Does God Desert Christians?

When Christians blame God when something bad happens to them have they been taught that God has deserted them? If you listen to the prayers we thank God for food, for safe travel, for jobs, for our houses, health etc you get the picture. If it is true that God has provided those things when we do not have them apparently he has decided not to give them to us thus our bad times are his fault. Actually God has nothing to do with our physical status. He does not deserve credit nor does he deserve blame. What happens happens. Christians do not know what to believe. They are taught by leaders who do not spend much time in the Bible. They are taught opinions. They are taught biases. Christians themselves do not spend much time in the Bible so they are susceptible to being misled.

 

Has it occurred to you that you believe in a God who created humankind to require certain things such as oxygen, food, water, clothes and leaves it up to us to obtain the same? Has it occurred to you that God gave humankind a short life span in which we do not say nice things about God he will torture us for eternity? Has it occurred to you that you have food to eat in spite of God not because of him? In Genesis we see he punished all humankind by making it more difficult to grow what he designed us to require. Have you noticed how God never responds positively to prayers to restore amputated limbs; to cancers that do not respond positively to chemotherapy? Humankind is the only part of the creation that needs clothes and without which we would not survive? We thank God for food, which there is no reason to do, but we do not thank him for air or water.

 

Christians need to look in the bible for support for everything they believe and lacking support stop believing.

 

Galatians 5:6 Faith working through Love

 

 

Galatians 5:6

    For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith (4102-persuasion i.e. credence; conviction of religious truth or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher, reliance upon Christ for salvation,  gospel, truth itself, assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity) working through love (26-affection or benevolence, charity, dear, love).

 

To work through love is to work from a principle of love. If we love God, we seek to please him, do his will. The faith in God leads to the love of God because he loved us. Love to man leads us to do good to man. A faith that works by love leads one too do the will of God and to do good to his fellow men.

Without bible support where are we?

Do you ever wonder if this applies to today? "Does grace permit Christians to believe anything they like?

 

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 

 

    The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,  and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false, in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

 

Someone needs to ask the question.

Al has made presentations on evangelism many times with the same results. Must be frustrating.

 

This link us from early 2010 and I may have sent this to you before.

 

http://alumcave.blogspot.com/2010/02/for-your-cogitation-now-what.html

 

Groups need leaders. Groups need people to follow. Without leaders group thrash about. Daily we are enundated with commercials on television and radio and the internet. We have become so used to what we hear not being true it has seeped into our churches. Who believes what the preacer says. I realize I am part of the problem but to my knowledge Al has never done what he tells us we should be doing. Groups need leaders who lead by example.

 

People say "I can be a Christian without the church" and we say they cannot. I believe we can. Actually most of the people on the GSMCOC list believe they can and the rest of us agree because when they infrequently show up we act as if nothing is wrong. So the question we need to answer is: Specifically what does GSMCOC do to help its members be Christians? The responsibility of the group is to encourage the individual. The responsibility of the group is to provide motivation to the individual.

 

Interesting our pastor believing having "gospel meetings" is valuable enough to participate in them while at the same time not believing they are valuable enough for GSMCOC to participate. We are a group, we need leaders who will lead by example.

 

 

 

On the subject of evangelism:

 

Can we be saved even though we do not do what Al suggested this morning?

 

If we can, who cares about those not saved?

 

If we cannot we had better care,

 

Someone needs to ask the question.

 

 

 

P.S. When Sue handed Dottie the minutes of the ladies' meeting I told her she was making the Men's meeting look bad. She said "Yes I am." Actually her help is not needed. 

 

 

Thanks, John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN

Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/ 
          http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

"Our lives depend on decisions made by other people; we have no control over these decisions and usually we do not even know the people who make them. Our lives depend on whether safety standards at a nuclear power plant are properly maintained; on how much pesticide is allowed to get into our food or how much pollution into our air; on how skillful (or incompetent) our doctor is. . ."

 ---Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber

 

Christians must stop deluding themselves.

2 Thessalonians 2:9-12  

 

    The coming of the lawless one is by the activity of Satan with all power and false signs and wonders,  [10] and with all wicked deception for those who are perishing, because they refused to love the truth and so be saved.  [11] Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false,  [12] in order that all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness. 

The Curse of Certainty

At the close of the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin spoke to his fellow delegates. He called for a unanimous vote, even while acknowledging that he had his own reservations about some of its provisions. Yet he acknowledged his own fallibility and asked them to confront the danger of their certainty as well:

"Most men," he said, "think themselves in possession of all truth, and that wherever others differ from them it is so far error." Yet, "when you assemble a number of men to have the advantage of their joint wisdom, you inevitably assemble with those men, all their prejudices, their passions, their errors of opinion, their local interests, and their selfish views. From such an assembly can a perfect production be expected? It therefore astonishes me, Sir, to find this system approaching so near to perfection as it does..."

