Thanks for adding your kind words, Paul.
I too, can't ever say I've truly had a "God feeling".
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CIVIL RELIGIOUS DISCUSSION: All things Christianity
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Thanks for adding your kind words, Paul.
I too, can't ever say I've truly had a "God feeling".
I believe the latter, but won't fault someone for holding the the former. (cough, cough, my wife, cough)
Did you trick me into clicking on this video?
U.S. Civil War Started By Illuminati, Satanic NWO, Marxist Propagandists & Industrialist Terrorists
Well, bless your heart.
Did you trick me into clicking on this video?
U.S. Civil War Started By Illuminati, Satanic NWO, Marxist Propagandists & Industrialist Terrorists
Well, bless your heart.
You're one of THEM aren't you!
That's why I down voted the video - I want to bury the truth!
I've never felt I've heard God speak to me. Part of faith is not requiring "proof." Though it never hurts to ask God to reveal himself to you.
I DO believe I've had a "God Moment." I felt him work. It's not a story I've ever shared. I selfishly cling to it as my one-on-one with Him.
-rvb
Did you trick me into clicking on this video?
U.S. Civil War Started By Illuminati, Satanic NWO, Marxist Propagandists & Industrialist Terrorists
Well, bless your heart.
No trick intended. The video appears under different titles, and the point of it really is how Christians have been tricked into surrender through befuddled inaction.
The discussion of foreign agents involved in spinning up the war is an example, a blackboard, on which to illustrate the lesson.
They may not be the Bible, but without Piper, Edwards, Sproul, and Calvin. You don't get Calvinism. It didn't exist for the first 1500 years of Christianity.
As to the Beatitudes, the Great Commission etc. Those are all things that Christians are supposed to do but doing things doesn't make you a Christian nor does doing things keep you a Christian so what exactly does doing things do? Does it become merit badges for others to see? That's not Biblical. Does it prove something to one's self? That is works based salvation. What does it do?
Absolutely nothing! I'll say it again! Works, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing!
Your inner conversations sound similar to one I had with my mother over Thanksgiving. She was aghast and probably left a little disheartened.
It went like this.
Me: I don't believe God has ever spoken to me.
Mom: What?
Me: I don't believe God has ever spoken to me.
some explanatory and expositional phrases.
Mom: I just don't see how you can say that. What about when Bible verses come to mind at the opportune time?
Me: Well I can't discount that perhaps my own memory was at work.
Mom: But God speaks through his word!
Me: Yes but his word is Jesus
Mom: So you don't believe God has ever spoke to you?
Me: Not like I hear others say, "God laid it on my heart....God spoke to me....God moved me....God showed me...
Mom: Well I don't know what to say.
Me: I don't know if this will make any difference but it is my practice to give thanks for it. So if a scripture comes to mind, whether God "spoke" it or I remembered it, I give thanks to him that it happenedGod communicates with us through Scripture, hymns, worship. My concern is falling into a trap where one definitively says God spoke to me when he didn't actually speak. That emotional certainty of the event. The example of the saints is that they would prefer to say that God never spoke to them and thus accidentally ignore an angelic voice than to mistake a voice that is not God’s for the true divine word.
So I read Paul's response and I have been reading Historians (I have also been on narcotics post surgery so who knows what I will write
)But I have been in Paul's shoes (agnostic with a touch of atheism) and I have been in Historians (I ain't one of the chosen although not because I believed what Calvinism teaches).
To me, they both share the same problem that I won't elaborate on unless asked....they are both taking positions based on a skewed version of Christianity that hardly resembles ancient Christianity.
There are two paradigms.
The first one forms the basis of most Protestantism. At its core, salvation is transactional. The soteriology is based on interpreting the rest of the Bible through Romans.
The second is the ancient way. Salvation is transformational. The soteriology is based on using the Gospels to interpret the rest of the Bible.
In each there is a "transaction" but in Protestant thinking that is paramount. All the relationship comes afterwards.
In the ancient path, if there is no relationship, then what is the point of the transaction?
One is based on love, one is based on a judicial view of crime and punishment.
One is based on knowledge about. A rational, logical approach
One is based on experience of. A loving relationship.
I can thoroughly describe a horse to you. I can teach you the anatomy of the horse, I can tell you how it feels to touch one. I can tell you what it eats, I can give you all the rational, scientific knowledge possible about a horse.
I can take you to Churchill Downs and we can experience a horse.
I can tell you all about the internal combustion engine or I can take you to an Indy 500.
I can tell you all about marriage, how a relationship should work, or you can get married.
I don't care how much you know about anything, your personal experience of it is a "knowledge" that on its deepest level you can never impart to no one else. That is what changes you.
A textbook will never say, "I just can't describe it", "I don't have the words", "If only you had been there", "Have you ever...?"
A person with an experience of the material world will.
A person with an experience of the spiritual world will much more so.
So yes the Bible is imperfect. That is the beauty of it. It is not dictated like the Koran. It is the work of God through imperfect men. Just like salvation.
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Where?
They may not be the Bible, but without Piper, Edwards, Sproul, and Calvin. You don't get Calvinism. It didn't exist for the first 1500 years of Christianity.
