Strengthen your faith in the bible Christians.

The best fortune is enjoyment, have fun.

 

There is no cause for suspicion. Let the tree be bad and it's fruit bad, or let the tree be good and it's fruit good.

Let your brother tell you who he is and if he is inconsistent, help him find where he wants to be.

 

Matthew 5:12-14

Jesus didn't consider every man His "brother",,

I've heard that word "brother" used so flippantly, so mechanically, it just gets old after a while, and loses its meaning.

Matthew 12:47-50

 

As a practical matter, we cannot devote ourselves to everyone, but we can honor everyone as equal to us under god. God does the weeding if weeding need be done.

There is a difference between hearing a thing and applying what you hear. If you just hear it over and over, of course it becomes white noise. To apply what you hear creates for more depth of understanding than could ever be communicated with words.

Jesus makes the distinction not that some are brothers and some are not but that brothers are not biological relations. All of us have within us the will of god. His will and our will are the same will.

 

This is just tripe. Jesus made the distinction. Some are brothers. Some are not.

"You are of your father, the devil, and the deeds of your father you will do." (Jesus own words)

Our will is our will. His will is His will. Hopefully, the two coincide. The only way to bring this into being is to accept the Savior's redemption, receive His life, and become transformed in the mind, emotions, and will.

Transformation is seen in the physical example of petrified wood. The wood, originally plant material, becomes stone. How? Through the underground flow of mineral-rich water, flowing through the fallen tree. Eventually, all the minerals of the water replace the natural elements of the tree. The tree becomes stone, having been transformed.

We also can be transformed, through the flowing of His life in us. Unless we are an open channel, open to Him in our heart, mind, spirit, there is no possibility of genuine transformation. Try as we may, the best we can do is imitate.

A cat may be trained to serve tea, but once the cat sees a mouse, it reverts back to its nature, and drops the tea, chasing the mouse. This is like so many christians today, trying to serve God in the natural way.

There is the natural man, and there is the spiritual man. Without passing through death and resurrection, we remain natural. For a believer, God arranges circumstances to put the natural man to death, since the resurrection life of God already abides in the believer through regeneration, having received the eternal, resurrection life of God.

Jesus died first, and then was resurrected. We receive the life first, and then we pass through death. This is not, firstly, the physical death, but rather the death of the soul-life. The cross, applied to our circumstances by God's sovereign arrangement of our circumstances accomplishes this.

Death cannot hold the resurrection life. The more interred, the more it multiplies. It is the most powerful force in the universe.

As to being "brothers", actually this is also impossible without His life. What qualifies us to be members of God's family is that we have received His life, and been born into the kingdom of God. No other way. No "membership roll", no "phone list", no "joining a church", no amount of magnanimity can accomplish this.

 

Have you considered that without us he has no brothers. The membership role as you put it was established by god in creation. Not by your beliefs.

 

On the contrary, the bible reveals that Satan (literally, "adversary"), the devil (literally, the deceiver), was Lucifer, the shining one, who rebelled against God and was cast out with one third of the angels, who followed him in rebellion, due to prideful ambition, and a desire to be as God.

When He addressed Peter, in the instance you "quote", He actually called Him "Satan", because he was standing, with Satan, in opposition to Jesus' going to the cross, out of human sympathy. God's will would not have been accomplished without Jesus crucifixion. Man's opinions mean little, and are in opposition to God, even at their best.

However, Paul states that he gives his "opinion", in Romans, but it's only after some amount of transformation. Paul isn't arrogant. He states that "I think I also have the Spirit of God, though I give my opinion." This is not an independent thought.

Jesus didn't merely leave us with "teachings" and "sayings", He came, died, resurrected, and became a life-giving spirit, in order to be our life. Transformation involves a much more intimate process than the one you describe. What you have described is merely a "change of mind". The person, with its natural characteristics and personality remains the same.

Jesus Himself "accused and attacked" the religious Pharisees. You portray a ficticious Jesus.

