RECENT BLOG POSTINGS

JUL 13, 2026:  WHY GOD LOVES US    As a physicist, retired or not, I ask WHY to almost everything.  So, why shouldn’t that include WHY does God love humans in general and me specifically?  Here are four possible answers taken from God’s own words:

Second Perspective:  I will start with God making Eve.  It is also a picture of what He wants and is doing with us.  God uses the word “helper” to describe what He is doing.  That word "helper" in the Masoretic text has three letters: Ayin, Zayin, Reysh.  The original pictures associated with those three letters are:
            Ayin, the eye - to see, know, perceive, experience;
            Zayin, a weapon - to cut off, separate;
            Reysh, the head of a man - person, the head, highest.
      When these picture letters are taken together they add to the root understanding of the word "helper."  They suggest the woman was to help by being a perspective cut off from, or separated from, Adam the head.  She was to provide for Adam a "second" set of perspectives and experiences for Adam to use in his dominion of the earth.  The Father seems to want US as His second perspective!  That would also partly explain why He wants us to experience being human.

We Can Listen:  Next we go to Genesis 6:1-7.  The hybrid humans resulting from the sons of God and the daughters of man had “every form of devising of their heart as only evil.”  They couldn’t/wouldn’t listen to God.  They and the fools are the ones called “corrupt.”  Listening is of great value to God.  Does that show up elsewhere?  Yes.
      In 1 Kings 3:11 God said to (Solomon), "Because you have asked this, and have not asked for yourself long life or riches… I now do according to your word.”  And what did Solomon ask for?  What pleased the Lord?  Despite other translations, the actual Hebrew is “lb shmo,” a heart listening!
      The word “listen” is used 163 times in the Old Testament, some of the most interesting are in Jeremiah.  My experience today is that we CAN specifically hear from God, if we are willing to listen.

Contrite Heart:  This is of great value to the Lord, therefore what He looks for in those He loves.  King David comes to mind, a man after Gods own heart.  Why?  He normally demonstrated a contrite heart by being what I call “a quick confessor.”
      Here is a more definitive verse.  Isaiah 66:2 says, “All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD.  But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”  Contrite gets God’s attention big time!

Choosing Him:  I’m going to get subtle presenting this last word, and paint a verbal picture from Jesus’ day:  The marriage has been arranged by the families, along with the dowry and most of the details.  The groom to be and his family then make one visit to the future 14 year old bride to be, who may never have even met the groom till then.  During the visit the dowry is paid and she is given one cup of wine to share with the groom.  If she puts the cup down, the betrothal is OFF!  If she chooses to take one sip, THEY ARE BETROTHED!  It is so solid she is considered married and a decree of divorce is required if she tries to back out!  And the guy goes back to his father’s land, tribe, and inheritance, to “prepare a place” for her!  WE ARE THAT 14 YEAR OLD GIRL!

Other gods may make other choices,
BUT OUR GOD WANTS US WHO WANT HIM!

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JUL 6, 2026:  MAKE GOD PERSONAL    Last week I posted about making God personal for the youth that might otherwise fall away from Christianity.  Now!  How about you!?!  The modern church says, “Faith.”  But what if you don’t feel saved?  What if you screwed up last night, for the umpteenth time?  How can God forgive "Me?"  What if you don’t have faith in exactly the right thing?  What if you doubt a bit?  A lot??  What if you don’t believe strongly enough???  What if…?  You get the picture?  This IS the weak spot in “modern” Christianity.

The answer?  I gave it last week for youth, now how about you?  There WILL be times when you feel like something that's stuck to the bottom of a shoe.  How do YOU not fall away?  Here are two things.

First, your salvation has its roots in being in a Blood Covenant relationship with Christ.  Short version: Your sins, your screw-ups, AND your feeling about the whole mess, legally belong to HIM.  All of them.  Not to you.  Done deal!  Blood Covenant!  Extremely hard to break!

Second, you too need an Elder to remind you of the flat-out miracles God has pulled-off on your behalf!!!  It can be a Scroll, a notebook, a selfie video, something or someone to remember for you when you feel so stuck to the bottom of a shoe that you can’t remember!  And if you think there is nothing in your life so beyound the laws of nature or chance that it had to be God, you REALLY need to get serious with the Lord and open yourself to the workings of the Holy Spirit!  He's REALLY is good at stuff like that!

