SETI or the search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence has been actively performed since 1960. Early predictions of success have been modified and modified again, and to date there has not been a scrap of evidence of life out there. Read up on it if you like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SETI 

Now we are trying a different approach and trying to find "possible" inhabitable Earth like environments.  See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kepler_Mission . Big money has been spent on sending  the Kepler spacecraft up into space. Again we are searching for inhabitable worlds! However, now that the spacecraft is up, we already see the backstep by the science community. George Musser in his article in Scientific American Jan 2010 entitled "A lump of Coal" points out that other potential Earths would be graphite or diamond in nature. He concludes by saying

"If anything departs from the norm and deserves to be called exotic, it is us!" 

Amen! my friend! Thats what the bible has said for years (over 3000 years in fact). It points out we are rather special and not the normal. Earth was setup for us to live on and that setup had to be very, very carefully done. Tiny adjustments and we would not exist!

I'm glad we continue to look for life, but it is strange that we search madly for life to try to prove that we developed by random chance, when we have the God of the universe who came to live with us right here! He told us we aren't created by chance, that we very special and that he wants a relationship with us! That relationship he says is spectacular and different. We are so fortunate, but spend so much time looking in the wrong places to find other life forms! It's here with us right now!

While I am first to support exploration, and I know that the exploration for life helps get money for exploration which yeilds lots of other facinating stuff, I think we are butting into the probability that we will not find life elsewhere! At least we are not likely to find intelligent life like us or it would be trying to find us first wouldn't it. Have we considered that maybe it has?

Why do we fight so hard to ignore God?

Here is what Paul, that guy who was around with the greats who walked with Christ wanted for the people called the "Philippians" and which I want for us all.

"I pray that your love will grow more and more. And let it be based on knowledge and understanding. Then you will be able to know what is best. You will be pure and without blame until the day Christ returns. You will be filled with the fruit of right living produced by Jesus Christ. All of those things bring glory and praise to God."[1]

Over the past few days I have been really writing to couples, but today I want to come back to our own relationship with the God of the universe. I want to let everyone know he is not mean, nasty, uncaring, and distant. He is loving, gentle, caring and right here with us. We are the people who control the relationship however! Why is this the case? Why does God want us to have the control and not himself?

Perhaps because he doesn't want robots! He doesn't want to control us like puppets! He wants a relationship with us. I'm sure it's tough for him if I am a representative of our human race. I screw up often, don't think too much of my behaviour and attitude at times, and know that I sin(do selfish, ignorant and nasty things). God allows me the freedom to choose to do this because he wants me to love him. As I do, I do less of these selfish, ignorant and nasty things(sins) and get caring, wiser and more gentle with those around me.

That's why Paul says he prays our love will grow more and more! I pray the same for us all, let us grow in love, it's the greatest motivator. But how should we grow this love? Base it on feelings and emotions? No! See what it says! "And let it be based on knowledge and understanding "

I do wish those that let their emotions get in the way of understanding and knowledge would make an attempt to put the emotions aside for a while. Emotions are short lived and do not sustain us. Knowledge and understanding are consistent and form a base that is strong. Why do I write these blogs? To help us all understand and gain knowledge! To much of our lives is spent reacting without understanding. We accept popular messages as truth because they are popular, not because they are true! We hurt ourselves deeply because of this! I so want to see that changed.

My desire is for you is that "You will be pure and without blame until the day Christ returns." That you would desire the joy of being clean, right and aligned with truth as you power your way through life! There is a joy of knowing you have done the right thing despite others ridicule or dislike. We can stand on truth but only if we do so in love. As that great author Rudyard Kipling says in his poem "If". . . "When being lied about, don't deal in lies". Let us be blameless! The key aspect is to not stop living as a son or daughter of God! Be strong! Be blameless! Be pure!

Then  "You will be filled with the fruit of right living produced by Jesus Christ. All of those things bring glory and praise to God."

The fruit of right living is empowered by the God of the universe. Holy Spirit in you empowers you to live victoriously. But it's your choice! The living water of holy Spirit is waiting to be poured out into your life, but only you can turn the handle that opens the tap and lets the water flow!

So how about it? How about loving God more and more and becoming a person who lives victoriously as son or daughter of God.

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[1] Phillipians 1:9 NIRV

Have you heard that guys and girls are different? Or do you subscribe to the popular theme that we are the same, just brought up differently?

 

Science over the last while can look inside our heads with modern contraptions that have shown that we are indeed different! This disqualifies much of the popular theme saying we are identical as proposed over the last few years. This means it is now time to try and understand what some of these differences are!

