Carl Emerson said:

They were exhorted to return to 'first love' and do what they did at first.

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I recall one translation saying to do "the first works". It does not say "at first".

"First" can be what was at the beginning. But, also, can it not mean the things which come first????

If they did what they were doing "at first", then they might go right on back to where they got themselves, from the first time.

Ones say if you keep repeating the same methods, you keep getting the same results.

If I go back to "where I left the Lord", I might just leave Him again. I need to be taken by God to where I will not leave Him and will do all He pleases to share with us.

And signs and wonders have not done this, it seems . . . though they are of God. We need to grow to where we go, with Jesus.

bèlla said:

There are 8 billion people in the world and everyone received a morsel from Him or more. The only one who can make that claim is Jesus Christ. I find it interesting that you receive no insight on what to do and only the other. Which doesn’t seem evenhanded or indicative of an aspect of His Person. He‘s called the Counselor after all. We see similar examples in the bible of many being led towards or away from something which contradicts your experience.

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It's wait. He told me in a dream to keep my word, as He will keep his.

bèlla said:

Sainthood? What do you mean by that? It doesn’t appear you’re catholic. How did you make a leap like this?

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Intuition. I didn't know but did things all the same. And these things are biblical.

bèlla said:

I don’t know what extraordinary abilities you believe you have. Given your comment on another thread it seems our conception of the Holy Spirit is not aligned.

God gave me prophetic dreams and visions. The Holy Spirits reacts to everything evil, even when people conceal it. I always know, even without thinking, or observing. But the two are required me in my earthly life, for myself.

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Everything that affects me, I am told of in advance. And I feel evil. And, whenever I plan to do something that I should not do, I am told not to.

bèlla said:

Your addendum raises other questions. You mention the devil trying to command or lure you in dreams. Why haven’t you been informed what that entails and how to guard against it? The whole thing is strange.

~bella

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God did appear a few months earlier and told me to keep my promise to Him. And afterwards, the devil showed up. So, it's obviously related. Also, the fact that in my dreams I did recognize him is another thing.

rambot said:

And the government's main contention is that gang members have identified him thusly.

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There were several important points of contention; but the foundational underlying point of contention was that he was here illegally.

That was settled.

jonojim1337 said:

I thought we agreed this was at the time of Jesus, the prince of princes?

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Please site the post where I agreed with you, and I'll try to figure out what I said and what I meant?

Carl Emerson said:

Because Jesus did.

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Yes, Jesus did call attention to the signs and wonders in sending a message to John the Baptist, in order to confirm who Jesus is.

But something certain early church magnifiers do not mention is the part where Jesus says the poor have the Gospel preached to them, and blessed is the one not offended in Jesus.

And I offer, again, how Jesus said that to a person in doubt.

And elsewhere Jesus does say no sign will be given to certain people, except the sign of Jonah.

Also, we have how Abraham tells the rich man that the man's brothers would not believe even if one rose from the dead to talk with them.

So . . . yes, God might show signs and wonders; however, it is possible He knows they do not make the difference. And yet Jesus says if signs and wonders were shown in Sodom and Gomorrah . . . they would remain to His day.

So - I see how things work, however God has things work . . . with signs and without signs. He does not depend on either: with or without, I would say.

Carl Emerson said:

Do you really think the Love of Jesus was less expressed throughout the early church in the first 5 chapters of Acts ?

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My point is the early church was not a mature church, right away. And at that earlier time of the early church, yes, there were signs and wonders. But the people were not mature, yet. And so, I am offering that we should not try to build things now to be like how things were while the church was new . . . not mature. We have mature people, now, including men who meet the description of 1 Timothy 3:1-10 which gives the qualifications of "a bishop".

And Peter did that wonder, of having the lame man walk, while Peter still was not a maturely sound and stable person. After all, in Galatians 2:11-13 we read how later, to my knowledge, Peter played the hypocrite, as did Barnabas . . . not what mature people would do, I would say. And yet, it does seem Barnabas, by then, was pretty mature or something like that, yet still able to do that.

So, in any case, what is really needed is all God does ***within*** us. And signs and wonders did not do that, and did not keep Peter and "even Barnabas" from playing the hypocrite.

So, we might give our main attention to what we need for God Himself to do, within us. Because even after all Peter and Barnabas did and witnessed . . . still . . .

essentialsaltes said:

Stopping people for being brown...

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Stinton, who is from Lisburn, County Antrim, in Northern Ireland, told the Telegraph that he was “kidnapped” off a Florida street and held in inhuman conditions for around a month before before being deported back to the UK. Stinton told the paper that he had all the correct paperwork to be in the United States, legally paid his U.S. taxes, and that federal agents told him, “You look Mexican,” while arresting him.

bèlla said:

No, I don’t believe everyone in the early church displayed the love of Christ identically. Variance is a part of the human condition. Which means you’ll see some people excelling in areas where others don’t. And inequitable workloads wouldn’t be unheard of. None of which is inherently bad.

~bella

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Absolutely correct.

I didn't suggest that.

But it would be a stretch to suggest that churches today have anything like the impact on society that the new born church had when the Love of Jesus was so strongly evident among them.

rjs330 said:

Are we giving in to evil? Far too many people are displaying an evil that I haven't seen before. Evil is running rampant in our inner cities. Evil is using
guns and knives and would most certainly use any other tool available. Something dark is happening in this country. Its almost like Evil is seeing a growth of opposition and is fighting back. The enemy is roaming among us seeking to devour us.

People, it is NOT THE GUNS. It is the people. There is something wrong. Terribly wrong. The heart of man is exceedingly wicked.

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But do you see that if THOSE people didn't have guns it would be MUCH harder for them to kill as much.

Within 50 or so years John was inspired to bring a word of warning and rebuke to the churches.

