Should we be surprised at God's Love??

bob_2 · 09-20-09 3:42 pm

Some of you have heard my experience with the local SDA church and my decision to seek worship in a non-SDA church, for administrative reasons, not doctrinally (there is no perfect church doctrinally or otherwise, IMO) Well, I learned a lot from the Presbyterians but found, like the SDAs, they were unwilling to "dicuss" or study, looking for the truth in mind. Well I went to a Baptist church today that I knew was known for it's upbeat contemporary service, and I got what I was looking for. BUT, one of their songs spoke of "I am surprised at YOUR/HIS Love." I got thinking of that phrase and asked, "Should we be surprised he wants to save us?" My response was a resounding NO. Why? He created us. Why would he go to that trouble only to write off His created beings? Some of you have said the OT points or shows an unloving God, but as I look at the context of each example given, it is found to be that man, the created being, did not obey it's creator. Now back to should we be surprised at His love, where he wants to save us. NO, we are HIS creation. A way out was planned way before the FALL of His created beings. If you want to be amazed be amazed that before He knew us He loved us to plan a way out. BUT that shouldn't even surprise us, because all He makes is GOOD and His wish to reconcile the fallen creature to HIM must excite Him with the possibility of renewed fellowship with HIS handywork!!! (Message edited by Bob_2 on September 20, 2009)

elaine · 09-20-09 4:26 pm

Bob, perhaps that song is like a love song sung to a lover: I am surprised that you love me! Could that be the meaning? Not "surprise" in the manner that it was impossible. But, for a new Christian, it may be that they ARE truly surprised on hearing that there is someone who loves them. Give them the benefit of the doubt, and you don't want to sing, don't sing along, just listen. Looking for that "perfect church" (do they accept "imperfect members"?) is like looking for that "perfect marriage partner"--it's all in the eyes of the beholder! Would a "perfect church" admit you--or me? Someone has said: "Perfection is the enemy of the good."

cadge · 10-22-09 11:27 am

"Should we be surprised he wants to save us?" begs the question; why does He want to save us, or what were we created for? cadge

bob_2 · 10-22-09 12:21 pm

If you created something, patented it, wouldn't you want to see it survive if someone wanted to destroy it?? By virtue of your intimate knowledge of it, and it being a product of your handiwork?

george · 10-22-09 12:28 pm

Dave, Since we are supposed to be the image of God, it's not hard to understand that creation is an act of love. As we are God's offspring, we are loved as we love our children. I believe the "family" is a live metaphor for the relationship God has/wants with us. I have often heard that we were created to worship God - that sounds ego-centric. Certainly we don't have children in order to have them bowing down to us all the time, but hope that we have merited love and respect from them as they receive it from us. HOWEVER, I'm still bummed out about all the horror innocent children have to endure at the hands of the sickos in this world. I can't let God off the hook on that one very easily.

bob_2 · 10-22-09 4:49 pm

Imagine a God creating creatures that He wants in prone position constantly to "glorify" Him. I can imagine it. I like the visual image of Adam and Eve walking and talking to God in the garden, howbeit, God was probably not visible to them but I believe He talked to them. The creation story says so, doesn't it?

john8verse32 · 10-22-09 10:56 pm

should we be surprised at His love, where he wants to save us. NO, we are HIS creation. A way out was planned way before the FALL of His created beings. so...God knew in advance that mankind would sin, and that He, God, would have to kill some of them? eventually? If you want to be amazed be amazed that before He knew us He loved us to plan a way out. BUT that shouldn't even surprise us, because all He makes is GOOD weeelll...except for poisonous mushrooms masquerading as edible...and mosquitoes...who needs them? and the AIDS virus...why did he allow that to happen? and His wish to reconcile the fallen creature to HIM must excite Him with the possibility of renewed fellowship with HIS handywork!!! but, doesn't Genesis claim that God was not happy with his handywork? it was no longer "good"... and he lost the excitement, and became "sorry he had even made people" so in a fit of pique, he simply decided to kill (almost) everybody, including pregnant mothers, innocent children, unknowing animals 9what did they do to warrant being massacred by drowning??) does this sound like the loving, caring creator as claimed? angry that the really hot women were hooking up with space aliens, possibly even "amalgamating"??? (CEV) Genesis 6:1 More and more people were born, until finally they spread all over the earth. Some of their daughters were so beautiful that supernatural beings came down and married the ones they wanted. 3 Then the LORD said, "I won't let my life-giving breath remain in anyone forever. No one will live for more than one hundred twenty years." 4 The children of the supernatural beings who had married these women became famous heroes and warriors. They were called Nephilim and lived on the earth at that time and even later. 5 The LORD saw how bad the people on earth were and that everything they thought and planned was evil. 6 He was very sorry that he had made them, 7 and he said, "I'll destroy every living creature on earth! I'll wipe out people, animals, birds, and reptiles. I'm sorry I ever made them." how can one still claim that their God is a loving God who wants everybody to be 'saved" after reading the Genesis tale? ...unless....unless we reinterpret the Gen tale as just that...a myth..a legend...possibly with basis in a natural event, such as the around-the-world rise of the oceans due to melting glaciers over the last 20,000 yrs.... that way, one can try to keep or build a reasonable belief in a loving God...not the impatient, terrifying murderous bi-polar ogre painted by His biographers in the Old Test.