 

Today I want to talk about guys!

 

Ladies, I want you to know us guys have some very clear differences that you clearly see, but that we as guys don’t even think about. We just do things that way and often assume that you are the same as us. Are you? You judge!

 

We are firstly highly competitive. Put guys together on a game in which they can compete or collaborate, and the best you can expect is minor collaboration, only to win! Competition reigns supreme! We want to win badly, sometimes at cost to ourselves.! Excitement and fun is central to our enjoyment of life, and we don’t take the risks into account because by nature we are risk takers. Physical activities, even those that introduce pain on the way to gain, are craved! Basically we are adrenaline junkies (who try to hide it so we don’t appear out of place). Climbing higher, going faster, picking up heavier, and other extremes all excite us. If we take a large group of women and large group of men and try to find out which group prefers watching things like “the worlds strongest men”, or “boxing”, or “ultimate fighting”, or “racing”, then group that wins hands down is the guys.! (I am not saying some gals don’t enjoy these, but that in majority, it’s the guys who do).

 

This is the visible stereotyped guy world! The world in which every guy competes against the other guys to build up his own image in the eyes of himself and his girl. You see her opinion counts big time!

 Notice the word “image”! 

Guys are not fools; they don’t believe they are actually the best at everything, they just like the posture and chase to be the best. You see guys only really talk and get together with other guys when they do sport or work together! They don’t have relationships where they share their innermost thoughts with another guy. They are basically insecure inside(and will never admit it), lonely(no real friends at an intimate level) waiting to be affirmed by the women they love best(his only real intimate friend). Her respect (and please note I did not say “love”) is what he desires most in life. He keeps relationships with others at a distance, and the person he chooses to get closest too, is that one women who is special to him! If she respects him then he is on top of the world and the love wells up inside of him and he wants to protect her, do things for her and be with her. If not, he is crushed(whether he admits it or not). Men have wimpy ego’s that are very easily hurt!

 

Unfortunately, this is where woman fall down. Disrespect for husbands is rife among many wives. These woman talk negatively about their spouses or boyfriends to others, and openly often show disrespect to them. This is crushing and distances the guy immediately! Now a guy being a guy, he will not talk to anyone about it until it is so extremely painful that he would probably almost want to die due to this pain.

 

Instead guys do the next thing guys do, they get quiet! Ladies, you have to know when your guy gets quiet, you don’t go and ask him what the matter is. You see he is dumb in this area! He doesn’t really know! It takes him a long time to figure out his emotions and even longer to put them into words he can communicate. So, if you ask him, he will not be able to express himself, so maybe he will lie to get you off his back, and that will get him feeling worse about himself. Give him space! Let him be quiet when all you want to do is talk to find out what is going on. Probably there is very little going on. If it was you there would be a huge amount, but it isn’t! He is different!

 

What can you do to win? Respect him! Show him that you do respect him! Tell others how much you do respect him! Use that wonderful non-verbal language of touch that is a healer of emotions without words to show you care and respect him. He will melt! Most guys cannot fail to forgive and love when shown respect and when their wives show their love by physical touch and actions!

 

There is a good reason why the bible wants men to love their wives and wives to submit to their husbands! Men don’t tell their wives often enough that they love them, because with us men, we say generally something once and if we mean it it’s enough! Woman want to hear it many times and know it’s meant each time!

 

Men want to be “shown” respect. Many woman think that saying they respect them is enough, it’s not! You have to show it and it must be believable! Words mean little to men! (You need to be “fairly believable” because men are just not that astute and don’t get the nuances). Men are not relationship oriented by nature, so ladies you have to help us out. Show us your respect, and our love will blow you away!

 

Now, no true man wants a wife that’s a doormat! Respect isn’t accepting abuse! But if you have a man who wants to love and respect you! You could be having some difficulty, remember, he isn’t the same as you. Words will not really help! Actions will! Show respect and love to him and you may be surprised how that competitive spirit will become the protective spirit.

 

Well, I sure how that we will have better relationships over the next few days. God bless us as we try to make life a better place, for ourselves and others!

Have you every had one of those days when the bed seems to be next to the wall when you get out of it? You walk into the wall of life hard from the time your eyes open! The alarm shrieks! Breakfast isn’t great! You’re late! The family is not doing or saying appreciative things! Traffic is lousy! People you meet are nasty, you spill your coffee on your best outfit, the washroom calls as you get into the traffic jam, etc. etc.

 

We all have days like that, and these days sure test us don’t they!

Then to crown it all, we may open the bible and read :

 “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”[1] 

Like gasoline on a wood fire, that can add heat to an already hot situation. Rejoice?!! 

