ShieldsFamily wrote:
Izzy
in blue:
Yes and thanks. Wouldn't you say that salvation by grace through
faith has always been the will of the Lord? If what we see as
Divine Projections (such as Christ dying for our sins at a certain
time)
is, in fact, God's reality, then salvation based upon the condition of
the heart and the consideration of faith for righteousness has always
been what
God is about. I mean, look to David in that 51st Psalm. He contrasts animal sacrifice with
brokenness and
contrition. The latter does not eliminate the former, but it does
declare
the former not
to
be the condition upon which
our salvation is based. Huh???
How about
the one is a picture of the other?
How
about brokenness and
contrition are exactly what God wants from us? God
calls us all to obedience, but saves
us anyway !!!!!! "Go thy way and sin no more"
will always be the advice (How
about commandment???) of
the Lord -- and it
(what—sinlessness?
Correct.) will
always come after we are forgiven/saved.
Imagine this; God creates mankind. He wants this creation to love
Him, to seek Him out, to prefer Him. And He accomplishes this by
seeking us out, walking in the garden, talking to Abraham --
planning his future, making a military hero of Gideon, appointing
the Baptist, correcting and calling Paul, lifting you up in your
Messianic's ministry and helping me to understand Linda Shields. LOL!!!
Lotsa luck, buckaroo. And
all along, He knows that this creation idea of His
would impact Himself as well as the whole of creation
-------------- He would, in our time, have to
experience some things He had never had to experience: learning how
to walk and talk, saying "yes" when you as God on Earth thought it
best to do something else ( "My time has not yet come" verses
"do it anyway"), being tempted by someone you created,
dying ! ! !, putting your trust in the hands of another and waiting
for the resurrection, supplied by Another. All this and perhaps
more -- the Great God Almighty becoming like us, whom
He created, so that we might become like Him. Becoming like
God. Whoa. It seems to me that becoming like God would demand
His uncondiitional forgiveness as we stuggle to to become. Think
about it; for US to be like HIM --------------------
how off the mark would we be as we compare ourselves to this Great God
Almighty? Think of the viod that exists at the beginning or even the
ending of this process. Unmerited grace IS THE ONLY SOLUTION. Unmerited
grace is definitely what it takes for His Spirit to indwell
and empower us to be like Him; agreed.
On
a good day, we are nothin like Him,
right?
Nothing. He had no choice but to simply say, I
forgive. (Why
do you think that?
Scripture gives us LOTS of examples where He does not forgive, but
sends to a
fiery hell. We should not assume He has not choice, and must forgive
us
no matter what how we live. How we live shows what we believe, and
whose
spirit dwells within us, wouldn’t you agree?) I
am sorry, but if we do thus and so, how
close to Being Like God (Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is
perfect) are
we? (It
was His commandment that we do just
that: be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Why do you say we
can’t? Would He tell us to do the impossible?) And
so the man says, we have sinned and
continually fall short of His glory.
Anyway --- sorry, I was really thinking out loud.
Good—I
like that. Izzy
Pastor John
==========================================
Just a couple of thoughts here. Unmerited grace? Absolutely!
Unconditional love? In most cases, yes. Unconditional forgiveness?
Absolutly not!
As to the "Be perfect" thingy, I think that Jesus asked that of us just
so that we could experience how impossible that is, and know how much
we needed His sacrificial death to atone for our sins. I believe that
He gave the Church this impossible command, just as He gave the Jews
the impossible task of keeping the law, and for the same reason; to
show us we can never be good enough to save ourselves.
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