Jesus Loves Your Mom

Merry Christmas! Though the saying “Season’s Greetings” pre-dates Merry Christmas, and was in common parlance when Christmas cards were first mass produced, our Xmas letters this year will say Merry Christmas so as not to offend our thin skinned super-weak christian friends who cannot stand in any persecution because they feel entitled to life without troubles (as if their “Christ” has not overcome the world). Because of these believers who are made of foam, blown about by any wind of doctrine, we are going to appeal to their weak sensibilities and wish everyone a Merry Christmas; even though our Christmas letter will not likely reach most until after the New Year, making the common Victorian Christian winter greeting of “season’s greetings” a much more suitable salutation. Though it offends me to attempt to appeal to the sensibilities of the senseless, I am not so thin skinned as to allow that offence to end my friendships with those Xtians.

Being a hardly Christian and mostly pagan celebration rejected by puritans, our family barely celebrates “Christmas” though, we celebrate Advent. This year we will be letting Abigail choose the gifts we send through Compassion Canada as our present for the birthday boy.

“It is not lawful, O Stranger, for us to change the date of Crissmas, but would that Zeus would put it into the minds of the Niatirbians to keep Exmas at some other time or not to keep it at all. For Exmas and the Rush distract the minds even of the few from sacred things. And we indeed are glad that men should make merry at Crissmas; but in Exmas there is no merriment left.” ~ C.S. Lewis, Xmas and Christmas: A Lost Chapter from Herodotus

Merry Xmas,
Timothy Favelle

This job has been going pretty good. It’s mainly been Jeff Johnston and a bunch of apprentices, but we’re so good that we’ve shown that the union side is more professional than the non-union, and we just picked up a huge chunk of the project. The Kitimat Methanex plant is being demolished by a bunch of companies, some Union, some non-union and some CLAC, to ship the whole thing to China where it will be rebuilt. Stelcon, who I’m working for was the first union contractor on site, and since then, one of the companies joined an AFL-CIO affiliated union. I was told when I came here how important it was to be on my best behaviour and I can really see how important that is now that I am here. We need to show that the union is the professional way of getting things done, where usually that is just common knowledge, it seems that these customers are just learning that now.

We have a few pre-apprentices on our crew because people are wanting to leave their company and join us, but the union is sending some more journeymen Ironworkers because we just picked up a huge new project on this site (taken from the CLAC contractors who couldn’t man the job).

I’ve been spending most of this week thinking how blessed my life has been. I’ve been watching the Comedy network, and they’ve been playing a lot of commercials for match.com, eHarmony and Quest, and I’m so glad to have known my wife since the day I met her, and how great she’s been with me. I’m so glad she’s helped to make this website a little more reader friendly even from this distance.

My car may not be fixed yet, but I’ve got pretty well everything I need right in this crappy hotel. Troy (the mechanic) thinks that it probably had something to do with the oil pump. I haven’t gotten a quote or anything yet, and I think I’ll ask for one tomorrow or Sunday.

I met a Facebook friend, Billy V, today who introduced me to a Seventh Day Adventist mechanic who will be working on my car for the next few days to figure out what went wrong. We went to the Lutheran Church and enjoyed a wonderful liturgy on God’s love for his people Israel and the great rewards that we get from the crumbs of their table. Texts were OT: Isaiah 56:1, 6-8, Epistle: Romans 11:1-2a, 13-15, 28-32 and Gospel: Matthew 15:21-28. Hymns were 611 “Chief of sinners though I be”, 852 “O God of mercy, God of might” and a praise song “By grace, by faith”. We recited the Apostle’s Creed, then took communion and the serviced closed with Hymn 707 “Oh that the Lord would guide my ways”. It was a beautiful service and reminded me of how important it is to come to church to be filled with God’s grace rather than being there to try to give God our worship or give others our fellowship. It was great to just be there to receive.Then I came back to the hotel and tried to make this blog look better and more suited for what I want it to be used. Too bad I don’t know how to do that. Plus I kept distracting myself with frivolities that came into my head like, “What is the Palestinian Authority” or “I wonder what the Liberal Party of Canada is doing these days”. Hopefully after work tomorrow I’ll be able to figure our how to manage my own blog.

