Spiritual Mathematical Knot

Spiritual Mathematical Knot

A conversation on Facebook helped me appreciate the ultimate spiritual mathematical knot – drawing closer to God. Baha'i RingstoneResponding to a Baha’i quote on the challenges inherent in searching for God a friend posted this tongue-in-cheek response “So. Pretty easy overall.” A mathematical formula to describe how easy it might be came to me in a flash. The difficulty we have in finding and drawing near to God equals our actual distance from God divided by how close we think we are. Let’s unpack this spiritual mathematical knot.
 

Thinking we have God in our back pocket creates a mathematical impossibility. You can’t divide by zero. This is the challenge facing those who, like I once did, think they are comparatively closer to God than others. 

A group I once belonged to was über-obedient. We kept many Torah Commandments, like the Sabbath, Holy days, and food laws. By having both the law and the testimony of Christ we believed we were closer to God than anyone else on earth. In some ways, maybe we were. We took God at His Word and organized every aspect of our life around obeying, following and worshiping Him.

impossible divideAnd yet belief in proximity to God kept us from drawing any closer. My personal battle with this is described in painful personal detail across the pages of the first two books of my Trilogy.  The People of the Sign describes my involvement with the Worldwide Church of God and its 1995 implosion. That devastating fail was underscored by many members blaming the other side instead of becoming introspective. Being a victim of divorce and kidnapping helped me understand the two sides. Detachment helped me realize I was nowhere near as close to God as I had thought, opening up the “valley of search” described by the Baha’i quote that led to this blog.

Spiritual Proximity Sensor 2

My personal search around the world is described in The Hardness of the Heart. How we view and treat our fellow man is directly related to how open our heart is to God. Self-sufficiency, judgmental attitudes and the belief that we already have enough of God in our lives creates an impassible divide between us and God.

There are many ways to conclude we are as close to God as possible, which becomes self-fulfilling. How close are you to God?Fear of turning to God due to feelings of guilt and inadequacy are but mirror images of this arrogance. They are also expressions of a focus on ourselves. These too are fetters of ego that create distance.

Yet anyone who thinks they are far away from God can easily draw nearer just by deciding to. Recognizing the distance allows us to instantly decrease it. Think of how Christ welcomed and embraced sinners, while condemning the Pharisees. Apparently such spiritual equations function more like quantum mechanics than classical physics.

How close are you to God?This makes searching for God  sound easier than it is, of course. But on the other hand, we usually make it harder than it is. And I think that was the point of my friend’s cheeky, and well-timed response to my Facebook post. Thank God for friends who help us untie spiritual mathematical knots. Or tie them, as the case may be.

Are you as close to God as you want to be? Or knot? John 13:35 says everyone can know who follows Christ by a simple test. Do you know what it is?
The Yellow Star

The Yellow Star

Auschwitz_outerwear_distinguish_yellow_Star_of_DavidThe book The People of the Sign is, among other things, an exploration from the inside of the Sign of the Mosaic Covenant.  The book outlines, in living detail, what it was, and what it did for the 12 tribes of Israel, which had just been freed from Pharaoh’s oppressive clutches. In a sense it placed a Yellow Star on a people destined to stand in the gap, at the End of Days.  My upcoming conclusion to the saga – The Rod of Iron – answers the questions raised by the first two volumes, especially questions related to Jewish Identity.  After 2,520 years of punishment, culminating – unfortunately – in the Holocaust, those identified by the Yellow Star would be virtually forced by these circumstances to reassemble in the Promised Land.  This fulfilled God’s divine purpose – whether they liked it or not.

Yes, you read that right.

