All Discussion PAGE 352

I know right ! I realise that often animals are used as metaphors but I believe there are often three aspects to look for , the literal , the metaphorical and the spiritual . God created animals firstly for His pleasure , Jesus says that God sees every sparrow that falls and He expects us to not be cruel to any creature . I'm sure that God , who knows us all intimately , knows how beneficial animals are to us and how much we appreciate and care for our pets / livestock etc . The garden of Eden would have been filled with all manner of animals and they would have walked along side Adam and Eve before their fall into disobedience . God made all creatures beautiful and perfect, animals still are ! We are the sinners , not them !

Great encouragement today from you , thanks .

Good day,

Sabbath, is the equivalent of our Sarurday and /or has another reference to another High feast?

David, How is your family doing? Happy to pray for you and yours. Will do?

Hello again, Charlie,

I meant to say "walk by the Holy Spirit.

By doing this we will follow Him in our daily lives with power to obey what is good and righteous. Before we were regenerated by the Holy Spirit we did not have this power that comes only from the Holy Spirit to those who desire to live as Christ did.

Isaiah 11:6 The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. ... the lion shall eat straw like the ox... plenty of animals there.

One eighty

Good to hear from you. Thank you for letting us know that you are so very busy. many people on this forum are. I completely understand your explanation of why you may not have responded to people.

Thank you, Giannis.

I really hate the way so many believers have taken sides on this matter and instead of being gracious and affirming the faith in God in others, accuse other believers of being wrong, uninformed, lacking in faith, or less spiritual than those who chose the way they did not. We must stop trying to shame one another on this matter. You are so right, it is a medical matter, not a spiritual one and the sooner we shed the pointing, wagging finger attitude of judgment the better off we will be as the body of Christ.

I refuse to spend my time and energies being concerned about what choices others made in this matter to see if their choices measure up to my position or not. That is counterproductive, divisive, and unkind. Let others live with their own choices peacefully without the strife of others second-guessing them, their faith, and their rightness or wrongness of taking the vaccine or not.

That said, I do hate that some have suffered harm from the vaccine. Most people have not. I do hate it that so many were hospitalized with severe illness from Covid and many did die. I hate that what measures we were advised to take to stay well did not, in the eventual analysis, help. And I especially hate that this issue was so politicized. We saw that it was in May-June of 2020 when Republican gatherings were said to be "superspreader" events and the protests with people shoulder to shoulder in the streets were not termed so and their lack of masking was defended by the media and many politicians. I knew then that this is being exploited by the left to the detriment of our country and especially to vulnerable people, business owners, and so many employees who lost so much as a result of knee-jerk decisions of government.

But we are now on the other side of the pandemic and so we go forward instead of rehashing it yet once again.

Sorry Charlie, but what you are saying here is not true. We can trust God AND be led to take certain measures in particular circumstances that may in the end help us or not. The point is to walk by spirit in such matters and be determined to obey God.

Whether we wanted to or not, the whole world participated in this "social experiment" of Covid escaping the lab in China, whether on purpose or accident. Those of us who followed guidelines given to us from doctors, the Secretary of Health, and others in leadership in our government, including the President at the time the vaccine first became available. We each made our choices for our own reasons and it is not a matter of acting in faith or in lack of faith, as you say.

So let's all stop politicizing this issue and show compassion and extend the grace of Christian liberty to each of us no matter our choices.

....Yes!

Blessings to All,

Firstly, I apologize to those who in the past have kindly responded to my posts, but didn't receive a reply back. I'm not much of a computer person. I had forgotten until rather recently that the replies to my posts were automatically sent to my email. I do recall, though, that I read about this when I signed up, assuming, mistakenly, that I'd notice them in the "view all" page. Needless to say, recently checking my email, which is rare, I was surprised to read how many replies I missed.

There are also some replies that I have been aware of from some of you which in the past I haven't answered. Please be assured, I'm not ignoring anyone. Just a lot of "stuff" on my plate. Many times I refrain from starting a thread or joining in an existing one, simply because I know I'll be tied up with "life" for the next amount of unknown days where I won't be able to reply to others. Truth is, also, if I don't feel inspired, usually I try to refrain from participating. I'm thinking I'm not the only busy person on this site, and that we would very much enjoy having more time EFFICIENTLY and thoughtfully discussing these topics. Also, be assured your efforts were not in vain. I've read them all now. Your concern and genuine replies are appreciated and to be granted serious consideration.

