jasperdale
Numbers' Donkey
not even slightly dead
Posts: 136 
Favourite Verse: John 4:14
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Post by jasperdale on Mar 6, 2014 11:38:24 GMT
last night, i was reading about various pagan gods and their interactions with man. when i went to bed last night, i began thinking about how much different the Lord of the Universe truly is. Jesus could have just as easily "blinded" those who didn't believe in Him, He could have "withered" the hands of those who mocked Him, and yet our Lord Jesus walked this earth seeking out those who needed Him the most.
i always come back to the woman at the well (my all time favourite encounter in the gospels). here you have a Samaritan, a nobody, someone the disciples would have probably not have given even a second look. and yet our Lord, full of mercy and compassion, went out of His way to find her. He looked deep within her heart and saw her need. that's Who Jesus is. He looks for the weak, the depressed, the lonely, the hopeless. He bends down and meets us right where we are.
if i were a non-believer, searching to find out who the true God really was, i think i would be blown away with the difference between our Lord Jesus and all the other man made deities. that's what sets Jesus apart. He is unlike any god that man could make up. He is the definition of Love. He bends down and lifts us up when we don't deserve it. oh, how worthy He is of our praise!
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 6, 2014 11:47:18 GMT
A BIG amen to that, Jasperdale! I couldn't have put it better myself. What an awesome and loving God we have the privilege of serving. I can't even imagine life without Him.
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Post by elizabeth on Mar 6, 2014 19:50:05 GMT
Jasperdale, I love the story when the Ark of the Covenant is put with Dagon, by the Philistines. The next morning Dagon is just a stump, his head and arms are removed.
We truly are so blessed, and we should be so thankful that the Lord has opened our spiritual eyes. Praise His holy name.
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jasperdale
Numbers' Donkey
not even slightly dead
Posts: 136
Favourite Verse: John 4:14
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Post by jasperdale on Mar 6, 2014 20:11:30 GMT
i have been watching a video on youtube called "Zeitgeist Refuted" and it just boggles the mind the type of gods the ancient pagans worshiped. without going into graphic explicit detail, suffice it to say, these gods were just gross. it is no wonder that the pagans had such depraved rituals based on their gods.
this is what makes Jesus such a stark contrast to all these man made gods. i have heard it said many times that "man could not have created the Lord Jesus" because man's heart is so wicked, the idea of a pure, holy human being is beyond their comprehension. i can only imagine what it must have been like for the Romans when they first heard about "this Jesus of Nazareth". they were used to gods who were full of envy, of sexual perversion and who had to be appeased in order not to receive some random wrath from these so called gods.
and all of a sudden, you have a group of loving, self sacrificing Christians who were willing to die for the Lord Jesus. Jesus is not one of many little gods. He is the God of the entire universe. there is no name about the Lord Jesus. imagine yourself sitting there looking at your man made wall of wooden gods, and hearing about a God who not only created EVERYTHING, but a God who genuinely cared about each individual person.
it is no wonder that the early Roman Christian would gladly lay down their lives for this new Savior. FINALLY, they were free from having to bow down before these worthless deities. for they had now come into contact with the real deal. plus, for the first time in their lives, they actually had the Holy Spirit of God living within their hearts. imagine the joy, the ecstasy, of no longer having to live in constant fear of "the gods". to be able to worship this God Man Jesus, this Man who didn't rule by killing and threats, this Man who lay down His life just so they could have eternal life. i don't think we have any idea what it would have been like for those converted Romans. oh, the glory of the cross!
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jasperdale
Numbers' Donkey
not even slightly dead
Posts: 136
Favourite Verse: John 4:14
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Post by jasperdale on Mar 6, 2014 20:23:55 GMT
elizabeth, just think how confused these pagans must have been whenever they came in contact with the God of Israel! here you have various tribes trying in vain to avoid the wrath of the plethora of gods.....only to be confronted by this strange little tribe of Jehovah......a people who actually spoke with God......and a God who answered their prayers and appeared before them......working miracles and giving signs that could not be ignored.
it is so easy for us to tsk tsk these ancient people, but i often wonder what it would have been like to grow up being told all these perverted stories about sexually perverse gods....gods which must be placated, or else they would randomly curse the land. you spend your whole life doing everything you could to make sure and not make the gods mad.
