You
seem to be painting a picture of non-Christians as having nothing but
evil thoughts, words and deeds. Having lived through my teenage years as
a non-Christian, it seems contrary to my experience. Although i was
well aware of my own sinfulness, i had a strong desire to be rid of it
and to draw near to God, but felt the distance between Him and myself
could never be crossed. I would not call this desire of mine to be
reconciled to God \"only evil continually\".I
cannot gain insight into your experience as a young man. Maybe your
religious convictions were only legal? I mean did the gospel seem
glorious to you? Did you have any trust in Christ at that time? A
believer is no longer under the law. The Spirit has given believers
freedom and the law is no longer a school master. May i get off of my
point to you for a minute? I am passionate about this law grace
relationship. Why would anyone turn back to the law after experiencing
the effects of new life in the Spirit? Why would anyone depart from the
origins of the gift of faith through grace and then try to live their
lives in Christ under legal convictions? We are dead to sin and made
alive in Christ! We are serving a new master, our Lord. The law no
longer has power over us. We no longer cringe in fear of the law! The
law has only one function and that is to lead us to Christ! And the law
is not only the commands but they are also the decrees. The law is not
put on tablets of stone in relation to a believer as tho we serve the
letter of the law but we serve in the newness of the Spirit. When we
were regenerated by the Holy Spirit we were given the power of God, we
were given a power that gives us victory over sin. We were made holy
definitively. We were given the righteousness of Christ. We then being
in Christ are sons by adoption. Christ leads us to the Father. Christ
shows us the Father. We are sons of the Most High. We are now in
relationship to our Father who bids us to come before the throne of
grace and recieve mercy. What power the law had it no longer has over
us. We do not dread the law. When we hear the law preached we do not
live in guilt. We live in forgiveness.
But pryor to our
salvation, and yet being in conviction as a result to us being exposed
to preaching we have a legal relationship to the law. When we here the
law preached we live under its condemnation. We want to do what the law
says but we are only interested in obeying apart from trust in Christ.
We live under the laws obligations. We struggle to obey the law, and in
not being under gospel obedience we make a law unto ourselves so that we
can think that we obey the law. The Spirit uses the law to convict us
and we respond to its threatenings by trying to do it in our own power
with our own resources. Until the Spirit brings us to the point where we
see our inability to obey the law we are only going to dash ourselves
against its obligations and threatenings. When we continue to reject
salvation in Christ we will dash ourselves against that stone of
offence. That may be what you were experiencing pryor to your trusting
in Christ alone. In a sense that struggle was more sinful than some of
the really bad sins because it was done in self righteousness.
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Forums / Theology Forum / Weighed Down With The Anxieties Of Life?
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on: December 15, 2006, 04:09:55 PM
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I
agree Jeffery, and anxiety is something that we all battle with. As the
apostle says that when we get married we are going to add to our
temptation to be anxious. As believers we are aware of the temptations
to over indulge in all of the luxuries of this life, we are also tempted
to live as though we have a seperate existence as private citizens in
which we live in an extemely computerized society were we are encouraged
develope loneliness as a way of life. But because most of our views of
our minds in this culture are not really a result of what is going on
around us we tend to miss the struggle by focusing on these cultural
traps rather than taking control of our minds by meditation.
We will
find that within each one of us is an extreme danger of straying from
our first love. We are born again and we experience a profound sense of
freedom and we have such life in us that we are spiritually aware of the
worlds pull on us comming out of our former ways. Then we begin to
forget our first love, which happens in all churches and we begin to
live life adding our spiritual aliveness to our own set of
responsiblities. We fail to see that our inner world is terribly in need
of constant attention. Because we were made to be totally dependent of
God, and we were made to have His life flow to us and through us so that
we not only are saved at a point and time but we are experiencing His
presence through His revelation, that we are to constantly fix our eyes
on the goal of our faith. When we take our eyes off of Christ we then
begin to stray from expeienceing our first love.
This is a real
struggle to keep our eyes on Christ, because even as believers we
struggle with sin,fear, anxiety, distrust, depression, a sense of Gods
frown, and coveting things ,thinking that we can get relief from having
to face all of these negative realities going on in our minds and
hearts. We use the things of this world to keep ourselves from
experiencing a sense of loss that we experience as sinners. That is a
loss of joy, peace, comfort, kindness.
