Who Is Your God?

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th1b.taylor

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Who is God? In todays world the answer most often is some form of God is love. This statement, while true, is, also, a lie! It is true in the sense that God loves His creation but without the explanation that God will have no part with sin and that God is also a Just God, the statement becomes false by the omission of the remaining facts. God will judge the unrepentant and send them into eternal suffering.




In Luke 18:18 we find the story of the Rich Young Ruler and his quest for eternal life. Jesus did not handle this young man in the manor that we are generally are taught to do today. The Evangelical Christian today would have led him in a prayer for salvation and sent him on his way. Jesus, first pointed him to the Commandments to see his sin, which he did not see, and then instructed him to replace his love of his possessions with the Love of God.




This brings up a very important question, "Is Jesus, the Christ, our leader or have we become smarter than he is?” It seems that, today, people tend to believe that the prayer for salvation will save people. That's not true! That's also. I believe, a good part of why we see folks make professions of faith, get baptized and disappear, never to darken the door of the church again. Neither a prayer of no substance nor a baptism will save a person!




On the web, all of my signatures include the notice that I am a bondslave. I have been known to teach that as a Christian, men and women become the bondslaves of the Christ because the was a transaction of purchase fulfilled on the cross that day. Many, many men and women have rebuked me for this teaching with statements such as, "I'm a child of God and I'm nobodies slave.”




It would appear that for the large part of America, the Hollywood and the fiction writers portrayal of Early American Slavery is the working definition for the world today of swlavery. In Deu. 15:15-17 we see that slavery included masters that were very good to their work-force just as some employers are today. We know that God is good, He gave His Only begotten Son to pay the price none of us could pay. And we would not pay homage to Him by Eternal Service, owning nothing and depending only on Him? That is exactly what the rich, young ruler was asked to do. When he refused, he walked away a lost man!




There is a message in this lesson that is taught in Mark and Matthew also. The very idea that God has had the lesson repeated in His Word to us lends emphases but that the lesson is told to us three times... This is a very important lesson! I tell you that God will not have divided devotion. Today, you must make up your mind, "Whose slave are you?” If you do not serve God, you are by default, the slave of Satan! To belong to the Good Master costs you your devotion. Just as Jesus said, it's a easy yoke to bare and the other leads to eternal suffering but being the Servant, the Slave of God leads to eternal bliss in Heaven.
 

aspen

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So your God has a lower form of morality than He requires of His creation? Jesus tells us to love our enemies, but He sends His to Hell? This is not a message that is going to bring light to the world.
 

tomwebster

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So your God has a lower form of morality than He requires of His creation? Jesus tells us to love our enemies, but He sends His to Hell? This is not a message that is going to bring light to the world.

aspen, I believe your image of God is too small. God is more than love; He is also a Just God and a Holy God, (to name only a couple of the attributes of God).
 

Thankful 1

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So your God has a lower form of morality than He requires of His creation? Jesus tells us to love our enemies, but He sends His to Hell? This is not a message that is going to bring light to the world.


We are God’s creation, and all he asks from us is obedience. All glory and honor belong to God we are slaves of God. How dare anyone question why or how God acts?



People do as God says, and we will be children of God. Wow! That is Great, and all we need to do is obey him.



(Hebrews 10:26-31) “If, after we have been given knowledge of the truth, we should deliberately commit any sins, then there is no longer any sacrifice for them. There is left only the dreadful prospect of judgment and of the fiery wrath that is to devour your enemies. Anyone who disregards the Law of Moses is ruthlessly put to death on the word of two witnesses or three; and you may be sure that anyone who tramples on the Son of God, and who treats the blood of the covenant which sanctified him as if it were not holy, and who insults the Spirit of grace, will be condemned to a far severer punishment. We are all aware who it was that said: Vengeance is mine; I will vindicate his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
 

aspen

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aspen, I believe your image of God is too small. God is more than love; He is also a Just God and a Holy God, (to name only a couple of the attributes of God).


