the visible christ.

Being a Christian is something about seeing shades of Christ in anyone, anywhere.

May Christ continually reveal himself to you everyday;  if not through your own kindness, then maybe through the words and actions of others around you.

Sam Bankman Fried and Kingdom Economics.

Billions looted from his own company.

We have Christ's seventy times seven sacrificial forgiveness.

We have Pastor George's hundredfold return.

We have Christ feeding the Five Thousand.

The larder fed the prophet from the bottom of the barrel, and from then onwards, the woman and boy never went hungry.

Call it a ripple effect, or the butterfly effect, how things compound: how the echo carries, the savings account builds interest, inflation creeps.

Sam Bankman Fried could take one customer's loaves and fishes, say enough for one or two, and turn it into a luxury yacht or a summer home in some exotic locale.  And how?  Process.  Mass processing, batch-processing of thousands of individual customers.

He wanted what they had.

It was compulsion, maybe, just as Solomon had stacked riches in many forms only to later find that it didn't matter much, after all, after the time was wasted.  He was a Matthew McCechny of old, finding fame and wealth only to discover that he had only his time to make some use of, and not money or yachts which ultimately brought no enjoyment.

The modern kind of void: not Victor Frankl In Search Of A Soul, but something conditioned in the modern world of creeping inflation and stock valuations, the growth-at-any-cost and pay-as-you-go accounting.  Why, modern economics mimics the hungry little phenomenon of inflation.

Some would tell the story of the Dream Home that they pray for.  First renting and somewhat poor, then undergoing payments on the next level, until finally, what for the time passes as a dream home and took-up cash on the barrelhead, without any sort of payments.

Increase.

But look back at Christ and forgiveness.

A bit of sacrifice, it is, to let your brother slap your face seventy times seven times.  Its a hard lesson that few master; nevermind the churches rarely stand full, but even the remnant there as it is hasn't quite pulled the lesson sufficiently.

That even the sacrifice ripples and compounds, from Christ's sacrifice until today.

It's like the fields, were there are gradients of invasive foliage: the old tales of Britain without trees, or the scrub-oaks, things like ivy, or even viruses and things.  Man, himself, even, a kind of scourge on the earth that multiplies, given the right environmentals.

And the church.  There was one.  Then Twelve.  So on.  And from there the message was commanded to be taken across the globe.  Why, some even say that the true believer himself is only flock to Christ, but to the layman, the believer is a pastor, a product evangelist of love and mercy.

A classic pyramid scheme of joy, peace, hope and mercy.  Stuffing envelopes and flim-flamming to the betterment of everyone.

Merry Christmas, 2023.

"Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee." -Isaiah 60:1

"Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." -Luke 2:14

mysticism: joy and heaven.

Joy: the reflection or residue of God within us.

As if that were not mystical enough, we are told that heaven is the perfected reflection of Earth, in the eyes of say, a sage.

Temptation overcome by faith and the Holy Ghost....

My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations;

knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.

But let patience have her perfect work, that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.

And not only so, but we glory in tribulations also: knowing that tribulation worketh patience; 

And patience, experience; and experience, hope:

And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us.

Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations:

That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perishes, though it be tried by fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.

There hath no temptation taken unto you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.

(Jas 1:2, Romans 5:3, 1 Peter 1:7, 1 Corinthians 10:13)

On temptation and the trying of faith, straight from scripture.

"There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it."

-1 Corinthians 10:13

No os ha sobrevenido ninguna tentación que no sea humana; pero fiel es Dios, quien no os dejará ser tentados más de lo que podéis soportar, sino que juntamente con la tentación dará la salida, para que la podáis resistir.

你們所遇見的試探、無非是人所能受的、　神是信實的、必不叫你們受試探過於所能受的．在受試探的時候、總要給你們開一條出路、叫你們能忍受得住。

 

"...the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ..."  -1 Peter 1:7

"...para que la prueba de vuestra fe--más preciosa que el oro que perece, aunque sea probado con fuego-- sea hallada digna de alabanza, gloria y honra en la revelación de Jesucristo...."  #espanolmoderno

"叫你們的信心既被試驗、就比那被火試驗、仍然能壞的金子、更顯寶貴．可以在耶穌基督顯現的時候、得著稱讚、榮耀、尊貴。"

Tozer on God conditioning the believer.

"I once heard a brother preach on the fact that the church should be without spot or wrinkle. To get the wrinkles out of a sack, he said, you fill it. To get a wrinkle out of a rug, you lay it down and walk on it. God sometimes fills us, the preacher continued, but sometimes He just puts us flat down so that everyone can walk on us!"  -AW Tozer