and then you looked upon the God of Israel. this God was a God who delivered His people, He delighted in protecting them and blessing them. i wonder what i would be thinking if i were of a pagan culture and I heard about this magnificent God of Israel. would i have rent my clothes and begged Him to come to me and save me? would i risk being banished from my tribe, to turn away from everything i knew, in order to head out into the desert, searching for this unknown God of Israel?
i truly believe that when we have trillions of years to get to know one another, we will have interesting conversations with wandering nomads, who found salvation by leaving everything they ever believed in, and who, in faith, called out to the one true God. since time will not be an issue, i think it is quite likely that we will converse with all of the family of God, all those from different cultures, different times......and we will lift our hands in praise to the true God.....our blessed Lord Jesus will have brought together His children from all the ends of the earth. what a gentle, kind, compassionate Savior we worship. praise be to the Lamb of God who indeed DOES take away the sins of the world!
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Post by shiloh on Mar 6, 2014 20:38:37 GMT
Jasp, I just love this thread. Your posts really brought tears to my eyes. Actually, I was crying. That touched me so deeply and I love how you said Jesus IS the definition of love. Oh, he really is and sometimes it is too much for us to take in....well....off to grab some kleenex.
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Post by elizabeth on Mar 6, 2014 21:36:26 GMT
Jasperdale, I'm sure many people were confused, and some terrified by the God of Israel. I've no doubt we will hear some wonderful stories of ancient people who converted to Judaism. Some people will always be drawn to the Lord.
I do believe though Jasperdale, that the Lord puts blindness over certain people's eyes. If he didn't, everyone would see, and come to Christ.
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jasperdale
Numbers' Donkey
not even slightly dead
Posts: 136
Favourite Verse: John 4:14
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Post by jasperdale on Mar 7, 2014 1:14:12 GMT
shiloh, i too am just driven to tears when i think of how much the Lord Jesus loves me. after all, Jesus has every right to judge us especially because we have been given so much light. contrary to all the man made deities, we have a Savior who overwhelms us with His love an mercy. i can't tell you how many times i have just wept when i think of just how "different" my life would be were it not for the love of our Jesus. i know i take so much for granted.
but God is not "obligated" in any way to show us mercy. He could rightly condemn us every time we do wrong. especially since we have the Holy Spirit Who enables us to do the right thing all the time, God could show us very little mercy, and we would have no right to question His judgment. but, instead, when we mess up and find ourselves lying in a heap on the floor of regret, Jesus comes in, scoops us up in His arms, and comforts us. i think this is why the world cannot understand the love of Jesus. it goes so contrary to everything we see and hear.
if you screw up, you DESERVE to be punished. do the right thing, God is obligated to bless you. what foolishness! no, Jesus is glorified when we, as guilty repentant sinners, come humbly and lay at His feet and cry out for His mercy. i can't wait for the day when we actually get to look into those eyes of His. we will fall down on our faces in gratitude. we will dance and praise and worship Him because he DESERVES it! He is truly our Savior, our best Friend, our Comforter. i would be utterly lost without Him.
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Post by Benjamin on Mar 7, 2014 1:19:12 GMT
this is what makes Jesus such a stark contrast to all these man made gods. i have heard it said many times that "man could not have created the Lord Jesus" because man's heart is so wicked, the idea of a pure, holy human being is beyond their comprehension. i can only imagine what it must have been like for the Romans when they first heard about "this Jesus of Nazareth". they were used to gods who were full of envy, of sexual perversion and who had to be appeased in order not to receive some random wrath from these so called gods.
