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I understand. As a small child we really don't have any choice but to trust our parents. As we grow older, we can make that choice depending upon how our parents treat us. I'm sure you'll agree that some parents demonstrate that they are reliable, while others are not. How was it that you evaluated the reliability of God and Jesus?
Same as a parent child. When you first come to believe and you are born again, you just believe - your inner spirit is different, and you come to understand that God is testifying directly to you. As time passes, the relationship with God grows (pending the time spent with Him in church, in prayer, etc.), and you understand that God is who He said He is. I read the Bible and my faith grows. He helps me in my life on earth, and my faith grows. It's a relationship, not a religion.
When understanding that it is indeed God - what is there to evaluate? You just trust and put your life in His hands.
Same as a parent child. When you first come to believe and you are born again, you just believe - your inner spirit is different, and you come to understand that God is testifying directly to you. As time passes, the relationship with God grows (pending the time spent with Him in church, in prayer, etc.), and you understand that God is who He said He is. I read the Bible and my faith grows. He helps me in my life on earth, and my faith grows. It's a relationship, not a religion.
When understanding that it is indeed God - what is there to evaluate? You just trust and put your life in His hands.
I'm also absolutely content putting my life into the hands of the God who is love. However, some people try to convince myself and others that God must eternally punish, and/or is angry and full of wrath towards, those of us who don't give mental assent to various "correct" doctrines. Perhaps, based on your post here, you are beginning to change your mind and are no longer one of those people? Perhaps you are coming to see that one need not be a "bible-believing" Christian to trust the God who is love?
Your opinion is entirely subjective. Stating that hell, the second death, doesn't exist because it is abhorrent to you doesn't erase its reality. In fact, it is reinforced.
The entire Bible is a testament to eternal values and conditions and God's desire to save as many as possible. It is necessary that He did so upon the cross, but the death of Jesus is not universal. As the passover was not universal to all who lived in Egypt during Moses' day, so it the cross not universal today. Those who accept by faith the work done by Jesus will be saved. Those who reject it, for whatever reasons of their own, will die the second death. Jesus said so.
Attempts to wish away the eternal consequences of rejection of Christ will not remove the risk. Christ is about establishing a relationship with God and removing the obstacle of sin between man and God. If His sacrifice is rejected the obstacle of sin remains.
Denying hell is an attempt to deny sin and the ravages of it in a human life. No man lives alone. We are all responsible to each other and to God. If that responsibility is abrogated for selfish desires and attitudes the sin and its consequences remain. It is time to grow up and to appreciate the depth and results of sin.
and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...
A subjective analysis from the choir loft itself doesn't change a thing.
Your influence is based on personal feelings, and that of conjecture.
Denying hell is an attempt to deny sin and the ravages of it in a human life. No man lives alone. We are all responsible to each other and to God. If that responsibility is abrogated for selfish desires and attitudes the sin and its consequences remain. It is time to grow up and to appreciate the depth and results of sin.
...
No, it is not. The difference is only that you think the idea of eternal Hell is REQUIRED in order to do that. It is not.
Same as a parent child. When you first come to believe and you are born again, you just believe - your inner spirit is different, and you come to understand that God is testifying directly to you. As time passes, the relationship with God grows (pending the time spent with Him in church, in prayer, etc.), and you understand that God is who He said He is. I read the Bible and my faith grows. He helps me in my life on earth, and my faith grows. It's a relationship, not a religion.
When understanding that it is indeed God - what is there to evaluate? You just trust and put your life in His hands.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Pleroo
I'm also absolutely content putting my life into the hands of the God who is love. However, some people try to convince myself and others that God must eternally punish, and/or is angry and full of wrath towards, those of us who don't give mental assent to various "correct" doctrines. Perhaps, based on your post here, you are beginning to change your mind and are no longer one of those people? Perhaps you are coming to see that one need not be a "bible-believing" Christian to trust the God who is love?
You highlighted part of my post, but I highlighted a different portion. You want to make God into who you want Him to be. This goes into AmazonJohn's question about when faith gets shaky, what do you evaluate. You can't evaluate who God is and make Him something other than who He is. He is who He is.