Too many of us are certain our political and policy views are perfection including our understanding of the scriptures. Franklin reminds us that a democracy depends not so much on perfect solutions as on humble collaboration. If they could listen, why can't we?

Lucky GSMCOC was not around in 1776

 

For a functional group to accept the minutes of the previous meeting the group first decides whether a quorum is present at the current meeting. With a quorum present, the secretary to the group reads the minutes aloud from the previous meeting, noting those in attendance and all actions that transpired. Discuss the minutes from the previous meeting, making appropriate corrections. Discussion should be factual and friendly, not opening up old debates or conflicts. The chairman of the meeting asks for a motion to accept the previous meeting's minutes as read or with discussed changes as noted. A second to the motion is required to be made by someone else.The previous minutes must be accepted before the current meeting can proceed. All attendees are asked to vote to accept the minutes. This is done through a show of hands, by voice or by the chairperson asking each attendee individually.

 

To my knowledge the Men's meeting has never been unable too approve minutes. I have no idea why they cannot this time but the chairman has shown himself to be not a leader but a follower unable to complete the simplest of tasks. He appears to defer to the pastor. If the men cannot come to a consensus on such a mundane item, whether or not the distributed minutes are correct or incorrect surely they cannot be expected to successfully agree on who is or is not qualified to be elder. The group is the epitome of the term dysfunctional.

 

If, as they say, "prayer works" I wonder why they did not ask him to help them come to a decision. After all they ask God to fix the election for president. If God cannot get minutes approved or disapproved he is probably over his head trying to fix an election. 

 

Imagine the status of the colonies if this group were the founding fathers.

 

Thanks, John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN

Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/ 
          http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

"science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind."

 ---Albert Einstein

 

Is it unreasonable. . .

My mind has a tendency to meander especially during sometimes than others. . .

 

When God created humankind he built in certain requirements for humankind to exist such as oxygen, food etc. According to Christian teachings humankind originally was naked and apparently oblivious to that fact. At a point in time humankind became aware and began covering up.  Humankind is the only member of his creation requiring clothes. As originally made we are unable by nature able to survive. The current state of humankind is we require air to breath, food to eat, and clothing as a matter of life and death.

 

Is it unreasonable to expect God to provide what is necessary for his creation to survive or has God created humankind just so we can thank him for providing what he created us to require? Since he intentionally made growing food more difficult do we owe him thanks when we are successful in spite of his efforts?  What do Christians expect of God?

Thanks, John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN

Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/ 
          http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities." Winston Churchill

 

Why Did Jesus Live? or Why Did Jesus Die?

Have you noticed how we spend more time listening to others tell us what President Obama or Candidate Mitt Romney thinks on various issues than we do listening to Obama or Romney them self?

 

Do we spend more time listening to others (preachers, teachers, apostles such as Paul, etc.) tell us what Jesus said and thought than actually "listening" to what Jesus said? Is the message of Christianity how to do church?

 

Or is the Christian message about "Why Jesus died?" Is Christianity about providing for a better death, rather than life?

Could the real question be "Why did Jesus live?" Could the answer possibly provide the reason why we live.

The story called "gospel" / "'good news" is more than under-populating a place called 'hell' so that we might over-populate a place called "heaven." Fear of hell produces the very fear that the Bible tells us God, as Love, drives out.

Did Jesus die just to give us a better place to live?

 

 

Thanks, John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN

Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/ 
          http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

 

"People do not like to think. If one thinks, one must reach conclusions. Conclusions are not always pleasant." Helen Keller

 

"The questions you ask set limits on the answers you get." Temple Grandin

 

Does God Only Help Those Who Help Themselves?

In the past when I commented it would a long time before our congregation would have to act on faith I received several harsh responses from men who consider relying on God as a sin in that it tests God and additionally is bad business. They functionally believe God helps those who help themselves. They have never experienced having nothing.

 

 

Several months ago following the tornado in the Greenville area the men's meeting discussed helping the victims of that storm. Did they really need our help? Were others providing what was needed? What were the government and non government agencies doing? We have people in Greenville area, presumably Christians, who have no house, no clothes, no car, no drivers license, no credit cards, no bank cards, no water, no food and we sit in our multi-million-dollar building with an emergency fund wondering if those folks needed our help.

 

 

Instead of a no-end-in-sight class on the Holy Spirit a class on "what it means to depend on God" might be of some value.  What can we realistically expect of God?

 

 

In Matthew we read where Jesus sent the twelve out with the following instructions:

 

Acquire no gold nor silver nor copper for your belts, no bag for your journey, nor two tunics nor sandals nor a staff, for the laborer deserves his food. 

 

 

It appears the apostles were being sent out depending on God's people not God. I often hear Christians say they are the hands and feet of God to the lost.  That suggests God's response to prayers will come through his people not his direct intervention. People influenced by God doing what they believe God wants helping people. People doing what God wants them to do, promoting his agenda could be said to be God acting as Jesus called Peter Satan when Peter was promoting Satan's agenda by discouraging Jesus from his mission.