To make efforts to do God's will, or "be like God", yet leaving God Himself out of the equation makes us as independent as Satan. The principle of the tree of life is dependency. You don't become a big, beefy Texan without eating Texan beef. We depend upon what we eat to make us what we are constituted of. God's way is all about the eating.

"He that eateth Me, even he shall live, because of Me." from John chapter 6

The "greater works" are not independent activities. These works are due to the fact that, in resurrection, Jesus became a life-giving spirit (ICorinthians 15:45) in order to seed, to germinate the universe with Himself, as the progenitor of the new creation. Apart from Him, there is no new creation.

 

what contrary in what you just said as compared to what I said, other than the form you said it in?

I didn't say make efforts to do gods will. It is gods will that you have life. It is your will that you live. God's will and your will are the same. To gods will is to give all your life, without reservation. The reason you are a live at all is that god is in you.

Exactly, eat it, become what you are.

No you are correct they are not. We cannot be greater than the father but we are like him. If jesus were not like us then we could not do greater works than he had shone.

You refer to first man adam and last man adam. Not the same man in body. the name adam was given man at large, so that each man could have a name. The name does not identify an individual but a name gives individual reference.
We come into this world and first thing we are given a name, adam, or john, or jesus.

 

That's easy. You state that "there is no anthropomorphic devil", and "The devil, satan, is the idea simply that gods children a guilty."

This is in contrast to the devil being a "being" at all, but, as you propose, merely an "idea", and based on "concept". The record of the bible does not support this view.

There is the biological life, the psychological life, and the spiritual life. The biological life has it's source in genetic material, which, surely was created, originally, by God. God was involved in the fabric of our being, surely, and yet, the living God is not necessarily recognized nor appreciated by biological man.

The psychological man also has a choice, as to whether or not to recognize and appreciate God Himself. Many choose not to.

Only the spirit, deadened through the fall, can intimately appreciate, enjoy, and experience God, as God is Spirit. (John chapter 4)

Once the spirit of man contacts and appreciates God the Spirit, the two become one, regenerated spirit, from which God has a beachhead, a beginning, to move into man's soul, enlivening it as well. Eventually, as Paul states in Romans 8, even the physical body of man can be "glorified", and become intimately involved in God's expression.

But one must admit, there are those who are "alive", physically speaking, visibly animated, yet not truly "living". The divine life is missing. Man is not born with the divine life. Man is born with God's characteristics, but not with His life. It isn't until man receives the life of God in Christ, as the Spirit, that man actually has God's life in Him.

The imprint of God is on man, as man was created by Him, yet the very God is not involved in man's doings unless individuals receive the life of the Savior, Christ.

Paul, in speaking of the first man, Adam, and "the last Adam", was referring to the fact that Adam, as a "type", or "prefigure" of Christ was the father of the human race. Christ, "the last Adam", is the source, the "prototype", the content and "germ", "seed" of the new man, the church, which is a corporate God-man, created in His image, fulfilling God's original intention for man, as His expression and representation on earth.

 

Jesus did not call his disciples "brothers" until after his resurrection. This also is seen in references to Him as the "firstborn from among the dead". He was the firstborn, we are his brothers, in resurrection. This fact does not have reality without a person born of the Spirit, through regeneration. This is not the same as the natural birth, from the womb of your mother.

This is clearly shown by the beginning of John 3.

Nicodemus, an educated man, says to Jesus "How can a man be born, when he is old? Can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?"

Jesus replies, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." (note the usage of the capital "S" for God's Spirit, and the lower-case "s" for man's spirit.)

Regeneration is necessary for a man to be born of God. This is not the natural birth.

 

The God who WAS "undefined" became defined in Jesus. Jesus is God's incarnation, through which we see the Father.

All I can say to your view is that indeed, sin exists in the mind, influenced by the lusts of the flesh. The soul influences the body. However, there is "sin", and there are "sins". John covers both aspects in His epistles.

