A New Creature. . . an Apostolic Pentecostal blog

Marion Street 1-12-9 About a month ago or so, when I picked Blessing Bob (formerly known as Cigar Bob) up for church he met me at the door of his home very upset.  He had seen a news story that in the upcoming weeks or months that all television transmissions were going to be digital and that his little old TV with the small fuzzy picture wasn't going to work at all any more.  At the minimum he was going to need a converter box and with Bob and his friend George being on a very limited income and not understanding about the government sponsored rebate coupons, etc., Bob was very upset. Bob is 87 years old.  He has been coming to church with Terry Wallin and I for probably 8-10 weeks now.  Bob, Terry, and I sit in the balcony and worship God together each week.  A few weeks ago, Bob's room mate George also came to church with us.  George is in his 90's.  87 year old Bob is 90 something George's caretaker.  George and Bob have almost no contact with the outside world othe...

Originally written April 19, 2007 The following is excerpted from and expanded upon from last Sundays lesson for my 5th & 6th grade boys. A few weeks ago I had doctors appointment. It was just a regular blood test/diabetes monitoring appointment. Nothing really bothering me, just a checkup. My doctor wasn't very happy with me. My blood sugar has been running quite high and he told me just straight out I had two choices, either change my lifestyle and lose weight or start injecting insulin to control my diabetes. We all know in theory how to live a healthier lifestyle. Most of us know we don't get enough exercise and we eat pretty poorly, but through most of our lives it is something we can ignore. we know there are consequences to the choices we make at the drive thru window or in the buffet line, but we see them as far removed in the future, and so we are able to ignore them. In a way I guess that I am fortunate, for years I have been able to ignore the way I ate and my se...

On Fri, Dec 15, 2006 at 6:38 PM, Dave Stokely wrote: Jackie and I were out on vacation for the last week. It is always a grand time of prayer, devotions, and Bible study for us. This week was no exception. We had a much needed time of rest and rejuvenation. I have been through somewhat of a trial, a personal spiritual battle and at the beginning of this week, I felt like my heart was a raw lump of meat, with no protective covering, vulnerable to every slight bump and touch. I felt like it had just been stripped bare and it wasn’t comfortable. My mind went to those that I know whose hearts are really the other way, nothing seems to effect them. I thought of different family members and others that I know of in and out of church who have such hardened hearts against God. It seems such a great danger. Maybe my own experience is limited, but it seems to me to be a especial danger for men. It’s usually traceable to hurts that they have suffered through the past. My father-in-law, for examp...

My daughter Julia (Jakub's mother) newly has email and asked that I forward her emails from the past that she had not received.  I'm not sending them all out to you, but I will be posting them to my blog ~ anewcreature.blogspot.com This was originally written Sun, Aug 20, 2006   The presence of God. . . Jackie, Jakub, and I were going over to see my Mom and Fred at Americana nursing home last night. I was going to give them some pictures of mine to hang on the wall, but I needed to stop at Hobby Lobby first to get some supplies for framing and matting the pictures. As we crossed the railroad tracks by the mall, I noticed a man coming from the direction of the Goodwill thrift store. He was a black man, poorly dressed, in his late thirties or early forties, walking, kind of struggling with several very large plastic bags. It was apparent that they were very heavy and it was an effort for him to walk with them. My mind conjured up images of a father, maybe raising his children by ...

Twenty-five years ago or so I read a book:  Gödel, Escher, Bach An Eternal Golden Braid .  Gödel was a mathematician, Escher an artist, and Bach a composer.  The book has to do with artificial intelligence and thought and systems of logic. . . Maybe this wasn't the author's intent, but it also has much to do with systems of religious belief.  The topics are heavy and require some work to comprehend, but these complex issues are presented in such a way as to be relatively understandable (with effort).  The author uses the art of Escher, the music of Bach and a mathematical proof written by Kurt Gödel to explore the ability of machines to think.  In 1931 Kurt Gödel discovered a mathematical theorem that if I might paraphrase says: Any system, sufficiently powerful, contains elements within it that are unprovable within that system. Here is a  page   which gives more complete restatements of Gödel's proof.  Gödel, Escher, Ba...

Day 1 Genesis 1:3-4 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.  (4)   And God saw the light, that it was good : and God divided the light from the darkness. This is the first mention of God seeing.  Seeing is necessarily done in the light.  Before there is light you cannot see.  You can feel.  You can taste.  You can hear.  You can smell, but if there is no light you cannot see.  Undoubtedly God has senses that we cannot begin to imagine, but without light there is nothing to see, without light there is nothing but blackness.  In this first mention of God seeing. . .  And God saw the light . . . there is a pronoun in Hebrew not usually translated into English (Strong's H853 'eth  את  ).  This pronoun, 'eth, brings emphasis to the noun to which it refers.  Only in this the first 'seeing' and the in the last 'seeing' of verse 31 does this pronoun appear.  If this word were translated...

It is annoying for me to go into a restaurant and to have a table that rocks and tips.  That just really bugs me no end.  Your water sloshes and spills.  Every time you lean against it as you chat everything comes toppling your way.  It is a chronic symptom of a table with four legs on an uneven floor.  It is next to impossible to get each of the legs the precisely needed length and if you do manage to do that, when the table is moved only a few inches to a new position the rocking begins again.   A three legged stool on the other hand will never tip.  It is geometrically impossible for that to happen.  It takes three points to define a plane.  Get a three legged milk stool and cut the legs to differing lengths all you want, place it on the most uneven floor imaginable and it will not wobble and rock.  Those three legs define a flat surface, and are inherently stable. I believe that our relationship with God is built upon communicat...