Friday, November 1, 2013
The Apostle Paul is a literary gymnast. The road traveled to make a theological point is not a line from A to B as we would express it but a winding road that seems to meander. We are tempted to be turned off by the seeming confusion but if we persist the meandering adds depth and perspective to his central point. This Sunday’s scripture is from Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians, chapter 1 : 1- 23. Let us begin our Pauline tour at verse 8.
The little phrase that is the key to this passage is “ the mystery of his will”. What is the will of God for his creation? The exclusionists' would like you to believe that the promised inheritance or cosmic plan is only for the redeemed in Christ. The "us" of whom Paul speaks (3-7) , according to these folk, can only means those persons who profess faith in the Christ. Unless you are one of us you are not in God's will for the future. Did Paul put the Christ in such a small box?
Paul was writing to the faithful in Ephesus so that the "us" were those who had experienced the truth and wonder of personal salvation. They were the believers to whom he was writing, "who were the first to put their hope in Christ”, those who “heard the word of truth” and “the gospel of your salvation” (13). Paul goes on, “ When you believed you were marked in him with a seal, the promised holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance”(13,14). The new believer is adopted into the love of the Lord Jesus Christ and is an heir to an eternal future(14). This is a wondrous reality that can happen in this life as it did for Paul on the Damascus road. This news, the broadcasting abroad of this news was Paul’s reason for living, but Paul knew this to be only a part of the divine plan.
The whole plan of salvation was and is much more expansive and is a cosmic mirrored image of the love of the Christ himself. Please return to verses 8 and 9, "With all wisdom and pleasure, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ". It pleases God to share himself with his creation as it pleases a parent to share with their children. Our children will at times make lousy decisions but because we love or take pleasure in our kids, we will never quit on them. This is the heart of the God of the galaxies, the God to whom Paul knew. Would this God put eternal boundaries around his compassion for his creation?
Paul answers that question as we continue in verse 9, "to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment-- to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ". Paul knew that the mystery of God's plan is time sensitive,"when the times reach", and somehow was to include "all things", that it would bring unity where there was competition, with no boundaries, on earth and in heaven. The salvation to which God is working through the Christ is the biggest and widest possible expanse. This God of the galaxies could not give a heavenly pass to some and shut others out, all things means all things.
It would seem that the God of the few is no God at all. Somehow the God of the galaxies will work it all out and this passage is very appropriate for "All Saints Day".
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
Thursday, October 31, 2013
Thank You!
Senator Cruz, thank you for standing up for conservative principles even when it was a politically dangerous stand. Your particular fight and warning about Obamacare may have been a loser in the short term but history has proven that those who stand on principle will eventually win. Might may make right in the short term but if there is descent and that descent is righteous, the people will win in the end.
Shame on the many, many liberal Republicans, shame on President Obama and all Democrats for their blind obedience to the tyranny of the extreme left. Whomever is in control in the White House, and the mouth is not in control, they will use every means, legal and criminal, to disparage we conservatives who are the only long term hope for this country. The bottom line is that they are afraid!
They should be afraid for as we are seeing, the American people are beginning to wake up. The change agenda of Barack Obama is not the change that is right for the people, their big government plans are doomed or we are doomed!
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
Shame on the many, many liberal Republicans, shame on President Obama and all Democrats for their blind obedience to the tyranny of the extreme left. Whomever is in control in the White House, and the mouth is not in control, they will use every means, legal and criminal, to disparage we conservatives who are the only long term hope for this country. The bottom line is that they are afraid!
They should be afraid for as we are seeing, the American people are beginning to wake up. The change agenda of Barack Obama is not the change that is right for the people, their big government plans are doomed or we are doomed!
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
Sunday, October 27, 2013
Good Morning
Sunday, October 27, 2013.
The Common Liturgy calls all of the world to consider for this Sunday, Luke 18: 9-14. In my Bible the paragraph is entitled, “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector”.
There are those religionists' who recoil at the mere mention of the possibility of Christian Phariseeism. They recoil because it is so easy to live really close to the definition that Jesus found appalling. The Pharisee in the time of Jesus and today is one who holds himself to be separate, set aside as the best of what spirituality should look like. In verse 11 we are told that “The Pharisee stood by himself to pray”, it would seem that the shoe fits. The Pharisee took pride in doing little else than a meticulous worship of the Jewish religion, to include praying, fasting and tithing. All was accomplished from a desire to appear super spiritual, above and beyond the common crowd. Incredibly, this self centered lifestyle did not impress Jesus.