I haven’t written a blog in a long time, or much of anything else for that matter. I’m working, and that is distracting. I’m starting a new job on Monday, for who, I don’t know. I meet my boss tomorrow and he’s supposed to give me more information then. It seems like this is going to be a pretty fun little job, we’re going to be demolishing a building, and constructing a similar building on the same site when the demo is done… as far as I know. This job is in Kitimat, so I was on the road all day today and I think I burned out one or two pistons on the rolling hills and mountain summits it took to get here. I picked up a hitch hiker on this side of Hazelton and we talked about life and then God and Church History. That helped pass a few km to Terrace, but that was also when I first heard a little knocking in my engine. I’m going to need to get that looked at.

I rolled into town doing 60 km/h on the highway from Terrace to Kitimat with a terrible ruckus coming from my engine block. As soon as I got in to a 60 zone I saw the first law enforcement officer of the road trip, so that was an answer to prayer. If he would have seen me doing 60 in a 100 zone my car would have been impounded and sent for an inspection for sure.

This project has no finish in sight, it’s just getting started. (Wow, my writing skill has really deteriorated in the last year or so. Or maybe I’m just tired.) As soon as I got to this hotel where the Ironworkers are staying, I thought, only the best for us strong union Ironworkers. This place is one inspection away from being condemned. And the view from my window, a condemned hotel across the street. The locals call this place the zoo, the bar downstairs doesn’t open until 11 and stays open until 4 am. The hallways reek of semi-digested alcohol from months gone by. The obviously water damaged floor in the bathroom has yellow marks on the tile that one can wash off with a damp cloth, if one were so inclined. This place hasn’t been vacuumed in weeks. $30/night seems a little steep, but the bed’s comfy.

The thread this is from.

There is one infinite God, who we know as Jesus, the Father and the Holy Spirit. Jesus is not ⅓ God, neither is the Father, nor the Holy Spirit. Each is God.

I think that the focus of the Sh’ma on God being one, and the understood deity of Christ is where the trinity doctrine finds its roots. While the doctrine certainly originates in the third century, it does not have its roots in any of the pagan triads or trinities. No, those triads were three gods in unity to become one, and the trinity of Christianity is one God who has revealed Himself three ways.

I believe that much has been added to this doctrine, separating the three persons (modes, representations, manifestations, emanations) of God, and much has been added to this doctrine to blur the lines that separate these persons.

“Timothy, could you please expound on “Each is God”, as this is where the problem exists.
When you say “Each is God” in your mind are you saying Each as in Father=1, Son=2, Spirit=3, each one is a whole, together these One’s are The Supreme Being we call G-d?”

∞ x 3 = ∞

Together these infinites are the Supreme Being we call God. I know the Father to be infinite in nature, I know the Son to be infinite in nature, and I know the Spirit to be infinite in nature, which I get the ∞ x 3 equation from.

Timothy, it creates more [questions], the problem I think that exists and I see this with all Trinitarians, is that if they were to just speak plainly, I think it would sound like polytheism to them as well, and they do not want to give that impression.

Honestly I think the majority of people that embrace the trinity do not fully understand it, and always just look for far out allegories to explain, however, the more we drill down to the simplistic, we always end up at the same place:

Jesus is G-d but He is Not The Father (This is 1)
The Father is G-d, but He is NOT Jesus (this is 2)
The Holy Spirit is G-d, but He is neither The Father or Jesus (This is 3)

If each one of these manifestation are indeed G-d, and they are eternal deities that remain individual and NOT the others, than this is the very definition of a Triad, therefore Polytheistic.

