Maybe this has never happened to you, but some people have the ability to see events that are about to happen, before they happen in some mysterious way.

The movies make money by spinning out stories of what this gift would be like if predictable and usable. Generally it is painted in a positive light , but I know differently!

When I first became a christian, God for some unknown reason gave me glimpses of the future. I found this to be very upsetting!
Initially it was small things but after a while they became significant. The first time that this was a shocking experience for me was at an Anglican evening church service when God showed me that one of the elders was going to die. It was beautiful in that God permitted me to see that this man was in a unique special spiritual place with God! That he was pure, holy and ready to leave the Earth. God showed me he loved the man!

Unfortunately for me, I knew his wife, his childrens were my friends! I had to shake his hand and had to say goodbye as I left the church. I left with a heavy heart wondering what I should have done or said! Half an hour later this man, Cliff, dropping his daughter at college before he had a heart attack and died. I know that he went to the Father because of that beautiful revelation, but the anguish it caused me was also great!

I normally didn't speak up about what I experienced as it was embarrasing to me, and wierd to the average person. I didn't want to be labled as a nutcase or get a cult following.

One occasion I decided to speak out before the event about my experience. It was on a summer day as I sat with a co-worker. He was on the phone organizing for his children to fly into town (he was divorced). As he spoke I experienced a great dread that was so black and evil that I almost became nauseaus.

All day I wondered what to do and as I left work that evening I told him what had happened and warned him his children were not to come on the flight.

Weeks went by and I heard nothing, and I was glad.

Then this man, John Corey told me his story.

He had cancelled their flight and put them on another flight. His girlfriends flight was going out the same night and as he dropped her off the flight that his children would have been on arrived. i.e. he was at the airport at exactly the moment he would have been getting his children if they had been on that flight!

On the way back to the city from the airport, a person ran across the highway, a car alongside his car hit them and they stumbled into his lane. He hit them full on even though he stood on the brakes. The person was killed and his car front end was totalled.

John told me that if his children had been with him, they would have been in the back seat. Since they never used seat belts and he didn't insist on it they would have certainly been hurt or killed. In his words... "Ken, if they had been on that flight they would have been flung into that windscreen from the back and probably been killed" he said.

Well that was so stressful for me that I asked God to remove this gift. He graciously did!

That's why when I read things like this :

“[Jesus Again Predicts His Death] Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, "We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”- Matthew 20: 17-19

I am totally in awe of Jesus! The stress of knowing these things must have been incredible! He did that because he loved us!

Is being able to see the future a blessing or a curse in these circumstances?

I don't know, but believe God does!

I do believe I was wrong in asking God to take the gift away, but he had compassion on me, immature as I was. Now days I understand that I don't have to feel good about everything. Sometimes my discomfort is a blessing for others. This is true maturity! Being willing to take pain for others gain.

I choose this! I choose having this purpose in my life!

What about you?

Ever had someone around you do something  just plain wrong?

It's easy to make a judgement isn't it? The first thought that could enter our heads is "I would never do such a thing!"

Wow! thats the sin of pride right there! If we think that way, we have already committed a nasty selfish act ourself! We are no better than the person we are judging. Let's avoid that one!

Perhaps we are a bit better and think "If I tell them then they will know how to avoid doing this and can improve themselves!"

This is better because it considers both them and others! We are not the measure against which they are to be judged. This acknowledges that fact. It however lacks one crucial dimension, the spiritual dimension!

When we see others doing something incorrect, as Christians our first activity should be to talk to God about it.

I am more likely to say "Father see that .... person .... is doing! I think it is wrong and is against your guidelines. Please help them and guide me on how to help them. If you want me to do anything please let me know."

Then I wait to see if it is something I have to address (like when the person works for me and I have to correct them). If it's something they can learn from, if I leave them to continue and find out the consequences for themselves. That is normally the best way to learn!

I try to remember that Jesus had a thief in among his disciples. 

Jesus gave that theif the purse with all their money! That person was "Judas" and he stole from the others. (See John 12:4-6).

He is the guy who handed Jesus over to the Romans under the influence of Satan and his demonic buddies!

So he in fact was the trigger that resulted in Jesus' death.

