:cloud9: Not sure where to put this, but it kinda goes with the universal salvation thoughts, so here goes. I was praying on my way to job-related duties this morning, specifically about some people I have encountered on the net that do not believe in God.
What He spoke to me was this scripture, "The fool says in his heart, there is no God".......the way He said it with the understanding was this, paraphrasing for better understanding.........."The fool says, in HIS HEART, there is no God." As in, only a fool would say, there is no God in his heart.
Whoa! That still took me aback, even though He has made it life in me He is the light of ALL men that come into the world. Still meditating on this, just wanted to share.........
Woa, Card! :Sparkletooth:
Somewhere, someplace, sometime, we were talking about comma placement or no commas in the scriptures... It shines a totally different light on the subject- that's for sure!
:cloud9: Doesn't it, though? Still just floored at the implications......
to me it reads..
a fool says, IN HIS HEART, there is no GOD...meaning: God feels the absense of love from that being.
thats sad to me...it feels sad..
i needed to read this card...ty for being a messenger...
because the same thing has happening in this respect to me...
someone put in my heart...thier words of my being non existant....what a heavy and sad feeling ...
imagine Father...who loves us...sovereign...knowing that 'some one'..must be of this kind of hate until all things are under Jesus as King....who would deny HIM inside the very core of His love.....
does that make sense?...
talk about blind... :fool:
:cloud9: Yes, He does feel the absence of love.......He let me feel His loneliness last spring......I just sobbed.....
ah, that is really beautiful if seen this way and totally changes the word fool for me
we are all fools in some degree if this is true, for all of us seem to have places in our hearts that by our very words and actions prove that we dont really believe yet that He is moved into that area.
kept
:cloud9: Hi Kept; He gave me this as I was praying for our new "friends" on the other board. He has been changing my ministry of the gospel for some time now, and this just cemented it. There has been so much presumed doctrine falling by the wayside in me, it's getting harder and harder, you know? God help me when it all breaks loose......Blessings to you....... :HeartThrob:
Oh Cardinal I am falling in love with them, they challange the religion in me like noone else, they stir me up to seek God, to reason with Him over things that have bothered me deeply and Ive covered up and just backfiled them. I seriously do struggle with some things and these folks are God sent to me.
I would wrestle any fundie to the ground that went in there spitting hellfire and damnation over them, oh they tick me off so bad over there the way they talk to these folks
I get my feathers all in a tizzy and have to go calm myself down
I guess hell will really be froze over some day when I can truly walk in love with hell fire and damnation spouting fundimentalists!
kept
Hi Cardinal,
Interesting how it looks like we were thinking of the same verse(s) on the same day without having been in contact with each other on that day. Where my mind went with that is "How many people has the mainstream Church TURNED INTO fools?"
Somebody else that's more of a George MacDonald devotee than myself can probably supply the quote more accurately, but I remember reading somewhere that it's not the atheist's rebellion against God that causes them to be an atheist, but it's the Spirit of God rising up within them that's raging against all of their false notions of God.
Quote from: martincisneros on October 27, 2007, 02:38:57 AM
Somebody else that's more of a George MacDonald devotee than myself can probably supply the quote more accurately, but I remember reading somewhere that it's not the atheist's rebellion against God that causes them to be an atheist, but it's the Spirit of God rising up within them that's raging against all of their false notions of God.
Oh, man! That is so good! :thumbsup:
:cloud9: Yes, well Martin, I'd say the HS is moving, because that's exactly where HE took me with it, too. Thanks for the confirmation :HeartThrob:
Exactly Martin, these folks have gone thru much religious abuse in the churches. They too have denounced the whole hell and vicious God teachings that we have. They just havent had universalism revealed to them like we have.
wonderful people, and in my view further into knowing Gods heart and love than well, agian , fundies
kept
My heart aches for all these people. Y'all want to pray with me?
:Pray:
Bless the dear fundies, Lord-
for I used to be one too and I so enjoyed your blessings then.
Thank you for what you've revealed to us and I ask that you show them too.
And help kept as she moves among these hurting ones who don't know you yet.
I ask that you deliver them from their pain.
:HeartThrob:
In the Name of Jesus, I'm in agreement with hopeful, and Father, I'm asking You to reveal to atheists everywhere and those that would view themselves as "show me" agnostics that they don't have to believe all of the middle ages stuff in order to embrace the Lordship of Jesus Christ and to learn of Him because His yoke is truly easy and His burden is truly light.
