Podcasts about trinitarian god

Friends of the Rosary,In today's reading (Matthew 6:7-15), Jesus Christ gives us the Lord's Prayer, which is constantly on our lips throughout the day.When we say, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” we implore that Heaven interpenetrates our earthly, sinful reality.Heaven is the field of our Trinitarian God, the Virgin Mary, the angels, and the saints, and among them many of our loved ones with their glorified bodies.We need divine grace to persevere on earth, as adversities overwhelm us. The ruler of the world, the Evil One, lies and deceives us all the time, leading us into sin.In this spiritual and often physical fight, our only weapon is a ceaseless, humble prayer. Prayer leads us to the sacraments and merciful love.The Kingdom of Heaven is within reach; through daily repentance, we access this realm of peace and hope, out of darkness.Salvation is a matter of the meeting of heaven and earth, so that God might reign as thoroughly here below as he does on high.The Resurrection of Jesus marked the beginning of the reconciliation between heaven and earth. Now we pray they come together.As the prophet Isaiah anticipated: “The earth shall be filled with knowledge of the Lord, as water covers the sea.”Ave Maria!Jesus, I Trust In You!Come, Holy Spirit, come!To Jesus through Mary!Here I am, Lord; I come to do your will.Please give us the grace to respond with joy!+ Mikel Amigot w/ María Blanca | RosaryNetwork.com, New YorkEnhance your faith with the new Holy Rosary University app:Apple iOS | New! Android Google Play• ⁠June 19, 2025, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Find the original episode here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJHCg8xt_l8The early church fathers went to great lengths to ensure that the followers of Christ did not innovate but rather perpetuate “the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3), and this conversation seeks to understand what they meant, where we may have gotten off track, and what it means to become truly human through Christ. Topics discussed include: - Balancing academic research and writing with artistic innovation and creation- A search for authenticity and authority led Jacobs to study the early church fathers, such as Athanasius of Alexandria, where he came to realize the difference of thought between Eastern and Western Christianity- Ephesians, examining the use of the term “energeia” by Paul, and understanding that faith and works are not in opposition- Ecumenical councils where early church fathers defended the faith by answering the question “What is the faith that we received handed down by the apostles?”- Biblical illiteracy, historical ignorance, and troubling Trinitarian analogies- The importance of a Trinitarian God as opposed to Unitarian- The sophistication of the early church fathers and our anachronistic belief that we are more intelligent than our ancestors, theologically speaking or otherwise- Distinguishing between creation and types of causation- Biblical terminology getting lost in translation and the linguistic advantage the early church fathers had over the scholars that proceeded them- Understanding the balance between rationality and mystery- Addressing the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist- Objectivity in academics, distinctions between different systems of thought, and the systems of thought creating the biggest divide between Eastern and Western Christianity- The difficulty of communicating complex issues in a soundbite culture- The importance of Christians being part of a church community; and should Christians confess their sins?

Bob Kurland's Slide LinksIn all protein functions, parts of the proteins bind loosely to other parts of the protein and thus form appropriate structures that are essential to their function. This is shown very nicely in this TED YouTube video, by Professor Ken Dill https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zm-3kovWpNQ Here is another nice YouTube video showing protein flexibility https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ2aY5lxEGE Webinar TitleThe Anthropic Principle: “Are We Special?”--Did God make our “Goldilocks Universe” for man?Abstract The universe in which we live and came to be is not ordinary, but unusual. As the Church Lady in Saturday Night Live of old would say, “Now, isn't that special!” Or is it? Some scientists would agree with Roger Penrose – that if it weren't special, we wouldn't be here to remark on it. Many other scientists and philosophers would agree with Thomas Nagel that an explanation giving only the result is not an explanation. (And, of course, if it is special, then there is the implicit conclusion that this is so because of a Creating Intelligence, which we Catholics recognize as the Trinitarian God.) In my presentation I will discuss some of the so-called “anthropic coincidences” necessary for carbon-based life. Although some examples from cosmology and particle physics will be included, I'm going to focus on the wonderful parts of chemistry and molecular biology, processes that point to the hand of a Creating Intelligence. And of course the prophets of the Old Testament and saints of the early Church knew this all along, without the benefit of science. Dr. Robert Kurland, a convert to Catholicism in 1995, is a retired physicist who has applied magnetic resonance to problems of biological interest in his research (web search: “Kurland-McGarvey Equation”). Dr. Kurland is a graduate of Caltech (BS, 1951, “with honor”) and Harvard (PhD, 1956). His scientific career at Carnegie-Mellon, SUNY/AB, Cleveland Clinic, Geisinger Medical Center, has focused on biological applications of magnetic resonance, including MRI. Since his conversion to Catholicism, he has tried to spread the message that there's no war between Catholic teaching and science.Respondent: William M. Briggs, PhD Against the Anthropic Principle Dr. William M. Briggs, the Statistician to the Stars, has a background in statistics, philosophy, meteorology, and cryptography. Born in Detroit, he left the city when it was at its peak, which some might jokingly suggest led to its decline. Briggs holds a PhD in Mathematical Sciences and an MS in Atmospheric Physics, and has served in various roles including professor, consultant, and statistician. He is known for his work in probability and statistics, as well as his cultural commentary on various social and scientific issues.

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Taught at Agape Bible Church on November 17, 2024. [39 minutes]

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Taught at Agape Bible Church on November 10, 2024. [39 minutes]

Explore Evidence (not proof) for the existence of God; the Trinitarian God of the Bible

Friends of the Rosary, Today, September 29, is the feast of the Archangels St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and St. Raphael. This feast, superseded by the Sunday Liturgy, is called "Michaelmas" in many countries. The three Archangels, Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, are the only angels named in Sacred Scripture, and all three have important roles in the history of salvation. Michael (Who is like God?) was the archangel who fought against Satan and all his evil angels, defending all the friends of God. He is the protector of all humanity from the snares of the devil. Gabriel (Strength of God) announced to Zachariah the forthcoming birth of John the Baptist, and to Mary, the birth of Jesus. His greeting to the Virgin, "Hail, full of grace," is one of the most frequent prayers. Raphael (Medicine of God) was the archangel who cared for Tobias on his journey. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains, "The existence of the spiritual, non-corporeal beings that Sacred Scripture usually calls "angels" is a truth of faith.  The faithful join with the angels to adore the Trinitarian God. Angels are pure, created spirits, heavenly beings of a higher order than humans. The name angel means servant or messenger of God.  Angels have intellect and will and are immortal.  They have no bodies. They are distinct from saints, which men can become. They are a vast multitude, but each is a person. Archangels are one of the nine choirs of angels listed in the Bible. In ascending order, the choirs or classes are 1) Angels, 2) Archangels, 3) Principalities, 4) Powers, 5) Virtues, 6) Dominations, 7) Thrones, 8) Cherubim, and 9) Seraphim.Ave Maria!Jesus, I Trust In You!Come, Holy Spirit, come! To Jesus through Mary! + Mikel Amigot | RosaryNetwork.com, New York • September 29, 2024, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

Sermon: The Church - Displaying the Glory of the Trinitarian GodSeries: The ChurchSpeaker: Pastor Tom WilsonText: Ephesians 1:1-14Date: September 15, 2024...

Ricky Massengale, lead teaching elder of CrossLife Fort Smith, preaches through Matthew 21:12-17, showing how Jesus, and therefore all of the Trinitarian God, cared about what was happening in the Temple. What God desired of His Temple had been corrupted and was no longer fulfilling its purpose. By extension, we today also need to acknowledge that God cares about His Church and need to ensure we are doing those things for His honor and His glory.

He trusts her without reserve and never has reason to regret it. – Proverbs 31:11 MSG Friends, To say the proverb another way, masculinity trusts femininity without reserve and never has reason to regret it.  Femininity trusts masculinity without reserve and never has reason to regret it.  What if this is intended to both include and transcend marriage, plunging us into the possibility and finally the scandalous destiny of Galatians 3? “...you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (3:28 NIV) In The Sacred Romance, Brent Curtis goes as far as to say that Heaven holds for us “multiple intimacy without promiscuity.” Oh, to plumb the depths of integrity and recover even more of what might be intended when we wrestle with what it means to be formed in the image of a Trinitarian God. What would it be like to truly embody the New Testament vision of the Body of Christ and become creatively unified in whole-hearted interdependent relationship with one another, as men and as women? Let's dare to discover together.  Join Cherie and me for Part 3 of the Metanarrative of Feminine Love. We think you're going to love it.  For the Kingdom, Morgan

How Does God Say I Love You, Part 4: Violation of the Covenant MESSAGE SUMMARY: “Rejecting the Covenant and the God of the Covenant will eventually lead a person to a place of stubbornness, hardness of heart, and then their destruction.” Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's Covenant with Moses. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. We begin by looking at Israel's current king in 2 Chronicles 36, King Zedekiah, who was successor descendant of King David and a Godly father, King Josiah. We need to remember that King David had built the kingdom and the nation of Israel into a great nation through a foundation of a commitment to God and the Covenant God had given to His people – King David made God His priority, and David made God's priorities his priorities. God is interested in those who seek first His kingdom. Also, from King David's life, we know that God expects one who sins to repent and return to Him. David's son, Solomon, tells us to “fear God and keep His commandments”. After King Solomon, God's people experienced a series of Kings – some who kept God's Covenant and some who do not keep God's Covenant. Subsequently, David's single Kingdom, that brought together the Twelve Tribes, is divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Zedekiah is in deep trouble and in an impossible situation with Babylon laying siege to Jerusalem. Rather than calling on God for help, Zedekiah sends an envoy to Egypt. Zedekiah has rejected God and God's Covenant (2 Chronicles 36:12-14): “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the LORD that he had made holy in Jerusalem.". In desperation, Zedekiah now appeals to the Prophet Jeremiah for a miracle from God, whom he had rejected, to save his kingdom from the attack by Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar (Jerimiah 21). God answers Zedekiah's plea for salvation through Jerimiah in Jerimiah 21:5-7: “'I {God} myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward', declares the LORD, ‘I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives.'". Our God is a Covenant God, and He keeps His Covenants. When the people of God obeyed their Covenant with God they were blessed; but when they disobeyed, they were cursed – just like the people under King Zedekiah. The significance of the Scripture from 2 Chronicles 36 and Jerimiah 21 for us today: 1) God is a Covenant God; 2) as recipients of the New Covenant through Jesus, we are assured of God's forgiveness; 3) rejecting the Covenant and the God of the Covenant will eventually lead us to a place of stubbornness, hardness of heart, and then to our destruction; 4) God will try again and again to draw us back to Himself, but if we are hardened we don't hear God; and 5) our relationship with God is based solely on our relationship with God and not God's relationship with others – Zedekiah's father was a Godly man who did great things for his people, but Zedekiah's unfaithful relationship with God and God's Covenant brought destruction to Zedekiah and his kingdom. God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen.    Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM FORGIVEN. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): 2 Chronicles 36:11-23; Jerimiah 21:1-10; Hebrews 3:12-15; Psalms 49:1-20. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “Jesus Followers Have a Personal Relationship with the Creator of the Universe So Pray, Listen, and Be Patient for God's Call”: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

