The kingdom vs america

[brinny]

Yes, rejoice always.

Amen!!!

 

[W2L]

Amen!!!

Lately i have been feeling much love and joy in my heart. A sharp contrast to who i used to be. Im new, amen, praise the Lord. Stay the course.

 

[brinny]

Lately i have been feeling much love and joy in my heart. A sharp contrast to who i used to be. Im new, amen, praise the Lord. Stay the course.

Praise God!!!!

Staying the course, not looking to the left or the right, but straight ahead!!

Amen!!!

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Satan is. He has a stronghold on the political system, and every system in the world. Total darkness has not extinguished the Light yet BECAUSE of God, and His mercy and His grace, and His own, praying to Him. He has spared us. There's a reason for that.

We are to bring light to dark places. The darker it gets, the more we are to shine, my dear friend.

Good song!
Gotta keep that thar candle lit in the dark.......

Matt 5:15
Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick;
and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

Reve 2;5
Remember therefore! from whence you have fallen, and repent! and do the first works!
or else I am coming to you swiftly, and will move your candlestick out of its place, unless you repent.

Reve 19:
1 And after these I hear as sound great of a throng, vast, in the heaven saying
"Hallelujah!
3 And a second-time they have declared "Hallelujah! and the smoke of Her is ascending into the ages of the ages".
4 And fall the elders, the twenty four, and the four living-ones, and worship to the God, to the One sitting upon the throne saying: "amen! Hallelujah! .

Lately i have been feeling much love and joy in my heart. A sharp contrast to who i used to be. Im new, amen, praise the Lord. Stay the course.

That is great!

I remember the members of a Pentecost church I belonged to back in about 2005 singing this song. I actually shed tears of joy when I heard it. I was cut to the heart.....

Reve 19:6
Then I heard something like the voice of a great multitude and like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, saying, "Hallelujah!
For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.


..............................

 

[W2L]

Praise God!!!!

Staying the course, not looking to the left or the right, but straight ahead!!

Amen!!!

Yes amen.

This scripture reminds me of inner joy and peace.

John 7:38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'

 

[LittleLambofJesus]

Praise God!!!!

Staying the course, not looking to the left or the right, but straight ahead!!

Amen!!!

Yes amen.

This scripture reminds me of inner joy and peace.

John 7:38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'

Amen!
I got this from my "Thirsting for Living Water" study series. Hope it edifies those here.....

Isaiah 43:19
"Behold! Doing a new thing; now she is sprouting; not ye are knowing her?
Indeed I am placing in wilderness a Way, in desolation streams/rivers".

Matthew 5:6
"Happy the ones-hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
that they shall be being gorged/cortasqhsontai <5526>".

Joh 7:37
In the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying,
"If ever anyone may be thirsting, let him be coming toward Me and be drinking."
[Isaiah 43:19/Revelation 21:6/22:17]

John 19:
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!”
30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!”
And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. [Reve 21:6]

Reve 21:6
And He said to me:" it is finished!.
I Am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
I, to the one thirsting, shall be giving out of the spring of the Water of the Life gratuitously". [John 7:37/Reve 22:17]

Reve 22:17
And the spirit and the bride are saying: "Be coming! and the one hearing let him say! Be coming!
And the one thirsting, let him be coming!
The one willing, let him be taking! water of life gratuitously

.....................................

 

[W2L]

Amen!
I got this from my "Thirsting for Living Water" study series. Hope it edifies those here.....

Isaiah 43:19
"Behold! Doing a new thing; now she is sprouting; not ye are knowing her?
Indeed I am placing in wilderness a Way, in desolation streams/rivers".

Matthew 5:6
"Happy the ones-hungering and thirsting for righteousness,
that they shall be being gorged/cortasqhsontai <5526>".

Joh 7:37
In the last, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, If ever anyone may be thirsting, let him be coming toward Me and be drinking.
[Isaiah 43:19/Revelation 21:6/22:17]

John 19:
28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!”
30 So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!”
And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit. [Reve 21:6]

Reve 21:6
And He said to me:" it is finished!.
I Am the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end.
I, to the one thirsting, shall be giving out of the spring of the Water of the Life gratuitously". [John 7:37/Reve 22:17]

Reve 22:17
And the spirit and the bride are saying: "Be coming! and the one hearing let him say! Be coming!
And the one thirsting, let him be coming!
The one willing, let him be taking! water of life gratuitously

.....................................

Thanks LLoJ.

 

[mindlight]

To be sure, God in His almighty sovereignty has from time to time usually used America as a tool in His plan for the destiny of the world. But it's foolish to silly to praise the pot for the use of it made by the potter.

True , to God be the glory.

All of this was done not for "favor of good and freedom" but by the US government to maintain the power and wealth of the elite, both in Europe and in America.

For instance, during those wars the US government promised colonized native people "liberty and freedom" if they would fight for the American cause, but then after both WWI and WWII, the US government instantly reneged on those promises and promptly turned them back over to their European masters.