This wasn’t known to me a the time I began writing this trilogy, but by the time I completed the manuscript this handwriting was clearly on the wall, even for those like me, who weren’t looking in that direction.  And the presence of this nation of Jews is at the center of the unraveling of an entire civilization.  Let’s look at a few examples of the madness

It is common practice to blame the refugee situation in the Arab world on Israel, but as this link clearly shows, the chronic nature of the Palestinian Refugee problem is a symptom of a broader illness, one which is not caused by having a stable Democratic Multicultural regime (Israel) in the region.  Against this backdrop of 18 million refugees, and more and more armed unrest, we have Iran pulling the nose of the West, on it’s way to armed nuclear status.  And speaking of pulling the nose of the West…

Jews excluded from kristallnachtGlobally it is becoming cool to hate Israel.  This video which portrays the threat to Jewish student leaders in the U.S. is chilling.  The resurgence of global antisemitism, which prior to WWII had its roots in Russia and Europe and as a result of the Holocaust went underground for 60 years, has resurfaced with a vengeance.  But I’m not aware of it ever having such a foothold here.  Right now it seems to be gaining ground.  Here’s another nearly unbelievable headline.  Jews are being excluded from a Kristallnacht memorial. You can’t make this stuff up.

Large segments of humanity are clearly applying the Yellow Star to the only Jewish state on the planet, which has been fighting for the right to exist since before it was born.

But the backlash against this hatred will be severe.  The People of the Sign suffered in Egypt, and their boy babies were put to death.  Moses survived, and once God acted to free them, the armies of Pharaoh were powerless to bind them again with the shackles from which they had been freed.  The modern enactment of this was more severe, more extreme.  And it is the world of Islam that today is playing the role of Pharaoh.

This short 2013 video from Jordanian TV is an example of how hatred pours forth and empowers the accelerating showdown between Islam and Israel.  IUMS Member Tareq Hawwas delivers this Antisemitic diatribe in a manner that seems calm and reasoned, starting slow and building to this mind-boggling set of unbelievably evil comments: “They have a good understanding of finances, and therefore… when they were dispersed throughout the world in the days of Hitler…  Incidentally, most of what is said about the massacre is exaggeration and lies.  If only Hitler had finished them off, thus relieving humanity of them.  But Hitler was more merciful than they are themselves.  They exploited this minor incident in order to extort the world.”

When respected “Scholars” are instructing the masses in this manner, it is not surprising that the entire region is aflame.  What is surprising is that the rest of the world allows, and even encourages the raging fire.  In the end, all of us will be sucked into that vortex in one way or another.  At that time, we should remember the song of Moses, and it’s introduction from Exodus chapter 13.  “And Moses said unto the people, Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will shew to you to day: for the Egyptians whom ye have seen to day, ye shall see them again no more for ever.”

106_Conrad_Cichorius,_Die_Reliefs_der_Traianssäule,_Tafel_CVIYellow Star or not, the People of the Sign have paid their dues.   After 2,520 years the Times of the Gentiles are ended.  As nations gather around Jerusalem with the evil intent of creating a valley of death the returning remnant of Israel need fear no evil.  The Rod of Iron will ensure that the Iron Dome will be effective.

 

Recognizing Hate

Recognizing Hate

A few days ago I blogged about Sweden’s decision to recognize a Palestinian State.  Now a non-binding British vote delivers a crushing majority for recognition of what Gatestone calls a “Racist, Terrorist, Apartheid State”.

Meanwhile, $5.4 Billion in reconstruction aid has now been promised to the Gaza strip with no requirement to disarm, nor any legitimate controls to ensure it won’t be used to rearm for war. Au Contraire – Iran is broadcasting its intentions to continue arming the Palestinians for more wars against Israel.  This linked article labels recent attacks from Gaza “the start of the ‘divine promise’ of destroying the Jewish state.”

And to complete the picture, Abbas promises a period of peace which dovetails nicely with Iran’s successful negotiations to buy the time and space that it needs to create nuclear weapons.

Recognizing hateRecognizing hate should lead to condemning and counteracting it.  Instead, when it comes to hatred against Israel, we recognize it as legitimate.  We fund it.  We give it statehood.

How on earth did we as a species arrive at an insane condition in which millions of fanatical people have become intent on destroying a tiny nation built by survivors of one of the most, if not the most, horrifying genocides ever committed?  And if that wasn’t enough, millions of “enlightened moderates” blame the victim as justification to support, arm, fund and thereby encourage the hate of the fanatics!

The short answer, imho, is that human hypocrisy is a primary source of all evil.  I like to define hypocrisy as the creation / acceptance of false equivalencies and the application of double standards.  These subtle manifestations of bias and duplicity aggregate up with horrendous results.