How God Says He Loves Us: Part 3 -- The Covenant with Moses MESSAGE SUMMARY: Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's Covenant with Moses. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. After God's Covenant with Abraham, his son Isaac became the recipient of God's blessings. Subsequently, Isaac had two sons. One of Isaac's sons was Jacob, and God changed Jacobs name to Israel. Jacob had twelve sons, and they evolved into the “Twelve Tribes of Israel”. In Genesis 37, the focus begins upon Isaac's son Joseph; and Genesis ends, in Genesis 50, with Joseph's death in Egypt. In Exodus 1, two hundred and fifty years have passed since the death of Joseph. During this time, God's people and the people of Egypt forgot about Joseph. God's people became fruitful and multiplied, but they forgot about God and God's Covenant with Abraham; and the people began to worship idols. Exodus 2 presents the birth of Moses., and Exodus 3 includes God's call to Moses and God's appearance to Moses through the burning bush. Since God had a blood covenant with His people, He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people leave Egypt. Pharaoh said “no”, so God sent nine plagues on the people of Egypt – nine chances for their Repentance. Since Pharaoh continued to say “no”, God sent the tenth plague on the people of Egypt – a plague of Judgement on the people of Egypt. After the Passover for His people in the Plague of Judgement, Pharaoh relented and let God's people leave Egypt. In Exodus 19, God's people wound up on Mount Sini, and God made the “Sini Covenant” with Moses in Exodus 19:4-6: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”. In prior covenants, God did everything; but in this “Sini Covenant”, the people had obligations. God gives His Law, the Ten Commandments, to His people as God speaks directly to them in Exodus 20. The Glory of God, when He was speaking directly to His people, was too much for the people; and they feared a direct personal relationship with God, and they wanted Moses or an intermediary to speak to them for God – they rejected a personal relationship with God just has humans have been doing ever since. In Exodus 21, Exodus 22, and Exodus 23 (“The Book of the Covenant”), God takes His Ten Commandments and He applies the Ten Commandments to our everyday living. In Exodus 24:3,7-8, Moses takes God's Book of the Covenant to the people: “Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.' Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.' And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.'”. Deuteronomy 28 presents the “blessings” for the people if they adhere to their promises to God in the “Book of the Covenant”. On the other hand, Deuteronomy 28 lays out the “curses” for non-adherence to the Covenant. Within six weeks, God's people, who had said “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do”, had disobeyed and broken their Covenant with God. The disobedience of God's people is significant to us today because “it shows us what sin is”. “God is unconditional love” (1 John 4:16); and in this Covenant, God made plain to all of us “what sin is”. “We are made by God to be perfect mirrors of God's Agape love.” Our sin is our failure to act as the God of Agape love acts. Sin is our self-centeredness.  “The opposite of love is not hate; sin is me.” The Ten Commandments are not negative; they are God's Agape love because they show us what a life of love and without sin and death does not include. Jesus tells us the most important Commandment in Mark 12:28-30: “'. . . Which commandment is the most important of all?' Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'”. The people of Israel continued to mess up and sin, but they continued to sacrifice a lamb for their sin thinking that their sacrifice brought their lives of sin back into adherence with their Covenant. However, in both God's impatience with our sin and in His Agape love and His adherence to this Covenant, God sent the perfect Lamb as His and our sacrifice for our sin – Jesus the Christ. This old Covenant points to God's New Covenant – Jesus' death on the cross and His Resurrection. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.     TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen.    Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD'S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV):  Genesis 3:15; Genesis 37:1-36; Genesis 39:1-23; Genesis 41:1-57; Genesis 42:1-38; Genesis 43:1-34; Genesis 44:1-34; Genesis 45:1-28; Genesis 46:1-34; Genesis 47:1-31; Genesis 50:1-26;  Exodus 1:1-22; Exodus 2:1-25; Exodus 3:1-22; Exodus 19:3-11; Exodus 24:1-18; Deuteronomy 28:1-68; 1 John 4:16; Mark 12:29-30; A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “To Be a Jesus Follower, You Must First Enter the Only Door to God's Kingdom and that Door is Jesus – the Door to Eternal Life ”: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/ DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised (for he who worked through Peter for his apostolic ministry to the circumcised worked also through me for mine to the Gentiles), — Galatians 2:7-8 CALL OUT: Call out today to Brian Lydick from Belpre, Ohio. Thank you for sharing your testimony and God's divine intervention in your wife's life. Paul's point here is very positive. It is that they, Paul and Peter, are two men preaching the same Gospel called to two different spheres of influence by one Spirit as agreed upon in the meeting at Jerusalem. Paul is advocating for unity in the Gospel by the Spirit. Not a unity that ignores heresy or apostasy. A unity of effort that is true to the Gospel message that invites the one Spirit to reach many different people. This accentuates the point that, as believers, we need to try to work out our faith together. God gave us life. We are redeemed by Jesus. The Holy Spirit sustains us all. He gave us one message and one Gospel. Therefore, we have an obligation to work out his life together with others, even if it's hard. In light of everything our Trinitarian God has done for us, we, too, should reflect his unity, even though we have differing spheres of influence. This means I should celebrate and support what God is doing in other believers, churches, and ministries that align with God's message, God's Son, and God's Spirit. So, if this is you today, here is my prayer for you: God, you have so many God-fearing, Gospel-centered, Spirit-led ministries in this world today. Each is doing your work for your glory. Today, I ask for your blessing on all of them. Today, as we are led by your Spirit, I ask that you do a mighty work in us together. Amen. #UnityInTheSpirit #EmbracingDiversity #OneGospelManyCallings #CelebratingGodsWork #SpiritLedMinistries ASK THIS: How can we actively support and celebrate the work of other believers, churches, and ministries that align with the Gospel message, even if their spheres of influence differ from ours? In what practical ways can we demonstrate unity amidst diversity within the body of Christ, ensuring that our efforts reflect the message of God's love and redemption to the world? DO THIS: Pray for unity in the Gospel. PRAY THIS: Father, thank You for the diverse ways Your Spirit moves among believers, uniting us in purpose despite our different callings. Help me to actively support and celebrate Your work in others, reflecting Your unity and love to the world. Amen. PLAY THIS: Together.

Ephesians 1:1-14 Dr. Bruce A. Ware, Professor of Christian Theology at Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky preaches from the first part of Ephesians Chapter 1 and unpacks a snapshot of the doctrine of the trinity found there. The post Beholding the Trinitarian God of our Salvation appeared first on Grace Church of Tallahassee.

Dr. Eklund describes the truths that broke his LDS shelf as he read the Bible and explored church history. He mentions Ephesians 2:8-9, Matthew 22:31, John 6, and the book of Romans as being impactful. He discovers fundamental biblical ideas are incompatible with essential teachings in Mormonism; some are: (1) the nature of the Trinitarian God, (2) there is only One God and He is unchangeable, (3) Salvation comes by grace through faith and not by our works, (4) justification – one is made right before God by Christ's righteousness, like putting on a cloak, again, not by our works, and (5) LDS priesthood functions like a mediator between one and Jesus – there is no mediator but Jesus. As a scientist, he likens Bible truths and LDS gospel essentials to immiscible fluids. They are incompatible.

Welcome everyone! Feel free to say hi in the live chat to let us know you're here! If you're new, you can go to www.stpeterschelsea.org and sign up for our weekly email updates or fill out a contact form to find out more information about how to get connected. You can find the bulletin here: https://www.stpeterschelsea.org/uploads/5/6/8/7/56870049/bulletin_10.29.2023.pdf Today's scriptures: Deuteronomy 34: 1–12 Psalm 90: 1–6, 13–17 Matthew 22: 34–46 Cover Art is Trinity by Khrystyna Kvyk

Friends of the Rosary: Reading a scroll of the prophet Isaiah in a synagogue on the sabbath day in Nazareth, where he had grown up, Christ Jesus proclaimed (Lk 4:16-30): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord." "Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing." The anointed one came to heal and free us from slavery us sin. The infinite, unconditional love of our Trinitarian God toward His children is what fully defines us as humans. Our response as individuals cannot be other than to spread love everywhere tirelessly, the love we have inherited. Rejecting this mission results in death and everlasting darkness. Ave Maria!Jesus, I Trust In You! To Jesus through Mary! + Mikel A. | RosaryNetwork.com, New York • September 4, 2023, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

David and Cynthia's theme for the week is ‘Grounded in the Apostles' Creed'. They will explore how we can bring this ancient Church creed into our modern lives. During our time together, they shall look at how our Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has delivered to us our salvation. Sessions will focus on the Fatherhood of God; what Christ has done for you on the cross and how does the Holy Spirit build us, as believers, into Christian community. There will be opportunity following each session for further discussion. David and Cynthia have been married for thirty three years. They are blessed to have two sons, two daughters-in-law and two adorable grandchildren. They live on the east coast of Northern Ireland, ten miles from Belfast. They served in church ministry for twenty five years, when through a crisis, rediscovered the power of God's grace and forgiveness in Christ. It was while exploring the message of God's grace that their lives intersected with Johan and Sonja Hinderlie. David and Cynthia are privileged to contribute weekly to the Ground Up Grace podcast as ‘The Irish Cast' and they actively serve in their local Presbyterian church. Cynthia enjoys gardening, cooking and walking in the Irish countryside and coastline. She is an online tutor providing support to people with communication and learning needs. David enjoys soccer, Irish history, reading widely, especially Lutheran theology and drinking lots of tea. He is a book dealer and paints and sells model historical figures.

David and Cynthia's theme for the week is ‘Grounded in the Apostles' Creed'. They will explore how we can bring this ancient Church creed into our modern lives. During our time together, they shall look at how our Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has delivered to us our salvation. Sessions will focus on the Fatherhood of God; what Christ has done for you on the cross and how does the Holy Spirit build us, as believers, into Christian community. There will be opportunity following each session for further discussion. David and Cynthia have been married for thirty three years. They are blessed to have two sons, two daughters-in-law and two adorable grandchildren. They live on the east coast of Northern Ireland, ten miles from Belfast. They served in church ministry for twenty five years, when through a crisis, rediscovered the power of God's grace and forgiveness in Christ. It was while exploring the message of God's grace that their lives intersected with Johan and Sonja Hinderlie. David and Cynthia are privileged to contribute weekly to the Ground Up Grace podcast as ‘The Irish Cast' and they actively serve in their local Presbyterian church. Cynthia enjoys gardening, cooking and walking in the Irish countryside and coastline. She is an online tutor providing support to people with communication and learning needs. David enjoys soccer, Irish history, reading widely, especially Lutheran theology and drinking lots of tea. He is a book dealer and paints and sells model historical figures.

David and Cynthia's theme for the week is ‘Grounded in the Apostles' Creed'. They will explore how we can bring this ancient Church creed into our modern lives. During our time together, they shall look at how our Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has delivered to us our salvation. Sessions will focus on the Fatherhood of God; what Christ has done for you on the cross and how does the Holy Spirit build us, as believers, into Christian community. There will be opportunity following each session for further discussion. David and Cynthia have been married for thirty three years. They are blessed to have two sons, two daughters-in-law and two adorable grandchildren. They live on the east coast of Northern Ireland, ten miles from Belfast. They served in church ministry for twenty five years, when through a crisis, rediscovered the power of God's grace and forgiveness in Christ. It was while exploring the message of God's grace that their lives intersected with Johan and Sonja Hinderlie. David and Cynthia are privileged to contribute weekly to the Ground Up Grace podcast as ‘The Irish Cast' and they actively serve in their local Presbyterian church. Cynthia enjoys gardening, cooking and walking in the Irish countryside and coastline. She is an online tutor providing support to people with communication and learning needs. David enjoys soccer, Irish history, reading widely, especially Lutheran theology and drinking lots of tea. He is a book dealer and paints and sells model historical figures.

David and Cynthia's theme for the week is ‘Grounded in the Apostles' Creed'. They will explore how we can bring this ancient Church creed into our modern lives. During our time together, they shall look at how our Trinitarian God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit has delivered to us our salvation. Sessions will focus on the Fatherhood of God; what Christ has done for you on the cross and how does the Holy Spirit build us, as believers, into Christian community. There will be opportunity following each session for further discussion. David and Cynthia have been married for thirty three years. They are blessed to have two sons, two daughters-in-law and two adorable grandchildren. They live on the east coast of Northern Ireland, ten miles from Belfast. They served in church ministry for twenty five years, when through a crisis, rediscovered the power of God's grace and forgiveness in Christ. It was while exploring the message of God's grace that their lives intersected with Johan and Sonja Hinderlie. David and Cynthia are privileged to contribute weekly to the Ground Up Grace podcast as ‘The Irish Cast' and they actively serve in their local Presbyterian church. Cynthia enjoys gardening, cooking and walking in the Irish countryside and coastline. She is an online tutor providing support to people with communication and learning needs. David enjoys soccer, Irish history, reading widely, especially Lutheran theology and drinking lots of tea. He is a book dealer and paints and sells model historical figures.

For additional notes and resources check out Douglas' website.This podcast is a book review, examining Todd Burpo's Heaven is for Real: A Little Boy's Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2010), 162 pp.Why the story seems genuineThe credibility of the author is enhanced for three reasons.1. The author (Colton Burpo's father) is a Christian pastor.2. The writer is highly personable, and shares a lot from his own life.3. He repeatedly emphasizes how he and his wife tried not to lead their little boy on--not to put words in his mouth.Moreover, this is a subject nearly everyone is interested in.1. The story resonates with popular culture: spiritual experiences are in, even if (for many) church and doctrine are out.2. It's an easy read-- you can finish in a sitting.The medical context of the “visit to heaven”62 - During emergency appendix surgery the boy had an unusual experience, while under anesthesia. The visit lasted 3 minutes, according to the little boy, into which it sounds like a day's activities were crammed.78 - He did not dieMiraculous knowledge?61 - He had knowledge of his parents praying for him, and of his mother being on the telephone, and their  being in separate rooms. He rose above his body – a common experience during surgeries and near-death experiences.63 - Jesus had a rainbow horse. 65 - Jesus wore white clothes and a purple sash. 67 - There were red marks on his feet and palms. 145 - The boy later points out Jesus in a sketch by Akiane Kramarik, Prince of Peace (73). 73 - Jesus has light eyes and streaks in his hair, which appears to be permed (!).He was with Jesus, whom he recognized, as well as the father (who was “really big”) and even the Holy Spirit. Jesus loves the little children.72 - There were many other humans in heaven, esp. children, many of whom Colton later named. But what about John 3:13? 73-74 - The dead (humans) sport wings and halos – and sounds like something out of a children's book, like The Littlest Angel. There are a few other questionable statements, biblically speaking, such as a literal battle of Armageddon.86 - He saw his deceased grandfather, though as a younger man. (This man had died before Colton was born.) 123 - Later recognized him in a picture of him in his 30s – did not recognize him in later pictures (died in early 60s). 90 - Colton's mother was shocked, because she has not thought her father would be in heaven. He'd apparently "accepted Christ" 28 years before his death, but did not tell his family members.94 - The boy talks to his dead sister (fetus of 2 months).This really tugs on the heartstrings of the reader (and the boy's mother). See also 96, 128-129.100 - There are literal thrones. 101 - Jesus on the right side of God, the archangel Gabriel on the left.105 - Heaven is the New Jerusalem of Revelation.126 - He sees power shooting down on his father when he preaches (Spirit) – like the common evangelical notion of being “anointed” by the Spirit whenever a minister preaches the word of God.133 - Angels carry swords in heaven.139 - The battle of Armageddon is apparently to be fought with swords and bows & arrows (little boys' toys?).152 - There are dogs in heaven.Explainable?It's easy to rationalize most of the details. Even the theology: Trinitarian God, for example. A nearly-four-year-old would have heard a great deal of talk about God and the Bible. It's not so easy to account for the details of miscarried sister and grandfather, assuming they are not fictive or exaggerated. Yet we weigh the work as a whole. We are not required to accept everything in the book just because one or two details cannot be explained away.Why the book fails to persuade (me)1. All the details sound like they've come from children's Sunday school pictures. The story supports evangelical theology – e.g. immediate transport to heaven, literal battle of Armageddon, taking the picture of the New Jerusalem to be heaven, conversion through “accepting Christ” – not likely to appeal so strongly to other Protestants, Catholics, Orthodox, or non-denominational Christians.2. The account flatly contradicts the testimony of the Old and New Testament and the early Christian writers. 80 Paul went to heaven – but in 2 Cor 12 Paul goes to paradise. Not a single detail of the experience is related, only its ineffability. Yet Colton Burpo found no trouble describing everything he saw, which makes the passage his father cites as a parallel disconfirm his son's experience.3. 88 - The author admits a history of mental illness in the family (his father). Perhaps this is relevant.4. Although it's certainly a very interesting story, in many places feels hokeyTwo experts weigh inDavid Bercot (a personal friend and expert on early Christianity):a. This account contradicts the evidence of the early church.b. Why didn't Lazarus ever say anything about this death experience (John 11)?c. Hallucinations are not uncommon when people are under anesthesia.d. In the past there have been clear instances of fraud, too, though this doesn't seem to be a case of that.Gary Habermas (apologist, historian, philosopher of religion), private correspondence:“I don't say we know exactly where NDErs may go, heaven or otherwise.  But there is an incredible amount of evidence that something objective is happening.”ConclusionSomething happened, and I have no desire to explain it all away, but the details don't correspond particularly well with the Bible. Despite the often expressed opinions of the pastor-father, I am afraid the account does not impress me as celestial. Whatever little Colton experienced, it was not the “visit to heaven.”

