The Rabbit Hole

Curiouser and Curiouser!

09 Dec 2015

Gel Stain Baby!

 

Oh, how I do love me some gel stain! A couple of years ago I used General Finishes Gel Stain in Walnut to do my stairs and kitchen cabinets.  I was really happy with the results and it was so easy to do. Just wipe it on, you don’t even need to sand first. I have recently discovered that you don’t need to apply it to wood, so I have been slapping it all over the place. I stained a cheap little white formica cabinet and added some knobs I found for $3 at Homegoods, and it looks so much better!

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      I also stained some $1 silver chargers to look like wood.

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But, my favorite project yet, are my garage doors. I absolutely love the way they turned out.

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After seeing on Pinterest that gel stain could be used on non wood garage doors, I was anxious to try it, so I bought two cans of Minwax gel stain in Hickory at Home Depot.  First I cleaned the doors with vinegar and dish soap and hosed them down really well.  You may want to power wash them if they are really dirty.  Then I let them dry. I was a little nervous to try something so bold, so I experimented with a small section on the inside of the garage door. It went on easily so I decided to just do it. Worst case I would have to repaint them right?

I used a 2 inch brush and painted the stain on one square at a time. It took about an hour and a half, per door.  I used a back and forth brush stroke inside the square and then went around the edges to add definition.  The do the edges that are covered by the rubber flap around the outside, I got as close as possible, then let it dry.  After each door was pretty dry I opened the doors and did the rest of the edges from the inside while the doors were up.  Then I let that dry too.  The next day I went over them any missed spots and visible brush strokes.  I was happy with the result but I wished they looked a little bit more like wood, so I bought some General Finishes Gel Stain in Java.  It is only sold at specialty stores but I think you can find it on the internet. Then I went over them again, SO MUCH BETTER! I took a picture halfway so you can see the difference.

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The Java gave them a nice warm shadow and made them look more like wood. Then I applied an outdoor uv and mildew resistant polyurethane, which is a must here in Texas. Easy Peasy! Now I just need to find something else to stain. Cheers!

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Posted in December 2015, Gel Stain, Home Improvments, Index, Projects and tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
09 Dec 2015

Need a Great Gift Idea?

Looking for gift ideas that are not too expensive and not too home made looking?  Try this homemade Irish Cream, great in coffee, over ice, in hot cocoa, or on ice cream. These make great gifts for your neighbors, co-workers, family and friends!

12358361_10208596678704059_127587327_nSo first, here is the recipe I used for the Irish Cream, tastes like Bailey’s.

Allrecipe.com Irish Cream

It’s pretty easy, I doubled the recipe to make 12, 5 ounce bottles. I got the bottles from Amazon, they are a good size and have nifty shrink wrap tops.  I paid about $15 for a dozen.  You will want to use a turkey baster or funnel to pour the irish cream into the bottles. I also got some chalk board labels for about $10, also from Amazon. I posted the links below. So I ended up spending about $50 including the Jameson and other ingredients.

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Amazon.com chalk board labels

 

Posted in Christmas, December 2015, Index, Projects and tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
07 Feb 2014

Whooo Arrre Youu???

dsc00872.jpg    Being willing to question is good.  It is often thought that going against foundations is a rebellion to be avoided, that straying from what you have been taught is a path that     leads to danger.  Christians often associate the fall of man with questioning God and eating the forbidden fruit.  It is a misconception to believe that God doesn’t want you to ask why.  Why is a good thing.  It is usually what proceeds it or what accompanies the why that is the problem.  As humans we are limited in our perspectives but we are also fallen and clouded in our every viewpoint.  Our questions are often equipped with so much baggage, the answer is already predetermined in our minds.   We are simply looking for a way to justify our position.
In fact God loves to disrupt our preconceived notions.  It is only when our positions are shaken that we are able to hear His revelations of truth.  We feel guilty questioning what comes natural to us, it goes contrary to all our instincts.  This is exactly what He wants, for we can never trust in Him if we are trusting in ourselves.  Sometimes this can be very confusing, because sometimes it is easy to confuse asking why with not trusting God.  It is actually the opposite, trusting God to guide you and to reaffirm viewpoints helps us learn and grow closer to knowing God.  Without repentance we are unable to believe.  I am not  referring to repentance as remorse or contrition, but as in changing one’s mind.  If we are set in our views and trusting in what we see, we are willingly blocking what God reveals.  We are unwittingly choosing not to believe.

There is actually only one sin that is unforgivable, and it is unbelief, or rejecting that Christ was the son of God, whose death and resurrection paid the full penalty for our sins so they we may have eternal life.  Of course it is easy to see how a person that rejects God because of the shame of exposure makes bad decisions where the consequences lead to a spiraling effect that condemnation.  It is more difficult to see how a person can be trapped in unfolding effects of good decisions.  This person is walking by sight and not by faith exactly the same as the person who falls in the stereotypical lost category.  Satan is the Prince of this world, and his realm is the temporal.  When we walk by sight, all of our actions are building a sequence that solidifies unbelief, and firmly plants us in this world under his rule.

