Jesus is the light of the world.

"Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”" (John 8:12, NKJV) Jesus is the light of the world. He is the image of the invisible God, and he has come into this world with the Gospel -the good news for everyone who wants to believe. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist. And He is the head of the body, the church, who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in all things He may have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross." (Col. 1:15-20). For many years of my life, I lived in darkness. I was a Christian, deep inside I knew that Jesus was Lord. But I wasn't close to God. Now I live close to Jesus everyday, he is the light of my life.

On serving the Lord. When we serve the Lord, there will always be resistance and struggle. "Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." (2. Tim. 3:12, NKJV). Even my own parents have problems understanding me. "But when His own people heard about this, they went out to lay hold of Him, for they said, “He is out of His mind.” " (Mark 3:21) I love my parents with all of my heart, but they don't always understand me. The resistance in church can be similar. Rick Joyner writes one place that each church can only handle two Christians of the new breed. The churches cannot really handle brothers who are completely surrendered to the Lord. Still, the worst kind of resistance comes from the world. 2. Timothy makes this point very clear. As Christians we will always suffer persecution. The world will not understand us. "Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world." (1. John 2:15-16) We are not supposed to love the world. Yet we are supposed to love the people in the world. Jesus said that we should love our enemies. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you. " (Matt 5:43-44) We are supposed to love our enemies. And that is one of the hardest tasks for us Christians.

What does it mean to serve Jesus? To serve Jesus means to be willing to spend time with him. "But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen that good part, which will not be taken away from her.” (Luke 10:42, NKJV) Mary fell down in front of the feet of the Lord. She wanted to spend time with Jesus. And if we really want to serve the Lord, we must spend time with him. I generally have as a rule that I spend (as a minimum) 4-5 hours alone with God every day. That is the foundation for everything I do in the Kingdom. If I don't spend this amount of time with God, I cannot do what God has called me to do. I need to be filled up with the anointing. Only in the anointing of God is it possible to do what He has called us to.

" I am the Way, the Truth and the Life." ( John 14:6, New American Standard Version)

Jesus, I love you with all my of heart. I love you more than anything else. John 14:6 says: "Jesus said to him, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (NKJV) Jesus is Lord of the universe, He is King and Saviour. He is the the Teacher, Rabbi, and the great Master. He is the Son of God and the Logos of God incarnated. "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation Father." (Colossians 1:15, NKJV).

Jesus, I love you with all of my heart.

Come Jesus and fill my life with love. Come Jesus and fill my life with heavenly water. Come Jesus and fill my life with heavenly light. Soli Deo Gloria.

"I love Jesus with all my heart." This should be the confession of every believer.

Come, my Light, and illumine my darkness.
Come, my Life, and revive me from death.
Come, my Physician, and heal my wounds.
Come, Flame of divine love, and burn up the thorns of my sins
kindling my heart with the flame of thy love.
Come, my King, sit upon the throne of my heart and reign there.
For thou alone art my King and my Lord.
(St. Dimitrii of Rostov)

Our God Reigns
By Delirious?

40 million babies lost to God's great orphanage,
It’s a modern day genocide and a modern day disgrace
If this is a human right then why aren’t we free?
The only freedom we have is in a man nailed to a tree.

100 million faces, staring at the sky,
Wondering if this HIV will ever pass us by.
The devil stole the rain and hope trickles down the plug,
But still my Chinese take away could pay for someone’s drugs.

Our God reigns, Our God reigns,
Forever your kingdom reigns.

The west has found a gun and it’s loaded with ‘unsure’
Nip and tuck if you have the bucks in a race to find a cure.
Psalm one hundred and thirty nine is the conscience to our selfish crime,
God didn’t do wrong when he made you,
He’s a father who loves to parade you.

Yes he reigns, yes you reign, yes you reign,
For there is only one true God,
But we’ve lost the reins on this world,
Forgive us all, forgive us please,
As we fight for this broken world on our knees.

http://www.delirious.org.uk/lyrics

O Father, my hope:
O Son, my refuge:
O Holy Spirit, my protection:
Holy Trinity, glory to thee.
(Prayer of St Ioannikios)

Christus Victor!