Just doesn’t seem good advice does it? 

Well let’s think about how we need to address these situations. Letting ourselves dissolve into a pity party only makes us feel worse. Getting angry builds toxins and makes us ensure the rest of the day gets darker as we go on. There has to be a way we can move through the day successfully!

 

Let’s think about pausing and considering our situation. Normally when this happens to me, I take the “righteousness test”! This is a test I apply to myself. I consider how right I am in everything I do, compared to God. That puts things in perspective because I know I screw up and deserve to get in many of the tough situations I do get into due to my own incompetency’s. Then I turn to my loving Father and ask him to forgive me for being so focused on myself. I spend some time revealing to him how much I appreciate the things he has done for me in the past. (I have a huge list of those things that I keep handy in my mind so that’s fairly easy for me to do).

 

What this then does is that it re-orients my view of myself, and gets me to see into my immediate problem. It distances me from the immediate enough to give me some perspective. Then I remember the verse that follows the one above which says“Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.”

 

So now I look around at those around me and consider if those I have encountered would consider me gentle this morning. . .probably not!

 

So it’s time to make a decision. I decide to become gentle (I don’t feel it) and I check everything I do to make sure that it is done from a gentle attitude.

 

The interesting thing about this is that it starts out as a difficult task, but gets easier each minute I succeed. Then as the attitude starts to win me back to a way of life that could be okay for the rest of the day, I read the next verse “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Oh, cool! Now I get to put my requests to God.

 Now, what I have to remember is this! It doesn’t say put my complaints in front of God, it says requests. What is the difference? 

Well a request is for something I consider I need, a complaint is noise about something I find annoying.  This means I have to consider what my request is.

When I consider this (having already got into an attitude of gentleness), I often find that my requests are to bless others around me, keep me from responding nastily to people who are nasty to me, for help to find the right way through my day, and that I would learn and gain from the experiences the day is delivering. I am starting to change and my day changes with me!

 

I start to see that God loves me and that the day’s events are not there to crush me, but to help me grow into a better person. What I do is my choice and God’s desire is that I choose right! Then to top this loving experience I read the next verse “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

 

I realise God wants us to have His peace that is outside our understanding at all times! That we can only do this if we allow his gentleness and joy to be in our lives in all circumstances, and that if we get that peace, our emotional well being and our thinking will all become positively influenced for good. This makes my day better immediately.

 

I know the challenges will keep coming, they will be tough, but with God, I say

 

“BRING IT ON! GOD WILL MAKE IT RIGHT!”

 

This words “Until death us do part?“ of the marriage vows, is a very Christian type of marriage statement.  

When initially said during the ceremony, with a heart full of love for the other person, no clouds of life weighing down on the couple, and the promise of bliss into eternity, they pass our lips easily!

 

Two years down the road the truth starts to peak it’s head out. These words could now seem to becoming more like a chain than blessing! Why? Are we so stupid that we don’t know what can happen?

 

I somehow don’t think so! If that’s the case why do divorced couples go down that same path again? There must be more to it than that!

 

We know what we are saying at that ceremony, and we all are optimists and want to believe the best in our partners. The problem is that we are not all realists, and we don’t really understand what marriage is about! We definitely don’t understand the other person properly because of them being of a different sex (and that is sure good). Being different sexes means we have wildly different thinking to each other.

 

A Christian marriage is also fundamentally different to a non-Christian marriage in that a Christian marriage is a THREE way partnership! Yes, I said THREE way!

 

The couple and God form a covenant that they will be bound together. So, that “to death us do part” bit, is a promise not made only to the other person, but also to God himself, and that carries a lot of weight!

 

So, if you get married as a Christian, you are under a covenant with God. Now what’s the difference between a covenant and a promise?

 

A promise is something that can get broken with little consequences. A covenant is something that cannot be broken without consequences.

 

In the old days one of the ways the ancient guys who made covenants with God did it is as follows:
 
They would take some animals (lets say a cow or goat), and would split them lengthways and walk between the bits of the body with its blood and intestines spilling out on the left and right of them. In the middle of this area they would make the promise to each other and the promise would include an agreement between God and them, that if either of them broke the covenant, God would be allowed to do to them what they had just done to the animal! i.e. it wasn’t a promise without serious consequences. It was made with understanding of the disastrous consequences of failure.

 

No days we are so poor at understanding commitment. We don’t really understand a covenant at all. If we did, we would work harder at maintaining our covenants or we wouldn't make them!

