitamin pill. Back in the days of Ezekiel they obviously knew nothing about amino acids or nutrition, but God did! He knew exactly what He was doing when He gave the recipe to Ezekiel!
Guardian Angels
I was just messing around on Facebook and I came across Freddy Clark's page. He talked about how the early church believed that your each of our angels (like a personal guardian angel) looks similar or identical to each of us. This is backed up in the scripture A
Acts 12:12-15: “When this had dawned on him, he went to the house of Mary the mother of John, also called Mark, where many people had gathered and were praying. 13Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. 14When she recognized Peter’s voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, “Peter is at the door!”
“You’re out of your mind,” they told her. When she kept insisting that it was so, they said, “It must be his angel.” - Acts 12:12-15
Whether this is just their belief or it is actually true remains to be seen, though I have heard stories about believers being seen at 2 places at once. I heard of a report once of a man being in North Carolina, while at the same time he was seen by thousands of people at a conference in Texas. He smiled, waved, talked to people, even talked about how his kids were doing and he did not go! It might have been his angel!