New groom, actually, and hug warmly recieved!  

Re. "for ever and ever" - The Greek word aionios comes from the root aion (which means an age, or an aeon) is an adjective describing something having the qualities of an age or a aeon. The primary meaning of this word is not infinity; a long time is implied, but not necessarily endless time.

The length of time implied depends on the noun to which it is applied; I'll have to investigate the connotations for this passage; I'll get back to you on it.

Re. Torment: There is a distinction to be made between torment and torture. But if I discuss it right now, there are some things that need to get done yesterday that won't get done... So again, have patience with me...

In His love,

-Grace

Beautifully written, BlackmanX.

The only way that I've found to go on is to allow myself to be so loved, that I'll risk loving too.

All that we suffer when we look on this world of sorrows, God suffers too, and yet He suffers it far more fully (with no defense mechanisms, with no holes barred) than we ever could, or would dare to.

Matthew 25:40 - Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

And yet, He looks upon this world of sorrows with such love as we cannot imagine or fathom. As Felix102 writes, Christ's is the only way. He is a God of Mercy. He is

Isaiah 53:3 - a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief

He is also the God of Joy.

Nehemiah 8:10 - ...for the joy of the LORD is your strength.

Psalms 16:11 - Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.

Psalms 51:8 - Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice.

Psalms 105:43 - And he brought forth his people with joy, and his chosen with gladness

Psalms 126:5 - They that sow in tears shall reap in joy

Isaiah 12:3 - Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.

Isaiah 35:10 - And the ransomed of the LORD shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Isaiah 51:3 - For the LORD shall comfort Zion: he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the LORD; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.

Isaiah 55:12 - For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

 

Isaiah 65:17-19 For, behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. 18 But be ye glad and rejoice for ever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. 19 And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people: and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.

...and that's just bits and pieces up to the end of Isaiah!

May the Joy of the Lord be with you to sustain you through the sorrow and care of this wounded world, in hope and strength for the coming of the New Creation.

In His sorrow, Love and Joy,

-Grace

[He is awesome!!!!]

Okay,

I'm about to start a raging fire that I really don't have time to tend properly at this point in my life. Folks, I'm going to be slow to respond to the responses that this will generate because- WOW- I'm getting married in a week and a half!   So please be patient. (Sunday Sept. 5th at 4PM, to be specific! Please keep me and my fiancee in your prayers!)

But here goes.

A teacher of mine did a word study on the use of the word "hell" in the bible. The results of his study suggest that there is more evidence that the fires of hell destroy entirely and consume very rapidly as opposed to tormenting for eternity. And it is those who, when faced with the full knowledge of who God is, reject Him, that will meet that fate.

Fellow Christians, most of you are probably experiencing some pretty serious doubts about me right now, and/or concern that the teacher I speak of is an instrument of Satan's. But this teacher presented his findings not as doctrine to be swallowed, but as a piece of scholarship to be reviewed, questioned and tested with concordances, interlinears and a good dose of skepticism in hand (and this I did). How much of what we believe derives from the traditions of Man? Almost all of our descriptions of hell, for instance, come from secular sources, because they're not in the bible!

For some, the idea that there is no place of perpetual torrment is very disturbing. I've even heard some say (and it makes my heart weep) that "if there is no place of eternal torment, then what's the point of being a Christian?" Is being a Christian so paltry apart from avoiding hell that the threat of hell is the one thing that makes it worth being a Christian? If you think so, you are missing out bigtime!
Is your God so not worth knowing that it takes the threat of torture to make him worth knowing? I seriously doubt that you have even met Him if you think that way! You should consider meeting Him;
                              He is awesome!!!!

For non-Christians following this thread, this may yet sound pretty coercive: "Tow the line or you'll flash-fry, instead of being tortured forever", certainly sounds like an improvement, but a threat none the less. If God is who many believe He is, it is just that- a threat. For it to be anything but a threat to me, God has to be so extraordinarily wonderful and loving and just and powerful and beautiful that any one willing to reject Him, seeing who He truly is, is riddled with and ruled by such hate, anger and bitterness that they are better off not existing than living in such a wasteland existence without Him. In this light, hell is a promise and not a threat.