YOU TOO NEED AN ELDER

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JUN 29, 2026:  66% DROP OUT!    It does not matter if the exact number of youth ages 18-22 who drop out of church is 62% or 71%, it is still A HUGE NUMBER, no matter whose poll you use!  And the drop outs are starting earlier!  Age 16 is now in the church dropout danger zone!  So, the important question is WHY!?!

There are many reason, but I will simplify and give you my summation.  Ready?  Parents use churchs to teach kids WHAT to believe, but NOT WHY!!!!  The reason given for half of them returning later in life substanciates that "why."  A Nick Blevins blog on the subject said the reasons half return "include simply feeling the desire to return (34%), feeling God was calling them back (28%), having children (24%), and getting married (20%)."  So, that tells me perhaps 3/4ths of the returners are likely to perpetuate more "what without the why that God really cares for me personally."

An answer can't be crammed in one short BLOG, but I can give you a few hints.  Judges 2:7 "And the people served the LORD all the days... of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the LORD had done for Israel."  They could make God personal!  If a parent, teacher, or youth leader hasn't seen God in action specifically in their lives, all they can share is religion!

Have your child keep a notebook, or reminder list, or whatever, of the flat out undenieable miracles in their life to act for them as an "elder who had seen."  As an example: My young son and I were having a squirt-gun fight in the back yard.  He on a 20" bike, me on a tractor cutting grass.  A squeeze bottle in the garage looked to him like the idea weapon to escalate the war.  He did not know it was pure sulfuric battery acid in the bottom quarter of that bottle.  He managed to spill it on his face, hands, bare arms and legs.  It started to burn.  The desperate thought was there, "Run, get Daddy."  Then he heard an authoritative voice ordering him to, "wash it off with water."  There was a faucet in the garage 15 feet away.  He obeyed.  His skin wasn't even pink, nothing!!!!!  It's on the list.

If you don't SEE God's for real miracles in your life,
you haven't much in your hands to share with you children.

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JUN 22, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 8    As I look at discussions with various people who believe in predetermination I notice two things.  First, they tend to NOT understand that there are things God simple can NOT do (even though they give lip service to He can't sin, and a few other things).  They have not explored the depths.  For example, they can't seem to let themselves think that God desires a companion and can NOT be to Himself the companion He desires, and therefore can NOT create that companion 100% under His control.  It would be like God loving a blow-up doll!

Second, they seem to be like the physicists of today that keep discovering finer and finer minutia to cover the never ending appearance of potential contradictions (the four forces, the big bang, black holes, dark matter, are all ad hock inventions that are not real and have much simpler explanations).  In religion the endless pulling apart of verses and the doctrines of men (especially Greek abstract thinking ones) just keep missing the point - a Father God did not want to be along but His companion MUST, like Eve, be a helper fit for Him.  That necessitates parent-husbanding a free willed independent being who can of choice decide whether or not to be submitted to God (Ezekiel, Chapter 16).

Predestination, in the 100% extreme JUST DOESN'T CUT IT!

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JUN 15, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 7    Here are a few other possibilities on Predestination.  A dear Christian friend who I knew and trusted for over 40 years said, "I believe in predestination 3 and 1/2 days a week, and I disbelieve in it 3 and 1/2 days a week."  I LOVE IT!  Because I have no better calculation of my own, I therefore tongue in cheek estimate that 50% of everything is predestined, arranged, an opportunity like Esther.  It's a reasonable place to start, and it avoids the aberrations always associated with 100% Calvinism.

As a physicist, this is how a God who can work in BOTH directions in time should look to us one directional human creatures!

Another possibility IS rather far out, and I mention it only because Jesus did set the precedence.  For decades I have been convinced that the human spirit is not created at conception or birth but has been around for a significant time prior to that.  It seems that some, like Jesus, or perhaps Elijah-John, have heaven as theirs by virtue of covenant, faith, whatever, from way back, and are then here on a specific assignment for the benefit of another person or for God's specific purposes.  It could mistakenly be thought that they were "predestined to be saved" because that salvation was from our present limited point of view, already theirs!

