Christians, secularism, morals and values

Our western society has been under much pressure lately. Many could see that humans are hard- and soft-wired towards co-operation as much as competition. One may wonder if there is such a thing as the common good of society, shared morals and values, and that individuals need common rules for living together and contributing to the overall health of their society. {A relentlessly upbeat take on citizenship: My Review of Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship}

After a long time that people had it very easy, they now come tested again. They once again have to become aware that

Nothing is easy, all goes slowly, we carry time as a very heavy burden, but little by little we see clearly and advance… Living spiritual life — as opposed to religious life — is very difficult because spiritual life happens within whereas religion comes from outside oneself. {Advancing in spiritual life}

Though today many seem to forget that the religious life, coming from outside, when forced to some some one has no value and is just an empty box. Religion has to be chosen by the person himself or herself. For adults it is the own choice to belong to a certain religion. For an adult it is also the own choice how they live that religion. The best can this be seen in West Europe were lots of people say they are Catholic but where the majority does not live up to Catholic rules, and where even more than 90% even does not belief all the Catholic dogma‘s and do not affirm to the Catholic sacraments. they have come to an age where they made themselves a religion for their own. But they also should come to see that there are others who sincerely belief in God and want to serve that God (Allah, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah) to their best efforts.

Several people have lots of questions of life and death and want to have something to hold an and look for some spirituality. This spirituality is different than the religiosity.

Spiritual life, although it has a unique goal throughout the world which is the Union of All that is the Creator and all creatures, takes place in a wide variation of form and thought, because there is a constant rapport between spiritual life which is unique with the variable environment of the moment. {Advancing in spiritual life}

People have looked for different ways to come to see, meet and have a relationship with each other and with that Creator of the universe. Thousands of forms have been found to bring themselves to higher spheres and to try to make contact with the inner self and with creation and Creator. Lots of techniques found day light for humans to find ways to bring their body and soul in unison.  Many techniques are daily used by people all over the world to keep their body and soul healthy and to become a human which is in balance.

That balance is brought in danger by many factors and mostly by the impacts from outside world.

Man and woman in swimsuits, ca. 1910; she is exiting a bathing machine

At the beginning of the 21st century man in the West clearly has a troubled mind about tohorah or ritual purity, modesty, personality, self-expression, freedom or liberty, morals and values. Living in a place where the population in previous years was brought up under Judeo Christian values, those values seem long forgotten, and some, like the French some have chosen to oblige totally different moral values.

France’s Burkini Ban

Under the pressure of Islamic terrorists, people in the West have gotten such a fear which seems to trouble their mind so much they can not think straight any more. So, many suddenly start looking to see danger everywhere, even in women wearing certain clothes.

Normally you would think we are living in a multicultural society where it should be possible that

We do not need to like or love our fellow citizens. But we have to respect them and engage with them. {A relentlessly upbeat take on citizenship: My Review of Belonging: The Paradox of Citizenship}

At the moment the world shows that respect is totally gone. There does seem to be no respect at all for people who have chosen an other way of thinking and living than theirs. It looks like today everybody has to agree with the same and has to be cut from the same cloth or has to be the same buffoon.

Lots of people are not willing any more to think about certain matters or to do some more research about certain things, to come to know more about it. Everything seems to be of the same cut and everybody is tarred with the same brush.

Take for example Islamic people living here in the West. Lots of people consider them a danger for our society because they hear a lot about those Islamic terrorists and have recently seen that those fundamentalist Muslims created havoc in our own regions killing many citizens.  Lots of people do forget they also killed many Muslims, Jews, atheists, Christians and other believers and that they really have nothing to do with the real Islam. They also do not seem to know that in the East even Sunni‘s came to fight against those so called Sunni Muslims of Daesh.

Women wearing hijab

In Europe we may find today a very big issue about Muslim faith, they way those people cloth, namely the hijab (headscarf) or turban, burka (full body cloak) or burqa and burkini or burqini becoming the symbol of Islam and all that there is about Islam. It has come so far that we see that a garment now defines Islam. But only a name could make them afraid to and have them saying a bukhara (Bukhoro or Bokhara) should be forbidden though then we shall not be able to eat any Bukhara Chutney (Plum Sauce) any more.