Romans 14:11 - For it is written, As I live, saith the Lord, every knee shall bow to me, and every tongue shall confess to God.

This is God's promise to us, that all will bow (and I believe, do so joyfully and not cowingly) to God, who is Love.
How could this happen, how could this promise be kept, if multitudes are in torment? "Every knee", and "every tongue", the scriptures say.

In His love,

-Grace

PS- Please, I'm not trolling! This is what I truly believe, whether rightly or wrongly, with all my heart. I do hope and pray that you will take me as sincere, hear what I have to say, and correct me where you believe that I am wrong; I am afraid of having my beliefs challenged, but I am willing to have them challenged, especially in any way that will lead me to a closer walk with Him.
If I am asked to leave this forum as a result of what I have just written, I will do so with great sorrow, and I will not come back unless invited.

Hello Lostinthought,

I do believe Alice has it: many atheists see Christianity as a coercive set of beliefs that people cling to out of fear, and they are trying to set them free, to save them, just as many Christians are trying to do for the atheists. Fuel for the fire is, that "Christianity" is sometimes more or less just that.

Alice,
I grew up Christian, then left the faith. About 3 years ago, I became a Christian once again.

When I originally left the faith, I decided to stop believing in God and to start believing in love. In retrospect, I have realized that what I really did was to stop believing in religion and to start believing in God.

You write, in your post, about the problem of evil.
Take the following 4 philosophical propositions:
1. God exists.
2. God is all-powerful.
3. God is all-good.
4. Evil exists.

Denying any one of the above can make things make sense. If evil doesn't exist, then the other three coexist quite happily. If God is good and can't stop the bad from happening, or if God can do anything but isn't all-good enough to care to (or even causes the evil), that works philosophically too. And if God doesn't exist, that pretty much takes care of the rest.

I believe all four. I will not pretend to understand how all four could be true. But to deny any one of them would be, for me, to deny experiences that I have had, to deny realities (and a Reality) that have touched me powerfully and made real changes in me. And the peace, healing and freedom that has come into my life as a result of the first three have surpassed a million-fold that which I experienced upon initially leaving the church.

I still lock horns with God over things. Job and I both. Like Job, I asked why; I wanted to have an answer. As Peter Kreeft observed in his book Making Sense of Suffering (which I highly recommend), Job did not get the answer; he got the Answerer. And that was enough for him.
I, too, got the Answerer instead of the answer. And, I am astonished to find, it is enough for me too.

Evangelist, you wrote:

The "intelligent" atheist cannot (will not) fathom or accept that there is anyone smarter, wiser, or more powerful than they themselves....were they to do that, they would then be admitting that they don't know it all.

As a former intelligent atheist (and "former" applies to "atheist", thank-you very much! ) I must protest! Yeah, that's a pretty apt description for a small minority of intelligent atheists- I've encountered them, too. But hardly the majority. These are just the ones who are most likely to lock horns in a memorable way with a Christian.

In His love,

-Grace

Brother Love wrote:

There is no sin you have committed that is larger than God's grace

Amen!!! We are very much on the same page here! Praise be to Him who is infinitely larger than, and whose love is infinitely larger than, the very worst that we can do!

Brother Love wrote:

The reason that no sin will prevent you from being saved is that salvation is not based upon what you do or what you have done.

Again here! Amen! The gift of God's grace has nothing to do with earning and deserving. A true gift is not given because it is earned; an earned "gift" ceases to be a gift.

Brother Love wrote:

Christ paid the penalty on the cross that you could not pay.

Here I must disagree. And please note: I am not suggesting that Christ did less than this on the cross; I am suggesting that He in fact did far more, as I explained in my last post on this thread. Christ's death was not about paying a penalty; there is virtually no support for this biblically.

It will take me some time to reply to your other posts, Brother Love; I'm getting married in a week and a half, and I'm going to be a little distracted...  

In His love,

-Grace

My major problem is this:  this "swine from the devil's herd" is a former christian--and in fact was so deep in the church he studied for the priesthood.

I've said it once, I'll say it again: Nothing can come between Man and God quite like religion!

There are evidently some very deep wounds there, with this person. Even if you could successfully joust verbally with this person(and few people have the education and the tools to do so), I don't think that doing so would change things for them. They have been terribly hurt by buying into this religious stuff, and if I'm guessing correctly, they will not let you take them there again no matter what.

Is this someone that you have to have any kind of a relationship with? If not, I would leave them in God's hands if I were you. As others have said, pray for them, but don't engage them in debate. There is work there that only God can do, and with God, anything is possible!

God bless you,

-Grace

[AMEN!!!]

Brother Love wrote:

People go to hell because of unbelief.

NO SECOND CHANCE.

We have a window of opportunity, I agree, within which a choice needs to be made, and there are no second chances. But where in Scripture does it specify that it is at our physical death that the window closes, and not after, once we have come face to face with the Reality of who God truly is?

Brother Love wrote:

He is not a cruel, unjust, unrighteous God who would send people to hell but a righteous, just, merciful God who has done everything necessary to secure your eternal salvation.

AMEN!!!

Brother Love wrote:

God is holy and that is why he abhors sin... It is sin that keeps us from entering heaven. Nothing unpure can enter into heaven. There is nothing man can do to cleave sin from himself and without God’s intervention we are doomed to spend eternity in hell.

With this I agree completely.

Brother Love also wrote:

Anything that is not absolutely pure God separates himself from.

With this I do not. After all, did Jesus not surround Himself with the tax collectors, the prostitutes, etc. etc.? How could He intervene, if He separated Himself? I think the barrier is on our side, not God's.

Brother Love wrote:

hiding the bad behind the good will not work.

Amen!

Others believe that they are deserving of heaven or at least have not done anything that should disqualify them from entering into heaven.

These fail to see the depth of the life to which God is calling us. He's not interested in our following along with the rules like a bunch of ideally-behaved schoolchildren. He is calling us to be the fully free and joyful people that He created us to be. To think that we can do so on our own is to either desperately overestimate our ability to transform our own lives, or to desperately underestimate the selves that He created us to be and calls us to be: His creation.
Psalm 139:14 - "I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made"

People often accuse God of SENDING people to hell but that is as far from the truth as you can get. God has given people a choice. He has thrown the doors of heaven wide open and shouted COME ALL. All who answer the call are welcome. But if you do not want to enter God can not force you. So, if you refuse to spend eternity with God by your own choice, it is you, not God who has determined your eternal future. So won’t you answer God’s call and spend eternity in heaven. The only thing required from you is to accept God’s gift of salvation by trusting in Christ and what he accomplished in our behalf.

AMEN!!!
I would amend only one thing. I think that God is quite capable of forcing us to make a certain choice; He is all-powerful, after all. But He chooses to not do so. He will not force any one of us. (Oh dear; I guess I'm getting nit-picky)

God in the ultimate act of mercy and love sent his perfect sinless Son to die our death. (Pay our penalty for sin). Every sin we have committed or will commit Christ has already died for.

