Chileice
New member
Beanie,
I will try to answer all of your questions... assuming you really want an answer. This may be an exercise in futility bescause it appaers that both sides just bait each other. But I hope these answers will contribute positively to the discussion.
I suppose it is like a parent. I loved my kids before they were born. I talked to them in the womb. I made a conscious decision to love them no matter what. But my love can be rejected and in those few ocassions where my kids were willfully disobedient, it was them who had no desire to see me... not the other way around. But until they came to ask forgiveness, there was little I could do because they avoided me out of the guilt they had.
This idea that God can't look at us because of our sin is overboard. He is God. I'm sure he sees everything. He always told Israel about their sins. How could he have iknown their sins without seeing them. Jesus saw sin ALL THE TIME and yet he loved the people. The problem is that sin ruins our fellowship. WE don't want to be in the presence of holiness if we are being unholy. Guilt makes us want to sneak off in a corner, or behind the door, anywhere but in the warm light of His love, because at that moment we either don't want to be discovered or afterward we don't feel worthy of that love so we hide like Adam.
I really do NOT believe God SENDS anyone to hell. I do think that is our natural bent. We want to be left alone to do what we want to do, damn everyone and anyone who wants to stop us. We want the perfect freedom to be captains of our own ships and to do what we jolly well please. Yet, at the end of the day we want God to give us heaven (which, by the way, should include everything I want, all the people I love and be run the way I want it run) and to accept us perfectly when we rejected every effort He made to pull us out of our selfishness and willful rebellion.
I think He begs and pleads that we get off the road of selfish self-destruction and onto the narrow path of corporate well-being, of loving our neighbour, of reaching out to the needy of yielding our will to His. He holds forgiveness out but we must grasp it.
We can invent gods. That's been done for generations. I suggest you read Isaiah 40-55 in the next few days. Just remember who that GOD is. The one and only God from whom all things came into being. Not a minigod created in our own minds to fulfill our selfish desires. How can I say what God you worship? I'm not in your head. All I can say is anything short of the ONE true omnipotent God is falling short of worshipping the TRUE God.
Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. What do you think? Do you sense that the seaching is because you still don't have a personal relationship to the living Lord. If that is the case, maybe you should admit you are lost and ask for help, not from someone on this board, but from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ask God himself to forgive you, to change you and to live inside of you. Then grow in that new-found relationship.... not expecting perfection but growth. Then trust your faith and not your feelings. Trust the truth of God's word and not the opinions of men. It could be the beginning of a long and beautiful pilgrimage.
Good. I don't see the problem in this statement. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. We DO need to trust him. We can use the reasoning power God has given us and we should. But we also have to realize that faith IS greater than reason. Where reason fails faith still shines. History has proven that over and over again. Very few people are remembered as "men of great reason" but many are remembered as "men of great faith".
Obviously you have to listen to somebody. But you also have to weigh the evidence. You ought to weigh the evidence of a life. Does this person's life reflect what they say about Jesus? If so, listen to them. If they seem to have nothing of the love of the Lord than they are like a clanging cymbol or a noisy gong as Paul says in I Corinthians 13, and you probably ought not to pay much attention to them. I would be like the Bereans as someone mentioned (Acts17) and compare what I heard with what I see in the Bible.
Yes, I agree it is illogical, or rather it is supralogical. It is beyond logic. The logical thing for God to do would be destroy the whole mess and start over with robotrons that do his every bidding. That would be logical, but love is beyond logic. I do not love my wife for logical reasons. I suppose others could say many of the same things about their wives that I could say about mine, but I LOVE my wife and not theirs. Love, true love will never be quantified and understood. If it were the world would be full of Vulcans. But thank God it is NOT that way. There is enough love for us all. The blood shed on the cross was infinite. Jesus stands ready to save EVERYBODY. But He won't force himself on ANYBODY. So I do not see it as a series of illogical contradictions, but rather an amazing series of supralogical communications with us as humans. A desire on the part of God to transcend species and reach out to a selfish race of humans and offer us love and salvation. That I think is pretty cool.
I hope you now have your questions answered. Now I hope you will take the time to consider those answers and to act upon them. And I hope the rest will respect your need to do so and will rejoice in the decision you make.:thumb:
I will try to answer all of your questions... assuming you really want an answer. This may be an exercise in futility bescause it appaers that both sides just bait each other. But I hope these answers will contribute positively to the discussion.
Yes, Luther disagreed and did some positive things to reform the church of his day.
I think true love demands the possibility of rejection. Jesus loves you, but He does not force YOU to love HIM. That would not be love but rather coersion.
Yes, we still have a sinful nature. It doesn't take a genius to see that. Peter was able to deny Christ during the crucifixion process. I think part of the reason is so that we become dependant on God rather than on our own righteousness. We have to be humble enough to admit that we CANNOT save ourselves, in spite of what wickwoman believes. But we are saved from slavery to sin and its consecunces. I often hear a voice in my head to stop me from sinning. I may still chose to disobey, but God will provide a way of escape. I must chose to use it.
