Endless Pet Doctrines

[Naomi25]

So, i am still going to talk about my pet topic, which is loving others. It is interesting to watch others and myself confront and live with the reality of love.

1. I do not not want to love others - it is hard. I watch others struggle with this too. It is interesting the lengths we will go to in order to avoid it. All the doctrines, theology, dogma, ridiculously long sermons on genealogies and histories of dead people, liturgy, blah, blah.

We even imitate Luther and run away from all the bs by renoucing church completely - as if it is keeping us from a true relationship with Christ.......all it actually does is isolate us from the Body of Christ and limits our spiritual growth by limiting the people most in need of love a fellowship.

2. Approaching love like a dieter navigating healthy food is another avoidance tactic. Substituting a later helping of ice cream because you skipped a high calorie lunch.....substituting an obsession with the Bible and calling it love....

3. Here’s a new one.....honestly, i have never seen such boldness. Renouncing love as a weakness and proclaiming hatred for whomever you feel like hating - while calling yourself a Christian! Redefining the word ‘believe’ to simply mean ‘knowing of’ and possibly admiring, applying it to Christ and calling it good. Of course this requires us to ignore Jesus when he reminds us that even the demons know who God is and shudder.....

True spiritual growth requires the disciple to love others even when it is hard because we need the practice. Loving others is what we were created to do, but it has been warped into narcissistic self love, which is toxic. We are justified by Christ’s love sacrifice on the Cross and we are called to pick up our cross and follow Him by loving others through sacrifice and aervice. All this practice, submiting to the Holy Spirit and putting love into practice is the Good News.

I believe we were created in God’s image - God is Love - we are called to be love, once again. Practicing love is a spiritual discipline, necessay for us to come home like the prodical sons and daughters we are. Thankfully, when we are completely transformed, love will no longer feel like a burden - we will be naturals

Comments?

It's hard to be loving, isn't it? Some times more than others; with some people more than others. As you know, I do love my scripture and my verses. But, to be honest, when it comes to this, I don't actually head to verses, my mind goes to example: of Christ. Of love in action...on the cross, of course. But, more, in the smaller things. The times when he healed people with leprosy...when he did so by reaching out to touch them. Such a small gesture, but for one with that disease who may not have had any human touch for years, it would have rocked their world. The times when he treated prostitutes like they were precious ladies, rather than sad, used women that everyone else saw them as.
How can we not be affected by the love Christ showed others? It should take us out at our knees and humble us.
I think the real process of sanctification is going to be, mostly, remembering this and acting accordingly more and more in my day to day life as I interact with others. Thank goodness God is patient!

 

[bbyrd009]

Love is an emotional state

Aspen covered it pretty well; i would also say that we are so Codependent now in the West that when we say "love" we mostly mean "codependency."

 

[bbyrd009]

So one of my other pet doctrines I am focused on is ignoring haters. I am cleaning up my experience on this board starting last night.

If you are a person who targets other people or groups, you qualify for an ignore. Nothing personal, loving you doesn’t mean I need to read your garbage.

ignoring can be love i guess, ya. Although it is artfully written, and i guess artfully done, Jesus quite often contradicted and ignored ppl who had bad info or whatever, just like happens here every day. Now imo "he's not dead, he's just asleep" has other meanings, but regardless, we get an illustration there. I'd like to tie in @VictoryinJesus' wonder about...how one knows, um, stuff, say which path to take, which decision to make, but i have no idea why that came up here yet, so lemme marinate on that one. How can you reliably ignore someone, might be what i'm trying for there

 

[bbyrd009]

I have found that love is something one must determine to do. It doesn't come by accident, and it is in no one's default mechanism to do so. And that is the hard part. Seeing someone's open wounds, all putrifying sores and fetid stinking habits and addictions and hang-ups... And choosing to love the guy anyway.... Just as while we were yet sinners Christ chose to die for us.
God loves us because that is who he is. It is not who we are. Like Aspen said,love is something we must choose to do, and something we must work at.

nice, ya. of course we easily envision helping ppl we deem worthy and deserving, those who look like we do only they got a flat tire or something lol. And we go to great lengths to dismiss to Gehenna any who do not fit our profiles, thinking that if we lay with dogs we will get fleas i guess right. Which is certainly a danger in the impressionable (codependence again).

But that thinking can/will usually lead to a walk that is totally insulated from God too imo; we work (way too hard, at something we hate) to avoid having to rely on God in one sense, we go into debt to buy houses to avoid God in another, buy insurance to provide the illusion that we will not even need God in a disaster, and excommunicate anyone who is already headed for or in Gehenna in our estimation as icing on the cake imo.

and we're so codependent that we can be easily manipulated into helping swine andor not helping someone deserving, even though they are both screaming clues at us from the moment they open their mouths (or don't). Entire industries thrive on this principle

 

[bbyrd009]

If "unconditional love" was real, Jesus Christ wouldn't be using the term "enemy" to describe the recipient. With unconditional love, you don't have enemies, making it a fairy tale that people wish were really true in the real world. Even God has enemies, which means that even his 'love' has conditions.

those of his own household?

