Christian
Fellowship Topics and Dialogues... |
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Consecration | Preaching | Laboring | Evolution? | Cultivation | <<<Back | More To Come! |
We were
Bought with a Price of the Lord Jesus Christ's Blood!
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Spreading
the Word of the Lord.
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Someone may ask the question... Q:"Since God has chosen us from the eternity past (Eph. 1:4) and we then believe in time (Acts 13:48), is gospel preaching necessary? If God has chosen a person to be saved, he will be saved regardless gospel preaching, no?" -Student |
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A:"This question will be one of those predestination vs free will questions... God works in the principle of incarnation. This means that altho God predestinated and chose us before time, He needs man's cooperation. Faith comes from hearing. Well, if no one ever spoke the gospel, how can anyone hear the faith? Another example is from Columbus Advance, when the speaker John Myer brought up the prayer "Lord, YOU do <insert spirital stuff> in me!" While it's true that God works in us, he needs our cooperation and our denying of the self. We can't sit back on our laurels and expect God to accomplish everything." -Student |
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| "That
is a good question. I would say "no" he will not be saved
without gospel preaching. Romans 10:14 and 15 address this very
question. Paul starts by asking "how shall they call upon Him
into whom they have not believed?" and ends with "how
beautiful are the feet of those who announce the news of good things!"
meaning the gospel. God has chosen to limit Himself to mankind.
Let me say that again to let it sink in, God has chosen to limit
Himself to mankind ...Amazing isn't it. His hands are tied unless there is a man to go and announce. Where would we be without the word's of the Lord, Paul, Martin Luther, Brother Nee and Lee or even the saints around us. Aren't you encouraged after being with the saints and hearing the words of faith. As we learned from the recent training "Prophesying is the excelling gift for the building up of the church." and prophesying is very connected to our will and our mouth. When we open our mouth in faith before the Lord and for His will He WILL fill it. One of the brothers asked how he could get faith and the response was to preach about faith... The Dark Ages were dark because the Word of God was concealed and hidden away in the Catholic church and only spoken in Latin which no one but the priests understood. Once the word began to reach the common people the world changed. So, yes God has chosen us, but if no one were sent to tell us that we were chosen would end up seeking other things but certainly not God and His economy." -Serving one |
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"Our God is a God of purpose, of recovery.. He will get what He wants.. with or without us.. We can either be one with His purpose and pursue after Him to be the recovered believers .. that is the overcomers or we can just be lukewarm in which case we will be left behind. May we all be encouraged to be drawn so that we can pursue, chase and run after Him.. with those who call on Him out of a pure heart." -anonymous |
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Labor
or Life Flowing?
(More on Consecration)
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"After
we saw His glory and beauty which is revealed through His son
in our spirit, normally we would offer ourselves as a living sacrifice,
consecrating to Him, giving Him the authority of our life so He
has the way to operate in us. If any of us haven't seen this revelation,
realizing this is the only way for both God and men to be satisfied,
please pray about this matter, pray the Lord will lead you onto
this road, pray that you will have the same view as His view.
For people who had already consecrated to the Lord, in this topic,
it is my burden to fellowship further about consecration. What's
the purpose of consecration? For a long time, I always perceived
as being used by the Lord or laboring for the Lord. In certain
extent, this kind of realization is not entirely correct. If we
come back to the Bible, we will find out in reality, consecration
is for "life" not "work". When we offered
ourselves to the Lord, not for the reason of we can work for him,
but for the reason of His operation in us. Our cooperation with
the Lord is our consecration in many words. Ok, now we have established
the purpose of consecration, not for works, but for "Live"
by allowing the Lord to operate in us. For example, many of us
will face the process of pick and choose pretty soon. Such as
work/job, school (more school? which school?), girlfriend/boyfriend,
or even marriage! We will have to make some kind of decision as
many people do everyday in the world. How are we going to choose?
How are we going to make decision to glorify God? The very difference
between man and "Christ-man" is your heart. Generally
speaking, once you fall in love with someone, your heart is filled
by her/him; You can't see or think straight, as we know how shortsighted
we are, we can't predict anything in the future for sure. We know
our "feelings" are NOT very reliable at all, (who knows,
maybe next month I am not going to feel the same way towards her;
and vice versa for her as well). So now let's come back to the
basics, since we received the revelation, we are the consecrated
people, need to have this unique set of mind, which is knowing
everything we do is for one purpose alone, contain more of Him.