No - my image of God is moral. You talk about Justice? Is it Just to require a higher standard of morality for people than God? The way many Christians view God is horrific - vengeful, petty, and vindictive - it just cannot be this way it really is. I will not make excuses for the stawman that some Christians have made God into - it is certainly not moral to worship such a God.



We are God’s creation, and all he asks from us is obedience. All glory and honor belong to God we are slaves of God. How dare anyone question why or how God acts?
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[font="'Arial Rounded MT Bold"]Wrong. First, according to Jesus, we are not longer slaves, but friends. Second, I am not questioning God; I am rejecting the immoral image of God described by many Christians.
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People do as God says, and we will be children of God. Wow! That is Great, and all we need to do is obey him.
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[font="'Arial Rounded MT Bold"]And what is our command - love. We are called to love and forgive and our morality is supposed to reflect God - be Holy as your Father in Heaven is Holy.
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(Hebrews 10:26-31) “If, after we have been given knowledge of the truth, we should deliberately commit any sins, then there is no longer any sacrifice for them. There is left only the dreadful prospect of judgment and of the fiery wrath that is to devour your enemies. Anyone who disregards the Law of Moses is ruthlessly put to death on the word of two witnesses or three; and you may be sure that anyone who tramples on the Son of God, and who treats the blood of the covenant which sanctified him as if it were not holy, and who insults the Spirit of grace, will be condemned to a far severer punishment. We are all aware who it was that said: Vengeance is mine; I will vindicate his people. It is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”


 

Thankful 1

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No - my image of God is moral. You talk about Justice? Is it Just to require a higher standard of morality for people than God? The way many Christians view God is horrific - vengeful, petty, and vindictive - it just cannot be this way it really is. I will not make excuses for the stawman that some Christians have made God into - it is certainly not moral to worship such a God.


How dare you make God into a likeness that you want to believe? You are his creation, and he is not your creation.



God’s is a demanding God. You may not like that, but you had better get on your knees and accept that.



(1 Corinthians 10:6-13) “These things all happened as warnings’ for us, not to have the wicked lusts for forbidden things that they had. Do not become idolaters as some of them did, for scripture says: After sitting down to eat and drink, the people got up to amuse themselves. We must never fall into sexual immorality: some of them did, and twenty-three thousand met their downfall in one day. We are not to put the Lord to the test: some of them did and they were killed by snakes. You must never complain: some of them did, and they were killed by the Destroyer. All this happened to them as a warning, and it was written down to be a lesson for us who are living at the end of the age. The man who thinks he is safe must be careful that he does not fall. The trials that you have had to bear are no more than people normally have. You can trust God not to let you be tried beyond your strength, and with any trial he will give you a way out of it and the strength to bear it.”
 

mjrhealth

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God’s is a demanding God. You may not like that, but you had better get on your knees and accept that]

Oh Boy, God is never demanding, how wrong have we got Him
To come to God in fear and not love , says you have no faith and do not love Him, all God asks of us is to love one another and believe in the work that His son ( Jesus), has done for us.
Now if you want to accept that our God is just like all the other gods, then believe in all that nonsense, and if that is the case you may as well go worship baal, for the consequences would be the same, he supposedly requires sacrifices and demands obedience, if our God is no different why would anyone bother following Him.

In His Love
 

pia

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Hello 'aspen' , hello 'mjrhealth'.
Totally wonderful that some really do know The Lord as He really is........You who said that God is love is both a truth and a lie...Where do you get off saying such a thing about God......Are you saying He is divided against Himself?.........Were we not also informed that LOVE is the GREATEST WAY......

God being Love, means He is NOT EVER demanding, because love is not demanding....All He has tried to do ever since the fall, is to help us through this horrid world-system and our own flesh.....Men have misunderstood Him, since they first started passing on The Word.

Just look at the stuff in Matthew 5:21 onward a bit.....Jesus points out here, just how they've misunderstood The Father...Somehow people think they can do things to make God love them less, or even more....Nonsense....His love is already perfect for you, just as His Love is for Jesus.
And once Love has been perfected in you, it will cast out all fear......

