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CF has always been a site that welcomes people from different backgrounds and beliefs to participate in discussion and even debate. That is the nature of its ministry. In view of recent events emotions are running very high. We need to remind people of some basic principles in debating on this site. We need to be civil when we express differences in opinion. No personal attacks. Avoid you, your statements. Don't characterize an entire political party with comparisons to Fascism or Communism or other extreme movements that committed atrocities. CF is not the place for broad brush or blanket statements about groups and political parties. Put the broad brushes and blankets away when you come to CF, better yet, put them in the incinerator. Debate had no place for them. We need to remember that people that commit acts of violence represent themselves or a small extreme faction.
First testimony
- Thread starter Geoghegan
- Start date
faroukfarouk
Fading curmudgeon
Good to see you on the forums.
Regular prayer and Bible reading are so important in one's walk with the Lord.
John's Gospel is a wonderful book of the Bible to get to know well; and John's First Epistle - short, only 5 chapters - has various of the themes that you mention.
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- Oct 28, 2006
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It sounds like you had quite a breakthrough moment with that realization the Holy Spirit gave you, Geoghegan. Thanks for sharing that!
Peace,
2PhiloVoid
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faroukfarouk
Fading curmudgeon
Yes, and like I mentioned above it's so important to deepen one's walk through regular prayer and Bible reading, right?
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Monna
Well-Known Member
Thanks, Geoghegan, for that wonderful story.
It took me a long time to work out why wronging another person is a sin against God and needed his forgiveness. I'm not sure I have the whole story even yet, but I think it is slowly becoming clearer, if more amazing.
Christians (and practicing Jews) believe that humans were/are created "in the image, or likeness, of God" on purpose, and by God. In other words, God's image is intrinsically bound up with us. Or put another way, God himself has alway identified himself with us as beings. So when we offend, injure, or wrong another person we are automatically offending God, in whose image that person exists.
This has other amazing implications:
- many of our sins are internal, i.e. our thoughts, our private habits, etc. where we believe nobody else is involved, and yet they corrupt our own moral fibre. And this is not only a sin against ourselves because it corrupts the image of God in ourselves, it is a sin against God.
- on the other hand, we understand how it can be that we read "whenever you did [a good thing] for another person, you did it for me." His identification with other individual people is just as real when we do good (and "good" in God's view is 'with a loving motive') as it is when we do bad things to other people.
- when it really sinks in that "that horrible, nasty, bad person" is also actually made in God's image, we cease to see him or her as a horrible nasty person, but someone who has real value to God, and understand God's interest in reversing the moral corruption, cleansing him or her, restoring them to how he intended them to be. It may change our feelings from disgust to sorrow, it can help us separate the person from the behaviour.
Welcome to CF. I hope you will enjoy what you find here, and feel you can share more of your thoughts.
Monna
It took me a long time to work out why wronging another person is a sin against God and needed his forgiveness. I'm not sure I have the whole story even yet, but I think it is slowly becoming clearer, if more amazing.
Christians (and practicing Jews) believe that humans were/are created "in the image, or likeness, of God" on purpose, and by God. In other words, God's image is intrinsically bound up with us. Or put another way, God himself has alway identified himself with us as beings. So when we offend, injure, or wrong another person we are automatically offending God, in whose image that person exists.
This has other amazing implications:
- many of our sins are internal, i.e. our thoughts, our private habits, etc. where we believe nobody else is involved, and yet they corrupt our own moral fibre. And this is not only a sin against ourselves because it corrupts the image of God in ourselves, it is a sin against God.
- on the other hand, we understand how it can be that we read "whenever you did [a good thing] for another person, you did it for me." His identification with other individual people is just as real when we do good (and "good" in God's view is 'with a loving motive') as it is when we do bad things to other people.
- when it really sinks in that "that horrible, nasty, bad person" is also actually made in God's image, we cease to see him or her as a horrible nasty person, but someone who has real value to God, and understand God's interest in reversing the moral corruption, cleansing him or her, restoring them to how he intended them to be. It may change our feelings from disgust to sorrow, it can help us separate the person from the behaviour.
Welcome to CF. I hope you will enjoy what you find here, and feel you can share more of your thoughts.
Monna
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