Morning Bikenut-
Blessings- I cannot bestow blessings on you I am wishing God to bless you, wishing Gods blessings on you.
Most Religions that I am familiar with ARE mans attempt to reach God. Scripture teaches me that God makes the covenants- God wants to reach man.
God is a holy being, the great I AM. I guess we cannot even start this conversation without defining who GOD is. I am not sure that I am capable of that task. God has shown man, thru the ages who he is, the best man can do is use words to describe his attributes and use those words for his names.
God gave the Hebrew children his name and they would not write it out because of reverence. We do not know the name God gave them. We know the abbreviation for the name and have used them to create a name.
I am going to use some words to describe God but it is a vain attempt, incomplete, does not do justice and cannot describe God.
In the beginning there was God. Now we must put away time from our thought process here. Time is a man made way of gaging things. With God time does not exist. A trite example of this is to say that God see's the end from the beginning and the beginning from the end at the same time, in the same frame. all at once. There is flaw in this thought, I am sure you have figured out already. There is no beginning or end. For the sake of description, and it is a poor one, lets call it this age.
God is unreachable by man. Scripture says he is unsearchable. God is a completely holy being. Holy in this context means complete, complete within his ownself if that is an understandable term.
He holds all things together. He creates all things. Nothing that is was not created by him. Nothing impure, that is not created by him can inhabit him, be part of him, come before him. Well that lets me out :oops: .
Man has tried all sorts of things to come to God. God has made a way for him, hisownself, to come to man that man may come to him.
He began this by setting apart the Hebrew people for himself. He gave them the commandments-10 not 15, with apologies to Mel Brooks :-) . By these commandments he described sin. Paul put it much better when he said that without the law he would not have known sin. He did not say there would not have been sin without the law. The commandments are a way for God to show his attributes-Not what he is , on the contrary, what he is not.
We cannot live up to the Lords attributes, that is to say we cannot be good enough to come to him. He made a way. He came to us. He paid the penalty for sin, HE PAID THE RANSOM, he purchased us, he came to us.
Enter, stage right, Christ Jesus.
If any denomination trys to control, and some seem too, they are wrong. That is really not the argument is it. Really that is an an excuse for not believing is it not.
It is a way, an excuse, to go our own way, to have things our own way, to do things our own way.
We do not dictate to the Lord, and, conversely, he does not dictate to us. He has said that if we accept by faith that Christ Jesus is God he will come to us and begin a process of change within us to give us the attributes he wants. It is a never ending process and quiet frankly, we will never be complete. He has declared us Righteous, Holy, complete. he has forgiven man his incompleteness thru the price, ransom, paid by Christ Jesus on the cross at Calvary.
John has said that the litmus of whether a man is in Christ is that he keeps the commandments, Not that we keep the commandments to be acceptable. We are not capable of not sinning, though and alas I can certainly do a better job of it than I do. :cry: But I have an advocate who stands between me and God, this Christ Jesus, who declares me to be Righteous.
Is that an excuse to sin, as Paul said "Do we sin that Grace may abound?" and answered his own question " heavens no".
Is everone in a church a Christian--NO. Is everyone outside the church not a Christian- NO. However, Paul also said not to forsake the coming together of the Saints.
It is a trite term, not really correct, to say that a church is no more than a hospital for the Saints. That aint really so, but it is that and more. I find a place that I can be sat apart from the world for a time, to be with the Lord undisturbed by the world, to find a time to be with those of my brothers and sisters in the Lord, to worship.
Can you do this outside the Church? Well, of course. There is some danger in this however. The danger is believing everything you think, or the danger of not having the benefit of good council.
Look, Paul took his teachings before the church and he was found to be orthodox. Others have and been found to be unorthodox.
Controlling, no, not as a body, not by God. He will conform us but he certainly does not control us. Ya want to see the scars on me because he doesn't. Those scars I put on myownself because I refuse to listen to his council and went off and did things my own way for myownself. Well you can't, but, I can.
Now this conversation can go on forever, as the song says, and I cannot convince you. Even if my clever words, and you can tell by this that I am not a clever person, would convince, that is not the conversion that the Lord is all about . The Lord will not give a test at the end of the age to determine who knows the answer and who will be allowed in. He knows already who believes.
If you find an argument, doubt, anger with this very short note take it before the Lord. Turn me over to him. Turn yourself over to him. Tell him you don't believe, he knows that before you do, ask him to reveal himself too you and better yet, ask him to reveal yourself too you. He is a gentleman, he is not standing there to beat you, to harm you. He has provided a way. he stands at the door and knocks, he wants too come in and sup with you.
Blessings
