"Deficit" of Soul?

God's will is that your balance sheet be balanced!

Deficit: short·fall  /ˈSHôrtˌfôl/  noun: shortfall; plural noun: shortfalls

a deficit of something required or expected.

PSYCHOLOGICAL DEFICIT  By N., Pam M.S. 

Any cognitive, emotional or behavioral performance of an individual that is below average.

• Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a developmental disorder
• Cognitive deficit, any characteristic that acts as a barrier to cognitive performance.

-------------------------------------------------

Laying in bed tonight I ruminated on the past week; Live in the 'Here and Now", "Be Present", "Be awake/Aware", "Listen/Pay Attention", be led by the Holy Spirit. The word "Deficit" came to mind.

I was reminded of...

Proverbs 3:5-6 (CEV) With all your heart you must trust the LORD and not your own judgment. 6. Always let him lead you, and he will clear the road for you to follow.

And realizing the truth of...

Romans 12:2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Tonight I realized God was going to make a deposit into my account (My Soul)!

He said "As iron sharpens iron, be ready to get your axe sharpened".

Proverbs 27:17 As iron sharpens iron, so a friend sharpens a friend.

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.

Play it by ear?

To play it by ear is to act according to the situation. Playing it by ear means you work with what you get.

The original meaning of this term was to play music without sheet music, meaning you improvised from what you heard and did your best to bring everything into harmony with a melody that everyone would appreciate.   Hmm?

Jesus said "I don't do anything except what I "see" (Present tense) my father doing.

I believe this is what it means when Paul said "All that are led by the spirit of God, they are the children of God"

Matthew 10:9 (Luke 12:12)When they bring you to trial, do not worry about what you are going to say or how you will say it; when the time comes, you will be given what you will say.

Practicing the "Present-tense" of God

This is a play on the saying "Practice the Presence of God".

God is in the "present". "Now" is when we hear his voice. Now is when we should pay attention. Now is when He guides us. "Pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17) makes more sense when we understand we should not trust in what we understood in the past concerning His guidance today.

Prov. 3:5-6 also makes more sense.  "5. Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. 6. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths."

Discernment.

Discernment begins with thinking about your thoughts.

Understand that your thoughts have 3 origins*

• A Thought can originate from a man’s spirit (Self)
• A Thought can originate from God’s Spirit (Good)
• A Thought can originate from another spirit, either angel (good) or demon (Evil)

And then it continues with "taking every thought captive to the Lordship of Christ."

You consider a thought by, asking does it line up with the character of Jesus Christ and, is it in harmony with the full counsel of God's written word. But it is with the Lordship of Christ, as we ask Him what He thinks, that we have the opportunity to accept or reject the thought we are thinking.

Reading the Bible and praying without ceasing,  are essential activities for success in the spiritual war the enemy wages against us.

Deut. 11:18 “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 

2 Cor. 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.5 We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

The battle takes place in our thoughts and we are to..

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.

Some random thoughts...?

What is the number of thoughts I can comprehend in any given moment?

The rate of change can vary in a given inertial frame. Does the rate of change affect the number of thoughts I can comprehend? I think... No, the rate of change is a constant of the inertial frame and therefore the number of thoughts that can be processed is also constant.

If the number of thoughts that can be processed (understood) in my inertial frame is limited then distraction can occupy my attention and I can miss the thoughts the Lover of my Soul has for me.

Are you occupied by distraction?

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.

Are you present? I am present, Here and Now.

My inertial frame is always present in my now. My now is limited to a horizon of relationship that is restricted to what or who is present in my "here". My here and now's horizon has been expanded by technology that allows me to communicate beyond geographic locals and synchronicity becomes evident.

My now is synchronised with everyone else's now because communication extends beyond my "here" and expands my "now".

This expansion of now reveals Synchronization and is proof that the present is all that exists. You are never not present in the now! No matter where you are.

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.

Time? What I know.

“The true currency of life is time, not money, and we’ve all got a limited stock of that.” 

– Robert Harris

Time, a cruel master. Wait a moment and you have one less to work with. Time, the older you get the faster it passes. At some point you realize it's going to run out for you. But... why is that an issue? Why would you care? Maybe you think I need more time? Time for what? Change? Why do I think I need to change? Something about time makes me think... now is the time. Now is the time to be what I should be.

If you think time is real then you think you have a future. Our mind can anticipate what we call the future and we put our hope in it. Hope in the future gives us an excuse to put off the truth of the now.

If you know "Now" is all that exists, you'll pay much more attention to it. You'll cherish the moment because it is unique, priceless and then gone. You can now take full advantage of the opportunity the moment is providing you.

“Time is free, but it’s priceless. You can’t own it, but you can use it. You can’t keep it, but you can spend it. Once you’ve lost it you can never get it back.”

– Harvey Mackay

Lies and Distraction

Satan is a liar and he uses distraction.

Wikipedia defines Distraction as the process of diverting the attention of an individual from a desired area of focus and thereby blocking or diminishing the reception of desired information (TRUTH).

The world is full of distraction. It is designed to take up your time. To occupy your attention and to bring your focus on the temporal instead of the eternal.

The enemy’s basic attack is to make you doubt what God has said is true about who you are in Christ. Your identity. He does that by trying to get you to focus on the flesh and what your 5 senses tell you. What you can see as opposed to the unseen. The work of the enemy is to destroy relationship with God and those around you. The battleground is your mind and the weapons are truth and lies. (in your thoughts)

II Cor. 10: 3-5 3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh. 4. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds. 5. Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience (Lordship) of Jesus Christ