I think this is the distinction - that these are NOT man-made gods, but demons and fallen angels. This is why they demand blood, it's why they love to prey on children, and it's why human sacrifice was so prevalent in early religions. They took what God afforded man for obedience (the blood sacrifice of a lamb) and perverted it; cruelly twisted it from a redemptive act to one committed out of fear of venegance. You can actually see echoes of this very thing in the book of Galatians. The churches in Galatia had been through a significant event not long before the books were written. An influx of Germanic Celts had led to the rise of the La Tene culture throughout the region - bringing with it a whole host of gods and goddesses previously unknown to Rome and Greece. While many of the gods and goddesses were roughly equivalent to what the Roman Empire was used to, the practices were not. ...keep this in mind next time you read Galatians and it'll make your eyes go like this:  |
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jasperdale
Numbers' Donkey
not even slightly dead
Posts: 136
Favourite Verse: John 4:14
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Post by jasperdale on Mar 7, 2014 15:00:34 GMT
i agree benjamin, that many of the deities mankind has worshiped have come due to demon interference. many fallen angels, longing to be worshiped, created a doctrine of filth and sin. but i think it goes even further than that.
without God, we as human beings are limited in our understanding. there are some things which go beyond our experience and understanding. it is certainly possible for the Jewish people to "create" a Messiah in which they would be delivered from their enemies, where righteousness would be extolled, and sin eradicated. but they never could have "created" a God as complex and pure as the Lord Jesus.
Jesus burst upon the scene, brimming with love and compassion. He did things unthinkable to the culture. Jesus not only forgave those "sinners" who were worthy of being shunned, he actually "sought" them out. Jesus turned what the teachers thought about the law upside down.......we were not only to forgive those who sinned against us.....we were now taught to actually love and embrace them....to treat them as if they had not sinned in the first place. sinners were given equal standing to those who supposedly lived the letter of the law.
think of how Jesus brought ultimate hope and joy to people who had, for all practical purposes, given up on life. they were the outcasts, the nobody's, men and women who society had said......."God might forgive you, but you will NEVER be one of us again." in fact, Jesus went so far as to say that the people who were forgiven much, might even love Him MORE, that somehow, through being forgiven for the grossest of sin, they might attain a closer relationship with God than even the most righteous Pharisee.
i think this is what enraged the religious establishment. how dare Jesus lift up these nobody's, these reprobates, and declare that they were closer to the kingdom of God than they. of course, they were outraged that Jesus dared to forgive sin, but it wasn't just that He forgave sin....it was HOW He forgave it. Jesus dared to lift up those who had fallen and promise them that not only would they have eternal life.........but their past would never be brought up again. the slate was wiped clean.
no human being could have made this stuff up. all of us think it's fine and dandy to "do the right thing" and forgive someone who has wronged us. but our flesh cries out for some kind of justice. we may forgive......but still...........shouldn't those who have done wrong still have to pay for wronging us? we might forgive them, but we will always whisper behind their backs.........we will never truly "wipe the slate clean"......not unless the Holy Spirit of God changes OUR hearts.
this is the glorious truth of the Gospel. our blessed Lord Jesus not only forgives us for our failings, He wipes the slate clean. He bears our sin upon Himself and then lets us go scott free. the world cannot handle this. it goes against everything our flesh cries out for. that's why Jesus is indeed the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. as God, whatever Jesus says.....goes. and this God Man came to this earth to truly set us free. we don't have to come to Him with faint remnants of our past sins still showing through on our garments. no, our clothes are clean. they are pure. we come to Jesus as little children, truly free.
how satan must cringe in anger when He sees us approach the throne of God. we can talk to our Lord Jesus without spot or wrinkle. we are pure in His sight. Jesus has paid the price, 100 percent. no man could have "made up" Jesus. He is just too good, too pure, too holy, too wonderful for words. and that's why we love Him. because Jesus first loved me. puny, unimportant, me. and He has forgiven me. truly, without Christ Jesus, i am nothing.
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Post by shiloh on Mar 7, 2014 15:59:47 GMT
Great posts! I could never understand that human sacrifice thing and I will definitely keep that in mind for Galatians. As a matter of fact, I think I'll start going over that again tonight with keeping what you said in mind, Benjamin.
I wish I had my Strong's Concordance. I lent it to a neighbor who moved and never got it back. Now, I have to go get another one but I loved it because they told you everything about what that culture was like, etc.
While reading your post, Jasperdale, I was thinking, "how true that is". I try to imagine what agape love is like. Sometimes, I'll look at my cats or our dog (best dog in the universe) and they would look guilty or sad after doing something but I still love them. It is/was as if they are begging for forgiveness and mercy just flows from me. Now, I know that we are not animals to God. We were made in His image and likeness. Yet, it is all so overwhelimg for me to comprehend His unconditional love.
Can you do me a favor? If I can't get up off my face, can you come back and get me? I have this feeling that we will all be basking in the warmth of His love and never want to get up off of our faces....knowing, we are all so undeserving. I can't imagine what it'll be to look into Jesus' eyes.
I often think, "You did all that for US and we are nothing but worms." He could have easily jumped off that Cross and said, "Forget it, they're not worth it!" Yet, I think God, being the definition of love, wanted to show His love and share it with His creation. No 'god' comes close to that and can never compare....which is another reason I don't understand these people that follow false gods (demons, fallen angels).
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Post by elizabeth on Mar 7, 2014 20:55:10 GMT
Jasperdale, another thing humans could not have made up, is our bible.
I think sometime about what the bible would have been like if it hadn't been written by God.
Humans could never give up works, so works and rewards would have featured highly in their bible. Grace would be there, but highly worked around.
Humans would never understand communion. That part of Jesus' teaching would be left out.
(Joh 6:48) "I am the bread of life.
(Joh 6:49) "Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died.
(Joh 6:50) "This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die.
(Joh 6:51) "I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh."
(Joh 6:52) Then the Jews began to argue with one another, saying, "How can this man give us His flesh to eat?"
(Joh 6:53) So Jesus said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves.
(Joh 6:54) "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
(Joh 6:55) "For My flesh is true food, and My blood is true drink.
(Joh 6:56) "He who eats My flesh and drinks My blood abides in Me, and I in him.
The bible says I am 'In Christ', but here I am on planet earth, I don't get it. Well, in our condition we are here on earth, in our daily life. In our position, we are In Christ, seated next to Our Father. Humans would never have thought to put this in the bible.
The Word was God. Humans would never have thought to have put that in their bible. That was far beyond their way of thinking
Those were just a few off the top of my head. There more in the bible that just don't go with human thinking, but remember:
(Isa 55:8) "For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," declares the LORD.
(Isa 55:9) "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts.
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Post by morningstar on Mar 7, 2014 22:12:58 GMT
Good Post Jasper...
Brought this Scripture to mind:
Luke 18:10-14
10 “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ 13 And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.”
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jasperdale
Numbers' Donkey
not even slightly dead
Posts: 136
Favourite Verse: John 4:14
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Post by jasperdale on Mar 8, 2014 4:57:59 GMT
all of your replies remind me of how crazy Jesus must seem to those who do not believe. indeed, Jesus could have jumped down off that cross at any moment. think of the determination He must have had, being in agony, yet continuing to suffer for us. i am a wimp when it comes to pain. i hate it. i avoid it at all costs. it takes everything within me to space out my pain meds so i won't run out early, because very few of us will willingly endure pain when there is a remedy nearby.
but Jesus had the ultimate remedy. He could have called down 10,000 angels and wiped the whole lot of of them off the face of the earth. He could have gone back to be with His Father and let us all rot. but, because He endured the pain, we are going to be able to spend eternity dancing, singing and worshiping our King. what a gift He has given us!
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Post by shiloh on Mar 8, 2014 5:22:15 GMT
Amen and Amen to that, Jasperdale.
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Post by morningstar on Mar 8, 2014 5:32:16 GMT
And He did it ALL because He loved us!!..It's hard to compute while were still in our flesh, how can we ever thank Him enough.
It's no wonder that in Revelation 4:8-11 we read:
8 The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying:
“Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!”
9 Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying:
11 “You are worthy, O Lord,
To receive glory and honor and power;
For You created all things,
And by Your will they exist and were created
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jasperdale
Numbers' Donkey
not even slightly dead
Posts: 136
Favourite Verse: John 4:14
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Post by jasperdale on Mar 9, 2014 10:01:21 GMT
......and just think about how patient Jesus had to be with the disciples. i mean, Jesus is GOD.....He has all this information and He is trying to give it out piece meal to the disciples and they just don't get it. i can imagine Jesus with His head down, pulling out His hair and saying........."okay guys, let's go through this one more time!"
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