Episode 100 – offering a $100 prize to anyone who can find a verse in the New Testament where “God” (Theos, Ha Theos) means the Trinity!   Difference between a Triad vs. the Trinity   James White, The Forgotten Trinity, p. 23:  “Within one Being that is God, there exists eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, namely, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit”   Athanasian Creed:  “Anyone who does not keep it whole and unbroken will doubtless perish eternally… one cannot be saved without believing it firmly and faithfully.”   “…we worship one God in trinity and the trinity in unity,     neither blending their persons     nor dividing their essence.         For the person of the Father is a distinct person,         the person of the Son is another,         and that of the Holy Spirit still another.         But the divinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one,         their glory equal, their majesty coeternal.   Quote from Murray Harris book, Jesus as God, explaining that that “God” in the Bible never means the Trinity, never means the Trinitarian God, the Tri-person-one-being of mainstream Christianity. p. 47 footnote   Biblical references in this episode:   John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his unique (or only begotten)  Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.   Rom 8:15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of sonship. When we cry, "Abba! Father!"   Gal 4:6  And because you are sons, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!"   1 Cor 8:6 “As for us, there is one God, the Father….and one Lord, Jesus Christ…”   Eph. 1:17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,   1 Thess. 1:1, 9-10, 3:11, 13,   2 Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.   Hebrews 1:1 Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets,  2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all…   To believe that the God of the Bible is a Trinity, one must believe these statements: “In the Bible, God is never the Trinity. But the God of the Bible is a Trinity.” “The God of the Bible is a Trinity, but in the Bible God is never a Trinity”   Trinitarians need to write a book “The Trinity as God” in which all 1315 references to God in the New Testament are examined to see which of those references mean the Trinity. It will be a very short book.   Who is God in the phrase “Son of God”? Who is God in the phrase “Spirit of God”?   Who is God Most High in the phrase “Son of God Most High God”? If the Father is God Most High, then neither the Trinity, nor Jesus, are God Most High.   The Trinity is a denigration of the Father, whom Jesus called the only True God and whom Paul says for us there is one God, the Father. If the Trinity is the one God, then the Father is not the one God.   The Father and the Trinity can't both be the one God. One of them is an idol. #trinity, #JesusisGod, #murrayharris, #biblicalunitarian, #unitarian, #billschlegel --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/onegodreport-podcast/support

Without exception, there's one common denominator at the core of every single coaching session you hold. It's the most essential part of that coaching session, and it's something you have complete control over. What is it? It's you! Your use of self, your awareness of yourself, and your self-management as a child of God, a person, and a coach. In this episode, we dive into a deep exploration of who you are, how you show up as a coach, and how you differentiate yourself from your client in a way that's beneficial to you and to them. Tune in to hear: How to maintain a sense of autonomy instead of reactivity. The beautiful ways that coaching is a reflection of our Trinitarian God. Using the competencies as a tool for spiritual love. About Steve Cromer Steve has been most blessed by his marriage to Geneva for over 42 years. She has encouraged his love of learning and exploration in the fields of archaeology, chaplaincy, Bowen Family Systems Theory, pastoral ministry, coaching and teaching, and, most recently, owning and operating a restaurant! Together they reared four sons and now celebrate having three wonderful daughters-in-law – with a fourth one on the way – and seven grandchildren. They have recently relocated to Williamsburg, VA, where they will continue their explorations together. Steve joined the PCCI family as a student in 2012 and as an instructor in 2017. Through his business, Steve Cromer Coaching, Steve works as a mentor coach for those seeking certification, as a leadership coach for those wanting to improve their soft skills in the workplace, and as a life coach for leaders who struggle in the over-functioning, “go-to” position in the workplace and in the family. Learn more about Steve at www.SteveCromerCoaching.com  

Without exception, there's one common denominator at the core of every single coaching session you hold. It's the most essential part of that coaching session, and it's something you have complete control over. What is it? It's you! Your use of self, your awareness of yourself, and your self-management as a child of God, a person, and a coach. In this episode, we dive into a deep exploration of who you are, how you show up as a coach, and how you differentiate yourself from your client in a way that's beneficial to you and to them. Tune in to hear: How to maintain a sense of autonomy instead of reactivity. The beautiful ways that coaching is a reflection of our Trinitarian God. Using the competencies as a tool for spiritual love. About Steve Cromer Steve has been most blessed by his marriage to Geneva for over 42 years. She has encouraged his love of learning and exploration in the fields of archaeology, chaplaincy, Bowen Family Systems Theory, pastoral ministry, coaching and teaching, and, most recently, owning and operating a restaurant! Together they reared four sons and now celebrate having three wonderful daughters-in-law – with a fourth one on the way – and seven grandchildren. They have recently relocated to Williamsburg, VA, where they will continue their explorations together. Steve joined the PCCI family as a student in 2012 and as an instructor in 2017. Through his business, Steve Cromer Coaching, Steve works as a mentor coach for those seeking certification, as a leadership coach for those wanting to improve their soft skills in the workplace, and as a life coach for leaders who struggle in the over-functioning, “go-to” position in the workplace and in the family. Learn more about Steve at www.SteveCromerCoaching.com  

Words In Scripture Explored – Trinity Right mouse click to save this Podcast as a MP3. One of the problems that people tell me they have with the Christian God is the concept of God being a Trinity, asking “Why must God be a Trinity?” After all they say, the word Trinity isn't in the Bible! And they are partly correct, insomuch as that there is no explicit Bible text using the word trinity. However, the concept is explicit throughout the Bible. Trinity is Love Love Indivisible - One of the main errors people make regarding the Trinity, is that the three names, Father, Son and Spirit are simply three different modes of the one God. However the Christian doctrine of the Trinity states that God, is made of one indivisible essence or substance, and this is expressed in three persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Each belongs to the whole undivided essence of God. The totality of God exists in the Father, the Son and in the Holy Spirit. Each member of the Trinity is co-equal, co-eternal, self-conscious and self-directing. The three members never act in opposition to any other member, but always in complete union and harmony. The three members are always in complete union with the other. Love Precession – This endeavours to describe the relationship within the Godhead. While, there seemingly is an order of succession in their relationship, this in no way means superiority & inferiority. The Son is begotten of the Father (John 3v16) and does the Fathers Will. Both the Father and the Son sent the Holy Spirit (John 15v26). Love Relationship – There is a communal honour between the Trinity Persons (John 15v26; 16v13-15; 17v1, 8,18,23). In the work of redemption or salvation, there is a co-ordination in the Triune Godhead (Hebrews 10v7-17; Ephesians 4v4-6; 1 Corinthians 12v4-6). The Father ‘elects' (Ephesians 1v4); The Son ‘redeems (Ephesians 1v7); and the Holy Spirit ‘seals' (Ephesians 1v13-14). Between the three Persons, there is an eternal unison in active purpose and yet seemingly external distinctive between the Three members of the Triune Godhead. If God was a single essence, as some people say, then how could love possibly be shown, as love requires more than one Person for it to be active? God is love. The Father totally loves the Son and the Spirit. The Son totally loves the Father and the Spirit. The Spirit totally loves the Father and the Son. This Trinitarian God exhibits love and commands His Disciples, to love one another so that He will be seen (John 13v34-25). When you show love, you reflect and reveal the Trinitarian God, in whose image you are made. Right mouse click to save this Podcast as a MP3.

John 17 This Sunday, we return to John 17 for the third of four Sundays. I invite you once again to listen to Jesus, the Son of God, open his heart to God the Father. This week we come to maybe the most astounding desire of Jesus' heart, our inclusion in the life and love of the Trinitarian God! Jesus prays that we, his given ones, not only be one like the oneness of the Trinity, but that we be one in the oneness of the Trinity. And, as I have said before, you cant get closer than in! Join us this Sunday as we explore the many facets of being included “in” the life and love of the trinitarian God.

How Does God Say He Loves You: Part 5 The New Covenant MESSAGE SUMMARY: There is a difference in knowing about someone and really knowing someone. Our New Covenant with God gives you and I the ability to Know God in a Personal Way. This New Covenant was fulfilled in Jesus the Christ, as Jesus tells us in Luke 22:19-20: “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.'”.   Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's New Covenant with us. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. In the Book of the Covenant (Exodus Deuteronomy 20 through 23 and Deuteronomy), the people made a Blood Covenant with God – the people promised God all that the God has said we will do. Therefore, the people would receive blessings or curses based upon what they did. However, the people always seemed to gravitate toward evil – doing what was wrong in the Lord's sight. With the people's sin, he kingdom was split into the “Northern Kingdom (Israel)” and the “Southern Kingdom (Judah)”; and still the people inclined their hearts and behaviors toward evil. Again, God responded by destroying Jerusalem and the Temple and exiling the people to Babylon because they broke their Covenant with Him. However, in Jeremiah 31:31-34, God declared that that he would make a New Covenant: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”. This New Covenant that God promised applies to us as well as the people of Jesus' time. The New Covenant is not focused on The Law but on “Knowing God” and having a personal relationship with Him – we are all equal now before God. With this New Covenant, the Apostle John tells us of God's love and God's desire for intimacy with us in 1 John 2:1-2: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.". We have this New Covenant because God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His New Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD'S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. 2 Corinthians 5:21 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): John 4:26; Luke 22:19-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34; 1 Peter 2:9; 1 John 2:1-2 (Click below to read the full Bible text for these scripture references.). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE SEARCH: www.AWFTL.org/bible-search/ A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “JESUS BETRAYED BY JUDAS AND ARRESTED  – Jesus Walking in the Way of the Cross (VIDEO)”: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/   DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

How Does God Say I Love You, Part 4: Violation of the Covenant MESSAGE SUMMARY: “Rejecting the Covenant and the God of the Covenant will eventually lead a person to a place of stubbornness, hardness of heart, and then their destruction.” Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's Covenant with Moses. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. We begin by looking at Israel's current king in 2 Chronicles 36, King Zedekiah, who was successor descendant of King David and a Godly father, King Josiah. We need to remember that King David had built the kingdom and the nation of Israel into a great nation through a foundation of a commitment to God and the Covenant God had given to His people – King David made God His priority, and David made God's priorities his priorities. God is interested in those who seek first His kingdom. Also, from King David's life, we know that God expects one who sins to repent and return to Him. David's son, Solomon, tells us to “fear God and keep His commandments”. After King Solomon, God's people experienced a series of Kings – some who kept God's Covenant and some who do not keep God's Covenant. Subsequently, David's single Kingdom, that brought together the Twelve Tribes, is divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Zedekiah is in deep trouble and in an impossible situation with Babylon laying siege to Jerusalem. Rather than calling on God for help, Zedekiah sends an envoy to Egypt. Zedekiah has rejected God and God's Covenant (2 Chronicles 36:12-14): “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the LORD that he had made holy in Jerusalem.". In desperation, Zedekiah now appeals to the Prophet Jeremiah for a miracle from God, whom he had rejected, to save his kingdom from the attack by Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar (Jerimiah 21). God answers Zedekiah's plea for salvation through Jerimiah in Jerimiah 21:5-7: “'I {God} myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward', declares the LORD, ‘I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives.'". Our God is a Covenant God, and He keeps His Covenants. When the people of God obeyed their Covenant with God they were blessed; but when they disobeyed, they were cursed – just like the people under King Zedekiah. The significance of the Scripture from 2 Chronicles 36 and Jerimiah 21 for us today: 1) God is a Covenant God; 2) as recipients of the New Covenant through Jesus, we are assured of God's forgiveness; 3) rejecting the Covenant and the God of the Covenant will eventually lead us to a place of stubbornness, hardness of heart, and then to our destruction; 4) God will try again and again to draw us back to Himself, but if we are hardened we don't hear God; and 5) our relationship with God is based solely on our relationship with God and not God's relationship with others – Zedekiah's father was a Godly man who did great things for his people, but Zedekiah's unfaithful relationship with God and God's Covenant brought destruction to Zedekiah and his kingdom. God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! Luke 11:13 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): 2 Chronicles 36:11-23; Jerimiah 21:1-10; Hebrews 3:12-15; Psalms 49:1-20. SCRIPTURE REFERENCE SEARCH: www.AWFTL.org/bible-search/ A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “The Old Testament Law of “an eye for an eye” Was Reversed by Jesus in His “Great Commandment” in which Jesus Followers Are “to Love””: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/   DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

