God Loves Ted Kennedy

[jabcat]

I was thinking about Ted Kennedy recently being sick.  You know, that ultra liberal beacon of a lot of what's wrong with society and societal values in general?  Well, guess what?  God loves Ted Kennedy, too. 

Many of you may not see that as much of a revelation.  However, for me, it's something God has to work with me on, reminding me that God loves even those I may personally, in my carnal flesh, see as undesirable, or even disgusting human beings.  You may inherently love TK because your world views are different than mine, and that's OK.  That's not my point.  My point is this.  I think I often attribute human characteristics to our Father, seeing Him through my eyes rather than trying to see things and people through His eyes.  In my flesh, I may look around and see folks that IMO are "hampering the work of God", spewing all kinds of filth, spraying all kinds of pain upon society with their viewpoints, opinions, and actions.  In my weaker moments (when I'm breathing) my human reaction may be along the lines of "why does God let them continue to do that, why doesn't He just wipe them out?"  But then God continues to show me and remind me that His ways are not our ways, and His thoughts are not our thoughts...and that He really loves, and though He may punish, discipline, even cut off for a time...He does not cast off forever, and the end of the Lord is mercy.  We may want to see someone punished or "get theirs".  God's heart grieves and yearns for their redemption and reconciliation to Him.  And that's exactly what He will do, isn't it?  According to His timing, His plan, He is working all things according to the counsel of His will.

My desire for retribution, for punishment, for destruction is just that...my desire...not God's.  You may not have any problems with that, and if not, good for you.  Some of us are still in need of the goodness, patience, and mercy of a loving Father, that at times we don't want to extend to Ted Kennedy.  But after all, isn't Ted one of the ALL Jesus promised He would draw unto Himself?  Let's pray for Ted and all the Teds we each know.

God's blessing, James.

[martincisneros]

Something that I do a few times each year, ever since I first starting having inclings of the Universal Restoration is that if I'm around a group of people, passing by people in traffic, in a mall, or just in general where ever people are at, I get to thinking:

If I never get to meet and/or minister to that person in this life, I'll see them again someday.  We'll hang out.  We'll exchange stories of Amazing Grace.  God's not only not losing a single one of them, but neither am I.  Christ's work of holiness in me is Christ's work of holiness in every person so that we may joyfully exclaim that without holiness no one shall see the Lord.  Not a single one of us are going to be without the holiness and love of our Lord throughout the endless ages of eternity.  The people you didn't get to know in this life, you'll have an eternity to get to know, to hang out with, to worship the Lord together with, and to wander away from for just a moment so that you can have a look at the Blood on the Mercy Seat and rejoice in your Father that He does all things well, according to the counsel of His will, and for His glorious pleasure.

Think about it the next time you pass people in traffic, including the person trying to teach you sign language if you're lost in thought and driving a little slow or spending too much time at a light that just changed.  The same process at work in you, is at work in them.  A lot of people aren't any further than they are because they haven't heard any more than they've heard.  We're honestly free in Christ to cast all of our cares upon the Lord, for He cares for us: both the anxieties and the longings; the worries and the desires -- cast absolutely all of it over on Him, for He cares for you.  He's the head of every man, and through His Blood we're destined to have the world we've all always longed for.

Imagine seeing that teacher again, that second grade bully, that 5th grade crush!  Relatives you never got to know.  People you never had time for until it was too late and you've lived with regrets ever since because of either the hardness of your heart at the time or you were trying to get through a job and college and just didn't have the time -- though you always intended to -- or perhaps you never intended to.  And now the love of Christ convicts that stone that was in your heart and is helping you to pass it from your system.

You're even going to spend all of eternity with that burglar that broke into your house a few years ago, that traffic officer that gave you a traffic ticket that you didn't feel like you deserved, and that person you spent just a little too much time staring at, at the mall because they were SOOOOO SEXXXY!!!

That'll make you leery of staring at too many people like that during the course of your one short life of 120 to 180 years!  That's your eternal brother, your eternal sister!!  The awesomeness of the responsibility that this is, in the realization that if you screw up with someone sexually or financially, there's a remote chance that you'll have to live that one down a considerable amount of time after this life.  Your relationship with the Lord is perfect.  Absolutely perfect.  But if this life teaches us anything, it's that sometimes the Lord takes His sweet time in shaping our relationships with one another; you and I; you and your spouse; you and that noisy neighbor down the street with the really loud rap or rock music.

There's no banishing someone to an eternal Hell so that you don't have to look at the reality of something you might have planned with or against them that was against the plan of God for their lives and for yours.  Did you manipulate to get a position at work?  You're spending all of eternity with that boss and with the person that you cheated out of a promotion that was rightfully theirs!  Did you lie on a test?  You're spending all of eternity with the teacher that you pulled a fast one on!

Yes, God will balance the books and reconcile all things.  That's not the point.  What if, as He's sometimes taken His sweet time in our lives about other things because He was wanting to develop character in our lives or because we honestly didn't know His particular timing for doing some things according to His plan -- what if He takes His sweet time in our relationships with each other and makes each of us face the intimate details of all that we ever lied about, stole, harmed, wished ill for, or resented?  Perhaps that's where the ages are at.  Perhaps that's the reconciliation point between Ultra Universalism and Restorative (i.e. afterlife punishment) Universalism.  Within moments of death, all things are confronted by Jesus Christ where our relationship with Him is concerned, but what if....

