Len Bilén's blog, a blog about faith, politics and the environment.

Matthew 8, the man with leprosy, the faith of the Centurion, the cost of following Jesus, the storm calmed, the demon possessed men.

Please, go away, Jesus. You are bad for business.

Matthew 7, judging others, Ask, Seek, Knock, the narrow gate, a tree and its fruit, “I never knew you”, the wise and foolish builder.

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
before you were born I set you apart;
I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” ( Jeremiah 1:5)

I woke up one morning with a chorus we sang in Church in the 70:s.

With eternity’s values in view, Lord,

With eternity’s values in view.

May I do each day’s work for Jesus

With eternity’s values in view.

Then it hit me: Is this really right? It sounds so good, but is it right? The words from Jesus in Matthew 7: 21-23 rang in my ears:

²¹“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. ²²Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ ²³Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’

In the case of the prophet Jeremiah God knew him before he was even conceived, but in the case of the false disciple Jesus never knew him in spite of all the things he did for Jesus. Why the drastic difference? Does God pick winners and losers, or is there anything we can do to be assured to be on God’s side?

The answer may lie in one more quote, this one from the apostle Paul in Romans 12:1-2 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

There we have it: God doesn’t want us to do things for Christ, God wants us – all of us as a living sacrifice. He wants us to die to self and be resurrected to new life in Christ. This is available to anybody – a new life in Christ. Then the Holy Spirit can lead us into God’s perfect will.

One more quote. Many can quote Ephesians 2:8-9, but the answer is really in verse 10: ⁸For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— ⁹not by works, so that no one can boast. ¹⁰For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

By the way, the word handiwork is in the Greek ποιημα (poiema) from which we get the word poem. We are God’s poem. I like that.

My saying:

“He, who builds his house upon a rock has to plant his trees with a pick”.

There is work associated with doing it right.

Matthew 6, do good, the Lord’s model prayer, fasting, treasures in heaven, God and Mammon, do not worry.

Pope Francis has called for a rewriting of the Lord’s Prayer, saying the current translation gives God a bad name and, essentially, does not give the devil his due.

Described in the Bible as a prayer taught by Jesus, the Lord’s Prayer is viewed in the catechism of the Roman Catholic Church as “the summary of the whole gospel.”

In a TV interview December 2017, Pope Francis said that the line asking God to “Lead us not into temptation,” or in Italian, “non indurci in tentazione,” should be changed.

Jesus spoke in Aramaic and this prayer in the gospel of Matthew is originally written in Greek, and it says:

και μη εισενεγκης ημας εις πειρασμον αλλα ρυσαι ημας απο του πονηρου and not bring us into temptation(or testing), but rescue us from – evil.

The Roman Catholic church of France has changed the translation of this verse to “and do not let us fall into temptation” and somehow Pope Francis thinks this would improve on what God has said.

Matthew 5, the sermon on the mount, the Beatitudes, salt and light, fulfill the law, murder, adultery, divorce, oaths, an eye for an eye, love your enemies

Matthew 5

Matthew 4, the Temptation of Jesus, calling of the first disciples, early ministry.

The tempter appeals to Jesus to show His power over the elements, Jesus answers back with scripture.

The tempter is wising up. Now he is using scripture to tempt Jesus.

Jesus answers back with scripture.

Finally the tempter appeals to Jesus vanity. This always works, except this time. Jesus answers back with scripture.

The prophecy in Isaiah 9 begins in doom and gloom, but promises the great light.

And Isaiah 9:6-7 is two of the most wonderful verses in all of scripture.

Matthew calls it “the Kingdom of Heaven, the other Gospels “the Kingdom of God”. It means the same. “My Kingdom is not of this world”

Wither Bitcoin? Up, up, and away, crashing or banned?

Bitcoin was first issued in March 2010 with a value set at $ 0.003/unit.

In May 2010, 10,000 bitcoins were traded for 2 pizzas in Jacksonville, Florida.

Since then the bitcoin price has gone up and down, mostly up, but five times it has gone down drastically, sometimes crashing by as much as 80 percent.

This year it has had a meteoric rise and is now at $18,600 or about six million times its original offering price.

Bitcoin is anonymous trading between a willing buyer and a willing seller, totally safe and untraceable, an ideal vehicle for money laundering and transfer of money to terrorists and allies alike. It is also the vehicle of choice for ransomware.

So who is keeping custody of the chain of transactions to keep the bitcoin safe and secure?

This is what one might call the ultimate revenge of the geeks. The inventors of bitcoin let the geeks mine more bitcoins as a reward for keeping complete records of all transactions in bitcoin since its conception (heavily encrypted of course). They only had to solve a hashing algorithm made more complicated for every new transaction. In the beginning it was not very difficult, but now, since one has to find all chains of custody for every bitcoin since the start, and they are distributed worldwide it becomes more and more a drain on the internet and computing power in the servers.

It is now so bad, that even though there are only 17 million bitcoins in the world today, to keep track of them and mine some more is now consuming 1/700 of the total electricity generated in the world, or about 35 TeraWatthours. At a production cost of about 6 cents per KiloWatthour it would come to about 2 billion dollars to maintain 17 million or over a hundred dollars per bitcoin in electricity consumption alone.

It will only get worse from now on. While mining of new bitcoins are getting more complicated exponentially, the issuing of new bitcoins will become stagnant and will stop around 30 million, when it will consume about 60% of the world’s electrical energy.

The Greens will not like it. Bitcoins already belch more than 17 million tons of CO2 into the air annually, set to double every two years.

On the other hand , it is transactions that are free of the tyranny of the one world banking system.

This is unsustainable. People will stop maintaining the chain of custody of all transactions and the scheme will collapse.

When?

Who knows?

Matthew 3, John the Baptist prepares the way and Baptizes Jeus.

This is most probably where Jesus was baptized in an arm of the Jordan.

Matthew 2, the visit of the Magi, flight to Egypt, the massacre in Ramah, return to Nazareth.

The Magi were the scientists of that day, combining astronomy, astrology, calendar keeping and natural sciences.

This passage is particularly interesting, with verse 15 put in the middle of a passage full of the most wonderful promises for Israel, ending with “a woman shall encompass a man.”