live like you were dying...not

  

 

well my dear ones,

 

 

A few years ago,

I sat through a study called

“Live Like You Were Dying.”

 

I did get some good points out of it, like:

 

Speak sweeter. 

Tell our loved ones

that they ARE loved;

tell them now; don’t wait.

 

Love deeper. 

While we can’t control

the length of our life,

we can control the depth of it;

so love deeply for as long as we’re here.

 

However, the author’s point that we,

Western Civilization,

particularly in the USA,

are a death-denying culture

left me pondering something, namely,

“How did people in the 1^st Century live?”

 

And also,

“Is there anyone in heaven

 who got there without dying?”

 

Current science is now on board with the fact

that the universe had a definite beginning.

My college roommate was the son of the man

who discovered the residual background radiation

lending credence to the Big Bang Theory.

 

So, we are now caught up to where

the author of Genesis was thousands of years ago,

“In the beginning,

 God created the heavens and the earth. “

(Genesis 1:1)

 

“But, dave, what about the whole 6 days versus

14 billion years thing?”

 

Great question; thanks for asking! *lol*

 

The 2010 movie, The Genesis Code,

has a nice synopsis;

you should be able to see it here for free:

 

http://www.tubeplus.me/player/542623/The_Genesis_Code/

 

So, 6 days is 6 days

from God’s viewpoint, not ours; cool.

 

OK, so now that we see the Bible and science

as more in harmony with one another than not,

do we see in the Biblical account

anyone who never died?

 

Actually, there are two; Enoch was one.

 

“And Enoch walked with God; and he was not,

 for God took him.”  (Genesis 5:24)

 

The other was the Hebrew prophet, Elijah,

who was taken up to heaven in a whirlwind.

(2^nd Kings 2 has a full account)

 

So, while we joke about “death and taxes,”

it looks like the only absolute certainty

out of those two is taxes.  =)

 

Going back to my first question,

the people in the 1^st Century

at the time of the writing of the New Testament

(which, along with the Jewish Tanakh actually became the foundation for Western Civilization),

and especially in the 2^nd Century,

well, while a bunch of them got martyred,

they weren’t really living like they were dying,

they were pretty much living life

to the fullest extent possible;

they lived like the return of Jesus

to usher in God’s kingdom on earth

could occur at any time.

And they were more concerned with

spreading the good news

(i.e. the resurrection of Jesus,

 the reconciliation of God to humankind

 through Messiah)

than they were with worrying about

whether or not they lived or died.

 

*shrugs*

 

I’m no biblical scholar; *lol*

my masters degree is in electromagnetic fields

(and everything I know about that,

 if I didn’t already believe in God,

 would have been enough to convince me

 that our universe was designed;

 the perfection of the dance of the

 electromagnetic spectrum

 as it plays out in the universe

 defies random chance);

but I’ve read the Bible cover-to-cover

a half dozen times

(even if nothing else,

 as the foundation of modern Western

 Civilization, it’s good to have a

 grasp of it, to know how things

 came to be; and a foundation in Roman Law

 and English Common Law added to that

 would serve to make you a pretty

 well-read person; if nothing else

 you could entertain people at parties

 with your mastery of once-commonly-known-

 but-not-so-much-anymore facts =>).

 

What I’ve gathered from that

could be summed up in these

words of Jesus recorded in

the gospel account of the apostle John:

 

“Most assuredly, I say to you,

 he who hears My word

 and believes in Him who sent Me

 has everlasting life,

 and shall not come into judgment,

 but has passed from death into life.”

 

 --- John 5:24 (New King James Version)

 

So, as I read that,

and taking the easy example of myself,

having heard the words of Jesus,

and believing that God sent him,

and trusting in the finished work

of the cross

(“tetelesti,” uttered from the cross,

 is a Greek word meaning “paid in full.”

 While Jesus likely uttered it in Hebrew,

 John recorded it in his gospel account

 in Greek with a phrase that

 would be immediately recognized as

 something an accountant of that time

 would stamp on your bill to show

 that you owed no more...and we don’t),

I have now passed beyond judgment;

I now have eternal life;

It’s not something I will get;
I already have it,

which means I’m already living it.

Hence, I don’t need to

“live like I’m dying”

because I’m too busy

living in the promises of God.

