Choices

Choice is all about your ability to choose. If you say "I have no choice" than you believe a lie. In the old testament, God says "choose you this day, a blessing or a curse". Fundamentally, those are the two choices we have.

In The Sermon on the Mount Jesus speaks about making choices...

Matt 18:9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It’s better to enter eternal life with only one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

If your flesh causes you to sin, well you have a choice. From the hyperbole in the Sermon on the Mount to Paul's practical advice from his own experience...

Rom 8:12-14 "Therefore Brethren we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if you through the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God."

Galatians 6:7-8  ESV  Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Col. 3:5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 6 For which things' sake the wrath of God comes on the children of disobedience.

Know this...

1Cor. 10:15. No temptation has seized you, except what is common to man. And God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but will also provide with the temptation the escape, to be able to endure it.

The only thing you have no choice about is about making choices.

You have a choice! Sow to the flesh and reap the curse. Sow to the Holy Spirit and reap the blessing.

Learning to overcome our fleshly nature through the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, this is the process of sanctification. God's will is for us to be overcomers.

Present-tense: an attribute of the Holy Spirit.

Now is 'where" God is. Where "you are" is held together (action) by God in the now. He is present everywhere. He calls Himself "I Am". We "are" because "He is".

This all is going on in the present tense. Now!

Authentic Faith?

The difference between "authentic faith" and a "trust in their own understanding" has huge ramifications on how our "faith" is lived out and therefore passed on.

Biblical principles are made alive by the Holy Spirit as one realizes their need to be guided. Thus knowledge is acquired... If a man knows to do good and doesn't do it, that is sin

The problem is when we trust in our own understanding. (Prov. 3:5-6)

Faith implies a present-tense relationship with God. Present-tense is used in grammar for actions that are happening now. We reside/exist in the Now, and so does our relationship with God. It is impossible to have "Faith" in God without a relationship with Him where His presence is experienced in the present.

We think that we have the ability to anticipate the contingencies that our choices will propagate. But we forget "we see through a glass darkly"! Our perspective and therefore our understanding is limited. But God's is not.

Romans 8:14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God,
they are the children of God.

You are Becoming?

There's no getting around it. Change happens. Mostly deterministic. Everything is becoming something other than what it was. What it is, is not what it will be.

You are swept along by the interaction of mass and energy. But choice affords an alternative to determinism.  The truth for you and me, Christ died for us.

Now will you choose the Lover of your Soul? Because of what He did, you have a choice.

Reality!

Reality is perception, perception is interpretation, interpretation is where we screw up. Don't trust in your interpretation!

What then?

Notes on "Time"

Time: A succession of moments demarcating change in the physical realm of our existence*

(*1. The fact or state of existing; being.
2. The fact or state of continued being.
Synonyms:  actuality, being)

Only the now exists. Ongoing existence is continually being created and held together by God. Creation was not a single act of God but is an on ongoing activity. 

Colossians 1:17 "He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together."

The past is forever gone. The present now is where we exist and have our being. The future has not yet been created by our choices and God's deference to those choices. 

God has yet to exert his will completely, in hope that all will repent. Some of the future is determined and God knows it as a certainty, although it does not yet exist. Some of the future is open and God knows it as a contingency and it does not yet exist. Existence is the present now.

Now is the succession of moments demarcating Creation. Creation is continually held together by God and the concept of time is the result of the cause and effect progression of change in creation/existence. Creation is the ongoing task of God. He has chosen to share some of that task.

To some extent, we "create" our own existence by the choices we make. Our existence in the now is partly determined by the choices we have made in the past. Our future existence in creation is partly determined by choices we make in the now with the before ordained plan of God, manifested in Jesus Christ.

The plan of God finds its fulfillment in Jesus Christ even before the foundations of creation/existence were laid.

Our present now is relative. Reality is comprised of a multitude of relative nows. The physicality of existence requires relativity in individual nows. My now is unique. No one else can experience my now except God.

Creation is created moment by moment. God is in the moment by moment, creating our existence. The future has yet to be created. Therein rests the Hope that motivates the Lover of our Soul.

You and I view existence from a particular perspective limited by our locale. This limited perspective inhibits our comprehension of reality as a whole.

Because God is outside the physicality of our existence, does that mean He is outside of time? To say God is outside of time makes no sense. Time is inside God. God creates and holds existence together as an ongoing activity. Existence is created by God moment by moment and is demarcated by change which results in the observance of time. To say it another way, time is the observance of change in existence as God creates it moment by moment. God is the creator of time.

