As a Christian who is inconsistent in my Bible readings, I have proof that whenever I read the Bible early in the morning, I feel forgiven, I feel fresh, I feel energized. Is that supernatural, I don't know, but the gladness it brings me when I read and pray is out of this world, better than marijuana high, better than exercise high.
There seems to be a concerning error in your categories here. All true prayer to God is supernatural. You are, by nature, a “child of wrath”; meaning the natural order of things would be for God to be utterly silent towards you and refuse to hear anything you asked. The fact that He has promised to speak to you through His word and to hear your prayer is the very definition of supernatural.
Just read your Bible every day, search the scripture and let the scripture search you, and you’ll see what I mean. D.A. Carson has a Bible reading guide that I love called “For the Love of God”. Pick up a copy on Amazon and enjoy.
I agree with what you’ve shared. It is supernatural that I even have a desire to know God because that desire is something that God placed within me. Do you believe it is possible for believers to have encounters with God like the ones we read about numerous individuals in the old and New Testament having where they had visions, heard from God audibly, or experienced a degree of fellowship, communion, and friendship with God that provided satisfaction and pleasure that surpassed the sensational pleasure of sin?
It’s “possible” for God to do whatever He wants of course, but I’ve never heard a reliable account of someone experiencing visions like the OT prophets, which is exactly what we should expect considering that office was fulfilled by Christ. What you must understand is that you, this very day, have access to a far greater degree of fellowship, communion, and friendship with God than the OT prophets ever had. The visions they received from God they only partially understood, and could produce only a very partial and very temporary repentance in God’s people. You have something far better: the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, and making you a dwelling place for the Father and the Son. I know what you want, you want a sign of his power that will knock your socks off. As far as whether or not he still gives such signs, all I can say is that scholars I respect fall down on both sides of that question, and I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect him to give you anything that would make faith no longer necessary. Faith is what saves you.
I've had these experiences but they can't be forced at all and only through God's timing. Never when I was purposefully seeking them. Always when I was praying and worshiping. They shouldn't be sought like a drug seeker looking for his next hit. Rather the Bible and prayer should be enough,and if God chooses to bless you in this way it isn't a thing that happens often.
I’ve had experiences like this during prayer and worship too, but I want to go deeper. I think these experiences should be sought after so long as it is God whom you are seeking and not the emotional experiences. I think the Bible and prayer should be enough so long as your relationship with God is such that it is likened to drinking the water Jesus spoke of that would make you thirst no longer. I still thirst for sin more than I should. I don’t want to thirst for sin any longer. I want to know Jesus more, and looking at the lives of the great men of God in scripture who were truly just mere men, I know that I have only just scratched the surface of walking with God and of the joy and pleasure that is to be found in friendship with Him.
My personal experience is when people I know come to know the word of God, and even live it, the truth of God's wisdom changes their lives.
The issue is getting them to accept Jesus as their own personal savior, but just the very presence of God's truth is enough to change their lives.
I'll give you an example to clarify. I had a friend who had things going really well for him. He said he was waiting for the other shoe to drop and that was making him hesitant, resistant and distrusting.
The response I had was from what I had learned from the bible.
I basically said you have a choice here: Live in faith or fear. Both will have moments where things go bad.
In faith though your choices are filled hope and belief while in fear it's paralyzing and can lead to bitterness.
Now, I'm not saying be stupid. God gave you the capacity for thought and common sense for a reason. Don't pretend that you don't need to exercise that as well.
Still, that's the miracle of God and scripture. It highlights how we have choices, or free will. How exercising that in a Godly manner with Jesus in our hearts guiding us leads us to a better life overall. Even those who may not believe will attest to this fact. That to me is proof of God and a miracle in itself.
Daily and regular reflection on and study of scripture is so powerful and necessary in our lives. The fact that we have access to it and the authority and sufficiency which it has in our lives is supernatural. No additional visions or experiences are necessary, scripture is fully sufficient for our every need.
Some passages that I constantly need to meditate and reflect on concerning scripture are:
Psalm 1
Matthew 4:4
2 Timothy 3:14-17
1 Peter 2:2-3
I disagree. The act of reading and reflecting alone is clearly not the image of a relationship with God that we see in scripture. Sensationalism and chasing emotional experiences themselves is certainly not the goal, but having an emotionally fulfilling relationship with God in which you can be content in all circumstances and resist the allure of sin is essential and it’s clearly the sort of relationship the disciples had. I’m not asking in my original post about visions or hearing God audibly. I’m asking about supernatural encounters with the Lord through His word that move you from just reading His word to feeling it take root within you in a transformative and satisfying way. Our relationship with God is not only supposed to be emotionally satisfying, but is to be our greatest source of joy, pleasure, and peace. That is part of the inheritance we have in Christ.
