I want to apologize if I keep dropping off the scene for extended periods of time.

I do come in to read and post on and off but when I begin do that too often, wifey begins to complain so I have to back off.

Keeping the peace is important.

are you married?

she's the best wife any man can have. beautiful woman, good mother

the thing is this. when she sees me on facebook, or even playing candy crush, it's ok

but posting in a forum, any forum for the matter winds her up.

why?



i'm still looking through volume one of the user manual.

i sometimes write replies on my notepad before cutting and pasting in when she's not around.

Amen

wow. for a moment there, i thot you went bananas.

DE is wrong in so many places.

first it wasn't Nicodemus. the lawyer's name wasn't mentioned.

second, the " laws " that Jesus "broke" were traditions that the Pharisees and Sadducees imposed and not the laws that God gave.

third, the end does not justify the means.

but DE will be DE....

BTW how is alex doing in his Christianity thread?

i can see he's really passionate and going all out.

I have said elsewhere that unbelievers are like 3 year olds asking questions whose answers, if given, they have no capacity to understand and we believers are like 4 year olds trying to answer the questions with the little knowledge we do have.

God is a just God as much as He is a loving God.
We do not understand the scales of Universal Justice.
Had there been an easier way, God surely would have used it.

Why did God have to send Jesus as the sacrifice for sin?
Why not wave his magic wand and say, I pronounced you forgiven?

Is there a greater purpose at work here?

CS Lewis in his Narnia chronicles and his Perelandra trilogy explored these ideas.
No one knows if he is right or wrong.

What we do know is that we live in a fallen world.
Just look around you.

We also know we will die one day.
What happens next depends on your decision in this life.

I can also tell you that every objection to accepting God's provision for redemption can be traced back to one root. Pride.

The original sin was rooted in pride.
Man wanted to be like God. He wanted to determine his own destiny.

The devil also fell because of pride.

12 “How dyou are fallen from heaven,

O Day Star, son of Dawn!

How you are cut down to the ground,

you who laid the nations low!

13 You said in your heart,

‘I will ascend to heaven;

above the stars of God

I will set my throne on high;

I will sit on the mount of assembly

in the far reaches of the north;

14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;

I will make myself like the Most High.’
Isaiah 14:12–14

However, God made it clear that it is not possible for man to work out his own salvation.

6For all of us have become like one who is unclean, And all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. Isaiah 64:6

What we think doesn't really matter, just like insisting that the earth is flat wouldn't change it from being a sphere.

At the end of the day, the choice is still ours.
Believe and repent or risk the consequences as stated in the Bible.


oops I forgot to address the teletubbies question!

This post has been edited by yaokb: May 11 2015, 10:28 PM

Wonderful testimony

Nice quote, but did I not say Believe AND Repent?

Actually, the proper context of the passage is Faith that is proven by works of righteousness, not righteousness through works.

A reading of the Amplified version will make it clearer.



on the rest of your post, I agree, I did not ask to be born with the sin nature, unfortunately I am.

YET, though I am born with the sin nature, I am not left without a remedy!

15 But God’s free gift is not at all to be compared to the trespass [His grace is out of all proportion to the fall of man]. For if many died through one man’s falling away (his lapse, his offense), much more profusely did God’s grace and the free gift [that comes] through the undeserved favor of the one Man Jesus Christ abound and overflow to and for [the benefit of] many. Romans 5:15

We go round and round the mulberry bush arguing over a situation neither You or I can change, namely,

a) we are alive.
b) we are stuck in this situation (sin)
c) we will die
d) provision is made for us to escape this death
e) the condition is believe and repent

Not fair?


Maybe, from OUR perspective, it is not fair.
Maybe from a greater perspective, when ALL factors are taken into consideration it is more than fair.

But I want to shift our focus to something else.

We are straining at the gnats and swallowing the camels if we do not give due consideration to the positive changes that takes place in people who truly trust Jesus and have their lives changed as a consequence.

Why argue over what could or could not be true and ignore the living proof right in front of our eyes?