Instead, Jesus pointed to the tax collector. These folk were doing the dirty deeds of the Roman occupiers, they were despised and rejected by all of society who were largely Jewish. The tax collector worshiped in the back corner of the synagogue and Jesus notes in verse 13, this tax collector would not look heavenward but “beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’.” Jesus declared that this heart felt utterance pleased God more than all the fancy public prayers of the Pharisee. Verse 14 ends with these words of Jesus,“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those that humble themselves will be exalted.” Some of us insist that these words from Jesus are about heaven and hell but that is incorrect, so say I!
The God of the galaxies is all about mercy, is not that what Jesus is saying? The Pharisee is about condemnation and hell, at least for the other guy! The truth is that we all need the mercy of God, we all are on a spiritual journey toward God whether we seek it or whether we claim our supposed independence. We all can be derailed or apathetic. Yet we all will eventually experience the mercy and love of God in this world or the next, while in this world we can make progress toward a heavenly certainty. Could it be that in heaven there will be those of us who are exalted and those of us who are humbled? It makes sense to this dummy, heaven will be an interesting place.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
The Common Liturgy calls all of the world to consider for this Sunday, Luke 18: 9-14. In my Bible the paragraph is entitled, “The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector”.
There are those religionists' who recoil at the mere mention of the possibility of Christian Phariseeism. They recoil because it is so easy to live really close to the definition that Jesus found appalling. The Pharisee in the time of Jesus and today is one who holds himself to be separate, set aside as the best of what spirituality should look like. In verse 11 we are told that “The Pharisee stood by himself to pray”, it would seem that the shoe fits. The Pharisee took pride in doing little else than a meticulous worship of the Jewish religion, to include praying, fasting and tithing. All was accomplished from a desire to appear super spiritual, above and beyond the common crowd. Incredibly, this self centered lifestyle did not impress Jesus.
Instead, Jesus pointed to the tax collector. These folk were doing the dirty deeds of the Roman occupiers, they were despised and rejected by all of society who were largely Jewish. The tax collector worshiped in the back corner of the synagogue and Jesus notes in verse 13, this tax collector would not look heavenward but “beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner’.” Jesus declared that this heart felt utterance pleased God more than all the fancy public prayers of the Pharisee. Verse 14 ends with these words of Jesus,“For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those that humble themselves will be exalted.” Some of us insist that these words from Jesus are about heaven and hell but that is incorrect, so say I!
The God of the galaxies is all about mercy, is not that what Jesus is saying? The Pharisee is about condemnation and hell, at least for the other guy! The truth is that we all need the mercy of God, we all are on a spiritual journey toward God whether we seek it or whether we claim our supposed independence. We all can be derailed or apathetic. Yet we all will eventually experience the mercy and love of God in this world or the next, while in this world we can make progress toward a heavenly certainty. Could it be that in heaven there will be those of us who are exalted and those of us who are humbled? It makes sense to this dummy, heaven will be an interesting place.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
Thursday, October 24, 2013
Disaster
Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke is running for the hills. The economic meltdown will not happen on his watch! After six years of printing phantom money to keep the economy afloat and with three more years of the Obama lordship, he knows the coming meltdown is not far off.
In addition, the ObamaCare fiasco is hastening the demise of what was once the best economy in history. The increasingly rich stock market players are selfishly pushing for continued money irresponsibility at the Reserve and in Washington. They are enabling each other and will not stop. All of these pressures will send the under $40,000 a year working America and the opportunity hungry young folk over the cliff in the name of fairness. Fairness is in the eye of the most invested in the insanity, an insanity that will make America another nation of the rich and the poor.
Why should the economically self involved care? They don't care! This is only one of many warnings, all of whom are more credible than this source. All these warnings have been ignored and dismissed as political propaganda. America will not wake up until the disaster comes and then some politicians will again try to manipulate the pain of others to their own advantage.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
In addition, the ObamaCare fiasco is hastening the demise of what was once the best economy in history. The increasingly rich stock market players are selfishly pushing for continued money irresponsibility at the Reserve and in Washington. They are enabling each other and will not stop. All of these pressures will send the under $40,000 a year working America and the opportunity hungry young folk over the cliff in the name of fairness. Fairness is in the eye of the most invested in the insanity, an insanity that will make America another nation of the rich and the poor.
Why should the economically self involved care? They don't care! This is only one of many warnings, all of whom are more credible than this source. All these warnings have been ignored and dismissed as political propaganda. America will not wake up until the disaster comes and then some politicians will again try to manipulate the pain of others to their own advantage.
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
Monday, October 21, 2013
be healed
Matthew 17: 19,20&21 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, "Why couldn't we drive it out?" He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”
Every difficulty is solvable if one has faith in the God of the galaxies. That seems to be the message that Jesus spoke to his disciples who failed to heal the boy with seizures. Matthew, who records these words, says that Jesus rebuked his disciples, to rebuke is to level “blame or scold in a sharp way”. The disciples must have cringed in embarrassment, both from the failure to heal the boy and then the lack of understanding from their teacher. Are not some of our meager exercises in faith just as lame as those of the disciples? One should ask, does “every difficulty” mean every? Are there no impossibilities with God?