Wadr UL is real enough, but we don't know who our enemies even are.
satan is not even your "enemy," etc
weird, i know

 

[bbyrd009]

I know exactly why God set up Adam and Eve that way, and I wholeheartedly agree with it.

well, then imo we might apply the same forgiveness you have evinced for A&E to those others whom i would have to trackback and quote you again to recall, maybe? low on time lol

 

[bbyrd009]

God planted a garden, and in the midst of the garden He placed two trees. One provided life, the other death. Good did not"set them up". There was an entire garden, maybe a forest, in the midst of the earth especially designated as their home. A myri they could have chosenad of choices of good stuff to eat. Thousands of trees and shrubs and herbs, berries, fruit, grains and nuts to provide everything they needed. Just one tree, one, that they could have stayed well away from, that they were warned not to have anything to do with, but they failed the test. Curiosity and mistrust and covetousness was their downfall.

i am more with Dcopy there, imo that they would "fail" was inevitable; which seems to enshrine a quite evil God until one contemplates how gods are made i guess. But to restate imo A&E were designed to eat from the Tree of Knowledge; that was God's goal.

 

[bbyrd009]

Pizza must be consumed with coke or pepsi. It's in the Bible.

i'm sure you are trying to make a point here but danged if i can figger what it is kepha

 

[brakelite]

i am more with Dcopy there, imo that they would "fail" was inevitable; which seems to enshrine a quite evil God until one goal at all. contemplates how gods are made i guess. But to restate imo A&E were designed to eat from the Tree of Knowledge; that was God's goal.

I do not think the fall of man was God's goal, to entertain such a concept would be to make him a party to premeditated murder on a global genocidal scale. But that He knew it would take place, and created us anyway, some could argue was the same. But only if one refuses to take into account the lengths He went to to redeem us to himself, and the eternal cost to himself.
Lucifer when in heaven instigated the rebellion through transplanting ideas into the minds of the angels. Those ideas took. God could have squashed Lucifer there and then, and be justified in doing so, but such an action would not have gotten rid of the idea, more than likely confirmed them. Go The rebellion did not start with Adam and Eve, the creation of man was God's master plan to put down the rebellion.
The tree for knowledge was a test to see whose side of the war we would decide for. That God did not give up is testament to his love. Not to his despotism.

 

[brakelite]

I have found that love is something one must determine to do. It doesn't come by accident, and it is in no one's default mechanism to do so. And that is the hard part. Seeing someone's open wounds, all putrifying sores and fetid stinking habits and addictions and hang-ups... And choosing to love the guy anyway.... Just as while we were yet sinners Christ chose to die for us.
God loves us because that is who he is. It is not who we are. Like Aspen said,love is something we must choose to do, and something we must work at.

Even with our spouses, love must be an act of will. At the beginning of course wh en hormones are running rampant and or reason is haywire, love, or Eros, rules. But after we get to know one another, and the less desirable traits become manifest, those vows become something like the Constitution. They become something we choose to keep as our founding document, or hand them over to the court to decide our destiny.

 

[bbyrd009]

I do not think the fall of man was God's goal, to entertain such a concept would be to make him a party to premeditated murder on a global genocidal scale.

imo it is likely more like the "fall" that you have been taught is deception, and eating from the tree was a given, foreordained. A&E were never expected to not eat from the tree; that is what made them Adam and Eve, most likely. Premeditated murder is a choice that we make--isn't it?--i don't see how God is made a party to it at all?

But only if one refuses to take into account the lengths He went to to redeem us to himself, and the eternal cost to himself.

maybe if you described these a bit more i might get you? ty

 

[amadeus]

imo it is likely more like the "fall" that you have been taught is deception, and eating from the tree was a given, foreordained. A&E were never expected to not eat from the tree; that is what made them Adam and Eve, most likely. Premeditated murder is a choice that we make--isn't it?--i don't see how God is made a party to it at all

For me the starting place is with God and what He is and what He is not. If we ever once understand Him then we simply take all of the scriptures that are seemingly unrelated and determine how they fit Him. The problem is of course getting the starting place right...

God created people without sin, but with the ability to disobey Him. He always knew what the consequences of such disobedience would be, but He set it up that way anyway. He had a plan, but to understand the plan it goes back to that same starting place. Our vision includes His plan, but how well does anyone see it? The apostle Paul included himself in this verse:

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." I Cor 13:12

The "face to face" for us is not yet or we would not be having this discussion.

Perhaps when can see "face to face" we will also understand perfectly the "why" of it all.

 

[bbyrd009]

But only if one refuses to take into account the lengths He went to to redeem us to himself, and the eternal cost to himself.

maybe if you described these a bit more i might get you? /what lengths

 

[bbyrd009]

But only if one refuses to take into account the lengths He went to to redeem us to himself, and the eternal cost to himself.

there are lots of problems with this imo. A Gardener is not really fitting that characterization for me.

"Eternal cost?"

