Augustine on Christ, writing to a student of his.

Begotten and conceived, then, without any indulgence of carnal lust, and therefore bringing with Him no original sin, and by the grace of God joined and united in a wonderful and unspeakablr way in one person with the Word, thr Only-begotten of the Father, a son by nature, not by grace, and therefore having no sin of His own; nevertheless, on account of the likeness of sinful flesh in which He came, He was called sin, that He might be sacrificed to wash away sin.

God and storm; storm and God.

A clear manifestation of God's glory, or just a nuisance?

Lord forbid I was ever so disconnected from nature!  I was on the porch before daylight listening to the light mist of rainfall.  It was pleasant, and soft wind, in my area, at the halfway point between Myrtle Beach SC and Charlotte NC, and also equally so between Columbia, SC and Fayetteville NC.

Such clear manifestations seem, at once, neither good nor evil, seeming to stymie mankind's notions of good and evil, and here, the corn just coming up around the 12 inch mark: in some respects, the storm did our area a world of good.  I've also got potted Marigolds that needed some of that natural moisture.

In the War of 1812, as British troops assaulted the capitol and set fire to some of the most important buildings in the land, including the White House, they were met with overnight hurricane force winds, and then they just left, missing so much of their invasion force thanks to the storm.

Its almost God whispering, and at His own ends, which transcends good and evil as we know it, and in terms of theology, the believer assumes that God is purely good, such as purely light, or purely truth, with the theologists linking all three things together in orientation towards the Godhead.  Or at least, those latter two things, light and truth, are how the humans manifest, how the humans put the Creator into perspective, and then further, live the message.

in Him is no darkness...

if we live the word, we are the light...

There is a silence before the storms: something of atmospheric pressure, cloud cover, and the birds having fled.  In that silence, that's our prayer time, come what may Oh Lord, come what may.

 

A crux on Good and Evil, traced to First Causes.

"...thou shalt see an enemy in my habitation, in all the wealth which God shall give..."  -1 Samuel 2:32

So the pastor was speaking about God chastening us, and I was thinking of all the promises that would seem broken, if he provided our wrongs, along with our items of providence.

Would it seem that God has a mean streak, that he tests and tempers us with troubles?  Its like the saying "he who made kittens, put snakes in the grass".

But the truth of this statement is that God does have a good plan for each of us, because He loves us.

The crux of Him providing both evil and good to the believer is in the fact that God created it all: he created the evil that forsook Him to establish his own kingdom opposite God.

He created the challenger, and had that challenger Faith, Hope and Love, would not the world be so much the better these days?  If, and only if, that prince of the power of the air not turned against God, this would be heaven on Earth.

So ultimately, if we trace reasons and causes all the way back to creation, we find the God is the author of all, as some say that everything is merely the thoughts of God: all of us, the world, the sun and stars, but the thoughts of God.

"How are you?" and the response that followed. On good, "doing well" and all that. Aquinas, Paul, some basic theology and philosophy.

Usually in polite conversation comes the Como Esta, or whatever, a platitude, a way of saying hello to the congenial, but perhaps not altogether familiar in our daily lives.

And I answered.  

"They don't let me do too good."

"When I do too good, it hurts others."

I speak of a kind of balance and equilibrium in the society of man, but in God's terms?

I'm doing great and looking forward to forever.

As is said in the Bible, "if God be with us, who could be against us?"  Sure, there are some very real and pressing rebuttals to that sentiment, but truly, God is the source of an almost supernatural contentment, witnessed even in the natural world now and then.

Remember that when God made His creation, he said it was "good".

God is entirely good.  The lack of God is evil.  The lack of good is evil.  

This realization of goodness, is the bridge between the natural and the supernatural, continual improvement toward the truly good, like sanctification, and finally, sitting in the hereafter in the perfection of spirit.

 

cs lewis, william paley and Father God.

Earlier in the week I came across a CS Lewis line, that you don't get to know a builder by looking at the houses he's built.  If you want to know the builder, you talk to that builder himself.  In the same sense, Lewis meant that to know God, we needn't necessarily do the mystical and look to the natural world around us, but seek God through prayer.