Father, I almost feel the burden for these people that a premillenialist eternal heller would feel for them, so I'm asking You to bring them in even if it's by the most unorthodox of means with starting them in the gnostic writings and then moving them into a Biblical UR and the true sayings of Jesus. If they don't read anything but St. Paul and the book of Enoch, still bring them into the fold, in Jesus' Name. Just show them Your love and Your purpose for them in Christ even if they're quite a bit wilder than King David and a few Old Testament folks that would not be members in good standing in many modern Pentecostal Churches because they're too wild. Just stretch forth Your Shepherd's Rod/walking cane of love and yank 'em in by the neck with the hooked end! In Jesus' Name, Amen!!
:cloud9: Amen! I especially loved the part about the OT ones who would be too wild for the church today. Ain't it the truth? Blessings to you........
Quotesomeone put in my heart...their words of my being non existant....what a heavy and sad feeling ...
Most of you know I have 6 children......5 girls and a boy.....Jimmy was born during the years I call my openly rebellious years. The years when the choices I made from the menu of life were to be all desert, and no vegetables.....
He endured a crazy out of control mother and a father who was out fulfilling his addictions. I had an addiction too, it was control, control by anger and fits of rage. I maintained a pseudo life, teaching sunday school, leading the Jr. choir, and any other parts of the music ministry, while my real world was a complete terror to my first two children, raised during this time...There was much damage done during those years that was never addressed after we came to the Lord. During the years we pastored our church there was a marked difference between the first two and the next 4.......My son, became the best/worst of both of us.....handsome, outgoing magnetic personality along with angry fits of rage, addictive personality, and control.........of all my sins, that one is the hardest........almost as if I have to watch my own sin multiplied everywhere.......in his relationships.
When my two oldest were teenagers..I began address the harm I had done...my oldest daughter and I are still peeling back the layers as she still remembers those years and won't let me sugar coat them as we discuss the time yet, she holds out mercy and forgiveness to me...........two lives both so different.
So many times the Lord has reached into my son's life and for even years at a time we were restored. Six years ago, my son became involved with another woman and after 16 turbulent years his marriage ended. It was another horrific time and it brought another break in our relationship. I stayed in relationship with my daughter in law and officiated at her wedding five years later. I cringed as the Lord directed me to do so as I knew there would be ramifications from my son. Our entire family worked together for her wedding day which we held here at my home. The man she married is all I wished my son could have been. It was a beautiful anointed service and a day of celebration and sadness as I knew there was no recovering what was lost for Jimmy, and I knew the relationship with my daughter in law would have to change........I truly gave her back to the Lord and her new husband that day.
Even though my son did not want his x-wife and was living with another, it played into all his twisted perceptions. He became revenge filled as he tried to make us all pay for what he sees as our betrayal of him........and yet his sisters and I have such love for him, even as we each had to close the door on our relationship with him.
Six months ago he found the Sonshine blog.........he comes on several times a week and leaves the most unbelievably vile comments...........at first Jack just deleted them and didn't let me know what was happening........finally I came on the blog one morning and saw what Jimmy had written.......nothing is too vile or filthy to say......It broke my heart when Jack said, you know Joian, I was a pretty nasty guy when I was in the world, but your son is even beyond me........... I wanted to withdraw from the blog shut it down and go into hiding..........Jack would have none of it.......So I cried and begged the Lord to allow me out of this whole situation and he would have none of it... Jack's answer was and is, you will just have to push through....everytime I post it stirs up the most vile accusations.....and he takes quotes from both of us and puts them on his myspace blog where he mocks them among his friends...........last week the Lord had me put a post up with an excerpt out of CS Lewis children's book, about the Dwarfs.....and the end of the age......... and how they are in darkness........with the closing line....Dwarfs are for Dwarfs.... as they were swept into eternity....it pained me to write it thinking of him..as I believe he remembers the excerpt well..... Jimmy loved CS Lewis, when he was about 10 we read and reread the chronicles of Narnia together. When he was in college he took a course that analyzed CS Lewis and held him up as genius........His favorite book was CS Lewis's-Till We Have Faces.........
