All About God

[BanjoPicker]

God Is Omnipotent

Within God's own realm He is omnipotent, but there are certain spheres in which He does not and cannot operate, and there is certain things He cannot do. We must therefore be sensible when we consider omnipotence--unlimited and universal power and authority within a certain sphere, or of a certain kind. God is Almighty and omnipotent in His own right of creation and redemption, and in His plan for man and all creations, but He has limited Himself in His dealings with free moral agents. He respects their will power and He gives them absolute right to act of their own free choice to conform to His will and consecrate themselves to the highest good of being and of the universe. He has laid down laws whereby they should live and conduct themselves and has made penalties for all sin and rewards for all acts of obedience. In these matters God is omnipotent, but there are certain things He cannot do. As will be seen.

 

[BanjoPicker]

There are somethings to be said about free will and there are somethings to be said about being possessed.

The person that does not know the truth of the Christian religion though that person might even describe themselves as Christian is not able by the force of their own will to know the truth intimately and so other than by definitions of it. These have real freedom and their freedom is to chose to pray.

Same things with the person and definitions of God. The possessed blind of their possessions and blind that they are lastly, only and still possessed of themselves having purged all other worldly possessions but their own desire towards God cannot know the full power of God which is Him that would change them into someone that was no longer free of the experience of the truth. I am equally guilty of getting in my own way and claiming to be in His way.

I am possessed of myself. No striving that I can do to be my own exorcist can set me free of definitions and definitions of definitions on the religion of my religion with my soul's understanding that I am yet someday to be set free. Oh !that my body must die that I might see God! Oh! that I say with my lips I am crucified with the Lord, dead with him but yet not to myself! Yet I can make definitions of Him, who I cannot see, from my partly cleansed soul! OH!

And well I might define what a cat is, the definition has no claws. My brothers tell me what a cat is and what a dog is and I will use their meanings on it.

Not free of ourselves we might boast of imagined freedom especially that there is no boast in us of the trials of our responsibility for it. Freedom without responsibility is a dead give away of not being free. I commission myself in the will of knowing what Solomon knew and for which he was a sad king. It is not the truth that David knew to live a life from which he was never free and yet for joy it made him dance with ecstasy.

The truth is from God. The truth of my religion is a misfit if its truth is from the very last of me. Its commissions will be of my own will and so my definitions of the world and the holy. True religion is commission from the Glory of God. No one can just walk up to it. Yet if the self is surrendered to Christ...the bible reads as something else, the gospel is made alive and definitions are made gentle and not harsh to the newer ear now possessed by the love of God. Assurance does not require to be shored up from the bible chapter and verse, it is plainly and joyfully from God.

As Christ can be our model, did Jesus lean on and off of scripture and tradition or on the Father for our truth? Is it by scripture and tradition that Jesus was able to know the Father? Or was it by praying to the Father and so knowing the Father that through the Father Jesus knew to find the truth in scripture and tradition and so discern the hearts of the men and the women of the times he was commissioned to ?

Was it easy for Paul to serve himself and us not to suspect how he made himself nothing to serve the Lord, when he said "... I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified."

Funny how that worked. When I am not there and I speak of the things of God, it is hard to minister a lie, or imagine things that are not in conformity with the whole counsel of God.

Do not ridicule experiences of others, most all of us have heard slanderous remarks about people who claim divine healing power, who claim to have been healed by the power of God, who claim the baptism in the Spirit, or who claim some other biblical experience. Some persons have so ridiculed all manifestations of the supernatural and miraculous that hundreds of thousands of people in our biggest churches know nothing of the real truth along these lines. Church members are taught to shun any mention of these biblical doctrines and to class all spiritual manifestations of the devil, or as fanaticism. The same members will smoke, chew, play cards, go to shows, drink, and commit all kinds of sins and their teachers will never rebuke them or cause them to shun these evils. What a sad condition!

 

[gordon 2]

Do not ridicule experiences of others,most all of us have heard slanderous remarks about people who claim divine healing power, who claim to have been healed by the power of God, who claim the baptism in the Spirit, or who claim some other biblical experience. Some persons have so ridiculed all manifestations of the supernatural and miraculous that hundreds of thousands of people in our biggest churches know nothing of the real truth along these lines. Church members are taught to shun any mention of these biblical doctrines and to class all spiritual manifestations of the devil, or as fanaticism. The same members will smoke, chew, play cards, go to shows, drink, and commit all kinds of sins and their teachers will never rebuke them or cause them to shun these evils. What a sad condition!

You are correct. It is sad.

Nevertheless it is written:

"For God is not a God of confusion but of peace."

 

[BanjoPicker]

God cannot : lie Heb. 6:17-19; deny Himself, or contrary to His own eternal truth 2 Tim. 2:13; have respect of persons Rom. 2:11; Col. 3:25; 2 Pet. 1:17; save a soul apart from faith and grace in Christ Rom. 3:25; Jn. 3:16; Eph. 2:8, 9; bless men contrary to faith in His Word Heb. 11:6; Jas. 1:5-8; Jn. 15:7; curse men who meet His conditions Mk. 1:15; 16:16; Lk. 13:1-5; 1 Jn. 1:9; change His eternal plan Acts 15:18; Eph. 2:7, 3:11; save rebels who persist in rebellion, refusing to meet His terms Pr. 1:22-33; 29:1; be tempted to do evil or tempt man with evil Jas. 1:13-15; forgive unconfessed sin Lk. 13:1-5; 1 Jn. 1:9; and keep one saved who turns back to sin and lives in rebellion Gen. 2:17; Ezek. 3:17-21; 18:4-24; 33:7-16; Mk. 7:19-21; Rom. 1:21-23; 6:16-23; 8:12, 13; Gal. 5:19-21; 6:7, 8; Col. 3:5-10.

 

[Ruger#3]

This susceptibility of man to judge another is the devils handi work, God frowns upon it.

1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.”

 

[BanjoPicker]

Matt. 5:10: Blessed are they which are persecuted, for righteousness' sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Matt. 5:11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
Matt. 5:12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Amen Praise the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

[gordon 2]

This susceptibility of man to judge another is the devils handi work, God frowns upon it.

1 “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 2 For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 3 “Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye?

“Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.”

Sometimes what is thought to be judgement is not judgement at all. And even persecution. Rather it is love, even imperfect and so human, which is passed and is beyond judgement.

Is fellowship for judgement or that we might confess to one another in the spirit of the risen Christ?

"For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?"

Iron sharpens iron. So what does it matter that I am the knife today and the steel tomorrow? And that I am what is cut today and what cuts tomorrow?

 

[Ruger#3]

Sometimes what is thought to be judgement is not judgement at all. And even persecution. Rather it is love, even imperfect and so human, which is passed and is beyond judgement.

Is fellowship for judgement or that we might confess to one another in the spirit of the risen Christ?

"For the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives.” It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline?"

Iron sharpens iron. So what does it matter that I am the knife today and the steel tomorrow? And that I am what is cut today and what cuts tomorrow?

Confessing sins one unto another is as directed. Man is not the steel nor the one who forgives. Only God can forgives and as you say chastises. To assume one can judge and chastise is step too far for me.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Daniel 9:9 “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.” your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more”

 

[gordon 2]

Confessing sins one unto another is as directed. Man is not the steel nor the one who forgives. Only God can forgives and as you say chastises. To assume one can judge and chastise is step too far for me.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.” Daniel 9:9 “The Lord our God is merciful and forgiving, even though we have rebelled against him.” your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more”

I agree. And now you know why the notions of a Great Apostacy and "The Great Fix" is so foreign to me.

 

[BanjoPicker]

God limits Himself, according to His own revelation of Himself, along other lines, whether by nature or by choice is not always stated. For example God's compassion and love can be considered infinite and all-comprehensive, yet He naturally has to limit the exercise of His love to those that will not conform to His plan Ex. 20:5, 6; Jn. 3:16-18. God has had to punish people whom He one time had compassion for. His faithfulness can be spoken of as infinite , but He must limit it according to His plan for those who merit it Ex. 32:7-14; 30-35. We speak of the infinite Fatherhood of God, Yet He has to limit His parenthood to those who will become His children according to His plan Lk. 11:9-13; Acts 5:32; Heb. 12:5-10.

 

[gordon 2]

God limits Himself, according to His own revelation of Himself, along other lines, whether by nature or by choice is not always stated. For example God's compassion and love can be considered infinite and all-comprehensive, yet He naturally has to limit the exercise of His love to those that will not conform to His plan Ex. 20:5, 6; Jn. 3:16-18. God has had to punish people whom He one time had compassion for. His faithfulness can be spoken of as infinite , but He must limit it according to His plan for those who merit it Ex. 32:7-14; 30-35. We speak of the infinite Fatherhood of God, Yet He has to limit His parenthood to those who will become His children according to His plan Lk. 11:9-13; Acts 5:32; Heb. 12:5-10.

I had always considered, now I doubt, that it was not that God had a parenthood of limits that was the cause of his remnant peoples. I had assumed from the story of the prodigal son for example that it was that man himself who strayed that caused his estate to be in the mire and that even then this man could return of his own account as there was no limits to God's grace and plans. How much did the father rejoice and now the heavens also that the prodigal's son returned?

And I had thought, but now I doubt, it is for His love by which is placed in us to minister and to live to those like ourselves who cannot by themselves and could never conform to His plan. Otherwise it would not be grace.

I had always thought that God was a god of no limits as to his mercy towards the undeserving, but now I have doubts, that it was the Father's will in Christ to gather up all who would call on Him in our Lord Jesus and so it is to so love the world. Is it to us to fix a random limit to His grace and so we are made intimate sons below or above a mark or is it for His grace, for all His love, as of a love of a totally limitless nature that we are made intimate sons?

And so the struggle is to love God or not to love God. And being made to love God is our answer. Perhaps---- as it was in the beginning.

 

[Artfuldodger]

God limits Himself, according to His own revelation of Himself, along other lines, whether by nature or by choice is not always stated. For example God's compassion and love can be considered infinite and all-comprehensive, yet He naturally has to limit the exercise of His love to those that will not conform to His plan Ex. 20:5, 6; Jn. 3:16-18. God has had to punish people whom He one time had compassion for. His faithfulness can be spoken of as infinite , but He must limit it according to His plan for those who merit it Ex. 32:7-14; 30-35. We speak of the infinite Fatherhood of God, Yet He has to limit His parenthood to those who will become His children according to His plan Lk. 11:9-13; Acts 5:32; Heb. 12:5-10.

I don't believe this is a very good description of God at all. If God limited his love to only those with merit, then none would ever experience God's salvation from grace.
Plus if we pre-existed, then God can't limit his parenthood to those who will "become" His children.
If God limits His revelation, it's definitely His choice.

 

[gordon 2]

It occurs to me, this morning while reading Paul's Ephesians, that we might have different ways of giving glory to God because we make our own particular mash and moonshine out of scripture--- like in the case of Ephesians.

Not that we are lunatics, but we like all other human beings don't all get drunk by the same amounts of sauce nor sit at the spout at the same time.

In Ephesians Paul is explaining with great concentration what work God has done, is doing and will do with the Christian and Jewish communities in Ephesus. In other words Paul is pointing out ( ministering) who God is due to his will which is now increasingly knowable. Paul combines all the good elements for then new faith through our Lord Jesus Christ for which it would command our giving glory to God.

"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better."

I have to wonder if we do not of Paul's Ephesians think to much, drink to much with a mix of ourselves that does not need to be there and so we all including myself jump away from the little book, all falling down stupid. Our bitter here, our salt there, old fashions and new fashions.