If by this you mean to suggest that the full sum of what Christ did for us on the cross was to pay our tickets so that we could be debt-free and be let in, I must disagree with you strongly! What I am arguing against here is a strictly transactional approach to the crucifixion, to the idea that Christ was simply buying back God's favor for us- as I see it, if anything diminishes the crucifixion, it is that. This view does not really hold us to task for our sin; it implies to me, at least, that since my account has been settled no matter what I can do whatever turns my crank and not have to worry about it as long as my name is on the Accepted-Jesus-As-Savior Contract. What I do does matter; it doesn't matter to my salvation, but it does matter!
    So what do I believe Jesus did on the cross? I don't think that we ever will wrap our heads around the depth, magnitude and complexity of what He did for us, at least not in this life. This is really difficult for me to explain, therefore, but here goes:
    I believe that Jesus paid the price for our sin, but I don't believe that it was to God that He paid the price; the idea of to whom is where the analogy- and all theology can only ever be analogy- breaks down. God's love isn't overridden by God's justice, and Jesus wasn't satisfying God's need to exact His pound of flesh for every wrong committed. As I understand it, He did the most powerful thing that could ever be done to prove the depth of His love for us, to wake us up, to make us see, to let us understand; and paid a terrible price to do so. He did so because that is what it would take to break our hearts of stone, and give us hearts for love alone. And yet, somehow, that is only scratching the surface of what He did.
    He didn't just pay a price for it, He took it on. He did so in many ways, most of which I just cannot fathom. He showed us by the outward sacrament of His sacrifice the inward reality of God, that our sorrows are His sorrows, and our pain truly is His pain, by living (and dying) our pain. Even the agony of our separation from Him. How can God live separation from Himself? And yet, somehow He did, in the same way as Jesus was somehow both fully God and fully human, at once, without one ever impinging upon the other. "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Fully God, and fully human.
 
From my journal (Nov. 21/02):

Dear Jesus,
    My Lord and my God,
 
    That is the thing, that was the big thing, that you suffered the apparent severance of that connection between you and the Father. All of the other stuff, the physical pain, the betrayal, paled in comparison to that, didn't it? To be without Him who was your Everything.
        The awfullest of moments.
    And in that moment you truly, truly took on the Sin, the separation of the world.
    The agony of that moment is so far beyond my imagination. It is with that that you prove to us that you really, really do plumb the depths of our suffering, and beyond.
 
Thank-you.

    I can't say that I fully understand what I wrote that day; I no longer even understand it to the extent that I understood it in that moment. I do believe that I had a hold of something real and true, though. The degree to which I had it fast and comprehended it fully was no more than the degree to which a five-year-old dangling from a deathgrip on the tip of the tail of an elephant has caught that elephant and knows all there is to know about elephant behavior and anatomy.
    And what could I say, in response to what He'd done for me, but "Thank-you"? Never have words ever been so utterly inadequate as in that awe-ful moment.
 
    I don't know where to end on this any more than I knew where to begin. There's so much more, but I don't think that I have words for it right now. I may not ever. But it isn't the mechanics of it, the only thing that words can capture, the gnostic, that is the essence of it. It is in what can only be found between the lines. It is in what makes a painting art and not just a painting. It is in what happened, what happens between us and God when God did what He did in Jesus.

In His love,

-Grace

I don't know if it has been said on this thread yet, but:

Dogs have owners; cats have staff.

The sad thing is, this kind of thing is not isolated to gays and lesbians. Sometimes it even happens in Christian churches. Even protestant ones.

Hi Fiatlux,

Depending on how attached this person is to their notions, you may very well not be able to dispel them. If this is the case, it may be time to follow our Lord's council in Matthew 10:14 -

And if any one will not receive you or listen to your words, shake off the dust from your feet as you leave that house or town.

If the person genuinely does want to try to understand why an otherwise intelligent and reasonable individual would buy into such "malarkey", then perhaps you have an opening. What my gut tells me is, don't try to convert them by the end of the conversation. I find that this shuts people right down. Instead, plant some ideas, and let God whisper to them. Be available to them as the seeds germinate, and as the questions that you have planted in their heads propagate themselves, for they may find themselves asking more fair, level-headed and sincere questions than they started with.

Here's an interesting track to try:

Ask them if they participated as a child in the bizarre and barbaric yearly ritual wherein a mythical creature would bring them gifts, after which time they would take an icon of that kind creature constructed from the fruit of an Amazonian tree and ritually bite it's head off, and devour it.

After all, many people grew up eating chocolate Easter bunnies on Easter morning...

In His love,

-Grace

Hi ++Blood Bought++, and anyone else following this,

My question needed to be more specific:

Most believe that if someone truly converts and accepts Christ as their Lord and Savior even on their deathbed, they are saved. This is what I believe too.

But supposing they don't come to know Christ before death. Could it be that they meet Him after death, and have the opportunity to learn who He truly is, and recognize and accept Him as their Lord and Savior?

