Some Reasons for Being Here and Why Bad Things Happen to Good People
I am sorry if it ever feels like I am directing anything to you personally. This really is not true, I just want to be bold, and bring people closer to God. I know it is not always easy, and I know it might hurt a little if there is something said that is convicting. But the conviction is not condemnation. Condemnation (damning) is from satan, and is meant to bring you farther from God.
Yes, strong words often can sound mean and offensive. If it does offend you, it may be that you need to look into your heart and ask yourself, "Why am I upset about this?" Or better yet, ask God to show you. He will show you where you need to let go of some pride, or let go of some anger, or forgive someone. And letting these things go, doesn't mean just "letting go" it must be applied to the Cross. Put it on Jesus' shoulders. He is the only one who can carry it. He was born to carry it.
The other thing I want to address is why bad things happen to good people.
There are many reasons, occasionally God just allows you to go through something to learn to trust Him more. Another reason, is if we asked God to change us, to help us to be more like Him, we end up being either persecuted, going through struggle, or something, again to learn longsuffering, patience, etc.
Now another reason, might be from sin in our life that we are not dealing with and repenting from. We may be asking for it, by ignoring the warnings God is giving us that are meant to protect us from harm.
There can also be generational sins from parents and earlier generations that have not been given up to Jesus and put on the cross.
And finally, the last thing is that satan also likes to try to harm us, keep us away from God, keep us upset, mad, whatever, if it is working, he wants to keep us from trusting God.
satan does also like to keep us in places of complacency too, for more on that read C.S. Lewis's Screwtape letters.
The bad things only happen because of the fall of man.
But, Jesus came to reverse the fall of man.
He came to set the captives free. Free of the sin nature that Adam and Eve brought on. Although I am sure it would not have been long until someone ate that fruit.
Also, Jesus came to bring us the ability to not only change our circumstances, but to walk through them without being harmed, or to also change the circumstances of others around us for good.
We can walk in a life of power just like Jesus. We can say to the fig tree, "die", or the mulberry tree, "be uprooted". We can say to the blind man "see". By the way, Blind Bartamaus was blind and then healed, to glorify God. It says so in the gospel of John. And Lazarus died and was raised back to life in order to glorify God. To lift God up. Because He is beautiful and Holy!
To bring Him honor. To give Him more pleasure! It pleases God to see people trust Him more after seeing someone raised from the dead. To be loved more because He has poured out so much love on us! He is the best person to trust, since He knows perfectly what is good for us, and only wants good for us.
Read Song of Solomon! It is all about how much Jesus wants to have an intimate relationship with us! He woos us, He caresses us. He enjoys our company.
Imagine being God. You are the greatest thing ever. Everyone loves you because you are so great. What must that be like? All of the beings you created have really almost no choice but to love you, especially if they really know who you are.
You are like THE movie star, the BOMB. Everyone wants your picture, and EVERYONE wants to be your friend.
How do you know who your true friends are? Movie stars, rock stars, they have it hard. That is why many turn to drugs and alcohol. They can't handle the fame (that should be God's, because He gave them the gift) and they don't know who they can turn to.
So God created us. He wanted to walk with us in a lovely Garden with animals that possibly talked and everything was yummy.
Enjoy our company.
We screwed it up.
But that was meant to be.
See, He always wanted there to be a choice. This way, He can see who His true friends are.
Who really loves Him.
Now Jesus made a way back to the position we were meant to have.
We are meant to be sons and daughters of the MOST HIGH GOD.
He wants to give us His inheritance.
Which is LIFE and that MORE ABUNDANTLY!!!!
It is a life that can be in His presence 24/7.
A life that brings good life to those around it, good fruit.
Joy.
Peace.
Please comment if you like. I enjoy being used by God, wherever that takes me.
Yes, strong words often can sound mean and offensive. If it does offend you, it may be that you need to look into your heart and ask yourself, "Why am I upset about this?" Or better yet, ask God to show you. He will show you where you need to let go of some pride, or let go of some anger, or forgive someone. And letting these things go, doesn't mean just "letting go" it must be applied to the Cross. Put it on Jesus' shoulders. He is the only one who can carry it. He was born to carry it.
The other thing I want to address is why bad things happen to good people.
There are many reasons, occasionally God just allows you to go through something to learn to trust Him more. Another reason, is if we asked God to change us, to help us to be more like Him, we end up being either persecuted, going through struggle, or something, again to learn longsuffering, patience, etc.
Now another reason, might be from sin in our life that we are not dealing with and repenting from. We may be asking for it, by ignoring the warnings God is giving us that are meant to protect us from harm.
There can also be generational sins from parents and earlier generations that have not been given up to Jesus and put on the cross.
And finally, the last thing is that satan also likes to try to harm us, keep us away from God, keep us upset, mad, whatever, if it is working, he wants to keep us from trusting God.
satan does also like to keep us in places of complacency too, for more on that read C.S. Lewis's Screwtape letters.
The bad things only happen because of the fall of man.
But, Jesus came to reverse the fall of man.
He came to set the captives free. Free of the sin nature that Adam and Eve brought on. Although I am sure it would not have been long until someone ate that fruit.
Also, Jesus came to bring us the ability to not only change our circumstances, but to walk through them without being harmed, or to also change the circumstances of others around us for good.
