March 14, 2008

I believe the prosperity gospel has allowed people to substitute sharing in peoples' burdens by telling them to get "faith" so their burdens will go away.  We no longer know how to be involved in peoples' lives and hurt with them because we are so busy expecting God to perform some type of intervention.

I don't get it when people say Jesus or God called me to ____ whatever.  Are they trying to prove they have a special audience with God?  It must be nice to have God speak to them so "they" know exactly what to do to make God happy in their lives.  I think people on the whole absorb these things with only the left side of their brain.  They do not question if God truly speaks today because inside they are either hearing or hoping to hear God's voice also.

February 2, 2008

I have figured out a way to explain the humanity and the deity of Christ.  As far as the "man" goes, the flesh that embodied Jesus Christ was not in eternity.  His "flesh" side consisted of the skin cells, hair, and other parts of his body formed in the womb of Mary by the Holy Spirit.  The body of Christ was created.  

I don't believe this is heresy.  Jesus Christ was truly God and truly man.  However, he did not have the same nature of man because a man was not the father of the child in Mary's womb.  If we say the physical body of Christ was eternal, then flesh would be considered before time was created by God.  This is inconsistent with the story of creation.  Everything that exists on this earth had a starting point and God pre-existed before it.  Therefore, the body structure of Jesus Christ was created by the power of the Holy Spirit.

Paul refers to Christ as the second Adam in the sense that his act brought forgiveness to many.  We have a man who is not participating in the original sin.  In my mind, he's just like Adam before the fall.  He only knows good and only desires to serve God to the fullest.  When God created the first Adam, he was perfect because a perfect God can only create perfect beings.  The body and man-nature of Jesus Christ was perfect because he was created by God.  However, Jesus Christ was not only a mere man, but he possessed the very nature of God right side by side with a man nature, and although the man nature had not sin, it was nonetheless still truly man.   

God created himself  a body that did not exist prior to creation, in the form of Jesus Christ.  That body had a man nature and was without sin because it was created by a perfect God.  God in his essence came down and dwelt among us in a sinless body.  We say that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.  In the sense of eternity, we're talking about the essence of Christ.

A man had to pay the price for the act of rebellion against God at the garden.  That man was the man nature created by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary.  He was perfect and without sin and obedient to God as Adam was obedient to God before the fall.  

The man Christ was the perfect sacrifice on the cross because he was without sin.  He died and was raised from the grave by God in the same body as he was when on this earth.  His body was transformed beyond the potential of sin and glorified in heaven when presented before the Father.  We know he came back after being presented before the Father and was recognized as he had been on this earth before he died.  He did tell Mary not to touch him before his glorification.  But there is no explanation scripture to tell us precisely why he could not be touched by a human before he was glorified.  Paul does tell us later of the promise of a glorified body.  

This is why we have to hope in him and the testimony to which he testifies.  He has gone before us as a man and has been approved by God through the resurrection.  Our hope is in the acceptance that God has shown to him.  He is the first born of many, spiritually, in a glorified body.  I cannot see anything wrong with distinguishing the ethical body that got used to incarnate himself on this earth from the very essence of God who dwelt in that body.  

Sept. 9, 2007

Determinism means God is the one who controls every event.  Some say we cannot respond to God's grace without Him first giving us a gift of faith.  This makes you totally at the mercy of God giving you this faith and somehow after you have received it, you must be able to know when it was given.

If I say I live in a cause & effect universe and God does not stop me from sinning or God does not interfere with my actions, am I being arrogant?  How do we separate free will to sin from God's perfect plan for our lives?  

If I start a church and it grows to impressive numbers, does God have anything to do with it?  Some would use the verse in Acts 2:47 to say God is always in charge of the membership in church.  If this is the case then we have to assume one of two possibilities.  If every member or attendee is God adding to the church, then who is responsible when the attendance drops?  Is God responsible for the one attending your church who later steals money from members?  

If we are going to be consistent, some determining factor has to get credit if man is not allowed to be free to attend whatever church he wants.  I have heard preachers say it is not by accident but divine appointment you are in this church, usually followed by a warning to take some action while you're there.

Deists say God made the earth like a watchmaker:  once all the parts were in place, God, the watchmaker, wound it up and left it alone.  I do not agree with this belief because the Bible is an historical account of God's intervention in history.  

If I accept the Bible's claims, I must see it as God's intervention in history.  I see a middle ground between Deist and Determinism.  If God controls all events then ultimately He allows man to kill himself by the shear fact He is in control and does not stop it.  If however, He places the laws of nature in place and sustains them but allows man to move in those laws' consequences, He cannot be be held accountable since the laws of nature were made to operate in a perfect world.  

Man is operating in a world of laws meant to govern without the effects of sin.  James 1:17 tells us every perfect gift is from the "Father of lights" which means  the creator of the universe gave its physical laws.  If Satan is the cause of evil events and has so much influence over the laws of nature, he is essentially using the laws God created to taunt God's very creation.  

Nov. 11, 2007

The meaning of the word 'condescend' is to voluntarily come down in humiliation to teach, not the connotation the word has today.  If I am now able to understand the Bible with clarity because of my persistent study, I am to condescend to teach what I have learned.  This means I am to learn to associate with others who may not study as much or know as much.  I am to look for every opportunity to witness to the truth of God's Word no matter who I am around.  I am not to avoid a certain class of ideologies necessarily because of their ignorance in full biblical knowledge.  I am the one exercising pride when I avoid a group of people because they do not study as much as one should, but profess Jesus Christ as Deity.  

August 28, 2007

What are we acknowledging when ending our prayers in the name of Jesus? Jesus is the promised servant in Isaiah and the promised seed in Genesis. When you say "in Jesus" you are acknowledging God's promise achieved. "In Jesus' name amen" means to say God's promise of salvation has been completed, and we submit and pledge our lives to God's purpose.