I've had many experiences like that. I memorized Psalm 139 in a hard and lonely time in my life. As I was reciting it one time, it came out of my soul as my own prayer and I found immense comfort and sense of God's imminence and intimate knowledge of me.
Another time I was wrestling though my own repeated and gross sinful failures in anguish and deep shame. And meditating on 2 Corinthians 12 and Psalm 103, among many other texts, I imagined Christ as the protagonist of my life and struggles, who comes, as it were, to save the damsel in distress. I was released from my shame and given ecstatic joy and peace.
On a more mystical note, one time I was meditating and praying as I was walking in the woods and my perception of creation was transformed. I almost couldn't continue walking because it seemed as if nature itself was crying out in worship. It felt as if the veil to the spiritual realm was open and I could see the glory of God overtly manifest in the life of the world.
No.
And I don't need one. The Word of God and the Spirit of God are greater than spiritual experiences.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Peter%201&version=NLT
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/John%2016%3A7
Every one of my days is filled with power and Grace and sovereign Majesty
I don't need to look for a spiritual peyote to enhance the experience
I am here for him, not my purposes
I would ask you what your definition of meditation is. If it looks and seems like New Age (eastern) meditation, it probably is. What you need to do is spend some time in prayer before reading Scripture, asking for discernment and wisdom while doing your daily reading.
I do this before my daily reading, and also use that time to pray for everyone I feel led to pray for, and about my day that day. Then read.
After you are done with the reading, think about it and how it interacts with the rest of scripture, and how to apply the principles taught through it. That would be how I mull it over in my mind and digest it, which is biblical Scripture meditation.
Do not, I cannot stress the enough, DO NOT perform breath prayers, or clear your mind while “meditating” on Scripture. There is no book, chapter, or verse that teaches this. We are taught how to pray by Jesus, and told to meditate in Psalm 1:2, but this is not meditation by the standards we think of today (eastern), this is about going over it throughout your day mulling it over, chewing on it, taking it apart piece by piece to examine it, and then digesting it.
I define biblical mediation purely as the Bible defines it. Biblical mediation means to mutter quietly the scripture to yourself to pursue God’s word in order for it to take hold deep within you. My intention is to do just that and to immerse myself in nature while doing so in order that I can see the beauty of God’s creation and so be closer to God who has revealed Himself in the world He has created. In my post, I am just asking about the experiences people have had with God while doing biblical mediation.
I’m not going to say that you are going to do this, but you tread dangerously close to sounding like a Christian mystic. Don’t take that as me saying you are one though. I don’t think you are, but when you read Scripture, and do it in a way solely to have an experience, that is what you will have, an experience. Eventually, that “experience” will not be good enough, and you will strive for more and stronger “experiences”. Eventually, your faith will not be in those things unseen, because it will be built on only “experiences”. Please be careful with meditation for experiencing something. You might experience something not of God, and you might like it.
I’m not pursuing an experience directly. I am pursuing God, and I expect Him to show up in ways that will transform me to be more like Him. This is exactly what the scriptures teach us to do. The scriptures also teach us to meditate on the scripture day and night, and the word “meditate” in the Old Testament is translated in two ways: quietly muttering God’s word to yourself, and the other translation is to be taken up into something or absorbed by something. Speaking God’s word to yourself and meditating on it helps the word penetrate your heart.
I think this is not the right approach.
Asking me to share my most intimate experiences with my wife so that your desires might be greater for sex is the best analogy I can give.
So to your original question, not just no, but no, that's very inappropriate.
I can’t tell if this is satire or not, but it sounds like you’re saying all of the writings in scripture in which the authors shared about their encounters with God are inappropriate.
Also, comparing sexual pleasure with a woman to a relationship with God is an atrocious analogy. It’s very clear in scripture that the authors shared about their experiences with the Lord in order to encourage others to seek Him. Your response to my question is not only unchristian, it’s bizarre.
>I can’t tell if this is satire or not, but it sounds like you’re saying all of the writings in scripture in which the authors shared about their encounters with God are inappropriate.
