Regarding episode 133 - the men’s Bible study. Comparing God taking people out of slavery in Egypt to salvation from the slavery to sin - good context for understanding how when we are in sin, we cannot worship God. We have to be saved out of our sin to come to God. Our salvation is freedom because we are saved out of the world to freely worship - God’s sovereignty is revealed in Jesus who overcomes all things and through His Spirit we can worship in all circumstances. “Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:11-13 We would not have to leave Egypt to be freed from its authority through Him overcoming our sin. Paul was free in prison through His faith. Bottom line I think is that through Jesus, we can worship in Egypt, which is what we’re currently doing if Egypt is thought of as symbolic to the world as defined as the inherent sinful state. “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” John 16:33. “ Then Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. ”They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” John 8:31-36 What do you think they meant when they said they had never been in bondage to anyone given Israel’s history as slaves in Egypt? Never noticed that statement seems so strange before. Anyway, seems like God is revealing His absolute authority through His people throughout time in a way that will settle all things. God called them out of Egypt, but the entire time He withheld His hand on some level by even condescending to Pharaoh through Moses. I just think He’s acting to silence the evil for good one day in perfect love and justice, He’s using us to show them, they never had any power. Only sin can keep us from God, and Jesus shows God is greater than even our own sin. Egypt is nothing to Him except He loves. He is acting in love even with those against Him? They will know why they end up in hell in the end and they will know He loved them and it was their decision. Thats justice but it’s so terribly sad what they’ll live with for eternity. God have mercy. That’s how perfect and right our God is. They have no idea how desperate they are for His mercy because they don’t understand who He is. Pharaoh never understood in this earth what God is while claiming to be a god if you look at it. Completely clueless in his pride what it means to be in authority. Anyway, I think you see salvation has to be eternal if you truly understand who God is. Sovereign is sovereign. He doesn’t make mistakes, and He doesn’t do anything half way. He just Mayes Himself known to us for our sake even if we refuse to see. That’s patience, not uncertainty and lack of authority. If He needs us for nothing than covenant has to be totally reliant on Him. If you understand what it means to be God, I think you have to see once saved, always saved. He knew they’d rebel for example - don’t mistake His mercy and regard for us with uncertainty. He is faithful and that’s not even something we can begin to relate to without His Spirit. We don’t even know what faith means except through Him, and it’s never about the covenant being undone. If you understand covenant, it’s also has to be once saved always saved. God is not a man that He should lie. This went totally unexpected direction for me - I think it’s because you can see His nature in how He dealt with Egypt is not one that is ever uncertain in what He agrees to. He knows the end from the beginning. God has this. If you’re saved, that’s it, but know Who you’ve accepted. You really do have to lay your life down to follow God. It’s just the nature of walking with someone perfect and sovereign over you. You put your faith in Him - He will not fail. You’re saved. Had to be like that or He’s too much like us.

Galatians 5:22-23 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. Just thought how clearly this explains the relationship between law and spirit and why those indwelled with the Holy Spirit are not under the law. Law is in response to those who break it. Our Savior never did, and it’s His Spirit in us. His Spirit is what convicts us and teaches us. No need for tutor….it all just comes together for me when I noticed this verse more closely

“Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is head of the wife, as also Christ is head of the church; and He is the Savior of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He mightsanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish. So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church. For we are members of His body, [of His flesh and of His bones. ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Ephesians 5:23-32 “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” (Genesis 2) “I have manifested Your name to the people whom You gave Me out of the world. Yours they were, and You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word. Now they know that very thing You have given Me is from You. For I have given them the words that You gave Me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from You; and they have believed that You sent Me. I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom You have given Me, for they are Yours. All Mine are Yours, and Yours are Mine, and I am glorified in them. And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to You. Holy Father, keep them in Your Name, which you have given Me, that they may be One, even as we are One. (John 17) Thought - the dissolution of marriage is a primary reason we have weak testimony as the church. Also, one purpose of God manifesting Himself in the Three in One, One in Three is maybe to help us understand His nature more fully in a higher spiritual meaning of Oneness. The point I think He’s bringing out in this to me is not to think of individuals and community as so distinct or on such a diminutive level. The world is so binary thinking on this, but in God’s way you see when an individual does well, everyone benefits because the individual is doing well for the sake of the community. We have to raise the level of the conversation for people to understand the blessings of God. It’s just to unnatural to us not to compete with each other, especially when worldly authorities are doing their best to set up scenarios where we feel we have to. There’s no competition in God’s way. Just doing. That’s another reason His instructions are better than what we replace them with. We will always naturally replace what He gives us to do with outdoing others on some level. This is why we are called to serve one another. That’s the only way we can all do well in this world. And if we know we’re all seeking each other’s best interest than any challenge to our actions or thinking is not so much an obstacle out of rivalry but a safe-guard out of love. The family is two people bringing out the best in each other through God’s help and blessing the world with descendants who go on to bring out the best in a community abc world. I think this gets into His Oneness having to be considered beyond our earth-bound laws. There is a will and way that moves beyond us on some level spiritually that we get a hint at in heredity…..I just think it helps us grapple with the Oneness of God as seen in Father, Son, and Spirit. Jesus gives us our spiritual heritage and brings us into our spiritual inheritance that is God - Life. In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life and this life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it. (John 1) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Our beginning is God, not the earth. He made us of the dust of the earth, but I think in dealing with the confusion of the world, we need to understand that before all else there is God. We really are not to identify more with the earth than Him. We need to be careful not to concede truth before we even enter into a discussion. The will for earth’s existence precedes its existence. Then God gave us free will….If the earth can come about by accident, if there’s no will behind it’s creation, there’s no right for anyone to be here. There’s no right for free will. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” The only claim we have to anything is that God made it for us. That’s the level of spiritual attack we are conceding to when entertain the arguments of the secular world. That we are subservient to nature. It’s insane how low the standard of conversation they’ve talked us into. Also, the attack on family is a direct attack on social stability and the ability to discern the nature of God. It’s shocking to kind of see these attacks in a scriptural context I think. how desperately the world is trying to get rid of our ability to see God in the ways He’s given. They can’t get rid of Him so have to oppress us and therefore thwart His blessings to get rid of His ways. That’s why you can’t live a Godly life without making the world mad. Testimony. God help us because they won’t stop destroying till they have to deal with Him. That’s how much the world hates God. Destroy life just because it’s His and He made it. But Jesus - the Way, the Truth, the Life and we know He lives. It’s perfect how God does things but pretty sobering to see the level of attack we’re under that we seem oblivious to. The scripture is the Word of God. It’s evident in its Oneness. Never read another book that just becomes more and more of the same but greater the more you read it.

Just realized this morning that dispersion/gathering, the rapture and the dust to dust/ resurrection are also reflecting the ideas I’m trying to get at. Another thing I realized - at least for Judaism, the idea of only one way should make more sense because it’s Judaism that says there’s only one God. That’s the defining feature. So then if there’s only one God, there’s logically only one way. You can see that in God’s demand to be sacrificed to only in Jerusalem. One God, one place, one way. Yeshua is the only one consistent with Torah. If God is one, perfect, and whole; you will see it in His ways. If His ways are perfect, there’s only one. I left that weird plural and singular change in there for a reason. :) Was going to fix it but made me think of what I’m trying to understand more clearly, so leaving it. The many ways but one God is about people dealing in pieces again from our own broken place instead of it being about God. One God whose ways are perfect demands us accept one way just by the nature of Who He is.

