Random

Random Notes

Sections

Questions
- Does God change?
- Does God change his mind?
Ideas

Questions

Does God change?

Does the Bible demonstrate that God changes over time? Saying that God changes suggests that God had a character flaw that he discovered and improved.

Does God change his mind?

The Bible demonstrates apparent “changes of mind” but is that an actual change of gods mind? Did God encounter new information that was previously unavailable to him that required a change of mind? What’s gods eternal perspective on his changes of mind in the Bible.

No, God did not make a mistake with his initial decision nor was there information that was unavailable to our all-knowing God. I believe the answer is in the difference between his perspective and ours. Like a child hearing a warning by his parent of an impending punishment, the beneficiaries of gods “change of mind” had a child’s perspective. God’s perspective was closer to a parent’s, with a desire to correct their behavior.

On the other hand, God absolutely does change how he treats us and works with us. Just like parents who treat their kids differently through the different stages of their kids lives, God works with the human race at the point where it’s at, doing and saying what the human race needs.

Ema thinks I’m treating Nathan better than I treated him, but that’s because ema had a limited and immature perspective. He can’t remember that we treated him in similar ways, he doesn’t take into consideration that every child needs custom treatment, and he doesn’t think about the differences in how he acts/acted which definitely required very different responses from his parents.

We do the same thing with God when we assume God has changed over time. He used to be a bloodthirsty, angry war-loving God. Now he’s a peace-loving, hippie God who wouldn’t hurt an ant. The truth is God gives us (the human race) what we need, responding in kind to our output.

Ideas

The Destruction of Jericho

Start chapter with story of people within the walls, living lives, slightly nervous about the shouting people outside the walls. meyhem, carnage, children dying. Make the reader side with the people of Jericho without knowing who they are or who the antagonists are.

Reveal. That was gods people. Those are the people you have cheered on for years and as a kid in VBS. You used to be okay with this… what happened? Why were you okay with it before, feeling indignant while reading my story, and now you’re just confused.

Maybe for the first time thinking about this story with fresh eyes, without the blurry layer of complacency you’ve grown up with.

Now that you can see this in a different light, it’s important to remember that this was commanded by our loving, all-powerful God. He told the Israelites to do this.

If any of us were part of an invasion like that, we would be called barbaric, terrorist, unloving…

But that was the same god we serve. how can we reconcile that?

The answer might lie in gods perspective, and how he sees things compared to how we see/experience things.

We have incomplete perspectives

I was watching my daughter draw a happy face, looking at her drawing as parents often do… not knowing what she was drawing but smiling and encouraging. Then I turned the drawing I’m my head and I could see the face, plain as day! I couldn’t see what was being drawn because my perspective was wrong. But I changed my perspective and I was able to see more clearly.

“Putting God First”

Talking to JC, we often talk about how we put God first, but we don’t know what that means practically. God, family, business… but while I’m working on business, I don’t think about God.

Wwjd bracelets

got lots of people thinking. (not sure where I was going here)

Characteristics of God

Is Love - omnibenevolent

Creator/parent

All-powerful

Omnipresent

Eternal

“Myopic Christianity”

1 Peter 3:13 says “harm you”? Was Jesus harmed?

Forms who’s perspective?

If you think sin is worth sacrificing eternity or a relationship with God, then you don’t truly understand eternity.

If you think eternity isn’t worth sacrificing this life, then you don’t understand eternity.

Punishment

Punishment, discipline… we spend a lot of time trying to avoid it, but isn’t that God teaching us. Are we like teenagers constantly trying to get out of punishment and missing valuable lessons in the process?

Eph 3:14-19 full comprehension of gods love… perspective is born out of love because God is love. Made complete, know love that surpasses understanding, not through a glass dimmly but clearly

“I don’t need help from god. I have this life figured out.” – the problem is that this person doesn’t actually believe or know what God says… this life is not not the point..

God’s Goals

Ps 139:23-24 - lead me in everlasting ways. this where God wants us.

When we pray for healing, but also ask to know gods plan, is it to be in awe or because we don’t really trust and we want to inspect the plans. Ema does that to me with my plans… wants to know what is for dinner, not because he is curious but so that he has a chance to argue and change the plan. That’s why I don’t tell him… he just needs to trust.

Spiritial Metrics

Matt 12:34 - Out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks… is that a signal to control the tongue or a signal of a way to measure the heart.

Wisdom

Fear of the lord is the beginning of wisdom proverbs

Wisdom= seeing thing with God’s perspective. Fear= understanding my place… child.before a father.