My family came from the colonies and my grandfather worked closely with the Americans in Burma fighting the Japanese. They used him rather than the posh white guys in the Indian government cause he knew what he was doing and spoke all the languages. Despite this cooperation and friendship my grandfather said it was Americas fault we lost our empire after the war. This was the price we paid for victory. They undermined the class system which so clearly failed in preserving the Eastern empire against its enemies but on which the fiction of control depended.

After WWII, the US was on board with the Treaty of Versailles, which even at the time was known to be so Draconian in its penalties upon Germany that it was certain Germany would ultimately have to respond with war, whether there was a "Hitler" or not.

France was the wounded nation with no sense that drove this treaty. Britain also supported it. America took a more isolationist path after the war.

The fact that the US had learned a lesson from the earlier mistake and administered Germany and Japan at the end of WWII with more worldly self-interest than they did at the end of WWI is not the goodness of Christ. That's merely the self-interested "goodness" of the world. Even evil men know how to do "good" to those from whom they expect "good" in return.

Everything the US government does in the world is to make more secure its political and economic power in the world.

Every nation has a self interest and its rulers are appointed to serve the common good of its citizens but America has been exceptional in more ways than you give credit in doing good.

First, that was mostly Great Britain. Second, Jews had secured a significant amount of political and economic power in the US by then. I'm not at all "blaming" them--they were understandibily looking out for their own interests--but that wasn't from the goodness of Christ, but again, a matter of worldly self-interest. The average American was still anti-Semite.

Everything the US government does in the world is to make more secure its political and economic power in the world. The US has attempted to us Israel as a counterpoint to the USSR and a continuous counterpoint to any other Middle Eastern nation assuming regional dominance. By keeping them all teetering, the US maintains power.

Your separation of church and state makes the language of the public sector sound worse than it is. But I think you ignore a groundswell of favourable opinion towards the Jews after the holocaust and the compassion of a truly Christian president Truman in the founding of Israel. Britain did liberate Israel from the Turks but we did so by encouraging an Arab nationalism in the region which along with the presence of oil in Arab regions made us less openly supportive of an independent Jewish Israel. We tried to play both sides. It is America that has been the main guarantor of Israel even if Britain today also recognises its sovereignty.

All that has been done by non-government Christians, not by the US government, so that's not a matter to praise the US government. Great Britain in its heyday did more government-sponsored missionary activity than the US has ever done, even including non-government missionary efforts. If that's supposed to be a point of praise for a nation, Great Britain is the winner.

Not sure we have to regard a nations government as the full representation of what afterall are free societies except in places like North Korea or various Islamic states. The British government was often more interested in keeping the peace and order of the empire than upsetting its delicate balance by allowing missionaries to convert people. But nonetheless missionaries from my country and yours did valuable work laying the foundations of churches in the colonies which have since independence grown enormously and especially in Africa.

God has never cared about numbers. God is certainly more concerned about purity of belief and effectiveness in His actual mission: Make disciples of all nations.

Oppressed Christians in China are making disciples at the rate of 1,000 a week. China might already have more Spirit-filled Christians than America, where most "Christians" in America are only Christian by nominal default. Christians in North Korea--even those horribly oppressed Christians in North Korea--have swelled in ranks from 5,000 in the mid 90s to an estimated 50,000 today.

Christians in America cannot hold a candle up to them. Theirs is the mightier witness.

No we all have dignity and value in Gods Kingdom however easy and unproven our faith may be in the West. As with the parable of the workers in the Vineyard we are all paid the same wages at days end. So the number of American Christians makes it a special country blessed by God and special to his purposes.

God has used America as His tool.

He also used, at one time or another, Egypt, Persia, Rome, and Great Britain as His tools. God deposes kings and raises up others. It is therefore absolute madness for Christians to tie themselves to any particular king or nation, because God does not respect any worldly king or nation--they are nothing but tools in His hand.

For those Christians who have a glimmer of understanding of that, I strongly recommend diving into 1 Peter, which is the "field manual" for Christians as ambassadors of Heaven deployed to the nations of the world.

I am British , my father was born in India, my mothers father in America, I live in Germany and have German children. The Kingdom is larger in my personal experience than one nation. But we should not insult the works of God in any nation nor diminish the value there is in being a child of God Just because we can see so much more value in what others are doing in difficult circumstances.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

This was the price we paid for victory.

We lost before the war even started.
There was no victory for anyone.
Just huge amount of PROFIT for some (and they planned it) ....
And power/ control/ advantage gained or attempted gained by those who brought all the countries to go to war.
The ones in power responsible for all the bloodshed of mankind for many centuries .

 

[RDKirk]

Speak to a Palestinian Christian or an Iraqi Christian about what America has done for them.