Jesus knew this when he handed him the purse of money. Why did he hand the money over? Why did he not erradicate Judas from the holy fellowship of apostles?

Was it perhaps because he was giving Judas a chance to hear Jesus and say sorry to God(repent)?

It turns out Judas was to far gone and he didn't repent until after Jesus died. (Then he committed suicide! The guy really was taken out by evil!)

Did God get upset?

No, he allowed Judas' bad behaviour to bring about a blessing for all of mankind! Jesus' death and ressurection was part of the glorius plan!

So what does that mean for us?

I try and remember how Jesus dealt with Judas when I deal with people who don't do things right!

God has time and place for everything and when we are at our darkest hour and everything is falling apart, our loving Father in heaven has an amazing plan!

The Sixth “day” of creation! 

So what does the bible say happened in, and around that sixth “day” of creation? Again I will be taking the “Ywm” or “yom” word used in the Hebrew as meaning “period”, not day for this discussion. 

 

Let’s look at what the writings say. . .

 God said, "Let the land produce all kinds of living creatures. Let there be livestock, and creatures that move along the ground, and wild animals. Let there be all kinds of them." And that's exactly what happened. God made all kinds of wild animals. He made all kinds of livestock. He made all kinds of creatures that move along the ground. And God saw that it was good.[1]
 

The “livestock” word is important because it Implies animals that were later farmed. i.e. these are mammals. This gives us the opportunity to look into when according to science mammals started to appear on Earth. The first mammals started in about 200 million years ago. Perhaps one of the first that scientists have identified was Hadrocodium wu that lived about 195 million years ago.

 

The timeline compares well to that of the birds that started at about 220 million years ago. i.e. mammals started after the birds. That is what the bible indicates as well!

 

Let’s always remember the Genesis writing was for freed slaves and not meant to be a theoretical scientific book. What is the probability of Moses getting this sequence correct by chance? Each of the days events would need to be correctly  ordered for each day to this the sixth day.

 

Well probability theory says that the number of permutations of 6 objects is 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1. So this means that there is one right combination out of 720 ways of choosing these if you are given the six items to order. i.e. 0.138889 % chance. Let us remember that this gives the chance If we have only six items to choose from. i.e. if we were GIVEN the six items and had to order them!

If we have an almost open set of options to choose from, the chance becomes almost infinitely small. i.e. if you have to select an ordered set of creation events from the set of all possible creation events, it becomes almost infinitely small. It is what is termed a very improbable event!

Simply put, without supernatural help Moses couldn’t have accurately written this part of the bible when he was alive on this Earth. There was simply no human being alive at the time who could have helped Moses.

Okay now that we know this, let’s look into the creation of man!

 Then God said, "Let us make man in our likeness. Let them rule over the fish in the waters and the birds of the air. Let them rule over the livestock and over the whole earth. Let them rule over all of the creatures that move along the ground." 

       So God created man in his own likeness.
       He created him in the likeness of God.
       He created them as male and female.
 

     God blessed them. He said to them, "Have children and increase your numbers. Fill the earth and bring it under your control. Rule over the fish in the waters and the birds of the air. Rule over every living creature that moves on the ground." Then God said, "I am giving you every plant on the face of the whole earth that bears its own seeds. I am giving you every tree that has fruit with seeds in it. All of them will be given to you for food. "I am giving every green plant to all of the land animals and the birds of the air for food. I am also giving the plants to all of the creatures that move on the ground. I am giving them to every living thing that breathes." And that's exactly what happened. God saw everything he had made. And it was very good. There was evening, and there was morning. It was day six.[2]

 

Right so the first item we need to understand is that God establishes Man in the same day with the mammals God created. When we think about it, that kind of makes sense for us doesn’t it. We are actually mammals! Right?

 

Okay, also note that God says he created them as male and female. This is quite important because most people fail to see that as occurring during this first creation story! But that is what it says. The Adam and Eve stuff comes later in Genesis 2!

 

So what does science have to say about the creation of modern man, Homo Sapiens? Modern man was created about 200 thousand years ago according to Science. This is interesting in that man is created after the first mammals. Also, science has shown that Neanderthal man was not our ancestor!