God’s most distinct quality is His holiness, this means He is unequal to anything else, He is set apart in every way.  He would also like us to manifest this quality by setting ourselves apart from the temporal world.  This doesn’t mean living in an arrogant bubble, but rather to avoid trusting in what we see.  As we have said this is difficult because it our nature and our instinct, so to do this we must deny ourselves, and put our trust completely in Him.  Walking by faith is a constant effort.  We may attempt to use this faith as a foundation and settle back into our own perspectives.  We need to be disrupted constantly so we are able to look to Him and not fall back on ourselves.  This is why people hate to hear the truth, it convicts us.  This why the controversial parts cannot be left out, we need to be convicted.  God knows we will never see our need for Him if we are not knocked off of our foundation first.  We will fail many, many times, but it is that initial trust, that first time we let go of our foundation and let Him replace it with His truth that changed our fate from the temporal to the eternal, from death to life, from the bonds of time to the freedom of eternity.

It is strange how much that Satan loves to mimic God.  Dialectic thought that is so prevalent in this world is an imitation of Gods way of leading people to truth.  I suppose that is why it is so brilliant and seemingly effective.  Deriving order out of chaos makes use of a destabilized situation and uproots old ideas leaving a space for new ideas to be  molded.  The Marxist mentality is a cheap copy of Gods providence throughout history.  Again we go back to the foundation of the idea.  It is not change itself that is good any more than asking questions is bad.  Faith is only as good as the object it is placed in, it really is what you believe in that is important not just the act of believing   It happens that Gods attributes are absolute and eternal, and the changes promoted through the ideas in this world, the things seen, are only temporal.  So simply put, putting our faith in this world, or ourselves, or anything in this universe, is something that will eventually fail no matter what, so it’s only hope is finding purpose in change itself.  This is sold to us as growth or progress, and it’s ugliness is called duality.caterpillar

I used to believe in balance. Duality made sense to me.   I grew up fond of Alice in Wonderland, the absurd logic that also seemed very practical was attractive.  I loved the questions it proposed, my favorite was when the caterpillar asked, “who are you?”  To me this question spoke volumes, it was inevitably unanswerable and dismissed as irrelevant, but it pulled me to the bigger question of, “What is the purpose for anything? ”  It seemed to call attention to the contradictions in all thought.  This spiral effect of circular reasoning was very intriguing.  It was this, “what’s the point?” that eventually opened the door to finding the true purpose in all things, which cannot exist without God.  See all unbelief contradicts itself, it is dualism by nature.  I now have learned that Alice in Wonderland is just a glorification of that dualism, and probably a lot of other esoteric things and should probably be avoided.  However, I still like the way it gives itself away.  I go back to the beginning and say, it is good to ask why.  It is not bad to be curious. It goes both ways, asking why is the only way to find truth, but you have to be willing to believe a new perspective and one that probably is not the same as your own, but most importantly, you must consider your source.  When Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit they did not fall because they dared to ask a question, Man fell because his heart filled with unbelief and instead of asking God why, He trusted in himself.

Posted in apologetics, articles, Index, Literature, May 2013 and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
07 Feb 2014

IF or IS 

 We were all born into the world. The world since we were born 
has always taught us “IF“. 

We learn that the world is our oyster so to speak, full of possibilities. 
That IF we try hard enough we will prevail! We learn to listen to
 our hearts, be true to ourselves, find ourselves. Be whatever we 
want to be. We learn that we determine right or wrong, we choose
 our own paths. We learn perseverance brings perfection. 

Our movies teach us to root for the hero, their courage will 
defeat the villain. That even against great evil, we can find 
strength within ourselves to overcome in the end.

This theme is not just for fictional stories though, it is ingrained in
 everything we are. Most of our religions teach us the same. 
 If you try hard enough, follow the right rules, incorporate the
 proper steps, you can create a path to the afterlife. 

We see things as cyclical, organic. Our schools teach us Naturalism.
That there is no distinction between nature, animals, and mankind. 
We all share the same elements and could just as easily end up
 anywhere in the cycle of time. We take what we see from the
 seasons, that the cycle of death and regeneration is a harmonious
 balance. 

 
 In fact, if you really boil it down, every part of the world teaches
 us relativity. Anything is possible. There is nothing that is 
 real, nothing constant that we can rely on, that will
 never change, or didn’t just happen by chance. Nothing absolute. 
Time is even relative to whatever situation it is being measured by. 
 Without space and matter would it still even exist? 

So truth itself is whatever we make of it. Cycles and naturalism show
 us that behavior is also relative to our nature and circumstance.
And what is the motivation of all these IF's?
 It removes our accountability.   We are able to rationalize our shame, hide behind 
a multitude of excuses. 
 Then somewhere within this denial, we learn
 to find consistency within it. We start to depend on it, and argue it, as 
we would if it were something absolute. Our relative theories become
 fact and our minds settle into a certain path and it gives us peace. 
 This is our understanding of the way things are, according to the 
world of "IF". 

 
 God asks us to look at things in a different way. To say IS and
 not IF. However, this is difficult in the world we live
 in.  We like choices. One right answer is considered intolerant.
Lack of absolutes say, "Who are you to say your way is the right way?".
 
The Bible tells us, that things are not at all random. They were
 designed by a creator, and that history is moving along with a 
purpose. That we all have a destiny and a purpose. That God is in
 control of everything and that everything happens for a reason. 

