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© Steve Martin
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I am a spiritual seeker, just like you. I have sampled the religious institutions of humans and found them unable to contain the greatness of God. All my life, I have had deep questions about God and my relationship to Him: Why am I here? Why is there so much evil in the world? Is the universe coming to an end? What will happen to my unbelieving loved ones after they die? How important is it to attend a church? I didn’t find answers in church. In fact, most of the churches I attended or visited didn't even want to hear the questions.
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Sometimes life gets so difficult that we wish God would leave us alone. Don't worry; He never will. Just ask David.
We like to trumpet things that we do, but not God. In fact, even we have yet to see all of His true wisdom. He does His most wondrous works in secret.
The presence of the phrase "not feignedly is [the authority] wearing the sword" in Romans 13:4 is proof (among other proofs) that the authorities of Romans 13:1-7 are not the apostles.
When it comes to being subject to superior authorities, people ceaselessly try to ply me with, "Yeah, but what if the government..." Such faithless people—really. So hard to actually believe Romans chapter 13, I guess.
Even some believers will do anything and take any Scripture out of context to avoid recognizing that God has placed government over them and that they are to be subject to that government, so that they might lead a mild and quiet life in accord with the injunction of the apostle Paul.
From people who should know better comes another transparent, weak and unscriptural attempt to excuse believers from having to subject themselves to civil authorities.
There is a finite number of human beings, dogs, cats, and flies that God intends to bring into the eonian times. Why should this comfort us and why is it important for the glory of God?
One of the reasons that Christians can't accept the plain statement in Isaiah 46:10 that God creates evil, is because they assume that evil is sin. What if it can be proven that evil is NOT sin. Well, here's the proof.
When God is finished using sin and death for His good purposes (and all His purposes are good), then sin and death are abolished, leaving only the glorious realizations (salvation and life) that they produced.
Christians will never SAY that sin threw God for a loop (because they're hypocrites), but this is their precise theology.
God is responsible for everything that exists. Sin exists. Therefore, God is responsible for sin. Does this make God a sinner? It does not. Sin means "to miss the mark." God did not miss the mark by bringing sin into His universe; sin serves an important purpose in the revelation of salvation. The Christian view, that sin entered the universe surreptitiously, apart from God's original intention, is the teaching that, ironically enough, makes God a sinner. In attempting to relieve God of responsibility for sin, it is the Christians who ironically turn Him into a sinner.
It sucks to be a vessel of dishonor (Romans 9:21), but God will eventually deliver these vessels from their awful role, and the relief will be palpable and glorious.
How can God judge people whom He makes the way they are? God has a unique "problem" in that He does everything. In order for a God Who does everything to still judge, He must by necessity judge those whom He makes the way they are. This is no problem at all—unless one desire to sit in judgment of God and assume God to be nothing but an upgraded human. Let God be found true though every person an idiotic and ill-advised critic, sinner or cheat.
God gave us a lighthouse so that we would not need to rely on private interpretations from fellow believers or otherwise to understand His ways and means.
The plainest, most direct insights into the true heart and mind of God were given to humanity via the apostle Paul. With Israel, God presented soulish things with soulish words—though the words were spiritual. With the nations, the words AND the presentation is spiritual. God moves us steadily away from soul and into the spirit.
Some think that the "letter that is killing" in 1 Corinthians 3:6 is the letter of the Scripture. Since these people are not versed in the Scripture (it's too hard and too intellectual), they like to carelessly dismiss it and focus instead on emotional, non-intellectual experiences with a Man they would never even have heard of apart from the letter: Jesus. "What is "the letter" of the context? It's pretty easy to discover for anyone who appreciates the importance of context.
Every single detail of life was decided ahead of time by God--every single thing--right down to the daily dialog of every person who ever lived. The comfort in this is, in fact, immense.
The only thing sustaining our sanity in this world is the spirit of God. In such a mad world we need mad volumes of spirit, and God provides. Others have the soul, we have the spirit. The soul is fleeting but the spirit sustains. The soul is cotton candy and evaporates so quickly that it needs constantly replenished. The spirit of God is a ribeye steak that continually supports without the manic gesticulations of the temporary thrill. We believers of the present have more spirit than believers of the past. More spirit means more of the fruit of "joy," enabling us to survive an unprecedented era of pressure that our predecessors could not even have imagined.
The Christian religion confuses soul and spirit constantly. A case can be made for this religion being COMPLETELY void of spirit, and thus subsisting solely on feelings and emotions. Members of the body of Christ, on the other hand, get raw truth via the spirit rather than the soul. This is not always accompanied by commensurate feelings.
What some may deem to be goofiness in some of my presentation is simply me being myself. Being oneself not only feels good, but it ENHANCES anyone's message when the truth is filtered through who God made us.
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