Different before receiving the Holy spirit?

[jameshjr]

Hello all, i hope that you are well.

Firstly i would like to say thank you to all those whom participated in my last post.

Before accepting (knowingly) the holy spirit and accepting Jesus as my Lord and saviour i had always felt different ( i still do, but in a good way) to those around me. even as a kid, i never felt like i fit in with my friendship group and that i was always having to act differently to how i felt, because, i thought/ knew somehow that if i was honest that i would be rejected.

So my question is this: is this feeling common to all people, or is this more of a feeling that born again (in particular) christians feel i.e. that as God knows everything from all of time does God make us not fit in with the world in order to make accepting Him easier? so that even before we have the holy spirit, God has already singled us out for salvation and this effects us (makes us diffent to the cultire) even before we recive the holy spirit?

Hope this makes sense and you know what i mean.

 

[timothyu]

so that even before we have the holy spirit, God has already singled us out for salvation and this effects us (makes us diffent to the cultire) even before we recive the holy spirit?

Quite possibly so. Jesus came to represent and teach us a culture of servitude to each other that was different to the traditional self serving culture of mankind, a counter-culture, which of course appealed to those who felt the world was backwards, or those who were oppressed. There is a reason His first followers were, women, slaves and servants. His was the Gospel of the Kingdom, a world and way of life with a governance opposite to the world man has built in our own image. Many no doubt grew up having no use for the self servitude of man with the sin and oppression it created, and were way ahead of those claiming to be born again, who hopefully figured out what others already knew, that the self serving ways of man were not the ways of the Kingdom nor of God, and deserved rejection (repentance of).

Jesus said He would send the HS as a comforter, that is to those who already were of the Kingdom, who had rejected the ways of mankind in turn for the ways of the Kingdom and the will of God. A guiding wind to keep them from straying from that path as did those in the Parable of the Sower. A wind that would remind them of His teachings on the Gospel of the Kingdom, not the gospels of the gentile churches. It was not sent to help us self justify ideas of our own or defend another gospel used for millennia instead of that of the Kingdom, one which is about what is in it for us rather than what is the desire of God. More self serving theology compliments of self serving mankind.

 

[Maria Billingsley]

Hello all, i hope that you are well.

Firstly i would like to say thank you to all those whom participated in my last post.

Before accepting (knowingly) the holy spirit and accepting Jesus as my Lord and saviour i had always felt different ( i still do, but in a good way) to those around me. even as a kid, i never felt like i fit in with my friendship group and that i was always having to act differently to how i felt, because, i thought/ knew somehow that if i was honest that i would be rejected.

So my question is this: is this feeling common to all people, or is this more of a feeling that born again (in particular) christians feel i.e. that as God knows everything from all of time does God make us not fit in with the world in order to make accepting Him easier? so that even before we have the holy spirit, God has already singled us out for salvation and this effects us (makes us diffent to the cultire) even before we recive the holy spirit?

Hope this makes sense and you know what i mean.

One must humble themselves and love the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth before receiving His Holy Spirit. May be tough for some to relinquish all to Him. Those pure in heart recieve His gift.
Blessings

 

[jameshjr]

Quite possibly so. Jesus came to represent and teach us a culture of servitude to each other that was different to the traditional self serving culture of mankind, a counter-culture, which of course appealed to those who felt the world was backwards, or those who were oppressed. There is a reason His first followers were, women, slaves and servants. His was the Gospel of the Kingdom, a world and way of life with a governance opposite to the world man has built in our own image. Many no doubt grew up having no use for the self servitude of man with the sin and oppression it created, and were way ahead of those claiming to be born again, who hopefully figured out what others already knew, that the self serving ways of man were not the ways of the Kingdom nor of God, and deserved rejection (repentance of).

Jesus said He would send the HS as a comforter, that is to those who already were of the Kingdom, who had rejected the ways of mankind in turn for the ways of the Kingdom and the will of God. A guiding wind to keep them from straying from that path as did those in the Parable of the Sower. A wind that would remind them of His teachings on the Gospel of the Kingdom, not the gospels of the gentile churches. It was not sent to help us self justify ideas of our own or defend another gospel used for millennia instead of that of the Kingdom, one which is about what is in it for us rather than what is the desire of God. More self serving theology compliments of self serving mankind.

Hell Timothyu, thank you for your message. I am in agreement that the world of man is opposed to the kingdom of heaven.

The weak and poor inherit (or are more likely to) the kingdom of God; however, with God being all powerful, i ask the question: before they receive the holy spirit, is it not God whom either makes people poor and/ or weak or allows them to become so. If this is the case, is this not the same as Him ordering their lives (prior to receiving the Holy spirit) so that they are able to inherit the Holy spirit later- the hot sand on the beach, before entering the water.

If this is right then the moment of being saved isnt when we accept Jesus , but has actually occurred before we were born, maybe even before time began (as i think may be acknowledged in one of pauls letters, though, i cannot remember which off the top of my head ).

 

[timothyu]

If this is the case, is this not the same as Him ordering their lives (prior to receiving the Holy spirit) so that they are able to inherit the Holy spirit later- the hot sand on the beach, before entering the water.

We were cast out of the Garden into this world to experience the repercussions of choosing self will over the will of God. We have built an entire system based on self interest and yet only the few have seen the harm it causes, repent of it and find that water you speak of. We created the hot sand by our own choices as Eve did, have never successfully changed our self serving ways at least as a people, and must understand how our self will is adversarial to the will of God. The HS is only given to those who first find the alien Kingdom, abandoning self for servitude.

 

[pescador]

I was a confirmed atheist before I received the Holy Spirit. Does that answer your OP question?

 

[pescador]

One must humble themselves and love the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth before receiving His Holy Spirit. May be tough for some to relinquish all to Him. Those pure in heart recieve His gift.
Blessings

See my post directly above this one...