 It teaches there is only one answer. One path. God is light, 
everything else is darkness, God is truth, everything else is a 
distortion of that truth, so therefore everything else is lies. That the 
world is fallen and broken and we are part of that brokenness and 
the only path to freedom is to trust in God.

 It shows us that no matter how hard we try we can’t control our
 fate. It is impossible for us to find the strength within 
ourselves to prevail in the end. We cannot trust in ourselves,
 that we will always end up in the same place, failure. We are slaves
 to our world, powerless and deceived by it. Unable to see the truth 
because we are part of the corruption. 

 But wait, that doesn’t sound like a good movie. In that movie, the 
Invaders from outer space are the good guys and we are the bad 
guys! That idea just doesn’t sit right with us, we have always been 
taught that WE are the good guys! But what are we
 really trusting in if nothing is real or constant ? Do we really 
want to completely be left to ourselves?
 
 Even so, it is scary, letting go of the natural trust we have in 
ourselves, and trusting in something to take care of us when deep down
 we are so afraid, we know we are full of mistakes, failures, and
 really, darkness. And in order to seek the light we must first face 
our own darkness. 

 
As Alexander Solzhenitsyen said,
“If only it were all so simple, if only there were evil people 
Somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were 
necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy 
them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart 
of every human being, and who is willing to destroy a piece of his 
own heart?”

 
 So we have to be ready to let go of ourselves because that is 
where the true deceit really lies, we must allow for our own hearts to
 be cut back to be able to change the way we see things. 

 And as scary as it is to think of things being predetermined, it 
Can be comforting to know there is a constant. An unmoving, 
unchanging, Presence. Something that knows all things, controls 
all things.
 But what if God doesn’t accept us? After all, we just
 Learned to see ourselves as utter hopeless failures right? I mean 
the world has been trying to convince us we are worthy and good 
at heart forever right? Now something just came along 
and disrupted everything we have come to know. 

 It is only natural for us to think we will be rejected. So what do we do? 
 Well, we can look at the Bible and see that God said that He loves
 us, and God cannot lie. The Bible also says that perfect love will cast out 
fear.  
 
 The Bible is full of God's promises to take care of us. It says he loves 
the whole world and does not want any to perish. And let's think about
it, why would God not care for his creation? What benefit would it be to
 him to condemn us? On the other hand, ask yourself if you were
 already condemned would you have the motivation to convince 
yourself and the rest of the world that there must be another way, 
an IF? perhaps? That it would be beneficial to try and prove God
 unjust or wrong?
 
 And because God is just, He also proved he loved us, enough to
 sacrifice a part of himself, his only Son, to save us.
 That sacrifice was so big that it paid the price for everyone’s sins.
 It paid for every failure and horrible thing that was ever done and
 ever will be done, and all we have to do is believe it. It is our choice.
 
 
 Seems simple, but that means letting go of that belief you have been
 taught your whole life that anything is possible, and you can control 
your own destiny, or that there are several doors to choose from.
 We have to trust God to be in charge and not us. Our hearts cannot
believe both. For one belief contradicts the other, they both 
cannot be true. So we pick, it is never God rejecting us. We will 
always pick a God, and it will either be Him or ourselves.
 
 If we do believe what God said, it is like the vale lifts up from our
 eyes little by little, and the more of Gods words we believe the more 
we can see the world for what it is. Completely temporal, it loses it’s
 power over us, the power to deceive us into thinking we can be in
 control, it’s power to convince us that God doesn’t really love us or
 worse that HE is the one deceiving us. 

 So sooner or later we will have a choice, we can keep the veil 
over our eyes and continue to believe what the things around us tell
 us. The IF’s and possibilities! Convince ourselves we actually can
 choose our own reality. Or we can choose to believe the IS. That 
there is real truth and light and hope for the future. Hope in a 
complete and total victory that we don’t have to do anything to 
achieve but just accept. A gift we did not earn and cannot
 repay, but because of God’s love and promises we can be assured, 
unafraid, and walk with confidence in the path He has given us.
Posted in apologetics, articles, August 2011, Index, September 2011 | Leave a comment
19 Oct 2011

The Price of Liberty

How do we place a value on life?  I recently saw a video of a little girl in China that was run over and left bleeding in the street.  People were walking around her like a piece of trash and then she was run over a second time before someone pulled her broken body out of the street.  It’s hard to imagine living in a society where that is possible.  We never think that we could be numb to someone else’s suffering, that we have some sense of humanity that protects us from cruelty.  The truth is history has us shown differently.  We can be influenced by society and fear of consequence and general persuasion can lead us to condition ourselves to become accustomed to all kinds of atrocity.  In Nazi Germany, by the time anyone felt the problem was serious enough to speak up, the consequences were so severe they kept any protests quiet.  Within the past century our own country has stood by and watched racial hatred as if it were normal behavior.   During the Civil War we had a country split in half over whether or not people should have the freedom to own slaves.  Many things that we now see as absolutely horrific have been viewed as normal or even majority view at some point in time.

Societies have always struggled with the emphasis of the importance of the individual versus the good of the whole.  We all can agree that a society needs structure and order to keep life from being complete chaos, but should it be as the cost of personal freedom?  The problem is the value of life will decline at either end of the spectrum.  If personal freedom prevails, then what is to stop a person from exploiting others for their own gain?  Child labor, slavery, domestic abuse, the way workers were treated during the industrial revolution are a few examples of how individual liberty can lead to declines in society.  However if the pendulum swings in the other direction we can end up with tyranny and oppression, genocide, fear and complacency, where people look aside when they see suffering.   Again if the pendulum swings to the side of personal freedom, the value of liberty can prevail against the value of human life and lead to rationalizing issues like mercy killing, euthenasia or abortion, after all, people are just exercising their personal freedom right?  Who are we to tell them they are wrong?  This is why it is sometimes difficult to see the difference between far right and far left, you usually end up in the same place.  Fascism and communism have many similarities.

So what are we left with?  Either extreme leads to relativism and a devaluing of life.  As important as freedom and democratic ideals are, they are really more of a result than something you can strive for.  Society often tries to model itself after other successful societies throughout history only to fall miserably off track.  Liberty itself can mean different things to different people, and can become a complete farce if imposed upon a society without the morality to uphold its value.  We associate democracy with ancient Greece, but as Plato said, “Democracy leads to despotism.”  His view was people’s freedom should be based on their voluntary submission to the elite representatives that composed their laws and represented their culture and ultimately defined their truth.  So a person could achieve personal freedom as long as they were able to redefine their definition of what that meant.

The liberty that we idealise today generally assumes morality is intrinsic within the individual, that given the right environment, personal conscience would prevail.  This is a logical assumption when we look back upon times in our history when personal freedom was paramount, but the conditions that led to liberty must be understood to see how it was achieved.  We take advantage of the morality we have been taught in that we don’t see how it colors our decisions and the consequences of our ideas.  Our American culture is fortunate to have a history and constitution that instills value for human life, and personal freedom in that our system of justice defers to a higher law.  The Beauty of this higher law is partly derived from the ten commandments.  In fact we have them printed on the doors of our Supreme court.  They are usually taken for granted, simplified or considered outdated.  However if we listen to the wisdom behind these ten simple laws we can unlock the key to a successful society.  The commandments have a chiastic structure that unifies the importance of all of them to a single element, the value of life.

For a society to be successful in longevity certain elements must be protected, labor and property, marriage and family, and truth.  There is a commonality in the third and ninth commandment,  Thou shalt not take the Lord’s name in vain and Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.  Both protect truth.  If we start calling God what he is not, or using God’s name with a different meaning or intention it is the beginning of redefining truth.  This is important because if language is not protected and words begin to mean whatever we want them to mean, they become corruption and truth becomes relative.  Bearing false witness against your neighbor is an obvious example of this corruption.  The fourth and eighth also relate, Thou shall respect the sabbath and keep it holy and Thou shalt not steal.  On the sabbath not only were the Israelites supposed to rest, but their animals, their labourers and also their land.  Every component of a person’s property was to be respected and held in high regard.  Thou shall not steal is another example of how property and ownership was to be respected.  Another connection lies between the fifth and seventh commandment, Thou shalt honor thy father and mother and Thou shalt not commit adultery.  These both protected the family structure.  Family is what society is based on, they are the first small businesses as well.  They are the backbone of education and economy and when families fall apart, everything falls apart.  Finally respecting our elders leads to and ties in the ultimate commandment, Thou shalt not murder.  A respect and value for life is the cornerstone for all morality that a society should be based on.

However none of these can be possible without the second and tenth commandment,  Thou shall have no other gods before me and Thou shall not covet.  These cannot be judged or dictated by society and this is the foundation that makes liberty possible.  These are what brings forth freedom.   These are commandments of the heart.  We cannot measure them by actions and if they are not there or insincere the rest will fall apart.  Having no other gods before Him, means putting God first, ahead of yourself.  That means a lot more than most people think it means and it is that humility that allows a person to sacrifice their own gain to respect others.  Thou shall not covet means more than not wanting a house or a wife like your neighbor, or simple jealousy.  It means being content with what you are given.  Having a thankful heart for everything God sends your way.  That means every time we complain or grumble, or long for a situation to change, we are coveting.  These commandments are difficult and some would say downright impossible, and ultimately they can only come from God’s grace, but they can be the wisdom we look to when the pendulum swings.

Posted in articles, Index, October 2011 and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment
13 Oct 2011

Psalm 22

Sometimes when we think about Christ it is easy to think of Him only as divine and we forget that He was also human.  It is hard to understand how undiminished deity and true humanity can go together but it is precisely where these two streams converge that gives meaning to everything. It’s hard to fathom His Impeccability, how a perfect deity could actually be tempted.  We forget that He was also man, that He felt tired, hungry and thirsty.  He felt sadness and pain.

We read about His prayer in the garden, Luke 22: 42 “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but yours be done.” 43 An angel from heaven appeared to him and strengthened him. 44 And being in anguish, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground.”

It is His humanity that makes Him qualified to be our King and our Judge.  To truly understand and love us.  In Matthew 27 it said that while there was a time of darkness before Jesus died on the cross he cried with a loud voice,  “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  At that time, Psalms were not known by numbers but were titled according to their beginning verse.  It’s likely that Jesus was reciting the entire Psalm entitled, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” which would be what we know as Psalm 22.

