Small town life. Different

mikeclevenger:

Are we going to die with prayers in our journals or living out the will and voice of the Sovereign One?

both!

You only live once?

False: You have a very long duration of consecutive moments that are considered living. Rather, there will be an instantaneous moment of death, thus you only die once.

But, I have to say, “False!” to this secular, yet logical, statement I just made. For the point is, you have but one life on earth, and in some sense then, you only live once here on this earth. Note the prepositional phrases to distinguish that in fact there is a life after this one, though only for some. For some, this life is the closest they will get to living, and that instantaneous death will lead to an eternity of death and not life.

Let us not forget this reality that is all to easily forgotten. Let us live keeping in mind what lies ahead.

God supplies energy when I get 3.5 hours of sleep. Two nights in a row.

Might go for a 3rd night.

Sadness

Those who I love not believing in what I love. God, my first love, how shall I proceed?

There is a large part of me that never wants to always be a Mennonite.

I love my brethren. Mennonites have such a huge commitment to community and to obedience. So so good.

and they can sing too!

The Hermeneutics of Obedience

“the prerequisites of understanding [scripture] are seen to lie in the attitude of the one who comes to the Scriptures. Very briefly this attitude must be marked by obedience . . . , a willingness to be instructed both by the Spirit and by the brethren and a personal application in seeing the truths as they apply to everyday life. . . . Wrongdoing . . . blinds people so that they do not understand” (Poettcker, 1966, p. 115).

What a great guy!

“Writing for adults often means just increasing the swearing – but find an alternative to swearing and you’ve probably got a better line.”  With reference to shows he wrote in the 90s and 00s that were more sexual in nature: “You could say they were adult. Or maybe they were more childish than what I’m writing now.” - Steven Moffat 

 Writer of Dr. Who and Sherlock

My reaction to Open Theism

My response to Open Theism is based upon its proposition that: God is not timeless, but rather God is ‘passible’ or ‘moved’.

Does God change in time? God is “changing in relation to us” (Openness of God), but rather “I the LORD do not change.“ (Malachi 3:6), and “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever“ (Hebrews 13:8). The Open Theism statement has God changing, but rather it is the relation that changes with regard to us, based on our sin nature. The relation changes, not God. (Seems finicky, but it is important!) 

But what about God’s emotive responses? Open Theism reacts to a misunderstanding, thinking that God being unchanging and impassible requires God to be without passions or emotions. Rather, ”God is always active, always dynamic, always relational. … He cannot change because he cannot possibly be any more loving, or any more just, or any more good. God cares for us, but it is not a care subject to spasms or fluctuations of intensity. His kindness is not capable of being diminished or augmented” (DeYoung). 

So we impact him and his emotions? “God… lets what we do impact him” (Openness of God). No, God cannot be moved, “Emotions do no not just happen to him, such that he is forced to act in a certain way in order to make himself happier or change his mood from bad to good. God is completely free” (DeYoung).  He DOES feel differently toward different things, but he is the unchanging God, always righteous, good, happy, just loving, etc. He cannot be affected, nor suffer. This is why Jesus became a man, so that he could share in the suffering, thus being the perfect sacrifice and a merciful high priest (Hebrews 2).    

From what I understand, science supports this. Time cannot exist apart from matter, and God is not made of matter, thus He is without time, and cannot change, since change requires a succession of states within time. I do not hold to this argument as my foundation, but it makes sense to me.