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"Works"? What does this mean? Are you referring to believing in miracles and the possible supernatural aspects of God? Because to me, that does not qualify as either a work or an act of love.
We can love others and love God without believing those things.
But arent those supernatural thing the kinds things Jesus had to do, in order to get people to believe he truly was who he claimed to be? If I remember he did many supernatural acts, sometimes in front of large crowds, he did this time after time, so more people would believe he was the son of God.
What if Jesus had done NONE of this and just asked people to take his word for it?
i grew up going to a southern baptist church where i remember hearing the stories about jesus, and the songs about him. I knew the basics of his life. I really loved him.
But then when i was about 12 i heard the "good news" from a family member. They told me that it wasn't enough just to love god and love jesus. You had to pray to receive jesus "into your heart". That confused me. It worried me. What did it even mean?
Ever since that time i sort of lost that special love that i had for jesus. He became something threatening and confusing.
Can anyone else relate to this experience?
and you are so sure you knew him... I wish I could be so sure!
I grew up going to a Southern Baptist church where I remember hearing the stories about Jesus, and the songs about him. I knew the basics of his life. I really loved him.
But then when I was about 12 I heard the "good news" from a family member. They told me that it wasn't enough just to love God and love Jesus. You had to pray to receive Jesus "into your heart". That confused me. It worried me. What did it even mean?
Ever since that time I sort of lost that special love that I had for Jesus. He became something threatening and confusing.
Can anyone else relate to this experience?
Jesus is not to blame for the confusion ... the false teaching of decision theology is.
I grew up going to a Southern Baptist church where I remember hearing the stories about Jesus, and the songs about him. I knew the basics of his life. I really loved him.
But then when I was about 12 I heard the "good news" from a family member. They told me that it wasn't enough just to love God and love Jesus. You had to pray to receive Jesus "into your heart". That confused me. It worried me. What did it even mean?
Ever since that time I sort of lost that special love that I had for Jesus. He became something threatening and confusing.
Can anyone else relate to this experience?
You thought you loved Him. But you weren't taught how to love Him the way God wants.
Mark 10:24 "But Jesus said to them again, "Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God!"
Matthew 7:13,14 "Broad is the gate and easy is the path that leads to destruction and many choose it but narrow is the gate and hard is the path that leads to life and few there are who find it. "
and you are so sure you knew him... I wish i could be so sure!
plus WHAT I KNOW FOR SURE IS I can say definitively THAT the Jesus i know today is not the same Jesus i knew when I was a child being taken to grandmas church ( baptist). But of course since then I spent 40 more years looking for Him in his own Words , by His Spirit and in His instruction Book/S and DID it usually daily. I " inquired of the Lord " for help or guidance USUALLY DAILY.
You really get to know SOMEONE after 40 years of very active communications , I think EVERYONES (KNOW)LEDGE OF EACH OTHER CHANGES A LOT IN MORE THAN 40 YEARS.
And most definitely he is not the same guy I knew as when I was a child !!!
SO YOU ARE SO SURE YOU KNEW HIM WHEN YOU WERE A CHILD!
THAT IS INTERESTING.
WOULD YOU SAY YOU KNEW HIM AS MUCH AS YOU THINK YOU KNEW..... HUM..... GRANDMA? AND CHANCES ARE DIDN'T KNOW HER VERY MUCH EITHER .
AND OF COURSE MY KNOWEDGE OF MY GREAT GRANDMA IS VERY DIFFERENT FROM MY SISTERS.. MAYBE BECAUSE MY GREAT GRANDMA CONFIDED A FEW OF HER SECRETS AND HER PAIN TO ME. BUT MY SISTER WOULD SAY SHE AND I KNOW GRANDMA THE SAME AMOUNT. BUT THAT ISN'T THE TRUTH. ONE OF US WAS CLOSER LIKE A CONFADAUNT!
SO IF YOU KNEW JESUS SO WELL DO TELL US SOME OF HIS SECRETS AND HIS PAIN? BECAUSE HE DOES SHARE THAT ..
I grew up going to a Southern Baptist church where I remember hearing the stories about Jesus, and the songs about him. I knew the basics of his life. I really loved him.
But then when I was about 12 I heard the "good news" from a family member. They told me that it wasn't enough just to love God and love Jesus. You had to pray to receive Jesus "into your heart". That confused me. It worried me. What did it even mean?