On prayer. We must always pray. Origen claimed that one's entire life should be prayer. We give ourselves as a holy sacrifice to Jesus. Paul writes, "pray without ceasing". (1. Thessalonians 5:17, NKJV) We should always pray to our Lord and saviour Jesus Christ.

On the sacraments. We need to sacramentalize the everyday life. To be a Christian is to adopt a form of life, a Lebensform, a mode of being. We should live holy lives, giving ourself to Jesus Christ. But we can never look aways from the sacraments. The sacraments are holy, and given to us by God for justification, sanctification and deification. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians: "For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “Take, eat; this is My body which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same manner He also took the cup after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood. This do, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.”For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till He comes." (1. Corinthians 11:23-26, NKJV) As Christians we should receive holy communion every day, or at least once a week. This is the celebration of our righteousness, we celebrate that Jesus died for us (and rose again), and that we are made righteous in the face of God. We receive his body and his blood, and what happens can be called transsubstansiation, the wine and bread appears to be merely bread and wine, but it changes in its essence and becomes Christ's flesh and blood. Baptism is equally important. Peter writes -in one of his beautiful letters: "There is also an antitype which now saves us—baptism (not the removal of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a good conscience toward God), through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, angels and authorities and powers having been made subject to Him." ( 1. Peter 3:21-22) Baptism is a confession to God, and the water is a symbol of the new convenant with him in Christ Jesus.

On Christian mysticism. Every believer is called to be one with Christ. Because of the cross of Christ, we can enter into a unio mystica with the Trinity. We may be lovers of God, because Jesus died for us, he shed his precious blood on calvary. Paul writes, in his letter to the romans: "For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek." (Romans 1:16, NKJV) And also: "Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more." (Romans 6:8-9a). Paul testifies that he is crucified with Christ and that Christ lives in him. "I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me." (Galatians 2:20) In Philippians Paul writes: "For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." (Philippians 1:21) We are called to crucify our sinful nature daily, we are called to crucify the flesh. This is a daily struggle, and we must always start the day with prayer and reading of the Bible. We must always seek to live every day in The Holy Spirit. We must flow in the Spirit of God, and be united with Christ in our daily activities. "And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires." (Galatians 5:24) Yet we will also suffer persecution. We must be prepared to be persecuted for Jesus Christ. The biblical heroes of faith, the great men of the Bible, from David to Paul, were persecuted."Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution." (2. Timothy 3:12) But the Christian mystic will always have victory. Christus Victor -and the one who is united with him, will always experience victory. Thus Paul writes, in his beautiful epistle to the romans: "Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:37-39)

Dedicated to my friend Dag, who took care of me for one year.

On Mary. There is no doubt that Mary deserves our respect. As I see it, there could have been no virgin birth if Mary was disobedient, God needed a real servant, an obedient person who could help him carry out his plan. Mary worked together with God (synergeia), she received the co-operative grace. "For He has regarded the lowly state of His maidservant; For behold, henceforth all generations will call me blessed." (Luke 1:48, NKJV) All generations will thank Mary for her contribution to the divine economy, God's plan for salvation.

However, we must not worship Mary. She is the Theotokos, the mother of God. The reason is that Mary is created, and not uncreated. We worship the Lamb of God, but not the mother of God.

Dedicated to my Cahtolic friends, Johannes and Andreas.

On arguments for the truth of Christianity. I think there is a web of arguments for the truth of Christianity. Some of the most important are:
1. The proof from prophecy
2. The historical Jesus
3. The argument from religious experience
4. The genesis of the Bible
5. The aesthetic quality of the Bible.

This is something I am considering for a doctoral thesis topic. I don’t know if I want to write such a work. But I am convinced that real analytical thinking leads us to the truth of Christianity.

Dedicated to my cousin, Mathis.