How God Says He Loves Us: Part 3 -- The Covenant with Moses MESSAGE SUMMARY: Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's Covenant with Moses. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. After God's Covenant with Abraham, his son Isaac became the recipient of God's blessings. Subsequently, Isaac had two sons. One of Isaac's sons was Jacob, and God changed Jacobs name to Israel. Jacob had twelve sons, and they evolved into the “Twelve Tribes of Israel”. In Genesis 37, the focus begins upon Isaac's son Joseph; and Genesis ends, in Genesis 50, with Joseph's death in Egypt. In Exodus 1, two hundred and fifty years have passed since the death of Joseph. During this time, God's people and the people of Egypt forgot about Joseph. God's people became fruitful and multiplied, but they forgot about God and God's Covenant with Abraham; and the people began to worship idols. Exodus 2 presents the birth of Moses., and Exodus 3 includes God's call to Moses and God's appearance to Moses through the burning bush. Since God had a blood covenant with His people, He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people leave Egypt. Pharaoh said “no”, so God sent nine plagues on the people of Egypt – nine chances for their Repentance. Since Pharaoh continued to say “no”, God sent the tenth plague on the people of Egypt – a plague of Judgement on the people of Egypt. After the Passover for His people in the Plague of Judgement, Pharaoh relented and let God's people leave Egypt. In Exodus 19, God's people wound up on Mount Sini, and God made the “Sini Covenant” with Moses in Exodus 19:4-6: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”. In prior covenants, God did everything; but in this “Sini Covenant”, the people had obligations. God gives His Law, the Ten Commandments, to His people as God speaks directly to them in Exodus 20. The Glory of God, when He was speaking directly to His people, was too much for the people; and they feared a direct personal relationship with God, and they wanted Moses or an intermediary to speak to them for God – they rejected a personal relationship with God just has humans have been doing ever since. In Exodus 21, Exodus 22, and Exodus 23 (“The Book of the Covenant”), God takes His Ten Commandments and He applies the Ten Commandments to our everyday living. In Exodus 24:3,7-8, Moses takes God's Book of the Covenant to the people: “Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.' Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.' And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.'”. Deuteronomy 28 presents the “blessings” for the people if they adhere to their promises to God in the “Book of the Covenant”. On the other hand, Deuteronomy 28 lays out the “curses” for non-adherence to the Covenant. Within six weeks, God's people, who had said “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do”, had disobeyed and broken their Covenant with God. The disobedience of God's people is significant to us today because “it shows us what sin is”. “God is unconditional love” (1 John 4:16); and in this Covenant, God made plain to all of us “what sin is”. “We are made by God to be perfect mirrors of God's Agape love.” Our sin is our failure to act as the God of Agape love acts. Sin is our self-centeredness.  “The opposite of love is not hate; sin is me.” The Ten Commandments are not negative; they are God's Agape love because they show us what a life of love and without sin and death does not include. Jesus tells us the most important Commandment in Mark 12:28-30: “'. . . Which commandment is the most important of all?' Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'”. The people of Israel continued to mess up and sin, but they continued to sacrifice a lamb for their sin thinking that their sacrifice brought their lives of sin back into adherence with their Covenant. However, in both God's impatience with our sin and in His Agape love and His adherence to this Covenant, God sent the perfect Lamb as His and our sacrifice for our sin – Jesus the Christ. This old Covenant points to God's New Covenant – Jesus' death on the cross and His Resurrection. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen. Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, IAM FORGIVEN. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:9 SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Genesis 3:15; Genesis 37:1-36; Genesis 39:1-23; Genesis 41:1-57; Genesis 42:1-38; Genesis 43:1-34; Genesis 44:1-34; Genesis 45:1-28; Genesis 46:1-34; Genesis 47:1-31; Genesis 50:1-26;  Exodus 1:1-22; Exodus 2:1-25; Exodus 3:1-22; Exodus 19:3-11; Exodus 24:1-18; Deuteronomy 28:1-68; 1 John 4:16; Mark 12:29-30; SCRIPTURE REFERENCE SEARCH: www.AWFTL.org/bible-search/ A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “Jesus Followers Should Fear, Respect, and Praise God's Power, Sovereignty, and Holiness; but in Life's Trials They Should “fear not for I {Jesus} am with you always””: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/   DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

Come, Know Jesus! But It'll Cost YouSeries: Gospel of John Preacher: Jim MastersSunday Church ServiceDate: 12th February 2023Passage: John 15:18-16:4-------------------To follow Jesus will cost you: People will hate you. Not to follow Jesus means you side with the Jesus-hating, Jesus-persecuting world. This is Jesus' encouragement and exhortation to HIs disciples to stay the course and stay faithful on the eve of HIs departure. And even more encouraging: Help from the Trinitarian God!

The Lord's gospel call is incredibly gracious. It is amazing that the Lord calls us to bow our knees before him, and to receive true everlasting life for the sake of Christ and his merits. It is easy to think that this call is only for the present time or maybe it is just for me. However, as we look at the book of Revelation we notice that the picture is much bigger than just my response to the Gospel. Our faith response to the Gospel not only unites us to the Trinitarian God, but also unites us to the Church universal. What a gracious God to give us such a taste our our beautiful redemption as we walk in the power of His Spirit.

One day it dawned on me, after the long journey of having fallen away and then returning to the faith of a child. I made the worst trade imaginable. I had doubts about a few people and some political issues, so I ditched God. I had doubts about something of this world, so I turned away the Creator of it. I saw the faults of some human beings or current events or pain, so I decided to throw out the baby with the bathwater. After all, I wanted knowledge, so I put science in God's place. I thought I'd made a good trade. In hindsight, this is baffling to me. The Herschel Walker trade, which destroyed the Minnesota Vikings for years, was a better deal than what I got in return for my trade. Why? Because I didn't even get an aging football player, I got a false freedom and false self, or in other words, literally nothing in return. I traded wonder for nihilism. I traded mystery for a fake certainty. At least the Minnesota Vikings had that first glorious day where Herschel Walker ran for monster yardage over the Green Bay Packers, before everything fell apart. The Dallas Cowboys used the trade as the cornerstone to building one of the greatest sports dynasties in NFL history. (But enough on modern sports idolatry before I digress again, let's move on).I suddenly knew why there were two trees in the Garden of Eden. One was for knowledge, and one was for life. Somehow I made a bad choice. I passed over the “tree of life” in favor of the “tree of knowledge.” Out of the ground the LORD God made grow every tree that was delightful to look at and good for food, with the tree of life in the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil…God said, “You are free to eat from any of the trees of the garden except the tree of knowledge of good and evil. From that tree you shall not eat; when you eat from it you shall die.” (Genesis 2:9-16) What a shame. To think that we were allowed to eat from the tree of life…and chose otherwise. We traded life for knowledge. This has to be one of the worst trades in history. The “tree of life” and the “bread of life” seemed to leap out at me from Genesis and the Gospel. It's like we were given a second chance at life. We were shown a way back to that first Fall, where a new choice could be made by each person, and not just Adam. Once again, we could choose. We could trade that Bread of Life. Or we could believe. We could eat it, and believe it, and live. That is exactly why the world caught fire with faith in Jesus. He brought back the tree of life, and, oddly, he was the fruit. He offers a new life, and I'm using the present tense on purpose. The presence of a living God is the only one that makes a difference, because a living God can be known and interacted with. A relationship can be formed. Once that occurs, every single instant of your life then changes, because once you believe and eat the Bread of Life, every decision matters and you are no longer just a mind, or just a soul, or just a body (a clump of cells). You are fully alive, activated and full of meaning. You get to undo your personal Herschel Walker trade that the Minnesota Vikings never could! Clearly the message of Jesus has a staying power unlike anything else, and it's because of this discovery, this re-do, this leveling-up. With the Enlightenment, the focus on the human, rather than the divine, took giant leaps forward, in revolt against that strange success of Christianity, which had produced the world's greatest art, music, and architecture. Collectively we've chose the tree of knowledge over faith. Faith leads to life, and knowledge leads to the enslavement by our desires. Like most things, success leads to pride and corruption. Familiarly breeds contempt. The message of Christ became so familiar that it bored us, I suppose, so we sought knowledge. Seeing bad examples of Christians flattened out the message. Seeing hypocrites preach morality extracted the gunpowder from the cannon. It's no wonder that God says, “I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth.” (Rev 3:15-16) Just as lukewarm coffee lacks it's reason for existence, so does the Church. The joy of discovering this source of life cannot be served lukewarm. Given that human beings have always made up the Church's body, it's no surprise that pride, envy, greed, lust, and such things infected the Church whenever it came too close to power. Also, these things invaded whenever the church became undemanding of its followers. No one really wants an undemanding Catholicism. It's ridiculous to watch if it's not demanding. It's sad to observe the lukewarm Catholic who is indifferent to the Eucharist, indifferent to Confession, indifferent to the Resurrection. But it is a thing of beauty and joy to see humble man or woman living in observance, who approaches the faith with reverence, obedience, and the faith of a child. If you don't believe me, you probably haven't met any yet. These people do exist, and the joy is real.There is nothing appealing at all of a Church with drunk, horny, and obese followers who live a life of debauchery while they store up treasures on earth. I'm sorry if that sounds crude. There is great appeal, however, to a Church where the rich and poor worship side by side, who fast and pray, who believe in chastity, and who stand equally in line for Confession and the Eucharist. There is great appeal where there are joyful believers working for the kingdom of God, even when - especially when - they realize that their efforts are pitiful compared to what God can do. That is why you have the repeated cycle of reformers like St. Benedict and St. Anthony of Egypt, and a thousand others, who retreat to a desert or a cave or a monastery to start over. When the culture and the Church turn away from God, God calls his sheep and they hear his voice. The message gets lost in the culture and needs a reset button to return it to what made it grow in the first place, and that is the demands of orthodoxy that led nearly every Apostle to a brutal end. Once I started to read more from the early era of Christianity, it became clear that what I had known as Christianity did not match up. Not at all. Later, I found that these people still exist - quite a few of them, I just hadn't met them yet. The undemanding faith I observed around me was not what the early church taught or experienced. In addition, I learned that this idealized world of Greece and Rome was left behind for a reason. There was nothing ideal about the pre-Christian world. It was a brutal slugfest of might-makes-right. Something better had been found in the Trinitarian God, in Jesus, than that of the serial rapist god named Zeus, who was a useless fertility storm-god. The will-to-power, that awful idea that German philosophers resurrected from the past, was not just a bad product that the Romans were pitching, it was a bad product in every age, wherever it was applied. The will-to-power is always pitched as a solution to our problems, as if it would get our dishes clean, but it's not a solution at all, it's a pure acid that eats through whatever it touches. Other religions in the ancient world didn't offer anything close to what Jesus did. The same goes for our modern religions. The reason Jesus won over the world is because he has a far better story than Buddhism, Islam, humanism or anything else. But it's much more than a pitch or a product. He, himself, is the product. He is way, the truth, and the life. That is what is so radically strange about Jesus. That is the whole point of every article on this site/podcast. It's just so odd, all of it. The pitch, the demo, the purchase, the application, the usage, and the result. All of it is strange. And all of it works as advertised. It does everything. It just works. What else can I say? He is The Way. In his person is the Truth. Through him we get new Life. (Sorry Mandalorian fans, Jesus was referred to as “The Way” long before Disney tried to make it a Star Wars thing, with proof in Acts 9:2; 19:9, 23; 22:4; 24:14, 22. But, then again, cultural appropriation and fake plastic faces is Disney's whole game, so nothing to see here…moving on.)In the last few centuries, we were fish swimming in a water called Christendom. We've taken for granted that our current ideas sprung to life out of the Renaissance or the Romantics or modern science. But it's actually the opposite. All of those things only sprung forth because they drank from the river of life. Our modern ideas could have only come to life in the world that Christianity created. We look at the flaws and call it ugly, without realizing how far we have come. Worse, we look at the flaws and lump all Christian actions over the last 500 years into a blob called “Christianity” when there were clearly denominations poisoning the well. We pretend that faithfulness in relationships, helping foreigners, building hospitals, educating youth, being humble, and loving your neighbors came about in spite of Christianity. But the truth is that none of these things existed in the ancient world because of the lack of Christianity. All of the things we celebrate as fruits of modernity only exist because Jesus came here to show us how to live, and inspired joy in millions of his followers to love their wives, to pray for enemies, to heal the sick, and feed the poor. None of those things came about from any other ideology, except for Judaism. The reason people hate reading the Old Testament is because they think the laws of Israel were brutal and cruel, but in reality they were by far the most humane in the ancient world, not only to women, but also widows, orphans, and foreigners. And Jesus put all that in hyperdrive as he corrected and encouraged all of the good things that modern atheists and agnostics assume came from Enlightenment thinkers. Taking this Christendom for granted has brought us to a strange place, where we speak like Puritans but sin like Samson. We want our world to be like Burger King, where their slogan is, “Have it your way.” But there is only one king, even over Burger King, who I now consider to be as significant as any other President or Prime Minister. The real King is the one who created Burger King and every other atom in this universe. While we swim in the waters of Christendom, we have started to deny there is water. First, the mistake of “faith alone” clipped the wings of authentic body and soul Christianity, and now even Faith itself has became the taboo, as many have switched over to “sola ratio,” or “Reason alone.” That is the new sola that our age manufactured. We are like goldfish speaking with our mouths full of water and pretending there is no such thing as water. Faith cannot be admitted, not at work, not at school, not in polite company. Why? Because it means signing our names to superstition and belief in the supernatural. No, we can't do that. That would be a betrayal of modernity, where psychology and sociology has all the answers, as long as you're willing to take enough pills and shell out for therapy and adhere to corporate human resources doctrine. Admitting you believe in ghosts and spirits and the Devil is social suicide. Death is, once again, something to fear and by reason alone we must stave off that monster. We made a crappy trade. Because death no longer brought fear. We only have this life in the “reason alone” worldview, thus we have to save ourselves. It's always the same problem. Control. We want control, because we can't surrender to God and trust in the promises of Christ. That is the Herschel Walker trade. We choose knowledge and this life instead of trusting in God, instead of moving back toward the tree of eternal life. I fell for all the modern fruit. The sales pitch and demo really took me in, and I bought the product. I presumed that everyone from the year 30 A.D. and onward, until we finally got to the Renaissance and Voltaire and Newton and Martin Luther, was little more than a God-fearing idiot under the cruel yoke of power-hungry Popes and bully Kings. Now, that is not entirely untrue. Corrupt Popes and Christian kings certainly existed, and will exist again. They are human beings. The falls in the Church have been significant and should not be swept under a rug, ever, as the Church must be held to a higher standard because it is the Body of Christ in this world. The failings of individuals and leaders come as no surprise, however, at least if you understand what “The Fall of Man” actually means. Most people don't today, as groupings of people get assigned flaws like elitist, racist, ignorant, hateful. The not-so-hidden secret of Original Sin is that everyone has it. All humans have flaws. All people abuse power. All people find scapegoats and cheerleaders, and the only person that didn't was Jesus, so we try to imitate him. Some, or many, have used God as a means to malicious ends. I'm talking about the televangelists and charlatans that prey on souls under the guise of Christianity. But that doesn't negate the reason for faith. God exists whether or not someone commits a crime or has a flaw that we don't appreciate. That's where we make the bad trade. A clerk who steals from the cash register doesn't mean we have to burn the whole store down. Or for a more crude example, a pimple on a nose doesn't mean the nose should be cut off, or that all noses should be removed because they may get a pimple. The faith and morals of the church still stand, and are true. They are right and just. Time does not alter these truths. What the Church lays out as the guidance on faith and morals remains true, and for those angry about the Church's position on these matters, the Pope and the priests are simply echoing the words of Jesus and the tradition of the Apostles. Everyone likes Jesus, as long as he doesn't demand anything from them. But he does demand action from us. Popular opinion does not alter these truths. No matter what modern French philosophers and internet influencers tell you, the purpose of sex is to create children, and marriage is a divine Sacrament. If you believe Jesus is the son of God, fully divine, and fully human, you have to actually read the words that he says and not invent interpretations. Jesus and the Apostles took care of that for us. The urge to twist and manipulate the words only happens because we want to sin. Those who dispute what the Gospel says, and the Apostolic interpretation of it, they will all be forgotten within a century. Maybe one or two names will stick around, but all of the noise is much ado about nothing. If you find your way through the multi-media mine field to the truth, and see Christ as God, then all of the hubbub no longer matters. But the reality is that God will find you, and if you are a seeker of truth, and I believe many atheists and agnostics are exactly that, if they read the Gospel with an open mind and heart, and ask for willingness to be willing, God will call to them. But it requires action on our part to cooperate with God's grace. We are the ones that must lay our guns on the table, and undress, and turn to face God, full naked, flaws and all. Of course, we will all be judged within a century, and God will take care of the judging. I am as concerned for myself as any atheist, due to many sins committed, and even confessed some still linger and bother me. While the Sacrament assures me those things are forgiven, I believe that the effect of those sins still dart about the world, for which I will be purified “to the last penny” in purgatory (see Mt 5:26). This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