A cloth, has become Islam. The issue is that modesty and virtue have been reduced to the abundance or lack of abundance of a garment. And that indeed is a shame. {Tell me I’m wrong about the hijab  + Maniza Naqvi is wrong on so many levels about the hijab}

For us still the idea exist that the Ummah or Muslim community is still much too silent and does not show enough the world that those terrorists are misusing the name of Allah and are not real Islam.

It does not help when we in the West hear about maltreated women in the East. A Saudi 17-year old teenager making the decision to leave her family during a vacation in Turkey this summer; a 20-year old Muslim woman ran away from her family in Saudi in 2014; Hind Al-Otaibi escaping her abusive father who raped and injured her; Sahar Al-Sharif, attempting to escape domestic violence and her abusive brothers by getting married; all Saudi women who are not criminals, but people who have simply made a conscious decision to live! Who can blame them and who can say they have caused any harm? But why should they, when coming to the West put their faith aside and come to cloth themselves like Western people, who in their eyes do have low morals and not good ethics?

Strangely enough it are on those aspects they and western Muslim women become judged, as so called being without good morals and without good values. Today those values in France seem of a totally different sort as the ones in the previous century when they made a fuss when a short or skirt was not long enough or when too much bare skin was visible. Today several French people want to see as much as naked skin as possible though they forbid full nudity because than the excitement is taken away. For them clothing has to be spicy and seducing, otherwise it is not acceptable. That seems to be the moral and ethic attitude of the majority of French people today.

That modesty and virtue have been reduced to the abundance or lack of abundance of a garment for many does not seem to be a problem, but they want to see in the way women prefer to cloth, their inability to make their own proper choice. When women are not clothed like some of the youngsters prefer today they are considered not old fashioned, but are considered to being oppressed.

People also have becoming very narrow-minded thinkers (or would we not better say non-thinkers) limiting their own thoughts not wanting to go against the mainstream.

One of the biggest mistakes people make when talking about Muslim women, rather than talking to Muslim women, is to assume that Muslim women are all the same, think the same, to ignore the diversity of thought, experience, opinion. {Tell me I’m Wrong About the Hijab by Maniza Naqvi}

All Muslims are lumped. For the majority of Europeans they are all the same, from the same wet jar. Many of French or other Europeans, even do not come to see the difference between hijab, burka and burkini. They condemn and reject it without logic thinking and without good fundamental thought.

In case those people, who call themselves Christian, but adhere a trinity, do not want to come up for those women who love God more than man, real Christians, who love only One True God, should speak for those other lovers of God (Allah) and who have chosen to cover their body for God.

Real Christians should show that world which thinks it has good morals, that her morals have become polluted and reprehensible. They should show the world that it are not such good morals when man wants to exploit women as a sex object.

We as Christians should show the world that lovers of God should follow the rules of God and should respect each others and their own body. In the same way we should know that we have to be careful not to tempt others or to bring others to wrong thoughts about our body. We also should consider our body to be holy, i.e. set apart for God and for the one who intensely love and want to share our life with. This means that we should have the right to keep our own body to that person or persons who we want to share our body with or would not mind being seen in our natural skin.

We also should respect those women who want to go so far to cover a lot of their body. We also should show the world that we ought to respect those women for their choice of reserving their bodies just for their beloved.

For some it may look like those women are oppressed by their husband, but did they ever thought it might be the strong women their own choice to believe in certain values which may be much higher than the present values of the world?

Jews, Christians and Muslims should be lovers of God and as such prefer to keep to the Law of God much more than to the preferences of the majority of the world, who have abandoned God. Real lovers of God should know that the world its secularism, does not have to mean they have to follow in all the world their liberties.

Real lovers of God should always have in mind that the Law of God should be on the first place. That Divine Law is part or should be part of the Judeo Christian values our Western world should be keeping to, but many have gotten wrong ideas about those values, because they do not know their Scriptures any more.

It is up to lovers of God to come up for other lovers of God and to show those who have gone astray or do not know God to show the Way to God.