 

Science cannot yet find the link to modern man within the evolutionary timeline. It appears as if man just appeared on this Earth about 200 000years ago! The science argument from just a few years ago that we evolved from Neanderthal man has been proved to be a lie! Humanoids lived around at the same time as man was created, but disappeared soon afterwards, and we as homo sapiens have no DNA derived from them! Proved by science!

 

The sequence of development of the earth and living beings as explained by science  is what the bible gives us. It's good they align! Also we need to understand that to get this sequence right by chance to this level of detail, is insignificantly small!

  So, there is a good reason why Christians who accept things by faith, can accept that God provided Moses with supernatural knowledge of the Earths creation!

Christians are not crazy, they just acknowledge known facts!

 

 

To summarise the creation sequence  timeframes if we accept “yom” means period:

 

Day/Period 1    13.7billion years ago to 4.55billion years ago         
                         Universe starts to Sun igniting,

Day/Period 2     4.4billion years ago to 3.8billion years ago
                         Earth forms and oceans cover it,

Day/Period 3     3.8 billion years ago to 3.3billion years ago            
                         Super continent to vegetation starting,

Day/Period 4     3.3 billion years ago to 3 billion years ago
                          Clouds thin out and modern atmosphere forms,

Day/Period 5     250 million years to 65 million years ago
                          Birds and fish,

Day/Period 6     200 million years to 200 thousand years ago        
                          Mammals and Man.

 

All this follows the bible sequence for each “day”.

God rested on the last day so we can’t discuss to much of what occurred there!

 

But isn’t all this amazing?

 Okay, so where does this leave us?

Should we say people should not believe in 24 hour days as creation days? Not really, God can create everything in situ with age so we cannot discount that.

What we need to do is to say perhaps ONLY God should be emphatic!
Perhaps we should rather try and be less emphatic.

After all no-body but God was there!

 

 “Sorry darling, I have to do … for the kids!”
 

Often Mom’s are the suckers in a kid’s life. From the time the little darlings are a few years old they know that a good whining and sob story can generally twist the course of events in their favour. They use it effectively!

 

Poor Mom! She is tired trying to do her best and when she wants some downtime, who is there demanding the last reserves from her life torn body. “little Junior!”

 

Dad’s are not immune but due to their simple make-up ( Dad’s don’t have the layers of complexity that Mom’s have) they are a little more difficult to manipulate. Instead, as the years go by, it’s the sports stuff that takes over. That hockey, soccer, gym, tennis, golf, practices that they need to take junior too. It’s fun and much better than being at home bored. Sometimes Mom is left out of it and it becomes a world for Dad and kid’s. Dad’s put this activity ahead of an evening with Mom. Dad goes out with the boy's rather than the wife! Hmm! Where is that marriage heading?

 The bible says to Dad’s “Husbands, love your wives. Love them just as Christ loved the church. He gave himself up for her.”[1] and “Husbands, love your wives. Don't be mean to them.”[2]
 

Loving your wife is putting your wife ahead of the kid’s for yoru wifes own benefit(not yours). It’s stepping into the gap and telling the kid’s to lay off Mom and get to bed now! It’s taking Mom away from the kid’s for a weekend to hewr favourite place after organizing excellent child minders to look after them (Granny would normally do this fairly well!). It’s telling her when her life is getting unbalanced that God loves her, you love her and that she is going over the edge and needs to recover. It’s not just telling her, but holding her, LISTENING to her, caressing her, loving  her and organizing to take some of that load away.

 

Okay so what about the wives!

Well ladies! Let me say you married your husband and promised to live a life with him and that he would be the most important person under God in your life. NOT YOUR KIDS! i.e. if you place your kids first and your husband second (husbands if you place your kids first and your wife second), then you are on the Titanic heading for the iceberg and without time to turn away. The only way to recover is to stop and reverse the engines and reconsider the course.

 

We have to be committed to God FIRST,our spouse SECOND, and our kids and others THIRD!

 

Get the order switched and you are heading for disaster as certainly as you do if you don’t follow another wise piece of the scared writings.

 Jesus replied, "Haven't you read that in the beginning the Creator 'made them male and female'?—(Genesis 1:27)  He said, 'That's why a man will leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. The two will become one.'—(Genesis 2:24) They are no longer two, but one. So a man must not separate what God has joined together."[3]
 

This is tough but true!

