Think Funnel

funnel

Just suppose for a moment that the Creator had a grand plan for how humans would acquire spiritual knowledge of His existence, and of His desire to be in personal relationship with each human being on earth…

Somebody (Adam/Eve) messed that up for us, when they couldn’t just do the one simple thing the Creator said they must do.  The resulting consequence was that while the Creator would still work to reveal Himself and His grace to mankind, now it would happen outside the ideal conditions that would have made it so easy.  Don’t think “garden” here… think “obedience.”

Now consider that along the way, through the hundreds of years of disobedience by the human race, that the disobedience took humanity so far away from knowing God, that there was really only one thing God could do to remedy this horrible situation.  God determined He would come Himself (Jesus) and do whatever was necessary to restore the relationship between Himself and humanity.

What one man messed up for all of us, One Man/God restored completely, for ALL OF US.
Romans 5:19 – For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous.

When an individual person today, believes in this plan, and that Jesus came to be the Savior of humanity, God’s own Holy Spirit comes to reside within them, and teach them what God always intended them to know about Him.  Here’s where it gets a little tricky.  Because our minds today don’t work the way Adam’s mind did in perfection before the disobedience.  In the act of disobedience the original mental/spiritual connection between God and mankind was dissolved, this being just one of the ways that Adam died, even as God had told Adam he would.

However, when we come to Jesus in faith, and we are “in” Him in salvation, God’s Holy Spirit begins to re-establish this mental/spiritual connection with us.  The problem is, our minds have grown so dark, so crowded with our own petty lives, that there isn’t room enough for God to give us all He wants to give us, all at one time.  So what is it that allows for God to pour Himself back into us?  Obedience.

The apostle Paul says that we should take every single thought in our brains and hold it captive to the obedience of Jesus.  (2 Corinthians 10:5)  By doing this, we make room for God to pour more of Himself into our lives, which is what Paul meant by saying, “For who has known the Lord’s mind, that he may instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” – 1 Corinthians 2:16

To have the mind of Christ, think funnel, like the image above.  God, through the Holy Spirit, desires to give us so much more than we can receive.  Through the simple act of obedience, more of the clutter is removed from our life, and more of God’s Spirit can come into our life.  Most of the time, the receptacle (our hearts and minds) is too full of other things, for much of God’s Spirit to come in.  What is the answer?

Think funnel.  God is the pitcher full of grace, and knowledge of Him.  Our mind/heart is the size of the tiny end of the funnel.   How much of God can we get, if this is all clogged up, by disobedience, rebellion, stubbornness, and hard-heartedness?

Solution: Clean up the think-process, and turn in obedience to God’s Spirit.  Philippians 4:8 – Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable–if there is any moral excellence and if there is any praise–dwell on these things.

This simple act of obedience, will open the funnel of God’s love and grace into your life in wonderful and exciting ways!  Don’t wait.  Do it now.

Go ahead, unclog the funnel.

Funnel

Divulging, Disseminating, and Declaring

Daily Post:  Revelation

rumor

Those of you reading today who know me well, may think I will shamelessly use this article to promote my recently published commentary/bible study on the Book of Revelation.  Perhaps I will, but that will come later in the article, if at all.  Subtle huh?

Revelation as a concept is about information (true or false) coming to light in various forms, which was not previously known.  It is in fact what the whole James Comey testimony is all about… everyone wants to hear about the secret conversations and dialogue between the former FBI director and President Trump.  Regardless of your particular stance on the substantive issues, there has been no “smoking gun” revelation. In fact, on the face of it, at least as I evaluate what’s been said, Comey has all but come out and said “the President did nothing illegal.”  Yet it still appears to me that the entire process was, and continues to be, driven by the agenda to discredit Donald Trump as our President.  Rumor mills and rumor mongering are bad enough, but when journalists become nothing more than mouth pieces for the political elite on both sides of the aisle, spewing and spuriously spreading fake news, or worse treasonous ideas, somethings gotta give!

Divulging information which is not intended to be revealed, such as classified data of any kind, is at the very least suspicious, because one has to ask “why was this shared?”  James Comey has admitted to leaking his memos to his friend, and doing so with the full knowledge that he, Comey, could then not prevent them from being revealed publicly.  Is this act alone not a crime?  Politics are the bane of my existence and why I choose to listen as little as possible to self-proclaimed pundits and their ego-based opinions about what is or is not true in Washington these days.  Who will save us from this odious quagmire?  Clearly we can’t save ourselves.

But isn’t that what the Bible reveals to mankind in the first place?  If Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and those first generations of humanity had been capable of saving themselves from self-destruction, I’m quite sure they would have.  But the first couple was banished from the Garden, and one of the first brothers killed the other, all out of an ego-centric mindset that they were above God’s rules.  Things haven’t gotten any better since.  In fact, one might say we are far, far removed from what God intended for mankind to be.  God has revealed in Scripture just how far He is willing to go to help mankind live as He designed us to live.  First God chose a man, Noah, to preserve the various species of creation when God judged the evil men in the world through a flood.  Then God chose a man, Abraham, to establish a nation of people who would be God’s people declaring God’s glory and blessing to the world.  When that failed, because the people failed, God sent His own Son, Jesus, to reveal the full plan of God’s great love for mankind.

God has divulged, disseminated, and declared His love for all mankind, yet men and women alike continue to deny His existence.  Our world is so filled with hate, contempt, and evil, it could be said that God doesn’t recognize the place anymore.  Those who continue in their faithful following of God’s revelation, and who do so with great resolve, are finding it increasingly difficult to exist on this hostile planet.  Who will save us from this morass of self-deluded evil?

God’s revelation is clear.

Genesis 6:3
Then the LORD said, “My Spirit shall not strive with man forever, because he also is flesh; nevertheless his days shall be one hundred and twenty years.” 

Matthew 24:37
For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah.  For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and they did not understand until the flood came and took them all away; so will the coming of the Son of Man be.

Revelation 1:1-3
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show to His bond-servants, the things which must soon take place; and He sent and communicated it by His angel to His bond-servant John, who testified to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is he who reads and those who hear the words of the prophecy, and heed the things which are written in it; for the time is near.

From the very beginning until the very end, God’s marvelous grace has been divulged, disseminated, and declared to mankind.  The only thing which will save us from the horrible mess we’ve created, is the coming of Jesus Christ the King.  Until then, we will witness continued repetition of the colossal errors committed to, and fed by, the human hunger for power, prestige, and position.  One day, ALL will bow before the King of the universe, this I declare to you from the authority of Scripture.

Romans 14:11
For it is written, “AS I LIVE, SAYS THE LORD, EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW TO ME, AND EVERY TONGUE SHALL GIVE PRAISE TO GOD.” 

Philippians 2:9-11
For this reason also, God highly exalted Him, and bestowed on Him the name which is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus EVERY KNEE WILL BOW, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

For more information about my commentary click:  Revelation

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