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Preceding article: Secularism in France becoming dangerous for freedom of religion

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Find also to read about the burqini or burkini:

1. Women’s Groups Say Gender Equality is a Must for Sustainable Development
2. Gender connections
3. Gender equality and women’s rights in the post-2015 agenda
4. What is Racism??
5. Is Europe going to become a dictatorial bastion
6. On French beach French police forces woman to undress in public
7. Women in France running with naked bosom all right but with covered bosom penalised
8. France and the Burkini
9. French showing to the whole world their fear and weaknesses
10. Pew Research: How People in Muslim Countries Believe Women Should Dress
11. Allowing dress code according liberty of religion
12. The Dress Code for Women in the Quran
13. Meditating Muslimah on “hijab to be a religious obligation”
14. Coverings Worn by Muslim Women
15. Does Banning Face Veils Help Us Fight Terrorism?
16. Islamism Rises from Europe’s Secularism
17. You are what you wear
18. Where’s the Outrage Over Nun Beachwear? – The Daily Beast
19. Not limiting others but sharing peace with all
20. What we don’t say about the refugee crisis?
21. A charter for a truly free world and why we need it
22. When will it stop
23. ‘I try to keep my hate in check. If you can’t hate, you can’t love.’
24. Meditating Muslimah on “hijab to be a religious obligation”
25. Silence, devotion, Salafists, quietists, weaponry, bombings, books, writers and terrorists
26. Are people willing to take the responsibility for others
27. Colour-blindness and road code
28. Man’s own fault and the choice to flee from fear
29. Lovers of God, seekers and lovers of truth

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Further of interest

1. Religious Dress in Catholicism
2. ISIS is Islamic, but most of Islam is not ISIS
3. What if this existence is not real?
4. The Dark Side is Strong with this One
5. The More Things Change . . .
6. What not to wear
7. How Much Cover is Too Much, or Too Little? The French bathing suit controversy as represented in original source material
8. What Not To Wear: A Short History Of Regulating Female Dress From Ancient Sparta To The Burkini
9. Tell me what you wear
10. Burkini Ban: Nice
11. France’s Burkini Ban
12. The reason you aren’t succeeding as a woman? Thats because you bleed apparently.
13. Reviewing Channel 4’s Investigation into ISIS Sympathisers
14. Should France launch air strikes against ISIS after Friday’s attack?
15. The Islamic State responds to Pope Francis: “We are making a religious war, and we hate you
16. ISIS tells the Socialist Pope that the Islamic State is in a war against the infidels approved by Allah.
17. ISIS Responds to Pope Francis: This IS a Religious War and WE HATE YOU
18. I Stand with Humanity ! I Stand against Terrorism #PrayforParis
19. The Written Stuff vs.The Not Written Stuff: Sex Education From An Islamic Perspective Part I
20. Is the Woman in Hijab oppressed? Who is a free woman ?
21. What Hijab Means to me, Hashtag #Hijabtome
22. Why I never wore a Hijab so far?
23. At what point does a ban become a chance to publicly humiliate?
24. And the Debate about Burkini Ban continues #burkiniban
25. The Swimsuit Issue
26. Stripped Down Make-up and Full Cover Suits.
27. Nawaz: Both Sides Are Wrong in the Burkini Wars – The Daily Beast
28. Burkini ban overturned
29. What a lot of Berk(a)s
30. I got 99 problems and the burkini is one of them…really?
31. Bombs in a burkini?
32. Bretons bathe fully clothed as Muslim asked to leave beach
33. My Burkini and I
34. This is why.
35. The Story In A Rug
36. You’ve Got to BurKining Me!
37. Ramadan Kareem!
38. Requiem
39. What Can You Learn Through Someone Or Something Shivered? — Michael J. Fite
40. Finding yourself
41. Beauty Eclipsed: Day 8 – Focus inward
42. Beauty Eclipsed #9: Surface vs Core
43. A Journey From Being Alone To Alone
44. Own, Apologize, Repair: Coming Back to Integrity
45. Counter-Activism…or… Subverting Democracy
46. The world in trouble
47. i know why the caged bird shrieks…
48. Darkness
49. What do we do?
50. The New Testament Church Part 2
51. Peace
52. De-Stress Your Mind & Body
53. Let a young woman accept as a life companion only one who posseses pure,manly traits of character,one who is diligent,aspiring,one who loves and fear God.
54. Why I wear the iron maiden: One woman on dressing modestly in everyday life
55. Turn away from companions who will lead you in wrong paths.
56. How legitimate is Christian Head-covering?
57. Misnomer
58. Why We Are Not Meant To Live Our Lives Naked
59. There Is No Biblical Reason Why Women Can’t Go Topless?
60. Power Of Happiness
61. Being Grateful and Being Sorry—Are You Humble Enough To Do Both?
62. …make this gift count.

