Hi Foolish, nice to meet you. I appreciate your integrity. I think if you can remain persistent and honest to the very end then you will find that missing piece of the puzzle and the light will go on. Let me have a crack at helping you with that:
I havn't encountered god's presence. But I find It completely hilarious that you believe that christ could've defeated the might of Rome and yet refused to.
Why didn't he?
To teach us a lesson. The best learned lessons come by the school of hard knocks. When the weeds are sorted from the wheat, His kingdom will only consist of those who have overcome the devil, not those who have had an easy ride and indulged in the benefits of sin all their life.
I am going to introduce you to thinking of the Genesis story as prophecy rather than history. I am not saying that it is invalid to read in a literal sense, but what I am saying is that there are deep spiritual truths to be learned, which you cannot get unless you accept the story and think about it, accepting what God's Holy Spirit tells you when you read. I'll do my best to help you here by sharing what God's Holy Spirit tells me when I read it.
First off, read this verse:
Luke 17:26
When the Son of Man returns, it will be like it was in Noahs day.
This is telling us that there is an impending doom which is the triumphant return of Jesus with all the angels and the judgment of the world. It is interesting to read this with the prior judgment served on earth in Noah's day. When we begin to look for these such parallels in the scriptures, we begin to learn a lot from God, this is done by thinking under the influence of God's Holy Spirit. How can you expect to have this priviledge if you will not believe what He tells you? Simple answer is you can't. This is why it is necessary to believe what God says, because if you stop yourself from thinking about what God says, you really cannot blame anyone for the fact that you aren't learning from God. Someone already showed you the scripture "God is not the author of confusion". So as long as you are learning from God you will not be confused. Close your mind to what He says however, you will quickly get confused about what it means. This is referred to as "hardening of the heart", and that happens when we read something in the bible that puts a wedge between us and God. Until we repent, and that wedge is removed, we will not be able to learn from God, we will continue to get more and more confused until finally we crumble in desperation and cry out to Him for forgiveness. Either that or we die in bitterness toward Him.
So let me share with you one of the thoughts I have recently had about the Genesis account and how it relates to the story of Jesus and His sacrifice.
Jesus was not an ordinary man. This is made plain and clear by the people who knew Him and who shared their experience of Him. He performed numerous miracles, drew great crowds, was not afraid of anything, and even had power over life and death at His own will. This is what you would expect from the one and only son of God isn't it? So the Pharisee's and Saducee's of the time (herein referred to as P&S) found themselves in a bit of a power struggle with Jesus over the kingdom of God. What is the kingdom of God? It is the official representation of God to earth, therefore the legal authority of what is considered good and evil. Sound familiar? You may be on track if you think like I do that the forbidden fruit was the kingdom of God. So when you stated earlier that Jesus was in trouble for heresy, what you were saying is that the P&S actually had greater authority to command the kingdom of God than Jesus did.
What do you think Jesus' response to that claim would be?
Let me show you what it was:
Matthew 26:52-53
New Living Translation (NLT)
52 Put away your sword, Jesus told him. Those who use the sword will die by the sword. 53 Dont you realize that I could ask my Father for thousands[a] of angels to protect us, and he would send them instantly?
So what sort of picture does this draw in your mind now?
Think a moment about this verse:
John 15
22 They would not be guilty if I had not come and spoken to them. But now they have no excuse for their sin.
Do you think that the P&S were somehow confused about Jesus' position of authority? Do you think that they did not recognize Jesus as a prophet of God? Think properly won't you. Consider this verse:
John 3
1 There was a man named Nicodemus, a Jewish religious leader who was a Pharisee. 2 After dark one evening, he came to speak with Jesus. Rabbi, he said, we all know that God has sent you to teach us. Your miraculous signs are evidence that God is with you.
Here is a member of the Sanhedrin approaching Jesus in secret and confessing that they knew full well that Jesus had been sent to teach them. At this point the penny might drop for you. By the P&S act of killing Jesus and claiming the kingdom of God for their self, they have taken the forbidden fruit and brought a curse upon the entire earth - that the one and only son of God, the very Word that spoke everything into existence, was rejected by His own creation!(
John 1).
What is God's response to such evil? Genesis shows us that the first thing He does is banish them from the garden (the temple is destroyed), then He places a curse upon the man and woman, that the woman would reproduce with great pain (Christian salvation requires a painful sacrifice), and the man would strive with thorns and thistles (as the gardener, his work to convert people into Christianity would be laborious). This is how I have recently read it.
It might not be a fantastic enlightenment to you, but I hope it demonstrates to you the sort of liberation we are entitled to when we accept that the story is true and begin to look for deeper meanings than what is given on the surface. Your heart is of fairly good quality, the only danger I see with you is imposing your expectations upon God instead of accepting His own wisdom. God says clearly "my ways are not your ways". This is why I would encourage you to consider asking God for wisdom when you read the bible, then you can begin to learn deeper lessons by accepting that God was actually right to do it the way He chose to do it. The bible is an open book, but it is useless without the Holy Spirit. The many who profess to know the bible in and out yet don't believe it are living testimonies of this famous quote:
John 5
38 But you do not have His word abiding in you, because whom He sent, Him you do not believe. 39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me. 40 But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
Notice that these people have head knowledge of the bible, yet what Jesus says is that the word is not abiding in them. The word has no life for them. The lesson to learn is that the word is dead as long as it remains on the page. The moment you take those words off the page and put them in your heart is when the words will come to life. It does require sacrifice, and only your conscience is qualified to tell you what it will cost. That is why you will need to pray to Jesus for help, because He is entitled to forgive your sins and teach you how to become holy. That is our purpose on this earth, it is to grow into wheat that He will harvest and give a place of glory in His barn (figuratively speaking about the renewed earth).
Now I will address another question you asked:
Indeed, why doesn't he show himself now by superimposing himself on all channels and YouTube?
He doesn't want us to love Him in the physical form. He wants us to be one with Him in thought and deed. Cite:
The Humbled and Exalted Christ
5 Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, 6 who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, 7 but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.
"Let this mind be in you". Amazing words. We are called to be just like Christ was - humble even to the point of death. You will have heard Him say "turn the other cheek", and "take up your cross and follow me". That is what it means to be Christ's disciple. His vision for the renewed earth is to be full of people who are perfectly holy in mind as He is, that means we need to overcome sin. This world is only a garden where the seeds are scattered and where wheat grows among weeds. You have the choice to become wheat should you so desire. We are given a great promise, in Revelation 2:7 He says "To him who overcomes I will give to eat from the tree of life, which is in the midst of the Paradise of God." This means to all who conquer the devil and become Christ's disciples, we are given fruit from the tree of life. That is how the Word of God (John 1) comes off the page and comes to life within.
Hope this gives you something to think about.