 

It seems to be that there is a necessity involved here. The anthropomorphic satan was presumed in the necessity onto itself; that is that God furnished his existence for the gifts he gave Man. Man in turn exists through more than out of this vain necessity. That was an essence in man to be a sinner and how this came about was somewhat tautologous. But even when we are born into the world each man is born already ahead in this developing substantial individualism. Right?

Thus was a necessity to be free as human being wholly in the essence of an absolutely good God.

 

Didn't you say something about interpretation, yet you are presenting your interpretation of these allegorical symbols and calling them facts presented by the bible. Whether satan is a real being or a conception about the children of god, makes no difference to the effects of the premise, which is the children are guilty, from the beginning accused of being unlike their father and in turn deceived all along into believing it. It is not flesh and blood with which we contend, but principalities and powers. Your mind is your interface with all being, that is how you communicate with it. There are no idle thoughts, each and everyone creates the tone of your experience, moment by moment.

There is one life issued by god. All species are reflections of that life. Biological life has it's source not in genetic material. It's pattern for growth is there. The word of god, animates all things.

We have a choice to accept our inheritance or not but we are not free to choose what it is. We do not create out own parents. You considering yourself separate from god, cannot corrupt gods spirit, it can only be a confusion about who you are.

Spirit does not die, but the awareness of spirit can be diminished and is diminished, through accusation. That some may conceive themselves lost in outer darkness, without remission, haven't the time to accept redemption. God has condemned no one.

Once sin is exposed for what it is, then there is nothing to prevent us from seeing the truth of what we are. We do not emerge transformed from an illusion about ourselves, the truth simply dispels the illusion, and that man is no more. There was no fall.

No one must not admit an absence of spirit. No matter how dimly lit, the ember of gods light never goes out. If you teach him a lesson of fear, he will not accept it. The light in your mind, the truth about god in all of us, will call
to the light in his and together you will both shine brighter.

Yes, those are allegorical symbols.

 

If you can say no more then I will add to it. It's desire is fro you but you must learn to master it, that is your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. Not, lusts of the flesh. Our senses do not give us information about the environment, but only our inner relationship to it. There is no alternative being vying for your affections. Sexual desire is a device to insure procreation. It's measure in us becomes perverted when we see it as things it is not, satisfaction, love, the quelling of desire, on and on. The soul influences the body as you say only to the extent that we do not recognize what the urgings are for. For the body to be glorified means you may appear in any form.

 

I have spoken of how we insure the resurrection. Memory is living tissue. Christ is in us.

 

It is necessary that temptation must come, meaning you must dispel your own illusions. Christ is tempted in the wilderness, the wilderness far away from mans attempts to civilize himself. There he discovers his civility as given him by god. Temptation is the temptation to accept illusions of lack, as real.

 

Before the resurrection, there was a body between us. You do not see christ in bodily form because he shares only what is real of himself.

 

After the resurrection, Jesus appeared, to two on the way to Emmaus, to a larger group, in a closed, locked room, where they were hiding from those intending to persecute them,,to those fishing with Peter. Each instance helped them to realize that in appearing, He was already there. He was training them to know His invisible presence through these appearings.

So yes, you are right, in that His real presence is indeed invisible to the physical eye, yet real. Paul states, in 2Corinthians, "Because the God who said, Out of darkness light shall shine, is the One who shined in our hearts to illuminate the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ."

He also states elsewhere that the things which we see are not real, but that which we cannot see. And so,,"we walk by faith, and not by sight".

"Sight" here can also apply to those things we imagine we "know" in our intellect. He states elsewhere that "If anyone thinks he knows anything, he knows nothing of what he ought to know." It would seem that the power of the intellect to grasp things that are real is quite diminished, in Paul's view. Genuine sight is something of the human spirit, and not just the intellect. And so, Paul states elsewhere that he speaks, in spiritual words, to spiritual men. Some are blinded by their affections for the things of this world, or by pride.

