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My Secret God Selected from the on-going INTERNET BOOK, "The Doctor's Terrific Tablets" ( http://www.terrific-tabs.com ) by John N. Todd III, M. D. (link about the author)
SEE related "tablet": A SIGN for the front door of EVERY church (link) AND: Are you ASHAMED of your "religion"? (link) Initiated 9/01; "Doctored" -- 10/01; 11/01; 3/02; 10/02; 12/02; 4/03; 5/03; 6/03; 8/03; 11/03; 7/04; 8/04; 11/04; 3/05; 10/05; 6/13/06 CLICK HERE to go to the "FRONT PAGE" of "The Doctor's Terrific Tablets" CLICK HERE for ALPHABETICAL INDEX of this entire WEBSITE CLICK HERE to EMAIL your thoughts to the author Psalm 91: 1 (KJV) He that dwelleth in the SECRET PLACE of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 2 I will say of the LORD.... He is my refuge and my fortress.... my God. In Him will I trust. 3 Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. 4 He shall cover thee with His feathers -- and under His wings shalt thou trust. His truth shall be thy shield, and thy buckler. Matthew 6: 6 (NRSV) Jesus speaking: But whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father, who is in SECRET.... and your Father who SEES in SECRET will reward you. Mark 4: 10 (NRSV) When He (Jesus) was alone, those who were around him along with the twelve asked Him about the parables. 11 And He said to them, "To you has been GIVEN the SECRET of the Kingdom of God; but for those outside, everything comes in parables; 12 in order that 'they may indeed look, but not perceive, and may indeed listen, but not understand.... so that they may not turn again, and be forgiven.'" (Jesus quoting from Isaiah). Matthew 13: 11 (NRSV) He (Jesus) answered, "To you it has been given to know the secrets of the Kingdom of Heaven -- but to them, it has not been given. Psalm 139: 13 (NRSV) For it was you (God) who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother's womb. 14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well. 15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in SECRET.... intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me -- when none of them as yet existed. 17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 I try to count them -- they are more than the sand; I come to the end -- I am still with you. "My secret God".... he said. Not long ago, while my talented and loyal close-friend (WJL) and I were in another of our usual discussions about "spiritual" matters, my friend casually spoke the words: "my secret God".... as he was explaining to me one of his heartfelt and soulful decipherings of God -- and "God's truth". My friend's spontaneous categorizing of one of his spiritual conclusions, with this reference to his "secret God", impressed me greatly.... and led me to ponder the "decision-making-process" of those who seriously "seek God". That is -- to pose this as a rhetorical question -- isn't it true that many of us "believers" have deep and "secret" understandings which pertain to the God of our personal faith.... and, do we not also have secret questions and "wonderings" which we feel we have been "divinely" led to consider.... because of certain "spiritual" occurrences, and "awakenings" ("revelations") that have "developed" within us.... and, because of our own personal lifetime experiences with The Supreme-Being. (See link Darkness to Light.) Contrariwise, is it not also true that there are many fellow-humans who claim and hope to be "God's people", who simply "accept" -- without thought and challenge -- a "batch" of "religious principles" which they have been told about -- and which they have been directed to "believe", by various "religious" hierarchies.... under the dreadful "threat" of condemnation, by God.... if they (we) do not "swallow" an entire package of this-or-that denomination, or doctrine.... or "church". The profundity of the concept of my friend's "secret God" has continued to enthrall me. As any reader of this Internet Book ("The Doctor's Terrific Tablets") already knows.... a primary thesis of the author is to expose (and to challenge) the claims, and authority, and the arrogance of those individuals and groups who promulgate their own "religion" as the "one-way" (the "only" way) to achieve the favor of God.... and to earn "acceptance" by God. (See links to other chapters in this book: Doctrinal Rigidity.... and Baptists and Jews.) (To quote from elsewhere in this book [Author's purpose {link}]: If there is a "secondary" motive in my writing this book about "religion" and "spiritual" matters, and about God-the-Creator.... that motive would be to expose, and hopefully to lessen, some of the almost-absurd denominational [doctrinal] squabbles.... which hostilely separate loving-and-caring "Godspeople" from each other.) (See link God's people.) I say that every individual should