1 My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
Why are you so far from saving me, from the words of my groaning?
2 O my God, I cry by day, but you do not answer,
and by night, but I find no rest.
3 Yet you are holy,
enthroned on the praises[a] of Israel.
4 In you our fathers trusted;
they trusted, and you delivered them.
5 To you they cried and were rescued;
in you they trusted and were not put to shame.
6 But I am a worm and not a man,
scorned by mankind and despised by the people.
7 All who see me mock me;
they make mouths at me; they wag their heads;
8 “He trusts in the LORD; let him deliver him;
let him rescue him, for he delights in him!”
9 Yet you are he who took me from the womb;
you made me trust you at my mother’s breasts.
10 On you was I cast from my birth,
and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.
11 Be not far from me,
for trouble is near,
and there is none to help.
12 Many bulls encompass me;
strong bulls of Bashan surround me;
13 they open wide their mouths at me,
like a ravening and roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
and all my bones are out of joint;
my heart is like wax;
it is melted within my breast;
15 my strength is dried up like a potsherd,
and my tongue sticks to my jaws;
you lay me in the dust of death.
16 For dogs encompass me;
a company of evildoers encircles me;
they have pierced my hands and feet[b]—
17 I can count all my bones—
they stare and gloat over me;
18 they divide my garments among them,
and for my clothing they cast lots.
19 But you, O LORD, do not be far off!
O you my help, come quickly to my aid!
20 Deliver my soul from the sword,
my precious life from the power of the dog!
21 Save me from the mouth of the lion!
You have rescued[c] me from the horns of the wild oxen!
22 I will tell of your name to my brothers;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
23 You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him,
and stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
24 For he has not despised or abhorred
the affliction of the afflicted,
and he has not hidden his face from him,
but has heard, when he cried to him.
25 From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will perform before those who fear him.
26 The afflicted[d] shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD!
May your hearts live for ever!
27 All the ends of the earth shall remember
and turn to the LORD,
and all the families of the nations
shall worship before you.
28 For kingship belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
29 All the prosperous of the earth eat and worship;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust,
even the one who could not keep himself alive.
30 Posterity shall serve him;
it shall be told of the Lord to the coming generation;
31 they shall come and proclaim his righteousness to a people yet unborn,
that he has done it.

Posted in apologetics, articles, Christmas, Index and tagged , , , , | Leave a comment
11 Oct 2011

That’s Logic!

   I always find it curious when a person makes an absolute statement.  How a person that is restricted by boundaries, limited in knowledge, information and reason in every possible way, can be an authority on anything!  The very idea of saying something is or is not true is essentially saying they have access to infinite knowledge.

Almost all the information we rely on daily is based on knowledge that is extracted or derived from other extracted or derived data.  It is the same with science.  There is no absolute data.  There is no provable information in our world that is not limited to human methods of collection and interpretation, and therefore limited and subject to error.  Science has not had the benefit of a true control subject because that would require an infinite scope of variability.  We may be able to use tools to measure beyond our human reach, but that does not set a basis for absolute information.  There are many factors that can change the state of matter, different environmental causes that alter both how data is measured and how it appears, and who knows what other factors we are not aware of.

Have you ever stopped to wonder if there is anything you can imagine that could not have a molecular transformation through either passing of time, extreme environmental conditions or perhaps just in how it is perceived?

Let’s say for example, “That desk is green.” is an absolute statement. We would not be taking into account what that desk may look like in thousand years or after a fire or a chainsaw changed it into something else completely.  Or maybe we should say, “That desk is green right now.” but even that doesn’t account for altered perception, lighting, or how the categories are classified.  With no perfect categories classification is largely a system of assumption.  The color green has thousands of different variations and desks come in all shapes and sizes.  Even the idea of right now could be interpreted to mean any number of things like this century, this era, or this second, all of which have entirely different implications.

So we can choose to accept this or not.  We can take the information around us and we can trust in it, believe that it has qualities that are absolute,  believe that it cannot change or that the world around us will continue as it always has.  Two plus two will always be four, right?  We know certain things transform but overall we can measure that, we can learn enough to determine constants.  Anything that doesn’t fit into the constants can simply be interpreted metaphorically, or allegorically.

Have you ever heard anyone say? ” I only believe in what I can hear, see or touch.”  Basically they are saying they only believe in themselves.  They will be the deciding authority on the information around them.

The other side to the coin is to have an authority outside of yourself.  To acknowledge we are limited in every way and that we may have the ability to ascertain certain things, they are always subject to forces outside of ourselves.  Two plus two does equal four using our form of logic and reason but we know that is variable.  We did not create ourselves or the world in which we live.  So therefore the only source of truth or absolutes that we can rely on must come from something infinite, something that cannot change, something omniscient.  That everything we see around us is temporal and could cease to exist.

Now those who choose the path of the things seen tend to rely on the natural world around them.  Ideas replicate balance, hot and cold, order and chaos, light and dark, life and death.  Good and evil are just the polarity of nature, forever present.  Nature is neutral and consistent, setting a cyclical, seasonal harmony that brings continuity.  With that comes randomness, things don’t happen for a reason, it’s all just cause and effect, action reaction.  No one knows why anything happens.  It is just chance, random, it just is.   Sometimes the authority for empirical knowledge ends up in a physical representation of a King, a common viewpoint ,democratic majority or the state.  Truth is determined by a monarchy or the will of the people. If there is a natural chain of being all things from the most insignificant to the most powerful can become one.  The hope for truth and power comes from the top of the chain, embodied in the state, king or democracy.  The consequence of this as history has shown is without a standard of transcendental authority a majority rule can be influenced in any direction, as a result we have had wars, slavery, and even genocide to show for it.  Obviously the same is true for a monarchy or state.