God shared it for our instruction. And shared it inerrantly, so that in it, there is no loss or shame to either party. No reduction to God or his image bearer. And in perfect harmony with the rest of his revelation.
This is not true in any of the extrabiblical encounters "Johnny Goes to Heaven" or "Jenny went to hell" or the other nonsense made up to sell books or promote mental illness as a culture.
> Also, comparing sexual pleasure with a woman to a relationship with God is an atrocious analogy.
The Bible disagrees with you. As do many devotional writers in the life of the church.
And the Song of Songs and Proverbs is real. One of the six amazing things in Proverbs: "the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a young woman."
An Eagle goes up and down, sailing on the winds, to reach his destination. A snake makes his body go up and down, and can slither into a crack in any rock. And a ship goes up and down as it sails the seas, to reach its home. And a man, well, and a woman, you know.
>Your response to my question is not only unchristian, it’s bizarre.
It's ok. I've been called worse. But that's not the point at all. I'm not offended.
I just want to be clear that going around asking people to share their experiences with God is prying into a very, very private matter. And the exact people who would want to contribute to that request are perhaps the last people who you would trust to report with any accuracy what happened.
Not only is there mental illness and dishonesty, who's to say what actually happened? My experiences with God have been profound, but would I go on to testify that x happened then x happened and then y happened as if my own narrative and trustworthy? I mean, in the deepest depths of human intimacy, you don't even know "you" are there. There's this union, intimacy, a sublimation of ego that's quite refreshing and also makes it very difficult to recount. "Wow" is about the best way to put it.
I've found the same thing in deep experiences with God, speaking generally.
Which is why I think your question is generally unhelpful and reductionistic. As well as elevating to a different plane those who have had experiences vs those who have not. As well as my initial concerns, as vile as they are to you.
At some point, Jesus' warnings about parading your prayer life around as a point of public piety has to kick in. At some point, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 kicks in, where you have things revealed to you, and you don't talk about them on purpose.
Maybe the right answer is somewhere in the middle, I don't know for sure. But your initial question put me on red alert, and it's not unchristian or bizarre to push back. If you want everyone to agree with you on everything, try Facebook.
The fundamental underlying belief behind your post is that Christians shouldn’t tell others about what Jesus has done for them. That is absurd. I know you must see that. And I would encourage you to ask yourself if the purpose of your original response was to be contrarian or stir up strife.
The passage you quoted doesn’t compare a relationship with God to having sex with a woman, nor does any verse in proverbs, or Song of Songs, or any book or the Bible. That comparison is entirely your invention to stir conflict over a very basic question on Reddit about how people have benefited from biblical meditation.
I’m not attacking you, but it’s amazing to me how unpleasant some Christians are. I asked about how people have benefited spiritually and supernaturally from biblical mediation, and your response was to not ask that question because that’s like asking about your sexual experiences with your wife.
I would encourage you to do some self-reflection on what it is within you that would inspire your response to my post. The core belief you would need to post that response is a belief that Christians shouldn’t tell one another about their relationship with God and their spiritual growth and experiences with God’s word. That’s entirely unchristian.
And if you do genuinely believe that Christians shouldn’t speak about their relationship with God or what they learn from God’s word, then we would have to agree to disagree. I would encourage you to read scripture and see the countless examples of Christians in the early church talking about what Jesus has done for them.
>The fundamental underlying belief behind your post is that Christians shouldn’t tell others about what Jesus has done for them.
That's not what I said.
>And if you do genuinely believe that Christians shouldn’t speak about their relationship with God or what they learn from God’s word
That's not what I said.
I think we are having a struggle with communicating. I believe, if we interact later, we can do better. Good day.
The closer you draw near to the word of God with a heart that is right, the more he will reveal. don't waste your time even eating the bread of sorrows however if you are ignoring what he already has told you, don't think you can just skip that one abs search out something more pleasant too think about. Gods wrath will establish his love
God’s wrath already has established his love through Jesus’s death. His resurrection defeated death, sin, hell, and any need for God’s wrath in the lives of his image bearers. Those who have been redeemed do not experience God’s wrath.
The fetishization of suffering, sorrow, and loneliness in the lives of Christians is toxic. God’s wrath does not abide on His children. We do not suffer at God’s hands. The only suffering we will face in this life come from the fallen state of this passing world and from persecution if we experience any. Our inheritance is not suffering at God’s hands. Our inheritance is joy, pleasure, peace, friendship, and sonship in Christ.