 

Guys and girls must LEAVE their parents.

Physically, psychologically and socially there must be distance between them. I’m not saying go to another state, but I am saying if you can get out of the same house that it is real good!

If we can’t (and we all have money problems sometimes) then psychologically don’t go and whine to Mom or Dad about the spouse before we have taken a week or two to whine to God about them, search the scriptures and our heart for answers and then go to a Christian counsellor for advice. after that you can have a short chat for advice with Mom and Dad. Not before! 

NEVER whine to the children about the spouse! That’s their parent you are talking about!

 

Tough as it is, we leave our parents and join with our partner for life. I guess I could go into long discussions of how we should do this, and how long we should take, but once we are joined, and particularly if we are joined with God being in charge, then we are not to take problems back to Mom and Dad before they are full discussed with the spouse, God (and a Christian counsellor if things are real tough). A tip for wives, never say to hubby " we need to talk" it scares him half to death! Most of the time this means you lecture and he is brow beaten. Find another way to do it! That's why you are female! You have hundreds of subtle personality differences that allow you to win over the male in your life in discussions without even having to get into an argument!

 

So the big mistake parents make is not putting GOD FIRST, our spouse SECOND, and the rest THIRD etc.

 Hey I hope it’s helped and pray God will guide us in this regard. If we haven’t yet got into marriage, let's be wise about choosing a partner.

Our life depends on it!

  

Holy Monday!

 

 

We can say that today because that’s what it is!

It’s that time of the year Christians call Easter week and today its Holy Monday. This is the day that follows the time called Palm Sunday.

 

It was around this time Jesus really started to tell the guys around him he was going to die.

Since they were following thinking he was going to become a popular leader, they didn’t really like this type of talk. Jesus foretold what was going to happen to himself accurately.

Have you ever thought what it would be like to know how and when you would die? I know it would creep me out!

 

What was Jesus response to this knowledge?
 

 John 12:1-9 NIRV says “"Anyone who loves his life will lose it. But anyone who hates his life in this world will keep it and have eternal life. Anyone who serves me must follow me. And where I am, my servant will also be. My Father will honor the one who serves me.
 "My heart is troubled. What should I say? 'Father, save me from this hour'? No. This is the very reason I came to this hour. Father, bring glory to your name!"
    Then a voice came from heaven. It said, "I have brought glory to my name. I will bring glory to it again."
  The crowd there heard the voice. Some said it was thunder. Others said an angel had spoken to Jesus. “
 

God was happy with the way Jesus reacted, but notice the crowds didn’t all buy it!

I think we are sometimes like that! God speaks to us and we say that it was just our mind doing tricks, or that it was a co-incidence. You know, like those folk that didn’t believe explained it away as thunder, but those that did believe heard something!

 

About 550 years before Jesus lived, a guy who was a prophet of God, foretold the future wrote about Jesus in Zechariah 9:9 saying:

 

"City of Zion, be full of joy!
      People of Jerusalem, shout!
   See, your king comes to you.
      He always does what is right.
      He has the power to save.
   He is gentle and riding on a donkey.
      He is sitting on a donkey's colt.

 

Ever think how amazing that is? It’s like foretelling the G8 summit of world leaders with Obalma would occur in the town of Huntsville, Canada this year, but writing it down in the year 1460.

To put this into perspective this would be foretelling it before Henry VIII took the English throne , or before the Spanish inquisition even started! It was saying it about the same time as Nostradamus was dying! Zechariah was definitely in among the greats for predicting this!

 

What is interesting about the bible is the number of times it links concepts together across iyts may parts. Another section of the sacred writings also talks about Palms and donkey and this is in 2 Chronicles 28:15 where it says

 “Azariah, Berekiah, Jehizkiah and Amasa received the prisoners. From the goods that had been taken they gave clothes to all those who were naked. They gave them clothes, sandals, food, drink and healing lotion. They put all of the weak people on donkeys. They took them back to their relatives at Jericho. Then they returned to Samaria. Jericho was also known as the City of Palm Trees.” 