be (and is) free.... within himself, and hand-in-hand with Almighty God -- to study and consider and compare any and all religions and books and faiths and churches.... and that each individual "Godsperson", in his own evolving spiritual pilgrimage, should be "set free" to formulate and solidify his own beliefs, and his disbeliefs, and his unbeliefs -- that is, his own "secret God" -- without unwanted dictatorial interference, and without "judgment" by man, and without sectarian superstition.... and without nagging hostility and threats and condemnation by "churchy" groups of mere human-beings. It should now be well-recognized and acknowledged, that spiritual growth and development and understanding and "faith".... are indeed lifelong evolving quests -- under the auspices and direction of our Creator-God -- for each of God's accepted individuals. "Faith" progressively materializes within God's people, as each of us follows the stepping-stones (link) which God lays before us. By following these stepping-stones as they "appear" -- laid-out by God, and assigned by God for each individual Godsperson -- we are directed, througout a lifetime, to fulfill our particular and distinctive "mission" (or "ministry").... in order to reach the presence of the "secret God" that is being revealed to us -- the God who cannot be shaped and restricted by doctrinal formulations.... the God who cannot be encapsulated by a "religion"... the God who cannot be circumvented (link) by humans.... the God who cannot be "attained" by recitation of a certain "creed".... the God who cannot be deceived by humans, claiming to follow churchy rules, and regulations, and man-made concoctions. (After all, what is this life all about.... except to implement the ministry (link) assigned to each of us, by God; and to grow in knowledge and recognition of God.... hopefully and presumably for a life-to-come.) Answer this: to whom must we earthly creatures answer.... except to Almighty God? Is there anyone who would claim that we earthlings must please God PLUS a certain "church".... or God PLUS a priest or preacher.... or God PLUS a group of dogmatic human-beings? Consider the following, from God's Bible. I selected these scriptures to point out the Biblical admonition that we humans should not become "frozen" in man-made "religions".... and that we must not become "slaves of human masters" who teach "human commandments" to be memorized, and blindly followed.... and that we must not permit ourselves to become deceived by those who try to mold God into "an IMAGE formed by the ART and IMAGINATION of mortals". No wonder we humans develop "secret" personal religious beliefs.... when there are so many different forces "out-there".... trying to "sell" us on the idea that they (they only) have circumscribed the mind and intention of God -- and that they have God-in-a-box (link). Read these scriptures out loud, so that you may "see" and "hear" what God has declared: 1 Corinthians 7: 22 (NRSV) For whoever was called in the Lord as a slave, is a "freed" person -- belonging to the Lord; just as whoever was free when called, is a slave of Christ. 23 You were bought with a price. Do not become slaves of human masters. 24 In whatever condition you were called, brothers and sisters, there remain WITH GOD. Isaiah 42: 16 (NRSV) (God speaking through Isaiah): I will lead the blind by a road they do NOT know..... I will guide them by PATHS they have not known. I will turn the darkness before them into LIGHT -- the rough places into level ground. These are the things I will do; and I will not forsake them. (See link From Darkness to Light.) Deuteronomy 29: 29 (NASV) The secret things belong to the LORD our God: but the things revealed belong to us, and to our sons forever.... Isaiah 29: 13 (NRSV) The Lord said: Because these people draw near with their mouths, and honor me with their lips, while their hearts are far from me -- and their worship of me is a HUMAN commandment learned BY ROTE; 14 so I will again do amazing things with this people, shocking and amazing. The wisdom of their wise shall perish; and the discernment of the discerning shall be HIDDEN. 1 Corinthians 2: 6 (NRSV Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age, or of the rulers of this age -- who are doomed to perish. 7 But we speak God's wisdom, SECRET and hidden.... which God decreed before the ages, for our glory. 1 Samuel 16: 7 (NRSV) But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.... for the LORD does NOT SEE as MORTALS see. They look on the outward appearance.... but the LORD looks on the heart." James 4:10 (NRSV) Humble yourselves before the Lord.... and He will exalt you. 11 Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another, or judges another, speaks evil against the Law, and judges the Law; but if you judge the Law, you are not a doer of the Law, but a judge. 