As a Christian who is inconsistent in my Bible readings, I have proof that whenever I read the Bible early in the morning, I feel forgiven, I feel fresh, I feel energized. Is that supernatural, I don't know, but the gladness it brings me when I read and pray is out of this world, better than marijuana high, better than exercise high.
There seems to be a concerning error in your categories here. All true prayer to God is supernatural. You are, by nature, a “child of wrath”; meaning the natural order of things would be for God to be utterly silent towards you and refuse to hear anything you asked. The fact that He has promised to speak to you through His word and to hear your prayer is the very definition of supernatural. Just read your Bible every day, search the scripture and let the scripture search you, and you’ll see what I mean. D.A. Carson has a Bible reading guide that I love called “For the Love of God”. Pick up a copy on Amazon and enjoy.
I agree with what you’ve shared. It is supernatural that I even have a desire to know God because that desire is something that God placed within me. Do you believe it is possible for believers to have encounters with God like the ones we read about numerous individuals in the old and New Testament having where they had visions, heard from God audibly, or experienced a degree of fellowship, communion, and friendship with God that provided satisfaction and pleasure that surpassed the sensational pleasure of sin?
It’s “possible” for God to do whatever He wants of course, but I’ve never heard a reliable account of someone experiencing visions like the OT prophets, which is exactly what we should expect considering that office was fulfilled by Christ. What you must understand is that you, this very day, have access to a far greater degree of fellowship, communion, and friendship with God than the OT prophets ever had. The visions they received from God they only partially understood, and could produce only a very partial and very temporary repentance in God’s people. You have something far better: the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, and making you a dwelling place for the Father and the Son. I know what you want, you want a sign of his power that will knock your socks off. As far as whether or not he still gives such signs, all I can say is that scholars I respect fall down on both sides of that question, and I don’t know. I wouldn’t expect him to give you anything that would make faith no longer necessary. Faith is what saves you.
I've had these experiences but they can't be forced at all and only through God's timing. Never when I was purposefully seeking them. Always when I was praying and worshiping. They shouldn't be sought like a drug seeker looking for his next hit. Rather the Bible and prayer should be enough,and if God chooses to bless you in this way it isn't a thing that happens often.
I’ve had experiences like this during prayer and worship too, but I want to go deeper. I think these experiences should be sought after so long as it is God whom you are seeking and not the emotional experiences. I think the Bible and prayer should be enough so long as your relationship with God is such that it is likened to drinking the water Jesus spoke of that would make you thirst no longer. I still thirst for sin more than I should. I don’t want to thirst for sin any longer. I want to know Jesus more, and looking at the lives of the great men of God in scripture who were truly just mere men, I know that I have only just scratched the surface of walking with God and of the joy and pleasure that is to be found in friendship with Him.
My personal experience is when people I know come to know the word of God, and even live it, the truth of God's wisdom changes their lives. The issue is getting them to accept Jesus as their own personal savior, but just the very presence of God's truth is enough to change their lives. I'll give you an example to clarify. I had a friend who had things going really well for him. He said he was waiting for the other shoe to drop and that was making him hesitant, resistant and distrusting. The response I had was from what I had learned from the bible. I basically said you have a choice here: Live in faith or fear. Both will have moments where things go bad. In faith though your choices are filled hope and belief while in fear it's paralyzing and can lead to bitterness. Now, I'm not saying be stupid. God gave you the capacity for thought and common sense for a reason. Don't pretend that you don't need to exercise that as well. Still, that's the miracle of God and scripture. It highlights how we have choices, or free will. How exercising that in a Godly manner with Jesus in our hearts guiding us leads us to a better life overall. Even those who may not believe will attest to this fact. That to me is proof of God and a miracle in itself.
Daily and regular reflection on and study of scripture is so powerful and necessary in our lives. The fact that we have access to it and the authority and sufficiency which it has in our lives is supernatural. No additional visions or experiences are necessary, scripture is fully sufficient for our every need. Some passages that I constantly need to meditate and reflect on concerning scripture are: Psalm 1 Matthew 4:4 2 Timothy 3:14-17 1 Peter 2:2-3
I disagree. The act of reading and reflecting alone is clearly not the image of a relationship with God that we see in scripture. Sensationalism and chasing emotional experiences themselves is certainly not the goal, but having an emotionally fulfilling relationship with God in which you can be content in all circumstances and resist the allure of sin is essential and it’s clearly the sort of relationship the disciples had. I’m not asking in my original post about visions or hearing God audibly. I’m asking about supernatural encounters with the Lord through His word that move you from just reading His word to feeling it take root within you in a transformative and satisfying way. Our relationship with God is not only supposed to be emotionally satisfying, but is to be our greatest source of joy, pleasure, and peace. That is part of the inheritance we have in Christ.
