-Should we be fasting
as they did in old times to draw close to God? Isaiah
58:3-12.
How much closer to Creator-God
can one be?.The
very presence of His loving nature is in us. However, time spent thinking
on application of spiritual concerns.brings
forth.His
fulness and fasting accelerates other spiritual qualities. Fasting
is like turning your water tap beyond where you normally turn it to.
Acts of love and compassion,
helping the poor, etc., enables the evils that may be affecting our lives
due to acting on the extremely low consciousness ego
we all have, to be broken.(Jehoshaphat's
example
and, fasting for favor:.Esther
4:15-17).
From a
higher consciousness level we become enabled to conquer the arrogance
of the ego level that binds us to many hurtful things, as well as keeping
us bound to the things of our daily habits and away from high effectiveness
things of love for others, such as
...
The body adapts to things
that you do over and over again. Act as you would like to become and you
will become from the heart what was once only acting.
Fasting is one way to crucify
the ego:.Isaiah
58:5-11 "Is it such a fast that I have chosen? A day for a man to afflict
his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush and to spread sackcloth
and ashes under him? Will you call this a fast and an acceptable day to
the Lord? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? To loose the bands
of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed
go free and that you break every yoke? Is it not to deal your
bread to the hungry and that you bring the poor that are cast out
to your house? When you see the naked, that you cover him and that
you hide not yourself from your own flesh? Then shall your light break
forth as the morning and your health spring forth speedily and your
righteousness shall go before thee. The
glory
of the Lord shall be your rereward.(rear
guard for the troops in front; God will be with you all the way).
Then you'll call and the Lord shall answer. You shall cry and he'll say:
Here I am! If you take away from the midst of you the yoke, the putting
forth of the finger.(shaking
the finger in arrogance
at someone you're upset with).and
speaking
vanity.
And if you draw out your soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted
soul, then shall your light rise in obscurity and your darkness be
as the noonday and the Lord shall guide thee continually and satisfy your
soul in drought and make fat thy bones and you shall be like a watered
garden and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not."
Fasting clears the mind because
it provides for the body to concentrate on cleansing itself. Normally the
blood supplies new nourishment to the cells and carries away wastes at
the same time.
Fasting erases arrogance
by taking one away from the sense of self-sufficiency that being engrossed
within our concerns and desires perpetuates. Fasting makes one acutely
aware of the interdependency of our lives.
Because one is free from
fixing food, etc., more time is available for spiritual concerns like study
and thinking time about what has been read and more time for prayer/praise
and meditation. This would be called a spiritual fast and is often combined
with a physical body cleansing/renewing
fast.
The fasts most mentioned
in the
New
Testament after Christ rose from the dead
and became resident in believers are:.Psalms
35:13; 69:10; Joel
2:12-14; Matthew 9:14,15; 1Corinthians
16:13;
Galatians 5:1; Philippians
1:27; 4:1; 1Thessalonians
3:8; 5:21; 2Thessalonians
2:15; 2Timothy 1:13; Titus
1:9; Hebrews 3:6; 4:14;
10:23;
Revelation
2:13,25; 3:3,11.
-What / when are the last
days?
The last days are talked
about in.Genesis
49:1; Acts 2:17; 2Timothy
3:1-5; Hebrews 1:1,2; 1Peter
1:20 and explained
here.
The Bible states
that a day with the Creator is as a thousand years.(2Peter
3:8).and
He created seven days for this era.
It is believed by some that the last part of this week started after Emmanuel
rose from the dead.
Comprised with.Barnes
Notes:.Regarding
the phrase "in the last days". In the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syria and Arabic,
the phrase is rendered "after these things" or "afterwards". The expression
the 'last days', however, occurs frequently in the Old Testament: Genesis
49:1, where Jacob called his sons, that he might tell them what should
happen to them in the last days; that is, in future
times. Hebrew is 'in after times'. Micah
4:1 "In the last days.(Hebrew
'in after times').the mountain of the house of the Lord",
etc..Isaiah
2:2 "In the last days, the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established
in the top of the mountains." Acts 2:17
"And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, I will pour out
of my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy
and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams."
The expression then properly
denoted
the future times in
general but, as the coming of the Messiah
was to their eye the most important event in the coming ages, the great,
glorious and crowning scene in all that vast futurity, the phrase came
to be regarded as properly expressive of that. And they spoke of future
times and of the last times, as the glad period which should be crowned
and honored with the presence and triumphs of the Messiah. It stood in
opposition to the usual denomination of earlier times. It was a phrase
in contrast with the days of the patriarchs, the kings, the prophets, etc.
The last days or the closing
period of the world, were the days of the Messiah. It does not appear from
this and it certainly is not implied in the expression, that they supposed
the world would then come to an end. Their views were just the contrary.