 

Okay, so that’s the nasty gruesome part of covenants. However, what we really need to understand about the marriage covenant is that it is made to bless everyone and their descendants! God wants the two getting married to have great intimacy (yes intimacy not just sex, sex is only part of intimacy!) and become one in the way they face the world and their problems!

 
This does not mean that “oneness” is easy! To get true oneness takes effort. It takes the woman to understand that men are nothing like women when it comes to thinking. Men don’t talk out issues (saying to a man that “we need to talk about this” is almost the same as asking  them to appear in court! They hate and fear it!). Men get married with this wonderful view of “The two of us will be together having fun for the rest of time! Look guys! I have an incredible wife don’t I?” 

The wife on the other hand gets married with thoughts of being loved and cherished, building this warm happy cosy environment where babies can grow into children, marry multiply and give her grandchildren.

Notice the difference?  

These views may be complementary if both parties work at it, but there is lots of potential to clash. When problems occur, the wife wants to “talk”!!! This is how she deals with things! She doesn’t necessarily want her problems solved, she just wants to talk! (Woman talk about 3.5times more than men do each day). So, she will talk to anyone who will listen. (To men this is seen as “going behind their back and revealing personal things that should be kept in the marriage” so ladies please keep this in mind!)

 

Guys when in the same situation just want to stop thinking! Get that girls????  They go to the no thoughts place in their life. Girls just can’t go there, so they don’t get this! We are wired differently and this has been proven by science. So, guys get very quiet and bury their thoughts deep inside when hurt. They don’t talk to anyone! The only person they may want to talk to is their wife, but only after a long time to let the emotions fade, and they do it in order to re-establish a desired relationship, not necessarily to close the issue. When they do talk, their talk needs to be factual, simple, and focussed on problem solving. The relationship stuff important to girls is difficult for guys, so they avoid it. They do this even though it’s the one real things the girls want!

 Notice the difference! We just aren’t the same!
 

So, let’s understand one thing! Without both partners being fully focused on Christ who will talk to each in their own way, through Holy Spirit giving both advice and become the glue holding the two together, marriage is a tough road!

 

With Christ, there is still work!

 The women must curb her instinct to talk about everything. She has a few real strong things in her favour to help her. First of these her looks and feel. Guys become puppies when their wives point out how strong, special and sexy their guys are. When they cuddle up to them and tell them how much they are appreciated.

When wives acknowledge that the man provides well for the family and takes good care of the family, it makes him feel like a king. He will do anything for her! This is especially effective when they do this in front of other men and women. By the way, the worst thing a woman can do is flirt with another man. That is betrayal! Remember, the guy will not say anything, but the pain will fester inside until it eats him up. If you as a women have done this, go and say sorry and quit doing it!

 

The man in the marriage needs to tell his wife he loves her about 100 times more of then than "he" thinks is necessary! He needs to be willing to listen to her talk, even when all he would rather be doing is going out for a game with some pals, or just relaxing in mindless mode in front of the television. He need sto do those chores and look after the kids and openly explain that he enjoys her company! She needs to feel protected and loved. She need to be told this!

 

Mostly however, the couple both need to be sure to be as righteous in God’s sight as they can be. Don’t talk about the spouses failures to others, but to God. Let positive things come out of our mouths and be shown on our face. Then the two shall have a greater chance of being one “until death us do part”.

 

The intimacy of a strong Christian marriage is wonderful. I know! I have a wonderful wife I love dearly and have done so for decades.

 God is good isn’t he?

Men and women of the bible are great examples to us of how people react in different situations. The military trains their top pilots by putting them through simulations and scenarios that get them ready for tough life experiences. In the same way as we look into the lives of some of the greats we prepare ourselves for success.

 Our first great person we are looking into is Abraham. This is one interesting dude!

We are however not reading up on Abraham only but will be doing so as a series of studies in how to get information from the bible and around the bible. This is to be a series of talks on how to properly understand and read the sacred writings.

First a story: A city teenager is kidnapped by a slaver and is drugged, put in a ships container on route to the east. As they get to the coast of Africa, the ship is hijacked and girl is captured by the pirates who take her to the African mainland. She manages to escape, and runs into an African village where the villagers come out of their homes to see her. They seem helpful but there is a problem.

 

Let’s say we are this person. How would we go about surviving? Nothing is as we know it. We have gone from iPod’s to mud huts and bongo drums, from cloths to blankets wrapped around people. From English to something unintelligible! From hot dogs to pots of porridge! From eating with spoons to eating with cupped hands. From indoor plumbing, to an “loo with a view”. What do you do?