As a reaction to the pitfalls of fallible authority came Humanism.  Accepting all actions as a just the nature of being and determining truth relative to ones individual perspective.  This viewpoint is also random and if things don’t happen for a reason, it only follows that you can be the only one that creates purpose.  Life is what you make of it.  All aspects of reality end up in a relative state dependent on each individual situation.  Both viewpoints are inevitably essentially religious.  A faith in science, state, reason or perception.  Of course you may say you believe in god, but it is really an abstraction.  A form to fit the unknown, an abstract being that is always neutral, perhaps with a random nature for wrath and need for placation, sometimes gentil like the seasons.  It may be a force, spirit, mother nature or cosmos. It may be polytheistic.  Or often it is the God of the Bible, but reinterpreted to fit into an ideal neutral box.  A god that would not judge so therefore is likely to be either dormant and uninterested, or mostly metaphorical.

That is why so many people do not believe the Bible is inspired by God, it’s too disruptive.  It challenges everything that they believe to be true. Miracles would mean something could disrupt the physical absolute world around them.  They would be more likely to believe anything written by man because it would be much less threatening to their viewpoint.

2 Peter 3: 3 “knowing this first: that scoffers will come in the last days, walking according to their own lusts, 4 and saying, “Where is the promise of His coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For this they willfully forget: that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of water and in the water, 6 by which the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water. 7 But the heavens and the earth which are now preserved by the same word, are reserved for fire until the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us,[b]not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.”

Now those who choose the path of the things unseen,  trust not in the world around them but in who controls it.  They believe that the world as they know it is at the mercy of its creator.  That things have a purpose, there is a reason why things are the way they are.  Each cell, structure and molecule has an intricate design that is not random but reveals the character of its creator.  There are specific truths that eliminate any form of relative perspective.  The only absolutes are in the character of the creator.

So while we all rely on our surroundings to give us clarity on life, and we all proclaim our belief’s, the difference is in the authority.  It really boils down to two perspectives, are we going to interpret and define our existence with a human, limited viewpoint either collective or personal, or submit to an outside authority that is infinite and in control of everything we know and see.  Of course the real problem is believing in an infinite transcendental authority means being accountable to it as well.  That is why we all have the tendency to hide in the darkness of our perceived reality, it is our only protection from exposure.

So the next time you catch yourself stating something as a fact, ask yourself, “How do I know what is truth? Who makes it true? and What is the purpose?”

Posted in articles, Index, October 2011 | Leave a comment
07 Oct 2011

The Word was Love

I have always wondered what the most important thing is. The key to humanity or universality or everything.  What ties it all together.  Is it Love? Humility? Charity? Sacrifice? Perseverance, Forgiveness, Faith?  What makes us who we are, rests deep inside our souls.  What is the link to forever?

Mark 12:28 “One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, ‘Which commandment is the first of all?’ 29Jesus answered, ‘The first is, “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” 31The second is this, “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” There is no other commandment greater than these.’ 32Then the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that “he is one, and besides him there is no other”;33and “to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength”, and “to love one’s neighbour as oneself”,—this is much more important than all whole burnt-offerings and sacrifices.’ 34When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God.’ After that no one dared to ask him any question.”

All of the commandments have a structure that emphasize this.  Putting your heart in a position where God and others come first and you will automatically respect the commandments.  Putting God first means putting no other gods before Him, or not letting anything be more important that he is.  It means respecting His Creation, not distorting truth and misrepresenting things as He created them.  If truth is respected we will not lie, if His creation is respected we will respect everything in it, our neighbor, his property and family, we will not steal from him or envy what he has.  We will understand love and cherish our families. We will understand promises so we will stick out our troubles and honor our parents and elders.  We will respect the life God has given, we will not kill.  If we love God with all our hearts we will not be afraid, we will trust Him.  We will know that He loves us and will provide our needs so we can rest on the Sabbath, and we will not covet because we will rejoice in what He has given us.

So  you may say the most important thing is love. But there is no love without God, our version of love will always be a finite version of Gods love, so we must first trust him.  It is always humility that you must start with.  We cannot find love or charity or faith without first finding Him.  His love will cast away our fear so we are able to understand love, and that love teaches us to sacrifice, to forgive, to give, persevere, and believe.  It is humility that makes all  things work together.  We have to understand we have nothing without Him and we must first receive before we are able to give.

This is the truth that ties the Trinity together.   How three persons can also be One, that humility that unites three individual persons into one God.  It is the sacrifice that creates the perfect Harmony.

I think this is the nature of being.  This is the lost question that has always plagued philosophers.  This is how we understand the metaphysics of existence.  This is the link that unites realism and idealism, unity and singularity, the one and the many.  There are not 10 separate categories or even 12 but really just one, and it is God.

