A Book Report for the Ages.

If all experienced God in the same way and returned Him an identical worship, the song of the Church triumphant would have no symphony, it would be like an orchestra in which all the instruments played the same note.

- C.S. Lewis, The problem of Pain

The Old Testament, full of grotesque stories, wretched, horrible incidents, sacrifice, killing, animal sacrifice and many, many verses dedicated to the specific way and how and where to atone for wrong against the Law set forth by God himself. The Old Testament, as I see it now, was in fact, about sacrifice. I will venture a bit further and state that the entire Bible, human existence actually, is about human sacrifice.

A preacher ordained in theology can break down certain sections of the historically accurate text known as the Bible. There are many intricacies and contextual components about the time and history of the timeline laid out. There are pieces that are read and read again, only to have them make sense at one time more than another. Theology, or the study of the nature of God and religious beliefs gives the context to the words and verses people use for inspiration.

The Old Testament tells of the beginning, quickly followed by the fall, inevitable to God, however when man and his will reads it, we somehow want the, "happy ending." The ending where that gosh darn Eve shouldn't have eaten the apple. Though in our own life, we all eat the apple, multiple times in fact, everyday, only to be so within our sin, or an immoral act considered to be a transgression against divine law, that we don't even realize we too are naked. After this fall, sin, after sin, after what we in this current time read as obvious, the people of the time justified more sinful behaviors, over and over again. God gave us free will after all.

Names of the Bible come up like Moses, taking the people out from under Pharaoh. A torturous existence by man's standards, however I cannot help but fathom that in the mind of Moses, as he talked directly to God, and sacrificed anything for himself to follow God, the overwhelming contentment he must have felt, even in the face of what humans depict as certain human sufferings. Other stories followed such as that of King David, whom started as a boy, overthrew the giant, and I'm not sure about anyone else, but in my life that was where the story stopped. It was after wards, the growth, the progress, the complacency, the adultery, the murder, and on and on, to depict the weakness of the flesh.

"Oh, I would never do that."

People like to assume that they don't do the same thing, just in a different way. Even the devil's depiction is that of something intrusive, something obvious, when in this world, in his playground, he is everything the flesh has ever wanted. In fact, I would go a step further and say that yes the flesh was made by God, but we are in the Devil's playground, suffering by the bounds of this organic matter, withering, sacrificing day after day, or giving in to the world and worst yet, justifying it. We too, eat the apple, same as Eve, or we spit it out, be called to sacrifice, only to then be met by society with disregard, Religious zealots, cast aside as "weird" because those who believe and live according to the belief are weird here after all. This place is weird to us.

The New Testament, one word, Jesus. The first books, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John, depicting the life and times of Jesus, the God turned man, God in the flesh, a man, but sent to these wretched bodies as a way for God to step down into our point of view, like a parent to a child, and get on our level to show his love. The teachings and message were to establish the Christian faith, principals to follow and sacrifice the world's ways for this temporary home, yet, it was the death, the sacrifice, the giving of self, man depicted as capture, that is the most relevant.

The Old Testament is sacrifice, the New Testament, Jesus became the ultimate sacrifice, and now, is all He (being God the Father and Jesus as the Flesh, and Son of God) asks of us, is faith.

The rest of the New Testament, as well as the Bible, is that of faith. According to this Faith we have in Christ Jesus who died on the cross for our sins, we accept that this life is not our own, neither are the things of it, therefore we are to give freely, including that of love. Christ literally arose from the dead, to come back, fulfill the prophesy of many years before and tell the Apostles to spread the word to all the lands that Jesus was the Son of God, God's way of getting on man's level, and the one thing he asks us to do, love.

We loved because he first loved us. 

- 1 John 4:19

The Bible ends with more prophecy of the next Coming of Christ. though the spirit, the third entity of the Holy Trinity is among us (God the father, Son, and Holy Spirit) Jesus will come back one day, and the entirety of Revelations, though not fully understood or comprehended by many a man, depicts death. A death of the flesh, or in other words, no longer needing these earthly bodies for our souls. We will either be captured to Heaven, like Enoch after 365 years of life on earth, taken out of his physical body, or we will pass through the doors from this life into the next. A threshold man depict with sadness, mostly due to Ego. This, or we will suffer for eternity in the often quoted, never internalized pit of Hell. Another term, "eternity," escapes the confides of time, for no matter what, after the interview of the human condition, where we make our choices of what to do, to believe, to follow, and to sacrifice, or to get all we ever think we wanted, we are going to an eternal place, which one is your choice. 

However, with all of that, with the entire Bible read, for the first time in my 33 years of existence, I must say that the word I took away from it all is Love.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

1 Corinthians  13:2

The peace found in Christ Jesus, believing he is the Son of God, sent to die on the cross for man's sinful nature, isn't the, "world peace" people think it is. If anything, once dedicated to this belief, and realizing that this is all that really matters, and how even in our daily lives, the word we produce, the things we do, we are to follow these principals, things become difficult in this life. Of course they do. We are playing Basketball in a Football arena. We are looking beyond the situation, beyond the flesh to another plane, that some people adamantly deny and put up barriers against people like us. So we are not to find relief here, we are to continue to make our sacrifices against our sinful nature. We have to accept that there will always be this nagging denial of Christ Jesus's way inside of us. A battle against the obvious justified by the same mind that praises and accepts the sacrifices for us and sacrifices we too make. This free will, given to us, a gift with which we choose to use or deny, has to be accepted every day, and with it, the mindset to go along with living by the principals of the gift, simply because we love Him. 

We are not going to repay back what we have been given. This existence in of itself proves we are indebted. A truth that all things started from something. If all things, the Ego even, were just a mere coincidence, a "Big Bang" then I must admit atoms and the way we understand the work now must have fallen short every single instance afterward for the soul to be present nowhere else but within us. Either atoms combine or aliens planted us here, for where then did aliens come from, or we can be honest, go with the truth, and accept that God made us. Therefore, if He made us, then we can admit that Jesus was sent by God, as God, and therefore we can find our reprieve from this painful existence. 

This is it. In another country it could have me killed, lose my job, lose my family, lose it all. We are blessed to be in America, if only for the fact that we have these freedoms. We have distractions too. However, using the freedom to publish, indicates one thing and one thing only that is worthy of our time. Christ. to be blunt, if it doesn't come back and serve him, then it is a waste. In some way, we all have gifts, we can use them, for whatever we choose. Me, I want my gifts to be used for the only thing that matters. Christ. My family, I want them to love, but because He loved us. My daughter isn't "mine" but God's. My wife isn't "mine" but a child of God given to me for this life. Those people you judge, the women you think sinful thoughts about, those people you think are less than you, they all have as much Jesus in them as you do. 

“Since no man is excluded from calling upon God the gate of salvation is open to all. There is nothing else to hinder us from entering, but our own unbelief.” 

- John Calvin