December 6: Saint Nicholas, Bishop c. Third–Fourth Century Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White Patron Saint of Russia, sailors, merchants, and children Santa Claus signed the Nicene Creed Traditions the world over are so embedded in the rhythms of daily life that their ubiquity goes unnoticed. Why a birthday cake with lighted candles? Why make a wish and then blow those candles out? The origin of this charming tradition is obscure. Why shake hands, toast by clinking glasses, cross fingers for good luck, or have bridesmaids? The sources of many traditions are so historically remote and culturally elusive as to allow diverse interpretations of their meaning. Today's saint is without doubt, however, the man behind the massively celebrated tradition of Santa Claus, the most well-known Christmas figure after Jesus and the Three Kings. Santa Claus' mysterious nocturnal visits to lavish children with gifts at Christmastime is not a tradition whose origin is lost in the mists of history. It is a tradition firmly rooted in Christianity.  Little is known about the life of Saint Nicholas, besides that he was the Catholic Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor in the early fourth century. It is likely that he suffered under the persecution of Diocletian and certain that he later attended the Council of Nicea in 325. "Nicholas of Myra of Lycia" appears on one of the earliest and most reliable lists of the Bishops at Nicea. Some of the bishops at Nicea looked like soldiers who had just crawled off the battlefield; eyes gouged out, skin charred black, stumps for legs. These were the front-line torture victims of Diocelatian. The Emperor Constantine had called the Council, and when he entered the dim hall to inaugurate the great gathering, this colossus, the most powerful man in the world, dressed in robes of purple, slowly walked among the hushed and twisted bodies and did something shocking and beautiful. He stopped and kissed each eyeless cheek, each scar, gash, wound, and mangled stub where an arm had once hung. With this noble gesture, the healing could finally begin. The Church was free. The mitred heads wept tears of joy, and Saint Nicholas was among them.  At his death, Saint Nicholas was buried in his see city. Less than a century later, a church was built in his honor in Myra and became a site of pilgrimage. And the Emperor Justinian, in the mid-500s, renovated a long-existing church dedicated to Saint Nicholas in Constantinople. In Rome, a Greek community was worshipping in a basilica dedicated to Saint Nicholas around 600. The church can still be visited today. These churches, and hundreds of others named for Saint Nicholas, prove that devotion to our saint was widespread not long after his death. When Myra was overrun by Muslim Turks in the 1000s, there was a risk that the saint's bones would disappear. So in 1087, sailors from Bari, Italy, committed a holy theft and moved Saint Nicholas' relics to their own hometown. In 1089 the Pope came to Bari to dedicate a new church to Saint Nicholas. And just a few years later, Bari became the rendezvous point for the First Crusade. Saint Nicholas was the patron saint of travelers and sailors, making him popular with the crusading knights. These knights, in turn, later brought the devotion to Saint Nicholas they learned in Bari back to their villages dotting the countryside of Central and Western Europe. Thus it happened that a saint famous along the shores of the Mediterranean became, in ways not totally understood, the source of gift-giving traditions that perdure until today in every corner of Europe. Legends state that Nicholas saved three sisters from lives of shame by secretly dropping small sacks of gold through their family's window at night, thus giving each a marriage dowry. Other legends relate that Nicholas secretly put coins in shoes that were left out for him. Nicholas' legacy of gift-giving became a Central-European and Anglo-Saxon expression of the gift-giving formerly exclusive to the Three Kings. Christmas night gift-giving in Northern lands thus slowly replaced the more biblically solid traditions of giving gifts on the Feast of the Epiphany, a custom more popular in Southern Europe and in lands which inherited its traditions. The antiquity of the Church means it has played a matchless role in the formation of Western culture, a role that no faux holidays or new “tradition” can replicate. Santa Claus has roots. He wears red for the martyrs. He dons a hat resembling a bishop's mitre. He often holds a sceptre similar to a bishop's crozier. And he distributes gifts to children in humble anonymity on the night of Christ's birth. Old Saint Nick, Father Christmas, Kris Kringle, or Santa Claus is real, in one sense. In all likelihood, he signed the Nicene Creed. Our “Santa,” then, was an orthodox Catholic bishop who argued for correct teaching about our Trinitarian God. The gift of the truth was, then, his first and most lasting gift to mankind. Saint Nicholas, your service as a bishop included not only teaching correctly the mysteries of our faith but also generous and humble charity in alleviating the material needs of your neighbor. Help all of us to combine good theology with Christian action like you did.

The common language of Babel is a more subtle message than the idea of language as we think of it. The mention of the Table of Nations right before the Tower of Babel is a key connection to make. If we want to know why did Russia invade Ukraine, or Caesar cross the Rubicon, we can step back and ask ourselves, what common language do all nations speak? Or closer to home, what common language do we all as individuals speak? The common language is not only seen in war, but that is the grossest and most full expression of it. The bombs being lobbed into apartment buildings in Kiev are shouting the language right now. But really our common language can be heard in the nicest of phrases, and spoken from the kindest of faces. A few good examples of the common language are as follows: Benjamin Franklin, in the 18th century, said, “God helps those who helps themselves.” That is one version of the common language. A more blunt version of the common language is from the 21st century rapper, Fifty Cent, who said, “Get rich or die trying.” Ben Franklin and Fifty Cent speak the same language. Yes, they both speak English, but more importantly, they speak the original common language, the ancient one, the same as those who were building the Tower of Babel. Franklin and Fifty are expressing the same idea in different words, separated by a few hundred years. Ben and Fifty are fluent in the the pre-Babel language of “making a name for themselves.” Both orient their lives toward the goal of gaining money and taking power. Gordon Gecko's famous line spoke the language, fully dropping the facade of Franklin, when he said, “Greed is good.” Franklin invented a proverb that almost sounds Biblical, but rest assured, it is not. God does not help those that help themselves. He would much rather that they imitate Jesus and give their lives to prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. For all the contributions Franklin made to the founding of America, he did not in any way imitate Jesus. Moral perfection was an interest of Franklin, so long as it was achieved without the Christian God. He tackled the subject in a truly modern way, even using a paper version of a spreadsheet to track his progress, working on one virtue at a time. Father Scupoli was a few hundred years ahead of Franklin, when in 1589 he said, “Virtues are to be required one at a time and by degrees,” except Scupoli's project included God and required no spreadsheet. In many ways, Franklin's paper project was attempting exactly the same thing that was happening at the construction site in Babel, just without masonry or mortar. Let's talk more about Benjamin Franklin, the gentle old bespectacled grandfatherly figure of American history who graces the front side of every one hundred dollar bill in print. He is a fascinating character who embodies much of the American character and the best intentions of the Enlightenment. First, Franklin was a Deist, not a Christian. The same goes for George Washington. Franklin was also a practicing Freemason. Even if Washington and Franklin publicly claimed to be Christian, as practicing Freemasons, they likely just found references to God useful for advancing their own public lives among the peasants. This is important to understand, as this is the same root motive that drives an ancient people to build a Ziggurat. The ancient people went to great lengths to justify their power, requiring a lot of stone and labor. Nations needed an awesome structure to control the people, while the Deists of the Enlightenment just declared man and his mind to be the tallest. The modern temple is intellectual, existing in the mind, but still requires assent of the masses. There is just no need to build a tower to reach the sky now, because no lower-case gods need ritual sacrifices or transactions. (We actually do have plenty of rituals and sacrifices still with us, but they are not as obvious now, and I'll need a whole separate series to discuss that topic.)Instead of building towers, the Deists kept the upper-case God in our mouths, but tried to move him off-stage, kind of like giving a lifetime achievement award to a good actor that never won an Oscar. Jefferson threw God a medal in the Declaration of Independence and then asked him to kindly step aside and retire. To this day, a nod toward God goes a long way for politicians, even as they completely ignore him in their policies and personal lives. Of course, everyone is a sinner, so it's not surprising or even noteworthy that people fall down and appear hypocritical, so I'm not pointing out the failure of politicians to be “good” Christians. What I am suggesting that very few of the Founders were Christian at all, because a practicing Freemason like Franklin or Washington cannot be a Christian any more than a practicing Jew could be a Hindu. They do not go together. Attempting to claim co-existence of Christianity and Freemasonry requires a lot of spinning plates and hula hoops and tambourines and fireworks. Freemasonry is an open rejection of the living God of Israel, and certainly the Trinitarian God of Christianity. Franklin believed in a Clockmaker God, a being who set the stars in motion and left the lights on before retiring into the beyond. He's like a gamer who started a video game on auto-mode and went to bed. The Deist idea of God is a Creator that requires no worship and demands nothing. In other words, it's an absentee father who left long ago and left us free to do whatever we like. The Clockmaker version of God has no relation whatsoever with the living God of Christian faith, because that Bible ends at chapter two of Genesis. Nothing more is needed beyond creation.Why am I picking on Ben Franklin here? He is the poster child of the common language spoken by the architects of Babel. Franklin spoke the language of Babel, because the language of Babylon is declaring a deity that either serves us, or doesn't matter, or both. A Ziggurat is an expensive, fancy way of trying to communicate with and manipulate a god. This required a lot of ritual and song and dance and smoke to sell the idea. But what happens with a Ziggurat is the same thing that happens with Deism. The human, the self, bubbles up as the new deity. Pride rises like hot air and overtakes humility, and the virtues get swapped. Pride rises, humility sinks; it very much matches the behavior of hot and cold air masses. Humility kneels, while pride tries to grasp God.Franklin did not try to deny that God exists, but rather to deny that God matters. This trick makes for a dead deity instead of a living God still present with us. The Clockmaker God opens the door to this. The result of the long onslaught of Enlightenment thinking is a polite depositing of God in the dustbin of history. If you punch your vote for the Clockmaker God, like Franklin did in his weekly Masonic meetings, then there is little or no difference from denying the existence of God entirely, or making bogus sacrifices in a Ziggurat to justify your power. The false gods of Babel were made in the image and likeness of the ruling class, and the Clockmaker God's image and likeness doesn't matter at all because he's on permanent vacation. More importantly, the Clockmaker God is not needed to forgive anything, because just like the rulers of Babel, the rules are decided by those in power, or in other words, “those who help themselves.” The pagan god who demanded sacrifice was not alive, but at least the illusion was more lively than that of the Clockmaker God. When the authority of the living Creator God who sustains all things is gone, then there is nothing holding back “those who help themselves.” The proverb of Franklin is essentially a nice way of arguing for will-to-power, as in, win at all costs. In Franklin's cosmology, there is no cosmic justice, no everlasting judgment, and the conscience is just a nag that you need to stifle. The cookie jar is just as open and unattended with the Clockmaker God of a deist as it is for the atheist who says there is no God at all. In fact, the atheist is really the only honest one. This is why I think our age of atheism has a lot of people coming around, the long way, back to belief in the true God, the living Creator God. All of the other trick gods are so obviously false (Zeus) or pointless (deism), that the only God that makes sense, the only one that can even satisfy the intellect and give purpose to our lives, is the transcendent living Creator God. All the other gods don't matter or are total frauds. In any other cosmos than that of the God of Abraham, we can do whatever we like, and like Franklin, we can help ourselves to whatever we like. A dead or silent God leads directly from Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Michel Foucault. A pagan god can at least command fear, but without that new methods are needed. The thunder god who throws lightning and causes storms only has power through fear. The storm god keeps the lightning nearby to strike if he is disrespected, as he is the one who unleashes havoc on the world. He must be appeased with worship, otherwise he will show us who is boss. The storm god that oddly matches worldly power, in that he is in competition with creation and craves adoration as payment. If he gets what he wants, you will receive a reward. There are many modern Christians who understand God in this way and need to break free from this model, because they are playing the same game of Babel as well. On the other hand, a Clockmaker God commands nothing. He is the god of indifference. A God that created matter and exited the stage, doesn't matter at all. It's like a teacher who leaves the classroom and tells the students to behave. He's a powerless joke. The hall monitor is gone, so what's the difference between an absent God that created the universe against a pre-existing universe with no God at all? There is none. The latter is just much easier to live with, except you need something called “the rule of law” to assert control by pretending at objective truth. The funny thing is, however, that the ground for objective truth starts to shake when it's just a set of rules etched in stone outside a courthouse. Eventually people see through this game as well. What we call “the rule of law” is our new storm god, in the form of courts, police, and in its most full form, SWAT teams and the National Guard. As the masses come around more to match Franklin's idea of God, or worse, Marx's idea of God, the jig is up. The pretense of objective truth gets jettisoned for “my truth.” In either case, there are no rules except what we decide. Ziggurat or no Ziggurat: the god of Babel and the God of Franklin is the one that “helps those who help themselves.” The only thing that comes to matter in this worldview is power. That is the common language of Babel. That is what we want. However, a living God that knows the number of hairs on your head matters a great deal. That God is the only one that can change our behavior out of love. There is a reason that the God of the Bible has lasted so long. This God satisfies our souls. He fits our lives. He explains everything. He is also the only real one. The God of Israel, who we have come to understand better in the revelation of the Trinity, is the only one that can make all of our difficulties in life suddenly fall into place, just like he did in creating the universe. Once this concept of God is understood, both suffering and love begin to make sense. The main reason this happens, and keeps happening in every generation, is because, this God is real, and this God is alive. The language that is being spoke in the Tower of Babel story is not really referring to Sumerian or Akkadian or Greek or Latin. No, it means a worldview that celebrates a culture of competition, power-seeking, comfort-seeking, possession-seeking, and pleasure-seeking. What we really want is God to approve our desires, but our conscience is God's messenger that lets us know in subtle ways that he will never approve of those things. The worldview or common language is the little voice that tells us otherwise, that suggests that we elevate our pursuits over the glory of God. What we want, instinctually, is salvation independent of God. A Ziggurat is built to pull the gods down, to shape god to match our human pursuits, to justify ourselves. The correct approach to God is to stop trying to manipulate him, because he cannot be manipulated, and rather we need to conform our human pursuits to the will of the one true God. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