If we know that we are very
prone to stray from our first love then we are going to become more
active in trying to expeirience that original regenerated life. But as
we begin to long for the peace and joy we experienced in God, we begin
to increase our experience in sorrow. As we begin to learn more about
God in His word we begin to grow in our understanding of Christ work on
our behalf. The nearness of God that comes as a result of growing
increases our desires to know more of Him and so with that increase we
are prone to increase on the other side seeing that Him being our all in
all in a more profound way will also expose to us our deep need because
of our lack or ability on that bad experience side.
But there really
is a silver lining in our experiencing our inability because we learn
that through our inability we are abled by Him to rejoice in Him with a
rejoicing that cannot be compared with anything in this world. We begin
to live with an eternal mindset. We begin to to see ourselves as more
needing of Him more and more, because we have experienced what it is to
have His Spirit speak peace to our souls in our anxiety, and display to
us in our experience by meetin our needs as a result of our longing for
His comfort. So that we begin to long for heaven , because we know that
just as He met our needs in our lack that one day we will have a full
experience of Him in meeting all of our needs so that our rejoicing will
be constant, unimaginabl
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Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must
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on: December 10, 2006, 01:00:49 PM
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The passage in James 1 is not directed to make
the will supreme in the struggle with sin. The will is not the ruling
factor in temptation. The will is just one of the faculties of the soul.
The will does not rule the soul as if the will determines on its own to
either give into temptation or to avoid temptation but divine knowlege
comes into the mind first and then understanding and the cause of the
will desiring one thing over another is the condition of the soul and
the Holy Spirits work on the mind. The struggle with temptation is much
more than just looking it as if the will was the cheif reason for
falling into sin. The will does not choose on its own. THe will
does not act on its own. The will is not a determiner in the sense of it
being in between giving into temptation or avoiding temptation. Or
giving into sin or obeying. To will is not to be indifferent or be
without an inclination one way or the other. To will is to be inclined
to desire one thing over another. What James is saying is that the mind
is the faculty gate in which the temptation enters. The mind is not just
a place that accumulates facts. As if believing the word of God in just
a purely rational sense, and acknowleging the facts of the gospel is
salvation. In other words you just take the word by faith in a blind
sense and a purely intellectual sense without any show of emotion and
then you are saved. No these areas of the mind and understanding the
will and emotion work by a pre-caused condition that precludes choice.
So that the mind can be made alive, because the mind is not just
recieving facts but it has a pleasure in divine things. So the mind
is dead to spiritual things in its post fall condition. Which means that
a person has no pleasure in divine things. There is no divine light to
shine the glory of God into the understanding so that the mind is in a
darkened state. The mind must have a new principle to enliven it. Unless
the mind is made alive then the persons desires or pleasures will only
revolve around the physical realm and the self. Although people choose
what they desire most for themselves and this is not necessarily an evil
pardigm in understanding choice, yet to choose desires that are from a
sinful dead soul spiritually are choices that are not spiritually good
and so they are not good because they are void of desires that please
God. James is really pointing in the struggle with temptation to the
condition of the soul and not the supremacy of the will. Just as the
physical creation has a cause outside of the finite , so the choices we
make have a cause that is much greater than just our view of what is
good and bad. The cause of choice goes to our most deepest recesses of
our souls as the center of the problem with temptation. We are born in
sin and so our desires are only evil continually. Even tho we are free
to choose one thing over another for ourselves we are void on spiritual
desires. The reason we do not have these desires is because our minds
are not please with spiritual knowlege and light and so we being dead
only choose what is best for ourselves , which means that we are living
in a dream world because cause and effect realities are only found in
knowing God by a new principle that is given to our souls so that we
begin to understand that the was an eternal existence that causes all
things to live and move and have their being. In the sinful state we are
blind to this priinciple so that we glory only in ourselves. Which is
to worship the creature rather than the creator. So that we are being
darkened more and more under the chains of being under the domination of
a sinful mind. Once we are regenerated we are given a divine light
into the mind and we are awakened to the truth of all things and we are
awakened to our sinful state and the reasons why we struggle so much
with sorrow and pain. We are given new desires and our minds are now
given a spiritual taste , sight and touch. We are given new desires and
our understanding becomes enlightened so that we are pleased with
divine things. James is not saying that the word is the vehicle to
change the will and behavior in a moral sense. But he is saying that the
condition of the soul will determine how the soul responds to the word.