We would add to the master brewer and our apostle Paul, something better, something new because of what the brew does to us we could make Paul's brews better. Paul trains us to be better brewers than he is, we think, we know. Being called out of time an apostle, what does it matter now?

Aw! We come home sleeping in the cart, or the taxis, the horse's reins tied to the seat, our horse knowing the way home and so we sleep our delirium tremors that our personal God is more than the one Paul knew.

I think we are studying Ephesians but it would not be fashionable to name this for what it is.

 

[BanjoPicker]

We speak of God's infinite grace, yet He has limited it to those that humbly receive it Rom. 12:3-8; Titus 2:11-13. We speak of God's infinite care, yet He can care only for those that permit Him to help them 1 Pet. 5:5-10. We speak of God as being immutable and unchangeable, yet He has had to change His plans, set aside His promised blessings, change prophecy that was based upon conditions, and do many things that He did not first intend to do. All this had two be done because of the failure on the part of those with whom He was dealing. There are many prophecies and promises in Scripture based upon people meeting certain conditions Lev. 26:3-45; Deut. 11:13-32; 12:1-32; 28:1-62; 30:15-20; Isa. 1:15-20; 55:1-13; 59:8-14.
We speak of God as being impartial and no respecter of persons, yet He has been forced to be impartial to those that have obeyed Him. This is His plan. All can enjoy the plan if they choose, and concerning this, God cannot be partial and still be just.

 

[gordon 2]

We speak of God's infinite grace, yet He has limited it to those that humbly receive it Rom. 12:3-8; Titus 2:11-13. We speak of God's infinite care, yet He can care only for those that permit Him to help them 1 Pet. 5:5-10. We speak of God as being immutable and unchangeable, yet He has had to change His plans, set aside His promised blessings, change prophecy that was based upon conditions, and do many things that He did not first intend to do. All this had two be done because of the failure on the part of those with whom He was dealing. There are many prophecies and promises in Scripture based upon people meeting certain conditions Lev. 26:3-45; Deut. 11:13-32; 12:1-32; 28:1-62; 30:15-20; Isa. 1:15-20; 55:1-13; 59:8-14.
We speak of God as being impartial and no respecter of persons, yet He has been forced to be impartial to those that have obeyed Him. This is His plan. All can enjoy the plan if they choose, and concerning this, God cannot be partial and still be just.

It seems to me that if we base God's justice on that god which cannot be partial or partisan and still be just we might be captives to a transactional god and not a god offering grace, ( as others have mentioned.) I might be wrong but why do we describe God, the God of Jacob, as worldly? Worldly interactions are transactional if I understood the world correctly, and wholesome and natural exchanges are relational. etc...

Rather it might be that God's justice is clearly relational and not transactional. It issues out of love for the body and soul of man due actual and potential relationship.

I know this must read like New Age mumbo jumbo but if it is New Age I think there might be some truth to it.

 

[BanjoPicker]

We speak of God as being invisible, yet He has been seen as a visible person by many. We speak of God’s longsuffering as being infinite, yet it has come to an end many times Ex. 32:7-34; 34:6. God is spoken of as infinite in mercy, yet He has had to curse people whom He had previously had mercy upon Ex. 15:13; 1 Cor. 10:1-12.

 

[gordon 2]

It is my understanding which might be incorrect that God never cursed anyone. Man curses himself and no one else. Yet we say God curses because God has made man that when man gets full of himself by turning away from relationship with God he is cursed by the peace, the slavery, the enmity with himself and himself as others and the wars he makes on himself.

Often man's experience of God, saying to "see" God, is not and is meant as we see with the extension of our brain when we look at our sisters and brothers for example, and so with our eyes. Often to "see" God is to be with or to "see" inside God, in Him and in our ourselves simultaneously. To "see" is the movement of the mind ( thinking) and the emotional; ( feeling) so that the mind and the emotions, and so the soul is isolated from the body. And so others become not as the flat images in a book and mere cutout, but multi layered and so multi dimensional.

