Here’s some notions that I feel uncomfortable about: God is perfect, God is the end-all infinite answer, God never makes mistakes, God knows everything past present future, God cannot grow because He doesn’t need to. These ideas make me cringe. Something’s not right. Because, if God’s done then why do we live? One of the [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Jesus Christ’
Perfection
Posted in Flashes, tagged change, God, improvement, Jesus Christ, process, static, Swedenborg on November 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Actions have a peculiar power
Posted in Flashes, tagged God, healing, Jesus Christ, Lord, spiritual growth, Truth on September 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these.” (John 14:12) What things was Jesus talking about? Well, healings, miracles, freeing people from the spirits that possessed them, and the teaching of a truth in such a way [...]
The wake
Posted in Flashes, tagged church, God, growth, Jesus Christ, Lord, spiritual growth on September 18, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
A wake. Not when somebody’s dead. No, when a boat sails across the water. Look at this ultra-interesting definition of a wake: “A wake is the region of recirculating flow immediately behind a moving solid body, caused by the flow of surrounding fluid around the body.” (From Wikipedia, of course) This reads to me like [...]
The call
Posted in Flashes, tagged call, Jesus Christ, life, Swedenborg, The Sacred, transformation on September 13, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
What’s it like to hear the call? Maybe you have heard it and not recognized it. The call is echoed in many stories. In this adaptation of the poem A Man Lost By A River: There is a voice and a music, that wants to be heard. That sings for whomever will listen a song [...]
Liking something
Posted in Flashes, tagged feeling, gratitude, Jesus Christ, Lord, love, The Secret on September 13, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I call these blog postings “Insights into life.” Well, I had another one. Where DO they come from…? I was sitting in the living room just now, listening to the Yes album Magnification from my iPod on a portable speaker system. I realized how much I like this music, how much I like the iPod [...]
No reluctance
Posted in Flashes, tagged attraction, heaven, Jesus Christ, Lord, prayer, religion on September 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Here’s one more insight about prayer. Another angle, another prompt, another encouragement: “Prayer is not forcing God’s reluctance; it is taking hold of God’s willingness.” (Phillip Brooks) I never have to wonder if it is OK to ask for something from the Lord. He begged him, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me [...]
Preacher or spiritual teacher: part one
Posted in Flashes, tagged church, Jesus Christ, preaching, presence, regeneration, Swedenborg, teaching on September 1, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Part one: the blind alley. In the New Church the job of the priest is described as: teach the truth and lead to the good of life. Swedenborg simply does not say it in more detail. Now, these words can be understood in many different ways. And by repeating them again and again they really [...]
Other words
Posted in Flashes, tagged belief, Jesus Christ, Lord, poetry on September 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Are there other words that give the essence of Jesus Christ? Other words than those in the Bible or the Writings of Swedenborg? Well, of course. Doesn’t everybody know that? Like these: “I think continually of Him who was truly great. Who, from the womb, remembered the soul’s history Through corridors of light where the [...]
Trees, degrees and simulations
Posted in The Sacred, tagged Bible, holiness, Jesus Christ, Swedenborg, Truth, Word on August 27, 2010 | 2 Comments »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) Does the literal sense of the Word play a minor role only? Something to be discarded as quickly as possible in the attempt to get to the real meaning and holiness of God’s Word? I would like to relate, at this point, an interesting fact about trees. [...]
The Anasazi flute
Posted in Flute Music, tagged Anasazi, cliff dwellers, flute, Jesus Christ, music, NAF, Native American Flute, octaves, shakuhachi on August 13, 2010 | 2 Comments »
What’s up with this flute? How is it different from the Native American flute? The Native American flute (NAF) is considered to be a relatively recent development. No more than 200 years of history. The modern version of it is tuned in a pentatonic minor scale. It has a fipple or bird, making it real [...]
