YOU ARE THE AMAZING ONE.... Because I don't see what I did what was wonderful. LOL



I just love needing those shades.

You have learned to SPEAK YOUR TRUTH..HEAD UP, CHEST OUT..about who you are and what you believe in..I ADMIRE YOUR STRENGTH in the midst of all of the ADVERSITY in your life!!

Queenie,

I hope you don't think I was bashing Judaism. I wasn't. I was just trying to explain what I believe the difference was between the two religions. Like MiMi said... I'm a babe in Christ and I’m still learning.

Queenie - I have to caution you that this is NOT what I am saying at all if you are talking about a religious faith.

If you are saying that we are all individually responsible to God for what we believe, then I would be in agreement. But the issue is NOT "all beliefs are equally valid," it is that each person has been given the ability, and the responsibility, to chose God or some other "god" in their life. The reality and the truth is that "sincerity of belief" is not the same thing as necessarily believing in something that is true. Who is the "object" of a given faith is one question that is very important to ask one's self.

The issue about "argument" is that argument is a discussion, passionate or 'calm, cool, and collected,' wherein the REASONS why someone believes WHAT they believe are given, rather that a "well, that's just what someone else told me I should believe and I'm just 'going along with that'." It is a "search for truth, no matter what that truth might lead me" sort of thing.
EVERY person who ever accepted Christ did so "in opposition to their human nature." They did so by not only recognizing what the truth was, but by surrendering their will and their life TO that truth and accepting God's promise to them as a result of their acceptance rather than "hardening their hearts" against the truth.

The issue is NOT "one religious belief versus another," it is which, if any, IS the true and correct belief. Those who do not accept Christianity also think that Christians are wrong to believe what they believe. So in the final analysis it does not matter what "we" think, it only matters what God has said IS TRUTH. We can think "with God," or in disobedience to God.




Here's a good "starting point" for thinking about what God has said and what He has chosen to reveal to us as HIS truth.

Deuteronomy 6: 4-5 "Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."

The thrust of the following passages in v.6-9 is that in order to 'accomplish' the command in v.5 a person MUST engage their mind and think about God, His commandments, and what He has revealed to us, "all the time." In other words, always consider everything from God's perspective, not from our own "human nature" standpoint.

This passage from Deuteronomy is what Jesus quoted and clarified when He gave the 2 greatest commandments. He also told the Scribe who responded to Him that "you are not far from the kingdom of heaven." The "problem" was that the Scribe was not "there yet" because he did not fully understand what God had said about the Messiah and had not accepted Jesus AS the Messiah.

That's not a "problem" that is unique to many Jews, it is a problem for most of humanity.

This a true statement, Amazin.

What WE do with that statement is where problems can often develop.

So let me give one "Guiding Light" among many that the Scripture provides to "flesh out" this idea:

"If you love me, OBEY my commands."


There are many more, but that effectively sums them all up. And what ARE Jesus' commands is another study that reveals richness and clarity.




And if I can risk disagreeing with the Men's Group or the "joke," I think this is a false statement. What IS the truth is that we face the desire to sin every day. THAT is a consequence of the FALL that each and every one of us "struggles against" every day. Sometimes the temptations to sin are small and sometimes they are great, but NONE of us is without sin or immune to temptation, especially when the temptation includes truth, but is "twisted" so that it says something other than what God really meant.

That was precisely the way Satan approached Eve, and it still operates today.

Even Paul was tempted (Romans 7:14-25)

"14We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[b] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin."

FH, I just got back home from being away for a few days, and will have to respond more fully later.

I will say this much, regarding discernment. I think that discernment involves being AWARE.

There have been a few times when I've met someone and, for some reason that I could not discern at THAT TIME, totally turned off (if not downright repulsed) by being around that person. Until I learned to be AWARE, I would shrug off my discomfort, and try to like that person, because I could find no reason why I should NOT like him/her. They were seemingly very pleasant and nice people who spoke kindly to others, and their physical appearance/hygeine presented no unpleasant problems.

However, in the case of one of these people and as time went on, it seemed that there was constant dissension around them. Little arguments would start up between other members of our group of friends and turn into huge ones. It finally came out that this person was a master at innuendo and playing the "victim".

I'm not saying that this person was Satan in human form; but, I do believe that it's possible that Satan was constantly whispering in her ear and using her to further his agenda.

So, from observation of this behavior, I have learned to be watchful and to pay attention to the ACTIONS, as well as my "gut",