Excellent Brother! Loving seeing you grow in Christ!
At a loss but sorry, on another note I’m notified in every email I am not a paid subscriber but the problem is I am a monthly sub & have been for months. When I go to your website & sign in I got a code & signed in to comment it will not let me comment. Weird huh it’s been months & tried b4 to get it fixed.
"For example, have you considered that maybe God doesn’t seek to transform our circumstances but, rather to transform us."
Sometimes, God does transform our circumstances, but even when that's the case, he'll use those circumstances to transform you and those around you. There's nothing wrong with praying for our circumstances to be transformed, but sometimes God says, "No." See, for instance, Jesus praying in the garden before his crucifixion (Matthew 26, Mark 14) and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3). I personally love the boys' response to the king in Daniel 3:16-18:
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
God can change our circumstances, but if he doesn't, then we need to be prepared to be crucified or be thrown into the furnace. Such obedience changes the world.
By God we breathe and live and exist. This is so true.
God is kind and - there you are right - these beautiful Scriptures have been misinterpreted and detranslated and disunderstood badly like no other. The times of restoration and correction of all things are approaching.
God and man are so tightly coupled they’re inseparable. God breathes life into us. We breathe life into God. When you believe it’s a one way relationship you’ll always be a child and a victim and weak. When men breathe life into God, then we are complete.
This is where all the biblical texts are systems of oppression and control. Let’s not forget that the first authors of the Bible were slaves and masters themselves. They understood coercion, force, terror.
Your words represent a new way of thinking for christian me; atheist me back in the day would have readily agreed as, back then, I thought that man had created God in his own image (I no longer hold that view).
Well done Brother Mike!
Reading again this series of C.W. Lovett.
I highly recommend all.
The most lay-friendly commentary for those of us Still In The Storm.
https://www.cslovettbooks.com/Home-CS-Lovett-Books.html
Make that CS Lovett, note the time of posting of my comment 6:42 AM.
Ooops.
Thanks for this insightful article. I think you're onto something here!
100% YES.
Thinking this morning about what it means to live, not to please man, but God, and not to be pleased BY man, but only by God. Fits.
Excellent Brother! Loving seeing you grow in Christ!
At a loss but sorry, on another note I’m notified in every email I am not a paid subscriber but the problem is I am a monthly sub & have been for months. When I go to your website & sign in I got a code & signed in to comment it will not let me comment. Weird huh it’s been months & tried b4 to get it fixed.
"For example, have you considered that maybe God doesn’t seek to transform our circumstances but, rather to transform us."
Sometimes, God does transform our circumstances, but even when that's the case, he'll use those circumstances to transform you and those around you. There's nothing wrong with praying for our circumstances to be transformed, but sometimes God says, "No." See, for instance, Jesus praying in the garden before his crucifixion (Matthew 26, Mark 14) and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fiery furnace (Daniel 3). I personally love the boys' response to the king in Daniel 3:16-18:
16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. 18 But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”
God can change our circumstances, but if he doesn't, then we need to be prepared to be crucified or be thrown into the furnace. Such obedience changes the world.
By God we breathe and live and exist. This is so true.
God is kind and - there you are right - these beautiful Scriptures have been misinterpreted and detranslated and disunderstood badly like no other. The times of restoration and correction of all things are approaching.
God and man are so tightly coupled they’re inseparable. God breathes life into us. We breathe life into God. When you believe it’s a one way relationship you’ll always be a child and a victim and weak. When men breathe life into God, then we are complete.
This is where all the biblical texts are systems of oppression and control. Let’s not forget that the first authors of the Bible were slaves and masters themselves. They understood coercion, force, terror.
Your words represent a new way of thinking for christian me; atheist me back in the day would have readily agreed as, back then, I thought that man had created God in his own image (I no longer hold that view).