The Tower of Babel story is a strange one. It's strange enough that I'm going to spend a lot of time on it, to the point that you will surely switch over to YouTube in about ten minutes. My hope is that this blog/podcast does not drive you back into the arms of the politics, porn, and video games, so I'll do my best to keep it moving. I may have already lost most of you just at the mention of those candies. On the surface level, the Tower of Babel reads like a tale of where languages came from, in the same spirit of fables, such as, “How the Tiger Got its Stripes.” You may pass over the text and think, “Isn't that cute. A story of where the many human languages came from.” Like the Garden of Eden story you can read this one literally, yawn, close the book, then return to your sportsball and Door Dash. And doing so you will miss the entire point of the story of the Tower of Babel. There is another layer, much deeper than the literal, and you can scratch the surface using your fingernail and realize that there are multiple layers of paint. This is why it is a timeless story. First, understanding that “Babel” means “Gate to God” or “Gateway to God” should tell you there is more happening than a simple tower construction project. You could even call it a “Stairway to Heaven” but I am not here to talk about Led Zeppelin. Still, that song title is a phrase that is relevant, or even possibly a reference to the Tower of Babel. If you ask five people the meaning of the lyrics, you will get five answers (my money is on the Lord of the Rings interpretation being closest to the mark, since Led Zeppelin band members were Tolkien nerds). However, even if “Stairway to Heaven” is about Arwen and Aragorn, the Lord of the Rings is the most Catholic novel ever written, so in a wide circling way, from classic rock back to Genesis all the way to the rock of the Church, we have to drive by the Tower of Babel story anyway. The same variety of interpretations that happen with “Stairway to Heaven” can come from readers of the Tower of Babel story, and I think if we called it the “Gate to God” story we would probably be at a better starting point. The Gate being built is a Ziggurat, which is a pagan temple. The location may have been Eridu, in modern day Iraq. Or it may have been elsewhere. It's not particularly important where it was built, because lots of these Ziggurats existed in ancient times, and they are remarkably similar in shape and purpose, even across cultures that had no contact. Now, if you have the idea of some giant tower that touches the sky, you need to first stop and understand that ancient people were not stupid. They knew that a tower could not be built to the sky, probably better than we do, since they didn't have steel and even one hundred feet in height would have been an engineering marvel. So if you want to get anything out of the story, you have to put aside your presentism and unconscious bias. Presentism is the modern bias and assumption that people that didn't have smart phones were only slightly higher than baboons in terms of mental and intellectual acumen.What is a Ziggurat? It is a temple built as a home base for rituals and sacrifices to gods of the lower-case mythological variety. Archaeologists have found these structures with staircases to a central altar, where worship and sacrifice was made to gods. The most famous god of the ancient world was the storm god, or sky god, like Baal, or Marduk, or Zeus, or Jupiter (who are actually all the same god just shifted from one culture to another and that, too, is important to keep in mind as we go along.) At the core of the story is God observing the construction of this Gate to God, and the people in charge are intending to build it “to reach the sky.” Why the sky? Because that's where the sky god lives. Sometimes he lives in a mountain, but the sky god throws the lightning bolts. Along with the sky god, there is a whole list of other gods, like the moon god, the sun god, etc. There is even “Father Sky,” who was a more primordial god in these same cultures, but this elder god was knocked out by the storm god in a battle on the spiritual realm. This too is important to keep in mind, as the tale of Zeus defeating his father Uranus plays into the story of the Tower of Babel very much. The interesting thing about mythology is how celestial objects, like the moon, and natural phenomena, like storms, get translated into spirits. This is mythology in a nutshell, and we assume the ancient people were just trying their best to explain away what could not be explained by science, since there was no such thing as science. There were no telescopes, so in our Present Bias we look at these tales as explanations in a pre-scientific age. These are cute tales from primitive people, who, if they were around today, we would pat on the head and send away with a dum-dum sucker. What non-believers and soul-deniers today have use today as a shield against all things supernatural is a saying known as the “God of the gaps.” The idea is that we only assume God exists for things that we cannot explain yet. This is full blown presentism. If you are not an anti-presentist, you are a presentist. For example, the reason the Irish no longer believe that fairies bring illness is because we know what germs are. We can see germs under microscopes. Until we knew about germs, we blamed fairies. In other words, since we couldn't explain illness, we pawned it off on fairies and God. However, right now, in 2022, science is still claiming to look for a mythical “bat of the gaps” in the Covid story, while we all know that there was no bat, but there most certainly was a very large virology lab. The great irony is that a bat that doesn't exist has been invented and mythologized now by the very same people who mock any idea of fairies or spirits. We could get lost here in talking about scapegoating and human nature, but let's stay on track. The “God of the gaps” idea is a modern argument to reduce all religion to superstitious nonsense. It's an idea that modern writers like Carl Sagan and Richard Dawkins have campaigned hard to sell. There's just one problem with both the fairy stories and Carl Sagan. Neither of them match the concept of the God of Christianity. A quote from Carl Sagan illustrates the problem perfectly, and he was very close to understanding the God of Christianity, but he was bothered by fairy believers who kept moving God into the gaps. This illustrates the problem with how bad conceptions of what the Christian God is brings so much confusion:“In some respects, science has far surpassed religion in delivering awe. How is it that hardly any major religion has looked at science and concluded, ‘This is better than we thought! The Universe is much bigger than our prophets said, grander, more subtle, more elegant. God must be even greater than we dreamed'? Instead they say, "No, no, no! My god is a little god, and I want him to stay that way.'“In other words, Carl had clearly never read the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Carl is actually very close to understanding the awe of God in the way that Catholics understand God. Whoever he is talking about in that quote has no understanding of God as he is understood in the Catholic Church. The God of Israel, is unique, in both conception and power, as Yahweh does not live in the universe like the pagan gods. The God of Christianity, the Trinity, is complete, a whole, that encompasses both the universe and our hearts. God is far simpler to understand than Zeus, in that he is One God, existing forever, outside of space and time. At the same time, he is infinitely more complex in that we can never understand him at all. We can understand God, and we can never understand him. There is another jarring quote where Carl Sagan showed that he was talking about believers that did not understand the Christian God. He said, “Your God is too small for my universe.”To which anyone who spends time in the Catechism can tell you, “No kidding, Carl.” That's been a known fact for 4,000 years. Cave people knew that, and they didn't have telescopes. What amazes me most today is how science assumes that all religious people are merely superstitious buffoons, but when they begin to talk about God, they are describing a pagan concept of lower-case gods, not the understanding of the God of Israel and certainly not the Trinity. This is where bad instruction of the faithful leads to a mess, and as far as bad training and catechesis goes, Catholics have a lot of explaining to do. We have dropped the ball horribly for about three generations now in teaching something as basic as, “How can we speak about God?”God is bigger than Carl's universe. The universe alone can't explain Carl Sagan. As Peter Lawler said, “Physics can't explain the physicist…Physics, by itself, simply explains away the physicist—and much else.” Far bigger than our conception or intellect can handle, God transcends our minds. He is not in the gaps, he created all the gaps, and no matter how many gaps we figure out, there will be more gaps. Like Sagan, who seemed to think that we have overtaken God in terms of knowledge about the universe, the brightest minds of the middle ages thought God kept the planets afloat with crystals. Sagan and company are no different than the confused thinkers of the “Dark Ages” who thought they had figured everything out. But here's something important to realize: the incorrect concepts of the universe was never doctrine. The idea that the earth was at the center of the universe was never part of Christianity. That's only what the intellectuals of the middle ages believed. This is why the Church moves and decides slowly, like the Ents, the trees in Lord of the Rings, who take a long time to decide anything. This is also why the Church doesn't leap in when economic and tech fads offer utopia. The wisdom of the Church plays out in a couple of ways, one in its patience, and second by recognizing heresies and bad ideas long before they are proven to be bad ideas, such as the theories of Marx or calling out Transhumanism (before it gets started). The truth comes out over time, and science is a small part of revealing God's world to us. It's one kind of knowledge, but it's not wisdom. It's worth noting that in a hundred years we may realize that much of modern science is wrong. This happens repeatedly in our history. What is a solid “known” today could be laughable later. Phrenology had its day as a serious science, when people interpreted bumps on our heads. Now it is a joke. (Sociologists beware!) But God does not change, nor does the proper concept of God. To assume otherwise is to be exactly like the intellectuals of the middle ages, who were surely certain of their ideas, too. To assume all is known today is the classic mistake of the falls in Genesis, too. What often seems to be the case is that non-believers have a bad concept of God, stemming from various causes. I think the main problem is that they just don't understand the Trinitarian God properly. I certainly didn't. The reason we don't is because the loudest voices proclaiming God today confuse the right meaning of the word. In fact, I don't think most Christians know the meaning of the word God, because he just seems to be a vending machine to so many. (Here is where I resist ranting about the message preached in the “Prosperity Gospel”. )If you think Zeus and the God of Israel are the same thing, you cannot read the Tower of Babel story. Don't do it. Don't even try. Why waste your time? You cannot understand it if you don't even understand what the writer was talking about. If you don't have the proper idea of God in place, you will fail before you start. It's like beginning a calculus problem when you only made it through Algebra II. It's like interpreting a modern biology book using the theory of the four bodily humors from Galen, the ancient Greek physician. It doesn't work. You will be lost on reading the first sentence. To understand the God of Israel, you have to backtrack and realize a few things. First, you have to rip out your modern assumptions and biases and reset, because all of the noise around God in our media has created a windstorm in your head. Everyone is trying to put their spin on what God is, and until you find the right language, the crazy interpretations will continue to spin. In my own surfacing into the light, I slowly realized that I had cut myself off with a little of help from my friends and much help from the media around me, not to mention a giant pool of Captain Morgan. I had sliced myself off, walled myself in, because of various reasons. In trying to “find myself,” I got lost, and the reasons I lost God was because of exactly the list of reasons listed in the intro of the Catechism. I had forgotten the right concept of God, overlooked what I knew was true, and rejected the entire idea of God. …this "intimate and vital bond of man to God" can be forgotten, overlooked, or even explicitly rejected by man. Such attitudes can have different causes: revolt against evil in the world; religious ignorance or indifference; the cares and riches of this world; the scandal of bad example on the part of believers; currents of thought hostile to religion; finally, that attitude of sinful man which makes him hide from God out of fear and flee his call. (CCC 27-30)Yes, all of those things. The pain and suffering of this world confused me, I was ignorant of what the word God really meant in the Bible, I was drawn to pleasures like drinking, I saw many bad examples of believers that made me question faith entirely, and my education, along with movies and books I read, was purposefully leading me by the nose to a path of belittling and laughing at those with faith. I remember trying to read Genesis and thinking, “This is ridiculous,” and only fifteen years later did I realize that my understanding of God was all wrong. I had to reset completely. Life has a funny way of beating you into a state of reasonableness so that you can try again. To reset, I started with this: God transcends all creatures. We must therefore continually purify our language of everything in it that is limited, image-bound or imperfect, if we are not to confuse our image of God--"the inexpressible, the incomprehensible, the invisible, the ungraspable"--with our human representations.16 Our human words always fall short of the mystery of God. Admittedly, in speaking about God like this, our language is using human modes of expression; nevertheless it really does attain to God himself, though unable to express him in his infinite simplicity. Likewise, we must recall that "between Creator and creature no similitude can be expressed without implying an even greater dissimilitude"; and that "concerning God, we cannot grasp what he is, but only what he is not, and how other beings stand in relation to him." (CCC 39-43)He transcends all creatures, including myths like Zeus. He created everything, including our ability to invent myths like Zeus. We are continually learning more about creation. We are not done learning or discovering wonders here, because we are not God. This should be a cause for awe - Carl Sagan is correct. If he met people who understood God in this sense, instead of reducing all Christians to knuckle-dragging fundamentalists, he could have had terrific conversations about that very fact. God is nothing like the pathetic Zeus. He's way beyond us, transcending our world, while at the same time reaching down to us and saying “Boo!” from time to time. He alerts us that he's present. Most importantly, we cannot control God. This is critical to reading the Tower of Babel story. The pagan gods are far more mundane and limited than the God of the Trinity. The pagan gods live in mountains or in the forest. They are the moon. They are the stars. They are within the universe. The classic blunder of so many non-believers is that they assume God is an object in the universe, like how we think of Zeus. Whenever you hear, “All gods are the same,” you know immediately the speaker does not understand the Christian concept of God. Sagan's “small God” comment and Bertrand Russell's famous “teapot god” betray their fundamental misunderstanding of what the word God means to Catholics. The architect of the universe is not standing in the solar system like a tour guide; he transcends all creation. He transcends all tings, but is still a living God that can reach us on a very personal level. So when you read the Tower of Babel story, the important things to keep in mind are: * The Tower is a Ziggurat built to “reach the sky.” Babel means “Gate to God.” The ancient cultures believed that these pyramid temples made a connecting point between heaven and earth. They often have a stairway to an altar on the top. These exist across the world, even in Aztec and Mayan cultures that never had any apparent contact with Mesopotamian cultures. (This should start raising hairs on your neck but resist the urge to blame aliens here.) * Ziggurats were built to worship gods of mythology, most commonly the “sky god,” a.k.a. storm god, a.k.a. thunder god, a.k.a. fertility god, a.k.a. the rainmaker. This god goes by various names in history: Baal, Marduk, Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, and more (Perkūnas, Perun, Indra, Dyaus, and Zojz). This god was usually depicted with bull horns and/or holding lightning bolts. In mythology, the sky god “defeated” the primordial god (or gods). This tale is called the succession myth and it gets repeated in Babylon, Greece, Rome, and many other places. This god is a shape-shifting rapist who can appear as a bull, a serpent, a swan, an eagle, or even a shepherd. As Éomer says in The Two Towers, “The white wizard is cunning,” so is the fertility god. * Satan is the storm god. Yes, the “S” word. This came as a shock, since I enjoy reading Greek and Roman mythology. But really, how did I miss it for so long? The horns often depicted on Satan are exactly like the bull horns of Baal. And Baal = Marduk = Zeus = Jupiter = Thor = Satan. Baal is Zeus. Baal is also Satan. They are all the same character. Jesus even calls Satan ‘Beelzebul,' which is a version of Baal-Zebub, the Philistine deity of Baal/Zeus equivalent. Better yet, Beelzebul is actually a mocking name that riffs on Beelzebub. “Prince Baal” or “Lord Baal” is modified by Jesus to mock “Baal of flies” or “Lord of dung.” This mockery also took me aback, because if Jesus mocks the sky gods, it proves that God does indeed have a sense of humor. There is word play going on. Jesus again mocks the sky god a second time when he gives the nickname “Sons of Thunder” to James and John (Mk 3:17), which means sons of the sky god, a.k.a. Zeus. Like most nicknames, it is not a compliment. When they call for revenge on those who oppose Jesus, James and John are acting like Baal or Zeus or Satan. James and John ask, “Lord, do you want us to call down fire from heaven to consume them?” Jesus turned and rebuked them. (Lk 9:54) Jesus is the polar opposite of the cruel and vengeful sky god. In other words, Jesus is God, and God is love. This is the opposite of the fallen angel named Satan, who shape-shifts and goes by many other names. (Yet for some reason God allows Satan to divide, distract, and deceive us in this world, which is the great head-scratcher for us all and takes a lifetime to understand.) * Keep in mind that all myths are victory tales and founding narratives. They are written and told to justify for the current state of affairs in the world. When you read any myth, you have to read it from the perspective of the myth-makers. Babel is part of Israel's story, but if the other side told the story of Babel, it would be a very different tale, where the temple at Babel would be seen like St. Peter in Rome or Notre Dame in Paris. * The intention and goal of building the Tower of Babel versus the intention building St. Peter or Notre Dame is starkly different. The “Gate to God” is being built up to “the sky.” The Tower is meant to bring god down to earth (just like in Ghostbusters - more on that later) and make a name for the people. St. Peter and Notre Dame are built to give glory to God, not to people. This fundamental misunderstanding of God makes all the difference, both in our individual lives and in the pursuits of nations. * The God of Israel cannot be controlled. He does not need us. We need him. If you read the Tower of Babel at only the surface level, at the “How the Tiger got its stripes” level, where it's only about how the various languages came to be, you will get something out of it. That is a valid, literal reading, but you will miss the greater significance of the story. Know before you start: God doesn't make transactions with his creatures. Praying for what you want can work out in strange ways, but it always works out in how God wills it. He gets the last laugh, you might say. Even the great destroyers of faith, Marx, Voltaire, Hume, Russell, Dawkins, et al. are part of God's plan somehow. He allows doubt and struggle for reasons we cannot understand, but like Joseph in Egypt, when we realized that all his struggles had a purpose: “Even though you meant harm to me, God meant it for good.” (Gen 50:20) Without this understanding of God, we are trying to manipulate him and make him dance. But he is the one who makes us dance, and it's much easier to dance with him than to try to lead. He is Tolkien and we are Frodo. We are his characters. We cannot reach up and grab the author, and that is exactly what the builders at Babel are trying to do. This is a really, really bad idea for us to try, both then and now. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.whydidpetersink.com