bob_2 · 10-23-09 4:27 pm

John, now you are sounding like the brethern at <a href="http://www.heavenlysanctuary.com" target=_top>www.heavenlysanctuary.com</a> who believe God is ONLY LOVE , no chacaracteristics like justice and requirement of obedience. Everyone can be as wicked as they wish and God should want them in what is promised "a return to Eden"?

bob_2 · 10-24-09 4:00 pm

God creates individuals with free choice to choose good or evil and He can destroy evil. Your definition of who is evil makes you the judge. God's standard of what might continue evil could include wife or children of the evil person. If they do nothing to stop the evil, but are aware of it. To suggest the universal flood was unjust is in your mind and definitions, IMO!!!

cadge · 11-01-09 10:25 pm

Please forgive my tardiness on this Sirje. <a href="http://www.atomorrow.net/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?tpc=120&post=7465#POST7465" target=_top>http://www.atomorrow.net/cgi-bin/discus/show.cgi?t pc=120&post=7465#POST7465</a> Sirje said: "Dave, Since we are supposed to be the image of God, it's not hard to understand that creation is an act of love. As we are God's offspring, we are loved as we love our children. I believe the "family" is a live metaphor for the relationship God has/wants with us. I have often heard that we were created to worship God - that sounds ego-centric. Certainly we don't have children in order to have them bowing down to us all the time, but hope that we have merited love and respect from them as they receive it from us." Well Sirje, I certainly believe that our being created was and act of love, but even more than that, an act of purpose, for we were to be His Body. So, when you say that family is a live metaphor for the relationship He wants with us, you're correct, for Paul spoke of it as a mystery in Ephesians Chapter six. "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church: and he is the SAVIOUR OF THE BODY. Therefore, as the church is subject unto Christ, so [let] the wives [be] to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it TO HIMSELF a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church: For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh.THIS IS A GREAT MYSTERY: but I speak concerning Christ and the church,(His Body) EPH 5:23-32. That's why Paul said that he was jealous over us (he didn't want us to become impure) because he had espoused us to one husband that he would present us as a chaste virgin to Christ. (2Cor 11:2) Is not God in Christ? God is a Spirit...John 4:24 and we are His Body to dwell in for eternity. That was always the plan. Therefore, the purpose/plan that He had for us was also for Him, but it was thwarted by our first parents fall. He created and gave to him herb seed bearing plants, and every tree of the garden "which is the fruit of of a tree yielding seed" to eat from. He also put the tree of life therein and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Genesis 2:15 says that The Lord God took the man and put him into the garden to dress and keep it. Just before this, after God was done with His creating, He looked upon it and said it "was very good" Gen 1:31, But man wasn't just there to tend the garden. All the other trees that he was permitted to eat from were choices. He was free to pick and choose. There was great variety. It wasn't a highly restrictive life in that sense, but there was to be a test. Man was made very good, but he had to come up to a greater stature, a greater maturity, by continuing in the right choices and partaking of the tree of life before the ultimate purpose for his being created could come to fulfillment. All the trees and such were for His sustenance, but the tree of life was a metaphor. By this man was to grow spiritually until he and the Father became one. Had He been made like this in the beginning then in the heavenly beings there would ever be room for doubt, keeping them from being fully sure that the Evil ones accusations were without merit. So, we were not created just so that we would worship Him, but that we were to look to Him to become one with Him in a marriage of His Omnipresent Spirit and the multiple of us as His Body; the marriage of two becoming one and spreading throughout the universe. We are complete in Him and He is complete in us. Jesus prayed that we would be one with Him even as He was one with Him. That prayer wasn't just for the present moment, but it was of eternal fulfillment. The fulfillment and restoration of the plan, that's what was always the purpose for our creation. That is why we are called His Bride. That is why the Holy City, The New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 is a people, us, the Bride. The city of peace. That's why were the "household of God built upon the foundation of the apostles. That's why Jesus is the Chief Cornerstone where all the building(us) is fitly framed together into a Holy Temple. In whom YE ARE BUILDED TOGETHER FOR A HABITATION OF GOD THROUGH THE SPIRIT (HIS SPIRIT TOGETHER IN US!!!) Eph 2:19-22 This is why Paul could say "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him" 1Cor 2:9 Don't be looking for any literal building structure coming through a hole in Orion. It's not going to happen. It's metaphorically built with Jewels. Rev 21:81-21 God talks about it in Malachi 3:17 "They shall be mine saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels..." ----------- Sirje: "Certainly we don't have children in order to have them bowing down to us all the time". No, "Lo, children are an heritage of the LORD, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. As arrows in the hand of a mighty man so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them, they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate". Psalm 127:3-5 Our children don't belong to us. We get to enjoy them as we raise them for His purpose. We will pass away, but they shoot forth with the everlasting Gospel turning His enemies into His habitation if they will receive the Gospel and enter the gate. We were all bought with a price. We don't belong to ourselves and our children don't belong to us either. Cadge

