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Written By, Byfaith.
As Christians we hear lots of things. Doctrines, teachings, songs, more teaching and Doctrines. We also catch people's catch phrases as they pass by or hear them speaking in the background. After several years of these sounds coming in our ears unknowing to us, it builds reasoning and understandings about God. Bad or Good, they get stuck in us and we don't even know it.
When I first Heard the phrase "They were slain by the Holy Spirit" my first visual was Ananias after talking to Peter. It was a conversation I overheard, and man, glad I was not them folks. I guess God don't play around. Back in those days I had heard lots of stuff, not knowing these would be ingrained in me to effect what I believed later. Now of course I figured out the Holy Spirit did not off someone, I guess it meant they fell out under the Power of the Holy Spirit. Least I hope that is what they meant.
God knows the End from the Beginning:
One thing I always heard is God knows the end from the beginning. I guess all those tongue talking Pentecostal folks were full of Arminianism. I had no idea what Arminianism was at the time, never heard of it, but it sounded very reasonable that God would know all things from start to finish about everyone. After all, God is God, and God has to fit my belief of what a God should be. I never questioned this expression, and everyone knows God lives outside of time, right? Who don't know that? Common knowledge. I had no idea about Calvinism or even what that was. God forces by election the end from the Begging for everyone. Never heard that until much later.
My Issue with God:
A few years went by and I learned how to hear the Holy Spirit. great thing to get that all worked out, everyone should. It gets stronger and stronger as long as you grow and keep word minded and not flesh ruled.
I had a situation where someone had to come through for me or else bad things would happen not in my favor. This person said they would do something for me, promised and they just were not getting around to doing it fast enough. So, I went to pray about it, and asked God if this person was going to keep their word. Now I was still pretty stupid back then concerning a whole bunch of things, and I hope 10 years from now I can look back and see how dumb I am today concerning scriptures. We need to keep growing, changing and learning. I was counting on a person to come through, my faith was in that instead of God coming through. I was trusting in the arm of man. It's extremely bad to count on man or pull on man for needs, it brings a curse, but as i said, I did not know.
So after asking God how many times if this person was going to keep their Word the Lord finally spoke to me. Ever have the Lord sound irritated at you? He said, "How would I know if he will keep his Word, I created man like me."
For someone that lives outside of time and knows the end from the Begging that was not the answer I was expecting. The guy never did keep his Word, and God did something amazing to fix everything, that I remember. However his comment baffled me for a very long time, I am talking years.
Years later I was believing God for something and he sent me to a store, at the store I met someone who told me about these places that sell used goods.Then the Holy Spirit told me to take my wife there that next Saturday. We got ready to go that Saturday morning and the Holy Spirit said wait.................wait....... So I waited and then the Holy Spirit said go.
We all piled in the car and were on our way to these stores. I had 3 of them written down, but which one first? As I was glancing at the list and address, one jumped out at me so we went there first. We pulled up, and went in the Store. As we were leaving a truck pulls up and in the back of this guys truck was the very thing I had asked God for weeks before. It turned out that he just gave it to us, and it worked great. Several years great in fact.
Now that took knowing, pinpoint timing, I had to be at the exact place at the right time on 3 occasions as directed by the Holy Spirit for all that to come together. This brought back to my mind years ago when the Lord said, "How would I know if he will keep his Word, I created man like me."
Best I could come up with is that I did not Hear God right at that time, or at all. After all, Jesus knew when Peter would deny him, Knew how to get me to a place to get something awesome I asked God for. I was still not settled on it though.
Years pass...............
The whole problem was that stupid doctrine that God knows the end from the beginning. Blinded my understanding and seeing things in scripture. The Lord could not even have showed me until I had the foundation to understand anyway.
God is patience, I can say that for sure. It boils down to answering the question, did God plan and cause Adam to sin, or did Adam have a free choice and God knew what the Choice would be?
Or............................ it's neither.
If you read this far, you know it was long enough.
blessings to everyone.
