by snowbird 193 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
By your premise, the weak, sinful, corrupt, would-be pleaser of God is wasting their time, then, CONFESSING with their mouth and BELIEVING. How can a corrupt tree produce righteous fruit?
Terry, you errantly assume that the act of utterring from the heart "Jesus Save Me" is some kind of fruit. Rather it is a plea asking to be saved from a lack thereof.
I would simply like to add that Abraham was prepared to offer his only son to Jehovah to please him. According to the bible - it worked.
Trevor,
Abraham's faith preceeded his obedience. "Abraham believed God" . He knew that God had told him that great nations would come from his loins and he knew that this was his only son. He had faith that God would work it out somehow. His faith is what pleased God; it was also that which enabled his obedience which of course does as well.
The bible is CLEAR that is was by Abrahams faith that he was declared righteous.... and NOT his works.
Gen 22:
"And Isaac spake unto Abraham his father , and said , My father : and he said , Here am I, my son . And he said , Behold the fire and the wood : but where is the lamb for a burnt offering ? And Abraham said , My son , God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering :"
This of course was a prophetic picture. Try placing a comma after the word "himself" and you'll see the prophecy.
So, Jesus was a lamb? I thought he was human. I guess that's why he was always calling out to god, "Baaa, baaa, why have you forsaken me? Baaa baaa get me off this cross! Baaa baaa, those nails hurt like mad!"
'Rex Mundi' aka Jehovah is too cruel, jealous, petty minded to be 'God'.
God is 'bigger' and 'better' than Jehovah. Sad to say, he is a God of fear and irratonal behaviour not to mention cruelty.
Who could worship someone who could command deaths of old men, old women, women, children, babies, pregnant women, not to mention ordinary men. I refuse to believe that the 'real' God would ever want or command such cruelty, not matter what the WT or any other religion might say.
good comment Gill
The god of the bible is one mean cruel Devil
Why would anyone in their right mind worship anything like that ?
For God's sake !
Stupidity, indoctrination, lack of intelligence/imagination
That should get you started
meh, mariusuk, we're just mean old christ-haters you know. and ole Jehover will be along any minute to smite us both ... who knows, maybe we'll be in the Bible.2.0 ... when he rattles his mighty saber our way!
I guess the reason why I worship the God of the bible is because nothing else worked for me. My JW family drove me nuts and I had a whole host of issues in general that were beyond my ability to responsibly deal with. After being born again, the spirit of God really just evened me out. Little by little, I became the kind of man I always wanted to be....for real and not just a put on. It was later that I started really looking at the theology issues. For me, conviction of sin came after salvation.............................................................................................................................................................................. I have personally experienced the effects of faith in Jesus, so has my wife who was raised as an atheist. God does honor genuine faith in him.
You claim 'that trying to please Jehovah is a fools fools' errand so you have gone for the soft option of just having faith in Jesus, that nice man from Galilee with the sandals. Yet the imperfect Abraham saw the importance of pleasing God and succeeded.
According to the bible passages that you carefully selected, he did this with believe or faith alone. Remember that 'faith without works is dead.'
Remember that warm and fuzzy feeling you had after field service? It was just your vanity, that's all.
Perry has it occurred to you that you are still driven by vanity but have found a way to get that warm and fuzzy feeling without the effort of knocking on doors or trying to please God. When I say God, I mean the same God that Jesus tried to please.
Perry,
After being born again, the spirit of God really just evened me out. Little by little, I became the kind of man I always wanted to be....for real and not just a put on.
That's great Perry, it does feel really good to get than balance again. I feel the same way - I felt being a witness, I was unable to be human. I remember, for instance, feeling really sorry for the people devasted by the tsunami by Sumatra, but in the cong I was in, this letter came from the local branch saying that the brothers were ok, and as luck would have it, most were inland at an assembly or something like that, so weren't harmed. And in my mind I was screaming, thinking, what about all the other PEOPLE who have lost their children, mothers, fathers etc??!? And the society recommended against donating to Red Cross or other charities, and instead to donate to the society, and they would use the money as they saw fit!!!!! Were they going to launch a full scale relief effort to help the worldly people? Hell no! This was when I was still a 100% JW ministerial servant.
But since I've left, I felt that sort of feeling you describe. The only difference is I'm basically atheist. I'm not dogmatic about anything, I won't even try to insist that their IS no god, I just dont see enough reason to believe in the god of the bible, the ancient greeks, romans, hindus etc. But I have became much more the man I always wanted to be. I am a better father and husband than I used to be ... by a long shot. I'm still hounded by weird feelings when it comes to charities, because I never used to donate as a JW - only to the MT24:14 box at the hall. But the other day I donated to the childrens kidney foundation and it felt so right.
Sorry, I always ramble.
