Wednesday, April 5, 2017

deceived

 Deuteronomy chapter 4 verse nine says, " Only take heed to yourself, and diligently keep yourself, lest you forget the things your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life, and teach them to your children and grandchildren." I would say that is advice to live by. What is it saying ? To me it says mind your business, don't forget what you have learned in life and pass that to future generations. All those things should be common sense. I find a lot of what is written in the Bible to be common sense. Is that because that is what I was taught or is it because it is just what is ? A lot is dependent upon the society in which we were raised. Judaism and Christianity share the first five books of the bible. Deuteronomy is the fifth one. They are the " laws " of God. Islam started out that way but Mohamed put his own spin on things and perverted all of that. Muslims today like to say they only practice the Christian/Judaism part of their Koran for obvious reasons.
 But I'm getting off track here, what I'm thinking about is common sense and the law of God. God can be anything you want to call him/her. I don't necessarily believe you have to use the name Jesus to believe he was the son of God. Hey, we had to call him something right ? Although our God really has no name. Common sense will tell you he don't need one. And that is something I shake my head at. It has become a popular thing these days when offering our prayers and benedictions to say Lord and God and Jesus every other word. I don't think God wants to hear his " name " he wants to hear your prayers. Does God demand praise ? I don't think so, I think God only demands obedience to his word. Therein lies the issue though, just what words are Gods and which are mans' ? It is my thinking that the Bible contains both. Now I don't profess to be any sort of expert on the Bible or theology. I'm just using common sense here. Those in a position of power, even religious leaders, do have a tendency to, shall we say, write the rules in their favor. The Catholic church didn't get to be the wealthiest religious organization in the world and sustain that wealth for hundreds of years by accident. It is a well run business, the business of spreading Gods word. Isn't that what they say ? I do believe it is a sincere desire to spread the gospel but man is imperfect by nature.
 I have always heard, God the father. Seems straightforward enough to me. A father should give his best advice to his children and grandchildren. Isn't that what Deuteronomy chapter four is doing ? It is saying take heed to yourself, pay attention to what you're doing, in other words, don't forget the lessons of the past. Learn from history ! If we begin to ignore history, fail to learn those lessons, we are doomed to repeat them. A man named George Santayana is credited with saying that. There are those that disagree saying the past will repeat regardless. Personally I believe I can only affect a change at this very moment, I can't change the past or the future. That is also why I believe in the first words of that Bible verse, " Only take heed to yourself. "  I believe that you should not forget what you have learned over the years, remain diligent in your beliefs. If you go changing your mind every time a new idea comes along you aren't going to get very far. It is also important to teach those lessons to your children. The future hinges on what we do today, at this very moment. I can influence what others choose to do but nothing more than that. I can equip my children and grandchildren with the knowledge I have gained, that is my obligation as a parent. I would say this, if you don't have firm beliefs you can't have a firm foundation. Without a firm foundation one can not build anything that will stand the test of time. I can respect those with a firm belief even when that belief is contradictory to mine. What I can't respect are those that just go along with whatever comes down the road. They do so despite common sense telling them otherwise. They do so despite historical evidence of the folly of doing so. It appears they are willing to sacrifice everything to be on the popular side of an issue. They do so and fulfill the warning, " lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life ! " That is what happens and they fail to recognize truth from fiction. Their hearts have forgotten what their eyes have seen and they are deceived.
 The word of God is common sense. That's my thinking on it. My Bible is filled with good sound advice. Advice anyone would do well to take heed to. The Golden rule sums it up nicely wouldn't you say ? The things that are right and wrong haven't changed since the beginning of time. Right is an absolute, as is wrong. We have far too many people that fail to understand that, they have been deceived.

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