I think I'm on to something...but I do need some help...
- Thread starter JFSurvivor
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The Basics
-Jesus was God in the flesh and he came to Earth and died for our sins and rose on the third day
-The trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is three in one
-"being a good person" isn't good enough to get a person into heaven, you must accept Jesus as your savior
-God is loving and just
-Satan was once an angel but he rebelled against God and now roams the earth decieving people
-God created the world in 6 days and rested on the seventh
-Adam and Eve were the first humans
-Eve was decieved by the serpent and ate from the tree that God said not to and that plunged the world into sin
-a womans role is heavily debated
-God gave us the ten commandments
What "more" do I feel I need to learn to be accepted by God? NOTHING! This isn't about God. This is about me wanting a community that understands me and I understand them. I want a community that actually does what the Bible says and gets off the merry go round of the same verses and books over and over and over! I want big girl spiritual food. I'm done with baby food! I want a community that will give importance to the beginning of creation and the end times and everything in between. I am sick sick sick of all the hypocrasy! I just want people to TRY as opposed to saying "well I'm human". I have heard that so many times and each time they use it to justify themselves or the church for some wrongdoing! That is not ok!
So I cannot imagine that this is what God wants. If He wants me to wear a silly hat and walk around in pajamas I will do that because that is how he sees fit to be worshipped! If He wants me to celebrate the Jewish festivals then I will celebrate them! But I don't know what to do because mainstream Christianity is so freaking corrupt its crazy! It doesn't matter what I want to do or what I believe or what I think. What matters is scripture and what it says and what God wants. But mainstream Christianity has perverted the word so much and twisted it beyond recognition so now the people have become hateful and mean.
To sum up I want two things:
1) to please God and understand His word, not to gain his favor but just to know Him for the sake of knowing Him and to make him happy because I really do love him and I want to know HOW to make him happy.
2) to find a place where people actually TRY to follow the Bible and actually CARE
-Jesus was God in the flesh and he came to Earth and died for our sins and rose on the third day
-The trinity is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. God is three in one
-"being a good person" isn't good enough to get a person into heaven, you must accept Jesus as your savior
-God is loving and just
-Satan was once an angel but he rebelled against God and now roams the earth decieving people
-God created the world in 6 days and rested on the seventh
-Adam and Eve were the first humans
-Eve was decieved by the serpent and ate from the tree that God said not to and that plunged the world into sin
-a womans role is heavily debated
-God gave us the ten commandments
What "more" do I feel I need to learn to be accepted by God? NOTHING! This isn't about God. This is about me wanting a community that understands me and I understand them. I want a community that actually does what the Bible says and gets off the merry go round of the same verses and books over and over and over! I want big girl spiritual food. I'm done with baby food! I want a community that will give importance to the beginning of creation and the end times and everything in between. I am sick sick sick of all the hypocrasy! I just want people to TRY as opposed to saying "well I'm human". I have heard that so many times and each time they use it to justify themselves or the church for some wrongdoing! That is not ok!
So I cannot imagine that this is what God wants. If He wants me to wear a silly hat and walk around in pajamas I will do that because that is how he sees fit to be worshipped! If He wants me to celebrate the Jewish festivals then I will celebrate them! But I don't know what to do because mainstream Christianity is so freaking corrupt its crazy! It doesn't matter what I want to do or what I believe or what I think. What matters is scripture and what it says and what God wants. But mainstream Christianity has perverted the word so much and twisted it beyond recognition so now the people have become hateful and mean.
To sum up I want two things:
1) to please God and understand His word, not to gain his favor but just to know Him for the sake of knowing Him and to make him happy because I really do love him and I want to know HOW to make him happy.
2) to find a place where people actually TRY to follow the Bible and actually CARE
I'm terribly sorry your'e so confused. I pray the Lord will open your eyes and calm your spirit. I have to say, you're post here is pretty scary to me. Why are you looking to how people behave and not simply looking at, and following Jesus? Humans will almost ALWAYS disappoint you. You must believe there is NOTHING YOU can do to attain, or maintain salvation. If there were, then please tell me why Jesus had to die?
Accept Him, and let the Holy Spirit do His job. Peace, love and Grace to you.
Accept Him, and let the Holy Spirit do His job. Peace, love and Grace to you.
This is a difficult subject, very easy to misconstrue and arrive at a real mess.
1. There were many people, Jews by cultural association (ethnicity?), who were polytheist in Canaan, quite popularly until the time of the Maccabees, but even still in Jesus' time (who do you suppose were throwing sacrifices into Gehenna).
2. Most of these referred to their gods as "ba'al" or "lords", of which there were many, and these competed often, not only for followers, but between themselves, in a manner akin to egyptian, greek or roman pantheons. To christian understanding these were all demons, notably the "lord of Tyre" in Ezekiel 28, Ba'al Melqart, which is probably the eidolon for our modern understanding of Satan (capital S, as a personality, not just one of many "accusers").