On science. You know, science can give prediction and control, but science must be rejected when it conflicts with Scripture. I believe in the Christian a priori. That means that we must hold Biblical truth as a kind of a priori truth, that never can be falsified by empirical science. However, I believe that Christianity can be verified by experience. That’s why Richard Swinburne talks about the argument from religious experience. The enemy can give people confusing experiences. (See Ephesians 6:11-12, and also verse 10!). But by experiencing the love of God,we can verify the truth of the Bible. I believe this is a knock out argument, in fact one of the best arguments ever. In fact, if one understands the argument from religious experience and other arguments (like the proof from prophecy and the historical Jesus), one must become a Christian. So true science, real high quality scientific thinking, points to the truth of Christianity.

On prophecy. The prophetic gifts are still operating in the church today. In Ephesians 4:11-12 we read: "And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." (NKJV). And in 1. Corinthians 12:28 we read: "And God has appointed these in the church: first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of tongues." Cessationism claims that the gifts of the Spirit are no longer operating. But the Bible clearly tells us that these gifts are still available to the church today. Natural supernatural.

One of the greatest prophets in the church today is Rick Joyner. He is author of books like the Harvest and The Final Quest. You can read more about Rick at Morningstar's website.

Dedicated to the Krisners.

On contemplation. Contemplation is the state where the mind is thinking about the Trinity. It is the divine theoria, the state where the mind is thinking about God. For church fathers like Origen and Maximus the Confessor it was an essential and daily activity. The Word, Jesus Christ, kisses the mind and blesses the Christian who wants to think his thoughts. "And the soul is moved by heavenly love and longing, having clearly beheld the beauty and fairness of the Word of God, it falls deeply in love with his loveliness." (Origen, Commentary on the Song). So clearly, the soul experiences pleasure when it contemplates the Trinity. Andrew Louth writes: "The basic doctrines of the Trinity and the incarnation, are mystical doctrines formulated dogmatically". In contemplation, mysticism and dogmatic theology are united.

On the mystical theology of love. The mystical theology of love is the theology of love that is revealed to the believer by Jesus Christ. It is the theology of divine love, it is the theoretical contemplation of agape, God's eternal love. Divine love is holy, pure and perfect. "It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres." (1. Corinthians 13:7, NIV). The mystical theology of love is concerned with the love that is infused into ever believer who willingly receives God's grace. It makes us keep the commandments of God.

On the way of union. It is Lossky, who in his brilliant book The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, writes about the way of union. Unio mystica -the mystical union between Jesus Christ and every believer. This is a recurrent theme in Paul's writings. "For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, neither any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord." (Romans 8:38, NIV)
Union with God, in Christ Jesus, is the goal of human existence. We can only become what our telos (our purpose) is, when we are united with the Trinity through the cross of Jesus Christ.
For Lossky, the way of union is intimately connected to prayer and tears. "Tears and contrition are the beginning of prayer." St. Isaac the Syrian writes: "Repentence is the trembling of the soul before the gates of paradise." We can only enter into a relationship with God because of his grace. But when we pray with tears, we can enter into the mystical union with our Lord Jesus Christ.

On the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is infallible, inerrant and perfect. The Bible was written by holy men in ancient times, under the inspiration of The Holy Spirit. It is God's revelation to mankind, and it is a book with power and strength. "Those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength" and those who read the Bible will receive strength from the Lord.

There are 66 books in the Bible, because it is the book that follows us in the age of darkness. The kingdom of God is on it's way, but the Bible will help us through these difficult times on earth. The Bible will illuminate our minds when we read it under the guidance of The Holy Spirit.

Remember that no single human being could control the total composition of the Bible. Yet it has an aesthetic and logical unity. The Bible has an internal coherence that no single author could control. It has a beginning and a final, closing book. The Bible is composed by someone who stands outside history, namely God. The Bible has too many details that no human being could make. The Bible also has many prophecies that are fulfilled, prophecies about Jesus Christ -the proof from prophecy.