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Related articles

• Iran’s Supreme Leader: Saudi Arabia-Israel Relations ‘Stab in the Back’
• Iran’s Supreme Leader: Saudi Arabia-Israel Relations ‘Stab in The Back’
• Rochdale Muslim leader ‘was bludgeoned in Isis-inspired murder’
• Muslim leaders call for all Islamic teachers to be registered
• Mosques in spotlight
• Nigerian Sunni, Shia Muslims Attend Annual National Seminar On Islamic Thought In Bauchi (Photos)
• Iraq asks Saudi Arabia to remove Ambassador
• French Muslims Fear State Aims to Control Their Faith
• Iranian police says security forces killed 3 Sunni militants
• Iraq asks Saudi Arabia to replace envoy who riled Shi’ite militias

Building up the spirit of the soul

When you know the Spirit is the source of life you should also know that life without spirit and without the Spirit is impossible. When people think about the living person they think about the living soul which is the being which can exist because of the Divine Creator allowing it to exist.

Of Light and Shadow  says:

All life has soul. The soul tells the body what it is as it’s essence. What it will be. If something is one dimentional, what is it. It simply exists. It is what it is. Humans, animals, and plants have a living soul. Although different from each other. {Spiritual Senses, Opening your spiritual hearing}

Man thinking on a train journey. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The above blogwriter considers that spirit is energy and exists throughout all the universe and forms all things even objects, though we can not see any life in such lifeless elements, like cupboards, houses, etc.. For us the spirit is just the ‘lifespirit’ or ‘breath of life’ which is God His and our thinking, handling, speaking and working.  It is an activity which may keeps the laws of physics in check and which can give impulses or carry with it everything a living thing is and capable of becoming.

A seed carries the potential of being a tree. {Spiritual Senses, Opening your spiritual hearing}

And so we may also carry the potential of growing up and becoming an adult who can think in a different way than the baby, toddler, young child, or adolescent. That spirit, our thinking and our soul is not something which lives next or separately in our body. It is not something which can leave our body to continue to live somewhere else. Once we die our spirit or breath goes out of our body and we finish living, thinking and handling. In our death we can do nothing any more.

Human being itself is the ‘soul’ wherein God blew His Breath of life. we may consider ourselves righteous, lovers of God, believers, wise, or perhaps not so wise, but we all are existing because God allows us to be. We only can do certain things because God allows it to happen and has given us certain crafts or capabilities.  All our works are in the hand of God.

The problem is that since the downfall in the Garden of Eden we all have good and bad things in us. We all carry love  but can bear hatred in ourselves. We all have to grow up and learn things, like Jesus also had to grow up and learn things. We all shall be tempted like Jesus also got tempted. Only God is the only One Who can not be tempted. God is also the only One Who can not die or cease living. god cannot expire or come to come to an end. When a person dies, that person breathes his last breath and dies. All human beings have the death thread in their tree of life. Even Jesus who did not sin had to face death and landed up in hell (sheol = the grave) for three days. We probably shall be there in the underground for longer.

Breath of Life – both sides (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We may be sure that there is one event which shall be the same for rich and poor, to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good, and to the bad; both to the pure, and to the impure; both to him that sacrifices, and to him that does not sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; as is the swearer, even so is he that fears an oath.  After the madness of this world we all go to the dead. The living will know that they shall die; but the dead know nothing, and there is no longer any reward to them, for their memory is lost. Also their love and their hatred and their envy shall have perished when they die. Yea, there is no portion for them any-more, not an other being, a spirit or extra soul that will go out of their body and all the material they gathered in this worl shall be useless for them in their death.

