God gives us each gifts. one might sometimes precieve them as burdens, but they're gifts. when God does this His intention is not to make us look good or feel good about ourselves. He does not intend for us to put them up on our mantlepiece and admire them as trophies we have won or as certificates of achievement. God's gifts are for dissemination among the rest of His creation. He gifts us each as individuals as a Gift for the whole.
many reject His gifts. many are jealous of His grace...that is grace He has bstowed upon another. some of us feel a sense of entitlement, that if God gave that person such and such grace i feel belittled, why him and not me? i'm a good person, i deserve such grace as well.
no one deserves grace. grace isn't earned or something we rate. grace is a gift. a gift for the undeserving as well as the deserving, a gift for the pure pleasure of God. it's His grace, who are we to question where, how, when or why He chooses to dispense it? if we earn it then it ain't grace, it's payment.
if God graces you with this or that gift then you have no right to not share it. if God reveals a truth to you then you are obligated to share it...it wasn't meant for you...it was meant for His whole creation, intended to make the whole a better place for just such a truth.
truths are not readily accepted. for those who have made truth their enemy they hate the truth. they are revolted by it's very appearance. they are terrified by it, they cringe at it...they attack it with the vicisiousness of a cornered animal. i know this from experience, i'm not accusing i'm relating experience. i have poured my entire self and all of my resources into the stuggle against truth...eventhough i have been defeated in that quest i still find myself developing stealth strategies for attacking truth. it can still scare the stuff out of me and i still suit up to do battle. experience has taught me though, when i find myself in the struggle, that i can't win. i give up easily. in an earlier life i was a capitulation instructor for the french military...i surrender with style.
and then the truth makes me free until the next time my arrogance and pride makes me think my truth can be substituted for The Truth. my truth, it seems, evokes not much emotion. God's Truth makes people mad as heck. it ain't a perk of christianity, but's it's in the bylaws and you just gotta go thru it. God bless with...
I really like your point about gifts, that is a very valid point for me...I tend to be shelfish when it comes to those gifts, or at others times rather vain.
As to truth...I always struggled with this idea. I do my darnest to not be relavent when it comes to truth, as all the facts in the world do not equal truth...truth is a complete understanding those facts. But facts mislead, which often cause me to give concessions to truth, ie something can be true and untrue at the same time, etc. I know this really isn't the case, but only a remedy to a problem I find myself unable to resolve. A good example is evolution vs creation...I have accepted, in part, both...I have not figured it out yet. The good thing is I realized whether I believe in Genesis or not, Revelation or not, Exclusivism or not (the three which I do not) I still am a Christian for very simple reasons. It still remains pure without dogma.
I also think people often mistake social morals as truth. Obviously such things as homosexuality is still damned by many Christians, using passages in the Old Testament as proof, who laws have little relavence in today's world. By why didn't they one hundred years ago? The answer is simple...homosexuals kept quiet about it and it wasn't really an issue. A homosexual would probably be far safer in 1900 America than say, 1980. The rules are different now, and the moral righteousness is a reaction to changing social trends.
In simple, there is a universal truth as applied to morality: ie, murder is wrong, because that other person is an equal to me, and I have no right to take away an equal life. And there is relavant social morality: ie, homosexuality is wrong because God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve. Moral truth does not (or should not) change, but social mores do (and, often, should) change. Moral truth is the common denominator for all of us. Changing social mores is a reflection of society reinventing itself.
Chris
hi chris. i take your point. there is a world of difference between truth and Truth. it can be true that not all transsexuals are transsexuals, the word itself is subjective. but it is True that all transsexuals are what makes transsexuals transsexual. that isn't debatable, it is Truth.
as far as creation and science.....i, for the life of me, can't ever think of that as creation vs. science. since my puny little mind will never have any hope of figuring out how and why God created as He did, it wouldn't shock me at all to find out that He did it in a perfectly reasonable scientific way. i guess i'm just simple in that way, i can't find any time or energy for pondering quesions i have no hope of ever answering. God did it, of that i'm sure...how He did it He will reveal to me when and if i ever have a need to know...in His opinion.
God never changes, our perception of Him does. this is by design. as our perception changes so does our morality, as you say.
ok....i can't help it...i have to recite again one of the most telling outakes from scripture i know of. to me it is relevant each and every day and each time i ponder it i'm enlightened a little more.
it comes from paul's espistle to the colossians, chapter three, vs five thru eleven... <from the good news version>
"you must put to death, then, the earthly desires at work in you, such as sexual immorality, indecency, lust, evil passions, and greed (for greed is a form of idolatry). because of such things God's anger will come upon those who do not obey Him. at one time you yourselves used to live according to such desires, when your life was dominated by them.
but now you must get rid of all these things: anger, passion, and hateful feelings. no insults or obscene talk must ever come from your lips. do not lie to one another, for you have put off the old self with its habits and have put on the new self. this is the new being which God, its Creator, IS CONSTANTLY RENEWING IN HIS OWN IMAGE, in order to bring you to a full knowledge of Himself. <uppercase is mine> as a result, there is no longer any distinction between gentiles and jews, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarians, savages, slaves and free, but Christ is all, Christ is in all."
i think this is Holy Scripture saying just what you have said. we change, we do so by design, and with change we grow, our understanding of God moves up a level. our concept of morality grows with us. at one time our morality not only advised, but insisted that we take a rebellious older son to the town square and stone him to death. fortunately, especially for rebellious older sons, our sense of morality has grown since then. we haven't peaked by any means....in my own lifetime my rebellious nature was stimied seriously, but at least i lived to regain some of it. progress...not perfection.
we, as a species, are learning more about the power of love which, by default, decreases the power of the written rule. we are becoming more diverse, more complicated, more varied, in a word, closer to God.
we are learning more and more that....say...homosexuality...isn't about sexual immorality at all, it's about love and expressions of love. homosexuals can, and do, practice sexual immorality just as does everyone else. but when two loving and caring people use their sexuality as an expression of the love God has gifted them with then, as grownups, we cannot see that as a perversion of any kind. it's good. we're learning that sexual immorality is about using sex for nothing more then self-gratification. it's just like everything else we do in life...if we're doing it...<whatever it is> for our own gratification and glorification then it isn't healthy. whatever we do that glorifies God is.
just my opinion. God bless with...