You just don't get the point. You are focusing on the details, and not the message. Let that devil in, and he will eat your brain.
LOL. I didn't read that your were replying to Stu. I guess I was focusing on trading and reading at the same time and didn't pay much attention to the quote. Just thought your were telling me, like I always hear on this thread, that I'm wrong. So, I guess my response doesn't make much sense....no points at all for my response. EDIT: Actually, now that I logged in to post on the thread, I realize it's because I was logged in and didn't see the quote was from Stu. Having Stu on block does have it's disadvantages, sometimes. But if he were only nicer....
So, my thoughts this morning have been focusing on God's love for His own, even when He has been hurt by us. I'm so thankful that God is stable, consistent in His character and kind in His heart. It's helped me a lot to get through times when I've felt hurt by people because I can think about how I have hurt God, yet He still loves me. This love does also apply to those who have not become His own. God will punish sin, but does not enjoy doing so or want to. (2 Peter 3:9) He wants all to be saved. It's people's choice to sin and to refuse to be reconciled to God in the way He commanded us (through Jesus) that brings God's everlasting judgment. Does God have feelings? He created people in His image. Although we can't say God is LIKE us, (because He is the origin, we are the creation) in experiencing hurts, we can say that some of what we experience with our emotions of love, anger, emotional pain, sorrow, must be LIKE God's experience of those things, because we were made in His image, in His likeness. Scripture also portrays God as experiencing these emotions. Here is an excerpt from an article talking about God's emotional response to people's sins: https://www.jba.gr/Articles/jba2004_02.htm The sadness of God's heart for the sin of His people In the times of Jeremiah, the people of Israel were in apostasy. This kept actually for quite some years and the writings of many of the prophets are in many cases, not to say in most, pleads for return and repentance and warnings for the coming judgment. Unfortunately, the people of God did not respond to these warnings. Reading some records from Jeremiah and Hosea will show us what great sadness and distress this caused to God. This may sound surprising to our ears as many implicitly or explicitly have difficulties to connect God with feelings we have over situations. Well, God’s Word tells us that we were made in God’s image (Genesis 1:26) and it also shows us that we can make God joyful, pleased, angry or sad. If we think that our behavior has no effects to God’s heart but it only adds some points against us or for us then we are totally wrong. We can make God glad and we can make God sad! All depends on our behavior. In the case of the Israelites of the time of Jeremiah and Hosea, we can see that they had seriously hurt God’s heart. In Jeremiah 8:18-9:3 God is pouring out His heart revealing the effect the rebellious behavior of His people had on Him: Jeremiah 8:18-9:3 I would comfort myself in sorrow; My heart is faint in me. Listen! The voice, The cry of the daughter of my people from a far country: "Is not the LORD in Zion? Is not her King in her?" "Why have they provoked Me to anger with their carved images - With foreign idols?" "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved!" For the hurt of the daughter of my people I am hurt. I am mourning; Astonishment has taken hold of me. Is there no balm in Gilead, Is there no physician there? Why then is there no recovery for the health of the daughter of my people? Oh, that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people! Oh, that I had in the wilderness a lodging place for travelers; That I might leave my people, and go from them! For they are all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men. And like their bow they have bent their tongues for lies. They are not valiant for the truth on the earth. For they proceed from evil to evil, and they do not know Me," says the LORD. This is not Jeremiah’s personal sorrow. Many commentators present it as so, but a reading of the passage (see especially the phrases: “they provoked Me” and “says the Lord”) would make clear that it is God that is speaking here. It is God that expresses His heart and feelings here. It is God that was provoked to anger with their images and it He that wanted to leave them and cry endlessly because they didn’t know Him. God was terribly sorrowful for the sin of His people. And God is sorrowful when we sin. The New Testament tell us clearly “to grieve not the holy spirit of God, by which we were sealed for the day of redemption” (Ephesians 4:30). The spirit of God can be grieved. God IS sorrowful when we reject Him. When we willfully forsake His way to walk somewhere else, due to personal passions, wills and ambitions. When instead of bowing down to Him and say “your will be done and not mine” we move ahead carelessly and without fearing Him. The spirit of God is not indifferent but sorrowful in such cases. Hosea Hosea 11 is another passage where God expresses His feeling towards the apostasy of His people: Hosea 11 "When Israel was a child, I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son. As they called them, so they went from them; They sacrificed to the Baals, and burned incense to carved images. "I taught Ephraim to walk, taking them by their arms; But they did not know that I healed them. I drew them with gentle cords, with bands of love, and I was to them as those who take the yoke from their neck. I stooped and fed them. "He shall not return to the land of Egypt; But the Assyrian shall be his king, because they refused to repent. And the sword shall slash in his cities, devour his districts, and consume them, because of their own counsels. My people are bent on backsliding from Me. Though they call to the Most High, None at all exalt Him. "How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I set you like Zeboiim? My heart churns within Me; My sympathy is stirred. I will not execute the fierceness of My anger; I will not again destroy Ephraim. For I am God, and not man, The Holy One in your