Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

This is about the difference between knowing something intellectually and knowing it in your heart. I have written before about how Heaven is not an ephemeral airy-fairy thing. It is more real and more solid than this world . We just do not detect it easily. A bit like atoms - atoms are the very real building blocks of this world - but for millennia we simply weren't able to detect them because we didn't have the tools for them. For several years, I knew intellectually that Heaven was more solid and real than our physical Universe (the Earth, the planets, etc). However, I realized recently that I finally know this in my heart too. It happened when I was praying. In my prayer, I was saying "Of course, in real life...", meaning it as a reference to Heaven. It was at that moment that I realized that I now knew in my heart what I had previously only known intellectually.  Heaven is "real life".  If you found this post interesting, you might also like these rela...

This is a review of the book " God on Mute " by Pete Greig. It is a non-fiction Christian about what happens when God meets your prayers with silence. What do you do? This book is of interest not only to Christians, but also to atheists struggling with the question of "If God is good, why do bad things happen?" (I have some information about that question here ). Interspersing theological research with his own personal experience with unanswered prayers for healing for his wife suffering a serious medical condition, Pete Greig does an amazing job answering one of the toughest questions of Christianity. Everyone can relate to this book and these difficult questions.  One thing I particularly loved about this book is that Pete Greig is not trying to assign blame to the situation. He explains first that some prayers God will not answer for reasons which might become clear upon inspection (e.g. 2 people are praying for opposite things - one for rain, the other for sunsh...

For the past many months, I had been neglecting my prayer life. I was reading the Bible daily late at night before falling asleep. I would try to pray after that, but I was often so tired it would be a tiny prayer of less than a minute. This was not good for me.  Notice, it's not good FOR ME. I'm not saying this is bad for God - it's bad for me. As has been mentioned previously, it is we who are improved by praying and knowing God. God is not improved by knowing us! In the morning, I would be immediately swept up into a busy day, so I didn't feel I would be able to regularly make a significant chunk of time to read the Bible and pray at that time of day (which together could take a while). During the time I recognized this as a problem but wasn't sure how to solve it, I was invited to join a friend's weekend prayer event where I signed up for a one-off prayer slot for 1 hour. I signed up for 5am, that way I could ensure it would be done before I was needed by my...

We are well equipped for detecting things in our 3 dimensions of space and 1 of time, but poorly equipped for detecting things in the spiritual dimension, even though the spiritual dimension is more real and solid than the physical one .  In other words, our God detection sensors are bad. In the book of Hebrews, the meaning of faith is clearly described for us: Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Indeed, by faith our ancestors received approval. By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was made from things that are not visible. Hebrews 11: 1-3 In particular, the last part of it is what we need to remember: what is seen was made from things that are not visible. This means that what we so easily detect with our eyes (the physical dimension) is made from things which are not visible (the spiritual dimension). The spiritual dimension clearly exists, and came first before the physical di...

As the son of God, there were many things Jesus could have been doing at any one time. Yet he kept His focus on the ministry He was there to do. The temptation to get sidetracked would have been incredible, since He was around other people all the time who asked Him to do things.  He did always find time to help people on the way to what He was doing. But he never lost his focus of the main thing. Here is an example in the book of Mark: In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. And Simon and his companions hunted for him. When they found him, they said to him, “Everyone is searching for you.” He answered, “Let us go on to the neighboring towns, so that I may proclaim the message there also, for that is what I came out to do.” And he went throughout all Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues and casting out demons. Mark 1: 35-39 As you can see, His priority was to first pray, in solitude. He needed th...

Each year, I read the Bible all the way through. Each year, I always find it almost surprising how much of the Bible is the Old Testament. In fact, the New Testament is only about a quarter of the Bible.  This means if we want to learn as much as we can about Jesus, it will still be a fraction of what is written in the Bible. But it makes sense, if we think about it. There are many signposts in the Old Testament pointing to Jesus. We can't just ignore the signposts and focus purely on Jesus, even if we kind of want to. The signpost are part of the journey. We can't just say "let's skip ahead to the good stuff" - because all of it hangs together. It's a history - that points to Jesus. Indeed, right now, we are living a part of time where the Bible has shown that in the future are signposts to the end of the days. It is fairly specific about some of these. For example, take a look at these 2 very specific events which are in our future . Just as the Old Testamen...

I was reading the passage of Mary and Martha again. While I have talked before about it , an additional angle on it was revealed during the most recent reading. This is the Bible passage where Jesus visits Mary and Martha: Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’ Luke 10: 38-42 It is clear from the message that if we have a choice between ministering to Jesus or hearing what he has to say, we should pick hearing what he has to say (which I covered in...