I believe it was inspired by God and was written by people, with their own particular personalities and quirks, but that it was written as an accurate account of God (Jesus)' dealings with humankind.
Whoever said the Bible is God is a liar. Whoever said that? I think theologians can do us some good in opening up a deeper understanding of scripture but I believe it stands for itself as well. Joe Blow in a hotel room reading a Gideon's Bible can come to know and understand that Jesus is the Saviour and that they need him as their Saviour. You don't need a theology degree to trust Christ.
I don't supoose they have any reason to, but if they know what the Bible says and refuse to listen then they disobey at their own peril. I would not want to stand before God and have to explain that I intentionally rejected Him and the counsel of His word.
I suppose it is like a parent. I loved my kids before they were born. I talked to them in the womb. I made a conscious decision to love them no matter what. But my love can be rejected and in those few ocassions where my kids were willfully disobedient, it was them who had no desire to see me... not the other way around. But until they came to ask forgiveness, there was little I could do because they avoided me out of the guilt they had.
This idea that God can't look at us because of our sin is overboard. He is God. I'm sure he sees everything. He always told Israel about their sins. How could he have iknown their sins without seeing them. Jesus saw sin ALL THE TIME and yet he loved the people. The problem is that sin ruins our fellowship. WE don't want to be in the presence of holiness if we are being unholy. Guilt makes us want to sneak off in a corner, or behind the door, anywhere but in the warm light of His love, because at that moment we either don't want to be discovered or afterward we don't feel worthy of that love so we hide like Adam.
I really do NOT believe God SENDS anyone to hell. I do think that is our natural bent. We want to be left alone to do what we want to do, damn everyone and anyone who wants to stop us. We want the perfect freedom to be captains of our own ships and to do what we jolly well please. Yet, at the end of the day we want God to give us heaven (which, by the way, should include everything I want, all the people I love and be run the way I want it run) and to accept us perfectly when we rejected every effort He made to pull us out of our selfishness and willful rebellion.
I think He begs and pleads that we get off the road of selfish self-destruction and onto the narrow path of corporate well-being, of loving our neighbour, of reaching out to the needy of yielding our will to His. He holds forgiveness out but we must grasp it.
Nothing pagan about that. David wrote lovely psalms about how nature is the creation of our Lord and how nature itself rejoices and makes our hearts rejoice in Him. As long as nature leads us to worship the creator rather than the created thing or being, it is a positive thing.
We can invent gods. That's been done for generations. I suggest you read Isaiah 40-55 in the next few days. Just remember who that GOD is. The one and only God from whom all things came into being. Not a minigod created in our own minds to fulfill our selfish desires. How can I say what God you worship? I'm not in your head. All I can say is anything short of the ONE true omnipotent God is falling short of worshipping the TRUE God.
Maybe you are, maybe you aren't. What do you think? Do you sense that the seaching is because you still don't have a personal relationship to the living Lord. If that is the case, maybe you should admit you are lost and ask for help, not from someone on this board, but from the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Ask God himself to forgive you, to change you and to live inside of you. Then grow in that new-found relationship.... not expecting perfection but growth. Then trust your faith and not your feelings. Trust the truth of God's word and not the opinions of men. It could be the beginning of a long and beautiful pilgrimage.
Good. I don't see the problem in this statement. God has revealed himself in Jesus Christ. We DO need to trust him. We can use the reasoning power God has given us and we should. But we also have to realize that faith IS greater than reason. Where reason fails faith still shines. History has proven that over and over again. Very few people are remembered as "men of great reason" but many are remembered as "men of great faith".
Obviously you have to listen to somebody. But you also have to weigh the evidence. You ought to weigh the evidence of a life. Does this person's life reflect what they say about Jesus? If so, listen to them. If they seem to have nothing of the love of the Lord than they are like a clanging cymbol or a noisy gong as Paul says in I Corinthians 13, and you probably ought not to pay much attention to them. I would be like the Bereans as someone mentioned (Acts17) and compare what I heard with what I see in the Bible.
Yes, I agree it is illogical, or rather it is supralogical. It is beyond logic. The logical thing for God to do would be destroy the whole mess and start over with robotrons that do his every bidding. That would be logical, but love is beyond logic. I do not love my wife for logical reasons. I suppose others could say many of the same things about their wives that I could say about mine, but I LOVE my wife and not theirs. Love, true love will never be quantified and understood. If it were the world would be full of Vulcans. But thank God it is NOT that way. There is enough love for us all. The blood shed on the cross was infinite. Jesus stands ready to save EVERYBODY. But He won't force himself on ANYBODY. So I do not see it as a series of illogical contradictions, but rather an amazing series of supralogical communications with us as humans. A desire on the part of God to transcend species and reach out to a selfish race of humans and offer us love and salvation. That I think is pretty cool.
I hope you now have your questions answered. Now I hope you will take the time to consider those answers and to act upon them. And I hope the rest will respect your need to do so and will rejoice in the decision you make.:thumb:
