To know what mankind is capable of is to know brutality exists. To think man can change on his own is to think thinking positive will erase the negative things man still continues doing to his fellow man/woman. I think if thinking positive was all it took… we would have had world peace long ago. The notion of equality (neutrality) is one I cannot engage in… but for this fact alone is found fertile ground for barbarism.
Barbarism: absence of culture and civilization. I would add this here… It could be said if and when a removal or an attempted removal of culture and being civilized occurs there will exist the chance for ‘a perfect storm of barbaric behavior due humanity.’
In essence, a neutral position sought after can remove all thoughts of what is meant by being civilized… even removing or attempting to remove a cultural understanding. A neutral position in religion, thinking there is no harm by one over another… equality, is not to see the truth of human history and what has happened to the Jewish people. By not seeing a distinguishing difference with those that trace their origins through the Hebrew people of Israel to Abraham, as it comes from Judaism… and those religions that also stem from it, is to deny the authenticity or veracity we can derive from such measurement: accuracy (historical, archaeological, prophetical), variability (time lived in), quantification (numbers of statistical information from the source), quality (the conditionality of characteristics spoken of… relating God to man and man to God) and the relationship of the information and how it can relate to all mankind on an individual level.
Even today there are some people which might claim they feel threatened by christians. Is this due to christians claiming: authenticity of the truth they have found as being ‘the only truth,’ or because one would not be able to continue living as they have grown accustomed to… right or wrong? This is not to convince some they are being threatened… in truth they are not. It is but what a christian believes as what is coming from God in what he reads in the Bible… this is not threatening in any way, shape or form. It is the truth a christian believes… as being the word of God Himself. I will say what God tells us in His word may be something one is forced to contrast with what one might be doing… and the feelings one goes through comes from this knowledge- either with God or opposed to God by our actions we have chosen to take.
It comes down to this… we all have ‘free will,’ and it is then up to us to decide for ourselves what we feel or from what we feel by our thinking it so. As it comes to what God would share with us, from His perspective, this is God’s will for us as we might attempt to understand His requirements established by His love for us. God does not lie… and cannot lie… and will not lie to us as God to His creation.
Titus 1:2 KJV In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began;
It is the God of merciful love, not an unmerciful love, having mercy for those of His own but none for those that oppose Him or His will for those He loves. Who are we to challenge the will of God… thinking God should do it as we think He should? This is where the calibration of the information we are using is not in synchronization with where God might say we need to be… for our own good.
Hebrews 2:9 KJV But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of death, crowned with glory and honour; that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man.
For many this reads as if Jesus was not God but the truth is what it is…
2 Timothy 1:9 KJV Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,
God who has done the greater act of power (that is, saved us), will surely do the less (carry us safe through afflictions borne for the Gospel). “Think not that thou hast to bear these afflictions by thine own power; nay, it is by the power of God. It was a greater exercise of power than His making the heaven, His persuading the world to embrace salvation” [CHRYSOSTOM]. This found under 8., on this link here.
It is God who is omniscient, seeing what we will do and knowing it as His truth. By answering the call He has placed on our hearts does man (by his own choice) accept the will of God as his own.
[What is found below is from this link also]
10. But . . . now . . . manifest–in contrast to its concealment heretofore in the eternal purpose of God “before the world began” ( 2 Timothy 1:9 , Colossians 1:16 , Titus 1:2 Titus 1:3 ).
appearing–the visible manifestation in the flesh.
abolished death–Greek, “taken away the power from death” [TITTMANN]. The Greek article before “death” implies that Christ abolished death, not only in some particular instance, but in its very essence, being, and idea, as well as in all its aspects and consequences ( John 11:26 , Romans 8:2 Romans 8:38 , 1 Corinthians 15:26 1 Corinthians 15:55 , Hebrews 2:14 ). The carrying out of the abolition of death into full effect is to be at the resurrection ( Revelation 20:14 ). The death of the body meanwhile is but temporary, and is made no account of by Christ and the apostles.
brought . . . to light–making visible by the Gospel what was before hidden in God’s purpose.
life–of the Spirit, acting first on the soul here, about to act on the body also at the resurrection.
immortality–Greek, “incorruptibility” of the new life, not merely of the risen body [ALFORD], ( Romans 8:11 ).
through–by means of the Gospel, which brings to light the life and immortality purposed by God from eternity, but manifested now first to man by Christ, who in His own resurrection has given the pledge of His people’s final triumph over death through Him. Before the Gospel revelation from God, man, by the light of nature, under the most favorable circumstances, had but a glimmering idea of the possibility of a future being of the soul, but not the faintest idea of the resurrection of the body ( Acts 17:18 Acts 17:32 ). If Christ were not “the life,” the dead could never live; if He were not the resurrection, they could never rise; had He not the keys of hell and death ( Revelation 1:18 ), we could never break through the bars of death or gates of hell [BISHOP PEARSON].
Can we then be threatened by immortality (living eternally)… a gift of love for those believing Jesus is the Christ mentioned in the Bible. If one feels: threatened by living forever, harassed by God from God’s word saying we are not living right, intimidated by thinking that seems to be in opposition to what God’s word says… and feelings that come from this revelation of knowledge or have the feeling you have been discriminated against from what is said in the Bible… you might need to think again about why you feel this way from the love God has chosen for humanity.
Psalm 49:1 KJV Hear this, all ye people; give ear, all ye inhabitants of the world:
Psalm 22:27 KJV All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the LORD: and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee.
Psalm 90:2 KJV Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God.
Isaiah 64:4 KJV For since the beginning of the world men have not heard, nor perceived by the ear, neither hath the eye seen, O God, beside thee, what he hath prepared for him that waiteth for him.
Matthew 12:32 KJV And whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come.
It is time to clear the decks of what we think about God… and allow God to tell us what we should be thinking, especially when it comes to what the word of God says about it- no matter what it is we might have thought (on our own) in the first place. Wouldn’t you agree… I hope you would? (D.V.)
Your Brother in Jesus Christ,
Russ
P.S. It is my hope and prayer you will find sure REASON to consider where you will spend eternity… with God or not!