Ideas about the Kingdom of the Heavens around us and the unity of believers in Christ within it
I’ve heard it preached that, when I hold a grudge, I hurt only myself. The other person is not affected. But this is simply false. As long as either of us is holding a grudge, we are both imprisoned in it, until the one holding the grudge releases it. I must offer unlimited forgiveness, and not give in to bearing a grudge toward those who have hurt me. And I must be aware that my grudge always affects other people.
God can’t forgive a grudge I am holding against you. I have to do that. And God can’t forgive a grudge you are holding against me. You have to do that. To know God’s forgiveness, I must choose to live in it.
God created the first human, male and female, as a being like himself with whom he could share his life and his creation. But the disobedience of the first humans introduced shame, which drove them away from God and hindered them from agreeing with God about their sin and returning to him. This is always the effect of shame, which comes from us, not from God.
Complex unity, Confession and Repentance, Conversation with God, Desire to have our own way, Forgetting God, Free will, God is Love, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, Guilt versus Shame, Knowing good and evil, Language and Speech, Male and female, Marriage, Marriage, Marriage and Reproduction, Meaning of Unity, Repentance, Replacing Relationship with Morality, Sin, To be in his image, To bear fruit, To fill and govern the Earth, Trinity, Unity, What is sin?
When Jesus said that the son of man has power to forgive sins on Earth, he was referring to his humanity–and ours. God has already forgiven. Like Jesus, we have the power–and the mission–to offer forgiveness on Earth.
God gives us tests to use to determine whether a message we hear came from him or from somewhere else. Most of these tests apply regardless of whether the message comes from an internal voice or through the mouth or writings of another person who claims to speak for God. They start with the overarching test “do I recognize my Shepherd’s voice in what is said?”
God uses our uniqueness and gives unique gifts and roles. He does not make interchangeable, cookie-cutter believers for our administrative convenience. Examples: the first deacons, Stephen, Philip. Paul and the anomalous New Testament prophets.
God “calls” all believers to love one another and to be conformed to the image of His Son–to be made, by God, to be just like Jesus. There is also a number of other things to which God “calls” all believers–almost all of them things we simply let him do to or through us, and all of them summed up by loving each other and being remade into His image.
A God who Speaks, Adoption, Choosing darkness over light, God Acts by Speaking, God is light, God is Love, God Speaks to Us, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, God's rationality, God's sovereignty, God's Voice, His Children, His Friends, Must Trust God to Enter, Pride in accomplishments as our own, Promises, Refusing to hear, Rejecting God, Restoration of God's Image, Salvation, Show us the Way of Truth, The Kingdom is all around us, The Kingdom of the Heavens, To be in his image, To bear fruit, What is sin?
Linked text to accompany the third in a series of videos about God’s gifts and callings for people, which he sometimes gives to notorious evildoers. Discusses Moses, King David and Saul of Tarsus, who literally got away with murder. Or did they?
A God who Speaks, Consequences, Discipline or Correction, forgiveness and mercy, Forgiveness and Unforgiveness, God is Love, God Never Stopped Speaking, God Speaks to Us, God was never our enemy, God's rationality, Merit, patience, Reconciliation, Repentance, Restoration of God's Image, Salvation, Sin, The Problem of Evil
Linked text to accompany the second in a series of videos about God’s gifts and callings for people, which he sometimes gives to notorious evildoers who clearly did not earn them. How can this be fair or just? It has to do with his plan for the whole cosmos.
Eternity, forgiveness and mercy, God is light, God is Love, God was never our enemy, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, God's rationality, Merit, patience, Reconciliation, Regeneration, Restoration of God's Image, Salvation, The Invisible God's Self-Existence, The Kingdom of the Heavens, The Problem of Evil, To be his ambassadors, To live in unity, To see God's glory
For we know that if the earthly house of our tent is dissolved, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal, in the heavens. For most certainly in this we groan, longing to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven, if indeed being clothed, we will not be found naked. For indeed we who are in…
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Complex unity, Desire to have our own way, Eternity, Eternity Present, Forgetting God, God is Love, God's Existence and Nature, God's purpose for us, His Children, Jesus the Son, Omnipresence, Restoration of God's Image, self-serving worship, The Invisible God's Self-Existence, The Kingdom is all around us, The Kingdom is all around us, The Kingdom of the Heavens, To be in his image, Trinity, Unity, What is sin?