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I believe God sorrows with us in our momentary suffering yet He knows the end from the beginning. The trials and tribulations are here to make us stronger, to teach us good from evil, etc and without it, we could not know it for real, I'm not sure if God COULD have programmed the knowledge into us during our creation but He chose not to do it that way obviously. As a swordsmith repeatedly submerges the soft metal into the fire in order to harden it and make it useful for his purposes (and does not hate the fire for being necessary and for doing its job), God allows us to be tried, purified and perfected. He must let us know that he is opposed to the original emotion and hate that causes His instruments of evil to cause the trials, but I don't believe He hates these events in the same way we hate. When all are in God and HE is in all, then the horrible feelings and pain will be wiped away and we will be able to love those that did evil against us as we love the fire that causes great comfort as well as pain. God LOVES His enemies and we are given the definition of love in Corinthians. We are to love our enemies as God loves His enemies so that we can be like Him, like Jesus who loved and forgave those who nailed Him to the cross, not just the ones who LITERALLY nailed Him to the cross but all of us who by our sinful nature and His love for us kept Him there unto death. He was God's unfailing and eternal love flowing out to us. As stated by many, hate is a human emotion and we cannot control it but by the Spirit of God. Yep, God's plan for His creation spans many ages and unless we can understand that He doesn't complete His ultimate plan until the age of the consummation, we can't understand that it is not US who determines the outcome, but God, the creator. God bless and thank you Shana and all who try to show forth God's love in words and/or deeds. I fail on a daily basis, but I trust that my Father is working out His plan in me in His timing and according to His plan. I am the clay in His hands and He is the potter. I hate the fire at times, for I'm human and do not like trials and tribulation, but He somehow brings me through them for His own reason, because I wanted to give up more than once. And I get a little stronger each time. Do I enjoy seeing my children go through pain and struggle......absolutely not, my humanity wants me to shelter them and protect them from all harm........yet it is exactly through the adversity they endured that they have become stronger, more compassionate, and more patient.
And, yes, I would rage against any thing or person that took the life of one of my children, yet I can trust that God is not through with them and can restore their life, their happiness and that their death had a purpose even if it is not manifest until the last age. God is in control of all things and what He purposes will come to pass and no one can thwart that purpose, especially not puny, weak man. And His vengeance will be sure against all that opposes love, but it is not eternal for those He created.......as Shana reminded us..........when God's judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants will learn righteousness....when I realized that, I cried........we do not make ourselves...and then life will truly begin when we are all in God and He is in all and since He never changes there will be still purpose........that's just the beginning.
Balderdash! I can believe God hates sin, and still love my neighbor.
It is not a question (for most of us) of God hating sin, but of God hating sinners in direct contradiction to statements that He loves sinners. Even though it has been shown that the use of "hate" in the OT is a form of hyperbole, a literal reading the way the term is translated is insisted upon.
I believe that you can consider that God "hates" sin and still love neighbors (in the "Good Samaritan" sense) but my experience tells me that you can not think that God hates sinners and still extend the love that Jesus exhorted at the end of the Sermon on the Mount.
For that, I think it is necessary to cultivate the idea that ALL "Sin" is a result of bad perceptions, that "they know not what they do" is descriptive of every failure to love.
ScarletWren, thank you for your post. It is very powerful to me. There is so much to look forward in this journey that God has set us on, so much to learn and love about Him. Thank you, again. God bless you.
In other words, you, like every Christian, picks and chooses the passages they believe to be literally true, or figurative, or allegorical, or metaphorical or .....
You all cherrypick.
No...it's called reading it for what the author meant. It's actually referred to as the "Historical Grammatical Method" of hermeneutics. When the Bible says God has wings....we don't think he's a big chicken. We recognize that there are figures of speech. But we do believe literally what the author intended to communicate.
Quote:
Every single poster on this contentious (but to me, very, very silly thread) is demonstrating it with virtually every post.
Virtually every post on this whole sub-forum exhibits the behaviour.
So just stop trying to pretend you aren't doing the same.
We're just asking that people actually read it for what it says.
I hate the fire at times, for I'm human and do not like trials and
tribulation, but He somehow brings me through them for His own reason, because I
wanted to give up more than once. And I get a little stronger each time. Do I
enjoy seeing my children go through pain and struggle......absolutely not, my
humanity wants me to shelter them and protect them from all harm........yet it
is exactly through the adversity they endured that they have become stronger,
more compassionate, and more patient.
And, yes, I would rage against any
thing or person that took the life of one of my children, yet I can trust that God is not through with them and can restore their life, their happiness and that their death had a purpose even if it is not manifest until the last age.
God is in control of all things and what He purposes will come to pass and no
one can thwart that purpose, especially not puny, weak man.
Yes, Amen. I will keep this in my reference to words that I want to remember. Thank you, ScarletWren. Hugs to you too
Hating sin is way different than hating your neighbor.
The state of hate that exists within a human consciousness does not and cannot exist within God's consciousness . . . so using the word is not just misleading but completely wrong. The same things that evoke hate within us do evoke sadness in and grieve God . . . but that in no way resembles hate within a human consciousness.
God hates what stands in the way of true love (and good sex). Psychological disorders, addictions, etc. This doesn't mean God hates the person having these issues. This is what it means by hating the sin but loving the sinner.
. When all are in God and HE is in all, then the horrible feelings and pain
will be wiped away and we will be able to love those that did evil against us as
we love the fire that causes great comfort as well as pain. Go. When all are
in God and HE is in all, then the horrible feelings and pain will be wiped away
and we will be able to love those that did evil against us as we love the fire
that causes great comfort as well as pain. God LOVES His enemies and we are
given the definition of love in Corinthians. We are to love our enemies as God
loves His enemies so that we can be like Him, like Jesus who loved and forgave
those who nailed Him to the cross, not just the ones who LITERALLY nailed Him to
the cross but all of us who by our sinful nature and His love for us kept Him
there unto death. He was God's unfailing and eternal love flowing out to
us. d LOVES His enemies and we are given the definition of love in
Corinthians. We are to love our enemies as God loves His enemies so that we can
be like Him, like Jesus who loved and forgave those who nailed Him to the cross,
not just the ones who LITERALLY nailed Him to the cross but all of us who by our
sinful nature and His love for us kept Him there unto death. He was God's
unfailing and eternal love flowing out to us.
Do you believe Jesus said everything attributed to Him in Scripture?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MysticPhD
Everything that is unambiguously compatible with His pure agape love.
TroutDude, is this what you meant by picking and choosing?
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