I'm not saying that I'm immune to this form of blindness. Hence, I sometimes walk in a kind of fog, if I haven't been with the Lord. I get caught up in the constant need to get things done, and the momentum of my desire to be an effective husband, father, and individual pull me away from my God, and the source of light. Business can become an addiction, when one has had "personal successes" in one's own mind. This is why God often arranges circumstances to humble us, to strip us of those very capabilities we take pride in, thinking that they are "our own doing".

God is indeed a "jealous God". He wants us for Himself.

When I was a teenager, I was, at least for a short time, a "deist", or someone who believes in a God who created, and then left us to take care of things on our own. I'm no longer a deist. I believe God wants to be intimately involved with us, to the extent that He wants to be our life, and our everything.

After the fall, what happened was a downward progression, from fellowship with God, to dealing with the conscience, to eventually being ruled by other men. This was not God's intention. The real significance of the fall is that man fell away from God, not just that man "sinned".

Today, God calls man back to Himself, preparing the way with the death of His son, to clear the way for the redeemed to have access to the holy of holies, where He dwells. Having received Christ, the very presence of God now exists in those who have received Him, in the deepest part, the human spirit. This spirit, which Paul calls "a spirit of faith", since without Him, we really have no faith. Faith is what happens when God has appeared to one who is open and willing. It is not a human manufacture, but rather, a human response, or "echo", to God's speaking. Faith is the "amen" in our being when God speaks to us through His word, or through the speaking of faith of another believer.

Abraham is commonly called "the father of faith", and yet his example is anything BUT an example of faith, or rather of obedience to God's call. He was instructed by God to "Leave your father's house, and your kindred, and go into a land that I will show you.", and it is said that he went, not knowing where he was going (Hebrews 11). But he disobeyed God, in taking his father and kindred with him. Then his father dies, in Haran, and he is left on his own, except his brother, Lot is still with him. Yet Lot eventually becomes problematic, as both have so many cattle that they decide to part ways. Abraham says, generously, to Lot "Whatever way you choose, I will go the other", trusting God to settle which direction is right.

Later, Abraham tries to avoid potential danger by calling his wife his "sister", so that he doesn't get killed by a powerful king, who fancied her. Later, the king finds out, since God arranges negative events over this, and he gives Abraham his wife back.

But you can see that Abraham was anything BUT a "great example of faith".

Faith, as Paul relates the story in Romans 4, is seen when "Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him as righteousness." This "faith" of Abraham did not happen until God had appeared to Him repeatedly, and spoken with him. Through God's speaking, eventually, Abraham was infused with faith.

Faith is what happens when the balance is tipped through the repeated appearing of God, through His speaking, through others speaking in a proper gospel, by the spirit. Spirit infuses spirit, and faith appears.

So, we have an invisible God, yet we see His handiwork in creation. But again, the creation is merely a shadow of the real. It is the Word of God that created.

We also have the ability to create, through our speaking. As God calls things into being that have no being, we also can speak things into being, in oneness with the Lord in our spirit. Our God is a speaking God, and we, in His image, also speak.

Some, however, believe in a "dumb", or silent God, who does no speaking. This is why they also believe in silence.

Of course, there is a time for words, and a time for silence.

When Jesus was brought before Pontius Pilate, to be judged, He answered nothing, as was said in the prophesy, (Psalms 53:7 "He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.",,quoted also in the book of Acts,,"The place of the scripture which he read was this, He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before his shearer, so opened he not his mouth:"

But in general, God speaks. This is how He gets things done, through His speaking. This also is how He gets things done in our lives, through His speaking to us through our reading of the holy word, and our hearing of the word from others. This issues in faith, a genuine response to His speaking.

But yes, the real things of God are not those things which can be seen with physical eyes.

Eventually, the New Jerusalem, God's final outcome, is imagined by some to be a physical city. In actuality, however, it is allegory. Each item in the city is symbolic. The real things are the things of the Spirit of God, which we see only in shadow in the physical world.