Ever since that time I sort of lost that special love that I had for Jesus. He became something threatening and confusing.
Can anyone else relate to this experience?
I was scared of Jesus from the get-go. He looked pretty mean in all the pictures, especially the giant stained-glass window. I knew he was watching and just waiting to catch me doing something wrong, plus he knew everything, including the fact that I DIDN'T love him.
My question when I got older was, "If God/Jesus is supposed to love us, why don't we FEEL loved?" Love is someone is always watching to see when you're going to trip up so he can kill you and send you to hell?
I stopped going when I was 18, but the terror I learned in church stayed with me a lot longer.
Right away there is a discrepancy. Back in those days people believed in either Caesar or the new Jesus as their Lord. I would have believed in Jesus over Caesar. Yes, I would have chosen the new lord Jesus given that choice. Both religious groups claimed that their particular lord had died and was now ruling from heaven. But those people who wanted to follow Jesus over Caesar didn't have a New Testament to believe in. They died without hearing any of the things in the New Testament.
That Obelisk standing at the Vatican is of Caesar, devoted to a man/god who walked the earth the same time as Jesus.
You really sure you would have believed in Jesus or confessed him to be your Passover lamb? I am not sure.
Let's say you are 20 years old living as a Roman pagan and it is 126 A.D. and then you hear of Jesus, and you believe in his Passover sacrifice, in his being a Sukkot Bull and you decided to reject all your former ways and to follow ONLY Jesus. You no longer kept the Saturnalia and now you would ONLY keep the ways of Messiah, a Jewish Messiah.
You really think you would stand for Jesus instead of Caesar?
Your neighbors would have pointed you out saying,'' This Gentile is keeping Jewish ways.''
Then the Roman guard would show up and collect your entire family, and they would bring you into court as a wannabe Jew. They begin killing your family, mocking you, and then they would have killed you.
Those first Roman converts were tortured and killed for following the ways of Messiah, they had believed in Jesus and SUDDENLY, they only believed in one God, and one God only and that his son died for you as a Passover lamb and a sukkot bull, and you are going to be brave enough to admit this to then begin keeping Pesach and Sukkot in truth and in spirit? You are going to stand out like a sore thumb, put a target between your eyes, and IF YOU LIVE, you would begin paying a very steep Jewish tax on everything you own or buy, and everyone you knew was now going to hate you, even your own family.
You have just allied yourself with the enemy after the hatred created by the Jewish war and the powers of Rome were about to kill you.
Rome could not afford for it's Gentiles to become Christian where they began making pilgrimages to Jerusalem for Passover and for the feast of Tabernacles.
If you were a Gentile who has now become Israel, you have just become an enemy of the state and it meant life or death and it makes one wonder about the treasures in heaven obtained by those first righteous Gentiles who chose Jesus over death, I seriously don't know that I would be that brave, ESPECIALLY a man with children. You convert to God's religion and you already had one foot in the grave.
The world HATED Jews, THEY FREAKING HATED JEWS, but more than this, they HATED a Gentile who kept the commandments of God in God's worship system a THOUSAND TIMES more than they hated the Jew.
I was scared of Jesus from the get-go. He looked pretty mean in all the pictures, especially the giant stained-glass window. I knew he was watching and just waiting to catch me doing something wrong, plus he knew everything, including the fact that I DIDN'T love him.
My question when I got older was, "If God/Jesus is supposed to love us, why don't we FEEL loved?" Love is someone is always watching to see when you're going to trip up so he can kill you and send you to hell?
I stopped going when I was 18, but the terror I learned in church stayed with me a lot longer.
Spoken about a Gentile dying as a Gentile and becoming a Jew. It is discussing a person who fasts and prays for a certain amount of days beginning on an exact day that he makes it all the way to the end, to death, a symbolic death.
Moses AND Jesus had to stay 40 days and 40 nights in fasting in prayer, and those disciples had to stay in fasting and prayer right up unto the promise of the first Atzeret, and only then did they receive the promise. It is the same way for the second season and preparing by fasting and praying to the exact day and moment the promise if given and the days have been shortened and if they had not been shortened in this day and age, no man would make it.
But where Revelation talks about enduring to the end, it is speaking of a Gentile becoming a Jew and being born again.
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