∞ is indivisible

Where I say The Father is not without the Son, and neither are without the Spirit, others say the Father is God (1), the Son is God (2) and the Holy Spirit is God (3), and yet they are one. This speaks against monotheism, and is heresy. It is based in trying to better explain that which is abstract, and thus leads away from the original intent; the trinity is an abstract explanation of the deity of Christ in monotheistic Christianity, anything further is heresy.

Regarding John 8:16, the man Jesus relied on the testimony of those who heard the Voice from Heaven say “This is my Son,” and is not proof that the Son and Father are not the same.

Regarding John 14:26, this is showing that the Spirit is sent in the same manner as the Son, and so to understand separation there, you must preconceive that the Son is separate from the Father.

Regarding Acts 10:38, again this needs the preconception of the Father and the Spirit being separate, and the Father and Son being separate in order to interpret that the son and Spirit are separate.

I like to avoid the idea that the Father is not the Spirit or the Son, the Spirit is not the Father or the Son, and the Son is not the Spirit or the Father because I staunchly believe that God is indivisible and so one part is never without any other in any instance (accepting Jesus’ humanity at the point where he bore all sins on himself). Saying otherwise to me sounds like calling one 2D square face of a cube separate from another face.

I will give one more statement regarding the issue

but the more I expound on my two mathematical statements, the further from the Sh’ma and the deity of Christ I stray, so I do not wish to explain this very much, and will likely be the first to abandon it.

If we human beings are able to understand the vast difference between our nature and God’s, it would be like a 2 dimensional square realizing the difference between itself and a 3 dimensional cube. God has revealed Himself to us in three very personal ways, if we call these persons, modes, forms or what have you, it takes away from the fact that He IS God. The trinity doctrine was formed in an attempt to understand these three ways that God had reveal Himself to us.

Christianity is quite old, and has since the very beginning had copycats trying to seduce the masses.  These were called anti-christs, which from the Greek would mean other christs, with another gospel, and another fire.  When the sons of Aaron lit a strange fire before the Lord, He destroyed them.  It’s not good to play with another fire.

In my life I have seen revival with the fire of God preceded by contrition and real humility, and I have seen people search for revival, only to find a revival of the strange fire.  I think that there are too many people in the Body right now who are seeking revival rather than seeking humility, but I may be wrong about that.

In the time of Christ, and all times prior, religion was political, and what politics you held decided what god(s) you served.  Jesus was asked probably the most politically loaded question in first century Palestine, “Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar?”  And Jesus replied with “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s” which serves as the first time recorded that anyone suggested that there be a separation of Church and State.

We are, as Ambassadors of the Kingdom of God, not to stand in between this dark world and it’s darkness, but to reflect the light of God into this world.  Deuteronomy 30:18 says, “Now choose life” and this should be the motto of the pro-life movement.  The Bible is fully pro-choice, and fully pro-life.  Every child is a blessing, and every abortion brings a curse, but it is up to the pregnant woman to choose, not for any ambassador to push legislation on someone, only to push them away from the love of the God you claim to serve.  Make no mistake in what I am saying; Making abortion illegal would only serve to make outlaws of perfectly forgivable people.

The sin of Sodom is that it was overfed and unconcerned; they did not care for their poor. (Ezekiel 34ish:17ish)  There are many people declaring that Sodomy is an abomination before the Lord, and that is true!  Neglecting the poor is the worst thing a Christian can do.  True and perfect religion that is honoured by God is this; to look after widows and orphans in their distress and to keep yourself from being polluted by the world (James 1ish:26ish).  Nowhere does the Bible say that God wants his people who are called by his name to demand that their country abide by God’s rules, and Christianity got it’s start in one of the most horrific empires the world has ever known in regards to abortion and homosexuality.  It’s a non-starter.  Why are there Christians ostracizing people because of a sin that is just barely one of the 613 commands of Torah/Hallakah, when Covetousness, one of the top 10, is so prevalent?