When death comes to us it will be too late to change or to change our mind or path. When we did not enough preparations to enter the gate of the Kingdom of God it shall be totally too late.forever in all that is done under the sun.  It is before you die that you do have to build up your mind, make the right friends, find life with the wife whom you love, all the days of the life of your vanity, which are given to you under the sun; for that is your portion in your life, and in your labour in which you labour under the sun.  Whatsoever your hand shall find to do, do with all your might; for there is no work nor device nor knowledge nor wisdom in Hades/Sheol/the Hell or the Grave/Sepulchre, where you are going.  For Christians there does not exist a Hades, god of the netherworld and dispenser of earthly riches. Also his netherworld kingdom, the abode of the shades of the dead has no meaning for a Christian. Though the bastardisation of the Nazarene prophet Jeshua who is the son of God, to ‘Issou’ or ‘Jesus’ meaning “Hail to Zeus“, real Christians know Jeshua or the Christ is not Zeus the brother of Pluto, the god of the underworld which does not exist in the real universe of the Only One God.  After you die you shall become dust again.

” Jehovah God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” (Genesis 2:7 NHEBJE)

“1  For all this I laid to my heart, even to explore all this: that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God; whether it is love or hatred, man doesn’t know it; all is before them.  (2)  All things come alike to all. There is one event to the righteous and to the wicked; to the good, to the clean, to the unclean, to him who sacrifices, and to him who doesn’t sacrifice. As is the good, so is the sinner; he who takes an oath, as he who fears an oath.  (3)  This is an evil in all that is done under the sun, that there is one event to all: yes also, the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.  (4)  For to him who is joined with all the living there is hope; for a living dog is better than a dead lion.  (5)  For the living know that they will die, but the dead do not know anything, neither do they have any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.  (6)  Also their love, their hatred, and their envy has perished long ago; neither have they any more a portion forever in anything that is done under the sun.  (7)  Go your wayeat your bread with joy, and drink your wine with a merry heart; for God has already accepted your works.  (8)  Let your garments be always white, and do not let your head lack oil.  (9)  Live joyfully with the wife whom you love all the days of your life of vanity, which he has given you under the sun, all your days of vanity: for that is your portion in life, and in your labor in which you labor under the sun.  (10)  Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in Sheol, where you are going.” (Ecclesiastes 9:1-10 NHEBJE)

“19  For that which happens to the sons of men happens to animals. Even one thing happens to them. As the one dies, so the other dies. Yes, they have all one breath; and man has no advantage over the animals: for all is vanity.  (20)  All go to one place. All are from the dust, and all turn to dust again.  (21)  Who knows the spirit of man, whether it goes upward, and the spirit of the animal, whether it goes downward to the earth?”  (22)  Therefore I saw that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his works; for that is his portion: for who can bring him to see what will be after him?” (Ecclesiastes 3:19-22 NHEBJE)

It is before we die we shall have to have build up knowledge. Gaining knowledge has to happen in the ‘now’, when we do live.

Adam heard the sound of God walking in the garden and heard his voice calling to him.
Samuel when he was young and living with Eli heard God calling his name. He heard it clearly and suspected that Eli was calling to him. He heard it the same as he would hear with his natural ears. {Spiritual Senses, Opening your spiritual hearing}

The Divine Creator, Jehovah, the Most High God, has given His Word to His creation. Each of us is part of that creation and can either listen to God His word or ignore it. In this world we are living in, most people have lost the notion of hearing God.

We have placed God beyond our understanding (and indeed he is) but we have also placed him beyond our experienceing (which He is not) We are called to experience God and have him in our lives. We just get so caught up with our daily lives we loose sight of him and our senses grow dull. Samuel said “Here I am.” We have to ready our mind and spirit to receive from our spiritual senses. We need to learn to pay attention to what they tell us. There are many places in the Bible where the voice of God was heard. Sometimes like a trumpet or a thunder. When Jesus was baptized the heavens opened and voice called out “This is my beloved Son, in whome i am well pleased.” {Spiritual Senses, Opening your spiritual hearing}

Lots of people, also many who call themselves Christian, do not want to listen to what God said about His son, nor to what Jesus said about him and his Father. They ignore what they have said and what is written down in the Bible, and made their own doctrines which all their church members do have to believe, because they so called can not understand it.  But God is not a God of disorder and incomprehension. God is a God of Clarity, and when He says “this is my son’ He means that person is His son and not Him.

We should listen to what God says, but then we first do have to be hearing God which

is not the only benefit of hearing in the spirit.

It is Jehovah God Whom we do have to ask to open our ears to hear

“the sounds of heaven”.

