Darkness at Home

Posted on February 16, 2025 by Lee — Leave a comment

As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. (Genesis 15:12)

Sometimes even when we’re doing the right thing, and going in the right direction, things get worse instead of better. In our most difficult times, that “worse” is not because of bad things happening “out there” in the big bad world, but because of things happening right where we live. Sometimes in the place where we most want light and comfort—in our own home—we find darkness and brokenness instead. These are the times when we are most severely tested. And that testing—these temptations—can go on for years.

Both Abram and Jesus faced that kind of trial and temptation. Their struggles are pictured in Genesis 15:7–21 and Luke 4:22–30, which I invite you to read in your Bible or using the links provided. As we have been discovering in this series, the outward trials that Abram faced also give us a symbolic picture of the far deeper trials that the Lord faced while he was here on earth.

For more on darkness at home, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Christianity, God, inner struggles, Jesus Christ, spiritual rebirth, spirituality, temptation, the Bible, the promise
Posted in Pain and Suffering, Spiritual Growth

What’s the Difference Between Time in Heaven and Time on Earth?

Posted on February 9, 2025 by Lee — 28 Comments

Here is a Spiritual Conundrum submitted to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life by a reader named Carl McGuire:

What’s the difference between time in heaven and time on earth?

Here on earth, the events of our lives unfold against a background of regular cyclical events. For as long as humans have lived on this planet, our lives have been arranged by:

years, determined by the earth’s orbit around the sun,
months, originally determined by the moon’s orbit around the earth, and
days, determined by the earth’s rotation on its axis.

These have been our basic units of time stretching back to the beginnings of human consciousness. All of them are based on regular cycles that never change and never cease—at least, not on our human time scales.

In the spiritual world, none of these cycles exist. There are no planets orbiting stars and rotating on their own axes. There are no moons orbiting planets. In the spiritual world the land is arranged in expanses one above the other, and the spiritual sun is above them all. None of them move in relation to each other. This means that in the spiritual world, there is no basis for time as we know it. There aren’t any regular, unchanging cycles to measure it by.

Does this mean that everything is just frozen in place? No. People still experience one thing after another, going through periods that feel like days, weeks, months, and years. But instead of these being determined by fixed external events, they flow longer or shorter based on the mental and emotional states of the angels and spirits and their communities.

In heaven, psychological time is the only time that exists. And one person’s time is not the same as another person’s. Even in the same community, it might be morning for one person, and evening for another.

Let’s take a closer look.

For more material and spiritual time, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: atomic clocks, clocks, heaven, psychological time, spiritual time, the afterlife, time, time and space, time in heaven
Posted in The Afterlife

If Our Thoughts Come from the Spiritual World, Where Did the First Humans Get their Thoughts?

Posted on February 6, 2025 by Lee — 19 Comments

In the comments section of the article “Your Crowdsourced Mind” (which I recommend you read to get the most out of this article), a reader named K asked:

If everyone has a so-called crowdsourced mind, then what were the first sapient beings in the universe like, when there were no spirits to influence them yet?

Also if I have a so-called crowdsourced mind, does that mean that the way I think and the views I hold likely are not unique, even if I may feel like an odd-out freak?

This article is an edited and slightly expanded version of my reply. You can see my original response here.

The picture painted by the earliest chapters of the Bible is that the earliest humans on earth had God as their companion and source. God walked with them in the garden (see Genesis 3:8). Ultimately, God is where everything comes from. If there were no other humans, angels, or spirits for the love and wisdom from God to flow through on its way to us, it would flow into us directly from God.

Adam and Eve, by Lucas Cranach

But even in that case, God’s love and wisdom flows through the higher layers of the spiritual universe on its way to us. God created all the levels of the spiritual universe first, before the material world and its levels, not so much in time as in order and priority. Creation flows from the inside out through all the layers of the universe, which form something like a series of concentric circles surrounding its center, which is God. Since we humans are finite, not infinite, and created, not divine, we can’t receive anything directly from God, any more than we receive sunlight directly from the sun. It must first flow through the spiritual distance between us and God.

Now that Jesus has been born and glorified, we can receive thoughts and feelings directly and personally from God via the “Son” and the “Holy Spirit,” which are the human presence and power of God. But that’s a different topic altogether. And the earliest humans lived long before Jesus was born, so for the purposes of this article we’ll set that aside. For the real meaning of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, please see: “Who is God? Who is Jesus Christ? What about that Holy Spirit?”

Besides, the people represented by “Adam” in the Bible were not the first spiritually aware people on earth.