There are longer answers, which also provide insight into the aggregation of such hypocrisy, and also the antidote to it.  If you are interested in my take on this topic, please cast your vote for my upcoming book The Rod of Iron which provides a more complete answer.

The Covenant Signs

The Covenant Signs

The Mosaic CovenantThe People of the Sign tells the seemingly tall tale of a wild and woolly journey crossing virtually every terrain known to man.  The protagonist (yours truly) is tossed across these landscapes by disorienting childhood experiences and navigates toward a new home in Christ using a compass on which True North is defined as the Sign of the Mosaic Covenant.  The resulting school-of-hard-knocks lessons leave our hero scanning the skies trying to connect the dots of the heavenly stars in an effort to escape a dead end.

The sequel, The Hardness of the Heart, drops the reader in waters more profound, with circular waves spreading out in a wider, but no-less relentless search for answers.  The rudder of the Sign of the Mosaic Covenant is replaced by a greater understanding of the Signs that Christ gave.  In the current, however, we find that these 2,000 year old answers are not current enough.

On the shore beckons a third volume, The Rod of Iron (please click and vote to help land its publication date) which provides a road map updated with additional Covenant Signs, designed to better orient us in the present day. Understanding where we are at in the divine unfolding of humanity’s destiny, in the clear light of these Covenant Signs, is the primary aim of this trilogy, especially the concluding volume.

We see the tide of radical and militant Islam, for example, challenging our understanding of the Christian Covenant, which is focused on Loving our neighbor, or to use a more ancient formulation of that principle, our brother.  I submit that lessons laid down at the time of Adam, wherein Cain slew Abel, and God asked him about it, are pertinent to this discussion.  The question for us is whether we are willing to be our brother’s keeper, or if we follow in the way of Cain?

To find out how we should behave, in order to be the former, we can fast forward from Cain to Noah.  Upon close examination we learn that the Covenant Signs are fractal patterns of importance to subsequent history.

Sign of the Noachian CovenantSome say the Noachian Covenant is unconditional. I say this is not entirely true. Yes, the promise encompassed in its Sign is unconditional – but God lays out conditions that go along with that unconditional promise. Look at Genesis 9, especially verses 4-6, and consider how they integrate with the promise in the Sign of the Rainbow.

9:1 And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.
2 And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hand are they delivered.
3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.
4 But flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall ye not eat.
5 And surely your blood of your lives will I require; at the hand of every beast will I require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man’s brother will I require the life of man.
6 Whoso sheddeth man’s blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man.
7 And you, be ye fruitful, and multiply; bring forth abundantly in the earth, and multiply therein.
8 And God spake unto Noah, and to his sons with him, saying,
9 And I, behold, I establish my covenant with you, and with your seed after you;
10 And with every living creature that is with you, of the fowl, of the cattle, and of every beast of the earth with you; from all that go out of the ark, to every beast of the earth.
11 And I will establish my covenant with you, neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a flood; neither shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth.
12 And God said, This is the token of the covenant which I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
13 I do set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the earth.
14 And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
16 And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth.
17 And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that is upon the earth.

My point may seem to advocate vigilante justice, and there may in fact have been a time and place for that.  But as we roll through history, accumulating the lessons of Moses and Christ, we find that we are required to set up systems of justice that incorporate the requirements of all the Covenants.   It is our responsibility to establish courts and the rule of law, and to implement national systems, to resist evil doers and administer the just punishment required by law, while our personal burden is to love and forgive.  Without both of these, neither is possible.

Are the Signs of the Covenants represented in the Zodiak?Such insights are, IMHO, critical for those who wish to understand how God has been developing His creation, over time, particularly the pinnacle of His creation – Man. The Covenant Signs are critical to find our route on the spiritual road map.  The Covenant Signs not only help us understand the direction we need to take, they show us the only path to our intended destination.

The Rod of Iron adds so much more to this discussion, and I hope you’ll take a moment to click on the link and vote for it.  In the meantime, if you’re interested in actively engaging in a dialogue on this and related topics, please join us in The People of the Sign facebook discussion group.