As Christians we hear lots of things. Doctrines, teachings, songs, more teaching and Doctrines. We also catch people's catch phrases as they pass by or hear them speaking in the background. After several years of these sounds coming in our ears unknowing to us, it builds reasoning and understandings about God. Bad or Good, they get stuck in us and we don't even know it.
When I first Heard the phrase "They were slain by the Holy Spirit" my first visual was Ananias after talking to Peter. It was a conversation I overheard, and man, glad I was not them folks. I guess God don't play around. Back in those days I had heard lots of stuff, not knowing these would be ingrained in me to effect what I believed later. Now of course I figured out the Holy Spirit did not off someone, I guess it meant they fell out under the Power of the Holy Spirit. Least I hope that is what they meant.
God knows the End from the Beginning:
One thing I always heard is God knows the end from the beginning. I guess all those tongue talking Pentecostal folks were full of Arminianism. I had no idea what Arminianism was at the time, never heard of it, but it sounded very reasonable that God would know all things from start to finish about everyone. After all, God is God, and God has to fit my belief of what a God should be. I never questioned this expression, and everyone knows God lives outside of time, right? Who don't know that? Common knowledge. I had no idea about Calvinism or even what that was. God forces by election the end from the Begging for everyone. Never heard that until much later.
My Issue with God:
A few years went by and I learned how to hear the Holy Spirit. great thing to get that all worked out, everyone should. It gets stronger and stronger as long as you grow and keep word minded and not flesh ruled.
I had a situation where someone had to come through for me or else bad things would happen not in my favor. This person said they would do something for me, promised and they just were not getting around to doing it fast enough. So, I went to pray about it, and asked God if this person was going to keep their word. Now I was still pretty stupid back then concerning a whole bunch of things, and I hope 10 years from now I can look back and see how dumb I am today concerning scriptures. We need to keep growing, changing and learning. I was counting on a person to come through, my faith was in that instead of God coming through. I was trusting in the arm of man. It's extremely bad to count on man or pull on man for needs, it brings a curse, but as i said, I did not know.
So after asking God how many times if this person was going to keep their Word the Lord finally spoke to me. Ever have the Lord sound irritated at you? He said, "How would I know if he will keep his Word, I created man like me."
For someone that lives outside of time and knows the end from the Begging that was not the answer I was expecting. The guy never did keep his Word, and God did something amazing to fix everything, that I remember. However his comment baffled me for a very long time, I am talking years.
Years later I was believing God for something and he sent me to a store, at the store I met someone who told me about these places that sell used goods.Then the Holy Spirit told me to take my wife there that next Saturday. We got ready to go that Saturday morning and the Holy Spirit said wait.................wait....... So I waited and then the Holy Spirit said go.
We all piled in the car and were on our way to these stores. I had 3 of them written down, but which one first? As I was glancing at the list and address, one jumped out at me so we went there first. We pulled up, and went in the Store. As we were leaving a truck pulls up and in the back of this guys truck was the very thing I had asked God for weeks before. It turned out that he just gave it to us, and it worked great. Several years great in fact.
Now that took knowing, pinpoint timing, I had to be at the exact place at the right time on 3 occasions as directed by the Holy Spirit for all that to come together. This brought back to my mind years ago when the Lord said, "How would I know if he will keep his Word, I created man like me."
Best I could come up with is that I did not Hear God right at that time, or at all. After all, Jesus knew when Peter would deny him, Knew how to get me to a place to get something awesome I asked God for. I was still not settled on it though.
Years pass...............
The whole problem was that stupid doctrine that God knows the end from the beginning. Blinded my understanding and seeing things in scripture. The Lord could not even have showed me until I had the foundation to understand anyway.
God is patience, I can say that for sure. It boils down to answering the question, did God plan and cause Adam to sin, or did Adam have a free choice and God knew what the Choice would be?
Or............................ it's neither.
If you read this far, you know it was long enough.
blessings to everyone.