They were exhorted to return to 'first love' and do what they did at first.

What they did was recorded in early Acts - however the cost of returning to such a loving fellowship proved too high in most cases.

As per. the warning many lost their lampstand of His anointing.

Few churches today pay the price of heeding this call sadly, so we have churches that are more of a museum to a faith that once was.

And the world watches on hoping for life and love.

Vambram said:

The Bullet Tore the Air In Half - A Folding Chair Rattled - A Bible Dropped - A Young Man Slumped Sideways - Eyes Wide with the Weight of Eternity | The Gateway Pundit | by Patty McMurray

The Cross Still Offends A special guest contribution by Pastor Rich Bitterman The bullet tore the air in half.

www.thegatewaypundit.com

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Turning Charlie Kirk into a Christian martyr is deranged and blasphemous. It is worship of another "Christ".

But what if Kirk's death was vengence for Hortman's?

@Will Joseph
@bèlla
When you are well fed, you do not want. This is what I mean by freedom. A well fed man cannot be seduced. It applies to everything. And this is shown in the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve had everything. But it wasn't enough for Eve. Instead, for Adam was enough.
The female liberation movement was built on the idea of oppression. Planned, created, and funded by men. It had and has one main purpose, and multiple secondary ones, and its covered in good intentions. When you think you are oppressed the first thing that pops in your mind is escape. Doesn't matter from what, just to escape. And most of the time, you jump from the frying pan into fire. When they thought it up, they deduced the outcome correctly. A woman's weakness is power. A man's weakness is woman.

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

I'm not getting the love of this guy. I get Trump and Kirk is about the same. But Kirk is more vocal about his hate. I feel bad. Because he was supposed to believe in God. But his actions, say the opposite.

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He was a wolf in sheep's clothing. And not a very good one. This is what happens when a religious movement becomes thoroughly colonized by partisan politics.

It's a distraction from Trump withholding the Epstein files, as well as his general malfeasance and incompetence.

Job 33:6 said:

But it sounds like you're concerned by the idea of something like terrestrial animals evolving into whales.

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Animals from animals? Not so much. Man from animals? Much.

All living organisms evolved from a common ancestor. No.

Job 33:6 said:

Science isn’t in the business of proposing explanations where there’s no evidence.

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What are the limits of scientific knowledge? Normally science comes to its propositions only indirectly, ie., observing effects and speculating (inferring) causes. Their propositions are validated by, and grounded in, experience and, therefore, can only be contingent, ie., dependent on the next improved observation of more cogent reasoning. The phrase "science facts" is an oxymoron.

Relying on the principle of verification, scientists will not admit any non-analytic or non-empirical claim as they think those claims are meaningless. Perhaps the most devastatingly illogicality in their position is that the verification principle itself seemed to fail its own test—it could not be verified either logically or empirically, suggesting that by its own standards, it was meaningless.

So, science is quite limited in its claim to knowledge. We have other means to come to the truth of things. I am more certain of things I know by faith than by science. Posters in this thread; indeed, in this forum, suggests they are as well.

HARK! said:

Oh. but wait...He claims that he is not a gang member; and gang members never lie to authorities.

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Yes.
And the government's main contention is that gang members have identified him thusly.

So.....

CerebralCherub said:

Thank you for answwering so succintly. Too often, I feel overwhelmed with over explanation so I appreciate your brevity. I will ponder this and come back after reflection and research.

If you think anything will assist, beyond debate, then please share!

God bless.

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Nice; thanks.

What is needed for a full understanding of this and all the end times things, is a true picture of Gods Plans for His peoples, as they face trials and testing to prove their worth to go with Jesus into the Millennium.
I have many articles on the Temple, plus on the Prophesied end time events, free to read at: logostelos.info

NSH said:

The idea that we have never been to the moon is hard for many people to imagine:

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The astronauts who went to the moon and the 12 who walked on it, don't need to imagine anything; they were there.

MrMoe said:

It’s not about beating up on the left, it’s about exposing those on the left beating up on a dead man.

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Is he getting beat up really?

Kirk said a lot of awful things about a lot of people.

DO you expect people to take abuse from someone and then show reverence when they're dead?

(staff edit)
I never said a moment of silence was weaponized. But Boebert's call to have spoken prayer was gesturing towards weaponization. And that's what Democrats were objecting to. Conservative evangelical Christians regularly use prayer to manipulate or grandstand. A moment of silence, on the other hand, is respectful and of sufficient gravity on its own. More than Kirk frankly deserves.

Godcrazy said:

This was what I was doing, when I experienced miracles just by praying for people. I believed, and acted. I was like.. it says, he says so I do.
I heard a video last night from a catholic exorcist that I often do as they have so much knowledge. this was Fr Rippberger and he is also educated in psychology and that is my field. So what he was on about I found highly interesting. He said most churches nowadays are not wanting to hear about or know about the spiritual reality of the faith or spiritual warfare that they are atheistic about it. He said it was a big problem, prevents God from working. Makes people asleep in the church and everything about money or buildings and programs. (not that it does not have its place) but it has taken over. People don`t believe in the supernatural or want to know. IN the church. Those who do talk about it hear often they are "too much" this or that. But truth is he said most about christianity IS about spiritual warfare and the supernatural reality. I think this is why as he explained. I have had it myself I was told by a priest that I should not talk about the miracles I have experienced as some would not take it lightly.

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Back in the late 70's I showed the video "Viva Christo Rey" about the breakout of revival among the poor in Mexico. Those who heard and saw what God was doing were strongly convicted and on occasion the audience was silent for many minutes in response to what they were seeing.

I guess we are light years away from such encounters with God's Love these days - we have focused on 'Church Growth' and less on transforming encounter with God, community, and taking His life to the poor.