This is one of those perplexing questions that can only be answered with a “yes” and a “no”, the soup contains neither absolute. In the New testament the power of Jesus to heal the sick is not an absolute. There is no record of any spectacular healing in the first thirty years of his life. During his three year ministry, Mathew, Mark and Luke record how the faith of Jesus could not override the cynicism of the people in his hometown, Nazareth. The people heard the news of the healing in Capernaum and marveled at the teachings in the synagogue but when Jesus claimed spiritual authority from a God who was bigger than their religion, they tried to kill one of their own.
Could it be that the God of the galaxies is less a spectacular God and more of a God who works through his creation? Look around, how often do you recognize the spectacular activity of God? That is not to say that God does not operate in a spectacular fashion, we can list the supernatural recorded in Scripture and in our world. But by comparing the subtle activities of God and the spectacular activities of God, we must conclude that the God of the galaxies is most comfortable operating through his creation. All of life is His creation and the natural world is inclined to reflect the will of God.
Operative faith depends upon us but it is also a shared experience. It is shared with others and with the creative process. The message that Jesus was sending with the over the top ridicule is that as far as you and I are concerned, there are no limits to what God can do, should he so choose. After all, through his creative process, mountains have been raised and others washed into the sea. Deserts have been turned into great bodies of water and jungles have become deserts again. Look around, look what the mustard seed has produced!
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
Every difficulty is solvable if one has faith in the God of the galaxies. That seems to be the message that Jesus spoke to his disciples who failed to heal the boy with seizures. Matthew, who records these words, says that Jesus rebuked his disciples, to rebuke is to level “blame or scold in a sharp way”. The disciples must have cringed in embarrassment, both from the failure to heal the boy and then the lack of understanding from their teacher. Are not some of our meager exercises in faith just as lame as those of the disciples? One should ask, does “every difficulty” mean every? Are there no impossibilities with God?
This is one of those perplexing questions that can only be answered with a “yes” and a “no”, the soup contains neither absolute. In the New testament the power of Jesus to heal the sick is not an absolute. There is no record of any spectacular healing in the first thirty years of his life. During his three year ministry, Mathew, Mark and Luke record how the faith of Jesus could not override the cynicism of the people in his hometown, Nazareth. The people heard the news of the healing in Capernaum and marveled at the teachings in the synagogue but when Jesus claimed spiritual authority from a God who was bigger than their religion, they tried to kill one of their own.
Could it be that the God of the galaxies is less a spectacular God and more of a God who works through his creation? Look around, how often do you recognize the spectacular activity of God? That is not to say that God does not operate in a spectacular fashion, we can list the supernatural recorded in Scripture and in our world. But by comparing the subtle activities of God and the spectacular activities of God, we must conclude that the God of the galaxies is most comfortable operating through his creation. All of life is His creation and the natural world is inclined to reflect the will of God.
Operative faith depends upon us but it is also a shared experience. It is shared with others and with the creative process. The message that Jesus was sending with the over the top ridicule is that as far as you and I are concerned, there are no limits to what God can do, should he so choose. After all, through his creative process, mountains have been raised and others washed into the sea. Deserts have been turned into great bodies of water and jungles have become deserts again. Look around, look what the mustard seed has produced!
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca
Saturday, October 12, 2013
Five
The following are at least five life lessons from the Bible. Lessons that we all prove out in our days, at the expense of others and our own well being. A few of us, a very few of us, are quicker studies at life. Only one human being has ever been morally perfect.
1. There is no such thing as something for nothing. ( all things come with an earned history)
2. If you respect the little things, you will be trusted with bigger things. (if you value the smaller things, larger things will come your way)
3. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. (do unto others as you would have them do unto you.)
4. What goes around will come around. ( what we dish out to others will come around to bite or bless us)
5. All is either positive or negative, nothing is neutral. (our moral universe makes every choice a search for what is good for us and others)
All of us are moral failures, the question being, are we becoming aware and accepting of life’s lessons?
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
1. There is no such thing as something for nothing. ( all things come with an earned history)
2. If you respect the little things, you will be trusted with bigger things. (if you value the smaller things, larger things will come your way)
3. Treat other people the way you want to be treated. (do unto others as you would have them do unto you.)
4. What goes around will come around. ( what we dish out to others will come around to bite or bless us)
5. All is either positive or negative, nothing is neutral. (our moral universe makes every choice a search for what is good for us and others)
All of us are moral failures, the question being, are we becoming aware and accepting of life’s lessons?
G.Goslaw
Landers, Ca.
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