but it'll read just as well the way it is presented here
this is the tail-end of a recent message i heard
it rocks
and it rocks massively
it's huge
the lead-in is significant, as it provides context, but this is the crux, the issue
be blessed
Monday, April 7, 2014
the crux ..
maybe i should just take the time to type this out
but it'll read just as well the way it is presented here
this is the tail-end of a recent message i heard
it rocks
and it rocks massively
it's huge
the lead-in is significant, as it provides context, but this is the crux, the issue
be blessed
but it'll read just as well the way it is presented here
this is the tail-end of a recent message i heard
it rocks
and it rocks massively
it's huge
the lead-in is significant, as it provides context, but this is the crux, the issue
be blessed
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I like. Is it from a book.
ReplyDeleteit was the message preached here last sunday ..few people have addressed this .. i'm waiting for the message that speaks to Jesus NOT returning to his former state, and remaining a man eternally
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure I completely see the full picture of what the preacher is trying to express. God is love, and there is no denying God's immense and immeasurable love for us. But we also must remember God's hatred for sin and his actions against sin. We gain a sense of God's awesome wrath in the Old Testament in his judgments on unrighteous nations. So while I completely agree that his power is not found simply in his ability to execute judgment, I also do not think that his power is found only in his absolute love. We can't confine God to simple human terms and ideas of power, which makes determining the character of God a difficult and complex subject. The beauty of His love is undeniable and amazing because that is something that we struggle with daily. I guess that I am just unsure what the preacher was trying to express, that God's power is found also in His love or that God's power is found only in His love. While sounding like semantics, those can be two very different belief systems.
ReplyDeletei understand your point of view - lived there;
ReplyDeletethe 1st thing that comes to mind is this, re 'awesome wrath': humanity has inherited a fallen world, and seemingly must pay a dread price for the environment into which it is born - that's unfair, to say the least, and unjust to boot; that's where reconciliation comes in, and God initiates it.
2nd, i think quite differently on 'confining God to human terms': it is quite un-human to imagine the power of God being rooted in love - humans could never come up with that; the preacher was precisely about the fact that God IS love, and that everything about him emanates from that.
i highly recommend a book, 'Repenting of Religion and Turning to the Love of God', by Greg Boyd; it stands as one of the primary influences in my thinking over the last decade, and i am very thankful for it.
thanks for your input - keep diggin', friend
the other thing i would say, matthew - the ultimate revelation and manifestation of God is Jesus, the perfection of God in human form. therefore everything about God should be processed through the person of Jesus - who he is, what he did, what he said, how he acted, etc. if there is some incongruity between what we see in scripture and the person of Jesus, i put Jesus' take on it up front and try to reconcile the incongruity to that, rather than the other way around.. and, friend, everything about Jesus reeks the love of God ..
ReplyDeleteI absolutely agree with Jesus being the absolute personification of God. I think with that said, we can see his love for those in need (being every man), but we can also see his absolute wrath toward sacrilege and sin. Examine his reaction to the temple being treated as a marketplace and his condemnation of the actions of the pharisees. What I think we can derive from that is that Jesus (God) is still acting out of perfect love while using his wrath to execute justice, much the same as a parent acts out of love to discipline a child. The fallacy of religion is the idea that we can earn His love when it it already perfectly encompassing us. But back to what I was stating before, I was unsure what the speaker was implying. I think his power in love is shown not just in how Jesus cared for the children, fed the hungry, and healed the sick, but also in his confrontation of the showmanship of the pharisees and desecration of the temple. We have to confront false teaching because we love the people who might be led to the wayside because of it. We have to protect the sanctity to the church because we love the God we worship within its walls. Love is a mysterious thing, which makes God that much more spectacular.
ReplyDeleteyou're right, matthew; that's why my previous blog: the genesis of that blog was my frustration and anger at the church ! there is much that has gone on under the name of christianity that is not only tragic, but downright wicked, and that includes the conservative fundamentalist camp. and i resent that. those are precisely the type of people you referred to - the religious leadership, who, by virtue of their position, are charges with the care and protection and cultivation of the people of God. and Jesus certainly tool them on, and put their abuses on display, often publicly, because they misrepresented God, all too often for profit and/or power. so there, we agree, i have been involved in discussions over which if the attributes of God stands-out the most, which drives the others, and the 2 most proffered were his holiness and his love; it generally came down to those; i came to the place in my life where i stand on the side of his love. when i read the gospels i come away with a God whose love is so powerful that it drives him to accepting sin and guilt and shame upon his own self for the sake of the humanity he created in his own image and likeness ... that speaks volumes, as does the fact that this very day a MAN sits at the right hand of God .. massive, life-changing, mind-blowing virtually unbelievable stuff.. keep on rockin', bro
ReplyDelete