It is assumed, because it is the generaly accepted teaching, that they are lost unless they accept Him before death. But is this the teaching of the Bible, and if so, where is it?

In His love,

-Grace

Amen Brother Love, that it is lack of belief anf trust in God that is the problem!!!

Re.

Those who will not believe that Christ paid for their sins will have to pay for them themselves, for eternity, in the lake of fire.

:

Firstly, why do people not trust and believe?
A student once approached a Christian professor of theology and stated, "I don't believe in God!" To which the wise professor replied, "Tell me about this 'god' you don't believe in; chances are I don't believe in him either." (Note: I did not capitalize, because in this instance it is not truly God that it refers to). A few years ago, I didn't trust God or desire a relationship with Him; why would I, given that my understanding of Him was that my only contact with Him would be when I walked up to that seat of Judgement to be sent either to the up-place or the down-place, that He would no doubt be extremely disappointed in me, and that I knew I didn't deserve the up place and was probably going down... The disappointment was the worst part of all, believe it or not; I hoped that He didn't care, because that would make it easier.

I now believe that it is only those who, knowing fully who God is, still rejects Him who will not be welcomed into the Kingdom of Heaven.

I have a question and a challenge for you all. What of those who don't come to know Him in this life? Some say they are damned to hell, but does it explicitly state anywhere in the Bible that if you die without having come to know Christ, there is no opportunity after death, that nothing can happen between death and our arrival at our final destination?

In His love,

-Grace

Hi Samson,

To begin, I would like to amend something I said before, based on a conversation that I had with a friend:

that if the person cannot engage in adult, peaceful conversation about it, it is far more likely that it is not the whisperings of our Lord, but one of the other possibilities that I have mentioned above.

It can also easily be that while the person is truly experiencing God's work in their life, they may not have the gifts to articulate their experiences and defend their position; hence they avoid trying to do so (and perhaps wisely).

Re. the church member you mention: Perhaps she isn't sure if God really is directing her, and she was (as you are now) seeking clarification and direction. I think that this is wise of her, though she might even percieve it herself as a lack of faith on her own part. I believe that, while God certainly is capable of providing her (and each of us) with all the clarity in the world directly, for reasons that are far beyond my understanding (God's ways being so far beyond me), He usually doesn't. He seems to delight in working through us, and in our coming to Him not only as individuals, but also as a community.

A few questions:
-We are called to serve each according to our gifts (Romans 12); someone with a gift for service but not for teaching should not be called on to teach, but to serve. A hand is called on to be a hand, not a foot. Do the people being called on by your community to direct the service have the gifts and the desire to do so, or do their gifts lie elsewhere? I have the impression, from what you wrote in your first post, that the latter may be the case.

-If I am asked to direct a service in your community according to God's leading, and I don't sense God's leading, how likely would I be, within this community, to think that this is a poor reflection on my faith and on my deserving of esteem within the community? How likely are other members of the community to actually see it that way? Keep in mind that, even if that is emphatically not at all what community leaders would think, it may be what some in the community do think. A lot of pressure! If someone doesn't feel free to not hear God's directions, how can they ever be free to hear His directions?

Especially for matters that are not life-or-death, I think what matters more than anything is the spirit of trusting in God with which one undertakes to try to follow His leading. If I think that God wants me to do something but I'm unsure, and I go ahead and do it in a spirit of humility and reliance on Him, having faith that even if I heard wrong, He will bring good out of it in spite of my blunder if I let Him. The most important thing is to always be ready and willing to let Him. Psalm 37:5 - Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him, and he will act.

Re. the article: I don't see where White proves that "We may say, therefore, that for Paul and the rest of the New Testament authors, the judging of New Testament prophecies was a process of evaluating the prophets’ oracles in order to pass judgment on the prophets themselves and thus discern the source of their oracles." Unless I misunderstand him, he lumps the discernment that Paul refers to in 1 Corinthians 14:29 and 1 Thessalonians 5:20-22 in with the rooting out of false prophets such as in Matt. 7:15-20. I just don't see the proof that these are connected, that they refer to the same kind of thing.

