Not By Works

  • Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.

    If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!

    To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
Apr 30, 2016
5,162
75
0
You're 70 years old. So yes, for some of them, you're old enough to be their mother. And I'm not jealous. I'm happily single, and know better than to flirt with married men.. :eek:

And they don't flirt back with you, so that should tell you they aren't interested.. LOL
You're not very smart Blue...
 

BillG

Senior Member
Feb 15, 2017
9,020
4,439
113
To let love cover a multitude of sin and forgive is most definitely divine........it goes beyond human reasoning for sure.....!
It sure does.

The problem is that we can approach God with human reasoning.

We expect God to work in a certain way and let's be honest when we do that it tends to be selfish and we tend to make it conditional.

Things like, if I'm a good child can you do this?
If it doesn't happen then we get mad at God.

We are basically trying to earn Gods love, put him in a box, our own box.

I have learned that over the last years.
One day sat praying and I said to God please do this, he said no there are other things I want to deal with.

So I have come to the place where I just say to him, search me, my innermost being what do you want to do.

As I come to trust him more and more and know he truly loves me it's easier to say "ok what is it you want to do in me? Rather than what is it I can do to get you to love me more.

Believe it or not part of my ministry in Church is to come alongside new Christian's and people wanting to know more about our faith along with hurting people. I love it.

I encourage them not to put God in a box, not to come to him because you want something but because he loves you.
Then let him see fit in how he wants to work in you.

His love is perfect and that being the case he will work in you for what's best for you. Trust that and you will be very surprised.
Put everything aside, give it all up and allow him to work and trust his perfect love.

What I find sad and this is for believers is that a lot I have spent time with do not know this


John 17:23
I in them, and You in Me; that they may be made perfect in one, and that the world may know that You have sent Me, and have loved them as You have loved Me.

When I realised this it really started to help me.

God loves me, loves you, loves everyone as much as he loves Jesus.

That is beyond human reasoning but if we start to trust it, and claim it then goodness knows what God can do in us.
The sky is not even a limit.

Everyone know God loves us as much as he loves Jesus.
 

BillG

Senior Member
Feb 15, 2017
9,020
4,439
113
This is a faith alien to me. If you say something that is impossible to know, it is a faith
position.

Now the lie within this faith position is God is not interested in us working through our
sins, but this is wrong. He wants us to see everything, to know why this sin or that is
evil and how to minister love to people despite their issues.

Take a for instance. Ptsd in soldiers can lead to total sexual immoral behaviour
where someone will have 3 separate partners in one evening. They have lost touch
with intimacy and care and are spiralling out of control.

So repentance is not the simple answer but recognising a life shattering experience.

So much is connected, it is not a list of wrongs to right, it is about love, graciousness,
value, hurt, understanding, a walk where you begin to feel with the Lord who you are
and answer, the where the needs are. Everything we do, we do with feeling, finding that
often reveals the person within. What you will often discover is a victim, who needs
Jesus's embrace. This my dear friends is the power of the cross.
Asking Jesus to reveal the cause of the effect.
Then allowing Jesus to deal with cause that causes the effect.

Not focusing on the effect but asking Jesus to dig it out the cause and heal it. Then Jesus will increase and the things we do wrong will decrease.

Jesus rights the wrongs within us, we can't right our own wrongs.

I think that's what you are saying.
If so I fully agree and I applaud your post.

If not then I'm happy for you to correct me.
 

BillG

Senior Member
Feb 15, 2017
9,020
4,439
113
She actually hates my guts at the end of the day.......serious
I know Fran of old, or is it Fran is old? Either way both are true.

I think she is like us all here on this thread.
She, you, me don't hate people, yes we get naffed off with each other.

You have yourself said you don't hate anyone (even your hardest opponents) just what they believe detracts from saving faith.
So you have made that very clear, you don't hate them but their doctrine.

Having known Fran for a while I would say she is the same.

Mind you given my opening sentence I may fall foul Fran not hating me.
I hope she doesn't carry a brick in her handbag.
 

BillG

Senior Member
Feb 15, 2017
9,020
4,439
113
70-50=20

I had my son at 23....hmmm..

My mom is smoking some chicken for dinner.,, does that count?
Now as an accountant I have just got my calculator out (haven't got enough fingers or toes)

Now given that 70-50 = 20 yet we have a value of 23 then that's appreciation (as opposed to depreciation i.e 17)

Appreciation is to add value.

I appreciate your posts.
 
Aug 15, 2009
9,745
179
0
Exactly what you push and espouse.....you are one of the top two or three CAINOLOGISTS who push and espouse the false gospel of works and sinless perfectionism....cake taker for sure.....!
Before I be told I've made a mistake of believing that I was one of those three, I want to know who the other two are.
 

longtrekker

Senior Member
Sep 23, 2014
396
195
43
thats the answer,

Pride keeps people from coming to Christ, lack of pride allows them to repent.

Perhaps a topic for a different thread…but is it pride only?...or pride plus something else? Or can there be some other very different reasons for not believing.


i.e. rebellion and wanting to be one’s own god? (which is pride I’m sure…) or not being witnessed to, or not wanting to give up one’s sins for a season or forever? Or anger with God? Perhaps all the reasons in their essence do distil back to pride.
 
A

Ariel82

Guest
Fyi...magenta and Dcon are NOT sock puppets.
 
A

Ariel82

Guest

Perhaps a topic for a different thread…but is it pride only?...or pride plus something else? Or can there be some other very different reasons for not believing.


i.e. rebellion and wanting to be one’s own god? (which is pride I’m sure…) or not being witnessed to, or not wanting to give up one’s sins for a season or forever? Or anger with God? Perhaps all the reasons in their essence do distil back to pride.
Also having such a low opinion of self that they don't believe anyone can love them.

Or fear of rejection.
 
Feb 24, 2015
13,204
168
0
This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.
John 3:19

Light shows everything up for what it is, but it allows you to walk in love and truth
with the Lord.

Darkness means you can imagine what you want and not face reality and continue
to invent achievements that do not exist and not just follow Jesus and purify ones
life through repentance, faith and obedience.

It is all to possible to make ones own cake and eat it in the darkness because no
one can show you you are talking rubbish and just have hay, straw and stubble.

We are the people of the light, those who walk in the Spirit and not the flesh, so
as Paul says

Flee the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.
2 Tim 2:22
 
E

eternally-gratefull

Guest

Perhaps a topic for a different thread…but is it pride only?...or pride plus something else? Or can there be some other very different reasons for not believing.


i.e. rebellion and wanting to be one’s own god? (which is pride I’m sure…) or not being witnessed to, or not wanting to give up one’s sins for a season or forever? Or anger with God? Perhaps all the reasons in their essence do distil back to pride.
Pride is self, it is the flesh, anything done in the flesh is a result of pride,

humility looks outward, true humility is a sacrifice of self, only it can recieve Christ in faith, and only in it can we not sin.

 
E

eternally-gratefull

Guest
Also having such a low opinion of self that they don't believe anyone can love them.

Or fear of rejection.

Just a different aspect of Pride. It all is about self