Excellent post Craig and I couldn't agree more. Not because your super mod, but like Moises said, the content and attitude not your title. And because I feel the same way. Right or wrong? I dunno.
Personally I could care less what I know or don't know concerning all the mysteries of God, as that is not for me. What matters to me is that God will cause me to die to self, and learn to love. Honestly I prolly wont make it in this age. I hope Im wrong, but that is not up to me.
Someday though some great day when this evil experience is all over and Im finally saved and in the image of God I'll wish I had suffered more it's gonna be so good. This evil experience is nothing compared to what God has in store for humanity. Life is so short, just like my foresight.
1Co 8:1 Knowledge puffs up, but love edifies.
1Co 13:2 And though I have prophecies, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so as to move mountains, and do not have charity (love), I am nothing.
1Co 12:31 But zealously strive after the better gifts. And yet I show to you a more excellent way.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5312.0.htmlONE GIANT PARABLE
The more I teach the more simple I’m going to make this Bible. It’s all one thing. You don’t have to know what all those words mean individually and in a technical way, I mean it’s good if you do, but you don’t have to. The point is, before you have to know all that, I’ll show you what all these words mean. Then if you want to take your time and study all of them out, you can. But you'll already know, you say, ‘Ray how can I know what all those words mean if I don’t understand all the definitions of all of them?’ I’m going to show you (in future articles), and you’ll be amazed. Because it’s like I’ve been saying for so long, all this, it’s all one thing. I came up with this, maybe seven years ago, the Bible is one giant parable, so all you have to do is understand the one parable.
Jesus Christ taught many parables, we have about 40 in the Bible. But there are many more that He taught that are not in there, probably hundreds of parables. On one occasion He said how is it that you don’t understand this parable? How then will you understand all parables? (Mark 4:13).
Oh what a key that was! You mean if I understand this one, I could understand the others too? Well why is that? Because they are all the same. All the parables are the same parable, they are all the same. Oh they come at it from different angles and so on.
It’s like you go to the Grand Canyon, it’s all one canyon, you know. You can take pictures at sunrise or at noonday or take pictures at sunset. You can go down into it with the mules or you can go from the edge or you can go from the north side or the west side or from a airplane or helicopter. Now they even have a glass bottom floor, where you can walk out and look straight down.
But it’s all the same Grand Canyon, is it not. So you can view it from many different angles. Once you become familiar with the Grand Canyon, you can look at pictures from a helicopter or from this end or that end, from the bottom looking up or from the top looking down and you will know that it’s the Grand Canyon. Even if all the pictures are angled differently and there’s different lighting, you’ll still know it’s the grand canyon.
So the more we study this Word of God, the more we see it’s all one thing. There is one giant parable and it is this.
Gen 1:26 “And God said, Let Us be making man in Our image…”
There it is!
You know the teaching is, that that has already happened. No it didn’t! That is why they don’t understand the Bible, because it didn’t happen back then. Only the physical aspect was back then.
First the physical then the spiritual, that’s the principle. If you don’t believe that principle, how can you believe the Bible? Why do you think the Bible teaches principles, if they aren’t true. If it is true, why don’t you believe it? Does the physical come first and then the spiritual? Yes it does. That’s the principle of God and so He’s making man into God’s image. Are we spirit? No. Is God spirit? Yes. Well if He is making us into HIS image, don’t you think this stinking, rotten, carnal minded body is going to have to change, if we are going to be made into His image? We know it hasn’t happened yet. That’s why people kill each other and hate each other and all the misery and stuff we have among society, because they are not in His image. These people are not in the image of God! But one day they will be.
It doesn’t matter what subject we study it always goes back to that one thing. What is it that God is doing? He's changing us from what we are, into what we are going to be. That whole thing is what we call life, creation, existence, the plan of God. It’s all that ONE thing, all of it. You’ve got to relate everything that there is in the universe to this one thing that God is doing.
He’s changing humanity into His own image!
This is why I'm hear, to discuss the things Ray taught from Scriptures with others who believe the same. Everything I have every learned about God I learned from God through Ray. I cant do or say anything on my own. That is very humbling to know, to know I know nothing at all. That's kinda square circle-ish isnt it?