The reason I wrote this on this thread is because I wanted to convey some thoughts regarding covid and the vaccine. Perhaps later. My time is presently needed elsewhere.

Peace

Colleen Leuschner

Please pray for my finances. I have credit card debt.

Greeting and Blessing to All

I want to thank God for his word on today it was for me and how I was feeling at this time. It's good to know that the spirit of the Lord knows our heart and He knows what to give us when we are in need. I want to take this time just to tell the Lord thank you for all he has done for me. For the breath in my body and the blood that's running warm in my veins he is so wonderful regardless how I feel he is a HEALER OF ALL THINGS.

We as the people of God must keep praying for all things In Jesus Name

Hi Frankie,

I agree, and concur with you, and totally with the scripture directed at "living in obediance" and worshipping God in the Spirit! I also agree, many can be conversant in the scripture - but NOT OBEY the scripture. To walk in the Spirit is to obey the scripture and God's Commands. If we have God's Holy Spirit in us; He will NOT let us disobey His Comands, I have found this out the hard way too, and believe me, when Jesus says to sin no more - or something worse will happen to you - it will! If we really have the Spirit in us we will obey all of His Commands.

Example: Hebrews 5:9 "And being made perfect, he became the author of eternal salvation unto all them that obey him;"

Please note: That obey Him, That obey Him, That obey Him, That obey Him

Pual isn't telling us that we get the salvation for free - as many of todays modern christains believe. Paul states in the scripture above: only those that obey God recieve eternal salvation!!!

And Jesus tells us plainly: Luke 9:23 "And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me."

Once we begin to deny ourselves and we pick up our cross, then and only then - can we begin to follow Jesus in the manner that He wants. If we are living for the worldly things..we are serving satan!

It is very painful to die to ourselves, so to picking up our cross daily can be extremely painful, but nowhere near as painful as what Christ endured for us!

Jesus tells us: Luke 9:24 "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it."

Is Jesus telling us that we must give up our worldly lives? Yes. Why is it so hard for us to understand this? Christains may not like to hear this scripture - but we simply can't ignore it!

Read and Believe!

Hello GiGi

I completely agree with you.

A man has to do everything he can to protect himself from any kind of danger and leave the rest (that he cannot do ) to God. The latter is a rule in our christian lives. Many have misunderstood what faith represents. It is not living without trying to avoid dangers. It is not like crossing a road with blind eyes just because God protects us. In such a case He will not protect us, and He will teach us a lesson. Isn't that what satan said to Jesus? Fall down from here and God will send angels to pick you up in their hands, The same he does to us. One of the important things I have understood in my christian life that has to do with our relationship with God is that there is always a part which is for us to do and a part that God does. "We do what we can and God does what we cannot do." Of course there may be many times that we can not do anything really. In such a case we leave everything to the Lord.

About vaccines. Many, in my country as well, had come to the church leaders and asked them what to do, to get the vaccine or not. What my church did was to tell us that this is not a spiritual matter for the church to give advice. It is a medical matter. And for medical matters one has to visit his dictor and discuss it, this is what doctors are for. Pastors and elders are not doctors., it is not their job to advice about things they couldn't possibly know.

GBU.

I meant: the Catholic church is not the only church that has errors.

Ladybug76

I think that our perceived disagreement here is really a matter of semantics, particularly what we believe "fellowshipping" means.

I agree that believer use the term 'fellowshipping' to mean gathering together of like minded believers to share the truths of the Word and build one another up in faith. I agree with that narrow use of the term 'fellowshipping'.

But there is a wider use of the term 'fellowshipping' that I am referring to here: that is meeting together with others in a social situation to share personally with each other. This can include sharing a meal, as Jesus did with the sinners and tax collectors, meeting for coffee and a time to chat, going to an event together, such as a sorting event, going fishing together, camping, a cruise. Any number of activities can be referred to as fellowshipping. This is opposed to say a work assignment or required meeting.