12 There is ONE Lawgiver and JUDGE, who is able to SAVE and to DESTROY. So then, WHO ARE YOU to JUDGE your neighbor? Acts 17: 24 (NRSV) The God who made the world and everything in it.... He who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by HUMAN hands, 25 nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything.... since He Himself gives to all mortals life, and breath, and all things. 26 From one ancestor He made all nations to inhabit the whole earth; and He allotted the times of their existence, and the boundaries of the places where they would live.... 27 so that they would SEARCH for God, and perhaps grope for Him, and FIND HIM -- though indeed He is not far from each one of us.... 29 Since we are God's offspring, we ought NOT to think that THE DEITY is like gold, or silver, or stone.... an IMAGE formed by the ART and IMAGINATION of mortals. 1 Thessalonians 2: 3 (NRSV) For our appeal does not spring from deceit or impure motives or trickery, 4 but just as we have been approved by God to be entrusted with the message of the gospel, even so we speak, not to please MORTALS.... but to PLEASE GOD -- who tests our hearts. .... Same (NEB) "We do not curry favor with men. We seek only the favor of God. We have never sought honor from MEN") 1 Corinthians 4: 3 (Paul speaking) (NIV) I care very little if I am judged by you, or by any HUMAN court. Indeed, I do not even judge myself. 4 My conscience is clear -- but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me. 5 Therefore, judge nothing before the appointed time. Wait till the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is HIDDEN in darkness.... and will expose the motives of men's hearts. At that time, each will receive his praise -- from God. Jeremiah 33: 2 Thus says the LORD who made the earth, the LORD who formed it to establish it -- the LORD is his name: 3 Call to me, and I will answer you; and I will TELL you great and HIDDEN THINGS.... that you have not known. Daniel 2: 22 (KJV) He revealeth the deep and SECRET things. He knoweth what is in the DARKNESS.... and the LIGHT dwelleth with Him. Romans 8: 31 (NRSV) What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us.... who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold His own Son, but gave Him up for all of us.... will He not with Him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? Of necessity, God must indeed be "accepted" in "secret" by many of us "believers", throughout this world.... most frequently because of fear -- fear of human intolerance, or persecution, or ridicule. Sometimes, we must "hide" our beliefs, because of fear of a zealous or fanatic "church".... a church using a threat of "exclusion", or excommunication, or imprisonment, or even execution -- if their doctrinal concoctions and requirements are not readily accepted by others. Sometimes, God must remain "secret", within an individual Godsperson, in order to avoid bellicose proselytizing by zealots.... and to dodge hostile "religious" argumentation. History has revealed, over-and-over -- even today; even in the U.S.A. -- the need for "secrecy" in one's belief-in-God -- so as to avoid punishment or disparagement by churchy humans.... either in the name of God -- or in the name of "political correctness" -- or in the name of "separation-of-church-and-state". Furthermore.... if you think that, nowadays (10/01), you don't need a "secret God", try espousing your heartfelt spiritual beliefs, outside of the United States -- in a foreign nation where there is hostile (militant) rigid adherence to a "religion" that is different than yours. Be careful what you say about the God you believe-in -- keep it a "secret".... or you may find yourself attacked, or in jail, or mutilated....! So, what do you say. Do you have a "secret faith".... a personal and sincere and satisfying set-of-beliefs.... or have you timidly abandoned your "secret" thoughts, and your own decipherings.... superstitiously dreading that you may be aggravating your friends, or offending God -- or that, because of a recurring spiritual "doubt", you may haplessly "miss-out" on some of God's benevolence? Do you have a "secret God", a God of your own beliefs? Or, do you bow down before the altar of a "god" that has been formed.... and repeatedly re-formed and re-shaped.... by other human-beings of various motives.... or those of fickle "religious" persuasions? What is your answer? Like my friend, I have come into the presence of my "secret God".... and I believe this is precisely what God wants and expects, as He guides His chosen ones (link) along the designated paths of this life -- to the specific "ministry" for which each Godsperson has been "assigned". (See link, Individuation by God.) (See link Some people are ASHAMED of their "religion".) |