On Pneumatology. Pneumatology is the part of the divine science that deals with the third person of the Trinity, The Holy Spirit. Theology is the science of God, man's inquiry into the nature of the Trinity. To understand The Holy Spirit is essential to the church. We need theologians and philosophers who can enter into the mystery of the Trinity and who can understand more about The Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God's pneuma, the breath of God. The Holy Spirit is comforter and he lives in every believer. The Holy Spirit is responsible for our sanctification and deification. The Holy Spirit transforms us and recreates us in the image of God. The Holy Spirit heals us and restores us. He is the breath of life. He gives us God's zoe, the life that makes us new and born again. He makes John 10:34-35 possible, deification -that we through the cross of Christ may become gods. (See also Psalm 82:6).

On dogma. We need dogma in the church. Some people say that dogma are insignificant, but clearly they are wrong. 2. John, verse 9. Dogma are what God has given us in order to fight heresy. Without a certain intellectual structure, the church could be chaos. The closer we are to Christ, the more we will understand of the dogma. God wants to illuminate our minds. I love to worship, and give myself as a holy sacrifice to God. I love to dance for the Lord. You know, as Kevin Prosch sings, "Lord of the dance...". When youy hear that music, you just want to dance. "I really love you". As Delirious? sings: "Grace like a river, is flowing down, is flowing down, grace like a river is flowing down on me." When you experience this grace, you want to dance. But still, we need dogma, we need to have the mind of Christ, as Paul writes in 1. Corinthians 2:16. We need to think God's thoughts.

Dedicated to Emeth, and her husbond Ben, who prayed for me when I really needed it.

On marriage. Do I want to get married? Yes, I do -with the right person. I am totally against dating, and it goes without saying that I am against sex before marriage. Marriage is the only place where God allows this level of intimacy. In fact, these kinds of sins are so serious, that one may be rejected by God if one does this too much. God's grace is enormous, but the sexual sins that take place in the Norwegian society are very serious. Som what about marriage? I do believe God has a special person for me, and I am waiting for that person. Even if I had to wait another 10 years, I would wait.

Dedicated to my dear friend, Berek.

On healing. I believe there is healing in the atonement. Isaiah 53:5 declares: "By his stripes we are healed." This means that Jesus was inflicted for the sake of our diseases. When Jesus rose from the dead, the victory was complete. Christus Victor. All our human problems were nailed to the cross. That's why I believe in healing in the atonement. The victory was complete. All this is pure logic -but because of the hamartiological aspects of cognition, people don't recognize it. It's foolishness for men, but it is the wisdom of God. God can test us, he can chastise us, he can use disease in order to build character. But basically, Jesus has made the victory complete.

On theology. It's wonderful to be back online. What is theology? Evagrius of Ponticus says "He who prays in truth is a theologian, he is a theologian who prays in truth". "Undistracted prayer is the highest activity of the mind". We must understand that theology is more than an academic discipline. It is a life, a mode of being, a kind of contemplation that only The Holy Spirit can give us. Real theology, contemplation of those things that are unseen, contemplation of the natural order as God made it, can only be done in The Holy Spirit. The core of all Christian theology is the cross and resurrection of Christ. Crux sola nostra est theologia. Yet we must never forget the resurrection. The resurrection is the power of Christ, the dynamis of God, in fact it is the reason why can be children of God. And all this is rational -theology is the science of God made posssible by grace through The Holy Spirit.

On grace. Now what is grace? For Lutherans, grace means to be made righteous by the cross of Christ. It means that you are justified by faith. But grace also has other aspects, and we need to go deep into church history in order to understand what it means. Grace is also a substance that is infused into the human soul that we become more like Christ. That's why Catholics talk about gratia elevans. We must also, with Aquinas, consider what we can call co-operative grace.
The Orthodox church emphasizes the collaboration between God and man, synergeia, and the idea of deification. The goal of human life is deification, and this can only be obtained through the divine grace of Jesus Christ.

Grudem. You should all have a copy of Grudem's Systematic Theology.