It will effectually work by the Holy SPirit in the regenerated soul so
that the person will not forget what he looks like after recieving the
word. The word actually is the seed implanted into the soul and springs
to new life. The new life from that implantation is the response to
divine things , a response that rejoices in these truths. The word and
propositions of free grace will be a seed that is implanted into the
deepest recesses of the soul so that the Holy SPirit who is like the
wind will do a secret work even beyond a persons understanding in its
initual light that a person does not even know when the Holy SPirit
began that work. But yet the person has a definte change in the entire
soul so that all of his faculties are made alive. He then understands
not only the gospel but the power of God in the gospel.
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Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must
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on: December 06, 2006, 12:46:08 PM
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"When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot
be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted
when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then,
after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is
full-grown, gives birth to death." (James 1:13-15)
MBG:
I
think what would help me iunderstand you is if you will explain your
understanding on this passage of Scripture. I think it is one of the
clearest passages on the causes of temptation. If you explain how your
ideas on God's sovereignty and our freedom relate to this passage, i
would greatly appreciate it.
He will provide a way to escape.If
you are saying that God provides a way to escape and it is our
responsibilty as the cause of escaping i would not agree. First i think
this James verse is talking more about apostasy rather than slipping or
being a sinner. We obviously cannot escape every sin. If we can take the
escape route then we would still be sinners by nature. And non of us do
what we want to do as saints. Is it possible for us to escape every
sin? Not really. But we do escape apostasy. We can never fall into
continous apostasy because \"He is able\" and we are not able. \"Without
me you can do nothing.\"
But lets apply the rest of scripture to
this text. If we are the cause of escaping then we would conclude that
we are part of escaping. And if we are part of escaping then we would
have something to boast about. But really the fact is that we are able
to repent or escape because He causes us to work out these things. And
this all is a supernatural work so that in order for us to truly
understand mortification of sin we must understand who we are in all of
this. Now not being able is not indifference to sin. Because we do sin
by giving into temptation. No doubt we are responsible but i am giving
you the other side since that is where we disagree. The point is if we
could cause ourselves to obey and escape then we could cause ourselves
to be independent as a seperate cause. But really we are absolutely
dependent on someone else.
Being dependent is what calvinism is all
about since any independence in man destroys the logic of cause and
effect. We really sin because we are sinners.The scripture tells us that
grace helps us to sin less and grace is a pure favor from God. And we
are encourage to ask for God not to lead us into temptation, trials. We
are encouraged by the scripture to pray that we will be led in the rite
direction. So if the pre grace abilities were not causal to avoiding sin
as the effect of sinning then we are only responsible for it all.
Our
conclusion is that we are unable in ourselves because we are
desperately in need of a cause outside ourselves to make us able in the
effect. And then there will be a proper response once we find our mouths
being shut. That is there is no boasting , because the effect was
caused by grace and was effected in grace.
This is the spring board
for supernaturalism to become more and more of an effect in our mouths
being shut. Because the negative effect of concluding that we are unable
by not being the cause of good or bad in one sense will become a
supernatural experience of renewal in the in Christ resting. We will
cast all of ourselves on Christ and experience His life of grace and
love flowing through us by concluding we are unable. It is the spring
board for supernaturalism because God causes and effects and we rest in
that.
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Forums / Break Room / 10 Things You Love About Your Life
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on: December 03, 2006, 12:25:06 PM
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I am so divided rite now. I mean this has been
a time in my life where the temptations to add things to my life to
make up for past failures has been strong. I have not been adapted to
the american vision of strick discipline as a way to acheive happiness.
My whole life has been trying to fight off complication. Never in my
years of living has the temptation been to sucumb to the idolatry of
those around me pulling me to add more in order to acheive a peace. It
has become an all out war for me. I hate myself. I want the temptation
to lessen. I hate idolaters! I love the simple life. I will give until
it hurts and God inter venes. I have been practicing this form of
teaching for 25 yrs and God is showing me that it is not even in my
giving that i can place my trust in. Why is there so much philosophy in
this world? Why do people fall in line with cultural morays? Why do so
many people get caught in the cycle of deistic thinking. Where is the
simple life? Where is the life of getting away and meditating and asking
God to come or else we are going to fall into idol worship! Oh i will
fight until i cant stand up. I am warn out from calling! Unless the Lord
builds the house the laboreres build in vain. Unless the Lord watches
over the city the watchmen stand guard in vain, Rise up oh Lord for the
help of men is worthless! worthless! worthless! Oh the memories of
meditation, oh the memories of being loved and being full of the Spirit.
Why do people embrace a way that seems rite?