Just yesterday, a sister testified (with a medical report, no less) on how her nephew was cured of cancer.
If all these are just co incidences, then, even then, isn't it worthwhile to trust in Jesus?
Because if it is just co incidence, then christians are the luckiest people alive.

Yup.

Lust of the Flesh
Lust of the Eyes
Pride of Life

So you think we should just keep arguing round and round the mulberry bush?

To what purpose then?

edit:

I hesitated to quote this but I think it should be said

Then the LORD spoke to Moses and Aaron, saying, “When Pharaoh speaks to you, saying, ‘Show a miracle for yourselves,’ then you shall say to Aaron, ‘Take your rod and cast it before Pharaoh, and let it become a serpent.’ ” So Moses and Aaron went in to Pharaoh, and they did so, just as the LORD commanded. And Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a serpent. But Pharaoh also called the wise men and the sorcerers; so the magicians of Egypt, they also did in like manner with their enchantments. For every man threw down his rod, and they became serpents. But Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. And Pharaoh’s heart grew hard, and he did not heed them, as the LORD had said. (‭Exodus‬ ‭7‬:‭8-13‬ NKJV)

This post has been edited by yaokb: May 13 2015, 09:37 AM

Amen.
May your healing come quickly PK.

Do you play chess?

If you do you will understand better.

We can probably see 3 moves ahead.
Grandmasters can see 15 moves or more.

Deep blue can see maybe 100 moves, who knows.

But God, being God MUST be able see every move of every living being for all time from beginning to end.
Otherwise, he is not God.

Try wrap your mind around that.

The bible says in Gen 3 : 14-15

And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all [domestic] animals and above every [wild] living thing of the field; upon your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust [and what it contains] all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her Offspring; He will bruise and tread your head underfoot, and you will lie in wait and bruise His heel. [Gal. 4:4.] (‭Genesis‬ ‭3‬:‭14-15‬ AMP)

From the beginning, God had already in mind the plan for salvation of mankind.

We argue, why then create man?
This is one of the unanswerable questions, at least in this life.

Having said that, can we conclude, that, if God is love, He will ENSURE that He does what He needs to do, for the salvation of mankind as a whole, with the MINIMUM amount of suffering mankind has to endure?

We point to earthquakes, tornadoes, floods, tsunamis and complain, why must that happen?
Can they happen as a consequence of man's own actions.
Global warming is a consequence of man's unceasing burning of fossil fuels. This upsets world weather patterns causing freak weather.
Non-stop pumping of oil out of the ground results in changes in ground pressures which could result in earthquakes.

Who knows?

We are beings with intellect, at least with enough intellect to question.
The bible never restricts us from questioning God.
You can see it's full of questions!

Yet time and time again, the questioners conclude that God is indeed good.
Even Job, who suffered so much saw God restoring everything to him and more.

James 1:5-6 says

If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

You really want to know? Question God directly, Challenge Him to reveal Himself to you.

It also says

O taste and see that the LORD is good; How blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. psalms 34:8


We believers, are in the pool of God's love.
We say to others, come on, jump in! The water is lovely.

You stand by the pool side and see but never understanding, because you are not in the water like us.

You want to know how it's really like? Jump in.

Death is a consequence of sin.

The offer of life is given freely.

Complaining will never solve the issue, only trust.

Hebrews 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

You allege God does more harm than good, you are mistaken in two areas.

A) it is the devil that brings the harm, not God.

B) we only see what we can see and our sight is limited. God sees all and every action God takes is designed to bring the ultimate good with the minimal pain.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose

Some of these are sensible valid questions that need to be answered

We are getting digressed.

Let's return to the basics.

A) God is love.
I disagree with Sylar on God not loving everyone equally.
I shared much earlier on how I fought with God on this issue.
I had biblical proof that God was biased, at least in my own understanding.

God's answer was simple.

"I love you all equally, it's your response to my love that makes the difference"

B) mankind has a problem, sin, consequences of which is death.

C) God provided a solution for that problem, open to all who are willing to receive.

Everything else are futile arguments because we cannot make the rules as we choose. God does. Don't like it? Too bad.