For more on early humans and odd-out freaks, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Adam, Adam and Eve, angels, bible, Christianity, community, Creation, crowdsourcing, Garden of Eden, Genesis, God, Jesus, pre-Adamites, spirits, the human mind
Posted in Science Philosophy and History, The Bible Re-Viewed

A Promise and a Mission

Posted on January 12, 2025 by Lee — Leave a comment

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” (Luke 4:18–19, quoted from Isaiah 61:1–2)

In the previous article in this series we followed Jesus, after he was baptized, into the desert, where he was tempted by the devil. The story of those temptations was also told in the spiritual meaning of the first battle recorded in the Bible, in Genesis 14. Temptation is a battle—and if the temptation is severe, it is a battle in which we are not sure if we are winning or losing. This is how we feel when we are experiencing the spiritual struggles of temptation. And this is how the Lord felt as he came out of his first temptations in his boyhood.

In Genesis 15:1–6 and Luke 4:14–21, we begin to see a promise of the fruits of those temptations. We begin to gain some assurance that the battle will indeed be won. The passage in Genesis offers a promise of rich spiritual fruitfulness. The passage in Luke speaks of the fulfillment of that promise in the Lord’s work of loving and saving each one of us, and all of humanity together.

For more on a promise and a mission, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: bible, faith, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, our mission, spiritual battles, spiritual children, spiritual warfare, temptation, the Bible, the promise
Posted in All About God, The Bible Re-Viewed

Do Galaxies Have Heart and Lungs?

Posted on January 6, 2025 by Lee — Leave a comment

There is some reflection of the human form in everything in the created universe. . . . God is a person, and the created universe is an image of God. (Divine Love and Wisdom #63–64)

So says Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772). But he admits that this is not always very clear to us here in this material universe.

“Heart and lungs” of a galaxy

Imagine my surprise, then, when not long ago an article popped up in my news feed about a recent scientific study suggesting that galaxies have a “heart” and “lungs”! “Really?” I thought, “That sounds like clickbait!” (Okay, okay, sort of nerdy clickbait!)

But when I read the article, “How the ‘heart and lungs’ of a galaxy extend its life,” that’s exactly it said. The original published scientific study, “Simulations of pulsed overpressure jets: formation of bellows and ripples in galactic environments,” by Carl Richards and Michael Smith of the University of Kent, is very mathematical and theoretical. It makes only one brief mention of “lungs,” and says nothing at all about a “heart.” But in the article covering the study, also published by the Royal Astronomical Society, the authors of the scientific paper do make the analogy explicit:

In their analogy, the researchers compared the supermassive black hole at the centre of a galaxy to its heart and the two bi-polar supersonic jets of gas and radiation they emit to airways feeding a pair of lungs.

Maybe ol’ Swedenborg wasn’t so far off about everything in the created universe reflecting the human form—which is the form of God, its creator!

For more on God and black holes, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: astronomy, black holes, Carl Richards and Michael Smith, cosmology, galaxies, God, heart and lungs, life in the universe, matter and energy jets, science, the human form, universe
Posted in Science Philosophy and History

Was There a Reason Jesus Came at the Time He Did?

Posted on January 1, 2025 by Lee — 15 Comments

Though this answer is based primarily on the Bible itself, it comes from a perspective outlined in the theological writings of Emanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772).

Human spiritual ages start pristine, then fall, and finally end in corruption and destruction

Stages of Life In the Bible, various time periods or ages of human spiritual history are described in narrative fashion. The general pattern of these ages is that they start in a relatively pristine state, but then decline over time until they become completely corrupted and come to their end. A new period or age then begins, and it, too, goes through a similar cycle.

For more on why Jesus came when he did, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Ages of Man, bible, Christianity, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, spiritual history, the Bible, the Incarnation
Posted in All About God, Science Philosophy and History

How Can Every Eye See Jesus When He Returns? Is the Earth Flat?

Posted on October 10, 2024 by Lee — 77 Comments

Here is a Spiritual Conundrum submitted to Spiritual Insights for Everyday Life by a reader named JoRena:

Hello, Lee. I’ve been reading on your website for a few years since my husband of 47 years went to Heaven. And I cannot wait to be with him again. We had a very deep and abiding love all those years.

My question is, if all the things John saw in Revelation are in the spirit, please explain the part of the second coming of Jesus where it says every eye will see him. Is He coming to earth?

And on another note, is the earth flat? I know heavenly bodies are mentioned in the Bible, but are literal planets mentioned?

Hi JoRena,

First, I’m glad the articles here have given you comfort and hope for reuniting with your beloved husband, who has moved on to the spiritual world. For those reading in, I have posted many articles about marriage as an eternal relationship. Here is one to start with: “How does Marriage Fit In with a Spiritual Life? Is There Marriage in Heaven?”

On to your questions. Really, they’re all connected. Revelation 1:7 says:

Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all the tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. So it is to be. Amen.

