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Kat:
Hi Cindy,
Transcribing is a blessing to me too, I learn so much going over it so many times :)
Here is another excerpt form the paper, there is so much in it to help understand this.
http://forums.bible-truths.com/index.php/topic,5154.0.html ----------
Mark Hallett, (researcher with the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Strokes) said, “If Free will does exist, it’s a perception, not a power or a driving force. People experience free will. They have the sense they are free.”
It’s a feeling, nothing but a feeling.
“The more you scrutinize it, the more you realize you don’t have it.”
In other words, he said we feel like we have it, we feel like we have this thing called free will. I mean you get up in the morning, you say I’ll have coffee and reach over an have that to eat. This is all free, see. Why is it free? Because we PERCEIVE it to be free. When you look at it carefully though, what does this scientist say, the more you look at it and scrutinize it, you realize you don’t have it. It doesn’t exist, it’s a figment of your imagination, it’s an allusion, it’s an idol of the heart. It’s something you wish you had and you want to have and whether you do or you don’t, you’re going to say you do. That’s what it is, it’s an allusion at best.
----------------------------------------------
mercy, peace, and love
Kat
Deborah-Leigh:
Hello Cindy
You say : Here's what I need to get a grasp on: from OUR perspective we are making choices all the time, and from OUR perspective these choices are made freely. We would all think our choices and our will is free if He didn't reveal the truth to us through His spirit.
The truth is - and from GOD'S perspective - which of course is the only correct perspective - not only do we not have free will, but we really can only make one choice. Even the idea that we make choices is only from our perspective, since He has caused the circumstances by which we can only and must make a certain choice. Since the definition of choice would be chosing between two or more options, we cannot even really make a choice.
I have no scriptures that contradict your understanding. In fact I can support and perhaps encourage a deeper insight by giving you the following which I believe will help you acquire that firmer hold on the truth that you desire! Here is the teaching from Ray, that for me, directly relates to what you are saying!
i am so happy to also revisit this teaching because it is important to be aware of the how why and wherefore that the Scriptures do not contradict and that they are not an interpretation unto themselves. This teaching reveals the truth by contrast to the deception and clearly shows what is reliably correct and true.
I recall how excited I was when I discovered this teaching. It is dazzling!
THE RELATIVE:THE ABSOLUTE:
" ... seek, and ye shall find ... " (Mat. 7:7) "Not one is seeking out God" (Rom. 3:11)
"God changed His mind" (Ex. 32:14) "God is not a man Who changes His mind" (I Sam. 15:29)
" ... choose you this day whom ye will serve." (Josh. 24:15) "Ye have not chosen me,
but I have chosen you ... " (Jn. 15:16)
" ... whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God ... " (I Jn. 3:10) "All is of God" (II Cor. 5:18)
"Zechariah was just before God" (Lk. 1:5) (Comparing him to the corrupt priests) "Not one is just" (Rom. 3:10)
(Comparing man with God)
One is the "relative" the other is the "absolute." One is from man's point of view, comparing men with men, the other is from God's point of view. One shows how a thing is perceived while the other shows how it actually is. One is for minors while the other is for the mature.
Both Scriptures are true. The relative is true and the absolute is true. They do not contradict. However, one really is "relative" while the other is "absolute."
Theologians are always taking Scriptures that speak of the relative, from man's point of view, and insist that these verses are absolute. By doing this they commit a double sin. Because then they insist that these relative truths actually nullify God's absolute declarations. They won't admit to this in their own words, but this is what they do when they retain the "relative" at the expense of rejecting the "absolute."
http://bible-truths.com/kennedy2.htm
Peace to you
Arcturus :)
pylady:
Hi Janice, Kat, Arcturus,
Thank you all for your deep insights.
Janice,
Yes, I can see that God knows our choices before we make them, since He causes us to make them. This is very comforting, because I see even when we feel lost and confused (and who hasn't?) we are not really lost, because He is always there with us guiding us to our final destination to be His sons and daughters. We are all in the hands of the ALL-MIGHTY!
