God will NEVER Bless me
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rsc2a said:
Matthew 5:1–12
1 And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
2 And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,
3 Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.
6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.
10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness’ sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.
12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.
Being poor in spirit is a condition. Mourning is a condition. Meekness is a condition. Hungering and thirsting are a condition. Being merciful is an action. Being pure in heart is a condition. Being a peacemaker is an action. Being persecuted is a condition.
...unless you want to say they are an evidence of a condition i.e. hungering and thirsting are an evidence of a condition of deprivation. To take any other approach to the Beatitudes is mind-boggling at best and unorthodox at worst.
Dunkard said:
Well, with that kind of reasoned, cogent argument what choice do I have? I must humbly admit being bested by a clearly superior intellect combined with a powerful ability to persuade. I shall now retire from the field...
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Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,†and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
It is evidence. The peacemakers are peacemakers because the Prince of Peace equips them. The meek are make meek because God who lowered Himself has enabled them to be meek. The merciful show mercy because they have received much mercy. The pure in heart are pure because the Spirit of God has transformed them.
Evidence. Turning them into conditions is nothing more than prosperity teaching disguised as holiness and t urns man into the author of his own salvation.
By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,†and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.
It is evidence. The peacemakers are peacemakers because the Prince of Peace equips them. The meek are make meek because God who lowered Himself has enabled them to be meek. The merciful show mercy because they have received much mercy. The pure in heart are pure because the Spirit of God has transformed them.
Evidence. Turning them into conditions is nothing more than prosperity teaching disguised as holiness and t urns man into the author of his own salvation.
rsc2a said:
Right. God just hits you with a deep hunger and thirst after righteousness. I mean, there is nothing I'm taught to do in Scripture to cultivate that or to desire it or to seek it or to pray after it. I can just sit here in my total lack of desire for righteousness and blame God b/c He hasn't gifted me with it yet. Even the calvinist Martyn Lloyd Jones didn't take that position... You really have to twist it to get it to say that, but I guess you have no other choice. Otherwise, like the wonderful one hoss shay, your system falls apart.
I do not mean to state or imply that we obtain God's blessings by our own works. It is all of grace as His grace in me works through me to enable me to meet His conditions. But to assert that these are not conditions is asinine and dangerous at the same time.
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You wouldn't do most of those things unless God were already blessing you.
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Maybe Matthew 5 is meant as a stumbling block?
Mat 5:20
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Or are we capable of the required righteousness?
Mat 5:20
20 For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
Or are we capable of the required righteousness?
brainisengaged said:
In a sense I agree that the theme of the Sermon on the Mount is the kingdom of God. But holding that in no wise diminishes the point/aim of the Sermon, which is a heart obedience toward the Lord. In fact, the simplest best definition of the kingdom of God is the rule of God. Yes, that has eschatological application but it has much more of a personal application. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus was NOT, repeat, NOT offering a new doctrine or approach. He was, instead, calling the people of Israel back to the original point of the Mosaic Law. Their interpretation of it had gotten so strained/flawed that when they heard Jesus' (flawless) original interpretation it seemed revolutionary. And it was. But not because it was a new system. The Sermon on the Mount is neither Jewish nor ecclesiastical. It is timeless. It is the best distillation of holiness ever gathered in one sermon. It seamlessly connects the Old Testament with the New Testament, and lays all of what God expects before the believer.
prophet said:
No. Matthew 5 is not meant as a stumblingblock. It is meant as the normative expectation of God for the child of God. V20 is saying that even if you could keep the 613 precepts that the Pharisees found in the Old Testament perfectly, along with the thousands of descendant daughter laws that sprang from them, even if you could perfectly keep from violating the monstrous fence they built around the garden of the Torah - even then, you still couldn't get into Heaven. It still takes grace and faith.
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You just restated what I said, after you said I was wrong.Tom Brennan said:
What you iterated here, is the nature of the stumbling block.
Hear some more:
Mat 5:17-18
17 Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
18 For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled.
Gal 3:24
24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
1Co 1:23
23 But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumblingblock, and unto the Greeks foolishness;
Mat 13:10-16
10 And the disciples came, and said unto him, Why speakest thou unto them in parables?
11 He answered and said unto them, Because it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it is not given.
12 For whosoever hath, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance:but whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he hath.
13 Therefore speak I to them in parables:because they seeing see not; and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
14 And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Esaias, which saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive:
15 For this people's heart is waxed gross, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes they have closed; lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. 16 But blessed are your eyes, for they see:and your ears, for they hear.
Unless, of course, you think that this is a means to an end:
Mat 5:29-30
29 And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee:for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
30 And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee:for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.
The righteousness we need, that exceeds, is imputed to us.
And the Jews were meant to stumble over everything Jesus said on that Mount.
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Tom Brennan said:
Sorry, Tom, but you are influenced by Performance Based Christianity still. These beatitudes are what you ARE, not what you DO. You ARE these things because of what CHRIST has done IN you, not what YOU will do FOR Christ. This may seem like a finite difference, yet, it is huge. I am only able to be poor in spirit, meek, merciful, pure in heart or a peace maker because of what Christ has done in me. I am only able to rejoice in mourning and persecution, and hunger and thirst after righteousness because of what Christ has done in me. The beatitudes are the blessing - the change in me that occurs because of Christ that allows me to glorify Him in all things. The beatitudes are not an approval checklist that God is using against me to prevent me from having earthly possessions and notoriety among my peers.
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Here was my response -
Everything I have, I owe to God. I have nothing He wants and can nothing to gain favor with Him. His grace is unmerited favor. I did nothing to deserve it. His mercy is not getting what I deserve and His grace is me getting exactly what I do not deserve.
How many hours a week must I go soul winning to satisfy Him? How many bodies do I have to get in the water to get His blessings? What is the cutoff of blessings and no blessings?
Everything I have, I owe to God. I have nothing He wants and can nothing to gain favor with Him. His grace is unmerited favor. I did nothing to deserve it. His mercy is not getting what I deserve and His grace is me getting exactly what I do not deserve.
How many hours a week must I go soul winning to satisfy Him? How many bodies do I have to get in the water to get His blessings? What is the cutoff of blessings and no blessings?
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groupie said:
Seriously. Ask him to identify God's blessings.
Dime to a doughnut, he thinks it is all temporal. When he gives you this answer, ask why Jesus didn't have those blessings. He will have to choose between acknowledging his error or claiming Jesus, the Christ, was not good enough to gain God's blessing.