Been thinking more in terms of details and big picture, thoroughness in who we are inside and out, as well as loving God more than what He gives or does for us. First, Jesus commands like take up your cross and follow me, not fearing those who can destroy the body, and the general constant idea of dying to flesh and self are helping us learn to love God by being willing to give up what He’s given us for His sake. It gets to exactly the issue we have of loving Him in truth and with our whole being because we know love is selfless…..we are really brought to the kind of love He has for us in following Jesus. Again He already clearly showed this, but He’s just been pulling things I’ve seen together for me lately. It’s like we really don’t see the way He does. We don’t know the way He does….constantly dealing in pieces, which brings me to the next thought. Considering that everything God gives us is complete and whole; the oneness of Father, Son, Spirit starts getting easier to grasp. It at least gets me to the point that it starts looking more too wise and perfect for me to understand than just strange. This also reminds me of the way we feel when enveloped in worldly thinking compared to Godly thinking; His wisdom for us in telling us to be constantly thinking about His words and instructions in the Shemah. With God everything comes together. With evil everything falls apart. I’m thinking in both terms of internal cohesion (clear thinking, no anxiety, sense of peace and readiness) and more external displayed constancy in what your life looks like to you and others. Here’s something so perfect in His ways with us. If we have that true internal cohesion, the peace beyond understanding, we will naturally focus on others more than self. Anxiety and fear cause us to focus on our own selves. We have to have faith in Him and what He does to be able to even start learning to love others because we have no real control. We are otherwise consumed with self just naturally because of our helplessness. With God, on all levels and dimensions, you are brought up to an expansive wholeness. There are no parts the way we think of things because nothing breaks down. You don’t dwindle as you grow in His wisdom internally for example. You can’t look within yourself and find a place that gets so small it’s not whole. A place where whatever understanding He shares, you need to have more of something else to complete it. All He does is magnify. And it’s not like when He does that you can’t see the wholeness in point or picture. It’s just like everything becomes more complete, in all areas and directions, more minute and yet more expansive in terms of how complete. That’s the opposite kind of overwhelm than with evil. With evil everything looses point, purpose, meaning. You’re literally either going to be consumed in purpose or futility because He gave you life. His word does not return void. You will have to handle it with Him or deal with it without Him in terms of wholeness (perfection) or bits and pieces (incompleteness) “ and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ.” 1 Corinthian 10:4 Consider how they drank a spiritual drink from a spiritual rock. I’ve always struggled with what was happening here. But He gave them liquid from a solid. They drank (took in and in the firm they needed to take it in) spiritual sustenance from the most solid and complete type of physical sustenance we can imagine. It just somehow reminds me of what I’m saying a bit. We think of it as breaking things down, but that’s not where God is. The break down way of understanding things, I really think is a result of being fallen and therefore coming from a place of corruption and decay. Consider what science has to do to learn things. They destroy to start their understanding. Nothing breaks down with God. What He gives, and what we take in from Him is always whole and more. And it’s always given to us in the way we need it, but it’s never less than or undone. Even His destruction has a pervasive quality and wholeness in the refining quality. He doesn’t even destroy in the way we understand it. It’s still a completion and wholeness, not pieces, uselessness and senselessness. Father, Son, Spirit as One and in One makes a lot more spiritual sense if we understand that with evil you start dealing in pieces. Even internally you can see that with words such as “mental breakdown”, “I can’t handle it, it’s too much”, “pick up the pieces”. But with God there’s no such thing. He is too much for us, but with Him, it’s just glory and wisdom in the overwhelm. It’s that things make more sense and we can’t even explain it because it’s the perfection and purity in completeness that’s too much. He only builds and increases on every level and in every direction. I think the commands in the Shemah help us reflect this kind of inside out, thoroughly idea of oneness to show His character. It’s like He works on all levels for our sake because the entire idea of oneness is even counterintuitive to us because we are talking about “levels”. That’s a reflection of how much we don’t understand oneness and wholeness - we have to deal with completeness. But using steps and levels. That itself suggests coming from a lacking place that can’t really comprehend what it means to be “one”. God is not dealing in incomplete parts and levels like us. He’s truly one and whole. The issue we are having, I think, is how we think from our own nature of brokenness. Perhaps that’s why He gives us the dimension of time. We just need it to be able to understand because we cannot take in everything we need all at once. It really is like we are a baby not ready for solid food, but God is God. He made Himself “less” for us in terms of lowering Himself to be with us, but we know He is never “less” than in anyway. We only know that because we experience Him through Jesus commands and Spiritual authority within us. He is just not like us, but became like us …our entire belief system is about how God can do this and at the same time something seemingly exactly opposite ….what I’m starting to kind of see is that He can do all those things we struggle with reconciling because He is One. So then three in One is one of the most Biblically based concepts. We wouldn’t come up with that idea on our own. That’s why we can’t understand it. But it is about Oneness I’m sure.