Well all this to say.........perhaps you have already come across my athiest son, Kept. And how glad I am to think you are there, even in the deep parts of Hell and darkness. I know you wil hold forth love to those who in their hearts.......have said there is no God.....
This was an eye opening thread Card and I appreciate you all thanks for sharing....
Quotea fool says, IN HIS HEART, there is no GOD...meaning: God feels the absense of love from that being.
QuoteI especially loved the part about the OT ones who would be too wild for the church today.
:cloud9: Joian; no wonder we "click". Your story could have been mine. I have 2 older boys, and my daughter. I call her the one child I had that was born after the "flood", and the difference between the older and younger's walks (knowing I am 50% responsible), has been extremely painful, to say the least. I have seen God begin to do a work in the last 2 years and remit my sins, and I give Him the praise for it, because there is nothing, that I could do to change anything as the scars run too deep. But I know that what the enemy meant for evil, God meant for good, and somehow in the end we'll all come to know Him and each other the way it was intended. Try to comfort yourself with this thought; what a calling there must be on your son. Blessings to you........... :HeartThrob:
Joian,
Thank you for sharing your story. I identify with so much of it. The anger ...the raging...the addictions...the damaged kids.
I'm mostly done with the Christian religion with its made up view of God.. its unloving bible doctrines and its inhuman controling and manipulating rules to live by.
I think...because of the mess my life became and the involuntary surrender that followed, that God has returned me to the simplicity of where it all began...a very cold night in Chicago in Febuary 1974, when He chose to reveal LOVE to me. I now understand God ...only and always...to be consistent with the revealing of Jesus the Son of His LOVE...in me. For me...ALL truth must be consistent with LOVE.
The pretending life I lived ...the loopy stuff I believed...and many of the things I said and did...harmed my children. And there is much...I have learned that I can do...about that. I have heard it said that an unexamined life..is not a life worth living. I hear in the telling of your story ...that an open and honest examination of your life is happening. In this..I think you are very brave... for where there is an examination...there is pain.
Why it is ...that in the telling of our stories and in the hearing [relating] of our stories as told by others...that healing and wholeness would happen...IMO... loudly says... that God has determined that we all...need each other.
No one else can tell my story...nor can anyone else tell yours. Yet..when you freely and honestly "give away" your story to others...it is my experience that both you and those who identify with yours...experience LOVE and healing.
"You alone can do it, but you cannot do it alone." Mowrer
Dean
Quote from: Dean on October 27, 2007, 10:52:27 PM
The pretending life I lived ...the loopy stuff I believed...and many of the things I said and did...harmed my children.
I've had plenty of those loops over here, guys... :mblush:
And I was harmed as a child myself but yet... God continues.
He loves. He
is love- in me. Amazing.
There is healing for our children. :HeartThrob:
There simply has to be.
QuoteAnd there is much...I have learned that I can do...about that. I have heard it said that an unexamined life..is not a life worth living.
Man Dean, you are so right on........how powerfully anointed your words and insight.....
It makes me recall what we often spoke just before taking communion(as we understood it then) that if we would judge(examine) ourselves we would not be judged......I now see it as being willing to stand still as his light probes into the darkness of our own souls........and then with his love and mercy to hold us up from fainting..lol....be willing to look at our true motives........not till we have that truth and with it add understanding are we willing to forsake our sins...and lean back and trust.....
I was talking to Jack this morning and he made a statement , You know Joian, I don't think any of us can have Agape love until we've suffered.......... we went all around that for a while until it became my conclusion also.....as we all know it was only that, "agape love" that has ever deeply changed us......I also said, it just seems my son has suffered more from the sins of others, to which he said........there is equity in God.......it has to be Dean, that he knows what he is doing......and loves my son more than I possibly could........I don't know how the balance works........I just believe he is just.......I love him so today.
Card you know how often I have stated your words effect me in the most profound ways....you are a most precious sister and there are so many here at TM......and Holly I echo the cry of your heart......
QuoteThere is healing for our children.
There simply has to be.
I thought to add something after reading this beautiful thread ...tearfully I might add ....... one of those days which I think the very best. I often think of some of you in this way.
Do you know the words to this poem?
Have you learned to love the cross?
Have you learned of the shelter in His side?
If you have, I want to wash your feet with my tears
and tell you how much I love you, my Father's son
and my brother, my sister.
