Who are the guests?

[VictoryinJesus]

it is, um, out of this world? ya

Yes. I have been searching as to why I am so depressed. Why some are bitter with God and life. The only answer I can come up with is, those emotions of disappointment are a result of the flesh moaning to have its way. I literally lay in bed and my flesh groans in sorrow. I believe you when you encourage that joy, peace, and joy comes after. I am still waiting on that thread: how do you know when you are dead?

 

[bbyrd009]

Yes. I have been searching as to why I am so depressed. Why some are bitter with God and life. The only answer I can come up with is, those emotions of disappointment are a result of the flesh moaning to have its way. I literally lay in bed and my flesh groans in sorrow. I believe you when you encourage that joy, peace, and joy comes after. I am still waiting on that thread: how do you know when you are dead?

i think that thread is better right where it is, at least for now; might even hop it to another thread lol. Your perspectives up there suggest someone who is not happy with nothing to me, and i totally get that, believe me. i could paint you a pitcher of being cold and hungry after about 5 days in a cave or whatever, giggling with joy, but i'd rather skip to the part where you open that first can of something you don't even like to break your fast, and how wonderful those unseasoned, cold lima beans tasted.

if you can get to that last place, see, and build from there, everything better than cold lima beans will be gravy.
If you can't be happy with nothing, you won't be happy no matter what you have, kinda thing, which just is not encouraged in C any more hardly. what happens is, after that, warm lima beans are...just more appreciated; something easily lost sight of on a diet of steak and lobster.

so it isn't about getting all pious and cloistered alone in a cave i guess; it is about appreciating what you have, which we don't even know what we have, see; running, drinkable water coming out of a tap is a fricking miracle lol, but if we get a glass of it in the world, we complain right. so the answer is "leave the world."

but you don't seem near as hard-headed as me, fasting will accomplish a lot of that for you i bet

 

[bbyrd009]

how do you know when you are dead?

personally, when i begin not craving silence @ reg intervals so as to be absent from the body, i know that that head is coming back to life. And of course since i am in the world, i expect these periods now, and i'm even just now learning how to learn from, or listen to them, rather than like deny them, like we deny being mad at God for sending us here, etc.

ps, do yourself a favor and get royally pissed off at God, too lol, at least if you need to; denying it keeps one from getting over it.
don't let anyone convince you that it is a sin to be mad at God ok--of course it is, so what; denying it will not cure it. Pretending will not make it go away.

if having trouble here, one should examine their perspective/relationship w/their earthly father, too; i say that i forgive him, but here in a week, when i catch myself kvetching about something he did--when my confession is not lining up with my profession, iow--i know i'm not done yet.

So, forgiving ppl with your mouth becomes easy, but if it doesn't translate to your heart and your gut, too, or rather until it translates, you are basically speaking in tongues; all three must agree

 

[bbyrd009]

I literally lay in bed and my flesh groans in sorrow.

i still mourn, but my sorrow is now turned to joy, too. 8, 10 minutes a day, at least
lol more at the moment, but recognize waves too imo, everything waves

 

[ScottA]

hmm
we are all confident, i say, and would rather be absent from the body, and present with the Lord,
(everyone is not only convinced, i'm saying, but would also prefer to be dead, and embarked upon their resurrected life right now)
so we make it our goal to please God whether in the body or out of it
(but we need to make it our aim to please God no matter where we are instead)
because we must all appear before the judgement seat, to get repaid for our works, whether good or bad
(because you reap what you sow)

Yes, but there is no waiting, I would say, for those who can receive it now. We please the Lord because would would like nothing more, or it is not pleasing to Him.

 

[bbyrd009]

Yes, but there is no waiting, I would say, for those who can receive it now.

Word

which Paul also makes clear, in vv...14-15? right in there

 

[bbyrd009]

iow that passage has absolutely nothing to do with "absent from the body = present with the Lord," even though it might seem to. It refs that as a belief, a perspective, that ppl even have confidence in, but that is not validating it, just referring to it

 

[ScottA]

Word

which Paul also makes clear, in vv...14-15? right in there

God bless you bb!

 

[bbyrd009]

amen, you too

We please the Lord because would would like nothing more, or it is not pleasing to Him.

"we" or "He" there?

