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=> Introductions, Announcements, and More of Ray's Teachings => Topic started by: Horan on June 12, 2018, 12:50:21 PM

Title: Greetings
Post by: Horan on June 12, 2018, 12:50:21 PM
Hello, my name is Mark. I live in Nashville, TN. When I came to the faith of Christ some years ago, I was very certain from the onset that Jesus Christ is very real, as is His promise. But the hell doctrine was like a bug bite that I couldn't help scratching. Though I sensed that it must be wrong, I was also convinced that in order to make that claim it would be necessary to have sound, thorough, biblical support for it. But for some reason I kept asking the wrong questions for quite a while and coming up with very little, until one day I simply started asking the right ones. And then there appeared a great wealth of information about the meanings of words, their context, and the history of hell.

The next issue I was bitten by was the mystery of iniquity, It was difficult for me to accept that God is the author of evil. But I kept worrying over it and eventually came to understand that there is nothing whatsoever, great or small, at any level of analysis that doesn't conform precisely to His will and command, which leaves no room for human free will, or even free choice. But we obviously make choices every day, and it certainly seems to us that we are making decisions as we go along. And the bible text contains many injections to do X and refrain from Y, some of these even expressed conditionally, which gives an impression that we do have choices to make. But I think it's just that, an impression, and that God communicates to us, through scripture, at the level of our perception and subjective impression, and that He gives ears to hear, hearts to understand, and wills to obey to whomsoever He wills, when He wills, such that there is a great order to His creative work.

But we're not robots. Though we make no choices for ourselves in actuality, we're nonetheless enjoined to make the right ones. And we experience making choices and learning from our mistakes. I think God has set things up in this manner to make something of us, though our experience, both personal and historical, that Adam was not. Because we're not God we can't claim this, but since He knows the end from the beginning, the means He uses to accomplish His purpose is justified by the end. It seems to me that we're really very much like actors on a stage, though a real one made of flesh, blood and bone, playing all of our various parts which are very precisely directed by God to provide us with a necessary experience to fulfill His creative intention, and I'm confident that, when the curtain is drawn on the last act in this great drama, there will be nobody who has ever lived who will complain about God's methodology or about having been a robot

Best Regards,
Mark
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: Joel on June 12, 2018, 01:30:25 PM
Greetings Mark!
Welcome to the forum.

Joel
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: Dennis Vogel on June 12, 2018, 04:14:42 PM
Welcome Mark!
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: Rene on June 12, 2018, 05:06:15 PM
Greetings Mark,

It truly is a blessing to believe in the sovereignty of God. It frees us from many false doctrines. :)
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: Dave in Tenn on June 12, 2018, 05:22:13 PM
Good to meet you, Mark.
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: Musterseed on June 12, 2018, 05:49:17 PM
Welcome to the BT forum Mark. Knowing Our Father is in control of everything is the best thing ever.Thanks be to Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.   Pamela
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: Horan on June 12, 2018, 08:00:00 PM
Yes, it's a tremendous comfort to understand that we really have no choice whatsoever in the matter of our salvation, in any sense of the word, and that we actually don't have any choice about anything. Still, that's not how it appears or how it's experienced on the ground. Making choices is necessary. And don't we pray for guidance in making the right ones? But it's the understanding that God is in complete, total control, even insofar as orchestrating the activity of each and every neuron in the universe, that provides a real sense of rest and freedom. It's entirely impossible for anything, anywhere, at anytime to be amiss, regardless of appearance. God has cheated, and revealed the end of the whole story before it's been completely told, and it's a very happy ending.
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: yello62 on June 12, 2018, 09:10:17 PM
welcome to the forum, mark.
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: virginiabm on June 13, 2018, 05:26:08 AM


Welcome to the forum Mark
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: indianabob on June 15, 2018, 06:02:59 PM
Hi Mark and welcome to our special place...

Lots of friendly help and support is here to use and benefit from.

Thanks for joining us and please contribute often.
Indiana Bob
Title: Re: Greetings
Post by: Rhys 🕊 on June 18, 2018, 01:20:38 AM
Welcome Mark

Thanks for sharing

Rhys