Month: December 2022

Happy Holidays…

On By Papa TonyIn Thought2 Comments

holidays-greeting-card-for-winter-happy-holidays-fir-tree-branches-frame-with-lettering-3d-ball-vectorAll of us that celebrate Christmas look back upon the holiday season with great fondness. When we were young it was a magical time when our parents adorned our houses with garlands, blinking lights and all manner of Christmas themed memorabilia. We helped decorate the Christmas tree and excitedly anticipated that incredible day when Santa would somehow traverse the earth delivering gifts to all of the children of the world. As we got older Christmas never lost its joy for us as we got to produce a repeat performance for our children. We gladly scoured the earth in search of the famous doll or the other coveted toy and generally spent more than we had in the process. We began to learn that everyone didn’t celebrate Christmas and had other holidays and traditions instead. And it was okay. Some people believed that it was Jesus Christ’s birthday while others associated it with the movements of the sun. For some, the dates were arranged slightly different and the holiday encompassed a number of days. It seemed only reasonable that with all of the people in the entire world, there would be varying practices and vastly different beliefs. And it was okay. Rather than try to make the holiday season into something deeply spiritual or sacred it seemed more reasonable to accept it for what it really is; a time when people celebrate their love for one another; a time when people are a little more kind and a little more compassionate towards their fellow man. For me the holidays have always been a happy time when folks treasured the joy of giving over receiving and seeking to do nice things for others instead of seeking only to receive nice things instead. Adult children return home from other states and other countries to spend time with the people they love most. We gather at each other’s homes and celebrate the season with various libations and all kinds of delightful foods. And for the time we are thankful, thankful for the people we love, thankful for the lives we get to live and thankful to God who made it all. We take a pause from all of our frenetic activity, slow down and appreciate one another.

For some the holiday season is a painful time of remembering love lost and times long past. It points back to a happier or more simple time when life didn’t feel so complicated and confusing. It reminds us of our childhood when our quests and desires were single and the things we needed came to us readily. Our lives seemed to be a grand adventure and with excited anticipation we lived our days and loved our days. No matter our expression then and now we failed to realize that it wasn’t Christmas time or the holiday season that filled our hearts with joy. It was the change in how we approached life and how we viewed our fellow man. For whatever reason, whether religious or otherwise, we changed our approach and in so doing unlocked the love that lives in all of us and sought to share that love with others. We softened our hearts and allowed the compassion that resides in our hearts to come to the forefront. We decided to set aside petty differences for love’s sake and to esteem others as more important than ourselves. For love’s sake we were willing to be second and even third. Our hearts thrilled at the prospect of giving something that might cause a little happiness to rise up in the hearts of others, especially those we love. It was Christmas after all. 

The lesson of the holiday, those happy holidays is that there is another approach to life that benefits us and leads us to joy. There is an alternate way to live that is willing to let go of self for a time and focus in on someone else. Whether it be in giving to another person or choosing kindness even when kindness is not deserved, there is always a benefit that comes back to us gift wrapped and better in proportion to what we gave. Thinking well of others and being willing to listen to them and really hear them is the very essence of humanity, a sacrifice with which God is well pleased. The holiday season, though heavily commercialized and pressured, serves a a microcosm of how life can be enjoyed when the focus of our hearts reaches outward instead of inward. God so designed life to benefit the giver in whatever form that giver gives and in so benefiting them, encourage its continuance. There is a reason you feel so good when your focus changes and the reason is always love. “Love sees more but is willing to see less.” Love gives in spite of not because of. Love is full of forgiveness and compassion because love comes from God. The person that loves in whatever way they can love is always rewarded and blessed. Love is always the answer, not just during the holiday season but for all seasons. 

I wish all of you a wonderful and loving holiday season. Treasure those people God has blessed you with and love them, really love them, not because they are deserving of your love but because they aren’t. Change your mind, change your approach and see if you do not experience that same joy no matter the season. It was never Christmas or any other holiday tradition that filled your heart with love, it was you and the decision you made to love. Unload your troubles on to God where they belong and take the time to listen to your fellow man, your spouse, your children. Listen for their hearts and see if you can’t do something to help them lighten their load. We all dream of a world where love and kindness take first place and while that day may still be future, we can be that for people today. Enjoy your days ahead with your families and all of the people that you love. It’s not the gifts and the trimmings, it’s the love. Be kind to your family even that wayward one you simply tolerate. Take some thought for the things of others. Be helpful, be kind, be those things your heart desires. There will still be some drama and some arguments because the people you love, love you also and sometimes that expression gets missed and confused. When it’s done take the time to heal the wounds and make things right. Those are the people that God has given you and maybe there is something you can do to help them. There is nothing quite like the holiday season and for that I am always grateful. Happy Holidays everyone. I love you.