The fact is that this is a fallen world. It is a fallen world. From bottom to top, it is a world of tooth, claw, sword, and gun. The Body of Christ is not here to fix the world. Christians can't make the lion and the lamb lie in peace together, Christians can't make the viper a docile playmate to a child, Christians can't fix the Roman Empire.

Until Christ returns, power and order are maintained by the sword.

Fixing the Roman Empire is not in our job description. It's not our mission.

Our mission is to give asylum in the embassy of the Kingdom of Heaven to those refugees of the world that have been enabled by the Father.

 

[mindlight]

Speak to a Palestinian Christian or an Iraqi Christian about what America has done for them.

Christians have been leaving both countries for some years now and even before the Gulf Wars. The question is really what God is doing. It seems to me that he is emptying Iraq in preparation for a judgment of some sort and Israel is for the Jews. Non Jewish Christians really do not want to be there for when the water runs out.

The fact is that this is a fallen world. It is a fallen world. From bottom to top, it is a world of tooth, claw, sword, and gun. The Body of Christ is not here to fix the world. Christians can't make the lion and the lamb lie in peace together, Christians can't make the viper a docile playmate to a child, Christians can't fix the Roman Empire.

Until Christ returns, power and order are maintained by the sword.

Fixing the Roman Empire is not in our job description. It's not our mission.

Our mission is to give asylum in the embassy of the Kingdom of Heaven to those refugees of the world that have been enabled by the Father.

I agree we are not here with the primary goal of fixing the Roman empire but I disagree that Gods grace and mercy in this world is not transformative to some extent. If individuals can be transformed by a relationship with God (and I know that I have been) then I have to disagree that the task of fixing nations is a hopeless one. Yes we are waiting on Christ for the big solution but that does not mean we cannot make our small contributions in his grace right now and be a part of his plan right now also. The Kingdom is here with us , it is arriving and it is yet to come. We are a citizen of two kingdoms with obligations to both and Americans to be honest often come across as members of either one or the other rather than both. If you are not a Christian in the world but not of it then your faith sounds kind of abstract. If you are a Christian in the world without a spiritual anchor then you are not serving God. Real faith is messy but somehow things improve around believers. Not cause they are perfect or doing perfect things but because somehow God is at work in the mess. America needs its church and its church can make a difference to America.

 

[RDKirk]

Christians have been leaving both countries for some years now and even before the Gulf Wars. The question is really what God is doing. It seems to me that he is emptying Iraq in preparation for a judgment of some sort and Israel is for the Jews. Non Jewish Christians really do not want to be there for when the water runs out.



I agree we are not here with the primary goal of fixing the Roman empire but I disagree that Gods grace and mercy in this world is not transformative to some extent. If individuals can be transformed by a relationship with God (and I know that I have been) then I have to disagree that the task of fixing nations is a hopeless one. Yes we are waiting on Christ for the big solution but that does not mean we cannot make our small contributions in his grace right now and be a part of his plan right now also. The Kingdom is here with us , it is arriving and it is yet to come. We are a citizen of two kingdoms with obligations to both and Americans to be honest often come across as members of either one or the other rather than both. If you are not a Christian in the world but not of it then your faith sounds kind of abstract. If you are a Christian in the world without a spiritual anchor then you are not serving God. Real faith is messy but somehow things improve around believers. Not cause they are perfect or doing perfect things but because somehow God is at work in the mess. America needs its church and its church can make a difference to America.

And none of that was scriptural.

 

[mindlight]

And none of that was scriptural.

Rubbish unless you really believe that God is not Sovereign, that conversion is not transformative and makes no earthly difference or if you hold a scholastic view of the Two Kingdoms doctrine. The kind of position you describe is an abstract and irrelevant Christianity - suited for ghettos and hermits but not for the world that God created. You may have given up your own country, but I have not and will continue to pray for it.

Matthew 5:13-16
“You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.

Ezekial 37
The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; it was full of bones. And he led me around among them, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and behold, they were very dry. And he said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, you know.” Then he said to me, “Prophesy over these bones, and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones: Behold, I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. ...

Romans 12:2
And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.

Ephesians 4:22-24
that, in reference to your former manner of life, you lay aside the old self, which is being corrupted in accordance with the lusts of deceit, and that you be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and put on the new self, which in the likeness of God has been created in righteousness and holiness of the truth.

 

[RDKirk]

Rubbish unless you really believe that God is not Sovereign, that conversion is not transformative and makes no earthly difference or if you hold a scholastic view of the Two Kingdoms doctrine. The kind of position you describe is an abstract and irrelevant Christianity - suited for ghettos and hermits but not for the world that God created. You may have given up your own country, but I have not and will continue to pray for it.

And yet, nothing you quoted said a word about fixing the Roman Empire, which is all that your argument boils down to.

And although I'm neither Lutheran or Reformed Theology (not quite), I'll point out that you'd have a hard time doffing off all of Lutheran and Reformed Theology as "abstract and irrelevant Christianity - suited for ghettos and hermits but not for the world that God created."

Or didn't you read your own link?