Thinking about God, Jesus and The Big Questions

At church a few weeks ago, we studied how Jesus often went away to pray, even though many people were requesting his attention. And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone Matthew 14: 23 and Now during those days he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God.  Luke 6: 12 There were many, many occasions where Jesus was talking with God the father. Jesus made it a huge priority, even at times when others were looking for him. In other words, prayer was not just important to Jesus, but necessary. The pastor remarked that if one so strong as Jesus needed to pray, how much more we so weak need it. That comment stayed with me. If we think we don't have time to pray, we are wrong. No matter how busy we are - and Jesus himself was busy - we must make time for prayer every day. Because if one so strong needs it, then by definition we must need it even more. If you...

Abraham (then called Abram), met Melchizedek. Let's take a look at this mysterious Melchizedek. Abram came back from battle where he, along with some allies, defeated his enemies and rescued captives and freed them. On his way back after his victory, he met Melchizedek. Who is this mysterious figure? Let's take a look at this passage in the Bible: When Abram heard that his nephew had been taken captive, he led forth his trained men, born in his house, three hundred eighteen of them, and went in pursuit as far as Dan.  He divided his forces against them by night, he and his servants, and routed them and pursued them to Hobah, north of Damascus.  Then he brought back all the goods, and also brought back his nephew Lot with his goods, and the women and the people.  After his return from the defeat of Chedorlaomer and the kings who were with him, the king of Sodom went out to meet him at the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley).  And King Melchizede...

I had a revelation recently. In previous posts, I did not understand how people like Jesus's mother Mary and other people in the Bible had so much faith. When they were told there was a plan from God, OK, then it seems straightforward to have faith, but when things go wrong - like when there was no room at the inn for Mary - it's easy to have doubts. Yet Mary didn't doubt, she still had faith in God's plan. To me, that was (and still is) absolutely amazing. I'm certain I would have had a lot of doubts in her place. Yet recently, it was revealed to me that the ground is in fact rock-solid-steady during those times. It's that it only  seems less steady when something unexpected-to-us happens, like when there was no room at the inn for Mary. Still, God had made provision for her. None of this was unexpected to Him. If you know for sure you are doing something according to God's plan, then Satan will make the ground appear shaky. But actually, the grou...

I was recently reading the book of Kings, and noticed the kingdoms of Israel and Judah frequently and repeatedly disobeyed God. Even though they had the information they needed of what was pleasing to God and what was not, they repeatedly went against God's wishes. This disobedience involved things that were against the ten commandments, like worshipping other gods. At first, I wondered why His people would do this, period. Then I wondered why they would do it, after all that He had done for them, and after all the covenants he had made with them. Reading these passages of the Bible, I felt like an audience member watching a play and saying "no, don't do that! Don't do it! That's a really bad idea! God even said not to do it." But yet, I should not be surprised, when I'm disobedient myself! I'm not any better than them. I could equally well say to myself "No, you know that's not a good idea!" Knowing the theory and putting into pr...

Lately, I found myself wondering exactly what I would say to a close friend if I was to explain what the Christian beliefs are.  It is actually pretty simple to explain. God the Creator God is the creator, and created everything in the universe. He also created Heaven. Heaven is a real place, a place of happiness where there is no sickness and no death. The one thing that can separate us from God There is only one thing that can separate us from God: sin. Sin is when we do bad things. God hates sin (he does not hate us , he hates our sin) and does not want to be around it. This is a problem for us, because we all have a sin nature. Adam and Eve, the first man and woman, fell into the temptation of sin. We all have that same nature, so we all sin, even though we try to be good. None of us are perfect. None of us can meet God's standards. A path for us to be saved While this sounds like quite a hopeless situation, it's not, thanks to God. This is why: God made a way fo...

Many of us have a tendency to worry about worst-case scenarios, most of which may never even happen. I have my own struggles with this.  Recently, it was revealed to me that this behavior is just like that of the unfaithful servant in the parable of the talents. Let's take a look at the parable: “For it is as if a man, going on a journey, summoned his slaves and entrusted his property to them; to one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. The one who had received the five talents went off at once and traded with them, and made five more talents. In the same way, the one who had the two talents made two more talents. But the one who had received the one talent went off and dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money. After a long time the master of those slaves came and settled accounts with them. Then the one who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five more talents, saying, ‘Master, you ...

God gave us life in abundance. He knows and we also know that there will be problems facing us at times. Even though God is good, sadly we do have problems, due to the fallen nature of this world: specifically arising from a) Satan's actions to oppress us and b) other people's actions who may be acting to our detriment. Another possibility too is c) problems we have created through our own actions. The aim here isn't to assign blame  - the aim is to point out that no matter what, we will have some problems facing us at many points in our life, maybe even throughout our lives on Earth. Now, that may seem depressing, but the good news is that we can be happy, even when facing upcoming problems! Here we'll find out how. Note: by all means ask God for discernment and guidance when facing such problems. He may show you a path, a way to fix this problem. If it's the sort of problem you literally have no control over, then worrying isn't going to help - by all ...