Kat,
That was a very interesting quote. Even a worldly scientist who has studied this thing called free will has to admit there is no such thing. That it's just a persons perception that they have free will, an illusion. Most people never really think about it. Why would they? They don't want to rock the boat, they might find out there IS NO BOAT under them! ;D It would definitely be unpleasant to them. After all, God had to drag some of us kicking and fighting to the truth about free will!
Arcturus,
Thank you for directing me to this very enlightening article of Ray's. (I use his first name because after reading so many of his articles and listening to his audios I feel like I know him, and think of him as a dear friend.)
This teaching of relative vs absolute is so very important to grow to understand the scriptures. It sheds light on many (what seemed to me) gray areas of scripure. Contradictions we think we see. But when we ask whether a scripture is written in the relative or absolute, the gray areas disappear. I think this should be the 13th God given truth to understand His word! (referring to Ray's article Twelve Godgiven Truths to Understand His Word).
Thank you, dear sisters, for sharing your deep spiritual insights with me. :-*
God bless you all,
Cindy
cjwood:
--- Quote from: Ward on August 04, 2007, 04:56:52 PM ---Claudia:
I just read this post of yours and thought I would share a few facts about what you stated. I hope that it helps to understand the way these emails etc work.
--- Quote from: cjwood on August 01, 2007, 04:17:08 AM ---...thanks 'nole for thinking about me. every day i have to block, bounce, and delete sexually explicit spam emails that come to our personal email address, and all because he would visit porn sites in the past and he got looped in to so many many many porn sites. at least 1/3 out of every 10 emails are like that. it is so frustrating. and it hurts my heart because it shows me just how much he was looking at porn and i never knew it. but, of course he says that he doesn't open the emails but just deletes them, but then i wonder, if he did that wouldn't they EVENTUALLY stop coming in. i did tell him he needs to block them before he deletes them, but he said that wasn't NECESSARY????
oh well, i will be cancelling that particular email address soon. my husband has his own personal (private...surprise, surprise) email address, and i have just recently set up another email account for myself. i guess that is just one more change that will come about because of the divorce.
thanks again seminole.
love in Him,
claudia
--- End quote ---
'...all because he would visit porn sites in the past...' - Claudia, it doesn't work that way. Visiting a site on the 'net does not provide your email address to anybody. If it did, consider how much junk mail you would be receiving from the sites that you go to. There are more ways to collect email addresses than you can probably imagine. Visiting a website is not one of them, unless you have a system that is full of security holes. Even then you don't have to access particular websites. You just have to be online. You'll never know it happened. But if you are using a system that is in that state, this is the least of your worries. In this state your system may be used to send out the spam.
If you set up a new account and never use it. The email address associated with the new account will start receiving the trash you are talking about within days if not hours. Even if you never log into the account, much less use it to surf the 'net.
'...and it hurts my heart because it shows me just how much he was looking at porn...' - I don't have any knowledge about your husband's 'net activities, But the spam email you are talking about can not provide you with any either.
'...then i wonder, if he did that wouldn't they EVENTUALLY stop coming in.' - NOPE! Actually, in some cases opening the spam actually sends back data to the entity sending the email validating that this is an actual and valid email address. With that validation in place, the spammer will not ever remove the address from their list. It actually just became more valuable to them. Deleting without opening is the very best response to those emails.
'...i did tell him he needs to block them before he deletes them, but he said that wasn't NECESSARY?' - If he was to do this... It would not accomplish much of anything. Here's two of many reasons that it wouldn't do anything:
* The email address that you 'block' probably doesn't exist. Never did. The sever part of the address, aka the '@yahoo.com' part, probably doesn't exist either. The information in that part of the email is simply keyed in by the entity sending it. It is never validated. So you are blocking an address that doesn't even exist.
* The spammers you are talking about, practically never use the same 'From:' address twice. They know that many people try to use the blocking idea. Its no big deal to them anyways. They don't want you to reply to their emails. They want you to access their page somewhere. And your opening of the email accomplishes that. Ouch!
* Now, unless you use a free email account like Yahoo, HotMail, or GMail, many of the spam msgs. that you are receiving may not have even been sent to your email address. I receive them all of the time. Many email servers are setup so that the msgs. that have invalid addresses are not dropped, but are given to the account that matches most closely. I've run email servers and list servers, I know from experience.
Yeah... I know I said two reasons, but I got on a roll there... Sorry.