Everything that we can conceive of is an extension of that category.  Derived from Him.  Our understanding of time is a finite version of his eternality, space is His omnipresence, knowledge is His omniscience.  Light and color are emanated from the rainbow around His throne.  Language  is a system of classification.  Logic and reason are how we conceptualize it.  Both are finite versions of God’s attributes. Numbers are fragments of His plurality.  Nothing you can say or think cannot be broken down to the essence of God.  Truth is not a concept that we measure God by, it simply does not exist outside of Him.  The Trinity of God combines all these attributes into a self-contained entity that is manifested in all space and time and in our very humanity.  Mind, body and soul.  Matter has the three stages, gas, liquid and solid.  We have three dimensions in space and time has past present and future.   All of these attributes are always present, it is not as if God is part love, part mercy, part holiness and so forth.  He is pure and total love, totally merciful, completely holy, sovereign, omniscient…  They all exist together eternally.  So all are categories that make up the whole but all maintain full individuality and importance.  Maybe this is what God means to a certain extent when he refers to himself as “I am”.

Or in John 1″ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it. ”

In the Greek the word for “word” was Logos, which also means reason.

“And the Word was made flesh.”

So you may ask what does that make evil, or the opposites of these categories?  Do they also come from God?  All evil can be broken down into distortions of these categories.  Something pure that is corrupted, or rather it is apart from God or not of Him.  When something is away from God, it is outside of truth, mixing up the categories into different forms.  Darkness is the absence of light.  Evil is an attempt to take away the harmony that things are meant to have.  An emphasis of one attribute over another therefore displacing balance and unity.  Of course things outside of God can contain fragments of these qualities, these qualities after all make up all of existence, but without the balance of unity the truth is not complete and therefore untrue and a lie.

1 John 1:5 “This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. 7 But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.
8 If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. 9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.

1 John 2:3 “Now by this we know that we know Him, if we keep His commandments. 4 He who says, “I know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. 5 But whoever keeps His word, truly the love of God is perfected in him. By this we know that we are in Him. 6 He who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked.
7 Brethren,[a] I write no new commandment to you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you heard from the beginning.[b] 8 Again, a new commandment I write to you, which thing is true in Him and in you, because the darkness is passing away, and the true light is already shining.
9 He who says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness until now. 10 He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. 11 But he who hates his brother is in darkness and walks in darkness, and does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded his eyes.”

We all fail to walk in the light every day.  We all break the commandments, get scared, lose faith.  Our pride causes us to put ourselves first.  Without humility we are lost, we cannot find truth or love or harmony because we cannot find God.  This is why the entire universe is broken.  When man first sinned, it displaced the nature of omniscience and sovereignty, and caused a ripple effect that spanned the molecular structure of the universe.  If all things come from God and all things at one time were in complete harmony, then the entire creation would be at the mercy of a single arbitrary act.   The balance of God’s character was the only thing that could save it because it was the only thing not broken.  God is outside the universe not a part of it so only he could  bridge the gap between Heaven and Earth.  That is what made it possible for a single act of complete humility to fix it.

Posted in articles, Index, October 2011 | Leave a comment
05 Oct 2011

Inside the Matrix

Movies like to capture the essence of self-determination in overcoming tremendous odds.  Characters surmount the impossible by finding courage and strength within themselves and with the help of their friends.  There is often a sacrifice in some way to make the achievement possible.

This is the basis that we use to find encouragement and determination to live our lives. The problem is that is not how God wants us to see things.  We can try to relate these movies and stories as analogies to the Christian perspective, using the sacrifice to compare to Christ and the value of unity and the ability for the “good” to defeat the great “evil”.  However that leaves out the most important element, it leaves out God.  We do it all ourselves and the idea of God is either pushed farther away into abstraction or brought down to a level of corruption.  The Man, or big brother, the system, the matrix, the force…  A cold, alien controller that tries to oppress the valiant spirit.  The hero has to find a way to break free of the oppression and in doing so will free everyone else.

Overall the story is a contradiction.  For example, In the Matrix, the Matrix was the reality.  The characters had to borrow from the same reality they were trying to destroy.  How can you step into a programmed reality and rewrite it without access or authority?  We do the same thing in our own lives, lets say it is God that controls the Matrix, and you cannot unplug, or find a door out, or a glitch in the system.  He writes the program for all reality and controls everything within.  There are no tools, skills, no amount of knowledge, no special training that can increase our odds.  We cannot sacrifice ourselves to free everyone else, that would be pointless, we have no real power in ourselves.  So everyone pretends that they are in control, that maybe they will find the secret that will give them the freedom from the programming that is within them and all around them.  Perhaps if we imagine a different reality, make up our own authority we can live in freedom.  We always know the truth though, when the end comes and our version of reality is about to be unplugged, we know our control is about to end and it never belonged to us to begin with.

Some people realize this is reality.  The futility of their existence.  That they have no control and real freedom is subject to the boundaries that contain them.  Then comes the question, what is the point of freedom or control anyway.  What good would it do?  How do we know who is the “good” and “evil” anyway?  It is all futility.  They realize that the individuality we have has no relevancy,  we are blowing in the wind being defined by the places we land along the way.  Some find this place in reality and lose all hope and purpose, and many just never look.  There are others that keep looking, groping in the dark trying to find a purpose.  That is when our eyes can be opened and we can see like the patterns in the code on the Matrix.  Only we see that what controls the boundaries around us is not what oppresses us, it is our struggle to be free that binds us and tangles us in our own bonds.  We have redefined reality for our own purpose and we have changed truth to fit.  We use borrowed logic to try to cheat the inevitable.  We say that we will choose the truths we want to believe,  we will pick our own morality, virtues, purposes and our own gods.  The world around us will be subject to our viewpoint and our own authority.  Then we call that free will, spirit, and determination.  It is really defiance, audacity and lies.  The ultimate deception is our own.  This is sin, this is the place our heart is in when we decide to put ourselves first.  Redefine a little truth here or there to make it OK to lie, or rationalize a bit to steal, if we change enough around, we can even justify taking someones life.  Without a universal authority who can say it isn’t?