Today has been a really good day as I just realized yet something else I want to share and remember. Listening to the shemah during the previous midnight from Jerusalem, and I just thought how if something is bound on your hand, you’re going to be seeing it frequently as you go throughout your day. If something is bound on your forehead, other people will be seeing it. Then I connected it to that if it’s wrote on your doorpost, you will again be the one seeing it frequently. If it’s on your gates, it would be outsiders coming into the city seeing it more. Just kind of connected for me that it’s a thoroughness that leads to a natural sincerity. It’s really a humble honesty we can get to just to remember and do what He says. It’s is an easy burden and a light yoke He’s always given us. Jesus just makes it obvious in showing us He’s always been the one to have to do what we can’t. We should be able to be who we are openly in terms of not ashamed of the cross, but also not ashamed because of any sin can’t overcome and are left to just try to hide. Jesus answers this prayer. Who we are should be plain and not effortful from inside out when we remember Him in our ways, and that can only be if He overcomes our sin. Also, how loving God and others ties into the binding of His words on your hands and on your forehead (inward and outward obedience that is just a wholeness in real life) and that being the sum total of the law and prophets as Jesus taught. It’s really ties everything together. I know it’s also about thinking and doing - but I hadn’t connected that yet to other people then naturally seeing Him in us and then things just naturally finally coming together just by focusing on and remembering Him. What a consistency in all God gives. There really is a different way of doing things and accomplishing things that is just resting in God and letting Him work in you instead of you trying to work out yourself. Just remembering Him and His ways freely. I know it but still trying to reach it. It’s just faith and it’s not a natural way to be, but it’s a much easier and fuller way to live because God is Who keeps all things together. Something really beautiful in not only not hiding anything, but having no reason to even think to hide, which is interesting then to consider not only in terms of the garden, bit in terms of what we are told to begin with in this prayer; that the Lord our God is One…..there’s no inconsistency or disparities in who God is or what He says. He’s exactly Who He shows Himself to be. He’s the same across time, circumstances and situations. He hides nothing and is the only One, Who the more you see is the more and more perfect and constant. That’s amazing. Nothing to hide and just being exactly who you say all the time with no change or disparity and no need to change as people see and understand You more because of being so perfect in your ways. No change, no regret, no need for growth and the more He reveals, the better and better and more perfect He reveals Himself to be. The Lord our God is One is maybe a little about that kind of thoroughness in existing. Regardless, we definitely don’t have to rely on trial and error if we listen to God. Maybe He’s trying to help us have some level of that kind of honesty and sincerity in our own lives by just focusing on and following His directions in this prayer. What a God we have. Don’t deserve Him or any good thing He’s given but we just need Him nonetheless, so whatever He gives, don’t tell Him no. Blessings to the people of God

“but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. 1 Corinthians 1:23-25 This verse “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God has been coming up for me a lot last week or so. Praise God He makes things so simple for us. I love thinking about God and how or why He does things the way He does. I have up until now really only thought in one direction - the intricacies and details are somehow more illustrative or revealing than the big picture. But it’s not an either/or with God. It’s not about striving to come to a conclusion because there’s completeness in all He gives us and does. So I have been thinking how we are so foolish looking to the world - like we have been explaining ourselves or even trying to explain God on their level and in so doing we have lost the pure wisdom and power of what we have in debates, apologies, and explanations. I think human nature is to want to prove ourselves so we want to give or get signs and work through debate and logic, but it just hit me that what God gives is perfect. So then, the great wisdom in a childlike faith that asks no questions and seeks no proof. The wise are foolish and the seemingly foolish are wise because who can outthink or outprove God? Am I really going to argue that what He gives needs more because that’s sometimes where my seeking and debating comes from - lack of my own faith. All the time I search for understanding just to circle back around to where I began and see what was already there more clearly. It’s interesting and that’s just how we work, but just hit me that because what God gives us is perfect; don’t neglect, dismiss, or under estimate that strait-forward, on -the-face picture He hands us right off the bat for understanding. That’s where God brings it all together for us, and it’s right from the start. He doesn’t need to build His case, justify His thinking, outline His argument. What He hands you is done and more complete than you can comprehend. It’s not like it’s one or the other - general idea or intricate details, then go from there to learn and understand. It’s the perfect understanding immediately in what He gives. Our words convolute more than clarify if they’re not from Him. I just know now He is beyond the way I need to sort through the details to grasp an idea. Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. We cannot add more except futility. I keep coming to the conclusion that real faith doesn’t talk so much and it doesn’t debate or argue and act in the way the world sees as capable or impressive at all. I think it’s a really simple place I’m striving to reach while struggling with my own lack of faith. I really believe we will have a unity that needs no direction one day. We won’t communicate to move. We won’t work to organize,…. Im just seeing how much I don’t have to say if I really just believe what I say. The power and wisdom is God’s. While the world works, plans, schemes, and discusses; we will just follow and we will unite spiritually instinctively under His authority. I imagine it like we see birds unite and move in ways we can’t yet understand to migrate. We will not talk, ask, direct. We will just follow and be one as He has promised; and it’s so much more powerful and wise then anything I’ve yet seen. I really believe we have to move past what the world uses and does to display the wisdom and power God has shown through Christ. I just find a lot of assurance in letting stuff go, and it’s pretty astounding to really just think on the cross. I just don’t believe I have to explain so much when I really take it to heart that our power and wisdom is Christ. It’s not what He says or does. That’s about Him showing and teaching us to overcome our lack of faith in Him. It’s just Him that is the power, wisdom, and the promise God gives. The cross really says it all, but I always feel like I have something more to say, to explain, to almost apologize for what doesn’t make worldly sense. But why are we trying to make worldly sense when the world is what He overcame for us. Our power and wisdom is in that He is beyond this world. Stop explaining and start believing is the whole point. That’s our power and our wisdom. I don’t know, but I definitely see this life really is about pruning away what I once thought interesting about myself with Him because every time I circle back to where I started in seeking understanding, I find it was about letting something I thought wise go. It’s about just giving people more of what He’s given and less of what I think is needed to help them. God gives the whole picture; it’s not at all how we have to think and organize to sort stuff out. It’s all at once, clear and overwhelming, all said but also more than you can take in because absolutely every bit of it is full of purpose that you wouldn’t even otherwise know to look for. There’s an abundant completeness that somehow has no end, but I’m so foolish I still feel like I have to look to somewhere else, find something more, to help me understand. The issue is not that I need more. It’s that there’s so much in what He gives I don’t even know how to receive it. I need Him to help me even hold onto it. He’s too much for me. I’m so glad He’s better than us. Just forget proving with signs and wisdom because Christ is the sign and wisdom. God covers the details for us but we just have to have the faith to trust Him. Just so much effort and energy that if not for Him, would really go to waste when we need more than what He already gave to accept it. His patience and care for us to keep walking with us and blessing us just to hear what He already said, see what He already did a little bit more, then start again. How does He not get bored with us always kind of astounds me. There’s so much to every little thing He has made, and yet we have filled life up with a bunch of futile nothingness. But when seeking Him, even in our ignorance and lack of faith, He still always gives more. I can’t wait till all that is futile and worthless is done away with and we put the weakness of the flesh behind us because it’s really hard to feel like you can dig out of what we’ve filled the world and our time with sometimes. Feels like I can’t reach what He has made because there’s so much uselessness we have created in and around us in the way. God has done more with a leaf on a tree than man has done with all the books written and structures built. All we have made just mostly gets in the way for me, and I really struggle just being exhausted with how much we have buried ourselves in the corruption and futility. We have to deal with so much stress and problems because of what we ourselves have made to address the problems we ourselves made. This world is a cycle of manmade errors resulting from trial and errors we address with more trial and errors. And that’s called progress. And without God, none of us can stop the cycle. The best of us doing so are the ones who in time end up ultimately making it all worse because we do nothing good apart from Him. That for me is human history in a nutshell. But that’s just what I naturally do; fill life with what’s not just unnecessary but diverting from purpose and solution because I just can’t see the power and wisdom of what God made without all my own questions being addressed, effort, additions and trying to work it all out for my own sake. Seeking God or seeking the signs and wisdom is really a question of addressing our inclinations for idolatry. It’s so tricky because we have a God that can do all things. We have to want Him more than what He does at the same time we need Him for what He does…..weak, needy, and helpless is where we are and it’s really amazing to consider how God deals with us in that abd can actually give us purpose. God is mighty with us in