Friends of the Rosary: At that time, Jesus said (Jn 17:20-26) to His Father, "The world does not know you." Also, He asked (Lk 18:8) "When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?" Two thousand years later, a vast part of the world continues showing the same ignorance. Men and women continue finding solutions to their happiness in the wrong sources — namely, pleasures, money, and honors — rejecting the eternal truth. Like then, the root of the problem is our pride and arrogance which leads us to behave like small Gods, implementing solutions that make us unhappy and addicted. Only in our Trinitarian God, we will find the joy and peace we are looking for. Ave Maria! Jesus, I Trust In You! + Mikel A. | RosaryNetwork.com, New York • November 15, 2021, Today's Rosary on YouTube | Daily broadcast at 7:30 pm ET

November 15: Saint Albert the Great, Bishop and Doctorc. 1206–1280Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: WhitePatron Saint of natural scientistsHe knew everything, taught Aquinas, and placed his complex mind at the Church's serviceSaint Francis de Sales wrote that the knowledge of the priest is the eighth Sacrament of the Church. If that is true, then today's saint was a sacrament unto himself. There was little that Saint Albert did not know and little that he did not teach. His mastery of all the branches of knowledge of his age was so manifest that he was called “The Great” and the “Universal Doctor.”Albert was born in Germany and educated in Italy. During his university studies, he was introduced to the recently founded Dominican Order and joined their brotherhood. While continuing his long course of formal studies, Albert was sent by his superiors to teach in Germany. He spent twenty years as a professor in various religious houses and universities until he finally obtained his degree and began to teach as a master in 1248. His most famous student was the Italian Dominican Thomas Aquinas, whose rare intellectual gifts Albert recognized and cultivated. Albert was also made the Prior of a Dominican Province in Germany, was a personal theologian and canonist to the Pope, preached a Crusade in Germany, and was appointed the Bishop of Regensburg for less than two years before resigning. Albert was neither ruthless nor politically minded, and the complex web of elites who had interests in his diocese required a bishop to display a sensitivity to power relationships which was not among Albert's skills.After his short time as a diocesan bishop, Albert spent the rest of his life teaching in Cologne, punctuated by travels to the Second Council of Lyon in 1274 and to Paris in 1277 to defend Aquinas from his theological enemies. Albert's complete works total thirty-eight volumes on virtually every field of knowledge known to his age: scripture, philosophy, astronomy, physics, mathematics, theology, spirituality, mineralogy, chemistry, zoology, biology, justice, and law. Albert's assiduous study of animals, plants, and nature was groundbreaking, and he debunked reigning myths about various natural phenomena through close personal observation. He devoured all the works of Aristotle and organized and distilled their content for his students, re-introducing the great Greek philosopher to the Western world forever and always. This life-long project of philosophical commentary was instrumental in grounding subsequent Catholic theological research on a wide and sturdy platform of critical thinking, which has been a hallmark of Catholic intellectual life ever since.Albert's comprehensive approach to all knowledge contributed to the flourishing of the nascent twelfth-century institutions of learning known as universities. The “uni” in university implied that all knowledge was centered around one core knowledge—that of God and His Truth. The modern understanding is that a “multiversity” is merely an administrative forum in which numerous branches of knowledge spread out in pursuit of their separate truths unhinged from any central focus or purpose.Saint Albert's prodigious mind never ceased to be curious. Every bit of knowledge which he culled led him to gather even more. His encyclopedic knowledge embraced reality itself as one sustained instance of God loving the world. No bifurcation, no subcategories, no “my truth” and no “your truth.” God was real and God was knowable. Reality and Truth were one for Albert and his era, and autonomous reason could be trusted to lead the honest, rational seeker to those eternal verities. Albert was beatified in 1622 and was canonized and named a Doctor of the Church in 1931.Saint Albert the Great, your knowledge of the sacred and physical sciences understood God as a total reality. Through your divine intercession, help the faithful to see reality not as divided but as an expression of the Trinitarian God, a knowable person who is accessible to reason.

The Church Fathers teach that the body is not the "container" for the soul, but the soul is the "container" of the body, and is everywhere throughout the body. This view is reflected in Jesus' statements, "The eye [the soul, according to the Fathers] is the light of the body. So, if your eye is sound [integrated, one], your whole body will be full of light; but if your eye is not sound, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!" When the soul, which is everywhere in the body, is suffering and sick, the body is suffering and sick. But in Christ, man is the subject and co-creator of the salvation and redemption of both his body and soul (Theology of the Body, JPII), so that the whole human person, soul and body, becomes "full of light." Thank you to my newest Friends of the Show, Rhonda S; Priya P-H; and Jody C, for loving and lifting me! Friends of the Show get all Premium Content and monthly meet-ups with Sonja: We're studying the Book of Romans! September's Monthly Bible Study Meet-up for Friends of the Show is tonight, September 19 at 7:00 PM CDT.  LOVE the Word® is a Bible study method based on Mary's own practice: lectio without the Latin. Get the book based on Sonja's method in the right margin, How to Pray Like Mary.   L | Listen (Receive the Word via audio or video.)  O | Observe (Connect the passage to your life and recent events.) Several things in this episode blew my mind when studying for it. Did anything jump out at you? What is the Holy Spirit inviting you to? V | Verbalize (Pray about your thoughts and emotions.) Tell Him everything in your heart right now.  Remembering that He loves you and that you are in His presence, talk to God about the particulars of your O – Observe step. You may want to write your reflections in your LOVE the Word® journal. Or, get a free journal page and guide in the right-hand margin. E | Entrust (May it be done to me according to your word!) Precious Blood of Jesus, flow through me. Mary, Mother of Divine Love, take the Precious Blood of Jesus to the throne of God, the Father, and offer it in sweet humble adoration, then send it back flowing by the Holy Spirit as a healing of body, mind, heart, and soul. Grant me complete and total healing as I cooperate with you, Lord Jesus, in the healing of my soul and body as you direct. Amen. + Get Healed Already! Connect Join me in the Sacred Healing community, where I'm offering healing prayer livestreams, Bible studies, LOVE the Word® takeaways, a healing masterclass and other courses, a dynamic phone app, and a flourishing community to help you experience deeper healing.  What We Discussed | Show Notes Overview: Minutes 00:12:00 – The body reveals the Trinitarian God and is healed by love; we are both the subject and co-creators of suffering and salvation Minutes 12:01-24:00 – The human soul is created with the body at conception; the soul as everywhere in the body as the body's "container" Minutes 24:01-36:00 – The disorder of soul and body at the fall, and loss of control of the body; restoration and elevation in Christ and proper hierarchy of the human person Minutes 36:01-48:00 – Suffering, its meaning and purpose as personal and apostolic purification in JPII's Salvifici Doloris  Transcript Click here for a transcript of the show. 