Whenever I find I start to think from here, from the starting
point of "how this decision is going to containing more Christ?",
I know it is going to be the right decision. You may love this
girl very much so, (or you think you love her such and such),
please seek the Lord's will on this matter, follow His leading,
try not to defeat His saying on the decision, try not to outsmart
the Lord's pointing by pretending "hear nothing, see nothing".
Fellowship with others helps too; it could expose our "impure"
motives as well. In short, we need to consecrate ourselves daily,
fresh all the times, since we are very forgetful... May the Lord
shine in your heart, and reign as the rightful owner in you. Please
refer this thought to Rom 9:21-23also Eph 2:10" - student |
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| I haven't considered this difference before, whether consecration is for"life" or for "work." Yet, this is very much in concert with keepingChrist in focus! The Winter Advance on "hands full of Christ", the S&SMinistry studying about the Normal Christian Life, the College Conferenceon everything being substantiated by the Spirit, all emphasized this...keeping Christ in focus, and He is Life! Wow!" - student |
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Evolution
or Revelation?
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"The survival of the fittest concept is of little value scientifically. By definition, the fittest are those who survive. The term natural selection is misleading at best. It implies that there is an intelligent agent that chooses the fittest to survive. That does not happen in a naturalistic worldview. In fact, what really happens is that those that are unfit do not survive, or those that cannot survive perish. That is a truism, and using the words natural selection to express it does not make it any more useful or scientific." - serving one |
"The theory of evolution inundates today's culture esp. academia. The theory is purported as science yet does not pass the basic tests for scientific data. It would be a non-issue to us Christians except the core issue is to deny the existance of God. Can't have it both ways. The Bible shows a progression of life stages. Science misinterprets this as an evolution from stage to stage. So many scientists oppose evolutionary theories only to be silenced by the system. By far the biggest danger to evolutionary theories are not religion but the facts. It is harder to believe "the lies" than it is to believe the simple truth: God made the world. God loves the world. God sent His Son into the world to save the world. Amen!" -serving one |
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"But did God make the world in 7 human days ( 7 - 24 hour days)? If so, why are there dinosaur remains that are millions of years older than human remains? Just curious. I would like more discussion on this as it is a stumbling block for many? Please don't take this as a challenge, I'm just hoping to hear more fellowship on the issue since it can be considered a big one." - working one |
"Suggested reading: G.H.Pember's 'Earth's Earliest Ages'" - student |
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"There are two major schools of theological thought here concerning creation. First one says God created an "old" earth in Genesis in six days complete with fossils and dinosaur bones. He can do anything right? Many Christian scholars take this thought. They are referred to as "creationists." (As oppossed to evolutionists.) This creates many unanswered questions like why an old earth. Proper scientific study should only confirm the Bible not conflict with it. A bigger question for me was the origin of Satan and his rebellion. When and how did this happen. The
book by G.H. Pember and other excellent books present another
view which I feel answers all the questions. The basic thought
is that the Genesis record is a restoration of the earth after
Satan's rebellion, not the original creation of the earth. Many
verses allude to this including the very first verse of the Bible,
"and the earth was without form and void." Unfortunately,
this viewpoint is not embraced by all Christians, and is referred
to by some as the "gap theory." Even though this topic
is not a major tenet of our Christian faith, the first school
does give the evolutionists more ammunition to deny God using
scientific study, as you mentioned in your question." |
"The Gap theory is quite interesting although I find it hard to fully understand. My thought is that a day (as per the first 6 days) were over a longer period of time, simply because God is infinite, so His definition of a day could be taken as an infinite amount of human days, depending on what God wanted. Whether he just put the bones there or had animals (including dinosaurs) rule the Earth for a non-specific amount of human days equivalent to one God day. We could be living in the eighth or ninth day." - working one
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"I've also entertained the possibility of a longer "day," because it made sense to me that different beings would have different time scale. However, the MacArthur Study Bible I have, based on the New King James version, has some footnotes in Genesis 1 that point to the phrase, (and this now comes from the recovery version) "And there was evening and there was morning." This seems fairly indicative of an Earth day, based on the earth's rotation, not a day in God's timescale (hmm, unless Earth's rotation as it stands now is a dramatic increase from 10,000 years ago, then we'd be in some trouble...). Gen
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.