To make it simple. An example.

I want to emigrate to Zimbabwe.
Zimbabwe law says I must declare myself an atheist before I am granted citizenship there.
What do I do?

Hold a demo in front of the Zimbabwe embassy here?
Sue the Zimbabwe govt?
Post how unfair it is on Facebook and lowyat?

Will any of my above actions get me my citizenship?

In the same manner, we can complain all we want about God,
It makes no difference.

The sad part is all our complaints are misguided and our accusations false.

Many are so blinkered and stubborn that they will not come to God for forgiveness.

Your issue on Freewill is another long time complaint of mine, until I understood the chess analogy I used earlier.

I argued that we are actually forced to do what we do not want to. Take Jonah's case.
He fled. God caused a sea creature to swallow Jonah.

Did Jonah exercise his Freewill? Yes, didn't he?
But we forget God has a will too!

And God arranged things so that Jonah changed his mind later and did what God wanted, although grudgingly.

Grudgingly, yes, but STILL of his own accord. Jonah could have sat on the beach and refuse to move after the sea creature spat him out.

The joke on Jonah was, as a result of his earlier disobedience, at least 2 things happened.

The sailors believed in God, and Jonah made himself more believable to the people of Nineveh ( think why )

Every person has Freewill, which in my opinion makes God's provision for salvation even more wonderful.

We can rebel or we can obey. Our choice.

We confuse the EXISTENCE of our Freewill with the WILL POWER to exercise it.

Exercising our will carries a cost. Sometimes that cost is too great for us so we recapitulate.

God did not make us automatons because he values our willingness to come to him on our own accord. There is truly no compulsion in Christianity.

Don't you realize that it is because of Freewill that YOU can question like you are doing now?

I am a Christian by choice.
I can safely say any questions you have, I probably have asked it too.
I have compared Christianity with other faiths, and concluded that even from a logical view point, Christianity stands apart.

Add to this my personal experience of God's reality and goodness, I am convinced what I have is real.

how do any of the verses above indicate no freewill?

consider Ecc 7-13

Isn't it a demonstration of God's power and authority?

Romans 8 :28-30 speaks of those he choose.
Can he not choose based on his foreknowledge of what you and I will choose to do?

Roman 9 : 19-21 is actually the biblical answer to our questions and complains!
Who are we to question our Maker??

Should we not make the smart choice to cooperate with him?

Yet none of these verses indicate that we CANNOT choose to disobey!

remember what I said about the distinction between the existence of our free will and our willpower to exercise it?

You say we are restricted, I agree.
We are restricted from crossing the traffic lights when it is red.
Yet we still can cross it if we insist. its only that we will pay for it if we get caught!

We are restricted from entering a building on fire because of the heat.
Yet few of us will hesitate to rush in to rescue our loved ones if they are trapped inside.
even if it means we get burnt in the process.

External conditions are a hindrance to the exercise of free will but they do not remove freewill from you!

Is it clearer to you now?

What you are describing can only happen in a vacuum where you are the only being in existence.

In such a scenario, the freewill is effectively meaningless.

Agreed?

Why do we have so many because?

Paul the Apostle says

18For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written:

“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise;
the intelligence of the intelligent I will frustrate.” 1 Cor 1:18-19

Many cannot accept the gospel as it is.

Jesus Christ died for our sins.
We can be forgiven simply by acknowledging Jesus is Lord and believing in Him.

if asking questions can clear your mind, keep on asking.

I want to address the murderer last minute repentance scenario that is so often quoted everywhere.

The bible says ,

Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Gal 6:7

Repentance does not mean just saying sorry. It means a true change of heart attitude.
Do you think it's humanly possible for a murderer to plan repentance and yet carry out the deed?
Will not he be deceiving himself?

No there is no contradiction
They refer to different types of wisdom

1 Cor 3:19 says

For the wisdom of this world is foolishness in God's sight. As it is written: "He catches the wise in their craftiness";

While

The wisdom referred to in Proverbs is the wisdom that comes from God