Through the ages many eyes may not have seen, nor ears heard what was really written in the Bible, not wiling to accept it as God His Word. Not willing to listen to it and not prepared to open their heart to it those Words of God could not enter into the hearts of those people. It is up to the lovers of God to call others and to let them know that God calls them. We should let others know that also they like we have the things prepared by Jehovah.

God has revealed so many things to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the depths of God.  For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.

Those who love God and are willing to come closer to Him with the assurance they did not receive the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, in order that they might know the things granted to them by God; which things we also speak, not in words taught in human wisdom, but in words taught by the Holy Spirit, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

We should allow the Words of God feed us and should be pleased there are men of God willing to contribute to the work of the Lord, helping to spread the Good Tidings and to exhort or to give urgent advice, recommendations, or warnings to people around them. They are aware that the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can they know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  For them and us it is important to listen to those Bible readings, exhortations and devotionals knowing that he that is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no man.

“9  But as it is written, “Things which an eye did not see, and an ear did not hear, which did not enter into the heart of man, these God has prepared for those who love him.”  (10)  But to us, God revealed them through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.  (11)  For who among men knows the things of a man, except the spirit of the man, which is in him? Even so, no one knows the things of God, except God’s Spirit.  (12)  But we received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is from God, that we might know the things that were freely given to us by God.  (13)  Which things also we speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches, but which the Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual things.  (14)  Now the natural man does not receive the things of God’s Spirit, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  (15)  But he who is spiritual discerns all things, and he himself is judged by no one.” (1Corinthians 2:9-15 NHEBJE)

Living in this world we would like to find perfection. The Creator has given His commandment, which is very broad.  those who call themselves Christian should love God’s law and use it as their meditation all the day, so that God can make them wiser than their enemies. We can find God His testimonies as our meditation. Together, with other lovers of God, you can read the Bible and follow its guidance, seeking God His commandments and not those of man. Already in our life such bible reading shall keep back our feet from every evil away when we not depart from God His judgements; for He will instructed us. We can  gain understanding by God His commandments, looking daily in His Word and when we are willing to think about what He is saying to us. Having Daily Manna, when hating every way of unrighteousness we shall be able to find God His law as a lamp unto our feet, and a light unto our paths.

“96  I have seen a limit to all perfection, but your commands are boundless.  (97)  MEM How I love your Law! It is my meditation all day.  (98)  Your commandments make me wiser than my enemies, for your commandments are always with me.  (99)  I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.  (100)  I understand more than the aged, because I have kept your precepts.  (101)  I have kept my feet from every evil way, that I might observe your word.  (102)  I have not turned aside from your ordinances, for you have taught me.  (103)  How sweet are your promises to my taste, more than honey to my mouth!  (104)  Through your precepts, I get understanding; therefore I hate every false way.  (105)  NUN Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path.  (106)  I have sworn, and have confirmed it, that I will obey your righteous ordinances.” (Psalm 119:96-106 NHEBJE)

Memoir and remains says

The Word of God functions like a light to illuminate both God’s nature and the human heart — and thus interaction between the two.

in Exegeting the Heart.1

The Gospel acknowledges how we have no claim upon God, God is not obliged to us– and yet, God blesses us supremely despite ourselves. A right understanding of the Gospel thus drives us to thankfulness. {Exegeting the Heart.1}

On this site we shall offer words of thought freely and we should carry them out and bring also words of meditation to others freely.

Where all is received freely, there is no cause of discontent: much of giving thanks if we have anything. When we look to desert, we may wonder more at what we have than what we want: if afflicted, destitute, kept low and bare, it is a wonder we are not in hell. All this is spoken because men are not thankful, We are eager till we have blessings, but when we have them, then barren in praises, unfruitful in obedience: like little children, forward to beg favours, but careless to acknowledge what they have received.  {Exegeting the Heart.1}

Our meditation and breathing as a plumb-line to place the bricks of the church wall, strong but with a blow in the wind to bring the message worldwide of the Good News. – Bas-relief, River Wall, Calne This is one (and a half) of several similar pieces in the wall. They were made of ceramics by Richard Cowdy and Vivien ap Rhys Price to symbolize the theme of ‘Breath of Life’ inspired by the legend that the scientist Joseph Priestley discovered oxygen here.  (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We should all serve God cheerfully  (Psalms 116:16, Psalms 123:2, 1 Corinthians 3:22-23, Malachi 3:18, John 12:26) and make use of His Word to show others which blessings can come unto mankind if they would listen to the Most High. That Word should be our plumbline in the body of Christ we would like to be part of. With it we can make sure that the walls of our congregation can be straight.

