Archive for the ‘Bible’ Category
Last Saturday I jumped ahead of my self by going into Matthew 7, I will digress today. Let’s examine Matthew 4:3-4 concerning Jesus temptation in the wilderness. Jesus spent 40 days in the wilderness. The 40 days is a symbolic number which means until completed. The 40 days in the desert and the 40 years in the wilderness just means until what needed to be done was done. (We just don’t write like this anymore).
Whatever the actual length of time, Jesus was hungry. Turning the stones into bread seems like a good thing to manifest when you are hungry. But in so doing you are limiting what God maybe wanting to give you. Jesus had to hold The Faith that God had something better for him and He did. At the end the Angels came and cared for him. The Angels probably provided a lot better than bread.
Verse 4 says “people ….. must feed on every word of God.” To me that is holding the faith. Believe that God has something better for you. The word of God is creation. Remember Genesis, God spoke and his word manifested. The word of God is the manifestation of what you need and want.
Thousands of years ago, people believed that the spoken word held much power. Even today we have power in our words. We can create or destroy; we can uplift or bring down. I worked for someone who would talk about one of his sons. This man said that he always told his son that he would end up flipping burgers and guess what the 40 year old son was doing… flipping burgers. Someone else hearing this man talk commented that it was a good thing he never told the son he would end up in prison.
I have been known to have what negative thing I said to come true. This quirk prevented me from saying anything linking tornadoes and mobile homes in the same sentence when we were living in one. I can say it now since we no longer live in a mobile home — “Tornado bait” there I said it. (Why do I feel like looking over my shoulder?)
This is part of the well known ‘Sermon on the Mountain’. These particular verses say to stop judging others or you will be judged. It is a specific application of the ‘Golden Rule’. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
The ‘Golden Rule’ is very much in alignment with the Law of Attraction. What you throw out there is what you will get back. In the case of this scripture, judgment is the criteria. We humans tend to judge everything. We judge workmanship, we judge plants, we judge countries and we judge people. Boy do we judge people! It is very hard not to judge. Try going through a whole day without judging. Bet you can’t do it! Even when you think you are not judging, you are.
I have a tendency to make excuses for people. Someone speeds past me and I think maybe they just got a call from the hospital that a loved one only has minutes to live. But even when I make excuses for someone I am still passing judgment. If I had not judged them, I would not have made an excuse for their actions.
What is so bad about judging someone? For one thing we tend to judge negatively. When we judge negatively, we invite negativity into our lives. We get the negative judgment thrown back at us.
The second thing is that we assume we know what is going on in the other person’s life. That is a big fallacy. We usually don’t have a clue. I have found that people tend to do the best they can under the circumstances they live with. Sometimes they are tired, but they do the best they can. Sometimes they are in pain, but they do the best they can. Sometimes they have mental problems, but again they do the best they can.
The third point is what we like and don’t like in someone else is what we like and don’t like in ourselves. The next time you are hot on criticizing someone, stop and take a look at your own life. If you are honest, you will see the same behavior in yourself. Often it takes asking a friend who will give a candid answer if we have that trait. Be ready for the answer, you may not like it.
I am not going to ask you to stop judging, but be prepared for what gets thrown back at you.