And why would that surprise you? The giver of life also has the right to terminate it as he has shown down through history. He is a God of justice, not sentiment. If you deserve life, he will permit you to live it under his terms, but if you wish to dictate your own terms, then...you just disqualified yourself from keeping it.
Life goes in a cycle rather than linear. I would say the "spirit" of life. Spirit as in breathe/blood/air. What keeps us in motion. We are formed into being from sperm and egg, we dissolve out of being, to earth and water. Nothing disappears just changes form. So, there's no curse in that which changes form.
It's kind of like trying to pin down a moving target by saying whether one dies or lives in the afterlife. We just change forms. There is no end.
Life is a gift...death is a curse. We have no inbuilt program for death, but we sure as heck have one to keep living.
We are built for death. That's how the body works. We are born, it ages as soon as we are born, we live, we die "life" our spirit or breathe moves on. It just is. If we can't accept that, we'd be "looking or waiting" for god for eternity.
It is all God ever offered us...everlasting life or everlasting death.....these are opposites, which if you check out nature...everything has an equal opposite. It speaks of God's perfect balance in all his creation.
The balance is in a cycle not in a scale.
Do you loose out on heaven if those who don't believe what you do will not die?
Jesus taught us the way to everlasting life....
Eternal life is trying to contain something that is temporary. It's "holding on" to life when life goes on without us. We die out of being once we take our last breath.
We don't need eternal life when we accept that we will not be ourselves forever. I honestly feel we would be more at peace when we know we will die.
There are death cafe' that get people prepared for death practically like drawing wills to psychologically and for many people spiritually. Then when you accept you will die, there's no need to "tell others the great news" because they will die too.
God's love for those who will do the right thing by each other, the planet, and God himself, is demonstrated when he eliminates from existence those who have no intention of ever following his commands. The disobedient ones spoil it for everyone else. They create bones of contention that need not exist.
Speak of the Devil, there's my answer to the question above: disobedient ones spoil it for everyone.
Cycles don't have this type of thinking. We are all going the same direction. No one is special.
Our treacherous heart can lead us away from God imagining that we know better than he does or that we must run ahead of him and make known our own thoughts and ideas.....He has never used anyone but his appointed servants to disseminate his wishes to the rest of his household.
Some say they were blind but now they are free. A lot of other christians say they were filthy rags until god saved them. How does JW view this? Do you believe you had a treacherous heart?
The spirit of life is God's to give and to take away as he sees fit.
Our spirit is either keeping us alive (animating our physical body)....or once it is extinguished, leads to our death. It doesn't go anywhere. It begins in our lungs at birth and it dies with us once our last breath is gone.
No one can take the "spirit of life" away. It's the natural part of life and how life (animals, plants, humans, etc) work. There's no external agent involved in this process.
Again not really following you here...
I am not afraid of death because death is just like sleeping. There is no conscious part of man that survives death. It is the opposite of life. If God left me it would be because I had broken his commands....since that is highly unlikely, I cannot imagine me leaving God or him leaving me....I love him too much for that.
If death is a curse and god took your life because you disobeyed him, if not fear, what emotion would you experience? (think of a roller coaster. Fear before the fall)
Obedience to God is like putting your full trust in him as your Father.....one who will not let you fall but support you through the hardest times. His tough love is good for us because its tests our mettle. It shows God that we genuinely love him, not just for all the good things, but in spite of the bad things.
Let me ask. When you talk about god, you say "his tough love is good for us" as if you spoken to him personally. Are you taking the bible words and making it alive?
If you remember the trials of Job, then you will remember who brought those trials on him and the accusations made about the genuineness of his love for his God. Each trial was a test of Job's love and loyalty....he passed with flying colors. But will we?
I'm not familiar with Job, unfortunately. If you see yourself in front of a court accused of a crime, then I can see why you'd want someone to get you out.
I'd say if you did the crime, it's your consequence to "do the time." While being saved from your charges is fine, accusing people who rather take responsibility for their actions is not.