Just some good thoughts… 

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Man Shall Not Live by Bread Alone

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

It may surprise you to hear this but in order for a man or woman to live successfully they need a regular diet of God’s Word (the Bible). The rest of the above oft quoted verse says, “but by every word that proceeds out the mouth of God.” In other words, there is an additional source of life available to us beyond the physical sustenance of eating. If the enemy of mankind has done anything well in this life to thwart God’s people from living how they ought to live, it has been in talking them out of the importance of the Bible in their day by day living. I think it is reasonable to say that most people don’t really understand the Bible. As a poor substitute for knowing for themselves, they have relied on preachers and teachers during once weekly meetings at church. There is nothing wrong with this per se’ but doing so will usually fail to supply the amount of nourishment required. Add to that, that they will find themselves relying upon what other men say is true potentially in opposition to what God says is true, usually limited by church dogmas and traditions. In this mankind has been hoodwinked and cheated from his greatest source of life and energy. For many, the Bible is a dust covered relic from the past that Grandma used to read. They have been informed by advanced society that it is full of myths and errors anyway and cannot be trusted for life in modern times. In this the egregious deception continues. The enemy of all that is good succeeds in his deceptions because people do not know the truth. “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” comes to mind. Absent the truth of the Word of God living in a man’s soul, he can never know the peace and victory available to him by having a clear perception of how God works and conversely how evil works. He may be incredibly intelligent and accomplished, but his human knowledge will always come up short when he needs it most. Indeed, man shall not live by bread alone.

One of the first things to clarify is that the Bible, even with some translational errors that are easily ferreted out, was originally given by God. Holy men of God received revelation from God on exactly what to write down. The Bible was designed to be man’s guidebook for living. In it contains all things involving life and godliness. All things! God wanted people to know the true origins of life and subsequently how to live it most abundantly. God never intended for His people to limp around defeated and dogged by life. It was never His desire that men and women would be left to figure out life on their own, by trial and error, mostly painful error. Experience is not the best teacher, God is. You don’t have to go through bad in order to receive the good. Yet that is what people believe today. Some people even believe the many trials and tribulations they face come from God in order to strengthen them. As if God needs evil to accomplish His work. Instead this appears as just another one of the many deceptions people believe because they do not know what the book actually says. (God cannot be tempted with evil, neither does He tempt any man!) People accept sickness and disease as a natural part of life not knowing whether either originate. All sickness and disease have their origins in evil and all healing has its origins in God. But, if you don’t know what the book says, how would you know? So much of what people have been talked into believing is in direct opposition to the Word of God. It is no coincidence that God has preserved His Word so that it is still available to you and me today. God wants you to know and in knowing prevail.

Because the words in the Bible came directly from God, they have life in them. (The words I speak unto you, they are spirit and they are life) The Word of God gives life to your weary soul. The word is a lamp unto your feet. Without the light you will remain in darkness and I will add, subject to the darkness. Jesus Christ, also called the Word in the flesh, lived by the book. He never strayed from it. He knew where his life and light came from and as such he always made time to get his personal nourishment. This is the nourishment a man or a woman needs. Food and other things are important, but they do not have the power or the ability to give us what the Word gives us. Absent the Word of God, man is left to grope around in the dark subject to this theory and that new idea. The reason men fall prey so easily to false doctrines, promoted by men, devised by men, originating in evil, is because they have no standard of truth outside themselves. The problem with every false doctrine doesn’t stop at just being not true, but instead brings the opposite results than were intended. Lies in every form end only in corruption and defeat. And your sincerity in believing things that aren’t actually true provides no defense, outside of God’s mercy and favor in your life. So many things I suggest for people to do to combat evil are based wholly on what the Word of God says to do. It is not enough to just be positive. Your positives have to be based on something that is true. Being positive about things that aren’t true and never will be true won’t lead to anything good or anything real. You see, that is what we are after here. We are tired of hope-so notions and things that only lead to more of the same. What we are after, or should be after, is real life. There is enough philosophy and techniques to drown the entire world. One of the methods the enemy uses is to literally overwhelm us with information and opinions. (Ever notice how many vastly differing churches there are?) We are after only one opinion and that opinion comes from God. God wants you to know and God wants you to win at life. 

