Category: Jesus

Tuning In To God’s Frequency

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(c) Can Stock Photo
(c) Can Stock Photo

When two tuning forks are tuned to the same frequency, they harmonize with each other. More than that, when one is vibrating, the other will begin to vibrate. This phenomenon is called “sympathetic vibration”. 

This is the phenomenon to which Ted Dekker alludes in this short passage from The Forgotten Way:

“When you have two tuning forks in a room and one begins to vibrate the other will also begin to vibrate if it’s tuned to the same frequency. They resonate. They abide in each other’s frequency.” 

Even if the two tuning forks are at the same frequency, however, sympathetic resonance does not happen unless two additional factors are present: the tuning forks are close to each other, and one of the tuning forks is quiet (not already vibrating).

The tuning fork illustration is very apt for understanding our relationship to God. If we are tuned to God’s frequency, we will resonate with Him and abide in Him. When we are tuned to God’s frequency, “the Spirit Himself bears witness[1] with our spirit that we are children of God.”[2]

God’s Spirit and our spirit are like the tuning forks. When we are on the same frequency with God, we resonate with God, but only if we are close enough to Him, and only of we have quieted ourselves. (“Be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46:10))

Such a simple truth, but we struggle so mightily with tuning to God’s frequency, getting close enough to be affected by Him and quieting ourselves.

Continue reading “Tuning In To God’s Frequency” →

The Jesus We Meet in the Gospels

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(c) Can Stock Photo
(c) Can Stock Photo

I didn’t want to read the NY Times article, What Religion Would Jesus Belong To, by Nicholas Kristof.[1] Just as I suspected, the article lacked a deep understanding of Christianity. It lumps Christianity together with other religions of the world in a pluralistic mush. I don’t know the depth of the author’s understanding of Christianity, but it didn’t show in the article (though he claims a conservative Christian background).

Still, the article makes a good point… and I shouldn’t be so reluctant to admit it.

American churches don’t reflect “the Jesus we meet in the Gospels”. Never mind that the author’s proof is another NY Times article complaining of the Christians of the Republican Party.[2] The author seems to equate Jesus with the current political and moral landscape, as if Jesus would condone it, as if the modern American church is the exact representation of Jesus. If the modern American church doesn’t accurately reflect the Jesus we meet in the Gospels, it isn’t a reflection on Jesus; it’s a reflection on the modern American church. Continue reading “The Jesus We Meet in the Gospels” →

Ramblings on Faith and Unbelief

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Bart Eherman Quotation

I became a believer, and then a follower, of Jesus Christ in college. It wasn’t just academic for me, though the beginning of my life as a believer and follower of Jesus began in an academic environment and was shaped and influenced by academics. I think that’s why I like the academic pursuit of faith even now, over 30 years later.

It’s important for me to be mindful that faith is not purely an intellectual affair. I think I may differ from many people in that respect, but I need to constantly be reminded of it. Faith is a relationship with the Living God; faith is a life and heart commitment; faith triggers action and change or it isn’t real faith.

I know that the words intellectual and faith probably don’t fit together in the minds of some people. Some people see those terms as opposites. They aren’t, but they can chaff with each other at times. Intellectualism, for instance, really does get in the way of faith (more so in fact than the other way around). Faith and intellectual pursuit can be perfectly compatible unless we compartmentalize them and pit them against each other.

Faith, or the lack thereof, depends on something other than intellectual coinage.  Continue reading “Ramblings on Faith and Unbelief” →

Stepping Into the Light

If we step into the light, our condition is exposed. But, that is where we find truth; that is where we find God

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Psalm 139 is a favorite of mine. It can be very comforting knowing that God is intimately familiar with me. He knows my struggles, my good intentions, what I long for and what I need.

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.

(Psalm 139:1-4) On the other hand, God knows my demons, my sinful thoughts, my envious, hateful, spiteful and selfish thoughts. He not only sees the good things I do and think (that I want others to know); He sees the bad things I do and think (that I want no one to see). The idea that God knows me so well – even better than I know myself – is both a wonderful and a fearful thing!

The amazing thing is that He loves me. He knows me intimately – better than I know myself. and He loves me.

Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence

(Psalm 139:7) King David’s question is rhetorical of course. The answer is clearly nowhere. Nowhere can I go that God is not present. David takes comfort in that thought.

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.

(Psalm 139:8-10) That knowledge is as unnerving as it is comforting. Nowhere can I go that God is not present and nothing can I do, or even think, that God does not know it. David knew this full well. He learned it intimately through experience.

After he was tempted and succumbed to that temptation, seeing Bathsheba from his roof top, inviting her into his home and lying with her, and then plotting to send her husband to his death to cover up the misdeed, David was called to account by God in dramatic fashion. David’s sin was laid bare. He was completely undone by it. So, David knew well these words:

If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.

(Psalm 139:11-12) When Adam and Eve sinned in the Garden, their first reaction was to hide themselves from God. People have been hiding from God ever since to this day. Hiding from God is as futile an exercise as it is foolish. God knows every hair on our heads and every thought that runs through our heads. He surely knows every action that we take. There is nothing hidden from God.

Continue reading “Stepping Into the Light” →