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Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must
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on: December 02, 2006, 07:25:44 PM
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cont. This is why i am so intriged with the
Psalms. Here is where the ultimate teaching of the cause and effect
paradigm reaches its pinnacle. Here you have the historical view of Gods
soveriegnty. Here you have the Calvinistic undergurding of all of the
scripture. Here is where you wash you heart out of all of the non being
God arminism.You preach to yourself that God causes the situations and
the physical universe to work around you, those things that you can
taste and touch and feel. Oh there really is no human behavior that
can reach the ears and eyes of Gods favor, nor is there any effect
without the hands and face of God directly master minding all events.
Yes when the scripture says that God is listening it does not mean that
He is there with His ear to our prayers. Nor does it mean He is wooing
everybody by a powerful sermon and waiting to hear a response. No it
means that He is actively working for the good of His children in
response to the prayers of faith which is a gift to His children. Yes He
causes even the prayers to be interelated to His listening effect. Why
would any person cast his pains, sins, himself at the mercy of a weak
God who is perfectly indifferent by free will theology? What the state
of the church today is in is directly related to this constant dripping
of perfect indifference. God causes all things to work. Even in the
prayers of His saints there is no reason for God to work in that their
prayers cause God to cause. No there is no intermediate cause or
mediator between God and man. Our prayers are sweet smelling aroma to
the nostrils of God because the cause is the Holy SPirits inteception
from our lips to Gods working. And in that interception the Holy Spirit
is causing us to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. The
effect in us and by us is what God causes. He is such a mighty God that
God causes us to see our sin and place all of our sins in His death and
ressurrection because Gods purpose in creation was to cause sin to end
in the death and ressurrection of Christ for each individual sin in each
individual christian without the need to confess each individual sin.
The cause of forgiveness is not the confession but the cause of the
forgiveness is Gods grace in Christ. And the effect is what God says
to us through HIs word when He speaks peace to our hearts. There is a
direct effect on our hearts from God causing our prayers to work for His
glory, which was purposed in eternity to effect us in each present
circumstance. God causes us to go through the most diffucult
circumstances so that He can effect a renewal of faith in us the faith
He gave us as a gift. He withdraws from us for a season so that He can
cause us to be so focussed on Him that He can cause us to go from one
glory to another by focussing on the face of Jesus Christ. He cause us
to know that face to seek that face and to long for that face all day
long. Yes unless we are convinced that God causes then our prayers will
not have much effect.
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Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must
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on: December 02, 2006, 05:59:26 PM
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When the scripture says that God causes all
things to work, it is not an indifferent cause. The reason God cause all
things to work is for the purpose of His glory. His glory is the end of
the effect of all things working by Him causing them. Indifference is a
state described in the arminist view of liberty that is a view that
makes the cause and effect relationship non existent. It is represented
by example as a scale where both ends have equal weights. This
illustration is an illusion to the view of free will in which the will
in order to be at liberty must not have any inclination to either good
or evil in order to be a free will. So that you have good on one side
and evil on the other with equal weights and this represents liberty in
the will. In order for the will to be free it must not be inclined
either good or evil pryor to the choice. This is not liberty but it is
no will at all. Because in order for there to be a will the scale must
be tipping in one direction or another. So that instead of the will
being contengent -that is with out a cause it is has a necessity to
choose. Freedom of choice is not indifferent but it is necessary. The
feedom is the actual choice of one thing over another. That is
represented by the scale being heavier on one side so that it represents
a person choosing according to what his strongest inclination is. That
is freedom of the will. The equal scale is perfect indifference. Which
is to say that there is no existence of choice which means there is no
effect, which means that there is no necessity. Gods causing is not
indifferent but the causing is from choice so that all things working
are caused by choice not by indifference or looking down the tunnel.
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Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must
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on: December 01, 2006, 12:29:38 PM
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...Perfect indifference is not having power to exercise that will in
creation.Perfect indifference is not perfect nor is it an existence. It
is nothing.
I'm not sure what you mean by perfect indifference,
but i'm guessing that you are saying that my assertion that God allows
sin means that i believe He exercises perfect indifference. Perfect
indifference, you are pointing out, is impossible for God to exercise.
Am i understanding you correctly? By the way, i'm enjoying the conversation. Thanks for the patience in explaining your point of view. 
