Here we go….

bq. Ok. You walk through one of those portals you talked about in your last post. Tell us what
you see. – “Theresa”:http://www.thismomblogs.com/

The air is hot and rank with the stench of sulfur. The sun is high in the sky, but the day is dusky due to the stifling vapors filling the air. I arrive in the middle of a labyrinth of cinder cones, indicative of volcanic activity. Yet, closer inspection reveals that there are signs of habitation — broken buildings, burned clothing strewn about, signs everywhere that there had once been a thriving civilization here. The metal fragments are recognizable enough — shell casings from ballistic weapons. Whatever happened here, war was certainly a major part of it.

A shuffling sound off to the side makes me turn my head, and I see a young girl, probably no more than three or four years old, standing barefoot on the hot ash, apparently oblivious to her burning flesh. Her hair is matted with grime, her face blackened by soot, her dress barely more than strips of rags draped carelessly about her slight form. She stands looking at me silently for a moment, then raises her left arm to point at me. Her face, blank a moment before, contorts into a disfiguring expression of rage as she unleashes an inhuman cry that echoes off the smoldering cones. The breeze blows a thick cloud of smoke between us, and when it clears again, the girl is gone. I don’t know where she came from or where she went, but I feel almost certain that she has not gone far.

I feel the ground beneath my feet tremble as something large approaches. And now my ears ring with the sound of it. Suddenly, what light there was in this hellish haze is blocked out as a ship slides into view over the cinder cones. It is larger than anything I have ever seen, extending from horizon to horizon. Spotlights swinging back and forth across the ground from beneath the technological monster tell me that whoever, or whatever, is inside is looking for something. The energy fluctuations from my portal probably alerted the dominant species in this place of my arrival. And then I can see no more as one of the lights swings over me, blinding me by its glare. I stumble to get away, falling backward into the portal again.

I was fortunate this time. I have seen that type of ship before, on another world, and few who see it are so lucky as to escape. I have managed it twice now, but only because I possess a fragment of their own technology. A short stop this time, and already time to move on. I slide through the vortex and hope that the next world I see is free…

bq. your take on the perfect vs. sinless question – “grace”:http://willfullgrace.blogspot.com/

In character, Jesus was perfectly sinless; otherwise, He would not have been able to serve as a sacrifice, as a payment for all men’s sins. In body I believe Christ was prone to the same physical struggles as other men — illness, body aches, weariness, etc. As such this is why we can say that there is no temptation common to man that Christ does not know or understand. He has been there, experienced it all, and is therefore completely sympathetic to the human condition.

It’s definitely an interesting juxtaposition — Christ as fully God being completely perfect, lending Him the ability to live a life without sin, and Christ as fully man, able to be tempted by the same things as the rest of us, able to experience the same physical maladies, yet able to stand against it all and do the right thing every time.

bq. what does it mean to get a “new body” and how does that fit in with our heavenly experience?…is it more physical or more whispy and spiritual?? –
“grace”:http://willfullgrace.blogspot.com/

Delightful question! Scripture seems to indicate that our new bodies will be exactly as Christ’s body was upon His resurrection — fully corporeal and physical, able to be touched, yet seemingly not bound by the usual physical limitations. He was able to skip across space with hardly a thought, appearing where He would and ministering to His followers in the days before His ascension. I believe our bodies will be like that, as well, and that we will continue to have full physical use of them. But I believe that, like Christ, we will be able to move from place to place at will! This has exciting implications when you consider that we may ultimately have the ability to explore the furthest reaches of the universe, all to the glory of God! Our new bodies will not be given to us, though, until sometime after God establishes His Kingdom here on Earth. I’m not entirely clear on the timeline, but it seems like it will occur after the Millenial Reign, during the creation of the New Heavens and the New Earth. It’s also possibly that the saints who return with Christ at the end of the Tribulation will already have their heavenly bodies and those who live through the Millenium will receive theirs later.

bq. what is the book or revelation really all about? “grace”:http://willfullgrace.blogspot.com/

Hope and repentance. It is written to provide hope to all believers, to show that in the end righteousness rules the day, all wrongs will be righted, wrongdoers punished, the righteous rewarded, evil banished forever.

It is written to urge the sinful and unbelieving to repentance, to urge the believers who have turned away to return, to make it clear to the unbelieving what awaits them if they persist in their unbelief.

Revelation is about comfort. God wins, Satan loses. End of story.

bq. And btw what kind of horses do you have? – “a thinker”:http://plousia.blogspot.com/

My wife and I have two (so far). Sonny is her baby, a blood-bay quarterhorse of Sonny Dee Barr lineage (grandfather). Turk is an Anglo-Arab descended from Man O’ War lineage. A couple of his ancestors were also derby winners – Determine in 1954 and Decidedly in 1956. My wife informs me that Turk is also out of the Hyperion bloodline – it was apparently big in the racign world in the 40’s-60’s then vanished in all modern horses, meaning he is also (distantly) related to – though not a direct descendent of – Pensive (1944 winner), Ponder (1949 winner), Swaps (1955 winner), Needles (1956 winner), Tomy Lee (1959 winner), Chateaugay (1963) winner, and Citation (through the dam, 1948 winner). Not bad for a little unregistered gelding, is it?

bq. I have to ask – what do you do? Are you a pastor? – “Arielle”:http://www.whomovedmytruth.com/

Nope, though I _am_ a missionary pastor’s kid. I had (briefly) considered the pastorate, but ultimately decided that was not where God wanted me. I did my undergraduate work at “Cedarville University”:http://www.cedarville.edu in Cedarville, Ohio, completing a bachelor’s degree in psychology and picking up minors in Bible, music, and math. My graduate work was in social psychology, done at “Ball State University”:http://www.bsu.edu. Now, I work at “Purdue University”:http://www.purdue.edu in the “Enrollment Management”:http://www.purdue.edu/enrollmentmanagement office as an Enrollment Analyst (they haven’t added me to the staff listings yet, I’m so new).

I write in two formats currently — the first is on Writer’s Blog, expounding on some of the deeper and richer things that cross my mind, deviating ocassionally into things of lesser weight. The second is I do some amateur writing in the science fiction and fantasy genres. I have penned a couple of short stories so far, with many others still in my mental queue, and I have a fantasy novel in progress. I’m hoping to enter the world of professional writing in the near future by trying to get some books on shelves, but most of my speculative writing is on hold at the moment while the wife and I get settled into our new home. I _have_ submitted a short story to a magazine, however, and am waiting to hear back from them.

Now, isn’t that a whole lot more than you wanted to know? ;-)