Please understand that I am not trying to support the behavior that you are actually aware of happening. I just wanted to give you a clue as to how this stuff works. I hope that what you got out of this msg. is that the porn spam you are receiving is no indication of his or anybody else's internet activities. It simply doesn't work that way. The people that do these types of things are very clever and they share their data with each other. Remember, they make money off of this type of thing. That's a great motivator. And it doesn't cost them anything to send out emails to valid, fake, made-up, wrong, etc addresses. They fully expect that 90+% will never be seen, who cares, its free.
If you really want to stop all of this kind of thing, there is only one way to do that. (Besides getting off of the 'net.) Set up your email account to only accept email msgs. from specific addresses you list. But be prepared to miss out on alot of emails this way. And there are ways around this, too.
If you, or anybody else, wants to know more, feel free to ask. Its important to know the truth.
\/\/ard
--- End quote ---
hi ward,
i just read your post reply. thanks bunches for the info. some of it i was aware of, most of it i wasn't aware of. we never used to get any sexually explicit emails until after my husband starting going into porn sites. the sex emails come into our personal incredimail acct now but i never open them. my husband did open them in the past, but says now he just deletes them. i used to just delete them, then after our computer got so full of viruses and i had to take it in to have it cleaned up, i started blocking any sexually implicit emails opting also to bounce them and automatically delete them. the "geek squad" included new virus protection software and spy sweeper software. i guess i just don't understand why we still keep getting them. i have a personal yahoo email acct and no sexually implicit emails come to that acct. it is just frustrating to me, especially because the subject line showing on the email notices are getting more and more leud. i just want to delete the whole incredimail acct altogether. thank you again ward for taking the time to educate me on these things, and for caring enough to write it all out.
sincerely,
claudia
Deborah-Leigh:
It is a pleasure Cindy
...and I could not have put it better than to evaluate that teaching on Relative V/s Absolute as meriting a place in the 12 God Given Truths to understand His Word! It is really profound and so important!
It did bring to mind another teaching. It teaches us how to learn from error. Here it is. http://bible-truths.com/lake2.html
THEY SPEAK WITH FORKED - ED TONGUE
Most all Christian theologians would claim to believe the first statement of Scriptural Truth that I present below, especially when I cite a Scripture verse with it, but they will then contradict and refuse to teach the second statement of Truth. Here are a few examples:
Do they believe the fire in I Cor.3:15 burns mans’ works, but not the man himself? Yes.
But do they teach that this same fire in Rev.20:15 also burns works, not the man? No.
Do they believe that God is the Creator of ALL? Yes.
But do they teach that God created EVIL as He says in (Isa. 45:7)? No.
Do they believe that God is absolutely and totally sovereign (Eph. 1:11)? Yes.
But do they teach that God exercises sovereignty over man’s supposed "free" will? No.
Do they believe that Jesus Christ IS the Saviour of the whole world (I Jn 4:14)? Yes.
But do they teach that Jesus Christ will SAVE the whole world? No.
Do they believe that presently Christ only has immortality (I Tim. 6:16)? Yes.
But do they teach the truth therefore that men’s souls are moral and not immortal? No.
Do they believe that the original manuscripts of God’s Word were inerrant? Yes.
But do they teach us that the King James translation, which they say is "inerrant" has gone through THOUSANDS of error corrections since 1611? No.
Do they believe that the soul that sins shall DIE (Ezek. 18:4)? Yes.
But do they teach that souls of deceased sinners are actually DEAD? No.
Do they believe there are many cults today that need exposing? Yes.
But do they teach that Christendom, by its OWN definitions, is also a cult? No.
Do they believe that Sodom is "suffering the vengeance of eternal [aeonian] fire? Yes.
But do they teach that Sodom will be restored to their former estate (Ezek. 16:55)? No.
Do they believe in a future resurrection of dead people back to life (John 5:29)? Yes.
But do they teach that a resurrection is imperative for dead people to live again? No.
Do they believe the first half of I Cor. 15:22 that "For as in Adam ALL die?" Yes.
But do they teach the last half, "even so in Christ shall ALL be made alive?" No.
Do they believe that "...the end of the world [Gk: ion -- age]" ends in Mat. 24:3? Yes.