22 “The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 23 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

The eyes of man see by what is inside of themselves and if you don't believe me, believe Jesus who it is reported said so. What man sees is not just images of things but the lit up of things as God "sees" them and many times does not.

When I was a boy my mother would buy "cutouts". The images on a sheet of paper that were surrounded with lines and perforations sometimes with tabs attached to the images so that when one cut out the images you could fasten two or three images together and so images acquired depths and form but with no insides. Sometimes that is how we proceed with scripture, we make "cutouts" from the flat page, line, verse and chapter but there is no inside. When Moses and his boys went up to mountain and "saw" God they "saw" the forms inside of Him from the insides of themselves. It was not a cutout experience. Seeing was being with. It was no longer transactional. Seeing, spiritually seeing was relational seeing. It was not seeing for a scientific method of seeing, it was seeing for a bona fide way of seeing said spiritual. It was seeing as per the Hymn " I once was blind, but now I see." The author was never blind once, rather he "saw" from a new place inside himself, a place that he had been blind to up to some point in his life.

When I was a young man my father warned me that a woman had "seen" while she had been in our church praying. I suppose I was making light and fun of people in our church and so possibly he wished to steer me that somethings in the spiritual realm are not to be made light of--that where people had "seen" must be respected.

And so I asked, "What was it like? What did she see?" And he could not answer me, or chose not to. He repeated, " She "saw". And I understand it now to mean she was in Christ and Christ was in her and so in each other out of body and in the body as to separate the soul from the body and so to each other in the spiritual way of seeing. And a way of seeing common to Christ, common to Paul, common to that short and nosy man who climbed a tree to see Jesus go by and ended up seeing from the inside what was not only the image of Jesus but what was inside God.

It is too easy to build a Holy Ghost arc with scripture, to cut it out and captain it and so load god into it. It is from this arc that Paul persecuted Christians. It was so bad for Paul that God "saw" fit to make him blind, and rewire his eyes and seeing, in order to save him and so save us. Paul was lost because his foundation was iffy. He could say the law ( scripture) kills. Been there, done that.

Or if this is too harsh, could I be like Jonas who sulked that God would make him see from the inside out and there was nothing he could do to reverse it.

"People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.” Meaning at the light and the darkness inside. Meaning that when we read scripture that some did see the Lord and they ate with Him they did not witness and eat by outward appearance. We say now they "saw" in the spirit and they ate spiritually. What they saw was not revealed except partly to us as who seek to have our accounts common to outward appearances.

 

[BanjoPicker]

And it goes with many of God's attributes and powers. He naturally has had to limit Himself in His dealings with free moral agents. So in the thought of God being limited concerning His knowledge of human affairs, we must conclude that it is not so much that God cannot know beforehand all things if He chose to do so, but He does choose to do this because of the very nature of His plan and because it was made in conjunction with unpredictable free mora agents. We can still believe that God is omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient, impartial, longsuffering, by nature, but that He limits Himself according to His plan of dealing with other beings who are capable of free actions, and therefore, it cannot be known what they will do under all circumstances until they are tested. This is the only kind of a plan that God could justly make since it includes the personal relations with creatures capable of free and unpredictable choices.

 

[BanjoPicker]

The Godhead consist of three separate and distinct Persons. This fact is simply stated in Scripture: "For there are THREE that bear witness in heaven, the Father, the Word and the Holy Ghost: and these THREE are ONE. And there are THREE that bear witness in earth, the Spirit, and the water, and the blood; and these THREE agree in ONE." 1 Jn. 5:7, 8.
Here we may say that the only sense in which THREE can be ONE is the sense of unity, and ONE PERSON cannot be THREE PERSONS in any sense. So the old idea that God exists as three persons in one person is not only unscriptural, but it is ridiculous to say the least.