cadge · 11-19-09 1:20 pm

And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that [is] upon the earth. And God said unto Noah, This [is] the token of the covenant, which I have established between me and all flesh that [is] upon the earth. Genesis 9:16,17 And immediately I was in the spirit: and, behold, a throne was set in heaven, and [one] sat on the throne. And he that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone: and [there was] a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald. Revelation 4:2,3 <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4GBnpS83As&feature=fvw" target=_top>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4GBnpS83As&feature =fvw</a> Cadge <img src="http://www.atomorrow.net/discus/clipart/happy.gif" border=0>

john8verse32 · 11-20-09 12:54 pm

pretty pix, lovely musak, and nice thoughts, but.....is there a story behind the story??? Once upon a time, God became so angry at people, especially because the beautiful women were hooking up with space aliens,* that He decided to kill them all....with a flood. but after He relented, saved a few people, and enjoyed a good BBQ of some of the animals saved, He promised He would no longer fight them,or kill them either with floods or arrows, and to prove His new found good intentions, He threw away his "bow" of war up into the sky for all to see. and everybody lived happily ever after. Except the people who had stayed in the Holy Land instead of migrating to Egypt due to a drought. These peoples who had remained behind, had to be ethnically cleansed on God's command, their men and little boys killed, their stuff "liberated", and their virgins "saved", so that the good people could take their land and stuff. so all the bad people died, except the virgins got used, and the animals got butchered. But no more war with bow and arrow another childish, bedtime story I liked as a little child, from Disney's Song of the South...which seemed to explain many things... That's what Uncle Remus said. That's what Uncle Remus said. Listen now to what I say: That's how the critters got that way. The leopard's pappy got the gout, From eatin' too much speckled trout. His mammy dreamed of polka dots— That's how the leopard got his spots. That's what Uncle Remus said. That's what Uncle Remus said. Speckled trout and polka dots— That's how the leopard got his spots. More, more, tell us more! The camel crossed the dessert sands, With all them mighty caravans. His bed was full of sandy lumps— That's how the camel got those humps. That's what Uncle Remus said. That's what Uncle Remus said. Bed was full of sandy lumps— That's how the camel got those humps. More, more, tell us more! The pig he saw his monkey friend, A-swinging by his other end. He tried the same thing on a rail— That's how the pig got a curly tail. That's what Uncle Remus said. That's what Uncle Remus said. Tried the same thing on a rail— That's how the pig got a curly tail. More, more, tell us more! More, more, more. Verse 3: They threw the fox into a cage, But Brother Fox was very sage. He used his tail to pick the locks, And that's why they call him "sly old fox". Verse 4: Brother turtle and brother hare, They ran a race and I was there. The hare dropped in at "Barney's Place," And that's how the turtle won the race. Verse 5: The little ostrich went to school, But couldn't learn the golden rule. The kids all yelled, "Is your face red!" And that's why the ostrich hides his head. <a href="http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/lyrics/index.html" target="_blank">Zippidydodah!!!</a> hear DD, Walt, and Zippidydodah <a href="http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/audio/1946/1946-5min2.mp3" target=_top>http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/audio/1946/194 6-5min2.mp3</a> here's how the leopard got his spots!! http://www.songofthesouth.net/movie/lyrics/uncle-remus-said.wav * CEV) Genesis 6:1 More and more people were born, until finally they spread all over the earth. Some of their daughters were so beautiful that supernatural beings came down and married the ones they wanted (Message edited by john8verse32 on November 20, 2009)

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