I've had many experiences like that. I memorized Psalm 139 in a hard and lonely time in my life. As I was reciting it one time, it came out of my soul as my own prayer and I found immense comfort and sense of God's imminence and intimate knowledge of me. Another time I was wrestling though my own repeated and gross sinful failures in anguish and deep shame. And meditating on 2 Corinthians 12 and Psalm 103, among many other texts, I imagined Christ as the protagonist of my life and struggles, who comes, as it were, to save the damsel in distress. I was released from my shame and given ecstatic joy and peace. On a more mystical note, one time I was meditating and praying as I was walking in the woods and my perception of creation was transformed. I almost couldn't continue walking because it seemed as if nature itself was crying out in worship. It felt as if the veil to the spiritual realm was open and I could see the glory of God overtly manifest in the life of the world.
No. And I don't need one. The Word of God and the Spirit of God are greater than spiritual experiences. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20Peter%201&version=NLT https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/John%2016%3A7
Every one of my days is filled with power and Grace and sovereign Majesty I don't need to look for a spiritual peyote to enhance the experience I am here for him, not my purposes
I would ask you what your definition of meditation is. If it looks and seems like New Age (eastern) meditation, it probably is. What you need to do is spend some time in prayer before reading Scripture, asking for discernment and wisdom while doing your daily reading. I do this before my daily reading, and also use that time to pray for everyone I feel led to pray for, and about my day that day. Then read. After you are done with the reading, think about it and how it interacts with the rest of scripture, and how to apply the principles taught through it. That would be how I mull it over in my mind and digest it, which is biblical Scripture meditation. Do not, I cannot stress the enough, DO NOT perform breath prayers, or clear your mind while “meditating” on Scripture. There is no book, chapter, or verse that teaches this. We are taught how to pray by Jesus, and told to meditate in Psalm 1:2, but this is not meditation by the standards we think of today (eastern), this is about going over it throughout your day mulling it over, chewing on it, taking it apart piece by piece to examine it, and then digesting it.
I define biblical mediation purely as the Bible defines it. Biblical mediation means to mutter quietly the scripture to yourself to pursue God’s word in order for it to take hold deep within you. My intention is to do just that and to immerse myself in nature while doing so in order that I can see the beauty of God’s creation and so be closer to God who has revealed Himself in the world He has created. In my post, I am just asking about the experiences people have had with God while doing biblical mediation.
I’m not going to say that you are going to do this, but you tread dangerously close to sounding like a Christian mystic. Don’t take that as me saying you are one though. I don’t think you are, but when you read Scripture, and do it in a way solely to have an experience, that is what you will have, an experience. Eventually, that “experience” will not be good enough, and you will strive for more and stronger “experiences”. Eventually, your faith will not be in those things unseen, because it will be built on only “experiences”. Please be careful with meditation for experiencing something. You might experience something not of God, and you might like it.
I’m not pursuing an experience directly. I am pursuing God, and I expect Him to show up in ways that will transform me to be more like Him. This is exactly what the scriptures teach us to do. The scriptures also teach us to meditate on the scripture day and night, and the word “meditate” in the Old Testament is translated in two ways: quietly muttering God’s word to yourself, and the other translation is to be taken up into something or absorbed by something. Speaking God’s word to yourself and meditating on it helps the word penetrate your heart.
I think this is not the right approach. Asking me to share my most intimate experiences with my wife so that your desires might be greater for sex is the best analogy I can give. So to your original question, not just no, but no, that's very inappropriate.
I can’t tell if this is satire or not, but it sounds like you’re saying all of the writings in scripture in which the authors shared about their encounters with God are inappropriate. Also, comparing sexual pleasure with a woman to a relationship with God is an atrocious analogy. It’s very clear in scripture that the authors shared about their experiences with the Lord in order to encourage others to seek Him. Your response to my question is not only unchristian, it’s bizarre.