midst; And I will not come with terror. "They shall walk after the LORD. He will roar like a lion. When He roars, then His sons shall come trembling from the west; They shall come trembling like a bird from Egypt, like a dove from the land of Assyria. And I will let them dwell in their houses," Says the LORD. "Ephraim has encircled Me with lies, and the house of Israel with deceit; But Judah still walks with God, even with the Holy One who is faithful.” This passage shows another aspect going on in the heart of God concerning the rebellion of His people. His fierce anger and his sympathy were in struggle in Him. When the Bible says that his people provoked him to anger it is very real! God is a long suffering God and slow to anger but He does get angry! It takes long to make Him angry. He is VERY patient but He can do indeed get angry and rebellion of His people is certainly a main reason. In the above case, it is like God struggling against this anger. His heart was churn within Him! Many people think of God as an Almighty but rather motionless being. This is not at all true. We have a real relationship with God and as in any relationship we can make him glad, blessed, sad, angry etc and this due to our behavior. Our God is not a set of cold rules which if you follow you will succeed...... Anastasios Kioulachoglou Below are some verses I read this morning to remind myself that God is my example for handling my emotional hurts. God wants to "reason together" with us so that we can be cleansed from our sinful conduct against Him and restored to relationship. He is not unfeeling, but is deeply hurt by our sins and rejections of Him. The remedy is to acknowledge those offenses and be reconciled to God through the substitution Jesus made for us on the cross. Just as the Israelites had to consciously make a deliberate effort to look at the bronze snake on a pole to be healed from the deadly snake bites, so we must deliberately look to Jesus and what He did on our behalf on the cross, confessing our guilt to God and choosing to receive the free gift of forgiveness through Jesus' blood. Jesus' death on the cross was a bloody mess. He had been whipped. He wore a crown of thorns. He was pierced by the nails that held Him to the cross. The animal sacrifices in the Old Testament gave the picture and promise that one day God's wrath against sin would be satisfied by the death of an unblemished Substitute. Just as the sacrificial death from animals required the shedding of their blood, Jesus also shed His blood on the cross. God poured out His wrath against our sin upon His own beloved Son so that all who will come to God through Jesus, will have the guilt of their sins cleansed and be granted the same standing before God as though we had the righteousness of Jesus. But He gives us the choice to repent and believe and become one of His family, or refuse. "God made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God." 2 Cor 5:21 But I did find this: God created people to be virtuous, but they have each turned to follow their own downward path. Ecc 7:29 They hated Me without a cause. John 15:25 But like Adam they have violated the covenant; There they have dealt treacherously with Me. Hosea 6:7 Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they will be as white as snow; though they are as red as crimson, they will become like wool. Isaiah 1:18 As Jesus approached Jerusalem and saw the city, He wept over it and said, “If only you had known on this day what would bring you peace! Luke 19:42 And a couple of my favorite verses: [Jesus told His disciples] "No one has greater love [nor stronger commitment] than to lay down his own life for his friends. You are my friends if you keep on doing what I command you." John 15:13, 14 Amplified Bible
How am I not nice for goodness sake?? It was userque who satrted name calling in this thread and YOU called me a troll for critisizing your preposterous religious claims I respond by pointing out there's nothing more troll like than you reading my posts when you have me on ignore... and that's not ME being nice!?? puleeze I think you must read and misunderstand everything that's been pointed out to you in the same way you misunderstood who Overnight's post was aimed at. I'm the nicest guy in the world so fk you You could try being more rational and stop being such a bible thumping dick.
Stu-you posted dead kitties on Expiated's thread and said, "The expiated posts and the wickle kittenz die." That is NOT nice.
Give it a rest. Anyone not trying to be a complete knobhead knows the wikkle kittenz aren't dead. I suppose when you started name calling, that was you NOT being NOT nice. But when I make fun of someone flooding a thread with ridiculous bible text, that's me being NOT nice. Dude, grow up. You don't have any reasonable argument to make and you have me on ignore, so just stop reading my posts.
"Born once, die twice; born twice, die once." This is a quote from Martin Luther. This quote is based on what Jesus taught, that one must be born a second time, of God's Spirit, in order to enter the Kingdom of God. 1. Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. 2 He came to Jesus at night and said, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God. For no one could perform the signs you are doing if God were not with him.” 3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” 4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!” 5 Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. 7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” John 3:1-8 NIV
su·per·sti·tion The belief in an imaginary concept or concepts irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature, or by faith in magic or chance. The worship of idols; the worship of physical objects or images as gods An irrational belief in unfounded claims and explanations arising from fear An unfounded belief that an object, action, idea, or circumstance not logically related to a course of events influences its outcome. Christianity and Scientology are officially recognised as religions, rather than just cults. A cult is a group who believes in bizarre theories and superstitions, practice daft rituals and accept ridiculous restrictions on their behaviour. Whereas a religion…….