It exists because of God’s ongoing activity of creation.

TIME exists because change is observed. Change occurs because things move. Things move because of the “Prime Mover” God.

The Past - Is Fact    
The Future - Is Potential
The present - God's ongoing act of creation enabling Existence.

Distraction and Excellence. Connecting to Reality.

Connecting to reality, how is my pursuit of excellence confused by distraction that warps my sense of reality?

There is any number of means to have contact with those I have a connection with. Contact is the operative verb.

I am distracted by the many "goings on" that I am afforded a connection to, because of the latest communications technology. Information overload... you only overload a system when you expose it to more then it was designed to handle.

When you understand the system is designed for distraction you also realize the system is not built for excellence. I mean when you want to connect to reality.

Reality is not "our" perception. It never can be. It is His and He is the author of His plan for us. Who will you trust.

The creature is not independent of the Creator.

Identity, Self-conception, interpretation, unique perspective.

Patterns of behavior are a result of who we perceive ourselves to be, our identity. Our conception of self is derived from how we interpret our unique perspective that exists in the now but...

A natural man, yes I am, that broke free from the "cycle" of deception. Ill-equipped to face the challenge of condemnation or exaltation, how do I train up a son in the way that he should go.

The truth shall set you free!

Deception is the norm. Make-believe is entertainment's offering of "distraction" to all our perspectives. How can I discern the truth in what I perceive?

Conception: an abstract or general idea inferred or derived from specific instances.

Self-conception: who you think you are derived from past instances that formed an identity.

What is a "fact"? Is it a statement of action or observance of state? The statement, "The earth is the third rock from the sun" is true for now. So is a "fact" something that is an observed truth at a given moment? Or is "Observed State" a recognition of the fact of determinism?

• Is our interpretation of our unique perspective a reliable foundation to base all our choices and decisions on?
• Do we have a clear understanding of how, what we decide, will propagate forward?
• Do we have it in our capacity to comprehend reality's nature and the influence our free will has on the circumstance made available to others that experience that influence? 

The answer to these questions makes me think, "Oh crap!".

But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day.

One day exists in the "Now" of God's presence. What is "Now"?

It is the dynamic interaction of all that exists. Reality? Incomprehensible!

We see a fraction and can only comprehend an infinitesimal and in our pride we proclaim understanding.

The question is, "Do we understand how lost we are?"

Cause and Effect (As in "Swept along in the Now")

Cause and effect creates a flow within an inertial frame. Have you ever felt like you were in a rut? This flow tends to take the same path if free will does not exert a choice. The choice is hidden by a lie that presents unworthiness and concludes condemnation. And rightly so if we accept the flow.

Hope presents a promise and says, “you choose” 1 Corinthians 10:13 The choice is simple but most difficult. We can stay in the flow and trust in our own understanding or we can choose to trust the Lover of our soul and begin to see who He created us to be. The truth sets us free as we trust in the Lord with all our hearts.

Cause and effect appeals to self-interest. There the tension is manifest. The enemy clouds the truth that self-interest is ultimately fulfilled in giving.

Cause and effect if left alone ultimately will result in degradation, the second law. Life can overcome that degradation by accepting the truth that Hope offers. Choose the author of life and be an overcomer.

Have you ever thought, I just wish someone would tell me what to do? Have you ever wished someone would show you the way you should go?

“I am the way, the truth, and the light”
Jesus Christ

Most likely you’ve believed, as I did, that you have it within you to succeed. The problem is what you define as success.

Progress, far from consisting in change, depends on retentiveness. When change is absolute there remains no being to improve and no direction is set for possible improvement: and when experience is not retained, as among savages, infancy is perpetual. Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. 

~ George Santayana ~ 

Remember the past? Each of us has a history. We reminisce with those we shared the past with. Remember when we say. Progress is not found there.

Our history viewed with clarity reveals the struggle. A struggle that gives us insight. The insight brings us to the realization that it is not within us to progress.

Come to an end of yourself. Humility is the fertile ground of a teachable heart. Allow the Lover of your soul to blast the light of truth into the darkness of your history to reveal the plan He has had for you from the beginning. He has one goal, to share himself with you.

The "Specious Present"?

Others have tried to explain "Now" in terms defined by clock time. Google "Specious Present" and see what I mean. They think time exists and they talk about duration. They speculate about Specious Present as a temporal equivalent of a sensory datum.

It's not complicated "Now" is where we reside.

I'm "Here" in the "Now".

