I know. I’m a useless speck of dust, who am I to believe I could possibly have a personal relationship with God? That’s why I can only have a corporate relationship with God only.
No. Unless the words have been perverted to mean things I don’t know what they mean.
Hi, Bob!
…again, I explicitly stated that “we” (as in mankind) and you single yourself out so that you can then add your preferred clause: “corporate relationship.”
Your habitual defaults will forever render you a peg in a corporate scenario as you actively and consciously became the architect of your own design–your stubbornness rejects God’s Design.
Father - a loving caring person who created me and cares deeply about me, providing what I need, and does not begrudge any good thing.
Of course, I don’t have that, so obviously I don’t have a Father as defined above. I have a different Father who everyone claims loves me, but I can’t feel the love. Especially when he begrudges me the ability to earn a living to provide for my family.
God’s Design is not to spoon-feed all the “good” boys and girls. But unless you have what you perceive as the tell-tale proof (wealth and health at your bequest) you reject His Parenthood.
You claim Christ while simultaneously rejecting His Command to Call God: Father.
…yet, you do not believe that you are bartering even when you base your relationship with God on ‘if He lavishes me with “x, y, z” then we can be
friends and
He can be my Father’.
Are you aware that Christians have been and are being raped, tortured and murdered because they refuse to renounce Christ? These Believers have not constructed a duality… they have not constructed a design by which God proves His Fatherhood by the wealth and health that He lavishes on them; these Christians have taken Christ at His Word: they, as I, Believe that in Christ we are/become children of God; and they’ve called God “Abba” (Daddy) even when forced to experience all sorts of mental and physical traumas–even when facing death, for Christ’s sake.
Precisely. God’s providence is the cross. That’s the only thing guaranteed in this life on this planet.
I want to. Went to adoration many times, got no peace. Got no sense that he cared.
Precisely. Not as the world gives - temporal peace. Christ gives us supernatural peace - in the afterlife.
And that is the only thing guaranteed.
…you may not accept this… but you are calling Christ and St. Paul liars since both Christ and St. Paul share, through the Holy Spirit, both a temporal and a spiritual relationship (that’s why I mistook the term Gnostic with Arianism when I was thinking about your posts, since you seem to exclude the Holy Trinity in you Faith-design–yet, the dual theology of Manicheanism also seems to apply).
You depend on two filters… the first filter renders a built-in default: ‘God takes care of the spiritual but man must takes care of the physical.’ In essence, you have constructed a duality: God is God of the Spiritual Realm; man is his own temporal god (I know you are rejecting this… but consider it carefully: if we do not submit our will to God’s we are willfully rejecting God’s Authority over us).
…your other filter is set at: ‘when God take care of my temporal needs, then He can be my Father.’ This is conditioning; you’ve basically taken Thomas’s faith-base as your own: ‘let God do what I say and I will believe.’
And that confirms my belief that God never promised any temporal help. Paul was up and down, and no stability - because no stability was promised. If good things happen, they’re not guaranteed to stay.
…no; you refuse to see the forest for the trees! St. Paul learned to be content in good times and bad because he confided in Christ. His Peace, his Faith, and his existence did not depend upon wealth or health… he clearly states this in Romans 8: “nothing… not even death, can separate us from God’s Love.” (paraphrased)
You remind me of an old argument about osas–they state that nothing can take the sheep from the Father’s Hand… they refuse to accept the fact that the sheep can choose to place itself outside of the Father’s Love, er Hand!
I believe that the temporal was created good, but treated as evil by God. God says “Christ’s sacrifice is not enough, you must also sacrifice the temporal goods in your life. You must give up all your possessions, and follow me”
This is why I believe that as a married layman, who has a kid, that I am a second class citizen (if I’m lucky) in the Kingdom of God. God prefers the religious orders, and clergy over me. That’s fine, they gave up more to follow him.
I’m no more than a dog to Christ, and that’s probably prideful, in reality, I am a worthless speck of dust, an unprofitable servant.
…until you, a married layman who has a kid, accept God as your Father and stop placing yourself outside of the Father’s Hand… you will be the least in the Kingdom of Heaven…
…as for the religious orders and clergy… they suffer daily for Christ and for His Followers; some are tortured, raped, and murder… most suffer and die in obscurity while the US, UN and other “good” meaning people ignore and malign them… all, because they Stand for Christ.
Your Vocation, if you choose to accept it, is to take your cross and offer it to Christ–offer it for the Church, for those who Follow Christ and are persecuted, oppressed, tortured, raped and murdered… offer them for the confused and ignorant Believers, offer them for those “Catholics” who are bent on following the world (Satan) rather than Christ, offer them for yourself, your wife, and your child, and lastly, offer them for me.
…when you engage God in this manner not only will you be an agent of Christ, you will be a child to God!
Maran atha!
Angel