They anticipated a long and glorious time, under the dominion of the Messiah
and to this expectation they were led by the promise that his kingdom should
be forever and that of the increase of his government there should be no
end, etc. This expression was understood by the writers of the New Testament
as referring undoubtedly to the times of the
gospel. And hence they often used it as denoting that the time of the
expected Messiah had come, but not to imply that the world was drawing
near to an end:.Hebrews
1:2 "Has in these last days spoken unto us by his Son." 1Peter
1:20 "Was manifest in these last times for you." 1John
2:18 "Little children, it is the last time".2Peter
3:3; 1Peter 1:5; Jude
1:18. The expression, the last day, is applied by our Savior to the
resurrection and the day of judgment:.John
6:39,40,44,54; 11:24; 12:48.
Here the expression means simply 'in those future times', when the Messiah
shall have come.
This
day today is the time of salvation.(note
here that this time started with Christ's ascension
back to the Father after He was resurrected from the body of Emmanuel;
life on Earth was different before that {Psalms
14:3,4}), now is the time the Creator
wants everyone to awaken out of the
world of sleep and into the spiritual:.Revelation
12:10; Acts 17:30; 1Timothy
2:4 "Who will have all humans saved and to come unto the knowledge
of the truth."
How does one get salvation
today?.Acts
15:11; 16:31; Romans
10:9,13.; Isaiah 53:11.
The last day spoken of in
John
6:54 and earlier in that chapter is talking about the last day of the
age of the Mosaic Law that was to be done
away in Christ.(2Corinthians
3:7-11; Hebrews 10:4,9).by
His
death and resurrection,
which at the time He said was still to
occur.
Today, the 'last day' for
believers is the day of a believer's resurrection.(1Corinthians
15:52).and
that's as good as done.(Romans
4:17 "...God, who quickens the dead and calls those things which be
not as though they were.").once
one is a believer:.John
3:36 "He that believes on the Son has everlasting life..." John
5:24,25 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heard my word and believes
on him that sent me, has everlasting life and shall not come into condemnation,
but is passed from death unto life. Verily, verily, I say unto you, The
hour is coming and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son
of God and they that hear shall live.".Romans
8:23; 1Corinthians
15th chapter.
The last day of one's experience
on Earth is controlled by God
for each person. It's God who decides when one's learning time is done.
If one is not learning, then he or she is has turned to being here just
to heap stuff upon themselves.
Though the Mosaic Law was
done away in Christ, it still carried on with the corrupt religious leaders.(Matthew
23rd chapter).of
the day, that is, until
the massive destruction that so destroyed their depraved
Old Testament religious system.
This bastardized.system
back then was used as a basis
for concocting
their own brand of religious interference.in
order to continue controlling men and women:.2Peter
2:19. The scripture is talking about when Messiah
comes again.(John
14:3), it will close this time.(why
close the time?.Hebrews
10:4,9,16).and
then will be the last day of that age, which came with the destruction
of the corrupt religious order. And when
did He come and was that the final coming?.Hebrews
9:28.
Trials and testings indicates
the time is now to both
awaken and learn spiritually important things. They are needed to bring
those who will respond
into high consciousness,
as the Creator Himself lives within.
Salvation
is the beginning glimpse
into the true reality of yourself:.1Corinthians
2:9; 13:12.
Satan/Lucifer,
the light bringer, was to bring light no more, as he turned.(Revelation
12:4).one
third the angelic realm against the Creator-Father, that is, they, having
free will like us and being able
to choose as we also do, chose a way that had nothing to do with the higher
consciousness of love, but rather, a 'new' way and what appeared to them
to be a better road to follow.(the
metaphor
'grass is always greener on the other side of the hill' is talking about
what you don't have and want, which appears to be more valuable that what
you do have), a more interesting way,
a way they had not known and no doubt, wanted to explore and adhere
to, as they had let the true way of life of the Creator lapse.and
instead chose the way of selfishness, greed, deceit, harm, cruelty, etc,
the way that has become known as the
dark side:.Jude
1:6.
The angels
were to help and guide humanity into good.(Luke
12:8,9), but they soon figured
out humanity's destiny:.Hebrews
1:4,5; 2:5-18; 1Corinthians
2:9; 6:3; 1Peter
3:22; 2Peter 2:4.
Some
of them didn't like what they saw:.Revelation
12:4; Daniel 8:10; Isaiah
14:11-15; Jude 1:6.
Was humanity that one third
and that is one reason why we are having the human experience, to learn
things and to see that the Creator meant what He said about death in the
beginning?.Genesis
2:17. Hmmm!
Christ would now have to
bring
the light to humanity from the Father. This ushered
in a new dispensation:.Ephesians
1:10. Along with it death is gone.
John
6:38 "For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the
will of him that sent me." 1Peter
4:2 "That he no longer should live the rest of his time in the flesh
to the lusts of men, but to the will of God." John
5:30 "I can of mine own self do nothing. As I hear, I judge and my
judgment is just, because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the
Father which has sent me." John 4:34
"Emmanuel said unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent me
and to finish his work."
The 'world'
ends with our becoming individuals
of sincere spiritualness, where it says that we too die, but it's
'dead
in Him', so there is no longer
a reason to die physically. What
does 'dead in Him' connote?
The phrase 'dead in Him'
refers, in the Bible, as 'accepting Him into our hearts' and who
is this 'Him':.Colossians
3:3;.Romans
7:14-25;.2Corinthians
5:17; John 6:51.