Sanctification

John the Baptist: less of me and more of God. This is a great summary of what God wants for us in this life.

Our Purpose (Calling)

We are called to be different…. But why? Different just to be different? We just stop there… Were called to avoid sin? Why? Just because God doesn’t like it? Just because sin leads to hell? We often stop there… I think the “why” is SO important, and SO logical! Without the why, are we even truly convinced?? God has us here to fall in love with him, help others to do the same, and prepare for eternity. Anything outside of that is a complete and utter waste of time.

Refiners fire, God has us here to refine us and purify us. Like the bride that Jesus is preparing and presenting to himself. Eph 5

Sin

Sin= waste of time, “fruitless works of darkness” Ephesians 5:1-14

Our Response to Sin

We’re offended when we are told about sin. It’s because we don’t see our life for what it truly is. We are asleep.

Punishments always have a purpose. Maybe to correct behavior and give a chance to change. Maybe to remove a harmful person from everyone else’s lives (grace to everyone else). God causing earthly death is not a ticket to hell necessarily. It might just be grace to everyone else or stopping one from going too far.

God of OT, God of NT… same God showing same mercy to a human race at very different points of development. Like parents disciplining kids at different ages or who have passed certain steps or with certain understandings (Jesus brought a new understanding).

Jesus talks about cutting off an arm or taking out an eye. Extreme? From an earthly perspective yes, from an eternal perspective, no.

Corey: never an excuse to sin. “But what if I’m starving to death. Can’t I steal?” Nope, better to die in hunger and enter the eternal banquet. – JT: Stealing to eat is a statement that you don’t trust God, taking matters into your own hands because you don’t believe God’s plan is good enough.

Christian Atheism

Christian atheism is sneaky! Blind obedience for obedience sake Some are just good at conformity, they find security in obedience because it’s easier to obey rules blindly than it is to reason and struggle through belief and surrender Soldiers who blindly obey poorly informed or wrong orders are at fault. Could we also be just as culpable for blindly obeying God? On the other hand, blessed is he who has believed but has not seen… So….. Obedience for the sake of onlookers Who are we trying to please? God? If so, then our obedience should happen even when we have no audience. Obedience because it’s good fot my worldly or physical comfort Prosperity… Obedience because it seems better than our previous bad outcomes Maybe this is a good starting point but it’s still selfish. It’s got to convert to something deeper… not about us.

Eternity

In god’s presence forever Todd said he wasn’t excited about worshipping God for eternity because he didn’t like singing. “I want a gold one that’s silver lined! I’ve got a mansion just over the hilltop.” Will we be disappointed if we find that eternity is not what we expected.

Purpose

Our purpose on this earth

Rethink the Kingdom of God: Sermon on the Mount Teaching about the kingdom, revealing his purpose for us http://www.jesuswalk.com/manifesto/

The Problem

God’s path: Sanctification God’s purpose for us on this earth: prepare us for eternity (sanctify us) Sanctification is the process of adopting God’s eternal perspective The HS gives us this perspective. Not something we can do ourselves, but we can slow or prevent the process. Over time, we should think more like God and react in similar ways (being godly is thinking and being like God) Our sanctification will have evidence Fall more in love with God Display the fruit of the Spirit Help others do the same Our short-sightedness has evidence Death feels final, like a loss Others get in our way (negative) Public Sinners are a big problem (better hidden) Freedom is sacred Our path: Childish Rebellion If we are not thinking more like God after years as a Christian, it can only mean we are slowing or preventing God from changing us We have “gunk” that’s clogging our system Temporal perspective prevents us Like the “rich young ruler” Gunk like Materialism Life-ism Treating death as a loss Comfort Entertainment Anxiety, fear Our problems are the “end of the world” We view others as problems Politics is important

The Solution

Realize you’re in the way Address the gunk Move out of the way God renews your mind Application How do we do on

Setup

Human character/nature Human characteristic Human perspective Informed by human, temporal experience Limited Shortsighted Human purpose What’s important to us? God’s character/nature God’s characteristics Father with children Genius Creator Self-limiting Patient, good, loving but just Eternal, sees everything all at once God’s perspective Gods purpose What’s important to God?

What is God’s Perspective?