Like Mike Parsons with Jeremy Westcott wrote in A Plumbline, a Doorway and an Anchor

When we meditate on it (the word of God) we can picture what it talks about and use our imagination. We ought not to be scared to use our imagination: God has given it to us so that we can see things, picture them, and visualise them. Now some Christians are wary of concepts like ‘visualisation’ because they have been adopted by New Age and occult people. Even meditation is viewed with suspicion in some circles. But these things are not wrong in themselves. It is simply that we have to approach them afresh and learn how to use them in a godly way.

There are some Christians, also some Bible Students who find meditation is part of the heathen world. Mostly they have a limited view about meditation, thinking of Zen and Buddhist meditation.It depends how you want to look at meditation, being it a mental concentration on something or a way to transpose our being from this world or imagining something that gives us peace or satisfaction. You could say when we are looking for methods to slow down and, eventually, completely stop the incessant activity of our minds then we would also say that is not the meditation we are talking about. For us such exercises are not really meditation – they are substitutes for meditation because it is normally very difficult to stop our minds all-together.
But to come to a state of thoughtless awareness, as an act of doing nothing we also would not call it the right mediation.

The thoughts we would like to present on this platform should make us think and consider. They should bring us into a state of awareness. It may be short messages, but they may not miss their point in waking the state of consciousness. When we take a look at the various explanations of meditation, another thing we often see is that meditation is defined as taking a moment to sit quietly or to ponder. True meditation, however is much more than this. It is a state of profound, deep peace that occurs when the mind is calm and silent, yet completely alert. This is just the beginning of an inner transformation that takes us to a higher level of awareness. This enables us to fulfil our true human potential.

We either come  in this state or we are not, regardless of what we are doing in life. Truly, a man can be in meditation while doing his day’s labours as another man can be very far from meditation while sitting in a lotus posture on the top of a mountain. He can come in a dreaming state of consciousness, where his or her thoughts are far away from the Creator. When we speak about the meditation we as Christians should get it is not about a state of deep sleep in which the mind, the ego and the superego are still. No, for us it should be placing ourselves in the willingness to receive messages from our heavenly Father. It is giving our own ego in the hands of the Most High. It is not bringing ourselves in a state of thoughtless awareness beyond the mind, but bringing ourselves in a state where we allow God to enter our mind and to enlighten us by taking us deeper into His world of ‘sacral’ knowledge.

Meditation is a means of transforming the mind. The short messages we would like to bring regularly, as form of meditation, with the short quotes from the Bible, we would like to offer as a help or a tool to transform our character. It should bring us to take a moment to think about a certain matter and to let the text give us information how to change or how to build ourselves up to become a good Christian. Those texts may be from ordinary human beings, but they want to bring the focus on God His Word and to relate His Words to our daily life. The confrontation of every day, which we should not be afraid off.

Psalm 1 gives us a key to deeper fulfilment in every dimension of our being: meditation. Its essence is reading and reminding ourselves of the truths of God while dwelling in his presence. As we dwell on him with our minds, our other dimensions ignite, affecting our lives and relationships, infusing them with wisdom, stability, and delight.

According the Apostolic Resource Centre, which believes that Jesus intends the church to be instrumental in transforming human society and that he will be returning for a victorious church, a bride who has made herself ready for the King, to meditate we have to learn to use the right side of the brain, the creative/intuitive area.

we need to learn to activate that part of the brain so that we can see, and visualise, and experience spiritual realities, and especially the heavenly realms.