But do they teach that this same "ion -- age" in Matt. 25:41 & 46 will also end. No.
Do they believe that Jn 3:13 & Acts 2:34 are truthful Scripture (II Tim. 3:16)? Yes.
But do they teach this truth that "NO man," including David, has gone to heaven? No.
Do they believe ALL God purposed, spoke, and willed (Isa. 46:10-11), He will do? Yes.
But do they teach that God’s "will" to save all, I Tim. 2:4, etc., will be done? No.
Do they believe that Satan lied when he told Eve, "thou shalt not surely die?" Yes.
But do they teach the truth that sinners really do DIE at death as God has stated? No.
Do they believe that the Apocryphal books do not belong in the Bible? Yes.
But do they teach us that the 1611 so-called "inerrant" King James Bible contained four-teen such books, including "Tobit," "Judith," "The idole Bel and the Dragon"? No.
Do they believe that Christ is totally responsibility for our salvation? Yes.
But do they teach that "no man can" come to Christ of himself (John 6:44)? No.
Do they believe that Satan is the greatest sinner of all? Yes.
But do they teach Jn. 8:44 which states that Satan "sinned from the beginning?" No.
Do they believe Christ really died for the sins of the world? Yes.
But do they teach that Jesus Christ was dead when they placed Him in the tomb? No.
Do they believe the many Scriptures that liken death to "sleep?" Yes.
But do they teach that dead people are unconscious, "sleeping" till resurrection? No.
Do they believe that the last enemy to be destroyed [Gk: abolished] is death? Yes.
But do they teach that ALL death, including the second death, will be abolished? No.
Do they believe that all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27)? Yes.
But do they teach that it is possible for God to save nonbelievers after they die? No.
Do they believe that every tongue in heaven and earth will confess Jesus as LORD? Yes.
But do they teach that the Holy Spirit inspires this sincere voluntary act (I Cor. 12:3)? No.
Do they believe that good and evil are both in the same tree of knowledge? Yes
But do they teach that good and evil both come from the same root source? No.
Do they believe that God absolutely "knows all" (I John 3:20)? Yes.
But do they teach that God knows in advance ALL who will reject Christ? No.
Do they believe that God’s love will never fail (I Cor. 13:8)? Yes.
But do they teach that God’s love will never fail in saving the world He loves? No.
Do they believe the apostles spoke in foreign languages in Acts 2:4-11? Yes.
But do they teach that of the hundreds of thousands who claim to speak in tongues today, not one of them can speak in multiple languages which they did not already study? No.
Do they believe that the masses did not understand Christ’s parables (Mat. 13:13)? Yes.
But do they teach that Christ purposely didn’t want them to understand, (Vs. 14-17)? No.
Do they believe the Old Covenant contained the Ten Commandments (Deut.4:12)? Yes.
But do they teach a New Covenant which contains a much higher law (Heb. 8:8-9)? No.
Do they believe that God created all the spirits and messengers of heaven? Yes.
But do they teach that God also created Satan who was always His adversary? No.
Do they believe that loving our enemies means doing good and not evil to them? Yes.
But do they teach that God will never subject His enemies to eternal torture and evil? No.
There seems to be no end to the Scriptural contradictions of Christian beliefs. But we can learn from their mistakes. It is good for us that God makes us dig deep for the precious gems of His word. It really is like searching for hidden treasure. And I have never found a hidden treasure in God’s Word that has disappointed me. Each new discovery brings more appreciation for God and His plan of salvation for all.
I believe all of Ray's teachings are God Given Truths to understanding His Word. The Twelve God Given ones are the essentials to entering the territory of Gods disclosures and secrets that are so rich throughout the teachings given to us through Ray! There are already hundreds if not more than THOUSANDS of Truths everywhere in Ray's teachings. Every sentence, is a teaching!
BTW. I live in South Africa and have never met Ray personally. I also call him Ray....RAY OF LIGHT...He is my teacher so I consider this an honour, gift, blessing and privilege to call him so. Ray is a friend of Jesus so that makes him a friend to his precious students.
John 15:15 I do not call you servants, slaves any longer, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, working out. But I have called you My friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from My Father.
Peace to you
Arcturus :)
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