Eternal Limitless yet self-limiting Creator (understands his creation) Loving (parent) Has us on earth for a clear purpose Sees sin of unbelievers as evidence that they need to know Him Sees believers’ rebellion as a waste of our precious, short time, and probably worse than the sin of unbelievers… we should know better Knows only he can reform our hearts to solve our sin problems Patient, Empathetic, understanding of our ignorant state Sees our lives as speck in time Sees worldly tragedy as opportunity to teach his children Expects to solve our problems, but in his way and timing (including in eternity) Sees our earthly deaths as a transition that starts the majority of our existence Sees “unlovable people” as treasures Sees reality clearly Seize our time on Earth as a chance to realize our purpose that he has given us.

Compared to our Perspective? Carnal, Temporal, Limited, yet we seek to control Created, yet we feel so wise and knowledgeable Understanding love only in the temporal, worldly context with glimpses of eternal love when we see sacrifice and unconditional parental love Believe we get to decide our purpose Unbelievers are offensive to us, if we are unbelievers our sin isn’t misbehavior…. It’s freedom and living in real integrity Believers Pursue sin for fear of missing out, not experiencing everything this life has to offer would be a waste of a perfectly good life As believers, our misbehavior is worse than that of unbelievers

Sin Management

Try to manage sin problems on our own because we’re sure we can handle it Ignorant of the reality of eternity Experience life as a long time Thinks worldly tragedy is unfair and we question god’s goodness Are upset with God when he doesn’t solve our problems now, in this life Sees death of self, family, friends, anyone as final and something to avoid at all costs Sees “unlovable people” as trash to be discarded Sees reality as if through a blurry window (“through a Glass, dimly”) We see our time on Earth as more chance to realize our own goals and ambitions

Sanctification

Sanctification can be described as the process of adopting God’s eternal perspective. The kingdom of God can be described as the adoption of Gods eternal perspective. We are temporal, and it’s what we know, but we can empathize with God’s perspective and consider how He sees things, and choose to agree with God and try to see things that was too We can recognize how limited we are and learn to depend on him more We can remember that we are the created, and that our creator God knows exactly how we work and what we need. We can practice sacrificing for people who are not our family We can realize the clear purpose God has for us and consider everything else a potential distraction. God has us on this earth to prepare us for eternity. He wants us to choose to love Him and help others do the same. We can regard sin as a true short-sighted, waste of time We can invite God to form our hearts and stay out of his way as he works on our sin We can consider the reality and magnitude of eternity and remember that this life is not our goal, bot only a short step towards The true goal, eternity in god’s presence We can keep the brevity of this life in mind and stay faithful We can attempt to see how God might use suffering to teach us, but when it’s too hard to see the lesson, we can choose to trust Him regardless of if we understand or not. We can remember that God’s goodness is not determined by our understanding We can trust God and his timing, keeping in mind that this life is short and the fix might come after this life (or might even come WITH the end of this life) We can consider the eternal goal of this life and lament earthly death only when we know it is followed by eternal spiritual death, but we should allow that lesson to motivate us to commit ourselves even more to the purpose God has for us and help others to choose to love him as well. We can see unlovable people as precious children who may have lost their way and need a hand to come back to the light. We can also realize that God can even use those unlovable people to form us spiritually and cause us to love God even more. We can realize our natural short-sightedness and blurry vision when regarding situations around us, and commit to thinking about and choosing to see things how God sees them.

Kingdom of God

What is the Kingdom of God? The kingdom is gods eternal perspective in our minds and hearts. Heaven is simply being in the presence of God with his perspective fully in our minds. God has us on earth to prepare us for eternity and begin the transformative process of renewing our minds, building/integrating the kingdom into us. Now we see things like through a blurry glass, but when we are in eternity in gods presence, we will see clearly

God’s Perspective

Gender Issues

What’s gods perspective on gender reassignment? Suicide is increased for people who do this. They find out later, after all this work, the itch they were trying to scratch was the wrong one. God wants us to fall in love with him, regardless of whatever is going on in their mind or body. And then hang on and stay faithful until they meet eternity.