1 John 1:5 - This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.
John 4:24 -God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
1 John 4:7-8 - Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
John 5:26 - "For just as the Father has life in Himself, even so He gave to the Son also to have life in Himself;
John 1:18 - No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.
1 Timothy 6:13-16 - I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, 14 that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which He will bring about at the proper time--He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, 16 who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen.
Leviticus 11:45 - For I am the LORD who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.
1 Peter 1:15-16 - but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; 16 because it is written, "YOU SHALL BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY." (Caps from NASB)
Psalm 139:7-8 - Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? 8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
Exodus 34:6-7 - Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, "The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; 7 who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations."
Hebrews 4:13 - Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
This is a partial list of who God says He is. It includes is love, holiness, justice, omnipresence, ... and there is much more.
You can have faith in who He says He is, or you can reason to yourself and claim the book says this and it's not really representative of who God is.
You highlighted part of my post, but I highlighted a different portion. You want to make God into who you want Him to be. This goes into AmazonJohn's question about when faith gets shaky, what do you evaluate. You can't evaluate who God is and make Him something other than who He is. He is who He is.
<snip>
This is a partial list of who God says He is. It includes is love, holiness, justice, omnipresence, ... and there is much more.
You can have faith in who He says He is, or you can reason to yourself and claim the book says this and it's not really representative of who God is.
Okay, so no, you have not changed your mind. You're still a person who wants to convince us that we cannot trust ourselves to the hands of God unless we give mental assent to certain beliefs about God that you find in the bible.
Imagine the power that went forth when God spoke the universe into existence. All matter condensed into a space the size smaller than that of an atom. It is said the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, it is queerer than we can suppose. .... blah blah blah.... blah blah blah....
The Bible says what it says and you say what you say. The two can not be reconciled. In the end, I guess we'll all find out who speaks for God... you or Jesus.
Your opinion is entirely subjective. Stating that hell, the second death, doesn't exist because it is abhorrent to you doesn't erase its reality. In fact, it is reinforced.
The entire Bible is a testament to eternal values and conditions and God's desire to save as many as possible. It is necessary that He did so upon the cross, but the death of Jesus is not universal. As the passover was not universal to all who lived in Egypt during Moses' day, so it the cross not universal today. Those who accept by faith the work done by Jesus will be saved. Those who reject it, for whatever reasons of their own, will die the second death. Jesus said so.
Attempts to wish away the eternal consequences of rejection of Christ will not remove the risk. Christ is about establishing a relationship with God and removing the obstacle of sin between man and God. If His sacrifice is rejected the obstacle of sin remains.
Denying hell is an attempt to deny sin and the ravages of it in a human life. No man lives alone. We are all responsible to each other and to God. If that responsibility is abrogated for selfish desires and attitudes the sin and its consequences remain. It is time to grow up and to appreciate the depth and results of sin.
and that's me, hollering from the choir loft...
OK, I'm grown up at least in age so I think I do know and appreciate the depths of sin so I will try to answer. I do believe last time I checked the bible it said the wages of sin is death. if your saying the 2nd death is annihilation, I don't believe in that either.
I didn't come to believe in UR lightly, it took almost 2 years of a lot of baby steps and tons of praying but seek and you shall find. My subjective opinion and gut instinct tell me that God was able to find a way to save, not destroy most of mankind. Those who serve Him now will be priests forever. There are benefits to being a Christian.
Okay, so no, you have not changed your mind. You're still a person who wants to convince us that we cannot trust ourselves to the hands of God unless we give mental assent to certain beliefs about God that you find in the bible.
I am not trying to convince you of anything... just answering questions about what I believe.
Why don't you tell me how God reveals Himself to you?
I am not trying to convince you of anything... just answering questions about what I believe.
But you do try to convince people of such, every time you say that if they do not believe thus and such, the wrath of God is on them, and they are condemned to eternity in hell.
Quote:
Why don't you tell me how God reveals Himself to you?
Really? After all this time, you still don't know?
Through love.
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