We can walk in a life of power just like Jesus. We can say to the fig tree, "die", or the mulberry tree, "be uprooted". We can say to the blind man "see". By the way, Blind Bartamaus was blind and then healed, to glorify God. It says so in the gospel of John. And Lazarus died and was raised back to life in order to glorify God. To lift God up. Because He is beautiful and Holy!
To bring Him honor. To give Him more pleasure! It pleases God to see people trust Him more after seeing someone raised from the dead. To be loved more because He has poured out so much love on us! He is the best person to trust, since He knows perfectly what is good for us, and only wants good for us.
Read Song of Solomon! It is all about how much Jesus wants to have an intimate relationship with us! He woos us, He caresses us. He enjoys our company.
Imagine being God. You are the greatest thing ever. Everyone loves you because you are so great. What must that be like? All of the beings you created have really almost no choice but to love you, especially if they really know who you are.
You are like THE movie star, the BOMB. Everyone wants your picture, and EVERYONE wants to be your friend.
How do you know who your true friends are? Movie stars, rock stars, they have it hard. That is why many turn to drugs and alcohol. They can't handle the fame (that should be God's, because He gave them the gift) and they don't know who they can turn to.
So God created us. He wanted to walk with us in a lovely Garden with animals that possibly talked and everything was yummy.
Enjoy our company.
We screwed it up.
But that was meant to be.
See, He always wanted there to be a choice. This way, He can see who His true friends are.
Who really loves Him.
Now Jesus made a way back to the position we were meant to have.
We are meant to be sons and daughters of the MOST HIGH GOD.
He wants to give us His inheritance.
Which is LIFE and that MORE ABUNDANTLY!!!!
It is a life that can be in His presence 24/7.
A life that brings good life to those around it, good fruit.
Joy.
Peace.
Please comment if you like. I enjoy being used by God, wherever that takes me.
posted by Heather Simpson | 11:21 PM
6 Comments:
Why was Jesus necessary to reverse the fall of man?
Why couldn't God just forgive us?
Why'd he have to send himself down to "atone" for our "sins" by getting tortured? Who is he atoning to? To himself, right?
And what kind of "atonement" is it when, all along, Jesus knew that he wasn't really being hurt, because he can't be hurt. He's God. Right?
This story is completely incoherent.
Well, the Hebrews 9:22 says that "And according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission."
Because God is so Holy and Just, He has to by His own perfect laws have some kind of payment for anything done against Him. Every single thing we do wrong requires payment in blood. I can't quite explain why His law is like that, but Jesus was the perfect sacrifice.
Jesus was obedient to the law completely, and surrendered His life so that we could be reconciled.
God probably "couldn't" forgive us, because as a perfectly Just and Holy Person, He cannot just forgive, hatred, murder, molestation etc...without someone paying, and the little sins (as if there is a difference, there really isn't, there is just varying degrees that we get caught up in it) are disobeying Him. They all require payment.
Basically yes, He is atoning to Himself. But it is to continue being Just. If He changed His mind which He is certainly able to do, it would require Him giving up being Just. He could do it if He wanted to but He loves us and wants us to be holy and just ourselves. He enables us to reach that goal.
He was hurt though. He sweated blood, He cried blood. He was denied the ability to be Himself any longer. He went to Hell and back. He took all of the pain we should have been receiving on himself.
If my story is incoherant it is only because I am human and am not perfect at articulating. Have you read the Bible for yourself?
I certainly have read the bible.
While I read it I kept asking myself: "How can anyone read this and find it even remotely credible?"
Aside from becoming disgusted with the figure of Jesus almost immediately, the main thing that jumps out at me about the Bible is how poorly written it is. This is supposed to be the inspired word of God, right? As such, my expectation would be that the prose would be evocative, the plot would be riveting, the characters would be well developed and inspiring, and the polemic would be inescapably persuasive.
The Bible is none of these things.
A two-bit hack could write better.
How do you explain this?
a couple of basic reasons it is credible. Unity of thought while written by authors and over a period of many centuries. Is one reason.
I find it an extremely good and fascinating read myself, but primarily because I believe that much of the enjoyment and revelation that comes from reading it only comes from the Holy Spirit, whom you do not know.
As for it's readability or being well written...One thing to take into account is the fact that it is translated from other languages, which if you read these and spoke them, are said to be much more poetic. Some translations or versions are also much more fun and easy to read than others.
Also, there is much hidden meaning (which is even more fascinating) in words used in each language because of the inability to translate into english especially words that fully explain the meanings of the Greek or Chaldean. Going back to the original language opens up a whole new world!
a couple of basic reasons it is credible. Unity of thought while written by many authors and over a period of many centuries is one reason.
I find it an extremely good and fascinating read myself, but primarily because I believe that much of the enjoyment and revelation that comes from reading it only comes from the Holy Spirit, whom you do not know.
As for it's readability or being well written...One thing to take into account is the fact that it is translated from other languages, which if you read these and spoke them, are said to be much more poetic. Some translations or versions are also much more fun and easy to read than others.
Also, there is much hidden meaning (which is even more fascinating) in words used in each language because of the inability to translate into english especially words that fully explain the meanings of the Greek or Chaldean. Going back to the original language opens up a whole new world!
You might find this site interesting:
http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/
It's a group of ex-Christian ministers and apologists who are now all atheists and free-thinkers.
Post a Comment
<< Home