LOVE. When you see God's creation and the beauty of it stirs your heart to intense gratitude, and draws you to the one who created it all....
I can see that as love. Why wouldn't death be a part of this?
From my perspective, that is completely false. God is the Creator of those who don't even believe in him. They don't want to know him and they certainly don't want to obey him...but that doesn't mean that they will not account to him for the life he's given them.
Which is fine. It's better to follow someone or be in a place our heart calls us than being in a state of obedience where we are drawn by fear (the: I can't live without... mentality).
People are so quick to take their lives for granted....but the truth is every one of us is a miracle....out of all the eggs and sperm that our parents could have turned into human beings.....we were the ones who actually made it outside of the womb to take that first breath and become a human soul. The odds against us being here are astronomical...yet how many truly appreciate life itself?
A lot of us do, you, me, and millions of others. Maybe flip it around.
How many of "us" support each other in order to appreciate life as a unit?
I think we can rephrase that to include you and I as well?
All of us are the product of our parent's gene pool....at birth we are a blank canvas....genetics and environment play a role in who we become, but so do our individual choices. All have the same opportunity to come to God. He searches for us as much as we search for him.
When we get of age to where our parents etc teach us religion-JW, Catholic, UU, so have you-we can choose to follow what we've been taught or follow something that we know feeds our soul.
Like I had no purpose in being here. Life would be meaningless and there would be nothing to look forward to.
Yes, there would. There's a lot to look forward to outside god. The thing is, how do you feel inside when thinking outside the box? If you can't, that doesn't mean others are the same way.
But the thing is, not everyone needs god to find purpose. It's one thing to be on your own with your belief it's a totally 'nother thing to "spread the news" so someone can share a belief that isn't in their hearts to practice.
Love out of fear and force.
Its not me accusing anyone of anything....Jesus said that 'many will seek to get in through that narrow door but will not be able'.....they simply don't want to make the effort.
Jesus also told us why....
When I say you, replace it with jesus. Jesus isn't quite here so I can't ask him directly
The only fear we feel is what we would also feel towards a beloved parent.....the fear that we had displeased them or let them down in some way. Being afraid of him is not something God has ever wanted. We are so far away form what he intended for us at the beginning but he must deal with rebellion in his own way.
Fear is a natural human emotion. I know you have faith god will not let you die forever. Though, since god can do anything, he could take his promise back. If he does, would that be okay with you?
If not fear, anger? Sadness?
He gave humankind a wonderful start but they threw it all back in his face. All he wanted was for us to love him and obey him as the caring Father that he was, but after the devil has finished with the human race, he will be left with "few" who truly know him and love him for all that he has done to secure our future....it meant sacrificing a good bit of the here and now, but in the long run, it will be so worth it.
I'd prefer to see it as life isn't bias. We are brought into being, live, age, and out of being. Humans make stipulations on life by either taking it, depriving it, or taking care of it, even to the point of worshiping it. The politics of religion (JW included) masks the nature of life itself because some people are jumping back and forth trying to find eternal life when they aren't comfortable accepting this one. This one meaning: birth, life, age, and death.
There is a check list when it comes to who is and who is not a genuine disciple of Jesus Christ. He taught us about how the devil would sow fake 'Christianity' into the world. It is beneficial to know how to identify them by identifying the conduct of the genuine ones....
If you take the word christianity out and just put the devil is pulling people who have a relationship with christ into the world. People who have this relationship will always have this balance issue until they die and be resurrected to eternal life.
This isn't bias by denomination. JW is included in this too. The devil isn't picky, right?
He will never ask it.....do you understand the trust I have in that fact?
I understand that. That's why I asked the question. You can say people disobey god and god will let them stay dead repeatedly, but what is obedience beyond what you read and speak of?
Even with abraham and his child. Which is a great example of this. Killing your child for god is a pretty big statement.
Why would my question be any different to answer when Abraham did it himself without forethought?
BTW there is 'save draft' feature in the task bar....3rd from the left.....
Hm. Can't find it. I'm using the default skin. I switched to the new version but couldn't find the safe draft. Is it in both?