There is a solution to mankind’s dilemma. It is called the Word of God and we have easy access to it. There are principles and keys involved in understanding it. Some parts of the Bible are not written to us, but are still for our learning. For example, we are not under the Old Testament law. Reading the law or worse teaching the law puts a weight on men from which there is little chance for escape. The Bible says Jesus Christ was the end of the law. He fulfilled all of its claims so that you and I would never have to. God never (if the Bible is true) wanted the law, but He had to establish a standard from which He could redeem man. God already knew that none of us with a sin nature in our blood could ever fulfill its claims. So He sent us His son who saved us. Some things in the Bible are literal and some things are figurative. Unfamiliar terms are generally explained the first time they are used. The things God felt should be highlighted and underlined were done so by using figures of speech, which is a study in itself. The subject of this blog, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God” is a figure of speech! It is a figure of speech because God who is Spirit does not actually have a mouth. Yet in this God has typed in bold print what is of primary importance. There are many, many examples of this. You can find them with a simple Google search. Once you begin to understand the Word and piece it together (with God’s help of course) you begin to really live and thrive. When Jesus was confronted by the devil himself during the temptations in the wilderness, do you know how he overcame it? He quoted the Word of God that he knew. When the devil tempted him to supply his own needs by turning stones into bread (after fasting for 40 days and 40 nights), he quoted, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.” It is no different for you and me today! We win against evil by knowing what the Word says and taking the action the Word says to take. God wants to help you with your problems. 

It may seem like an almost impossible undertaking to begin to understand the Bible, but it really isn’t. If you want to know, God will make sure you have access to someone who knows. No man on earth knows it all, but there’s enough of us with an understanding to help you if you really want it. I also used to get batted around in life, tossed from pillar to post with fear and endless bad decisions, and maybe still do on occasion, but I’m also clear on what the Word says and can find help whenever I need it. There are over 900 promises in the Word of God. How many of them do you know? It was never God’s will for you to do this thing alone. God isn’t angry with you nor are you a lost cause. With God it doesn’t matter where you’ve been, but rather where do you want to go? The Word is life and without it you will never find the life you have been looking for forever. The life is here now and it is available to you via the Bible, God’s Word. Man shall not live by bread alone…

Just some good thoughts.

Morality…

On By Papa TonyIn ThoughtLeave a comment

moralityI’m not sure about you, but I have always bristled when people used the word morality. It seems to be a word that doesn’t ever appear in a neutral sense, but rather in the context of one person claiming to be better than another person. I’m sure you have heard the phrase, “He seems to be a man of low moral character,” which is code for a person who does not do what the judge presiding feels is right or good. But, who decides what is right and what is wrong? Some philosophers claim that all things are good dependent upon the context. Others define good as everything their church reports as permissible behavior with all the rest being sin. Multiply the number of churches by the number of differing opinions and you end up with an ocean’s worth of so-called sin. Is that what morality really is? It seems morality in its basic form would be the distinction between right and wrong. But, I think it goes a step further than that. The question that begs is why are some things considered good while other things are reported as bad? Assuming God to be the ultimate authority on right versus wrong, would it make sense for Him to arbitrarily decide a good act from a bad act? Further, would it be logical for the distinction between good and bad to be simply based upon a code of approved behavior without some reason or logic back of it? And even deeper, would God’s plan for the man He designed complete with instructions on how best to live life, list all the things that a man enjoys as bad things leaving those things he was generally indifferent about as good? Or, has religion skewed our views concerning what good really is as opposed to what bad really is in the crucible of our existence? Thus, morality, what is right and what is wrong, must be based on more than an arbitrary set of rules for living made up to annoy, restrict and punish mankind. Morality, in its truest sense serves rather as a source of preservation defining what will lead to blessings and abundance protecting us from those things that lead to misery and loss. 