Emeth and Berek. Thanks for your prayers. I am out of the dark room. The miracle happened once again. Jesus healed me. Emeth you have no idea what your email meant to me, many thanks to you and your husband. Hebrews 13:8.

On Noah. I wonder how Wittgenstein would have used the blog tools. In many ways he was the first blogger, since he used remarks. In fact, a brilliant literary form.

Let me give attention to a serious topic. What was Noah's achievement? See Genesis chapters 6 to 9. Noah was a nonconformist. I once saw a T-shirt with "Go against the flow" printed on it. ( It was a Christian T-shirt. )

If you look at all the great men in church history, at least most of them, they were non-conformists.

Dear Friends,

Ive had a rather serious relapse in my condition. I miss you guys already. Emails are most welcome but I cannot reply at the moment.

Please pray for me.

Warm regards

Andreas.

A very alarming new law in the UK will be in force by October 2006. An interesting church in an interesting place, has published this doc.

It's now possible to comment on this site for anyone. No wonder why I never got any comments.
I asked some friends to comment but they never did, because they couldn't I assume.

I recently ordered The Collected Works of Saint John of the Cross. I hope to get through this book in it's entirety -sooner or later. It's some 700 pages, that's a lot, and very complicated. No wonder why Pope John Paul II had to spend his doctoral work on this writer. You can find it here.

If Christians started to take Mark 16:15-18 seriously, the world would be very different from what it is now.

So my heatlth is fragile...yet I look to the future. I now want to write on the argument from religious experience. Would be good for a second Masters or PhD. I'd like to do it here.

On abortion. This is one of the most serious sins committed today. As Christians we should and must go against this evil. In his book on the orthodox church, Timothy Ware writes on abortion:

"Abortion [...] is unambiguously condemned in Orthodox moral teaching. We do not have the right to destroy human life." (The Orthdox Church, page 296).

Only God is Lord of life and death.

Both natural philosophical reason and revelation teaches us that abortion is wrong. I have the basic structure of an article on abortion in my head.

So what about those who have committed this crime? If they repent, God's grace will meet them. In fact, remember that the Lord first appeared to Maria Magdalene, who had seven demons before she met the Lord. He built his church on Peter, but also on this woman.

So God's grace is enormous. In fact: Those who have been forgiven much...love much.

Grace and truth came with Jesus Christ. (John 1:17). We need both, and the case of abortion shows this clearly.

Philosophy and spiritual warfare. People might tend to think that philosophy is just philosophy, not really dangerous or perhaps just a neutral activity. I don't agree. Postmodernism, poststructuralism, empiricism, classical foundationalism, rationalism -non of these ideologies are compatible with Christianity. But of course -I do believe in credo ut intelligam. Swinburne being a good example of a man combining faith and reason.

A wise man wrote a paper called "Beware of philosophy". Think of Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein and others -how much confusion this has created for humanity. I do appreciate some of Wittgenstein's remarks, and to some extent what Kant said about the moral law. But basically -philosophy can be confusion -think about transcendental idealism, Berkeley's idealism, or Wittgensteinian philosophy of religion.

It comes down to this: There is only one real Rabbi: Jesus Christ, God's Son and the Logos incarnated. That's why I love the Bible and philosophical theology in the Christian tradition.
I have a Christocentric view of philosophy.

The previous essay was written a few years ago. It has never been published. I no longer believe in all of what I wrote. But I do believe: Christianity does involve suffering. We must be prepared to suffer for Christ. 1. Peter is a letter in the Bible dealing with this. It's a beautiful and prophetic letter that speaks to us today, perhaps more than ever is this wonderful piece of literature important to study.

Those who really love Christ will be given the hidden manna. But they are also willing to suffer for him.

So why the name? From a church father who fought heresy!

So are we standing in front of a new big move by God? Yes, I think so. Many people think so.

A revival like Toronto and Pensacola? Yes, I believe we are.

The mug of sin is full. It's time for God's Son, Jesus Christ, to be lifted up.