 

[bbyrd009]

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." I Cor 13:12

The "face to face" for us is not yet or we would not be having this discussion.

the dead know nothing
tho, how do you fit that in in that case
i think Paul was speaking to a perspective here,
ya that helps
um, and that this now and the then, the definitions of them?
are being like suggested to you, but not really substantiated by the rest of the passage
careful how you define now and then
imo
might be "absent from the body" all over again

 

[bbyrd009]

11When I was a child,

I spoke like a child,

I thought like a child,

I reasoned like a child.

When I became a man,

I put aside childish things.

ok, anyway that's the preceding v

 

[amadeus]

the dead know nothing
tho, how do you fit that in in that case

Who is dead? Everyone is dead who has not encountered and received the Life which Jesus is. Most people walking around us remain zombies, walking dead men. Those who have received Life often remain babies on milk. They have more knowledge perhaps than the average zombie, but what kind of a conversation about the things of God would we expect from a baby in Christ? Some of them remain babies for many years. Some may never mature at all. They just fill up spaces here and there and mimic what someone told them early on in their growth. They still don't understand what "thus saith the Lord" beyond "ga ga, goo goo".

Jesus confirmed that many of those around us in the eyes of God are dead:

"And he said unto another, Follow me. But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.
Jesus said unto him, Let the dead bury their dead: but go thou and preach the kingdom of God." Luke 9:59-60

i think Paul was speaking to a perspective here,
ya that helps
um, and that this now and the then, the definitions of them?
are being like suggested to you, but not really substantiated by the rest of the passage
careful how you define now and then
imo
might be "absent from the body" all over again

For the "now" I would say it is where everyone is [no time element purposely]. Some are completely blind and deaf. Some see and hear a little here or there. Some are improving. Consider the natural or carnal man. As his body ages it is a very normal thing for the natural perceptions to become less sharp. Spiritually we should be going in the other direction. If we have a new man that is never to die should he not be growing toward God?

"He must increase, but I must decrease." John 3:30

So the "then" would or should be when our vision and our hearing are like God's. When is that?
We should always be on the approach, but as we likely know many are simply languishing in a pew somewhere at what should be the best times and need we speak of the worst times?

"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." I John 3:2

Have not some put this perfect vision off to beyond the natural grave [which could mean never] but denying the possibility of being perfect before the dirt is thrown over their faces? Is that not calling Jesus a liar? Is that not a negative faith? Jesus said this:

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matt 5:48

Did he also say not to expect or believe it until sometime after the dirt is thrown over your face?
So when is the "then"?

"This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it." Psalm 118:24

So then is now, then. Could it be or should it be?

"(For he saith, I have heard thee in a time accepted, and in the day of salvation have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation.)" II Cor 6:2

So if our faith is not negative:

"And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord.
Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you." Matt 9:28-29

 

[Naomi25]

i am more with Dcopy there, imo that they would "fail" was inevitable; which seems to enshrine a quite evil God until one contemplates how gods are made i guess. But to restate imo A&E were designed to eat from the Tree of Knowledge; that was God's goal.

Do you have kids? This is, I understand, a very imperfect example, but when we're talking about God, nothing human can really measure up. Anyway, when you have kids, especially when they are young, you can quite easily see where something is headed. For example, the little one who is learning to walk. You know when they drop their hold on that chair and take a few steps, they are going to fall down. Or when they start learning to ride a bike, and you give them that starting 'shove', to give them momentum. You know they're going to wobble about 10 meters, then face plant. But just because you know what's going to happen, as a parent, you are still going to allow it, because you know what will come after it...a new skill, in this instance.
Saying that it was God's goal all along for them to eat that fruit, well...to start off with, it doesn't make sense with what we know of God's character. Why tell them NOT to eat it, if he wanted them to anyway? Why not let it happen just by looking juicy and yum? Secondly, if it was his ultimate plan, then God is indeed to blame for all the evil in this world. Again, that does not stack up with his nature. He is good, loving and kind, not capricious, evil or unloving. But...he did see and know what was coming, and he allowed it to happen, because he knew what would come afterwards. Yes, pain and evil, but ultimately a wonderful reconciliation back to him by many through his loving Son. He allowed mankind to make a foolish, wrong choice, because he knew that in redeeming us, he would look more lovely and his glory would be reflected more perfectly. But I think it's important to keep that distinction: Man did have a choice in the garden, and like the loving Father he is, God grieved, but allowed our stupid choice to rebel. We have to live with that choice...it's on us, not him. But our salvation? That's all on him.

 

[bbyrd009]

Why tell them NOT to eat it, if he wanted them to anyway?

bc human nature, just like with your kids? which if that is too cryptic we could go into it more if you like, for example Prohibition is the best way to get ppl drinking, etc

also i'm not sure if "He wanted them to" is the best characterization, might be more like "He knew it was inevitable" or something; meaning "in that case this is the best path for that choice" maybe, something along those lines?

 

[bbyrd009]

as you reflect below this i guess; down to here anyway,

God grieved, but allowed our stupid choice to rebel.

God didn't seem too grieved to me wadr; "Here, have a skin in that case."

But our salvation? That's all on him.

Pick up your cross and follow Me does not sound like "all on Him" to me, Naomi