In His love,

-Grace

[But all within the context of the Word, of Scripture!]

Greetings Smartinez,

I, for one, believe that God will reveal Himself to us in any way He pleases, and that He does not restrict Himself to revealing Himself to us by Scripture.

HOWEVER...

While sometimes people do experience the whisperings of our Lord, very often (in some circles, almost always) what they are experiencing is their whim and fancy, or maybe even the whisperings of the enemy, in some cases. There is also always the possibility that they are using testimonies of experiences that they have not had for coercive purposes. Or because they're afraid of what their fellow Christians will think of them if they found out that they weren't experiencing anything (what sadness, fear and isolation to be experiencing within a Christian community!).

I would venture to say that if the person cannot engage in adult, peaceful conversation about it, it is far more likely that it is not the whisperings of our Lord, but one of the other possibilities that I have mentioned above. Be graciously skeptical.

As goes one saying that I have read, "To be ignorant of Scripture is to be ignorant of Jesus". The Holy Bible contains the whole Word of God, but the problem is that we need help with that sometimes, as the mind-boggling number of interpretations of the bible testify. It can and has been read: like a Boy Scout manual of rules, directions and instructions; as a history book; as the intimate, passionate words of a Holy and all-powerful God, saying I Love You! in every way that it can be said; as the repeatedly self-contradicting diatribe of a bunch of weak, deluded and mislead wackos; as the threat, stated in many ways, of how a distant and wrathful God will punish those who don't tow the line; etc., etc., and in every permutation and combination. There is more to being a Christian than reading the bible; there is an experiential element too. But all within the context of the Word, of Scripture!

So if your experience doesn't jive with scripture, it is probably not of God. Another question to ask is, are others recieving the same message? We are meant to live in community with each other, as all of the "one another"s in scripture testify, and our experiences of God are also within the context of that community. If God tells me something, me alone and to no-one else, I would proceed with caution, if at all (depending on the circumstances). And I also bounce such things off members of my Christian community; if they have a sense that this is not from God, I am skeptical of my "insight", because I trust their discernment. I also trust them enough that Iknow that if I share something that they are skeptical of, they will be straightforward with me without shaming me or diminishing me in any way, but respecting my discernment and humility in bringing my "insight" before them.

I, and people I know, have had experiences of God beyond Scripture. For example: I had long puzzled how a God who loves me so very, very much would want to have me feel like the lowest of the low, as Isaiah (whom He loved) felt when he said "I am a man of unclean lips" (Isaiah 6:5). Why would a loving Father wish to see his beloved child prostrated before Him? I had prayed about this many times. Then, at the end of a very dark day one day, I had this experience that words could never fully describe, but I will try. I had been indulging my addiction all day (no, not heroin ; I play solitaire on the computer  . Don't laugh; this is a real problem for me! It numbs me out, "protects" me from feeling, and while I feel nothing during, I feel more down than ever afterwards. I am terribly embarrased to say, I went 7 hrs straight that day   ; time I did NOT have to spare). I was feeling such wretchedness, shame and humiliation, and then the Lord lifted me from that. I had an experience of absolute creatureliness and humility, but at the same time an absolute abscence of humiliation. Never have I felt so loved, so beautiful and so very precious, and so utterly utterly dependent on God. I understood with my heart in that moment, and desired very much to prostrate myself before God. And so I lay on the floor in the hallway, on my face, filled with love and preciousness and humility.

This experience does not contradict scripture in any way, and when I shared my experience with my community, one of our members said, "Wow; that sure sounds like God to me!", and all agreed, and we rejoiced together in the way in which God was working in my life.

I hope that this helps,

In His love,

-Grace

To all who have participated in this thread,
Thank-you, and AMEN!

Allinall, your reflections on Psalm 23 are beautiful! And BEP, "How Great Thou Art" is my absolute favorite hymn of all time!
I'll be singing it the rest of the day; thank-you!  

In His love,

-Grace