Former location of "The Kingdom of the Heavens" blog, written by an incurable fool who is trying to become a holy fool!
I’ve heard it preached that, when I hold a grudge, I hurt only myself. The other person is not affected. But this is simply false. As long as either of us is holding a grudge, we are both imprisoned in it, until the one holding the grudge releases it. I must offer unlimited forgiveness, and not give in to bearing a grudge toward those who have hurt me. And I must be aware that my grudge always affects other people.
God can’t forgive a grudge I am holding against you. I have to do that. And God can’t forgive a grudge you are holding against me. You have to do that. To know God’s forgiveness, I must choose to live in it.
God created the first human, male and female, as a being like himself with whom he could share his life and his creation. But the disobedience of the first humans introduced shame, which drove them away from God and hindered them from agreeing with God about their sin and returning to him. This is always the effect of shame, which comes from us, not from God.
Complex unity, Confession and Repentance, Conversation with God, Desire to have our own way, Forgetting God, Free will, God is Love, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, Guilt versus Shame, Knowing good and evil, Language and Speech, Male and female, Marriage, Marriage, Marriage and Reproduction, Meaning of Unity, Repentance, Replacing Relationship with Morality, Sin, To be in his image, To bear fruit, To fill and govern the Earth, Trinity, Unity, What is sin?
Defines the common sets of terms pertaining to sin, offense, guilt, shame and honor, with a discussion of God’s work and initial comments on the importance of their confusion in maintaining the social order.
When Jesus said that the son of man has power to forgive sins on Earth, he was referring to his humanity–and ours. God has already forgiven. Like Jesus, we have the power–and the mission–to offer forgiveness on Earth.
My forgiveness or unforgiveness of you has real power. If I hold onto a grudge against you, or you hold onto a grudge against me, it binds both of us, limits the Body of Christ, and affects the whole world, until it is released. So we must properly deal with grudges.
Explanations of Scriptures that support the statement that true musicians, whether they know Christ or not, have at least a buried or potential gift of prophecy. Explores the vital spiritual role of music, a part of the image of God in us.
It’s true–time moves faster as you age. dt/dt, the rate of movement of time with respect to itself, should always equal 1, but it doesn’t. When you’re 3 and your favorite question is “why?”, dt/dt is about 0.0001. You want everything NOW, and everything takes FOREVER, until after you “grow up.” When you’re approaching 70, and your favorite question is…
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The hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” celebrates the arrival of God among us in the form of Jesus. The post highlights that God does not simply bring peace to the world; instead, he will ultimately judge and create a new, peaceful world. Those who have faith in God’s promises will have inner peace amid the world’s chaos and opposition.
This note is really not written to the whole world. It is written to a historian–a single person–who will find it on some archive that contains portions of this blog in some future year, likely far in the future. Therefore, while I am posting this note, I will neither make a video of it nor actively promote it. The prophecy…
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