Why do we worship a God who is “one in three and three in one?” The Trinity is the most crucial and yet one of the most confusing parts of our Christian doctrine. It is also easy to make the mistake of assuming the Trinity did not exist as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit until the New Testament. Yet we worship a God who is unchanging, and the Old Testament shows us that our Trinitarian God has been and will always be from the very first words of scripture.

Why do we worship a God who is “one in three and three in one?” The Trinity is the most crucial and yet one of the most confusing parts of our Christian doctrine. It is also easy to make the mistake of assuming the Trinity did not exist as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit until the New Testament. Yet we worship a God who is unchanging, and the Old Testament shows us that our Trinitarian God has been and will always be from the very first words of scripture.

How Does God Say He Loves You: Part 5 The New Covenant MESSAGE SUMMARY: There is a difference in knowing about someone and really knowing someone. Our New Covenant with God gives you and I the ability to Know God in a Personal Way. This New Covenant was fulfilled in Jesus the Christ, as Jesus tells us in Luke 22:19-20: “And he took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it and gave it to them, saying, ‘This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.' And likewise the cup after they had eaten, saying, ‘This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.'”.   Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's New Covenant with us. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. In the Book of the Covenant (Exodus Deuteronomy 20 through 23 and Deuteronomy), the people made a Blood Covenant with God – the people promised God all that the God has said we will do. Therefore, the people would receive blessings or curses based upon what they did. However, the people always seemed to gravitate toward evil – doing what was wrong in the Lord's sight. With the people's sin, he kingdom was split into the “Northern Kingdom (Israel)” and the “Southern Kingdom (Judah)”; and still the people inclined their hearts and behaviors toward evil. Again, God responded by destroying Jerusalem and the Temple and exiling the people to Babylon because they broke their Covenant with Him. However, in Jeremiah 31:31-34, God declared that that he would make a New Covenant: “Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,' for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”. This New Covenant that God promised applies to us as well as the people of Jesus' time. The New Covenant is not focused on The Law but on “Knowing God” and having a personal relationship with Him – we are all equal now before God. With this New Covenant, the Apostle John tells us of God's love and God's desire for intimacy with us in 1 John 2:1-2: “My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.". We have this New Covenant because God does for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His New Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen.    Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM A CHILD OF GOD. Yet to all who received Him, to those who believed in His Name, He gave the right to become children of God-- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (John 1:12f). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): John 4:26; Luke 22:19-20; Jeremiah 31:31-34; 1 Peter 2:9; 1 John 2:1-2 (Click below to read the full Bible text for these scripture references.). A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “To Be a Jesus Follower, You Must First Enter the Only Door to God's Kingdom and that Door is Jesus – the Door to Eternal Life”: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/   DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

How Does God Say I Love You, Part 4: Violation of the Covenant MESSAGE SUMMARY: “Rejecting the Covenant and the God of the Covenant will eventually lead a person to a place of stubbornness, hardness of heart, and then their destruction.” Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's Covenant with Moses. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. We begin by looking at Israel's current king in 2 Chronicles 36, King Zedekiah, who was successor descendant of King David and a Godly father, King Josiah. We need to remember that King David had built the kingdom and the nation of Israel into a great nation through a foundation of a commitment to God and the Covenant God had given to His people – King David made God His priority, and David made God's priorities his priorities. God is interested in those who seek first His kingdom. Also, from King David's life, we know that God expects one who sins to repent and return to Him. David's son, Solomon, tells us to “fear God and keep His commandments”. After King Solomon, God's people experienced a series of Kings – some who kept God's Covenant and some who do not keep God's Covenant. Subsequently, David's single Kingdom, that brought together the Twelve Tribes, is divided into the northern kingdom of Israel and the southern kingdom of Judah. Zedekiah is in deep trouble and in an impossible situation with Babylon laying siege to Jerusalem. Rather than calling on God for help, Zedekiah sends an envoy to Egypt. Zedekiah has rejected God and God's Covenant (2 Chronicles 36:12-14): “He did what was evil in the sight of the LORD his God. He did not humble himself before Jeremiah the prophet, who spoke from the mouth of the LORD. He also rebelled against King Nebuchadnezzar, who had made him swear by God. He stiffened his neck and hardened his heart against turning to the LORD, the God of Israel. All the officers of the priests and the people likewise were exceedingly unfaithful, following all the abominations of the nations. And they polluted the house of the LORD that he had made holy in Jerusalem.". In desperation, Zedekiah now appeals to the Prophet Jeremiah for a miracle from God, whom he had rejected, to save his kingdom from the attack by Babylon's King Nebuchadnezzar (Jerimiah 21). God answers Zedekiah's plea for salvation through Jerimiah in Jerimiah 21:5-7: “'I {God} myself will fight against you with outstretched hand and strong arm, in anger and in fury and in great wrath. And I will strike down the inhabitants of this city, both man and beast. They shall die of a great pestilence. Afterward', declares the LORD, ‘I will give Zedekiah king of Judah and his servants and the people in this city who survive the pestilence, sword, and famine into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of their enemies, into the hand of those who seek their lives.'". Our God is a Covenant God, and He keeps His Covenants. When the people of God obeyed their Covenant with God they were blessed; but when they disobeyed, they were cursed – just like the people under King Zedekiah. The significance of the Scripture from 2 Chronicles 36 and Jerimiah 21 for us today: 1) God is a Covenant God; 2) as recipients of the New Covenant through Jesus, we are assured of God's forgiveness; 3) rejecting the Covenant and the God of the Covenant will eventually lead us to a place of stubbornness, hardness of heart, and then to our destruction; 4) God will try again and again to draw us back to Himself, but if we are hardened we don't hear God; and 5) our relationship with God is based solely on our relationship with God and not God's relationship with others – Zedekiah's father was a Godly man who did great things for his people, but Zedekiah's unfaithful relationship with God and God's Covenant brought destruction to Zedekiah and his kingdom. God desires a personal relationship with each of us, and God has given us His Covenants upon which to build our relationship with Him. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen.   Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION:Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM RIGHTEOUS IN GOD'S EYES. God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): 2 Chronicles 36:11-23; Jerimiah 21:1-10; Hebrews 3:12-15; Psalms 49:1-20. A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “God Sees Jesus Followers as “In Christ”: “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus””: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/   DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

How God Says He Loves Us: Part 3 -- The Covenant with Moses Message Summary: Throughout human history, God has reached out to humans for a personal relationship and to express His love for humankind. We have a God that loves us so much, and God's love for us is expressed to us through His “covenants”. Also, God's “covenants” reveal to us His grace and faithfulness. In today's message, we will discuss God's Covenant with Moses. A “covenant” can be defined as an “oath or promise of God”. In a Biblical covenant: 1) God establishes the Covenant; 2) God always implies that “I am your God, and you are my people” – God desires a personal relationship with us; and 3) God sets the Covenant's terms and rulers. After God's Covenant with Abraham, his son Isaac became the recipient of God's blessings. Subsequently, Isaac had two sons. One of Isaac's sons was Jacob, and God changed Jacobs name to Israel. Jacob had twelve sons, and they evolved into the “Twelve Tribes of Israel”. In Genesis 37, the focus begins upon Isaac's son Joseph; and Genesis ends, in Genesis 50, with Joseph's death in Egypt. In Exodus 1, two hundred and fifty years have passed since the death of Joseph. During this time, God's people and the people of Egypt forgot about Joseph. God's people became fruitful and multiplied, but they forgot about God and God's Covenant with Abraham; and the people began to worship idols. Exodus 2 presents the birth of Moses., and Exodus 3 includes God's call to Moses and God's appearance to Moses through the burning bush. Since God had a blood covenant with His people, He sent Moses to tell Pharaoh to let His people leave Egypt. Pharaoh said “no”, so God sent nine plagues on the people of Egypt – nine chances for their Repentance. Since Pharaoh continued to say “no”, God sent the tenth plague on the people of Egypt – a plague of Judgement on the people of Egypt. After the Passover for His people in the Plague of Judgement, Pharaoh relented and let God's people leave Egypt. In Exodus 19, God's people wound up on Mount Sini, and God made the “Sini Covenant” with Moses in Exodus 19:4-6: “You yourselves have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine; and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”. In prior covenants, God did everything; but in this “Sini Covenant”, the people had obligations. God gives His Law, the Ten Commandments, to His people as God speaks directly to them in Exodus 20. The Glory of God, when He was speaking directly to His people, was too much for the people; and they feared a direct personal relationship with God, and they wanted Moses or an intermediary to speak to them for God – they rejected a personal relationship with God just has humans have been doing ever since. In Exodus 21, Exodus 22, and Exodus 23 (“The Book of the Covenant”), God takes His Ten Commandments and He applies the Ten Commandments to our everyday living. In Exodus 24:3,7-8, Moses takes God's Book of the Covenant to the people: “Moses came and told the people all the words of the LORD and all the rules. And all the people answered with one voice and said, ‘All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do.' Then he took the Book of the Covenant and read it in the hearing of the people. And they said, ‘All that the LORD has spoken we will do, and we will be obedient.' And Moses took the blood and threw it on the people and said, ‘Behold the blood of the covenant that the LORD has made with you in accordance with all these words.'”. Deuteronomy 28 presents the “blessings” for the people if they adhere to their promises to God in the “Book of the Covenant”. On the other hand, Deuteronomy 28 lays out the “curses” for non-adherence to the Covenant. Within six weeks, God's people, who had said “All the words that the LORD has spoken we will do”, had disobeyed and broken their Covenant with God. The disobedience of God's people is significant to us today because “it shows us what sin is”. “God is unconditional love” (1 John 4:16); and in this Covenant, God made plain to all of us “what sin is”. “We are made by God to be perfect mirrors of God's Agape love.” Our sin is our failure to act as the God of Agape love acts. Sin is our self-centeredness.  “The opposite of love is not hate; sin is me.” The Ten Commandments are not negative; they are God's Agape love because they show us what a life of love and without sin and death does not include. Jesus tells us the most important Commandment in Mark 12:28-30: “'. . . Which commandment is the most important of all?' Jesus answered, ‘The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these.'”. The people of Israel continued to mess up and sin, but they continued to sacrifice a lamb for their sin thinking that their sacrifice brought their lives of sin back into adherence with their Covenant. However, in both God's impatience with our sin and in His Agape love and His adherence to this Covenant, God sent the perfect Lamb as His and our sacrifice for our sin – Jesus the Christ. This old Covenant points to God's New Covenant – Jesus' death on the cross and His Resurrection. Have you asked Jesus into your life so that your sin is atoned? If not, then there is a blot between you and God. Remember, the God who made Covenant with Moses is Jesus of our Trinitarian God.   TODAY'S PRAYER: Keeping the Sabbath, Lord, will require a lot of changes in the way I am living life. Teach me, Lord, how to take the next step with this in a way that fits my unique personality and situation. Help me to trust you with all that will remain unfinished and to enjoy my humble place in your very large world. In Jesus' name, amen.  Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality Day by Day (p. 129). Zondervan. Kindle Edition. TODAY'S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that because of what God has done for me in His Son, Jesus, I AM FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him! (Luke 11:13). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Genesis 3:15; Genesis 37:1-36; Genesis 39:1-23; Genesis 41:1-57; Genesis 42:1-38; Genesis 43:1-34; Genesis 44:1-34; Genesis 45:1-28; Genesis 46:1-34; Genesis 47:1-31; Genesis 50:1-26;  Exodus 1:1-22; Exodus 2:1-25; Exodus 3:1-22; Exodus 19:3-11; Exodus 24:1-18; Deuteronomy 28:1-68; 1 John 4:16; Mark 12:29-30; A WORD FROM THE LORD WEBSITE: www.AWFTL.org. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH'S DAILY DEVOTIONAL – “Your Sin Is Never Too Great so that You Are Lost to God's Salvation - “Return to Me {God}, and I Will Return to You””: https://awordfromthelord.org/devotional/   DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

The second chapter of Acts is a pivotal moment, not just in Acts, but in the entire storyline of the Bible. We have 120 people in a room waiting for the promise Jesus had made to them: that they would be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The day is Pentecost, a Jewish pilgrimage festival exactly 50 days after Passover, and on this year exactly 50 days after the cross of Christ. Suddenly, these people had a wind blow through them and a fire fall on them. But what is really going on in this moment? These things represent more than just a bizarre moment that seems it could have ended with scalded hair. The story, while true, also connects this moment to the larger story of Scripture revealing the Trinitarian God and the power of the Holy Spirit. Today we will look at the doctrine of the Holy Spirit and the importance of our relationship with Him; and yes, it is Him, not It. We will see that the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in our lives will bring some very distinctive marks—marks that changed the people in this room and that will change us as well.

This is the first in a series of episodes on the story of God. We've talked about seeing reality as a story, we've talked about Apocalypse or spiritual revelation as to the nature of that story, and in our Endgame episode we talked about what it's like at the end of the story. But exactly what story is it that we're in? Where does it begin and how did we get here?We argue that the place to begin is with God. In doing so we talk at length about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, we spend some time discussing the hundreds of years the early Church spent developing this doctrine, we discuss what it means practically in our daily lives that God is a Trinitarian God, and we end with a practice that I think you will find helpful in restoring your relationship with the persons of the Trinity.We are invited not only to form our minds around the doctrine of the Trinity but to encounter the Trinity in an immediate and personal way.You can find links and more show notes at https://mountvigil.org/mount-vigil-podcast-episode-5/