What Is A Christian?

[amadeus]

see, all that happens in real-time, right

People perhaps read it and other verses that should at least raise questions, but too many people do not really want to question what they have believed for many years and maybe even all of their lives. God's truth can stand scrutiny if it really is truth. Do we have it? We can stop seeking when the dirt is thrown over our faces. In interim will we not continue to grow closer to God? Does this not mean that sometimes we will end up in a different that where we started? I have been changed more than once.

 

[DPMartin]

Jesus Christ is the Son of God of which those who believe in Him (the Word of God made flesh) that are faithful to the end shall be fulfilled in the same as Christ, in the case of the Life He gave those who have received. Hence Jesus Christ is the fulfillment of what a Child of God is.


but a Christian (not meaning back in the days of Paul) is something people are called who want to define what a Christian is. which is deceptive and deceiving and has nothing to do with Jesus Christ the Beloved Son of God.

 

[GodsGrace]

which is not to be taken literally either, even if it is a completely true and real thing that happens to a precious few.
It is another way to say "when Christ is revealed in you" imo, iow what Paul meant by "absent from the body," which can be accomplished while your heart is still beating, by dying to self

I can't agree bb.
All churches believe Jesus will be back a second time.
There are so many verses, I wouldn't know where to start.
Do you not agree with these verses? How could you not?
I'll post a few:

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 ESV /
For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.

Revelation 1:7 ESV /
Behold, he is coming with the clouds, and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him, and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him. Even so. Amen.


Matthew 24:31-33 ESV /
And he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts out its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you know that he is near, at the very gates.

Revelation 1:8 ESV /
“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.”

1 Corinthians 15:52 ESV /
In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed.

1 Thessalonians 4:17 ESV /
Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord.


1 Thessalonians 3:13 ESV /
So that he may establish your hearts blameless in holiness before our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.


Matthew 24:27-30 ESV / 45
For as the lightning comes from the east and shines as far as the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather. “Immediately after the tribulation of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will fall from heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory.

Acts 1:11 ESV / 44
And said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go into heaven.”


Titus 2:13 ESV /
Waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,

 

[bbyrd009]

All churches believe Jesus will be back a second time.

should be a pretty obvious clue then, imo. The wide path, sounds like to me

 

[bbyrd009]

Do you not agree with these verses?

i agree with them completely, but you are interpreting them logically, and this will not serve you imo. i know it seems like that might, because you have been raised to think that way from birth, it is what men love, logic, and "A or notA" choices, but this is not how to find truth; it is how to fool people who have already been assured that they must die to self that that same self will somehow get Eternal Life. How can both be true?

 

[GodsGrace]

which is not to be taken literally either, even if it is a completely true and real thing that happens to a precious few.
It is another way to say "when Christ is revealed in you" imo, iow what Paul meant by "absent from the body," which can be accomplished while your heart is still beating, by dying to self

You do take everything very spiritually. That's OK to understand it like that, but sometimes Paul meant it literaly.
To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord is literal.
When we die we immediately go to be with God.

 

[bbyrd009]

and so we will always be with the Lord.

yet the Lord "is always with you, even unto the end of the age." ok. So now just understand that you can Meet Him in the Air today

 

[bbyrd009]

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord is literal.

oh, wait--but what happened to "I am always with you?"

little logic puzzle there fa ya

 

[GodsGrace]

millions of Hebrews walked under the door sprinkled with blood and left Egypt Free Men; but only two made it to the Promised Land, right. Meaning that the rest did not follow, which is all they would have needed to do, but they did not. Jesus saved them, too, see, but it did not avail them any

Of course you're right.

Jesus completed HIS task.
OUR task is to ACCEPT His finished work.
He died for those who can accept Him.
I don't believe in universalism.

 

[bbyrd009]

When we die we immediately go to be with God.

Yet "No one knows where they go when they die."

conundrums just pilin up in here, eh

 

[bbyrd009]

OUR task is to ACCEPT His finished work.
He died for those who can accept Him.

hey, satan accepts all of that.

A pox on believers i say, God can make believers from stones. Give me a faithful Atheist any day

 

[bbyrd009]

I don't believe in universalism.

me neither, yet every knee will bow/tongue confess, right? Isn't that all that the "faith alone" people require as (one of) their Laws Unto Salvation?

 

[GodsGrace]

hilarious to me, the stuff we make up, because there is no Scriptural analogue lol.
This "gate" thing is a lie made up by believers who think heaven is a place that they might go to after they die.
There is no Peter at the Pearly Gates anywhere in the Book lol
a different concept though right, we call those gates by various terms, those are not the Pearly Gates semantically speaking

Oh. You're soooo serious!
Of course I was just kidding.
If one believes in actual pearly gates,
then he also has a REALLY LOT of stairs to climb!

 

[GodsGrace]

i agree with them completely, but you are interpreting them logically, and this will not serve you imo. i know it seems like that might, because you have been raised to think that way from birth, it is what men love, logic, and "A or notA" choices, but this is not how to find truth; it is how to fool people who have already been assured that they must die to self that that same self will somehow get Eternal Life. How can both be true?

Because "self" is our fleshly being.
We must say good bye to that
and become a spriritual being that believes in God and in His Kingdom and who wishes to follow Him.

(this does not mean we'll be perfectly rid of our sin nature)

 

[GodsGrace]

me neither, yet every knee will bow/tongue confess, right? Isn't that all that the "faith alone" people require as (one of) their Laws Unto Salvation?

I think so.
I'm not a faith alone person.
I believe faith SAVES us, but then works come into play.

We have to GET IN to the Kingdom,
but then we have to follow the Kingdom rules to STAY IN.

 

[GodsGrace]

hey, satan accepts all of that.

A pox on believers i say, God can make believers from stones. Give me a faithful Atheist any day

What is an atheist faithful to?

 

[bbyrd009]

Because "self" is our fleshly being.

that is an assumption people have made, yes. Doesn't make it true though.

 

[GodsGrace]

"The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.
Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous.
For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish." Psalm 1:4-6

Death was understood differently in the O.T.
The WAY of he ungodly shall perish,
not the ungodly.
??

 

[GodsGrace]

that is an assumption people have made, yes. Doesn't make it true though.

Well then, bb, what IS TRUE?
What does SELF mean??

 

[bbyrd009]

What is an atheist faithful to?

27The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

also the First Son of the Vineyard Owner, said specifically that he would not go, also the Good Samaritan; all of these would be considered "atheist" in some priest's judgement