Are ALL THINGS everything?

Romans 8:32   He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

The Bible sometimes leaves a person scratching their head.  I dont believe that it is because we dont or cant possess the ability to understand the instruction and commandments. I think that our problems arise out of some core or beginning belief set that we have. Perhaps we inherited it from our upbringing, or developed it based on our understanding of life and circumstance along the way. Regardless the filtering that we do when we read the Word or hear the whisper of the Spirit sometime changes the meaning of the instruction for us.

A filter by nature is designed to let some things pass through and to capture and prohibit other things from passing through.  The filter is also by nature biased.  We cant really know what foreign or unwanted things we might come in contact with, so we construct the filter to allow only right sized or right shaped, or right sounding things to pass through and everything else is blocked, regardless of its value or true nature. It just doesn't fit the hole that we have developed in our filter. Interesting.

How much of our head scratching is because we have poured into our minds and spirits the Word of God but our filters have caught things, questioned them and then excluded them from entering our spirit? We could be left with half a thought or worse we could be left with an untrue thought that will lodge in our spirit.  This means that the filtration going on will be validated and reinforced the next time some perceived rogue idea comes in contact with it.

I dont believe that this happens with every Word we read, but I do believe that it happens and it happens more often than perhaps we would like.  A recent small group question provides some light on this idea.  A question was asked, "Do you believe that Jesus loves you no matter what you have or could say or do?" Only one person could answer in the affirmative.  I was stunned by the honesty of the group and equally stunned that this most basic of truths is still in question in our hearts and minds (I was not the affirmative responder by the way).  What does this mean?!?

Let me end here and pick up with a few thoughts on this last question.