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BonusLitteraeXLI
BonusLitteraeXLI
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Is Glenn Beck Right?
Greetings:
Diluting the purpose of Jesus to "Jesus was a really good example that came to tell us we should be as really good as we can be." strips Jesus of His true purpose.
The Christian idea is that humans, having fallen from grace, into the condemnation of the law, cant be "good enough", because the only thing good enough for God (who is Holy) is Perfection.
Hence the need for Jesus.
Even Enoch and Elijah, who were so "good" they didnt need to die, still needed the sanctification of Jesus to make them Perfectly Pure.
Anyone who fails at any one point is doomed by sin.
James 2:10-11
10 For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, “Do not commit adultery,”also said, “Do not murder.”Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.
The same way being in space with even a tiny hole in your suit will kill you. It dosent matter how many or how large, you will die just the same.
Jesus telling us how to get to heaven by following rules would be like an astrophysicist telling a child how to get to Alpha Centauri.
Jesus didn't show us the way, or tell us the way to do something ... He DID it for us. He IS the way.
Love IS the answer, the door and the key.
It makes sense that the greatest perfect act of love eternity will ever see is the pure and guiltless, selfless, willing sacrifice of Jesus (God) on the cross to pay a debt we could never pay for.
It makes sense that it would take a God to do something Godlike.
As I said, no matter what I say from here on how, it all will come down to nothing makes more sense than the only way to God is through God.
The only way to be one with fire is to be fire. All else is consumed. The only way to be one with Holiness is to be Holy. Jesus is the only way to Holiness. Not Buddha, not Confucius, not a really nice caring grandma, and not just some really good guy.
Jesus. Because that's what the Bible says.
You see, this is why I started this conversation with a question on Absolute Truth. I believe that God gave us the Bible as His Absolute Truth. I also believe God is competent enough that I can trust that He didn't allow His most important message to us to be warped by Satanic Intrusions, or Human Faults.
It is an absolute to me. Rather I feel like it or not, understand it or not, agree with it or not, prefer it or not.
If Absolute Truth is not something concrete. If its something we can all find by ourselves, in ourselves, of ourselves, everyone will go out into the wilderness and come back with what "truth" they best feel they found.
For as long as we converse, I am bound within the rules of the Bible. It is my Absolute Truth.
Without something, without rules, to confine people, they can flit and move throughout their logic to whatever feels right to them.
Look at the evidence even in the truth you have found. How many concepts of this truth are founded in doing the reverse of how you feel?
Forgiving when angry, giving when greedy, chaste when lustful?
How could it make sense that every impulse and perception humanity has is wrong and can not be trusted because it is polluted, EXCEPT the impulse to find truth, and the perception needed to accurately identify it?
Brother, in sincerity and Love I tell you: You believe there IS an absolute truth, yes I know.
However YOUR "truth" is relative to you.
Nothing can be partly perfect. "Partly Perfect" is an oxymoron. Humans are not perfect, there is nothing perfect in them, and you found your truth by looking inside yourself right?
A man who looks into a box will not find anything outside that box.
BLXLI
Is Glenn Beck Right?
W.J.:
In a hollow world such as we find ourselves, I have nothing but respect for your genuine sincerity.
Indeed, all His best blessings to you.
BLX
God's Will Be Done?
Hello Brother:
First … I have no intentions of “haunting” your blog. This last thing caught my attention as it was posted on my birthday. April 17th! (smiles)
Then, after reading the extensive replies, I was dismayed no one was able to adequately respond (only one even tried) to your observation.
---I leave you with one particular oddity in the Old Testament that I find fascinating, which no one has yet, to my knowledge, addressed. In Genesis 1:26, it is written: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..." My question to you is: Who's "us"? What's all this about "our" image, "our" likeness? Who's God talking to?---
I feel overly compelled not to leave that a near total blank.
Ill give my input and then Ill be on my way.
So here I go … Answer?
God, was talking to Himself.
God is a Miraculous Trinitarian entity
>God is truly only One God, not three gods.
Deuteronomy 6:4
Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one.
>God in Three Persons is recognized by Abraham in the Old Testament.
