Saturday, March 28, 2009

Hearing The Voice Of God

Ten years of age and I was up a tree when a voice spoke: "Go home, your parents are worried about you."

It was about 10pm and there was no body around. The tree was in situated in the grounds of an elderly residential home. There were some lights on inside the building, but none on the outside. The night sky was clear and the moon was shining. Nobody was to be seen. The air was crisp. You knew to expect a frost the next morning. People were more intent in stoking their fires or getting into bed rather than being outside. Not everybody had television then, so most people tended to go to bed early.

Two of my younger brothers had taken our two dogs for a walk during the late afternoon and somehow lost them. I was looking for the two dogs, especially the one that I considered to be my own dog. This dog I really loved. Her name was Sally. She was a fox terrier cross, but didn't have foxy coloring. Instead, she was a brown dog with gold and tan coloring that made her look quite stunning. The other dog was a handsome dog, we called Spot. He was a springer spaniel cross, with a white coat lightly speckled with black flecks, a black head with light tan markings above the eyes and around his mouth, one large round black spot on either side of his body, and the perfect spray on his tail. Spot looked more like a dog than Sally. But Sally was a smarter dog and I used to teach her tricks. She loved me, too. Never once did she bite me, even when I accidently hurt her.

When I learned the dogs were lost, even though Spot was my brother's dog, I considered them both my own. With tears in my eyes, pain in my heart, I went searching for my dogs. Over five hours had passed and I couldn't find them. I started to direct my thoughts towards God and began calling upon him to help me.

Back in those days, where I lived, schools used to get milk delivered every morning in little half-pint bottles (about 500ml); one for every child. At the front of the school, special overnight storage facilities existed for the milkman to put the crates of milk. I decided that I going to get into one of them and not go home until God brought me my dogs. Anyhow, I decided that if the milkman comes too early, God might not have enough time, so I made my up to find a tree and get a little closer to heaven.

I was up the tree for about five minutes, when I heard the voice telling me to go home, I looked down to see if anybody was around, but there was no one. There was nobody above me at the very top of the branches. And the voice was so loud, so definite, I decided that this was God who was telling me to go home.

My parents were worried about me. I told them I couldn't find Sally or Spot. I do not know whether they had contacted the police or not. I just got into my warm bed and went to sleep.

Spot turned up a couple of months later. One morning when I was about to go out the back door, there he was wagging his tail. Then a month or so later when walking with Spot looking for Sally, in the area I had searched on that long night they had gone missing, a boy challenged me about stealing his dog. But Spot was not going with him. I wasn't letting him, and Spot himself seemed like he was prepared to back me. From that time on Spot and I seemed to develop our own special relationship.

My parents and others nearly convinced me that Sally must have got run over by a car or truck or something. But I knew different, someone stole Sally, because she was so special. She was so good looking that even the handsome Spot could not share her spotlight. And I knew why people would want to steal Spot. Gee, he was a good looking dog.

In the end, I concluded that Sally must have died, because I believed that God would have brought her back home, too, just like Spot came back. I believed God cared and would answer my prayer, but somehow Sally must have been killed before I got to pray.



www.tencommandmentstoday.com

Friday, March 27, 2009

My Guardian Angel

For many people the spiritual realm is hard to accept because they have not experienced supernatural happenings.

Some people say God is a figment of a person's imagination. But then not every body is the same, some go beyond imagination and experience spiritual reality.

An acquaintance of mine had a three year old daughter who used to have a friend to whom she talked, but they never met. Their daughter was often talking to him. My friend and his wife would laugh about this imaginary friend because they had never had the same experience when they were young. If either of them had a similar experience they had forgotten about it.

When I was young, I used to have a friend who would dress similar to those river boat gamblers seen in the film "Maverick". In the 1950s, there was no television where I lived, and I was too young to go to films, so there was no one I seen that looked like that for me to imagine as my friend. But this friend of mine would appear to me from time to time. I don't recall him telling me anything, but I know I spoke to him. The last time I saw him as a child, I was twelve years old, nearly thirteen.