The problem with morality for morality’s sake alone is it fails to properly inform and instruct the one being given the rules. Even a child performs better when you tell him why and is rightfully exasperated when you have no reason at all. Rules for rules sake frustrate and defeat people. Further, abiding by a set of rules because someone (in authority) said so is equally frustrating. How many good, kind people have been manipulated into behaviors they do not want to do because of the (false) threat of losing favor with God? You want to control a man? Get him to believe that what you tell him to do is the only way to maintain God’s favor and he will do whatever you ask. As such, a man or a woman needs a standard of truth outside himself (and the one speaking) in order to properly discern what is right and what is actually wrong. It wasn’t that long ago that certain churches said dancing was a sin! The Bible is that source of truth for a human. Of course people are going to introduce other bibles or at minimum claim the Bible is full of inaccuracies and myths. If someone ever tells you that, ask them to show you one. The point is you and I have to have some standard of truth outside of our own opinions. The problem with our own opinions is that they are heavily influenced by what we feel and feelings are no guarantee for truth as a great man used to say. In the Bible, God has a reason for everything He says, where He says it, when He says it and even how He says it. There is nothing random or happenstance about it. Now someone is going to start exclaiming, “Well men wrote the Bible!” Well, yes they did, but what they wrote was by revelation from God. If you believe in God and I’m assuming you do, don’t you think He might be smart enough to preserve what He had written? At the end of the day, what we are after concerning morality is what brings us good results versus what brings us bad results. As such, what God says is good, is good. Conversely, what God says is wrong or evil, is so even if you and I never understand the reason why. But make no mistake, there is always a reason why…

Life for human beings began in the spiritual realm. God is Spirit. When He formed, made and created people He did it as a spiritual being, indeed The Spiritual being. That is not to say that you were in heaven before you came to earth as that is not supported biblically. Instead the basis of life is spiritual. There is a spiritual realm. In the spiritual realm there is good and there is evil. The spiritual realm affects life on earth. God knows everything as He is all-knowing. As such, He knows what will be good for you and bring you joy and happiness and He also knows what things you should avoid because they are going to end up hurting you or worse. This is the purpose for morality. There is nothing arbitrary about it. God does not make rules for rules sakes alone nor does He seek something from us that we do not want to give. Instead He is a loving, heavenly Father seeking the good of all. Similar to when we were children, there were some things that our parents warned us not to do. We may not have understood the reason why at the time, but later the reality was made plain for us by our experience in living. Some things we did anyway, as you already know and we suffered as a result of it. God, who made the pattern, works the same way. It is far better for us to do our best to avoid the things that God says are evil rather than having to learn via pain and suffering. We may not yet understand the reason why, but as Emerson aptly penned, “We need only obey.” The reason people have such a problem with this is because they’ve been surrounded and corralled by a whole host of people seeking to tell them what they need to obey and as happened every time with me, they bristled. For this reason, you and I need that standard of truth. The thing a man or a woman cannot see is the spiritual reality of a thing. God loves all people and continues to love all people, but He does not, as any parent worth his salt, want them to suffer. For this reason, He has given us His spirit so we might understand the things that are spiritual and as a result no longer have to spend the rest of our lives getting burned on every hot stove we encounter because we do not know better or cannot immediately see the reasons why. 

Morality and morals are not bad things, they are good things. What is right and what is wrong is not arbitrary and up for discussion according to our opinions at the time. Instead morality serves to keep us safe from harm and the things that actively seek to bring us woe. God sent His Word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions (Psalms 107). You do not have to spend the rest of your life bumping around dazed and confused. You do not have to rely on good luck nor fear bad luck for that matter. It is available for you to know and understand what is going on and why. You do not have to figure out life on your own nor do you need to somehow pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. God made everything we need presently available to us so that we could live successfully. Evil and wrong are going to get us at times. We are going to disobey and we are going to learn tough, painful lessons, often by ignorance. All of us are going to sin and do the things God warned us not to do. That is all part of being a human being. God is not after our perfection. He is after a willing, humble heart that is is finally willing to listen and hear what He wants us to know. For this reason, morality, true biblical morality is never a bad thing. Instead it is the source of the greatest liberation we could ever experience. We are all weary of the sting of evil and wrong. Don’t you want to experience the good? 

Just some good thoughts…