Genesis 18:1-3
The LORD appeared to Abraham near the great trees of Mamre while he was sitting at the entrance to his tent in the heat of the day. Abraham looked up and saw three men standing nearby. When he saw them, he hurried from the entrance of his tent to meet them and bowed low to the ground.
He said, “If I have found favor in your eyes, my Lord, do not pass your servant by.
(Later in this same chapter Abraham pleads with God over Sodom and Gomorrah)
>All Three were present at the Baptism of Jesus Christ in the New Testament
Matthew 3:16+17 (and other Gospels)
As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
>Jesus was present at the Beginning of Time as God
John 1:1-5 (Through verse 15 continues to verify that Jesus is That Word)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
>So the last question is why exactly would God talk to Himself? Jesus was kind enough to answer this question when He resurrected Lazarus.
John 11:41+42
So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me. I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”
God talks to Himself simply when He wishes to expose to those who (heard Him then, and) read the Word now the truth of His nature. Not for His sake, but for our sake, so that He could best reveal who He is to us, as we come to know Him.
It seems in the case of Genesis, God was even as far back as the very beginning, revealing His Trinitarian nature for future generations.
BLX
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To: God Loved
God is Love, that is something humans can understand and accept relitivally well.
However, God is also HOLY, and that, we do not so easily understand or accept.
-God can not stand anything that is not perfect.
Habakkuk 1:13
13 You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, And cannot look on wickedness.
-God hates all imperfection.
Romans 1:18
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness,
-Gods rejection of anything imperfect even brought about the condemnation of angles … with no hope of salvation.
2 Peter 2:4
4 For (if) God did not [even] spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment;
-All humanity fails to meet Gods standards of absolute perfection.
Romans 3:23
23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
-Worse still, humanity embraces what God hates.
Romans 3
10 As it is written: “ There is none righteous, no, not one; 11 There is none who understands; There is none who seeks after God. 12 They have all turned aside; They have together become unprofitable; There is none who does good, no, not one.” “ Their throat is an open tomb; With their tongues they have practiced deceit”; “ The poison of asps is under their lips”; 14 “ Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.” 15 “ Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 Destruction and misery are in their ways; 17 And the way of peace they have not known.” 18 “ There is no fear of God before their eyes.”
-God looking for anyone that seeks Him, only finds a race that not only is not looking for Him, but rejects He even exists.
Psalm 53
1 The fool has said in his heart, “There is no God.” They are corrupt, and have done abominable iniquity; There is none who does good. 2 God looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. 3 Every one of them has turned aside; They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one.
-Even when we try to be pure and holy, even our very best is filthy to God.
Isaiah 64:6
6 But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousness are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away.
-The price for imperfection is death.
Romans 8:
23 For the wages of sin is death
-After understanding all of that. After comprehending how much God finds all imperfection to be an abomination, know this …
Romans 5:8
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
-Gods love overrules all judgments. Not even we can judge and condemn ourselves.
1 Corinthians 4
3 But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged by you or by a human court. In fact, I do not even judge myself.
-Even if we try to condemn ourselves. Even if our hearts condemn us as guilty, Gods love simply overrules it.
1 John 3:20
20 For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.
-We are eternally and infinitely separated from our sins, and so also eternally and infinitely separated from Gods wrath and judgment.
Psalm 103:12
12 As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.
-In paying His own price for sin by dieing, and then by rising from that death, God has replaced the absolute doom of His judgment, with His irrevocable proclamation of salvation.
Romans 8:
31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? 33 Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. 35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
-Even all existence at once … would have no effect on Gods love for YOU.
Romans 8:
38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
-So death is nullified. You will live forever.
John 3:16
For God so loved the world, that He gave his only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not die, but have everlasting life.
- Jesus is the only way.
The above verse says "believes in HIM" not something/one else.
Jesus also said so Himself many times.
He said He is the door, and coming in any other way than the door makes a man a thief. (John 10:1-11)
He says "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)
I know you have many arguments against Jesus being the only way to Salvation, but all of what I would reply could get distilled down to this.
I believe that it makes perfect incontrovertible sense that the only way TO God, is THROUGH God.
That, is exactly what Jesus is.
From: God Servant