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Results from: Answers On or After: Thu 12/31/70 Author: Motherturtlewood Ordered by Date |
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Results | Verse | Author | ID# | |||
1 | Witnessing our faith to non-believers? | Ezek 36:26 | Motherturtlewood | 30203 | ||
top: Psalms is a good place to start with someone who is encrusted with a tough exterior that covers brokenheartedness. Also, urge your son-in-law to read Ezekiel 36:26 Ezekiel 36 Ezekiel 36:25-27 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. THEN TELL HIM TO LISTEN FOR THE STILL SMALL VOICE to guide his heart in speaking to the person who asked the question. Tell him not to fret for what to say. The Holy Spirit will guide him. Most importantly, it is his loving kindness every day in ordinary actions that will witness the most effectively. Blessings, mtw |
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2 | Christian Response To Eastern Thought? | Is 55:11 | Motherturtlewood | 29971 | ||
Jensen: In my experience, a characteristic of friends (peers over age 50) and of younger people (my children's ages, late teens) who have been enamored of cults (et alia) is a general resistance to INTELLECTUAL responses to their precious discovery of something that SEEMS to validate them as persons. I quite agree with Emmaus that it's the same old temptation OF THE CRAFTY AND WILEY SERPENT. What also comes to mind is Matthew 28:19-20 -- 19 "Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and TEACHING THEM TO OBEY EVERYTHING I HAVE COMMANDED YOU. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age." In my journey, it has been given to me to understand more fully what Yeshua meant when he said that He came to fulfill the Law. remember in the "Shema" (The "Hear, Oh Israel" prayer from Deuteronomy 6, Love God with all your heart...and your neighbor...) is the summary of what God's people have been asked to do. Sometimes, in our fervor to evangelize, to set others straight, to "save," etc., we forget that before anyone can learn from anyone else they first have to give the teacher attention. To whom do we give our attention? More to people who are loving that to those who are correct, I'd wager. And that takes time because it is a process (after all God could have given the Israelites a tidy argument...but didn't...just let them wander around for 40 years). Readiness is all in teaching. Find the teachable moment. It takes a lot of loving to get there. Also, another passage that comes to mind is Psalm 25, particularly... 5 "Lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation; on thee do I wait all the day. 6 Remember, O LORD, THY TENDER MERCIES AND THY LOVING KINDNESSES; for they have been ever of old. 7 Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions: according to thy mercy remember thou me for thy goodness' sake, O LORD. 8 Good and upright is the LORD: therefore will he teach sinners in the way. 9 The meek will he guide in judgment: and the meek will he teach his way. 10 All the paths of the LORD are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies...." Blessings and patience. Once, when Mother Teresa was asked about the futility of her work, she replied something to the effect that success was not what we are called to, just the work. It's hard work to love, and we may never see the results. But it's all that we've been really asked to do. (Yes, I know, someone is going to ask, "Well, just what is love, anyway?") |
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3 | need councel | John 12:48 | Motherturtlewood | 26572 | ||
mrchadly, I agree with Searcher56. See also my note re Dan K's "Is John 3:16 real". People may not listen to your words, but they are always watching. Just live the gospel; walk the talk. Grace will do the rest. We have no idea how grace is working in others' hearts. Bless you. | ||||||
4 | Please explain God's romantic love. | Luke 20:34 | Motherturtlewood | 28981 | ||
May the Love of Our Lord be with you, Whitestone. I have not read Elderidge's book, so I cannot comment. However, in light of what the Lord said in Luke 20:34-35 [34) Jesus replied, "The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35) But those who are considered worthy of taking part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage,...] one might speculate that God's love for us is something beyond our understanding. We are incomplete beings. Gender is part of the dynamic of being incomplete. God being purely spiritual will take us to another level of existence. "Eyes have not seen, etc" what God has planned for us. Jesus said, "I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you." (John 15:14-16). Jesus told us to love one another as I have loved you. Every line of the Lord's Prayer tells us something about what that means. Particularly about forgiving trespasses. It is all about being one with one another -- on a level beyond the physical. I have to laugh a little because we humans are so dear. The closest explanation that I can think of is something I read a long time ago. It was written around 1965 and is called the 'Vision in Louisville': “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness. The whole illusion of a separate holy existence is a dream.” *** ...[discussion of a separate ‘not of this world’ holiness and how it does not entitle one to be considered better or holier] “This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: ‘Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.’ To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our [holy] thinking.” “It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race, though it is a race dedicated to many absurdities and one which makes many terrible mistakes: yet, with all that, God Himself gloried in becoming a member of the human race. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. “I have immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. “This changes nothing in the sense and value of my solitude [writer was a hermit], for it is in fact the function of solitude to make one realize such things with a clarity that would be impossible to anyone completely immersed in the other cares, the other illusions, and all the automatisms of a highly collective existence. My solitude, however, is not my own, for I see now how much it belongs to them—an that I have a responsibility for it in their regard, not just in my own. It is because I am one with them that I owe it to them to be alone, and when I am alone they are not ‘they’ but my own self. There are not strangers! “Then it was as if I suddenly saw the SECRET BEAUTY OF THEIR HEARTS, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the PERSON THAT EACH ONE IS IN GOD’S EYES. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. THERE WOULD BE NO MORE WAR, NO MORE HATRED, NO MORE CRUELTY, NOR MORE GREED.” [pp 157-158, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, T. Merton]. Hope this helps. |
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5 | replies from persons or "bots"? | 1 Cor 15:10 | Motherturtlewood | 28412 | ||
THANKS, Charis, Nolan Keck, Norrie, glory777, walso700, Hank. I asked my question not because the responses were mechanical [they were quite articulate] but because the signatures were so generic it seemed odd. As for 1 Cor 15:10, I find that grace is working everywhere and in everyone. I am not much of a bible scholar. I read what I can and wait for the Spirit to speak. It's hard to put in words. Thanks again, everyone. Blessings in the new year. | ||||||