System of thinking

God is love, therefore love (and its increase) is the point of everything he has ever done. God could have created us as beings without a choice, but real love comes from a choice to love. Choiceless love isn’t really love at all. God wants to multiply love, and creating beings who could potentially hate Him was worth the “risk”. God’s perspective is eternal, he sees things very differently than we do. We see only what we have already seen, unless something happens to open that up. He sees us like a parent sees children. He loves us through our drama and urgency, knowing how insignificant it really is, but also trying to use it to renew our minds. God created us to choose to love him despite our own self-centered nature. God’s purpose for this life is to teach us to adopt His perspective and prepare us for eternity, not for us to remain in our self-centered, temporal ways of thinking and doing. We are like kids who desperately want to be independent and think they have it all under control and together. — God is like a loving parent who delights in empathizing with his children, and is constantly trying new ways to convince them of his perspective and hoping they will somehow grow. Every bad thing that happens to us feels like the “end of the world”, but it’s like a skinned knee to God. — Even the most horrible trauma thinkable on this earth would be insignificant from an eternal perspective, as long as the trauma led to salvation and sanctification. The only truly lamentable human tragedy are experiences that send people down a road of forever hating or rejecting God. God wants us to learn to fully depend on him in this life because it’s what we will do naturally in eternity. When we move from this life to eternity, we will share his perspective which is why heaven is heaven… Just being in the presence of God is enough - Fully dependent on God No tears, pain, sorrow… it’s not necessary anymore No regrets or traumas because this life’s experiences were all part of what prepared us for eternity No need for family or friends because God is enough Sanctification is the process of adopting God’s eternal perspective Obedience is more about forming us spiritually and changing our perspective than it is actually going through motions of behaving correctly. This is why legalistic obedience misses the mark. Sin is our childish, myopic way of wasting our own time during this short life, distracting ourselves from God’s mission for us and getting in His way as he is trying daily to work on our hearts.

Gods eternal perspective

The creator of the universe has a perspective Through the HS, we can learn to adopt his perspective His way of thinking will change yours, sanctification

Spiritual Metrics

What is the evidence that we don’t possess the perspective of God: We sue our brothers and sisters in worldly court We let the effects of high taxes or poor govt policies on our lives get us fired up We amass wealth to increase our own station or level of comfort We spend more time seeking entertainment than godly enlightenment We value our social success more than our reputation as a committed, on fire follower of Jesus. We seek the gifts of the spirit more than the fruits We ask “what is the minimum I need to do to please God?” We ignore the push of the hs to take risks for his sake because it might affect our comfort, station or social success We avoid helping or serving too much because it could threaten our future We work only for a paycheck instead of to glorify God. We pretend to be ignorant of others’ suffering to avoid having to get dirty or be inconvenienced. We look about the same, spiritually speaking, today that we got baptisms or first made a commitment to follow Jesus We have no patience for people who behave in worldly ways We raise our children to be socially successful, good citizens, good church members, but not to love God and be ready to obey the HS even when it’s hard We demand our rights as USA citizens even when it affects others negatively We focus more on correcting our own behavior for sins that are visible to others than seeking accountability for sins that are easily hidden We sell property and make other christians think we are giving all the money to the poor so that we look more righteousness than we really are, but keep part of the money for ourselves We grab and claw and hoard for what we can because it feels like, if we don’t get what’s “due to us”, we will miss out in this life. An elixir guaranteed to give us 20 more years of life on this earth sounds like it’s worth giving everything you’ve got to obtain We want God to work more in our health and finances than in our hearts to change our perspective to match his.

God’s Perspective

God’s perspective that we should adopt: Life on earth is so short, meant only to give us enough time to fall in love with God and convince others to do the same. What awaits us in heaven makes what we can amass here insignificant Love matters more than anything. Whatever can increase real, honest, pure love is what we should pursue with everything we’ve got Long life, health, wealth, success… Are only worth the risk of pride if love is increased (edited)

Unequally Yoked

1 cor 7 V7 says we should come back to relations with the spouse to avoid temptation because of a lack of self control. Some might take this as permission to take a little heroine to stave off full-blown addiction. But marital sex is not sinful. 10:41 V14 the unbelieving spouse will be made holy because of the believing spouse. But not if the believer is nominal in partially committed. 10:43 V12 consents to live with… This is because people had converted to Christ and had changed. Maybe the unbelieving husband wouldn’t want to live with them anymore. Or maybe the believer thinks they need to separate because they hear they should not be unequally yoked.

But this doesn’t give permission or blessing to marry a non believer and use “mission field” as an excuse. V21 if you’re a slave, dont sweat it. If you have the perspective of Jesus, you’ll be able to live and serve in that station until you are called home in a short time. Whatever your station in life, dedicate it to God and serve him where you are at.

V7 if you’re single, it’s a gift. Use it while you have it. 11:09 V17 we trust God that he has us in the life we have for a reason, and we need to be okay that reason might not include our on comfort or freedom. Saturday, May 21st

Spiritual Formation

The benefits of heaven overshadow and minimize even the most valuable benefits of this life. Biblical spiritual formation leads us to truly value the eternal more highly than the temporal. Spiritual formation can be measured in the time it takes to come to our senses, regain an eternal perspective, and remember that the eternal matters more than the temporal.