The new world is not
something you go to, it is something that you have been made part of
since way before
the beginning of the age of humanity:.2Timothy
1:9. But you didn't know this.
It's a higher calling'.(Hebrews
3:1).than
the ego level
we, by default,
adopt ourselves into shortly after being born
good, the less so, the better parents we've had, that is, unless we
were of what's called mankind
genetics. Nevertheless,
all except the mankind ones are born for learning on Earth, learning
as we grow through the problems our ego level causes for ourselves and
for others:.Job
5:7 "Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward."
The loving nature of the
Infinite One is revealed to you in this 'new world', a new world within
your heart. This culminates
in a great new world coming from the invisible
into the physical.
1Peter
4:6 "For for this cause was the gospel preached also to them
that are dead, that they might be judged according to men in the flesh,
but live according to God in the spirit."
What occurred in the book
of Acts was shortly after Emmanuel's resurrection?.Acts
2:16,17. It was referred to as the last days then. Some have believed
that this refers to the 'end
of the world', the time when some so-called
'spiritually'.(spiritual
in name only, not in actions).individuals
would unknowingly be antiChrist. Some
confuse it with the 'day
of the Lord'.
Emmanuel died about the 4th
day, the 'day
for a year' way of thinking, after what is said to be 4000 years of
human history, human that is, since
a
special spirit was put in man:.1Corinthians
2:11. But human history goes back how far? Billions of years or longer?
God is eternal, so you pick if you can:.Job
38:4-7; 2Timothy 1:9.
We are almost at or into
beginning of the seventh day.(7000
years of human existence), give or
take about 7 years because of some conjecture
and finagling.
Should time since, be counted from the time of Emmanuel's birth or from
the time of Emmanuel's resurrection? Most believe it was from His birth;
but maybe from:.Matthew
3:16,17.
-What does the word sin
mean?
In the original,
the word 'sin' simply means 'to miss the mark'. Living in sin is living
missing the mark. The mark of what?.Philippians
3:14. Sin comes from Self Inflicted Narcissim,
as DaveXRPLion has explained. It's the
ultimate SelfIshNess. It's a selfishness where one
seeks for happiness from what is the cause of all misery? It's gotta be
insanity.
Sin has a negative.connotation,
that is, all negativity is from the dark
side, out to infect you with its negative ways of thinking.
It's not just you. It's the
broadcasting by those of the dark side, awaiting for you to align with
some bad thought, which would allow their broadcasting to affect you and
take you further from bad
and into evil. It's
like
a radio.
And the dark side always
broadcasts things that either right away or on down the line, hurt you
and others:.1Peter
5:8.
Both in the Old
and New
Testaments,
original
Hebrew and Greek, respectively,
various words were used and all translated 'sin'. Basically
sin means something that's a
negative, something that does no one any good.
They all mean 'missing
the mark', missing the marks of there being something better than negatives
in one's life, missing the way to be in a higher
consciousness which brings happiness and takes you away from problems.
Things that you really don't want in life are the negative problems.
The word
iniquity means something somewhat
different, although
it too means
'missing the mark'. Such words refer to the thoughts and actions of one
standing in need of love.
One misses this by simply
going along with what he or she has got along with all his life devoid
of higher consciousness concerns and that is what is called the ego
motivated life, the level of consciousness humanity acquires
as he lives his life. What choice did he really have to start
out with anyway?.Proverbs
14:12.
Doing 'right' is doing things
which produce good happy things for you, but sometimes you get tricked:.Proverbs
14:12. Doing wrong is doing that which hurts you.now
or later. The Creator-God is not hurt by any sins you may do. Sins
are not even seen, known or counted against anyone anymore.
Obviously, a standard has
been applied in order to see what we classify as 'right' or 'wrong'. That
standard is 'does it, will it make and keep you and any others affected,
happy? It's the golden rule.
Apart from higher consciousness,
religion often has subjective
standards that all too often turns into their 'laws of God'. So we have
different religions with differing 'laws of God':.Malachi
3:6 "For I am the Lord, I change not..."
Allowing
one standard.(the
commandments of the Mosaic Law of
the
old covenant).to
have precedence
over another.(the
commandments,
meaning the teachings of the new covenant).can
also be sin, because sin means 'missing the mark' and that is missing the
mark by using a now done
away standard instead of one relevant
today to a relationship with God. But for
general guidelines for society, many things in the old covenant are
useful.
Sin means in the original
to 'miss the mark'. To miss the mark of
what?
On
the other hand, the word 'iniquity' in the Old Testament means
something different than what we normally may think. Most think that
it means the same as the word 'sin'.
Living in sin is living
from the low consciousness
ego level that we never
even knew we were living from, as it was all just so normal and we
just saw ourselves like most others, who may be also be living at that
level.
Living from that level to
the degree
we are should be telling those alert
in life that something is not quite right,
as it is from this destructive level that one reaps
what he has sown and what he has sown was done mostly in ignorance:.1Peter
4:3; Romans 8:2,5; 1Corinthians
2:14.
-1Corinthians
14:26.Why
are there many interpretations of the Bible?