His gentleness. We have so much to spend eternity with in Him. No where close to where we are now. We don’t know how to live simply. We are too far from God to. I really believe one day we the people of God won’t even have to talk to agree. We won’t have to plan to meet, organize to move, build to make, be entertained to enjoy life together. - that’s how much better my God is than all the experts and accomplished people of this world and how much better what He has made than anything else man with his own mind has come up with. He doesn’t get bored because the life He gives us all we want or need and it’s Jesus. Not what He makes or does, but just Who He is. I really think all this life is just about finally accepting that God is all we need. But He constantly gives and does, so we just can’t yet get it. What He gives and does is too much for us just to see Him still. Praise God for being better than us. We have so much joy and unity to look forward to beyond compare to whatever I can imagine just because of Him. Christ the power and wisdom of God. I’m just really glad He’s everything we need. He’s so much more and better than anything else. We have to die to self to live because we just can’t accept the purity and simplicity of the blessings that is God. Something about true unity for His people is only in trusting God more than what we think we can do or know. Seeking Him more than what He gives and does. Getting to Him so we can be. We have to die to self to live with Him in His creation. It’s like what’s the garden or the land without Him? Just a promise or hope to have Him …..all we need is whatever He gives us to be with Him. At some point we will finally just be able to accept and be with Him. Literally nothing but Him as well as enjoying what He can do. I really think at that point everything we identify with self including words and thinking , all the things we think we need to agree or understand will be a thing of the past. We will just know and be because of Him. We only think we need because we have yet to really see Him. Isn’t that amazing because look how patient and not bored with us He is…. Just reminds me to stop thinking I can give more to people than what God already has, and just look more fully at everything He has given before thinking I need more. “For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God Than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Psalm 84:10

Just listened to Dr.Baruch’s message on Psalm 104 part 2. I just realized that praising God is how we participate in life. It’s how we say I want to be a part of what You made. I just like when He gives me a really strait-forward perspective. It’s totally right and just that if you don’t want to thank God for what He’s made and praise Him for the life He gives, you are cast out of His creation. It’s not His choice. It’s yours. Isn’t that perfect? God is gracious even in His wrath to regard our will. Then it’s very clear that praising God is literally life for us because it’s how we say let us be apart of what You’ve made. We’re asking for life when we rejoice in God and what He’s done on a really fundamental level I think.

Blessings! Think we can gain context for Mathew 15 (Where Jesus seemingly compares a Gentile woman to a dog, and she answers, “Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs eat the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table.” Then Jesus answered and said to her, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.” And her daughter was healed from that very hour.) from 2 Samuel 9 where David shows kindness to Mephibosheth the son of Jonathon for Jonathon’s sake.

Just sharing so I don’t forget. I have kind of interesting moments out of what seems like no where sometimes. I’ll start singing something without thinking or even realizing I’m singing or thinking it, then I have like a really clear moment of understanding. Anyway, God gets my attention when I’m not thinking about Him maybe that way. I heard my self singing, “There is One God.” Then I immediately realized at least one reason why it’s so important for us to really think about that is because it reflects His perfection. There’s One God because that’s all we need. There’s nothing more to want for except what we have in that One God. Anyway, sharing because think we’re supposed to share what He teaches us, but also because I’m a forgetful person. Hopefully I learn more as it relates to the expression of Himself in Father, Son, and Spirit. But struck me to understand how insulting paganism really is to Him. Another thing I’ve learned about myself. I have a real pull to mystery books and real life historical peoples’ stories, which can kind of venture into the morbid and what feels like out of bounds with some books and programs. I have to guard against that. Anyway, just realized that all of that can be directed toward God in a upright way. Again just sharing because I think it’s helpful to understand what’s happening when it seems like culture can get so disturbed and curiosity can get the best of me. That thirst for mystery and suspense is meant to be about understanding God and His ways. Think it’s ok to be interested in peoples’ lives and personhoods, but it so quickly becomes way off. But with God, who is perfect and holy, we can really only find what’s pure and lovely to think on. I find it helpful to kind of see how to order things well and where things get off track. He is full of mystery and endlessly intriguing, which is where all that interests in suspense and mystery that ends up disturbed so quickly in our culture is being misappropriated I think. Blessings to all of you!