And there was evening and there was morning, one day
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"I agree with you that the Genesis days look like 24 hour "earth days," not unlimited length "God days." I hope all your frustration is directed toward the computer not the Bible and it's Author. Until Darwin et. al., mankind had a more simple faith in the word of God. As you say the "creationists" and "evolutionists" throwing flames and rebuttals at each other. But ... not only creation, also the deity of Christ, His birth, His death, His resurrection, etc. even the Bible itself. Every truth concerning Christ that we hold dear has been and will be twisted, slandered, denied, rebutted, etc. Because what is happening on earth is just a reflection of the war being waged in the heavenlies between principalities. It has been aptly said that the church is the war zone between God and Satan. You made the comment "I sometimes wonder what kind or sense of humor God has, to leave this issue so widely open." Is it really wide open? The creation is indisputable in His word. "All things came into being thru Him, and apart from Him nothing has come into being." The Bible can't be any clearer. Both the Old Test. and the New Test. It is a system of error called evolution devised by God's enemy which has been designed to deceive mankind. There is today no place in society that we do not find evidence of this deceit. The Bible alone speaks differently!!! The Bible tells us what God desires us to know. Both what is said and what is not said are important. This is what is called "the faith" and Christians before us have lived and died for this faith. Even more important than knowing the time frame of creation, is to know the meaning of creation. Creation reveals Christ to us. If we miss Christ and know the so-called "origins of the universe" what a tragedy that would be. For example,
on the third day the dry land emerged from the water. This was
just a picture of Christ resurrecting from the dead, the death
waters. This was a type and a prophecy. Even the creation foretold
the death and resurrection of our Savior Christ Jesus. The Bible
may be silent on many other things we are curious about, but it
is never silent concerning Christ!" |
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"For some reason, I still do not the take the idea of days in Genesis as literal as 24 hour days, for some reason I believe God is above human time. God can pause time (imagine him with a pause button, hehe), and probably does these activities without us even being aware. Somehow, I still see the days in Genesis, the seven days, as something not taken literally in the sense of human categories, but as a testimony to God's greatness, beyond human understanding. I mean, humans were created on the 6th day, then God rested. We were his last creation (pretty cool huh). The days seem more like periods of time that God did his work rather than that of human days, human days were not classified until humans began on the 6th day. Whose to say the days before the sixth day were as we see them, just because there is evening and morning? Does God create from the standpoint of a human, stationary and from one point on the Earth?... Or was it from above the Earth, beyond the timezones of the Earth? I do not know. But it is exciting to imagine. If God created the world in 7 human days, I'm sure he will tell me when the time is right. Maybe right now I am deceived on this issue, but will God hold this against me? I'm not trying to confuse anyone, I'm just stating how I think of the first seven days... these are just thoughts and maybe nothing more. I make no judgments on anyone that sees this topic differently, nor do I ask to be judged by anyone. The fellowship is good though. I am happy to be involved. Praise the Lord for his creationary magnitude!" - working one |
"The Gap theory seems to fit with the "And there was evening and there was morning..." words in the Bible. Angels ruled, one angel ruled above other angels, who rebelled, then the Lord restored the earth with what we know of as creation. He could have done it in 6 human days. He can do anything. I think it's interesting that after He created the light, land, plants, animals, man, then BOOM there is Satan putting the evil tree in Eden. Where did Satan come from? Angels (fallen or good) aren't mentioned among the 6 "days" of creation. Also, wasn't water already there before the first day? God caused land to rise and divide the waters, right?" - serving one |
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"One saturday night in a question-and-answer college meeting, I remembered a brother referring to Pember's "Earth's Earlies Ages" and to the following verses (references) listed below. Isaiah
45:18 Genesis
1:2 Regarding
24-hour days vs. age-days, arguments are found in McDowell and
Stewart's book, "Answers to Tough Questions Skeptics Ask
about the Christian Faith" (for 24-hour days) and the book,
"The Fingerprint of God" (for age-days). According to
a website that I skimmed, both books use verses in the Bible and
the original Hebrew text of the Old Testament to support their
arguments." |
Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe has been framed by the word of God, so that what is seen has not come into being out of things which appear. |
Cultivating
the Seed
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"God's farm:
Which is translated in greek as a cultivated land. We fellowshipped
about this because we really liked the idea of being cultivated
for Christ. I think it is my family farming roots that triggered
my interest in the word usage. Praise the Lord, for he is the
seed and the water, and we are the land to be cultivated!" - serving
one (AMP) "I enjoyed your emails on "cultivate." I found 11 footnotes (Recovery Version) containing the word "cultivated." Three excellent footnotes below." - student 1 Corinthians 3:6 #1 |