That flow of the spirit is revelation from the inside which comes as spontaneous thoughts and pictures and feelings. If we are not used to tuning in to them, they can slip past and we can miss them. It works like this. The air around us is full of radio and television signals of which we are not normally aware. But if we were to have a radio, turned on and tuned in, we would be able to hear whatever was playing on that particular station. If we had a TV set tuned in we would be able to see what was on that channel. And it is just the same with tuning in to God. {A Plumbline, a Doorway and an Anchor}

Therefore we do need to open our mind and give ourselves in the Hands of God. in case we are not willing to open our ears to the signals God is sending out all the time, we shall not be able to be comforted. We , when reading the bible or reading exhortations, should be willing to let the words come deep into us and should try to find its connection with other passages in the Bible. When we allow those Words from God give sense to those words from people and let them flow through our spirit, then we can let them become projected into the right side of our brain, so that we can hear His voice, see visions and pictures, and receive revelation from Him. We tune in to that through meditation.

Our imagination is the screen on which God projects things. But it can also receive images from our soul, from our subconscious, and we need to know the difference. Our imagination can play back experiences we have had in life. There may be a song, or a smell or a taste which can transport us instantly back to an experience we had many years previously. We can imagine it, recall it even feel the same feelings we had at the time (whether positive or negative).  {A Plumbline, a Doorway and an Anchor}

With those words from our brothers and sisters, who look at a certain Bible passage, we can ad some songs, like ‘Songs in the night’ and other previous publications from various Bible Students from several countries. Those meditations do not have restrictions by borders of countries. they may cross oceans and with internet we do hope to bring those messages all over the world. And each reader can carry the messages with him and bring it to others, so that the good News may be preached in far away parts of the world.

All those people may live far away from each other, but by reading the same texts and taking time to meditate on it and to say prayers over the same subject, we can connect with each other and join forces, being part of a world wide movement of people who want to learn from God His word and who are willing to help each other to grow by that Word of God.

We do hope we can contribute to the spreading of that Good News and to help you to meditate on God His Word. Wishing that we all can grow in ‘heavenly’ knowledge and grow as brothers and sisters in Christ.

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Preceding: Daily portion of heavenly food

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Additional reading:

1. What is life?
2. Darkness, light, burning fire, Truth and people in it
3. Dying or not
4. What happens when we die?
5. Is there an Immortal soul
6. The Soul not a ghost
7. Immortality, eternality – onsterfelijkheid, eeuwigheid
8. Grave, tomb, sepulchre – graf, begraafplaats, rustplaats, sepulcrum
9. Sheol, Sheool, Sjeool, Hades, Hell, Grave, Tomb, Sepulchre
10. A fact of History or just a fancy Story
11. Jesus three days in hell
12. The soul has no rainbow if the eyes have no tears
13. Creator and Blogger God 2 Image and likeness
14. Creator and Blogger God 4 Expounding voice
15. Philosophy hand in hand with spirituality
16. Fragments from the Book of Job #1: chapters 1-12
17. Fragments from the Book of Job #6: chapters 38-42
18. Self-development, self-control, meditation, beliefs and spirituality
19. Fear of God reason to return to Holy Scriptures
20. Fear and protection
21. Atonement And Fellowship 5/8
22. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #1 Kings Faith
23. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #3 A voice to be taken Seriously
24. Trusting, Faith, calling and Ascribing to Jehovah #3 Voice of God #6 Words to feed and communicate
25. Exhortation -Exhortatie of uiteenzetting
26. A Living Faith #3 Faith put into action
27. Looking for True Spirituality 1 Intro
28. Looking for True Spirituality 8 Measuring Up
29. Being Religious and Spiritual 4 Philosophical, religious and spiritual people
30. Being Religious and Spiritual 8 Spiritual, Mystic and not or well religious
31. Are you being swept along by the world
32. To mean, to think, outing your opinion, conviction, belief – Menen, mening, overtuiging, opinie, geloof

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Other useful readings:

1. Becoming People of “True Faith”
2. Is There Still a Place for Religion?
3. Spirituality and Your Health

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  Technically, we as humans get older because time moves forward and that constant covers many aspects of this path called life. With that said, I know I’m a new person through the Spirit within. Worldly Crysta died in the water that day. Sin lost it’s power and hold on me. I publicly declared I walk with Jesus until my last breath on this planet. Even in this confidence, I do have lingering emotions of Worldly Crysta. These emotions feel like the aftermath of a mint in my mouth I long ago finished. But the flavor faintly stings on my breath. As a growing Christian that raises an eyebrow and birthed a recurring thought: Did Worldly Crysta really die?
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