In reply to Pastor Rogers reply 15,

This discussion has sidetracked too much for my likeing so i will start a new discussion on this subject ,along with others which have arrissen.
 
cheers for now , Chris.

In answer to Reply 13 by Blackeyedpeas,
 
Thanks for your well written post, but i find the overall point unacceptable.
I dont want to say much here because i will start a new discussion on the subject soon.
This is a bigger questiion to me than my original post.
 
cheers for now, Chris.

Answering the last bit of reply 14 by blackeyedpeas,

Sorry i forgot that bit ; i will answer your one-liner (ha,ha),as best i can.

"I am the one God"...yes i know you are
"you will believe"...yes i do
"accept"...i accept and embrace you
"love"...you know i do,and you know i know what that means
"and obey"...yes i know im a bit weak here,but you know i mean well.
"or you will spend eternity in fire"...something worse than fire i suspect.

This would be a good new discussion with "one line answers" only allowed

cheers Chris.

[I AM the ONE GOD you will believe, accept, love, and obey - OR you will spend eternity in fire!]

Hello Again Chris,

People won't accept one-liners for the same reasons why you didn't. You wind up spending as much or more time trying to explain the one-liners. If one-liners were appropriate and sufficient, GOD would have already given them to us.

The Holy Bible is very small for something so important, but it contains many answers that people want to know in making decisions. It answers your questions, but not with one sentence. However, I'll give you one sentence to see how you will react to it:

I AM the ONE GOD you will believe, accept, love, and obey - OR you will spend eternity in fire!

Well i do accept one liners ..for what the are..an entry point into a more complete discussion ; i want to end spending time explaining the one-liner,because then i have caught my monkey!
We have different ways of trying to bring people to Christ and i dont have the depth of knowledge or social skills to get straight into in-depth discussions with people "in the street".
Once i have "caught my monkey" i often have to refer them on to an expert for "futher processing" .

This discussion was supposed to be about Christ dying, and it seems to have sidetracked too much for my likeing.
I would like to wrap it up with my findings and start new threads on the new questions which have arissen.
 
thanks for your help so far,
  chris.

Replying to Pastor Rogers Reply 9 ;

Yes i do want one-liners because ,as i said before, thats often all you get a chance to use.
Non Christians really dont want to be preached to, so you have to get your point across quickly and
consisely ; with any luck they will come back later for more or for an arguement(discussion !).
Thanks for the ones you quoted , some of my favourites.

cheers Chris.

God didn't change any rules. Jesus dying on the cross was already planned.

Also God didn't say satan could do anything for God to change things, He just allowed satan to do it. Everything went according to GOD"S AWESOME WONDERFUL PERFECT PLAN! 

My current understanding is that God did change the rules :  Prior to Christs time we had to obey the 10C to be saved ; then after Christs death we could be saved through repentance,forgiveness,faith in Christ,accepting his gift etc.

WRT "Gods awesome wonderful plan" i do wonder exactly which part of bible history you are refering to.
What i see is an initial wonderful plan (gods creation in Eden) going horribly wrong and then a series of coping strategies.
I hope you arent suggesting that Satan and all the suffering he has bought to the world is part of this plan.

regards Chris.

If she is not willing to contact the man and ask his forgiveness, I would say she has not really repented and isn't as sorry as she claims. God knows a person's heart and mind and won't be fooled by a fake confession. He only forgives a person who truly repents and is sorry. Saying "God forgive me" isn't enough if there is no repentance. Criminals are often sorry for what they do (like Judas), but they're not always sorry enough to ask for forgiveness and mean it.

Thanks for that , i just wanted to hear someone say that.

Satan doesn't allow God to do anything since God doesn't need his permission to do anything. Satan is a created being, and like all other created beings is subservient to God's will. He can't do anything without God allowing it.

I wasnt suggesing that God had to get permission from Satan to change the rules but rather that he wants to play the game fair.
Of course he could tell satan to get stuffed and lock him up in hell whenever he wants to, but he wants to allow the "Good v Evil" thing to play out
to prove conclusively that Good is the only way.
God realised that according to the previous covenant nobody would be saved (ever) ,so he sad down with Satan and said "if you let me change the rules i will allow you your wish".
Satan perhaps thought it was a good gamble to try and get Gods son on his side; of couse we know that he failed to get Christ to worship him.
He did however get enormous pleasure from killing Christs body on the cross.

I agree Satan cant do anything without God allowing it, and im suggesting that God did allow it,to be fair (and God is 100% good and 100% fair).

My suggestion in the original post was only an "off the cuff" suggesion and i didnt carefully choose my words.
When ive fully chewed over this subject i hope to formulate a better "one liner" which is more convincing.

thanks for the interest
  cheers Chris.

Thanks to Pastor Roger and Blackeyedpeas for your replies which i have thought about.
I am getting nearer to understanding this but it does seem to be strangely complicated.

Im interested by the comparison of burnt offerings and Christs supreme offering and i will have to sleep on that idea.

I find that many of the explanations which i hear regarding the christian subject sound very good and seem to fit nicely,
but im always looking for convincing "one-liners", because when trying to spread the word thats all you get a chance to use.
 
thanks again , chris.

I accept that the new covenant is a wonderful gift to mankind but i dont quite get this ransom thing.
Christs death pays the price for our sins , yes ok , ; christs attoning blood washes away our sins if we accept it, yes , very nice.
I love Christ with all my heart for doing what he did and i accept his attoning blood and want to do good in his name, yes yes yes;
but why did it have to involve his death?
Couldnt he just invoke a new covenant without having to suffer this humiliation.

My only way of answering this question is to involve Satan ; somethig like : Satan would only allow God to change the rules if he got something in return, like the chance to humiliate his son.
But ive never heard another christian put it that way.

Please put me out of this confusion.

  thanks Chris.

Hi Lindy,
  a belated welcome to the forum,and a reply to your question.
The Devil wants every soul he can get his dirty hands on and will never fully leave you alone.
That swine has been annoying me for years and my way of dealing with it is to tell him where to go.
Something along these lines :
       
          Satan,you are not welcome in my life
          I didnt invite you in and i dont want anything to do with you
          The more i see of your evil the more determined i am to stand with Christ
          Depart from me and dont come back.


Regards  Chris.

Lets assume a Man and a woman are long standing friends (maybe married) and the woman decides to ditch the man, and after conning him out of his savings and house decides to sever all ties with him and shuns him totally.
We also assume that the Man is hurt every day by this treatment and the woman knows this.

Some time later in her life the woman comes to be born again and she gets on her knees and begs forgiveness for continually hurting her man , pledging to the Lord never to do that sort of thing again; BUT.. she refuses to contact the man to offer to minimise his suffering and ask his forgiveness, prefering to continue shunning him and encouraging others to do so.   
 
Will God forgive her and cover up her sins with Christs attoning blood ?

Ive got a few of these , this is the first one.

I was waiting at the magistrates court to answer a case which made me very very nervous.
As i was sitting there feeling very alone and vulnerable i asked God to make it easier for me and calm my nerves.
I was still losely talking to God when a sweet little child snuggled in behind me and gently rubbed the back of my head untill i was completely relaxed.
Eventually her mum called her away and whenever i looked at the child she was staring at me.
Ive always felt that little children represent Gods  Kingdom.