BootsnAll Travel Community

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Originally posted by MarkhomAlert:
To put ourselves on a level where we feel that God owes us something or that we get to question His word -- well, that is the height of egotism and, in my estimation, not the proper thing for a pot to be doing.

Considering out life here on earth is nothing but a blink of an eye compared to eternity, however, if giving of one's life was a requirement for salvation (whcih it is not), then that is a SMALL price to pay, wouldn't you agree?

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"My commitment is to truth as I see it every day, not to consistancy." -- Gandhi



Gandhi was the most politicaly correct being in the history of mankind...except when it came to bashing Christians. He is also a political figure so lets keep this about spirituality and leave the politics in chit-chat.

I just found this awesome quote:

"God comes to us in Jesus who is the way. We are like people who have fallen into a pit and in that fall have been injured. Our legs and our arms are broken. For anyone to lower a ladder into the pit and say, 'This is the only way out, climb it,' only adds to our desperation. But if the ladder is lowered not for us to climb out, but for one to climb down and lift our broken body into his arms, carrying us upwards and to safety -- that is good news indeed!"

That puts it pretty well. The religions built by the hand of man are based on works, man trying to get to God(which is impossible for the fallen man), while while Jesusism is about God trying to get to man.

Why does the fallen man refuse to be taken up out of the pit in the arms of the saviour? Well Jesus makes it very clear in John chapter 3: "And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed."

I would like to state that I am not arguing for "Christianity" as a religion. Religion is not the answer. Jesus essentially came to abolish religion, or as he said "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill". Pointing again to the fact that the law is really the ladder lowered to the fallen man who cannot climb up. The Cross is God climbing down that ladder to save the fallen man.

The word says "for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life". I would point you toward the Cross before any religion. This quote puts it well, "As Christians we do not believe in Christianity but in Christ. Christianity, as a complex of dogmatic teachings, liturgical rites and codes of behaviour, does not escape the ambivalence of our human, historical condition. As Karl Barth used to say, religion is always a shaky and relative thing: not religion as such, but the absolute Being to which it is directed is the true absolute."


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That is a very eloquent argument. But through it you are still implying that a Gods actions are still constrained by the rules of Logic: If he is omnipotent they are not.



Maybe I am not understanding your argument here. What is logic? The definition, according to some websight I googled, is "A branch of philosophy concerned with the distinction between correct and incorrect reasoning" So proper logic is correct reasoning. The correct reasoning, or logic, of God stands in opposition to human logic.

What do we want to do deep inside? We want to look after ourselves. We want to be served and praised. Jesus said that he "came not to be served, but to serve". We want to be first. Jesus said "If anyone desires to be first, he shall be last of all and servant of all". We want to find ourselves. Jesus said "He who finds his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for My sake will find it".

Jesus said that you could sum up the entire Hebrew law in only two laws. 1:To love the lord God with all of your heart, mind, soul, and strength. 2: To love your neighbor as yourself. That kind of stuff is easy and fun to say, but try really living it out. It goes against the fallen nature, or "logic", of mankind.

In the back of my Bible I have written in big letters the word Gospel, or "Good News", upside down and backwards in both Hebrew and Greek, just to remind myself that I live by the backwards upsidedown Gospel. I want people to be baffled when they look at my life. I think the power of God shows up more in someones life when they live at complete odds with the world system, because that is what will happen when you start walking that path.

My point is that God does operate by a "Logic" but it is his logic and it is a logic of love and selflessness and servanthood, and it is despised by the fallen man. It goes against the lust of our flesh and it goes against the programming we see on TV and recieve at school.

You know what, we can discuss back and forth(and I love it), but we are never going to understand all of the mysteries of God. There is always going to be some doubt and there will always be questions. It is a matter of faith. Abraham was a man of faith and it was accounted to him as ritchiousness. The word says that faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen...By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.


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"If he is omnipotent, he is also omniscient,"



The book of Hebrews says " For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account."

But we do not have to fear God, because:

"Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need."

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but I suppose I can never really on faith over logic, I don't think I will ever be able to surrender my independence of thought.

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Originally posted by Howdy Captain:
I do believe in hell - but its not fire and brimstones.

I think it is a state of mind that people suffer here on earth.

During my short time here I have known many different types of people and I have known some people that are living in hell because they cannot trust others, they are incapable of loving or being loved or sharing or caring, they are constantly scared of their image and will never appreciate the beauty of life.

To me the idea of living like this is hell.