If you had one question...........

Why do children die?

 

OK getting back to the question.. I'm not sure I'd have one.. but if I absolutely HAD to have one it would be... why was I chosen to have special 'gifts'....

IMN- I stopped when she said hot... ha

 

How did He fit so many animals on the ark??

 

Why didn't he leave off the mosquitoes and maggots?

 

& fleas & ticks.

 

I can't conceive of an answer to that. The unspeakable torment for the parents. Suffering and pain the child may have suffered (depending on cause of death).

 

What Kim said - when is Jesus coming back?

(And I'm asking this question of GOD - I don't expect any answers from anybody else. For the gazillionth time, the topic is "IF YOU HAD ONE QUESTION........ for God what would it be?)

 

First, God's Word speaks for God. I and others may tell you what is in His Word. Sometimes among believers there is disagreement as to what God's Word means. Many times there is no disagreement. The shepherds watched over their flocks by night. There is no disagreement with that. So with respect to that scripture, when someone like myself tells you what the Word of God says, we do not speak for God. We tell you what God says in His Word. There is a difference.

I thought Scott's question was valid as well, until after I answered it he tore his question up, wadded it up and threw it out the window.

INS, you ask some scriptural questions. I answered your question #2 to Scott. You say you are sincere and I believe you are. Below I will tell you what I read in the scriptures. You and others may read something else, or offer and derive whatever meaning your heart tells you is true. But I tell you what I read. That is all I can do here to try to answer your sincere question. But in doing so, I hardly speak for God. To even portray that is disengenuous on the part of one who would make such a claim.

You refer to Jesus. Jesus, the Son, is the natural world manifestation of God the Father. But God the Father is Spirit, the Source of all life and energy in this universe and beyond. God the Father though steers His energy to fulfill His own intentions. Some of those intentions are executed through the Son, the natural world manifestation of God. According to the scriptures, one of those intentions was to create a natural universe, and inside of that natural universe, present an image of Himself, not Himself, but an image. In this image is contained the necessary ingredient to propogate life. Inside of this image is the conveyance of free will and authority over its environment. And because this image has free will, this image also has the discretion to disobey the Father. That is the only difference. God cannot disobey Himself. Therefore, God cannot sin. But man, made in His image, certainly can.

To help explain the relationship, I will use somewhat of an analogy. In America, periodically comes up the conversation about flag burning. Someone burns an American flag and all the patriots stand up and offer up a Constitutional amendment to restrict, to outlaw, flag burning. But the American flag stands for freedom. And freedom means that one even has the authority to disavow one's own freedom. But when this occurs, when someone burns the flag, an entire nation gets upset by it. They hate it. They decry it. In the same fashion, when God's image, given freedom in virtually every respect, disrespects through disobedience the very source of life and freedom that he possesses, God hates it just like patriots hate flag burning. When God's image disobeys God, that is a slap in the face, an affront to God.

Like flag burning is cutting ties with one's country, disobeying God is like cutting all ties with God, which when that occurs places one's self at the head of the table. It places one's self into the rightful place of God. I have said this many times before and folks get upset. But that's OK. Whomever we obey is our god. That is the relationship, one of Master and servant. When we are our own master, we are our own god. But this other God, the one responsibile for our very existence, is a benificent Master. This Master even offered His own Son to pay for our mistakes. That is the personality of this Master, this God.

But a God such as this, should be feared as well. Yes, feared. If, as Scott proposes, God exists, and if this God is the source of creation for this enormous and magnificent, unending, incomprehensible natural universe, then imagine the power of God. The power of God is not imaginable. So placed in a room with God, if one were not the least bit intimidated, one would not value his or her own life or what may happen to it. That is just what that kind of power would make any person feel, completely intimidated, fearful. That is the fear of God.

You ask why the brief appearance 2000 years ago. That is a scriptural question. It can only have a scriptural answer. And it is a multi-pronged answer. And I expect that if you asked that question to a variety of different Biblical scholors, or believers, you might receive a variety of answers, possibly all correct answers, but different answers based upon different layers of meaning that are found in the Bible. The question is tantamount to asking a nuclear physicist why atoms exist, which by the way has never been proven. But I will try to give you as direct an answer as I can in a few sentences.

God established His image to rule over the earth.
God's image rebelled against God.
In so doing, God's image, who lived only subject to God's grace, fell from grace.
God desires to restore His image to a position of living under His grace.
God has tried to do that any number of ways, including spelling out what is displeasing to God, giving His image a road map, back to grace. That road map is the Law of Moses.
Each time God's image falls from grace.
So to fulfill the road map, the Law, as fortold it would occur in Hebrew prophecies written down over a period of several thousand years, God Himself, in the form of the Son, Jesus Christ, comes to earth.
Jesus Christ fulfills every Old Testament prophecy. Jesus Christ fulfills the Law of Moses.
In fufilling the Law of Moses, Jesus Christ receives all authority over Heaven and Earth. Essentially, what Jesus says goes. He earned it.
Jesus establishes a new covenant with God's image, restoring the possibility that God's image can live under grace once again.
The requirement is that God's image believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, and submit to His authority. Faith is established through repentance.

So the answer to your question, why a brief appearance 2000 years ago, was to complete the mission of restoring God's grace to God's image on earth. It took that long to occur, has now occurred and man now has the option to choose to live under the Law or live under Grace. Christians choose to live under Grace.

Your first question, 'The existential, all encompassing Why?' you will have to explain a little better for me to respond.

 

Such a simple question Cara asked ...

Another thing I would like to ask God is What came before and what will come next?

 

Yeah - that's a good one, too. I've read Revelations ... & understand some of it, but ... wow! What's next?

 

I tried to tell a few people to lay off all the Bible thumping and sermonizing and finger wagging when it pertains to God and believing in him or not, because this is a whole new generation of people that are tired of all the loooong fire and brimstone speeches and it turns them away(myself included).

 

A new question for god: why does Hank feel the need to write War and Peace in such a simply themed, clearly titled thread?

 

Sheesh.

 

I have to agree. I like Hank. And I love how he takes the time and effort to post in depth but I have to admit, I do find his answers pretty long sometimes. I want to read them, to try and understand and to honour his effort but my eyes do start to glaze over.

 

Lol; and I love Hank too but I have already explained to him and a few others that this is a message board and not a place for long novels, because that is why they have blogging sites for bloggers who have a loooong message they wanna get out.

World English Dictionary
blog (blɒɡ)
— n
informal/ Full name: weblog a journal written on-line and accessible to users of the internet.

World English Dictionary
message (ˈmɛsɪdʒ)
— n
1. a communication, usually brief, from one person or group to another

 

Fascinating as the subject of Hank is, could we return this thread to Cara's topic ?

 

to me, and to some of the weird physicists and theologians I have read, God is infinite; therefore, time is viewed in a completely different manner--before and after are necessary illusions for us, but not for God

 

I think God would have to impart a whole new cognitive ability to me that I do not now have for me to understand the answer. I get lost trying to follow Einstein, imagine trying to follow God's thought process.

 

Thats a long question.

 

My question to God......right now......at this moment.........Why can't people just "Do Unto Others..........?"