Remember, there is much about the spiritual realm which in our simplicity —

— we are clueless!

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JUN 8, 2026:  PREDESTINATON 6    Now that I have said what predestination isn't, let me balance that with a few possibilities of what it is.  It seems as if most examples we can really point to tie into God's greater purposes.  Like Rahab, Ruth, or Esther.  Perhaps it is best if I use an example where the Bible specifically states what is predetermined and what isn't.

In the book of Esther one of those opportunities in history occurred where Satan had a shot at destroying the Jews.  There was one absolute emperor, and one ambitious man named Haman who inherited the Amalekite insensitivity to God and could be whispered to by Satan.  Haman had the king's ear!  There was also a string of favors, stubbornness, and offenses taken, where God certainly made use of human traits to set things up.

The final climax is summed up by Easter's Uncle: "Do not think to yourself that in the king's palace you will escape any more than all the other Jews.  For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father's house will perish.  And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?"

You could say salvation for the Jews was predestined, and it was "set up" specifically for Esther.  BUT it was also recognized that Esther could avoid it, although at a cost!  AND consistent with any real act of faith...

...there was also a potential major cost in acting to accept.

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JUN 1, 2026:  PREDESTINATON 5    Consider this.  When man sinned God wanted to redeem us, to buy us back.  If 100% predestination is correct, based on the idea that if it happens: God must have caused it; must have wanted exactly that; and it must be right, then God must have wanted us to sin and could sovereignly step in to redeem us whenever He was ready.  Right? Wrong!!!!

God did three things most people totally ignore.  First, He had given dominion to man and He didn't, wouldn't, couldn't just step in and take it back.  Second, He cut a binding Blood Covenant with a man named Abram.  What was Abram's was now legally God's.  God had just obtained legal entry into the affairs of Abraham and ALL his descendants (including their Dominion).  Third, by asking Abraham to sacrifice Isaac for God, God gained the legal RIGHT under covenant to sacrifice His son for Abraham and his descendants!

All three (and more) add to give you a Biblical picture of a God who is NOT 100% unlimited, doing whatever He wants, but a God who:

Carefully and intentionally
fulfills every law and limit He gives to us.

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MAY 25, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 4    After decades of walking with the Lord, I find "steps of faith" continue to be required.  Each new level of maturity, intimacy, or gifting that God makes available does still require entry; then after entry each new level has both extra blessings and extra responsibilities from the “but if” clauses stuck onto the covenant associated with that level.  Each level allows God to view and respond to you in new ways.  And those ways are always a mix of unconditional and very conditional.

It is this ongoing lifelong pattern of acts of faith, entry, apprenticeship, blessing, and "but if" terms of covenant, that help convince me that the 100% predestination picture some people paint just is NOT real.  Way too much seems left up to what YOU seek after — or build a defensive wall against.

Note that it is only the 100% predestination I am saying is wrong!  Is the number 20% or 80%, or are there other options, that will be discussed latter.

It is the 100% thinking that leads to aberrations about God.

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MAY 18, 2026:  PREDESTINATON 3    You may remember that I offered you the following definition of true faith (in anything from airplanes to the Lord) as: "Acting as if the object of your trust (Jesus for salvation) will do what you expect it to do, knowing it will cost you something if it doesn’t."  The implication is that true faith in anything MUST always carry a potential cost!  If it doesn’t, faith is not required.  Now, what does this have to do with predestination?

Two points, and they get deep.  One, I'm not sure, but it seems like if salvation is 100% predestined then it isn't possible to have a real potential cost involved in saying yes to Jesus.  (I'm still contemplating the ramifications of this, so your comments are welcome.)  Second, predestination totally blows out of the water God having any faith IN us or even needing faithfulness TOWARDS us.  And if God doesn't have faith in us, He can't build faith into us as part of His Image, or ever expect us to live by faith.  He needs to be what He wants from us.  Do you follow?

Therefore 100% predestination is a false premise.

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MAY 11, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 2    Let's look at the "I do" mentioned in the last post as an act of obedience.  If I say I believe in airplanes, but out of fear I take the bus to Cleveland, then I really don't have faith in airplanes.  A true saving faith in anything (including planes) requires some knowledge, an assent that it can do what you need it to do (get you right with God or to Cleveland), and then you acting upon that trust by actually putting your body in the plane and letting it hurl you into air so thin you couldn't breathe and so cold it would freeze you solid.  And lastly I see that there MUST always be a cost if the object of your faith doesn't do what you believe it will!