The
discussion we are having about causality presupposes necessity. When i
mean indifference i mean the state of existing between good and evil
without any necessity either way as the definition of liberty. That is
what i mean about having non existence. To will something is to act with
choice. Acting according to what a person desires most is liberty of
choice. When it says that God works out all things, it is not in the
state of indifference but it is by actively exercising His will in
soveriegn choice. There is no such thing as liberty in the arminist
sense of looking down the tunnel, rather it is in the act of choice for
His glory that is the definition of being free to act according to His
desire. That is the definition of causing all things to exist. If God is
not in the effect then He is not in the cause. Being the cause
presupposes exercising the will for His own Glory as the evidence of
freedom rather that existing in a state of indifference in your sense
of freedom . That indifference is not liberty but non existence. It is
important to make this distinction since by your view of liberty you are
charging God with making the ability in man more powerful as the cause
rather than Gods ability to cause thus limiting Gods exercising His
will. By giving man that kind of ability you are alowing God to be
inbetween what God wills and what man wills. Which is to make God work
pragmatically.
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Forums / Main Forum / Why Faith Is A Must
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on: November 30, 2006, 10:44:35 PM
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ROM
11:32 For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have
mercy upon all. 33 O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and
knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past
finding out! 34 For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath
been his counsellor? 2SA 24:1 And again the anger of the Lord was
kindled against Israel, and he moved David against them to say, Go,
number Israel and Judah. 1CH 21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and
provoked David to number Israel. 1KI 22:22 And the Lord said unto him,
Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in
the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him,
and prevail also: go forth, and do so. 23 Now therefore, behold, the
Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and
the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee. 1CH 10:4 Then said Saul to
his armourbearer, Draw thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest
these uncircumcised come and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not;
for he was sore afraid. So Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. 2SA
16:10 And the king said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah?
so let him curse, because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. Who
shall then say, Wherefore hast thou done so? ACT 2:23 Him, being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: ACT 4:27 For of a
truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod,
and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were
gathered together, 28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel
determined before to be done.
Here are some other verses that
support God decreeing sin passively. We seem to be talking past one
another. I tell you that God decrees sin and then you say God hates sin
and does not tempt any man. I am not really saying that i believe God
tempts man. If you check my posting i never said that cause = tempt.
Satan tempts man. But God directs Satan. God has concluded all (every
man) in unbelief (sin) that He might have mercy on all ( the ones who
are come to know Him out of everyman.)14] ROM 11:32 For God hath
concluded them all in unbelief, that he might have mercy upon all. 33 O
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how
unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out! 34 For
who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counsellor?
2SA 24:1 And again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and
he moved David against them to say, Go, number Israel and Judah. 1CH
21:1 And Satan stood up against Israel, and provoked David to number
Israel. 1KI 22:22 And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I
will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his
prophets. And he said, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go
forth, and do so. 23 Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying
spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken
evil concerning thee. 1CH 10:4 Then said Saul to his armourbearer, Draw
thy sword, and thrust me through therewith; lest these uncircumcised
come and abuse me. But his armourbearer would not; for he was sore
afraid. So Saul took a sword, and fell upon it. 2SA 16:10 And the king
said, What have I to do with you, ye sons of Zeruiah? so let him curse,
because the Lord hath said unto him, Curse David. Who shall then say,
Wherefore hast thou done so? ACT 2:23 Him, being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by
wicked hands have crucified and slain: ACT 4:27 For of a truth against
thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod, and Pontius
Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, were gathered
together, 28 For to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined
before to be done.
Here again God is the cause- by a passive decree
of men being in unbelief. Look at God puts a lying spirit in the
prophets. Again God is the cause a passive decree of putting a lying
spirit in the prophets.
As these scriptures state as well as the rest
of the scriptures . There is a line through the entire scripture that
has God as absolutely soveriegn over all events. The very mention of His
name as God forms a Trinitarian concept through the entire God breathed
scriptures that calls people to embrace the 3 In 1 -God who is 3
different persons but one in essence - having an infinite mind so that
what ever God thinks and speaks creates the times and seasons reality.
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Members Only / Purgatory / Postitive/negative, Grace/judgement, God/satan
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on: November 30, 2006, 04:33:00 PM
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As you know there really is only one in which
everything good is sourced in. Which really leads me to say that if we
are thinking rite then we must have a very deep joy and a hope that has
enough power in hoping that it over comes all the disheartening
circumstances that dash our hopes. There is one Lord, One Church, one
Spirit, and One God who is over all in all and through all. That is the
one Hope. Christ is the alpha and the omega and He is the hope we have
in this life. Hope really is not in some kind of sentemental thought as
if it were a postcard hope, that is not what the apostle is talking
about when he says whatever is lovely what ever is true, etc. Put your
thoughts on things above where Christ is seated at the rite hand of the
Father not on the things of this earth for your life is hid with Christ
in God. Christ is really the begining of hope and the end of hope.
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