The Jesus stuff
Posted in Flashes, tagged death, God, Jesus Christ, Lord, reality, religion, Truth on June 12, 2010 | 1 Comment »
I am re-reading one the more amazing of the Near Death Experience accounts that exist. It is the book What Tom Sawyer Learned From Dying. The man was really called Tom Sawyer, and his NDE was long, detailed, and un-categorizable. Here’s a link to some extracts: http://www.neardeathsite.com/sawyer.php When Tom stood before the Light of God [...]
Pain
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged grief, Jesus Christ, Lord, love, providence, struggle, suffering on June 5, 2010 | 8 Comments »
(A sermon by Stephen Muires, June 2010) Lamentations 3:25-40; Luke 13:1-5; DP 234 (take-off) There is no such thing as chance. (pause) No evil happens by chance. Not a single evil thing is permitted to happen to a person on earth that does not lead to good (SE 1088). OK. That’s the teaching. We find [...]
The stone
Posted in Flashes, tagged alchemy, God, Jesus Christ, Lord, philosopher's stone, Truth on June 3, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The stone, rejected, sold cheaply on the marketplace. Sometimes given away freely. Sometimes already in the cupboard or stored away in a box in the basement. (In fact, I have such a box in my basement; anyone want to pick it up, just let me know.) Jung researched into alchemy and found the unconscious. The [...]
Adultery
Posted in Flashes, tagged freedom, Jesus Christ, marriage on June 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“Anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart.” (Matthew 5:28) The Greek word for woman = gune, which means: a woman of any age, whether a virgin, or married, or a widow. If the man is married, or the woman, or both, adultery is being committed. But [...]
The Evil that I See in Others
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged evil, Jesus Christ, Lord, regeneration on May 23, 2010 | 1 Comment »
Sermon by Stephen Muires, May 23, 2010. Matthew 7:1-5, Matthew 15:10-11, AC 6206. (sermon start, the hook) David had committed a crime. A pretty bad crime. It involved adultery, and murder. No one knew he had done this. God knew, of course, but David himself tried hard to forget all about it. God wanted to [...]
Creation story
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged God, Jesus Christ, regeneration, Swedenborg, Truth on May 22, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
This is a fragment of Swedenborg’s Arcana Coelestia, paragraphs 6-27, covering the first and second day of creation, newly translated from the Latin with a lot of liberties taken to make the text easily readable. Summary. The six days describe six states, one after the other, in the regeneration process of a person. The first [...]
Forcing Truth
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged belief, church, faith, Jesus Christ, Lord, religion, spiritual growth, Swedenborg, Truth on May 10, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
Sermon (May, 2010) Gen. 12: 6-9, Mark 4:26-29, AC 9588. The Parable of the sower (cell: hook, where is the kingdom?) The kingdom of God. We long for this kingdom. We strive for it. We may not know exactly what it means, but we know it is something good. Where is it? What is it? [...]
Victims
Posted in Sermon writing and preaching, tagged healing, Jesus Christ, Lord, miracles on May 4, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(Sermon, May 2010) Jeremiah 2: 11-13, John 5:1-15, Miracles 18 Have you ever heard someone say: I am a victim? I lost my job. I lost my house. I am depressed. I need medication. I… you fill in the rest. A victim of life. Unable to escape their past. Unable to face their future. (transition [...]
The mechanics of external holiness
Posted in The Sacred, tagged God, holiness, Jesus Christ, Lord, religion on April 7, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
(A section from my dissertation on “The Sacred”) Anyone who is governed by bodily and worldly love, and not at the same time by spiritual or by celestial love, does not have any but evil spirits with him, even when external holiness exists with him. Good spirits cannot in any way be present with such [...]
The Lord Is Here Now
Posted in Flashes, tagged faith, healing, Jesus Christ, The Secret on March 19, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
“There were three reasons why faith in the Lord healed. The first was that they acknowledged His Divine Omnipotence, and that He was God. The second was, that faith is acknowledgment, and from acknowledgment comes intuition; and all intuition from acknowledgment causes another to be present, which is a common thing in the spiritual world.” [...]