Choosing to say "I do" to the Lord MUST be an act of obedience, a putting yourself in the plane with the door closing behind you, and it WILL cost you something if God doesn't do what you believe through Jesus He will do.  If you can't say "No" then the "I do" is worthless, and Satan knows it!

Or if saying "I do" is 100% by God's provision, decision, and doing, then by definition the contract, the covenant, the marriage to the Lord is under a form of duress …

... and therefore invalid.

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MAY 4, 2026:  PREDESTINATION 1    As near as I can tell, no we are not predestined to be saved, at least not in the way some people over use the word.  It seems as if God does desire ALL to be saved, and has provided for all, so YES that IS the base line!  BUT all are not saved!  So, one must ask what is the difference between what God wants and what finally will be???

As I read the Bible I see the same pattern again and again.  God consistently looks for sensitivity and obedience.  Abraham vs. Lot, Isaac vs. Ishmael, Jacob vs. Esau, David vs. Saul, and on and on.  And for the obedience, think of: leaving Ur; putting blood on door posts; marching repeatedly around a city; sending out the choir; digging ditches in the desert; etc.  I tell you God has arrange to do the heavy lifting, but always seems to require some small (even stupid sounding) act of obedience on your part before He acts.  The salvation IS already provided, BUT it is not yours till you yield, you admit you need it, you say "I do" to Him.  There IS always a small act of agreement and obedience He requires of you.

That required act of obedience is good parenting,
not predestination.

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APR 27, 2026:  CONTENTION    I have a question for all of us.  But first, I need to set the stage.  In Jesus’ three year Rabbi School with the students we call Disciples, after they settled in, I see a lot of VERY human interaction!  Which of us is greatest – bring me a child.  Can James and John sit on your right and left – can they drink my cup?  We’re drowning – oh you of little faith.  No, not you – get behind me Satan.  And that just scratches the surface!  A certain balanced amount of “foot in mouth” disease seems to have been expected, accepted, even required by what I will call the greatest “Discipler” to ever live.

Now, we are called to make disciples.  Hmmm.  I see huge buildings (versus hardly a place to lay his head).  I see worship bands (where did Jesus keep his hidden?).  I see a few control freak pastors with well-timed messages authoritatively passing on what they learned in seminary (it has to be right).  Don’t get me wrong, some churches seem great!  But the average pattern that seems to be coming from Greek thinking seminaries looks to be missing some Jewish flavored roots in their discipleship stew!

Now, the question.  How do pastors incorporate enough contention into their discipling to find out if some of their seminary training is wrong?  And how on the flip side do they hear from the people what lies are creeping into their church, so as to address “woke,” socialism, a super tolerant love everybody Jesus, the mini idolatry of Calvinism, the latest form of new age mysticism, etc.?

I’m asking, where is the open discussion, the Jesus balance!

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APR 20, 2026:  A FIRST    I first started writing Thought-Provoking BLOG s for you on FB and my web-site back in about 2014 or 2015.  In that time I refrained from telling you, “You should buy this book I wrote!”  Through two books and ten booklets I never got that pushy.  I even broke the booklets up into BLOG s so you could have them free, and ran a few specials, for the first 20 or whatever.  SO HERE GOES A FIRST !

I hereby officially ask you to buy, through my website truth-seeker.co as many paper copies of, “BARRELL BOTTOMS, Hello? God? You there?” as you think you can hand out to friends at or near the bottom!  If there is a financial problem, email me at feedback@truth-seeker.co and I will arrange for a free one!  This is about us or people we love going through some really rough stuff and feeling all the way to the pit of our stomach that we are at the bottom of the Barrel, and that even God seems to be ignoring us.  This is about me trying to get as many readily available, paper copies of “BARRELL BOTTOMS” spread around out there as possible for the wave of pain I see in people.

This book deals head on with David, Ruth, Job, and you.  It is about walking across barrel bottoms as if they were holy ground.

You, or a friend, DO NEED THIS!

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