Flat Earth If the earth is flat, this might be physically possible. Jesus could appear very high in the clouds, so that the eyes of everyone on the flat expanse of the earth could see him—especially if he came in “radiance and glory.”

But what if the earth is spherical? (Spoiler: It is!) No matter how high in the clouds Jesus appeared, most of the earth’s population would not see him. Only the eyes of people who were within a few dozen miles of the particular clouds he came in would see him. For everyone else, he would be hidden by the curvature of the earth.

Does this mean the Bible is ridiculously outdated and wrong, as many skeptics and atheists say, while pointing at passages such as this one?

Only if we take it literally. But if we read it spiritually, this verse takes on a whole new—and much deeper—meaning. And if the Bible is the Word of God, as Christians believe, doesn’t it make sense that it is meant to deliver a spiritual message?

For more on the physical and spiritual eyes, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Christianity, clouds of heaven, eyes, flat earth theory, God, Jesus, Jesus Christ, land, planets, Revelation, sky, the Bible, the Second Coming
Posted in All About God, Science Philosophy and History, The Bible Re-Viewed

Are Angels Sexless Beings?

Posted on May 19, 2024 by Lee — 35 Comments

In traditional Christian mythology, angels are sexless beings.

The Bible disagrees with that mythology.

Song of the Angels (1881), by William-Adolphe Bouguereau

In the Bible, angels are described as men. Not as generic, sexless human beings, but as men: male human beings.

And if there are male angels, of course there are female angels as well. It would make no sense at all for there to be male angels if there weren’t female angels. After all, God created humans male and female. It will be the same for angels. It’s just that the angels God sent to carry messages to people on earth as recorded in the Bible all happened to be men—as we would expect in that time and culture.

But the Bible does give us a few visions of celestial beings who are female.

Let’s take a closer look.

For more on male and female angels, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: angels, biblically accurate angels, female angels, gender, heaven, male and female, male angels, sex, sexual reproduction, the Bible
Posted in Sex Marriage Relationships, The Afterlife

What do “Biblically Accurate Angels” Look Like?

Posted on May 12, 2024 by Lee — 39 Comments

Ezekiels_wheels Oh yes, the memes are circulating!

They show terrifying “biblically accurate angels” that look like four-headed, six-winged beasts, or like massive wheels inside of wheels, all covered with eyes.

“Be not afraid!” the memes gleefully taunt!

There’s only one problem. None of these are biblically accurate angels.

It’s not just that the artwork usually doesn’t match what the Bible describes. It’s that the Bible never says these creatures are angels.

It is true that traditional Christianity has built up a whole hierarchy of angels that includes these creatures. But if it’s biblically accurate angels you’re looking for, none of them qualify.

When the Bible mentions angels, if it describes them at all, it says they are men.

In other words, biblically accurate angels look exactly like people.

And no, they don’t have wings.

For more on biblically accurate angels, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: angels, biblically accurate angels, cherubim, Ezekiel, the Bible, wheels within wheels, wings
Posted in The Afterlife, The Bible Re-Viewed

Do We Ever Completely Get Rid of our Faults?

Posted on May 5, 2024 by Lee — 13 Comments

Some Christians believe that when we put our faith in Jesus, all our sins are taken away, and we are completely pure and clean in God’s eyes. Others believe that once we have repented from our sins, they are forgiven by God, and are no longer part of us. They support this idea with passages such as Psalm 51:7:

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.

But people who have bathed until they are squeaky clean get dirty again, and new white snow gets dirtier and dirtier as the days wear on.

Adult baptism - Credit: René Breuel These same Christians may get very discouraged when, after the excitement of converting and being baptized has passed, they return to their daily life and find themselves falling right back into some of the same evil desires and sinful actions they thought had been completely washed away by the waters of baptism.

The reality is that we faulty humans cannot be instantly transformed from devils of desire into angels of light. When we turn our life over to God, that is only the beginning of a long process of being reborn as a new and better person. That’s why Paul wrote:

Work on your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. (Philippians 2:12–13)

And the reality is that our faults, traditionally known as “sins,” are never completely gone from our character. Instead, they are gradually pushed more and more to the side of our psyche. If we persist in battling against them using the spiritual power God gives us, and keep on living a good and loving life, our faults move out to the edges of our peripheral vision where they are no longer an active part of our life.

Understanding how this works can help us to avoid discouragement when we turn out not to be as squeaky clean as we thought we were! And it can give us strength and resolve to face our daily battles, and gradually beat our spiritual enemies back.

Because it is an ongoing battle.

For more on pushing aside our faults, please click here to read on.

Tagged with: Amalek, Amalekites, baptism, evil, rebirth, sin, spiritual battles, spiritual growth, spiritual rebirth, the Bible, war
Posted in Spiritual Growth, The Bible Re-Viewed

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