 

[bbyrd009]

iow that passage has absolutely nothing to do with "absent from the body = present with the Lord," even though it might seem to. It refs that as a belief, a perspective, that ppl even have confidence in, but that is not validating it, just referring to it

"heaven is a place where nothing ever happens," see, it is a place of rest, right

and we can perceive the counterfeit, among those whose beliefs do not change, have not changed any in years, who all believe that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord; nothing is happening iow, only they are not at rest.
So it can be said that the rest are not at rest

and you better believe to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord, too lol.
Welcome to Torah

(for the Rabbi, Logical and Dialectical Reasoning in Scripture)

 

[Helen]

Yes. I have been searching as to why I am so depressed. Why some are bitter with God and life. The only answer I can come up with is, those emotions of disappointment are a result of the flesh moaning to have its way. I literally lay in bed and my flesh groans in sorrow. I believe you when you encourage that joy, peace, and joy comes after. I am still waiting on that thread: how do you know when you are dead?

Joy, Peace and Love as we know are not ours, but His. The fruit of the Spirit is " But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance.."
Once we understand that they are not ours, ..not our emotions...but His..Then and then only can we rest in faith...we embrace them in faith.
It took me almost three weeks to believe God loved me...why? Not because the bible didn't already tell me that ...but because I did not FEEL it!!
I told the Lord (I had been on this journey with Him for already 20 yrs)..and I told Him I did not believe that we had to wait until the end, to fully feel His love. Moses said to God " If your presence goes not with us, take us not up hence." He wasn't willing to travel on into the wilderness without the felt presence of God.
So for a few weeks , every morning I would lay in bed and say quietly.
"I cannot feel Your love, but I am believing Your love by faith."
Then one morning as I lay there and said it, I felt a rush of God's love and felt His wonderful presence upon me.
Does it happen every day? NO....but I am always quietly conscious of His presence. Mostly I just believe it. We walk by faith not by feelings...
When joy is absent...it is usually because we have forgotten to praise.
Ps 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."
I believe Love, joy, and peace are much more that attitude/ atmosphere of our hearts than any emotion. They are faith.
Not sure any of this will help. Just don't look outside yourself for answers, He is within. Peace, joy, happiness is not "out there" and must come to you. You have them within, unknowingly. Because He is.

As for question..."when do we know we are dead?" My answer is..when we are at the end. It is not something that we ever say " Oh good finally achieved it."
we are stuck with the two natures...but I know one is dead, it stays dead until we give it a crumb of life again. When the Devil in finally in the pit, we will be free. The old man, like our flesh body is something that clings to the real 'us' until the end.

Just my two cents.

 

[ScottA]

amen, you too "we" or "He" there?

"We" ... If we please the Lord, we do so because we would like nothing more.

 

[WalterandDebbie]

Joy, Peace and Love as we know are not ours, but His. The fruit of the Spirit is " But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, 23 Meekness, temperance.."
Once we understand that they are not ours, ..not our emotions...but His..Then and then only can we rest in faith...we embrace them in faith.
It took me almost three weeks to believe God loved me...why? Not because the bible didn't already tell me that ...but because I did not FEEL it!!
I told the Lord (I had been on this journey with Him for already 20 yrs)..and I told Him I did not believe that we had to wait until the end, to fully feel His love. Moses said to God " If your presence goes not with us, take us not up hence." He wasn't willing to travel on into the wilderness without the felt presence of God.
So for a few weeks , every morning I would lay in bed and say quietly.
"I cannot feel Your love, but I am believing Your love by faith."
Then one morning as I lay there and said it, I felt a rush of God's love and felt His wonderful presence upon me.
Does it happen every day? NO....but I am always quietly conscious of His presence. Mostly I just believe it. We walk by faith not by feelings...
When joy is absent...it is usually because we have forgotten to praise.
Ps 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."
I believe Love, joy, and peace are much more that attitude/ atmosphere of our hearts than any emotion. They are faith.
Not sure any of this will help. Just don't look outside yourself for answers, He is within. Peace, joy, happiness is not "out there" and must come to you. You have them within, unknowingly. Because He is.

As for question..."when do we know we are dead?" My answer is..when we are at the end. It is not something that we ever say " Oh good finally achieved it."
we are stuck with the two natures...but I know one is dead, it stays dead until we give it a crumb of life again. When the Devil in finally in the pit, we will be free. The old man, like our flesh body is something that clings to the real 'us' until the end.

