Leaderboard

"You carry matters to extremes and do harm to your own soul and to the truth. YOU MAKE THE TRUTH REPULSIVE AND CAUSE SOULS TO BE AFRAID OF IT. Let love soften your words and give tone to your actions, and you will find a change in those with whom you associate. There will be peace, union, and harmony, instead of strife, jealousy, and discord. Let love and tenderness be exercised, . . . and you will receive a blessing." {2T 439.1}

One of my day job's products www.adventist.ca/3dissue/messenger/83-9/index.html

Yes, a vast amount of persons simply do not believe in John 3:16.....on of the simplist explanations but always argued about. Tis the human condition that we MUST work out something.

The phrase "in Christ" also kept going around in my mind. I looked up every passage where those words were employed. In the large portion of the verses, the phrase was used to describe believers. Paul wrote: Romans 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” The implication would be that there IS condemnation to those who are NOT in Christ Jesus. Romans 16:7 “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my countrymen and my fellow prisoners, who are of note among the apostles, who also were in Christ before me.” If every human being starts life IN the Book of Life, then how could anyone NOT be "in Christ". But here Paul says that others were "in Christ" before he was. Sounds like an EVENT which happens in time. 2 Corinthians 5:17 “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Sounds like the “born again” experience to me. To be “in Christ” means to be a believer who has been baptized. Could it be that the moment when one is now "in Christ", is also the moment when his/her name is entered - by Christ - into His Book of Eternal Life? Blessings, Rachel Cory Prophecy Viewpoint

I began a serious study into this topic back when Samie first posted the thread about the Book of Life. "Whom did God choose" I have tried to search with an open mind, because I could not remember any passage which stated exactly WHEN Jesus wrote the names into His Book. We can dialog, but I have not finished my study into the topic, so I'm not giving any "final word". There was something Samie said that kept going around in my head. "That death reconciled us all to God" (Rom 5:10). NO IT DID NOT! Else why would Paul write that we have been given the "message of reconciliation" which we must take to the world. God is "pleading" thru us - "be reconciled". The death of Christ did NOT supernaturally change every human heart, bringing all mankind to repentence and reconciliation. God was not estranged from us. All mankind was estranged from Him. God was pleading with the whole world - thru Christ - to be reconciled to Him. But the reconciliation is not accomplished until the individual responds to the pleading, opens his heart, and is reconciled - to God. The death of Christ did not change the Father. The knowledge of His death CAN change us - IF we let it. Learning about it CAN change us - believing it happened - that God gave His own Son. Without this change of mind, we will not open our heart to Him, so that we can be healed. Without this change, we will continue on in carnal self-destruction. There is nothing more that God can do. 2 Corinthians 5:19 “that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.” The "word of reconciliation" is information - which is conveyed by the written Word, and thru human beings. 2 Corinthians 5:20 “Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.” "Be reconciled" Paul writes. The BIG implication here is that the individual has something to DO, which God will NOT DO for him. God will draw us, He will speak to our hearts by His Spirit, by His Word, and thru the voices of others - but He will not break down the "door". We must open to Him. Hearing this “message” - this “word of reconciliation” is an essential step in the salvation process. (A person CAN refuse to "hear".) Jesus will redeem those who are reconciled to God. Before one can be reconciled, he must hear the message, and understand it. Small children and the mentally disabled CANNOT "hear" (understand) the "message of reconciliation". Many have lived and died without ever hearing that "message". I believe these will be raised with the "rest of the dead" in order that they may "hear" it, and then be reconciled, or refuse to "hear" and rebel (at Gog-Magog). Blessings, Rachel Cory Prophecy Viewpoint

Even some of the people in the Bible were very difficult to get along with. Consider Judah ready to have Tamar stoned when she was pregnant... with what he did not realize was his own child. But I believe the really unChristlike and obnoxious traits will have been refined away over the course of a lifetime. So they will repent and improve, and in the ways I need to, so will I. Some will love mistreating others more than they love God. I do not want to be one of them, because I do not think they will be there. There will be people we are closer and less close too, but our personalities will all be refined and subdued enough we will not find them like chalk on a blackboard, and we will have agape love and compassion for them, though we will be closer to some than others.