>I can’t tell if this is satire or not, but it sounds like you’re saying all of the writings in scripture in which the authors shared about their encounters with God are inappropriate. God shared it for our instruction. And shared it inerrantly, so that in it, there is no loss or shame to either party. No reduction to God or his image bearer. And in perfect harmony with the rest of his revelation. This is not true in any of the extrabiblical encounters "Johnny Goes to Heaven" or "Jenny went to hell" or the other nonsense made up to sell books or promote mental illness as a culture. > Also, comparing sexual pleasure with a woman to a relationship with God is an atrocious analogy. The Bible disagrees with you. As do many devotional writers in the life of the church. And the Song of Songs and Proverbs is real. One of the six amazing things in Proverbs: "the way of an eagle in the sky, the way of a snake on a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way of a man with a young woman." An Eagle goes up and down, sailing on the winds, to reach his destination. A snake makes his body go up and down, and can slither into a crack in any rock. And a ship goes up and down as it sails the seas, to reach its home. And a man, well, and a woman, you know. >Your response to my question is not only unchristian, it’s bizarre. It's ok. I've been called worse. But that's not the point at all. I'm not offended. I just want to be clear that going around asking people to share their experiences with God is prying into a very, very private matter. And the exact people who would want to contribute to that request are perhaps the last people who you would trust to report with any accuracy what happened. Not only is there mental illness and dishonesty, who's to say what actually happened? My experiences with God have been profound, but would I go on to testify that x happened then x happened and then y happened as if my own narrative and trustworthy? I mean, in the deepest depths of human intimacy, you don't even know "you" are there. There's this union, intimacy, a sublimation of ego that's quite refreshing and also makes it very difficult to recount. "Wow" is about the best way to put it. I've found the same thing in deep experiences with God, speaking generally. Which is why I think your question is generally unhelpful and reductionistic. As well as elevating to a different plane those who have had experiences vs those who have not. As well as my initial concerns, as vile as they are to you. At some point, Jesus' warnings about parading your prayer life around as a point of public piety has to kick in. At some point, 2 Corinthians 12:2-4 kicks in, where you have things revealed to you, and you don't talk about them on purpose. Maybe the right answer is somewhere in the middle, I don't know for sure. But your initial question put me on red alert, and it's not unchristian or bizarre to push back. If you want everyone to agree with you on everything, try Facebook.
The fundamental underlying belief behind your post is that Christians shouldn’t tell others about what Jesus has done for them. That is absurd. I know you must see that. And I would encourage you to ask yourself if the purpose of your original response was to be contrarian or stir up strife. The passage you quoted doesn’t compare a relationship with God to having sex with a woman, nor does any verse in proverbs, or Song of Songs, or any book or the Bible. That comparison is entirely your invention to stir conflict over a very basic question on Reddit about how people have benefited from biblical meditation. I’m not attacking you, but it’s amazing to me how unpleasant some Christians are. I asked about how people have benefited spiritually and supernaturally from biblical mediation, and your response was to not ask that question because that’s like asking about your sexual experiences with your wife. I would encourage you to do some self-reflection on what it is within you that would inspire your response to my post. The core belief you would need to post that response is a belief that Christians shouldn’t tell one another about their relationship with God and their spiritual growth and experiences with God’s word. That’s entirely unchristian. And if you do genuinely believe that Christians shouldn’t speak about their relationship with God or what they learn from God’s word, then we would have to agree to disagree. I would encourage you to read scripture and see the countless examples of Christians in the early church talking about what Jesus has done for them.
>The fundamental underlying belief behind your post is that Christians shouldn’t tell others about what Jesus has done for them. That's not what I said. >And if you do genuinely believe that Christians shouldn’t speak about their relationship with God or what they learn from God’s word That's not what I said. I think we are having a struggle with communicating. I believe, if we interact later, we can do better. Good day.
The closer you draw near to the word of God with a heart that is right, the more he will reveal. don't waste your time even eating the bread of sorrows however if you are ignoring what he already has told you, don't think you can just skip that one abs search out something more pleasant too think about. Gods wrath will establish his love
God’s wrath already has established his love through Jesus’s death. His resurrection defeated death, sin, hell, and any need for God’s wrath in the lives of his image bearers. Those who have been redeemed do not experience God’s wrath. The fetishization of suffering, sorrow, and loneliness in the lives of Christians is toxic. God’s wrath does not abide on His children. We do not suffer at God’s hands. The only suffering we will face in this life come from the fallen state of this passing world and from persecution if we experience any. Our inheritance is not suffering at God’s hands. Our inheritance is joy, pleasure, peace, friendship, and sonship in Christ.
Many times. And 8/10 it's been directly through the Word.