Just my two cents.

Hello Helen, how are you? but after reading this upper post I found more of my inner members awakened to the fruit of The Spirit, Thanks.

Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation: the spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Matthew 26:41

 

[amadeus]

@bbyrd009

Amadeus said: Yes, but we should be working on kicking the bad guy out. Alone, we cannot do it. Some believe that being in the right church group will solve the problem of getting rid of the bad guy for them. I would move very slow in that direction, if at all.

bbyrd009 said: ya, personally i recommend following one of the Hippies God sends you first, but of course they don't seem serious enough for most ppl, i guess, we wanna do Big Things for Jesus at that stage of our walk huh. Ppl doing Big Things wear suits and have haircuts i guess, drive 'lacs

I would recommend learning to hear and understand and obey His voice. This can be easy or hard depending on just where you are at and on where you are really willing to go.

Amadeus said: Sometimes we may lose track of which guy is which. Help us dear Lord!

bbyrd009 said: well, if the world seems to be melting and the sky seems to be falling, that should be a pretty good indicator imo. Leaving the world is a difficult concept to maintain, every physical benefit that i seem to enjoy is there, after all.

I had in mind the following verse:

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" Isaiah 5:20

 

[amadeus]

Amadeus said: If they are shown to be wrong, I wonder if they will ever know it?

bbyrd009 said: if we're all so different on one level, several witnesses hearing the same thing and saying the same things about it should be a revelation, i would think.

I guess my point was that if a person lives wrong until the end of his course [his allotted period of time] because of a delusion he received for failing to love the truth, in the case of annihilation, he would never come to know that he was wrong.

Amadeus said: Even so for every one of us who had finds real Life and endures to the end. Yet would not some say that enduring to the end is not necessary because it would amount to us working?

bbyrd009 said: if only it were only some, huh. i know we are all convinced of the impression of the afterlife we have been provided by groupthink, and of course we would all rather be Partying with Jesus right now, but we forget that Paul agrees with James at the end of that passage, huh, everyone's works will be judged, regardless of whether one believes they need works for salvation or not. Personally i believe one week on, one week off in that area, just because i'm not totally sure of anything, just to see what diff it makes. i notice i get judged for my works either way i believe tho, i can't seem to impress upon those judging me how my belief that week should alter their opinions any lol

In a very real sense almost everyone, or everyone, has at least a bit of the OSAS point of view with regard to themselves. The key to getting around that to avoid the delusion received by those who don't really love the truth. Again for me we need to love even the truth which we do not know... or maybe especially the truth that we do not know.

 

[Ally.s.j]

Hope is in the world. Love and joy are in us if we want it.

 

[Ally.s.j]

Yes. I have been searching as to why I am so depressed.

How can you be depressed? Thats a chiose. You are born again old things are past away ALL things are new. The flesh and soul will pull you down. We need to align our soul with our soirit which is oerfect and seated in heavenly places. Kill the flesh.

 

[WalterandDebbie]

At the wedding if we the church are the bride and Christ is the groom.
Who are the guests?

As I was reading the above question, I was thinking of the guest of the weeding would be The Wheat and The Tares. But as I was reading from an article:

The "firstfruits" or first harvest at Christ's return consists of only 144,000 individuals who constitute the bride of Christ. Some have supposed that the first resurrection includes the bride as well as others who have not quite qualified as part of the bride but are there to share in the wedding as "guests."

This assumes two levels of firstfruits, where some Christians make the grade as "bride" and others are perennial "bridesmaids," who are disappointed but hide their frustration by wishing the couple well.

 

[bbyrd009]

No

ha well fwiw (for what its worth) i find it only too easy to agree with you sometimes ok. ok, most of the time. but ppl need somewhere to learn the law i guess

 

[bbyrd009]

In a very real sense almost everyone, or everyone, has at least a bit of the OSAS point of view with regard to themselves. The key to getting around that to avoid the delusion received by those who don't really love the truth. Again for me we need to love even the truth which we do not know... or maybe especially the truth that we do not know.

("you think that you are happy and well fed, but you are actually cold, lonely and suffering")
hmm, not James, can't find it today, too many bad terms in there lol.

in the case of annihilation, he would never come to know that he was wrong.

the Rich Man prevents me from going there, even if "a drop of water for my tongue" would hardly seem to suffice for someone bathed in flames, either lol