Love and fear is opposed one to the other, and don't tell me that God is both God and the devil, as some of you seem to suggest, even if you're not quite aware of what you are accusing God of......Tread careful beloved Brothers and Sisters.........be careful what you accuse The Lord of, AND what you accuse other people of.

All I can say to you who do not realize who God truly is, GET TO KNOW HIM IN THE POWER OF HIS RESURRECTION.....DO NOT HARDEN YOUR HEARTS....

Love Pia
 

aspen

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How dare you make God into a likeness that you want to believe? You are his creation, and he is not your creation.



God’s is a demanding God. You may not like that, but you had better get on your knees and accept that.



(1 Corinthians 10:6-13) “These things all happened as warnings’ for us, not to have the wicked lusts for forbidden things that they had. Do not become idolaters as some of them did, for scripture says: After sitting down to eat and drink, the people got up to amuse themselves. We must never fall into sexual immorality: some of them did, and twenty-three thousand met their downfall in one day. We are not to put the Lord to the test: some of them did and they were killed by snakes. You must never complain: some of them did, and they were killed by the Destroyer. All this happened to them as a warning, and it was written down to be a lesson for us who are living at the end of the age. The man who thinks he is safe must be careful that he does not fall. The trials that you have had to bear are no more than people normally have. You can trust God not to let you be tried beyond your strength, and with any trial he will give you a way out of it and the strength to bear it.”

Demanding? Sounds like you are trying to convince me to believe in a God you have made in your own image. The sad thing is how much your image of God reflects your beliefs about your personal worth.....

God is a good God. He is loving and desires to be in relationship with us. He justified us and is sanctifying us so that we will learn how to do what we were created to do - love radically. Selfless love takes care of morality. We become immoral - less human after we ate of the fruit - because we started becoming self focused - in essence we forgot how to love. Instead, we got in the business of judging others with our primitive, dualistic morality - Jesus preached about loving rather than judging,
 

Duckybill

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2 Peter 2:4-6 (NKJV)
[sup]4 [/sup]For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; [sup]5 [/sup]and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; [sup]6 [/sup]and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;

God hasn't changed.
 

aspen

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2 Peter 2:4-6 (NKJV)
[sup]4 [/sup]For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but cast them down to hell and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment; [sup]5 [/sup]and did not spare the ancient world, but saved Noah, one of eight people, a preacher of righteousness, bringing in the flood on the world of the ungodly; [sup]6 [/sup]and turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah into ashes, condemned them to destruction, making them an example to those who afterward would live ungodly;

God hasn't changed.


Nothing worse than being in the presence of a Holy God, when your heart is not sanctified - it was compassion that moved God to remove the angels from His presence. It was the same thing that happened to the demons that Jesus cast into the pigs out of compassion. It is interesting that the pigs ran over the cliff - the demons chose Hell rather than be in Christ's presence.

As far as the flood story - it is more of a story about God's omnipotence than His justice. I also tend to believe that all the stories in the OT that seem gruesome and unjustice to our modern eyes are always stories about God's omnipotence and are actually the most compassionate option.

 

Duckybill

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Nothing worse than being in the presence of a Holy God, when your heart is not sanctified - it was compassion that moved God to remove the angels from His presence. It was the same thing that happened to the demons that Jesus cast into the pigs out of compassion. It is interesting that the pigs ran over the cliff - the demons chose Hell rather than be in Christ's presence.

As far as the flood story - it is more of a story about God's omnipotence than His justice. I also tend to believe that all the stories in the OT that seem gruesome and unjustice to our modern eyes are always stories about God's omnipotence and are actually the most compassionate option.
And many humans have also chosen eternity in Hell.
 

aspen

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Like I have been saying - Hell is a place where God is not present - people who have not had their heart justified or sanctified by Jesus would be much worse off in God's presence than in Hell


 

Duckybill

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Like I have been saying - Hell is a place where God is not present - people who have not had their heart justified or sanctified by Jesus would be much worse off in God's presence than in Hell
There is no place worse than Hell.
 

aspen

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There is no place worse than Hell.

How do you know? I think you are simply refusing to see what is right in front of you - the fact that God is always merciful