Former location of "The Kingdom of the Heavens" blog, written by an incurable fool who is trying to become a holy fool!
Our disunity also leads to the multiplication of wrongs and injustices between us, often motivated by our greed. These wrongs lead to lawsuits among us. To our shame, we look just like the world in this matter!
Many of God’s promises to us are given to the Church together, collectively. They become effective for us individually only as we are living in love, as a functioning part of the Body of Christ.
A reader recently asked some very perceptive questions about my views concerning prayer, prayer burdens, and prayer for national sins. Here, I am publishing my answers to those questions. (The reader also asked some personal questions, which I omit from this posting): You asked: “Also that what matters is your relationship with the Lord not what denomination someone is or…
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A God who Speaks, An abuse of God's image, Conversation with God, Emotions, Events and Signs, God Speaks to Us, God's rationality, His Children, His Friends, Human Rationality, In prayer, Language and Speech, Personal Background, Prophecy, Rejecting God, Replacing Relationship with Morality, The Bible, To live in unity, Trusting sight over God's words
The three persons who eternally and inseparably comprise the One God are God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father is God. In John 6:31, Jesus called him “God the Father.” In John 4:21-23, Jesus identified “the Father” as the God the Jews and Samaritans both worshipped. Jesus also prays to his “Father” in numerous places1–2,…
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If Jesus is not human, like us, we also lose the promise of the Holy Spirit, the invitation to live by the direction and power of the Spirit like Jesus did while he was here, and everything that flows from that. Fully discussing this topic will require several posts. While Jesus lived among us bodily, he did not rely on…
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All of our questions about the oneness of the Church, as a present reality, are answered if we truly recognize Christ as its Head… However, our choice for or against the truth does not affect the reality that Christ died to make us one with Himself and with each other. His work is done, and our oneness is a present, completed truth that should influence all of our conduct.
He has shown us the way into a new life, a life beyond death, a life that is at peace with God. We must receive his life and follow him, living in the Spirit as he did. That is all. No “merit” is involved. God doesn’t look at our “merit.” Jesus doesn’t save us by giving us his “merit;” he saves us by giving us himself. This is the key to freedom.
This guest post from One Pursuit blog is another writer’s good account of God speaking directly to us. He also makes the very good point that we too often think of “answered prayer” only as “seeing action” in the world, not as hearing his voice.
How a dream about the word “dirge” led me to recognize two of the major problems of modern Western churches: our insistence on hiding problems to preserve our “witness” rather than dealing with them in the Spirit (hypocrisy) and our one-way, “fact”-intensive teaching style.
Discipline or Correction, Emotions, End of the Churched Society, God Speaks to Us, Heresy, Historical Background, Human Rationality, Illness as a Consequence, In the Church, Meaning of Unity, Our Oneness in Christ book revision, Purpose of the Church, Restoration of God's Image, Restoration of our Relationships, The place of visions, Through others, Through the church, To live in unity
Let love of the brethren continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels without knowing it. Remember the prisoners, as though in prison with them, and those who are ill-treated, since you yourselves also are in the body. Hebrews 12:1-3. For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves…
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