 

So, as long as I walk this earth,

I will strive to live out

what it says on the bracelet

my friend, Debbie, gave me,

“Love God – Love people –

 Love is a verb”

 

Yes, this can be a tough and stressful

time of the year for many people;

so please bear in mind

that love IS a verb,

and the way God chooses to

inject love into the world

is through you!

So let it out.

 

 

Have a great week! =)

 

grace, peace, and love to you,

dave

experience

 

 

 

well my dear ones,

 

 

I remember when I first started out

looking for jobs,

I found it extremely frustrating

that whenever I saw a really cool ad,

there would be that caveat,

“experience required.”

 

I mean, how I am supposed to get experience

if no one will give me a shot?

 

But the kind of experience I’m talking about

is not necessarily job experience

(although it could have some aspects of that);

I’m talking about life experience,

and especially the tougher experiences,

the ones where, while you are in them,

you find yourself asking,

“God, why does this have to be so hard?

 Why do I have to suffer through this?”

 

Just this past week,

I found myself leafing through my

‘catalog of life experience’

in order to give a friend some perspective

on some tough times through which she’s going.

 

She told me,

“It seems you have been where I am

 and navigated your way out...,”

hence, she decided to follow

the path I suggested for her.

(i.e. it worked for me,

 so she could see it might for her, too =>)

 

That’s when I realized that

the stuff I’d told her about

happened over 25 years ago!

 

And there is NO WAY at the time it

happened that I could have EVER

foreseen a way out

or foreseen that what I went through,

and how I got out of it, would be

of any benefit to someone in the future.

 

And that reminds me that

even those you least expect to

can sometimes speak a word of truth.

A case in point is this quote:

“That which does not kill us

 makes us stronger.”

 --- Friedrich Nietzsche

 

While not much else of what old Friedrich said

is of any more value to me than

a pile of old cat litter *lol*

(I had to study this guy in college;

 and we learned that one young man

 actually committed suicide

 after reading his works;

 instead of learning truth

 and speaking hope to people,

 he chose the opposite;

 hence, I advocate studying

 nothing else

 of anything he said

 save for this one quote)

that quote I do like

and I find it has much merit.

 

All of us have suffered through

some tough experiences.

Yet not only did they make us stronger,

they also have much usefulness

for the future teaching

of those God will put in our path.

 

*shrugs*

At least that’s how I see it.

So, store up all your experiences,

the good and the bad,

and keep them in your

‘catalog of life experience.’

 

Somewhere in the future,

someone will be looking up to you,

looking to you for answers,

and you won’t want to let them down.

In their dark days,

the fact that you had dark days,

yet got beyond them,

is the thing that will give them hope.

 

And hope is something we all need...always!

 

 

Have a great week! =)

 

grace, peace, and love to you,

dave

Hope

 

well my dear ones,

 

 

I hope you all had an awesome Thanksgiving!

 

However, that’s not the “Hope” to which

I was referring in the subject line;

I meant “Hope” as a proper noun,

as in the name of a particular dog.

 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. *lol*

 

My wife and I have a friend

who is struggling through some tough times

(and who can’t relate to that?).

My wife’s been trying to encourage her,

but she’s been really down, really blue

(and that’s all too common at holiday time).

 

Yet when my wife spoke to her yesterday,

she sounded the most upbeat and perky

that she has been in a long time.

And it sounds as if at least one reason

is the new puppy that she and her husband

got for their kids

(the fulfillment of a promise to them).

 

It seems someone left two puppies

right next to the dumpster

at our local PetSmart.

(pretty sad, but at least, thankfully,

 they didn’t put them in the dumpster!)

 

PetSmart employees found them

and took them in,

naming them, “Sonny & Cher.”

(Actually, I’m old enough to remember

 when those two had their own TV show

 of that very name *lol* =>).

 

Sonny got adopted,

but Cher was still there,

looking and hoping to be adopted

into her forever home.

 

The kids loved her at first sight,

so our friend took her home

and renamed her, “Hope.”

 

While Hope’s prayers were answered,

and she now has a whole family

to love on her,

she is also paying the family back

by giving them hope in trying times.

 

Hence, my theory that God gives us pets

to help us with the (difficult) process

of learning to love others.

 

Sometimes it can be hard to love people;

but who couldn’t love a little tiny puppy?

(Not me!  =>)

 

There’s a sign in our vet’s office that reads:

“God please make me into the person

 That my dog already thinks I am.”

 

...I can relate to that!

 

 

Have a great week! =)

 

grace, peace, and love to you,

dave