3. At least one particular contention of this mythos held a chief god named "El". The word "El" has a sort of generic meaning, as we might call God, "God", or as Arabic christians, speaking Arabic, might call God, "Allah", if they're speaking native dialect. This doesn't mean they're referring to Islam, just as "El" in 900BC wasn't necessarily referring to "Elohim". Truely, these, and even the tet "YHWH" are not the "name of God", which is not pronounceable, and a very bad issue to even try.
4. Just as we now have pulp fiction writers of religious dogma, like rapture, thousands of years ago people trying to seem important would embellish stories and tradition. In one of these, "YHWH" had a wife, Asherah, or Ashtaroth. Now, Solomon had built many temples to foreign (false) gods, the ba'als, but subsequent kings also erected dedications to false beliefs, such as Manasseh a "totem" or "shrine" to Asherah, which was later destroyed by his grandson, Josiah.
5. Many asherah poles were fashioned in this false premise after Josiah. Considering the context of false idol worship (including but not limited to asherah poles) several kings "did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh" (2 Kings 23:32, 37; 24:9, 19) and ultimately this was a contributing factor to God's allowing of the Babylonian exile.
So, no, God (real God, capitol G) did not "have a wife", and the punishment for years of teaching he had such, led to calamity. A proper teaching would be, "False teachers taught that God had a wife, and when the people had believed it for such a time, God punished them all horribly".
1. There were many people, Jews by cultural association (ethnicity?), who were polytheist in Canaan, quite popularly until the time of the Maccabees, but even still in Jesus' time (who do you suppose were throwing sacrifices into Gehenna).
2. Most of these referred to their gods as "ba'al" or "lords", of which there were many, and these competed often, not only for followers, but between themselves, in a manner akin to egyptian, greek or roman pantheons. To christian understanding these were all demons, notably the "lord of Tyre" in Ezekiel 28, Ba'al Melqart, which is probably the eidolon for our modern understanding of Satan (capital S, as a personality, not just one of many "accusers").
3. At least one particular contention of this mythos held a chief god named "El". The word "El" has a sort of generic meaning, as we might call God, "God", or as Arabic christians, speaking Arabic, might call God, "Allah", if they're speaking native dialect. This doesn't mean they're referring to Islam, just as "El" in 900BC wasn't necessarily referring to "Elohim". Truely, these, and even the tet "YHWH" are not the "name of God", which is not pronounceable, and a very bad issue to even try.
4. Just as we now have pulp fiction writers of religious dogma, like rapture, thousands of years ago people trying to seem important would embellish stories and tradition. In one of these, "YHWH" had a wife, Asherah, or Ashtaroth. Now, Solomon had built many temples to foreign (false) gods, the ba'als, but subsequent kings also erected dedications to false beliefs, such as Manasseh a "totem" or "shrine" to Asherah, which was later destroyed by his grandson, Josiah.
5. Many asherah poles were fashioned in this false premise after Josiah. Considering the context of false idol worship (including but not limited to asherah poles) several kings "did what was evil in the eyes of Yahweh" (2 Kings 23:32, 37; 24:9, 19) and ultimately this was a contributing factor to God's allowing of the Babylonian exile.
So, no, God (real God, capitol G) did not "have a wife", and the punishment for years of teaching he had such, led to calamity. A proper teaching would be, "False teachers taught that God had a wife, and when the people had believed it for such a time, God punished them all horribly".
Well, it took you a bit of typing, but you finally got down to it. Pleasing God is not too hard. Just do what He did when He walked the earth. It was reported to us as the 2 greatest commandments.
The first involved loving Him. And the second involved doing what He did in those thirty-some years He was here..... loving the rest of the human beings on this planet.
The first involved loving Him. And the second involved doing what He did in those thirty-some years He was here..... loving the rest of the human beings on this planet.
It's waaay more complicated than that though! 1) where in the Bible does it say "all I want you to do is love people?" 2) If it were just about loving people then why don't more Christians do it????? 3) The first thing about loving God, that makes sense. But the question is HOW do you love God or better yet, how does God want to be loved by his people? How do we show God we love him? Well from what I can see...by keeping the ten commandments for starters...(see OP for verses).
B
If they are claiming God has a wife then you have the wrong church.
None of us have kept the 10 commandments, nor will we. We aren't capable. You right about trying to keep them as best you can and always trying to do better though. It just needs to be kept in perspective.
The festival...I don't think thats significant. What if he had a barmitzpha? Do we need to do that too?
You can stay in mainstream Christianity without total conformity also. Odds are pretty good that you'll never find a church that you're in total agreement with anyway.
None of us have kept the 10 commandments, nor will we. We aren't capable. You right about trying to keep them as best you can and always trying to do better though. It just needs to be kept in perspective.
The festival...I don't think thats significant. What if he had a barmitzpha? Do we need to do that too?
You can stay in mainstream Christianity without total conformity also. Odds are pretty good that you'll never find a church that you're in total agreement with anyway.