As to the Beatitudes, the Great Commission etc. Those are all things that Christians are supposed to do but doing things doesn't make you a Christian nor does doing things keep you a Christian so what exactly does doing things do? Does it become merit badges for others to see? That's not Biblical. Does it prove something to one's self? That is works based salvation. What does it do?
Absolutely nothing! I'll say it again! Works, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing!
That is so funny, Rep in bound.
For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.
NO! They do not save you!
NO! They do not keep you saved.
Actually works are good.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
Psalm 126 says that the heathen saw that the L--d had done great things for them.
James says he will show you his faith by his works.
I am told occasionally that the KJB is archaic and is not used by enlightened people because it is too difficult to understand. But it is superior in that many words in the Greek and Hebrew do not carry the same weight in the easier (note I did not say dumbed down) versions. There are many examples, but the one I want to explore is agape/charity/love.
Someone said, "Who are we to define love?" Another replied, from a new version, "Love is kind..."
In the KJB it is a bit different it says,
The word Charity is the Greek word, agaph, Agape, which is the purest and deepest form of love, ofteh Described as G-d's Love. It is not a passive verb as in James where you say be ye warmed and filled. It is an action verb as in "For God so loved (agapaw, agapao, much love)the world, that he gave his only begotten Son." He did not say I love you and walk away, he did something about it.
In the NWI INGO group there are people that watch out for their neighbors friends and other members. That is not to say that there are not others in other places that help out when needed, but I happen to see what happens locally. When the weather is bad they check on, offer and give aid to those who's furnace may be out or other needs.
It is a shame that Charity is a bad word to some people.
When I lead someone to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and they accept the gift of Eternal Life. I try to spend as much time on assurance as I did on salvation. In follow up I try to explain that we are rewarded in Heaven for our works that we preform for G-d here on Earth.
My favorite example is the Crown of Rejoicing. Also called the Soul Winners Crown.
Now, I tell them this is my opinion. The crown is maybe not an literal crown, but it is a reward. When I get to heaven I will meet all of the people that I have helped to get there and that is my reward. G-d and I want them to receive that same reward so it is their joyful duty to show others how to be Saved. When we all get to heaven, what a day of rejoicing that will be.
BTW The rewards/crowns are not for us. "The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne,"
It wasn't me O L--D, it was your Holy Ghost living in me that allowed me to overcome the world and bring these before You.
Earlier, The discussion was about never having having experienced the joy of the L--D. As I see the problel it is introspection. Putting yourself in the center. If you actually put the L--D in the center and live for others and don't give a care about yourself you may one day experience the joy that comes from serving others.
They may not be the Bible, but without Piper, Edwards, Sproul, and Calvin. You don't get Calvinism. It didn't exist for the first 1500 years of Christianity.
As to the Beatitudes, the Great Commission etc. Those are all things that Christians are supposed to do but doing things doesn't make you a Christian nor does doing things keep you a Christian so what exactly does doing things do? Does it become merit badges for others to see? That's not Biblical. Does it prove something to one's self? That is works based salvation. What does it do?
Absolutely nothing! I'll say it again! Works, what are they good for? Absolutely nothing!
Absolutely agree, that was my point - if they were essential, we'd be excluded - all of us. The Beatitudes set an extremely high bar. If you looked at it alone, you might be tempted to make that connection - "works are required.", but thank God the rest of the Bible makes it clear that it is not so.
Touché.
DOWN IN MY HEART!
I'll pick it up once my ban on books is lifted.
So I read Paul's response and I have been reading Historians (I have also been on narcotics post surgery so who knows what I will write
Feel free to share (not in writing, but the narcotics
).Exactly. I don't have a loving relationship. It doesn't exist and never has. The rational has always existed.
Well, your's is because you have that extra fancy stuff. Mine is perfect because it was God-breathed
.
I've never had a conversation...with words and everything. I can't say if others have or have not. But I do believe I've had "signs", if you will. Sometimes, when I'm trying to decide what he wants me to do about some thing, there'll be bread crumbs that I'll see that, seem to add up to a direction.
I've had it ("hearing from God) explained to me this way: it's like a muscle. First you have to decide you are going to use it. You have to get in the right frame of mind, if you will, too. Then you have to be on the look out and watch (or listen) and exercise it. And the more you do, the stronger it gets. I've found it more when I'm truly trying to do God's will than my own. And I think that's a big key, right there.
It's hard to explain. It's probably even harder to believe.
ETA: here's a testimony a fellow that is trying to start a boy's home in Bedford told us. To doubters, this will probably far fetched but I do believe this is how God works for most of us. This will be an extremely abridged version to save time and space but will give you an example of what I was talking about above. He was at a stage in his life, in high school or early college and was seriously considering suicide. He had even gotten to the point he was deciding where he'd do it so that his mom wouldn't have as big a mess to clean up. He asked God for help. That very day a pastor was going door to door, you know like they do and we all find it annoying. Anyway, that pastor rang his doorbell. To keep a long story short, that pastor spent hours with him, missing the evening bible study that night. He became a Christian that night.
You see, sometimes God doesn't answer you the way you're expecting. Sometimes he doesn't give you the answer you're looking for. He may be talking to you now and may have been all of those other times you asked.
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