 

In the same way when we read the bible it is worth while trying to understand the situation the writer of that specific sacred writing would have been in when writing it and the situation he was writing about at the time.

 

For this reason, I have picked Abraham as the subject for our learning experience. He is a guy who’s DAN contributes to much of the Middle Eastern peoples and who’s “spiritual DNA” is a basis for understanding a lot of the  rest of the first group of writings called the Old Testament.

 

So in the first of these discussions, we will read in Genesis starting at chapter 11.

 

Step 1 of Bible reading: Just read the piece you are going to try and understand to get a feel for it.

 

Well what are we waiting for, let’s go read it! J Let’s start at chapter 11 verse 27 and to get it all we need to read to Chapter 23. [Yes, that’s a lot of reading but to understand the context, you need to cover all the story once]. This is important.

  Step 2 of bible reading. Figuring out where the story took place! 

Let’s start out by figuring out when this guy was alive? We first hear about him in the writings in the book of Genesis in chapter 11. The time was just after the time when the “Tower of Babel” was being constructed and after cities were developed, and we know he visited Egypt. It mentions that Abraham was born is Ur of Babylonia, and taken to Canaan.

 

Okay, so go to Google and type in “Ancient Babylonia Canaan Ur”, then you will find something on ancient babelonia. I am quoting form it as found at http://www.bible-history.com/babylonia/BabyloniaHistory_of_Babylonia.htm

“Ancient Babylonia - History of Babylonia The once great city of Babylon, where the Jews were held captive for 70 years, became a symbol of power, materialism, and cruelty. The city of Babylon was the capital of the ancient land of Babylonia in southern Mesopotamia. It was situated on the Euphrates River about 50 miles south of modern Baghdad, just north of what is now the modern Iraqi town of al-Hillah. The tremendous wealth and power of this city, along with its monumental size and appearance, were certainly considered a Biblical myth, that is, until its foundations were unearthed and its riches substantiated during the 19th century. Archaeologists stood in awe as their discoveries revealed that certain stories in the Bible were an actual situation that had happened in time. “ Also“”Babylonia was a long, narrow country about 40 miles wide at its widest point and having an area of about 8,000 square miles. It was bordered on the north by Assyria, on the east by Elam, on the south and west by the Arabian desert, and on the southeast by the Persian Gulf. The earliest known inhabitants of Mesopotamia were the Sumerians, whom the Bible refers to as the people of the "land of Shinar" (Gen 10:10). Sargon, from one of the Sumerian cities, united the people of Babylonia under his rule about 2300 B.C. Many scholars believe that Sargon might have been the same person as Nimrod (Gen 10:8).”

Cool! Now go back to the original search page. Find the result about ancient maps of the near east at URL http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/aneancientmaps/Ancient_Near_East_Maps.htm and read through the list. The one on Ancient Mesopotamia seems to make the most sense. Let’s take a look at it. . .

See http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/aneancientmaps/Ancient_Near_East_Maps.htm  

This shows us the area and its cities when Abraham was around.

 
Step 3 of bible reading. Figuring out when the people in the story lived(if possible)! 

In previous discussions I have pointed out the nature and form of the structure of the Tower of Babel is almost directly the same as the ancient ziggurats found in the Middle East in Iran and Iraq. These ziggurats are the equivalent of Egyptian pyramids but pre-date them. They were also built near ancient cities! Now one of the oldest cities in the world is Jericho, which is in this area of the world. Jericho is claimed to have started in about 9000 B.C. (though some people seem to say 6000 B.C.) The oldest Ziggurat is about 3^rd Millennium B.C. This seems to place Abraham in the time just after 3^rd millennium started. Since we know Abraham went to Egypt, and the Egyptian old Kingdom started around 2700B.C.

 

The bible says Solomon built his temple “Solomon began to build the temple of the Lord. It was 480 years after the people of Israel had come out of Egypt. It was in the fourth year of Solomon's rule over Israel. He started in the second month. That was the month of Ziv.”[1]

 

Then it says in Exodus12:40 “The people of Israel lived in Egypt for 430 years. 41 At the end of the 430 years, to the very day, all of the Lord's people marched out of Egypt like an army.”

 

Now we know Solomon’s temple was built in 966B.C so the best guess of Abraham’s birth year would be 2166B.C. or around that time.

 

This shows us that knowledge of the “Whole bible” helps us understand and discover information about parts of it. I didn’t expect you would have been able to figure this out for yourself, and as you can imagine, there are lots of arguments about exactly this. I have given you one. You could research it for yourself if you like,.

 

Well enough of this subject for this week!  

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[1] 1 Kings 6:1 NIRV