So once we see that we have been busy deceiving ourselves into believing we our own authority, God helps us to see that he is the one is charge.  He created us, he knows everything, sees everything, controls everything.  He is always good,  he is truth.  He frees us from the chains of our own deception, he opens our eyes to the world as it was really meant to be, where we have a much greater purpose than just for ourselves, but at the same time we finally find real freedom, and we find our true selves.

To illustrate this in the movies, Neo would have to realize his futility, change his version of reality, and submit to the will of the Matrix. The Matrix would not be the great “evil” but really the great “good” that was not cold and oppressive and the Matrix would be the one to sacrifice and free everyone because it was the only one that had the capability.  Something tells me people would be less likely to watch that.  A powerless hero subject to the will of the system.  We like our own version of reality reinforced not shaken or disturbed.  Of course we want to believe that we have the power to overcome, that we can get stronger, dive deeper, beat the odds, but the truth is, we can only do what God allows us to do. If we listen to that truth, step out of the made up world around us, God promises us strength and courage and the power to overcome any odds.

Posted in apologetics, articles, Film Commentary, Index, October 2011 | Leave a comment
29 Aug 2011

Programmed to self destruct

It is funny that we are naturally opposed to believe in something that will save us.  We are so clouded by shame and fear that we inherit a belief that we can only rely on ourselves.  Which is rather strange considering we obviously know we are broken, yet somehow we continue to trust that we have the ability to fix ourselves.  I guess then it makes sense to rationalize or downplay our brokenness.   We then rationalize our world around us and recreate our entire reality.  We take everything we know and fit it inside our own little box.  We will stretch and pull and squish and smash until everything fits.  Of course then nothing is real anymore.  We have no idea what real even is.  We know that if anyone tells us different we get angry, we don’t like our box disturbed.  In fact we don’t like anything that threatens to rock the boat at all.  What we rely on most of all are that things will continue as they always have.

We like to go along our lives finding our hope within a general progression of things.  We believe everything evolves slowly.  That life is like the seasons balanced and harmonized.  Death gives birth to life and over time it grows and develops.  That perhaps over time we could even progress into something else.  We could do more good than bad and evolve up the ladder.  We start to rationalize all of those things to fit into the box as well.  Good things become disproportionate to the bad ones.   The bad things are downplayed and become not so bad, or not bad at all.  We like to say it is all part of life, we were born this way.  It is not my fault, it is just nature.  Pretty soon it is a truly neutral zone.  A non threatening environment just circling and cycling through time.

See the funny thing is, the box never answers any of our real questions.  It is just grasping onto thin air.  We still know inside that there are no answers for the inevitability that things have to change at some point.  We know we will one day die.  We know we are floating in darkness, and we don’t know how we got there.  And sometimes, if we get the nerve up, we peek outside the box and the bleakness of space around us swallows us.  It is then that we unwittingly let the questions creep in.  It is then, that we are faced with, “what is the point?  Why I am here?  What is the point of anything?”  It is at this point we either shove it back out into space, and try our best to pretend it was never there, meanwhile maybe trying a little harder to climb the ladder, just in case.  We know though, the darkness and brokenness chases us up every rung.  Or we give into the nothingness, embrace it and turn to poetry, music, drugs, alcohol, anything that helps us escape the pain of knowing, escape the vast nothingness. The loneliness.

It is here that we are our own curse.  Deep down we know there is no hope, that our reality has left us nothing to rely on but ourselves and we know we are broken, we have been trying to hide since the beginning.  Yet we are so afraid of being exposed we condemn ourselves.  And deep down we know we are doing it.  Just like we know that when we do things like lie or steal we eventually will get caught, we make ourselves believe it is possible not to.  Yet we go, like sheep to the slaughter.

If we could only stop and let go of that fear.  That shame that makes us hide.  That makes us deny our Creator and blend all life into a continuous cycle.  Stop meshing everything together into our box and step outside.  Step out and see that there is light.  There is purpose and design.  We are here for a reason and everything around us has a purpose as well.  We were created in God’s image  because he loves us and he values life and creation, and there is a purpose for history!  Our desire to be like Him and be in total control of ourselves broke the entire universe.  So now that everything is broken, there is absolutely nothing we can find to fix it, not within ourselves and not anywhere within the entire universe.  It holds no truth and no answers for us.  It is only vast darkness.  God knows that we cannot fix ourselves, we have no answers.  But God does care for us and He knew that He was the only thing that was outside the universe that could fix it.  So at a great price He gave a piece of Himself to bring us back to Him.  He became the path away from darkness.  We can walk in His light, use His strength, and freely accept His gift.  And we will live.

Posted in articles, August 2011, Index | Leave a comment

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