What if the ages to come are about mending our relationships with one another one thought, emotion, and incident at a time?

[hopeful]

 :thumbsup:

Good posts, guys!

[jabcat]

:thumbsup:

Good posts, guys!

:handshake:

[fire walker]

God loves Ted! yes, that is right, God loves all mankind.

Peace,
Fire Walker 

[martincisneros]

God loves each person, and I'm wondering if Universalists ever get so caught up with the details and the size of the forest that they're not as aware as they should be of God's individual love for themselves, as though there were nobody else in the entire Creation but dirt, some plants, and themselves.

God's love for all of Creation is exciting beyond words, but each of us would probably be brought to tears if we'd spend about 30 minutes to an hour confessing over and over again "God loves me."  Perhaps for a solid week, all of us would be the better for making our prayer time nothing but affirming "God loves me" and just actually RECEIVING that love by doing that, moving it from your short term memory to your long term memory so that you're renewed in the spirit of your mind by doing this.

God wouldn't be offended and you don't know at which points the Holy Spirit would be coming upon you and speaking that through you with power regarding how much God loves you.  Because the Holy Spirit will take that and work alongside that to help to renew your mind and confirm a Word from God like that with signs following.  This wouldn't build pride for anyone thinking carnally about this, that it might have a tendency to do that.  NO!  The exact opposite.  This will honestly get the tears going.

You can honestly worship by doing nothing but confessing for an hour or two that "God loves me."  You'd be surprised at how the core of your being will start pouring that love and adoration back at God without your having to try to work anything up and without changing what you're saying, but just saying over and over and over again "God loves me."  How does the Apostle John word it?  We love BECAUSE He first loved us.

All of us are raped, sodomized, and absolutely starved for love every single day if you ever turn on the television, read a newspaper, read most magazines, get a little too adventurous in your internet browsing, or work with the public.  Is my choice in wording a little graphic for you?  Then perhaps you've never had emotional lows that you couldn't figure out why you were having them 'cause the bills were paid, you weren't "practicing" any biggies in the sin department, and you weren't in strife with anybody.  Perhaps you're wealthy enough to where you've never felt raped and......at the gas pump.

Your love for God and your love for everyone else in your life is DEPENDENT upon your realization of God's love for you.  I personally believe that Mark 11:23-24 still applies where saying "God loves me" is concerned.  Not that God would love you more, but on the experience [or at least on the awareness] side of things...

What would happen if you confessed "God loves me" until it genuinely registered on your human spirit and it went beyond your short term memory over into your long term memory and you didn't have to think about it to say it 'cause "out of the abundance of the heart your mouth spoke?" (Matthew 12:34-37)  What would happen if "God loves me" became your deepest conviction and you suddenly knew that God could never do you any harm?  Would you do any harm to either yourself or to anyone else?  Would you still believe on some emotional level that God could ever do any harm to anyone else??



Jabcat, from the therapeutic side, how therapeutic would this be for people psychologically?  How many evils in self esteem and self destructive behaviour patterns would be alieviated if they'd just take my advise in this post as perhaps the closest thing to a "thus saith the Lord" that they've heard in a long time and would begin to apply it to their own lives, even if just experimentally for a few hours over the next few days, or the rest of the month?  How many relationships would be healed if people weren't unintentionally recoiling from others because of deeply engrained, though perhaps unconscious beliefs about themselves; their own worthiness and value, etc.?  How many intimacy issues would be resolved?  How much self sabatoge would stop where relationships are concerned if at the core of their being, their inmost thoughts were genuinely "God loves me" from having retrained that with their mouths??  How many nightmares would stop, if people are tormented over in the dream area while they're asleep which is an area where many people think they have no control without psychiatric medication?  What about in the Posttraumatic Stress department for crime victims or people with either law enforcement or military backgrounds?  Could ANYTHING ever be so simple? Or could anything be more simple???

God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;
God loves me;

[shibboleth]

Reminds me of this Beatle song.

He loves you yeah yeah yeah
He loves you yeah yeah yeah
He loves you yeah yeah yeah
With a love like that you know you can't be sad

[jabcat]

Martin...Much.  It's healing.  Talking with someone tonight who had lost their job, she started talking about having self-doubt, stated "I don't believe in myself"...I told her she doesn't need to, that God does.  Knowing where we stand in the Father would cure a lot our ills and insecurities.  God's blessing, James.

[Paul Hazelwood]

what if He takes His sweet time in our relationships with each other and makes each of us face the intimate details of all that we ever lied about, stole, harmed, wished ill for, or resented? 

You know, that puts a different light upon just messing up and asking for forgiveness.   I think a lot of times the concept is made way too easy. 

From what I have been taught most of my life is that if you mess up you just ask forgiveness.  Of course sometimes questions get asked and then someone says,  "Well, you really have to mean it"

But, maybe we think we really mean it because we are not taught to know.  Ever pull a "fast one" and think its great, till you get caught?  Ok, is the remorse that follows true sorrow for doing something wrong or is it emotion only because we were found out?

I know the bible says when we are forgiven "God remembers it no more" so maybe the question is, how do we know to be truly sorry unto "GOD" not unto the person?

This is something I am going to be thinking about for a while.  Thank you for this post.