Jonas

Jonas had faith in God, but didn’t want what God wanted. So, Jonas was on the spectrum of godliness, but still lacked a complete eternal perspective. For Jonas, God and heaven were real and within reach. But Jonas lacked the ability to see his earthly enemies as heavenly equals. He didn’t want to share heaven with “them” and this demonstrated his spiritual immaturity (or at least a gap in his spiritual formation).

Abundant Life

Mike preached about living an abundant life now during this earth, not just getting ready for eternity. I’ve heard this many times before. I’m listening for eternal perspective. 1 Corinthians 15 20 replies

Image of God

The resurrection body is spiritual.

Though it’s said we are made in god’s image… Is that the physical us or another version?

Maybe in the resurrection, the part of us that is made in god’s image is what we keep as the physical part stays in the ground.

We are corruptible now, but resurrection makes us incorruptible. Raised in glory so that we are only for and about the glory and presence of God.

Life now is a foretaste of eternity? Are we walking hints? Are we a preview for the upcoming movie?

The fall of Man (first Adam) was something God knew about and yet he created us. He did this because He is love. His expressed himself (love) in the gift of free will. Without this gift, we wouldn’t have the capacity to truly love. He loved his creation even with the knowledge it would betray him. And he gave us the ability to manifest love (manifest God) by choosing him despite our sinful nature and the challenges of living in this finite body. The only way for love to abound was if we had the capacity to choose, the capacity to betray, the capacity to forgive. And God expressed himself (his love) for us by making an unthinkable sacrifice to restore our relationship and magnify love… Our communal, triune God used his finite creation to put himself in a situation where he would be broken, fractured, separated from himself for 3 days while the son, alone and rejected for the first time in all eternity, defeated death. (edited)

Physical Death

The sting of death is sin. Death is not the sting!

How does God view earthly death?

How does God view cancer? Suicide? Starvation? Natural death? Wrongful death?

In this chapter, I don’t see much talking about living “heaven” now. I read about hanging on and staying faithful while we wait for eternity.

If we are in Christ right now, it is a direct result of God giving us the capacity to hear his call and learn to love him despite our frailty.

We are beggars telling other beggars where to find bread. - Mike Lee(?)

Prosperity

Saying “we are trying to live our best life,” feels like it’s missing the point. Living well here is nice, but not essential.

Angels

The angels sang “blessed be the lamb who was slain” because they recognized the immense amount of love that was realized and expressed by our triune God who accomplished the unthinkable… Way more than what we saw on this earth, a man who died on a cross.

Abundant Life

John 10:10 talks about why Jesus came and mentions abundant life. We are so nearsighted and carnal that, of course, we think he’s talking living well now, on this earth, during our 70 or 80 years. But I’m convinced Jesus is referring to eternal life… Why would Jesus care about how well we live right now? Compared to eternity, investing so much in living well during this life would seem like pissing away a gift. His whole mission was to point people to a deeper relationship with God and prepare people for resurrection and eternity. That’s why Jesus came. (edited)

Maybe getting an incredible, comfortable life here on this Earth is kind of like putting on a miserable face when we’re fasting and getting lots of pads on the back. We have already received our reward. Oooooooooooo, that’s an uncomfortable thought.

Actually that kind of brings some new meaning to Jesus story about the rich man and Lazarus. And it also brings some more meaning to the Camel vs eye of the needle analogy. And it kind of explains why monks/nuns take a vow of poverty. Is it possible riches on earth decrease heavenly rewards? -

James 1 talks about “the rich” compared to people who endure trials. That suggests the rich don’t have trials, maybe because they solve the trials with money. Is this why it’s so hard for the rich to go to heaven? The rich don’t have as many chances to learn gods lessons and develop their hearts. The rich don’t participate in sanctification??

I think we like to make “abundant life” about our earthly lives because we want to make Christianity marketable. We want it to compete well against other religions that promise happiness and peace in this life. We think God needs help to make Christianity more attractive. But, God doesn’t need help and we’re not doing people any favors. When they sign up for Christianity, they get in neck deep and start to realize it was a bait and switch. To live abundantly in this life (by earthly standards) you have to work just as hard, if not harder. We find that the house still costs what it costs. We find that we get to keep less money when we stop cheating on taxes. We find that we sweat just as much when we are out working under the sun. “But they told me I would have a better life. That God would help me.”

Narrow Road

The Bible describes the path to eternity as a narrow road. We are constantly trying to artificially widen it, or worse, build a new road to heaven.