"Here" is where my memory operates and my reason anticipates. My "here" is limited in the "Now" by the nature of the physical realm and I know very little.

Here you are. Now!, is the time.

When we believe time exists we think that the future is something that gives us the opportunity to put off the need to change. The need to change is presented to us by our current situation and the memory of how we got here. Here is "Here" and it changes according to deterministic laws outside our control, except for our ability to choose "this and not that".

You exist in the "Here and Now". The reality of your existence is brought into focus by your ability to remember how things were different and anticipate change before it happens.

The problem is your insight into the "Now' is limited to your inertial frame and what you can infer from your experience in it.

"Now" is all that exists. "Here", is your position in the now in relation to everything else.

Here is the dynamic. You are in a constant state of change. The change is incomprehensible to one restricted by their inertial frame.

Here you are and Now is the time. Tomorrow may never come.

However you define "Present" God is in the "Here and Now"

Jehovah Shammah: God is Present... The "present" is the time that is associated with the events perceived directly, not as a recollection of the past (memory) or a speculation of the future (reason). It is often called now.

God's Now and ours.

"Now" is reality. "Now" is what exists. What exists is the totality of all that interacts. The interaction of Mass and Energy plays out in the now and is the physical realm.

God's "Now" is the direct experience of all tensed facts as they come to exist in the now. For God, space is of no consequence. He knows everything because He is everywhere. He is the ultimate "reference frame" for the universe.

Our "now" is limited by location and the speed at which information comes to us. This limitation of information acquisition creates a "horizon". This event horizon is established by the limit of the speed of light that creates the illusion of time flowing with past, present and anticipated future.

What can contain God? Time? No. Eternity? No. Space? No. If God is eternal, that which is in Him resides in eternity. "Now" is eternal because the now is in God.

What exists is dynamic and temporal, because God is dynamic and temporal. Our experience dynamically exists in the eternal temporality of God.

Duration is the observed rate of change in a given inertial frame. Duration is subjective to the observer. Changes in the rate of change are undetectable for an observer in a given inertial frame.

The eternal temporality exists in an uniqueness of tensed facts. These facts have causality that is determinate outside of the creative ability of life to choose. Choice can over-ride determinate causality. This choice creates the realm of "possibilities" for creative innovation.

This physical realm exists as part of the Spiritual realm. Because of the limitations of the physical realm I cannot experience the totality of all that exists in the Now.

The Illusion of Time and the "Now" of reality.

Understanding that time is an illusion brought about because of my ability to remember my observation of things when they were different, I am now able to consider "Now".

Past, present, future are words we use to make sense of the "eternal temporality" of God that we exist in. God is temporal therefore His creation is temporal. The now is what exists. It is dynamic and temporal. Dynamic in that change is constant, temporal in that the movement is tensed. Our mind is just like God's mind. The difference, He is not limited by location. God experiences temporality like we do but for Him duration is flexible because he is not limited to an inertial frame. (A day is like a thousand years...) For us duration is the observed rate of change in a given inertial frame. Duration is subjective to the observer. Variations in the rate of change are undetectable for an observer in a given inertial frame.

Without the mind's memory and reason time has no meaning.

"we experience a piece of music as a whole with the help of memory and anticipation"

Wolfhart Pannenber.      

The illusion of time helps us make sense of reality. It brings cohesion to existence and our place in the "eternal temporality" of God.

What is Time?

The illusion of Time is the observation of the interaction between Mass and Energy.

This interaction of Mass and Energy results in Movement. Movement produces change and it is the change recognized by an observer that gives Time it's conception. For each observer in a given inertial frame the rate of change is observed as constant.

Movement, then, is also continuous in the

way in which time is - indeed time is either

identical to movement or is some affection of it.

                                           (Aristotle, Metaphysics)

The rate of change can vary in a given inertial frame but since the change affects the whole frame of the observer it can not be detected. This change therefore appears constant for a given observer’s locale. An observer can compare frames and detect variations in the rate of change relative to each. This gives the illusion that Time slows down or speeds up.

We percieve time passing because we remember when things were different and we call it the past. We think of the future because we can anticipate how things will be different. The observer recognizing change brought about by movement is only possible because of memory. Reason can anticipate change and the mind imagines the future. This all happens in the present now. The Now is held together by God who upholds the physical reality that creates the illusion of time by the observation of change brought on by movement that is a result of the interaction of Mass and Energy.

Without the mind's memory and capacity to reason time has no meaning. The illusion of time helps us make sense of reality. It brings cohesion to existence and our place in all that exists.