In that same way, Paul reminds that we are spiritual, and not bound to the flesh.  We may, through prayer, seek God in the spiritual way.

Mind also, in a book called Natural Theology, a scientist brilliantly said that if he walked on a beach, and found a pocket watch in the sand, he wouldn't think it was just a random miracle of nature, that it was "created".  By the same token, he talked at length about how natural items are "created" in the same way, that if he picked up a pebble or a shell on the beach, he wouldn't think it was a random accident of the cosmos, but a thing that was consciously created.

God is that creator, and the book is called Natural Theology by William Paley.

a preliminary blurb about the Apostle John's Theology.

In the Apostle John's writings, he not only has multiple titles for Christ, including the "divine Word" or "inspired Word", meaning his is a very real and pressing manifestation of God, but he also has terms for God in theological terms.

God is light: "in him was no darkness at all."

God is truth: "[if we are not true believers]then we do not the truth."

God is love: in the communion of brotherly love, we are united at once by objective truth and that communal love in our fellowship.

GOD=LIGHT=TRUTH=LOVE.

we are his hope; he is our hope.

I struggle with this idea....

first.  We are His hope in glory.

second.  He is our hope.

But our hopes, so often, as even the Bible says, that the understanding is darkened and there is inequity in the heart.

Yet we are His hope.

Like the faith that moves mountains, can we harness this to achieve the best of our desires?  The most providential?

I come down on the side of that, if it fits God's plan, if it doesn't destroy another maybe, that we could be granted something.....  but such parameters are so vague and foggy.

I'm inclined to think my faith is a powerful tool, as per Word of Faith pastors.

What we are not given is a set of parameters or conditions; Christ says the mountain will move, if one's faith is set on it.

Dare we think parabolically, a kind of circles-in-on-itself way that we can remove, by mindset, various lapses in judgement, dignity, personality flaws, all by will, and the will the tip of the spear of the believer's own faith?

We could pray for a million, or we could already have the effect, the happiness of the "million" of popular thinking.

We could have that feeling, and that feeling is pretty much as good as having the million dollars, and that accomplished by will, like we moved a mountain inside our own minds.....

We are His hope.

He is OUR HOPES.

Paul orients this towards the endpoint of our earthly existence, to keep our eternity in focus.  Eternity matters so much more than arguing with the people next door, anyway, but what indeed of the everyday minutia?

We have various interpretations, mystical things, like feeling the feeling of victory irrespective of the reality, contemplating victory, speaking it out to make it happen, or just settling back like lambs waiting, lambs waiting but all the while, petitioning the Shepherd for the outcome.

Or those that force contentment, and that no false peace from the inner perspective, but very real, all the while, trying to ignore the world, trying to think not on the things of man.

At time of writing, Eagle Mtn church is airing basically a political rally hosted by a dubious politically-oriented pastor.

At time of writing, the Catholic church is throwing weight behind what is politically offensive for some.

At time of writing, my good friend and compatriot LD Oneal takes unto himself mostly, for days at a time, and keeps a circle of believers at his little country church.  He stays inside himself, but in frequent prayer, and then also interacts with that tight-grained, tight-knit church family, advising and encouraging, guiding, and staying on the look-out for God's will and purpose.

I'd say this, of God being my hopes manifested: not all my hopes are just or good, and God's plan, and God himself, is always just and good.  Therefore I suppose God is the most just and good of our hopes.

*God is the most just and good of our hopes.

He is our hopes, and we are His hopes.  We loved him, because He first loved us.

If God is the most just and good of our hopes, as believers, all we can hope is that our own private hopes are as just and good as God himself, that there is nothing that God has to overlook, or at least not much, not much to bypass or ignore in His love for us.

Let us be just in our hopes, and as Paul says, Let brotherly love continue.

Pray for the addict that still suffers, pray that the poor are fed, and the meek in spirit are lifted up.