When I saw him last I was twenty-four. This angelic man appeared to me in my bedroom. There he was with his black hat, ribbon lace bow tie, frilled white shirt, black vest and coat, shoulder length yellow hair, yellow mustache and yellow goatee. I wasn't frightened because I instantly recognized him. But before I could say anything, he told me to go to a particular company that manufactured refrigerators and there would be a job there for me. Then he disappeared.

Sure enough, there was a job waiting for me. The manager was amazed that I knew about the job vacancy, because the employee who had left, had only handed in his notice the night before. I told him what happened. The manager did not really believe me, and gave me the impression that I knew the guy who had left, and it was he who told me about the position being vacant. Anyhow, since I was there, he employed me on the spot.

I considered that personage who appeared to me in my bedroom to be my guardian angel. He often appeared to me when I was three, four, and five years old, and then less frequently throughout the years until I was nearly thirteen.

When I think about the reason I started seeing this angelic being, it may have been due to a road accident I had at the age of three, where I was left unconscious for a number of days. Evidently, I was thought to have been dead, and would have been, had it not been for the quick thinking of a medical team who just happened to see me fall out of my parents car as they sped along the highway. A medical doctor and some nurses were in the care behind my parents and there actions were instrumental in saving my life.

When I came out of hospital I had a scar on my forehead in the shape of a cross. Call this coincidence, but it was not something that I liked. Too many people would notice the scar and point to it and make remarks about it. More often than not, I considered this embarrassing; especially when my mother would retell the story of my accident and the other woman would make a fuss of me. To hide the scar that formed a cross on my forehead, I began raising my eyebrows to form furrows and found that this resulted in less people making comments that embarrassed me.

That there is another world besides the one which we know with our natural senses, should not seem to odd for us. Our imagination permits one to exist. The difficulty is being able to enter it and enjoy its goodness. Not everyone does.

When Jesus spoke to a Jewish religious teacher by the name of Nicodemus, he berated him for claiming to be a teacher of truth when he did not know the first thing about spiritual experiences. Many people claim they understand the Bible, yet they have not had an experience with God, so they can truly be enlightened. Instead of speaking from personal experience, they are basically talking theory or about a philosophy of life that they interpret from what they have read in the Bible.

Maybe you know the types I mean. Among them are the ones who are always pointing the finger at other people, and saying how wrong and evil they are for sharing what they understand to be true. When I was young, I did not know that the Bible talks about guardian angels. But Jesus said that children have angels who look after them. On this point, because of my experience, you will get no disagreement about this from me.


www.tencommandmentstoday.com

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Truth Drug

An acquaintance of mine was experimenting with what he called the truth drug: LSD.

Initially he got a real buzz out from the fascinating mind trip he got. Then he started seeing sounds and hearing colors and the trips began getting less fascinating and more frightening, with weird faces starting to appear that were more like the grotesquely carved figures that are found on old churches.

The truth is this guy died not too long after getting heavily into drugs.

This guy began experimenting with the truth drug because he thought trying to live a life of self-discovery and putting God to the test required too much effort. A faster way would be to explore the mind with the truth drug.

One thing is for sure, now he knows what it is like to die and reject the offer of eternal life that is promised through accepting Jesus Christ.

Truth is a funny thing. There is subjective truth and objective truth. According to some, there is my truth, your truth and the real truth. My truth is subjective truth and your truth is subjective truth, so real truth must be objective truth. However,even what is termed objective truth is subject to interpretation, so what we might call objective truth may not be real truth.

You might well ask "What is truth?" According to the Bible, the Roman governor Pilate asked this very same question of Jesus. Jesus gave no answer.

When Pilate asked Jesus, "What is truth?", he was being dismissive and making a statement rather than asking a question.

Jesus had told Pilate that he had come into the world to testify to the truth, and all who were of the truth heard his voice.

Basically, Pilate was speaking as a politician. To a politician, success is about perception and not truth. To be a successful politician it is important that the people that matter have a favorable perception of you. This was the case 2,000 years ago and it is no different today. If suppressing truth helps then, so what?

Jesus came to testify to the truth.

Even though Pilate may have been dismissive of the value of truth, it was something that he knew he had to deal with. Every politician knows the value of truth, even though it might seem expedient to suppress the truth for personal gain, no one likes being lied to.

What was the truth to which Jesus testified?

On the surface, this seems a difficult question to answer, because Jesus claimed he was the truth.

If Jesus is the truth, then Jesus had to be real. He had to be eternal.

One thing, we all know is that Jesus was a historical figure who died. Josephus, the non-Christian, Jewish historian testifies to this, as do the gospels of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John. There are other biblical books that testify to eye witness accounts of Jesus existence. The physician, Luke interviewed people who had seen Jesus and recorded this in the book of Acts, as well as the gospel that bears his name. Saul, who persecuted the church, and who changed his name to Paul, claims to have seen Jesus, and was told by him to celebrate the communion. Peter wrote that he was an eye witness of Jesus. The First Epistle of John begins stating that the author and others had seen, heard and touched the eternal one, who the writer says is Jesus.

The problem for non-believers is there is no burial site for Jesus and they simply refuse to believe that because he had the power over death, his physical body was transformed into an eternal body. The difficulty with this for unbelievers is this means Jesus had to be more than just a mere human, because all humans die.


Oddly enough, many of these non-believers of Jesus death and resurrection even doubt Jesus existence. Yet they accept that the Buddha existed and lived on Earth, even though they only have religious writings to attest to this. It is easier for them to believe the teachings of the Buddha, because he was a human who died from food poisoning and was cremated.

As for Mohammed, he too was just a mere man, only not a peace-loving one like Guatama Siddhartha, the Buddha, appears to have been. There is even a burial site which is said to have his bones, to support that Mohammed actually lived. What is odd about Mohammed is he believed in the Virgin Birth of Jesus, but not in his resurrection. His followers must have dismiss this fact, otherwise they would all have to admit that Jesus was a superior individual to Mohammed.

One of the interesting biological facts about those who claim to have an intimate relationship with Jesus Christ is they are much happier people than those who don't. Maybe the truth is they have learnt how to release endorphins into their body and experience a much more blissful life as a result. Endorphins are addictive and those who smoke, gamble and have other addictions, unknowingly find pleasure as a result of endorphins being released into their brain. This is what keeps addicts addicted, and not the thing they do that ruins their life.

The truth drug that took the life of my acquaintance when he was twenty-two was only a substitute for the real thing. And you know there are no substitute for the real thing. But sometimes the real thing requires a dose of reality we do not want to admit. As someone once said, "The truth hurts."


Lying Honestly

Marcus Einfeld, the lying judge and human rights blowhard, is the perfect symbol of our time, says an Australian Columnist Andrew Bolt who gets 1 million hits to his blog.

Bill Clinton said he tried to walk the line between telling lies and telling the truth, suggesting that there is nothing wrong in this.

A judge tells lies, but says that he is an honest man and for anybody to suggest otherwise is insulting.

A president says that there is a place that exists between a lie and the truth and suggests that not telling the truth as a President is not telling an untruth, if a person walks this line.

The film "True Lies" is about a espionage cover up that is uncovered. The lies the people tell, are truly lies, that is they are lies.

But when is a lie, never a lie. Lies are truly lies; they are never the truth.

To be honest, a lie is a lie, never the truth, and the truth is the truth and never a lie.

When is the truth not the truth? The logical answer is to say when it is a lie. But the divided between being an honest person and a liar is not a matter of degrees, you either are a liar or you have never told a lie in your life. It is black or white.

There is a reason why people get confused. This is because there exists a phenonemon known as twilight.

Twilight is very deceptive. The sun is no longer shining, but twilight is nearly as good as the real thing. The twilight zone is where lies become truth and liars become honest. This is where criminals become good citizens and evil is declared to be good.

The twilight society lives of those who are honest. But if it wasn't for lying politicians, corrupt officials and judges rewarding criminals with suspended sentences, the twilight would not exist. Neither would the twilight society be able to prey on its innocent victims, those who carry the burden of corruption as they try to forge a better life for themselves, their children and their grandchildren.

To be honest, there is time to tell the truth and a time to say nothing. But when Jesus said that he was the way, the truth and the life, was he lying or telling the truth?


Sunday, March 22, 2009

Rare Animal For Sale

A rare animal is for sale. Most rare animals end up in zoos. This animal is now considered extinct and has to be a must for a collector. I believe a certain museum is chaffing at the bit to get it, but the person, who now owns it, is looking to sell it for more than what the museum is prepared to offer.

Now put yourself in this person's position. You have purchased a valuable item and a museum is saying to you that you should give it to them free of charge. Well, when you have governments willing to bail out high earners and ensure that they live in comfort and expect everyone else to pay for it, this is a bit rich.

The animal in question is an Australian native cat that is considered extinct, but not only is the species considered extinct, never has one been sighted that is an albino. This animal was caught by a dog in 1882 and preserved by a taxidermist. Australian native cats were quite common back in the nineteenth century, so there would be no point in having one preserved back then. However, to catch an albino native cat on your farm at time, this is another story.

How did I get to find about this? Well, this is an amazing story in itself. Somebody broke a window and did a runner and a security guard was partly responsible for the fact that I continued talking to the very person sitting on the footpath with a laptop computer making use of a wireless facility?

The guy was on the bones of his backside literally and trying to make money on the internet. These days is easier to blog for profits. You can learn more by clicking here now.



Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Born To Die

Being born to die is a waste of time. There is no point in being born to die. There is no purpose in life if you are merely born to die. There is no meaning in living if you are born to die.

This fact that being born to die is futile is recognized by most people who begin to think about the meaning of their existence. The futility of being born to die is so obvious that it is surprising that more people do not make the answer to this question the first answer the seek. To know the reason for your birth, the reason for your existence, the reason for you living on Earth, should be the most important question you need to know.

I meet an eighteen year old the other day who said told me that his parents reckoned he was smarter than most people his age.

You see he was going into the Armed Forces to earn his qualifications. This way he said he would get paid to learn rather than have to pay to learn, and then either have a debt to repay and a job to find.

Part of the reason he claimed his parents said he was smarter than the rest was because he planned his activities in advance and set himself personal goals. For instance, he said he decided to do legal studies as part of his senior high school years, so he would know his rights.

I told him that was a smart move, and asked him, "Did he know what his rights were when he died."

You see this has to be an important question for somebody who was thinking about going into the army. The reason people get the benefits of a paid education is they also are putting their lives on the line and could die in battle.

The eighteen year old, whose parents said was smarter than most people had neglected to consider this.

He told me that he would be thinking about it all day. I suggested not to worry about the insurance because the Armed Forces would cover that. Rather he needed to know what his rights were before the Creator of the Heavens and Earth.

Funny how people think they are smart and yet forget to ask the most basic of questions: "What happens when I die?"


Worse still, for many people who do ask the question, is the fact that rather than seek the truth, they fall for anything that sounds plausible and suits their lifestyle.

Seriously, nobody likes being told untruths or lies. I bet you don't. Yet people will accept anything they want to believe rather than the truth, especially when the truth will hurt.

The truth is you are going to die, so what are you going to do about it?

I know what I did about it. I sought out the Creator of the Universe.

Yes, I could have got caught up in religious ideas and practices and tried to earn approval from God. But man-made religion has never really appealed to me. From an early age I judged church goers and religious people as hypocrites.


I could have gone on a good works trip to prove myself as worthy of God because I help out my fellow man. Many people do this, point the finger at the religious hypocrites and praise their own self-righteousness. One man I knew who did this, ended up being a very bitter and critical of other people because they would not repay the favors.

I could have looked for a philosophy like Buddhism or Reincarnation or Evolution to explain the significance of my life. To have a meaningful philosophy and be a moral person I would need to incorporate some concept of reincarnation. Otherwise it would be pointless in being a moral person who upholds the law and respects other people.

But I thought that his was a waste a time. Either I was going to die or there had to be a Creator who had a reason for my season on earth, or life itself was meaningless.
In which case, I would gravitate to organized crime and do what was opportunistic for my own selfish ends without regard for anyone else.

Fortunately for me, I found the Creator. You can too.