Jack
Yes, I was living to myself — was dead:
Self — with its hopes and dreams was all I had;
But soon the Lord fulfilled my prayer to know
The power of His cross — 'twas death below.
I asked contrition — He sent me pain;
For purity — but anguish came again;
I asked I might be meek — He broke my heart;
I asked — I knew not what — the better part.
I asked to know what death was to the world,
And quickly all my living hopes were spoiled;
I asked to be like Him — His image bear —
He placed me in a furnace, sitting there
Like one refining silver, till He see
The reflex of His image bright in me.
I asked that I the daily cross might bear,
It lacerated me — the wounds I wear;
I blindly prayed, not knowing how, nor what,
He took me at my word — it mattered not.
Then I began to shrink from following near,
And well-nigh prayed Him to depart through fear.
To suffer was not pleasing to the flesh,
I feared to pray lest suffering come afresh;
But I had gone too far — on I must go —
The virtues of His cross had pierced me through.
In me His promise now fulfilled must be —
Suffer with me, and you will reign with me!"
Ah, I had only heard of love — but now
I feel it, Oh! I feel its living glow.
He fastened on me such a look of love,
Withering to self — tender, all words above;
Follow I must, whatever may betide;
I love the cross — I shelter in His side!
J Preston Eby [/b]
.
I don't think any of us can have Agape love until we've suffered.....
Hi J...
suffering has its purpose.............its something non of us wish to endure or experience............but it serves its the cause
Rom 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time [are] not worthy [to be compared] with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
boy do we go thro all such emotions and PAIN,.....it leads for mine to HIM..Our circumstances may differ, we then see life somewhat differently... the path will and always will lead to HIM....even if AT the Time we understand it or not...
Blessings
Taffy
Joian
Sis I hope he is there and that some small seed is planted. I think Gods children that have become so disheartened with life and God and have basically given up any belief are so precious. I know you do too and that your son is precious to you beyond words.
I dont yet really understand athiesm and agnosticism but I am trying and wanting to love people that are in that place. Listen sis, the verbal abuse that flys at me at times there its as if I am covered from its effects. It really bothers them that I dont get all bent when the one man calls me things from rainmans sister, to dire something or other to many other expletives, been cussed some but in it all sis, it doesnt touch me somehow. I would prefer to be treated like I have a brain and feelings over there by the few that dont seem to know that, but it really falls off, like water off a ducks back.
Just let it fall off sis and know that somewhere God is preparing someone to touch your son with His great love and speak just what he needs to hear.
I am so touched by all the posts on this thread that Im all teary and just love you all
kept
We love you too, kept :cool:
QuoteJust let it fall off sis and know that somewhere God is preparing someone to touch your son with His great love and speak just what he needs to hear.
Thank you Kept.....for the picture that gave me once again.....Jack sent me the link and I went over there and read what is being said......I was sharing some of it with my oldest daughter and we both agreed they sound just like my son.........incredible that they are that kind of an athiest....so profane and perverse...I've know many men like these........somehow, I always feel like the mouse when a cat plays with it instead of eating it right away........always the lesser in their eyes.....a few times the Lord became the Lion in me and turned them into pussy cats...........winning their hearts...........I pray such is why he sent you there.......
Love you,
Joian
Well you must have only found the posts that sound like that. There is a gal there named Alice, and wow, Id hang out with her all the time if I lived in the UK and she would have me haha There are many many wonderful people there that are agnostics and athiests. The lions den is where there are basically no rules and people can let it all hang out so you see much more aggression then the rest of the forum.
Then there are a few that seem to get most of their pleasure from taking out aggression on christians. Its not really people they are angry at, its the bible. And the God of the bible.
kept
Well I didn't stay long and the only place I stopped was the Lion's Den........LOL
And truly it was rather a den as I listened to Cardinal she seemed like fresh rain, made me cringe at the things they said to her.......and I had some pretty rank brothers.....thanks for the clarity.
Quote from: martincisneros on October 27, 2007, 02:38:57 AM
Somebody else that's more of a George MacDonald devotee than myself can probably supply the quote more accurately, but I remember reading somewhere that it's not the atheist's rebellion against God that causes them to be an atheist, but it's the Spirit of God rising up within them that's raging against all of their false notions of God.
I like that a lot.