This shows that it was the weak that were often put on a donkey, not kings.

Jesus was not coming in as a powerful war winning hero, but as a loving son of God in a human body. Not showing off but rather just accepting the shouts of joy from the crowds as he entered that city on the back of a donkey. Like it indicates in the quote, he came to tell us to give the poor clothes, shoes and food. He wants to have the poor healed (how much do we try and see that is done?).

 

The bible says in Matthew 21

 As they all approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage. It was on the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent out two disciples. He said to them, "Go to the village ahead of you. As soon as you get there, you will find a donkey tied up. Her colt will be with her. Untie them and bring them to me. If anyone says anything to you, say that the Lord needs them. The owner will send them right away."
 This took place so that what was spoken through the prophet would come true. It says,
  "Say to the city of Zion,
       'See, your king comes to you.
    He is gentle and riding on a donkey.
       He is riding on a donkey's colt.' " —(Zechariah 9:9)
  The disciples went and did what Jesus told them to do. They brought the donkey and the colt. They placed their coats on them. Then Jesus sat on the coats. A very large crowd spread their coats on the road. Others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Some of the people went ahead of him, and some followed. They all shouted,
   "Hosanna to the Son of David!" 
   "Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" —(Psalm 118:26)   

"Hosanna in the highest heaven!"[1]
 

What a Sunday that was! What a week it is!

 

What does this week mean to you?

Do we see it as another week where we get to party at the end of it or is it a time of thinking of the future?

Our future and the future of our planet. Jesus would want us to look after the poor and the environment, and tell others of his way of life. Jesus wants us to adopt his way of life so that we can live successfully with purpose!

 

Notice those people who shouted he was king were not there a few days later to disagree when others shouted he should be killed. 

We need to decide which crowd we will stand in and with it we decide how we will treat our world and our future.

We celebrate Good Friday, but Jesus died on a Thursday!

 

Are you are crazy!

I can hear people saying, really, lets look at the facts!

 The most important one is what is a Sabbath and what is a special Sabbath in the days that Jesus walked around on this Earth. We know the Sabbath is a Saturday, the “day of rest” at that time.


Mark 15:42-43 explains of the day Jesus died:

“It was the day before the Sabbath. That day was called Preparation Day. As evening approached, Joseph went boldly to Pilate and asked for Jesus' body.”
 
Jesus died on the day before the Sabbath! But if we check John’s account in John 19-30-31 it says this was a SPECIAL Sabbath.


"It was Preparation Day. The next day would be a special Sabbath. The Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath."


Now the Passover was always at a fixed time “My Passover begins when the sun goes down on the 14th day of the first month”[1]” 

 Now around Jesus death time, the Jewish calendar was switching form months of 28 days to one that had 29 to 30 days. This means that Passover could now land on any day of the week!

 If the Passover landed on a Friday when Jesus died it would account for the use of the term “Special” Sabbath by John. The Saturday following it would have been the normal Sabbath. This means that Jesus died on a Thursday!
 
Tom Brown in his article[2] says


“So with that said, is there any other biblical evidence we can unearth which could shed light on the death of Christ taking place on Thursday? There is one other passage which proves the Passover landed on Friday of that year: Six days before the Passover, Jesus arrived at Bethany, where Lazarus lived, whom Jesus had raised from the dead (John 12:1). Jesus arrived at the home of Mary on the ordinary Sabbath and it was there that Mary poured perfume on Jesus feet. A few scriptures later, the Bible says, “The next day the great crowd that had come for the Feast heard that Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. They took palm branches…” (John 12:12-13). Historically and traditionally this is Palm Sunday. Notice carefully the previous day when Mary poured perfume on Jesus feet the gospel writer says that this day was Six days before the Passover. Did you get it? Count six days from Saturday, and there you have it! Passover landed on a Friday.”[3]

 So folk, we have just got the facts showing Jesus died on a Thursday. Three days before he was resurrected! Just like the bible foretold. (By the way, the normal explanation sucks! Count the days, there are two, not three! Sorry folk, but facts are facts!).

Jesus died on a Thursday!

 It’s not wildly important, but it is a nice fact to know isn’t it!

The important thing isn’t when he died but that  he loved us and died in our place!