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May17 @ @ rRandyP comments: mFaithOfJesus kjv@Mark:4:30-34 AS THEY WERE ABLE TO HEAR - When they were alone then He expounded. Don't you wish that they would have recorded these teachings? Saved us all a lot of trouble? That tells us two important things right off the bat. One, there is much to take in, too much for one parable/session/three year apprenticeship. Two, Jesus does not mean for just anybody to know because not everyone spiritually discerns it. Despite the huge amount of time He spent publicly/privately, I believe that it can be shown that not even the disciples discerned the message spiritually until after Pentecost. Not because it is too heavy intellectually but, because the mind always tries to discern it intellectually which leads to counterfeiting and approximation and various interpretations. It is almost as if Jesus is investing His teaching forward to the future. He is depositing into their memories knowing that these teachings will not take hold until after they become spiritual. For the moment it is a tiny seed, there is some potential/benefit, what it is though is not what it will become. There is process, there is nurturing, there is husbandry. Take the Kingdom message, He plants it now, He expounds it to those who will carry it forward after Him, they invest/devote themselves to seeking it/Him out, He infuses the seed/their efforts with Spirit, there is miraculous growth. The mind resists this, it bypasses the essential steps and determines the meaning that serves itself best, it universalizes the teaching with other teachings that it can come with on it's own. The mind wants/expects a kingdom of much different design on much different terms. Ask yourself, is this a seed of intellect, a seed of self growth and determination, or is it a seed of spirit, a seed of Heaven on Earth, ever lasting redemption? The faith of our Lord is in big plans and changes in the hearts of all men, a faith where the things of this carnal world are not much more than fertilizer for a much greater thing. That we so easily/readily confuse and contradict spiritual process even as believers by resorting to the present intellect such ethereal matters itself is every indication of the types of things Jesus is up against. The other thing to see is how several parables are meant to interact together as a whole to stimulate/compound growth and yet to protect growth from diseased carnal influences. It will be a substantial and healthy enough end product that the angelic community will be able to be mixed back into it and cohabitate with it as well.

November5 @ @ rRandyP comments: mFaithOfJesus kjv@John:5:1-15 WILT THOU BE MADE WHOLE - There are several points of interests in this passage. One, there is a great multitude of sick and diseased gathered at the pool, but Jesus is said to have gone to just one and then conveyed Himself away. Was it because of the Sabbath? Because of the number of years this man had suffered? Because of the hold this apparent non-biblical mythology had on the others? Could there be more for Jesus to achieve in His short stay than just the healing of all the sick? It is known that often times Jesus healed as many in a day as came to Him; some but not many on Sabbath. It is also known that healing does not guarantee belief toward salvation, the ultimate goal. Perhaps the answer is in what Jesus later said to the man "sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee". Could it be that healing indiscriminately for the sake of merely healing has it's unintended consequences? The immediate relief of oppression that results in the increases of sin which brings even greater sickness and disease? Who are these people that would believe in a angelic healing of only the first person into the water? Where in the Bible is there an account of a angelic healing of humans? Does not this angel mock the "respecter of no man" God Jehovah? People that believe in this pool angel and not the Son of the living God among us are exactly the type of person that would sin all the more upon their release. Maybe Jesus is sending a stern message to these people in the form of the message they are sending everyone else by their mythology. Two, Jesus did not mention the man's sin to him before healing him, nor did He mention his faith or forgiveness. The man was healed strictly by the command of Jesus. Jesus then made it a point to go back to the man and warn him against any further sin. We can not say that this particular long term impotency was a result of an earlier sin. We only know that something worse could come if he sins from here out. Third, the healing of a man thirty-eight years ill is of absolutely no interests to the Pharisees, only the movement of his mat on Sabbath. You could imagine their horror if eight hundred cripples had risen and taken up their mats. Fourth, this account is likely out of sequence meaning that John inserted it here to support his point previous or to come. If the previous, it is meant to go along with the difference in believing having seen verses believing it will be seen. The faith of our Lord is in merciful mercy, deliverance from the sin that binds all of us leading toward eternal salvation. There is more to His plan then spending our days by a pool waiting for the troubling of water, more than seventy five second place paraplegics having to be rescued from out the water, more than many rising and going home to do whatever it is they have coveted doing from their beds all this time, more than rebuking one man who has just been given back his life carrying his bed roll to who knows where. The plan is for life and that life is in Jesus.

November20 @ @ rRandyP comments: mFaithOfJesus kjv@John:9:1-12 WORKS OF GOD MANIFEST - We must be very careful not to make this say what it does not. The issue is disease and impairment, specifically prenatal. Does it come from the sin either of the parent or the affected? We know that in the case of a heroine or crack addict mom, her sins can cause deformity and severe often fatal consequence. A father also with his sexually transmitted diseases etc... So it is possible. If we are talking about all sin in general then why are not all kids born of sinners diseased and sickly? And if not all born to sinning parents then why any at all? We could also see the possibility of an adult of consenting age doing something dietary or promiscuous or risky etc.. that would result in their calamity. Again if sin is the cause why not all sinners and if not all then why any? In this particular case we are talking about a man blind from birth. Like so many similar cases it defies explanation unless we are to take into account the original curse and the removal of the tree of life. This explanation would make such disease and deformity and impairments much more indiscriminate on God's part. Man falls, death is sentenced and enforced, tree of life removed, toil and pain added, genetic disturbance and entropy, sub mutation and viral/bacterial balances altered, sickness and disease obvious and increasing. Add to this the theory that Israel itself is under double measure of God's blessing/curse given their possession of the sacred articles and covenants with God. We see more blindness and deafness and leprosy and demonic possession particularly at this biblical time of reprobacy than perhaps ever before/since. That Jesus would say that this particular man's blindness is not because of any one person's sin does not mean to say that sin, especially original sin and the sin of Israel mishandling of the sacred are not involved. Neither does it mean that the man's condition was forced upon him just so that God could show that Jesus can heal him. The works of God being manifested could rather go to show the indiscriminate nature of the curse, the compounding of the curse by Israel's indolence and irresponsibility, God's undeserved mercy pointing from all directions to His Anointed One, this same Jesus Christ. Now, we must ask in the other cases when Jesus concluded a healing with the words "thy sins are forgiven" how many of these times was it said in addition/conclusion to the healing and how many times was it necessary in order to provide the healing? The faith of our Lord is that the works of God will be made manifest and that He is the one that must work these works. What kind of works would these be if He was the one that necessitated them just to show Himself capable? Sin undoubtedly made for the necessity. His manifestation is the mercy presented to atone for it.