Coming To Faith

Status quo and 'way of life' finds different expressions in our world. We increasingly value quality of life and health, employment both paid and voluntary, progress and innovation or creativity that fuels the preceding goals, education that expands our potential for improvement in these things, demand and supply that are foundational laws of commerce, efficiency that gets the most for our money - and low cost of living that makes efficiency possible eg the Chinese economy, a good work ethic that doesn't foster laziness yet has a humanitarian instinct which is expressed as welfare and charity. Housing for all; yet now beyond the reach of many, if not most. Tourism for those with disposable income. A tax system that centralises a varying percentage of the resource pool for the common good - including health and expensive medicines, hospitals and their expensive technologies with long waiting lists or high user-pays costs, education, roads and transport, clean water and energy supply, commerce, mining natural resources, the national defense or war machine/s, overflowing prisons with rampant recidivism, and the known bureaucracy called government. We do as the Bible also suggests, seeking and finding, the pursuit of knowledge in our scientific and information age has become an authority that even rivals the God of the Bible, and Jesus the Lord of life, the true master scientist - Jesustein.

Saturation of goods and services drive prices down to commodity levels as competition from local and world suppliers, and their importers redefines efficiency (and to some extent our way of life). Often local shops or outlets are reluctant to publicize or even mention upfront their prices due to pressure of competitors ever playing the game of one-upmanship. Auctions are rapidly redefining commerce, sometimes even starting at $1 reserve. Price comparison websites pit competitors directly against eachother. Economic recession requires bail outs using borrowed money and restructuring that may or may not save the day, as real growth is elusive - particularly in nations for whom the blessing of God is partially in doubt. Unemployment tends to be another indicator of troubled economies.

Multi-culturalism is the banner for immigration policies that try to balance or redistribute the populace of land hungry nations. China is reported to have found the need to partner with African nations, to expand or grow, and redistribute it's populace. It might have been reported that China is now a dominant owner of Australia's coal resources.

We see broken relationships everywhere in our disposable culture of convenience; which welfare tries to patch up.

Technology or self seeking humanistic philosophy and our highly optimised means to those ends, in all their forms or expressions, aren't a substitute for life. They have given us buoyant optimistic hope and temporary vision for our future, yet national debts around the world are said to be reaching critical levels. Natural disasters put enormous pressure on the national purse/s. It's reported that diseases are reaching epidemic proportions in some nations. Land use is reaching saturation point. We might emphasise the extended family or whanau as our polynesian cultures do, more sharing and caring, a different expression of the welfare system. After all, we can't take our materialistic gains with us into the afterlife. We might increasingly sacrifice our national sovereignty on the alter of more sharing and caring for the common good of our global village and it's global citizens. This may prove to be humanity's best efforts - another tower of Babel, highly optimised but ultimately futile, full of sampling errors and successive approximation. It's reported that there are those nations redeveloping Babylon as a center for world government, setting it up as a communications and commerce hub. Ultimately it will be headed by humanity's leader for our troubled times, the (boastful deluded) voice of compromise and consensus that omits the Lord of life from the equation, Jesus of God's word (e-Sword) the person and conservative life force - as defined by those sites linked to by god-help.org .

We imagine that because things are the way they are, that is how they always will be or should be. We climb our ladder/s of 'success', only to learn sometimes too late that it was leaning against the wrong wall.

Only God and His saviour Jesus can remedy the water cycle, (once invited to freely lead us all), of the Earth so that productive land use becomes possible, and even the deserts once again blossom, renewing the topsoil lost by erosion and undoing the damage to our ecosystems that deforestation is reported to have caused. (Isa 35:1 The desert and the parched land will be glad; the wilderness will rejoice and blossom. Have you considered Henry Commentary Isa 35:5-10 e-Sword)

Our lifespan is shorter than those of early biblical times, and we just assume it's the best we can hope for, but perhaps that might change too. Our eyesight frequently deteriorates with age, we get heart disease which admittedly can be improved on but not eradicated, cancer, and numerous other afflictions medical science has catalogued. While grateful for improvements made, God has promised true healing of the nations when the Lord Jesus is invited to reign.

In God's economy, (as defined by Brethren/Baptist/SDA and those sites linked to by god-help.org), our resources, land use, all the organisations of government will be managed by the Lord of life. Currently humanity is struggling with what science calls "Entropy", and until Jesus Christ, the person and conservative Life force, is invited to heal our land - we are mostly spinning our wheels.

Our job is to hasten His coming, growing the Brethren/Baptist/SDA shared lay leadership (which usually requires college & intensive study) and participation way of God's Truths, to maximise spiritual growth and emphasise congregational involvement when self control and well taught responses are increasingly evident over time (with some asceticism or self denial mixed in, Mat 16:24).
Secondhand faith relies on an 'expert' leader to feed and pastor us, rather than taking ownership for our proactive growth - as occurs in home groups; also similar to the Bereans who searched the scriptures. Calvin said, it is authentic faith alone that justifies, but faith that justifies is never alone -- ie we must be proactive, encouraged to not be spectator Christians in a consumer society of convenience.

A good leader partly works themselves out of a job, raising up others who will share in the work as opportunities and abilities present themselves. Shared lay leadership (with intensive study, numerous reference materials, college training, and occasional referral to experts) often doesn't even require salaries, has inbuilt redundancy, tends to be far more 'fault tolerant' - as we're all a mixture of truth and some errors or failings in our finitude and lack of experiences (most lacking training in the sciences), and can free the most effective among us for new opportunities when God encourages our steps of faith.

Reinforcement and extinction, closely likened to Reversi, and "practice makes perfect", increases the spread of His government.
(Loosely likened to an applied chaotic binary math example, see this article).

Cosmic Codes pp 307-308 "An engineer who is designing a communication system in anticipation of hostile jamming, or other countermeasures, needs to employ several critical techniques to be effective. In addition to taking advantage of available error detection and correction techniques, he will also attempt to spread his message throughout the available bandwidth. He will avoid clustering his message into areas which would increase his vulnerability to jamming interference. It is provocative to notice that the Biblical text evidences these same techniques." Math is intrinsic to the Bible. Matt 10:30 "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Have you considered The Seal of God ?

Isaiah 9:6 "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

Infinite vs finite leadership, demonstrated by repeatedly raising the dead on demand, by heptadic structure, etc. If we want the life and Afterlife promised to us in the Bible then we work with God by being proactive in our faith.