I certainly believe we should make us of every opportunity to share the truth of Christ with others. God does bring opportunities to us to do so with people He brings into our sphere of life experience. These may be people from other denominations within Christianity or adherents to Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, atheists, etc. We are not to shun meeting with these people to share the Truth with. The Gospel is for those who are apart from God to bring them into true and right relationship with Him and begin holy fellowship with Him and the Church. The Gospel is also for those in Christ to assure us of our salvation in our Lord Jesus and remind us of what He did to save us. This always is a comfort to those who know Him. It sustains our faith to hear it preached repeatedly. We are to relate all of the Scriptures to what has been done by Jesus for the salvation of the elect of God.

Ladybug, we do not need to continue this conversation further. I have clarified myself repeatedly. So, any further discussion may not be needed.

Ladybug76,

Whether on is truly in Christ or not is not determined by the Christian church they attend. There are many denominations in the broad spectrum of the Christian faith. Some say that they alone are the only true church or say that they will not fellowship with people outside of their denomination. The determining factor of whether one is in Christ or not is whether they have been born again, regenerated by the working of the Holy Spirit on their heart, soul, spirit, mind, and will to receive the gospel that tells of Christ, who died for our sins to bring us forgiveness, rose from the dead to bring us justification before God, and proclaims that those who believe in Him are redeemed, saved by grace and made a new creation in Christ. Those who have been truly born again will have the life of Christ produced within them and they will desire to live godly lives that conform to the life Christ lived in obedience to His Father and ours.

Ladybug76

I have never said that we should compromise either the truth of Scripture nor our moral behavior when meeting with people we are discussing here. Please stop implying that I am suggesting that we do so.

No thanks, I do not listen to messages from ministries I have not vetted.

Yes, Ladybug76,

We do present them with the truth about salvation in Jesus. We leave it up to God to work on these people through the working of the Holy Spirit to lead them into what He desires for them. He will do it. We can encourage them to read

Scripture and pray for God to direct them to what He wants for them and where He wants them to fellowship. We can trust God to do all of this in His timing, not ours.

I have never stated that we compromise God's truth in communicating with these folks, nor to compromise our moral behavior when fellowshipping with them in ways such as: meeting for a meal, visit at their home or mine, or other social activities. I do not think we should attend their church services. So, I think we are on the same page here, Ladybug, but I think that you may have a certain prejudice or disdain for Catholics. I may be wrong on this, though.

Hello Ladybug, Your assumption of what I was saying about that those who reach out to unbelievers or those in sects that have aberrant teachings that are crucial to salvation is cause compromise is incorrect. We hold out the gospel to those we are led to, ust as Paul did.

And, yes, we are to teach our children, but the passage in Peter is within the context of being persecuted from those outside the faith and enduring hardship and mistreatment for doing good and for spreading the gospel message to those who seek us for the hope they see we have, which is Christ.

Perhaps for you it would be hard to refrain from compromising in such situations. For, it is not hard to maintain a faithful and godly stance in such situations. It was the Pharisees that Jesus railed against for their "holier than thou" heart attitude and their rigid adherence to maintaining separation from those they deemed 'unclean' or 'unholy' or 'gentiles'. We all should have the mind of Christ in this matter and be willing to reach out to those in need of the truth of the gospel in order for them to come to Jesus according to the work and leading of the Holy Spirit both in us and those we hope God to bring to salvation.

It is not what we want that matters, but God's will that matters when it comes to having those we to whom we minister to leave the Catholic Church. He may have some truly born again believers remain in the situation in order to minister to others. Then there may be a time when they leave for another fellowship. Please remember that the Catholic church only Protestant sect that has errors that are quite concerning. I could name some that most people here would consider o.k. to be involved with, but I won't name names. Certainly there are some quasi-Christian sects we should encourage people to part ways with such as Jehovah's Witness, Mormonism, Christian Science, to name a few because the teach a falsely about who Jesus is and what He has done to save us, a different Jesus/gospel

Hello BFR

I am one who fasted and prayed for those who were ill from Covid, for it to mutate into a milder strain that was less deadly, that He would keep me from contracting it.

After praying to God about it, I got the vaccine. I have 5 high risk factors, two of them being severe illness from any respiratory virus due to asthma and weakened immunity. I have not had Covid. God has kept me through all of this and the virus has weakened as it has mutated, just as I prayed.

Although it seems the vaccine has little positive effect of protection from Covid, I took on faith, not in man, but in God.

Please do not portray those who did get the vaccine as not trusting in God, as Psalm 91 says. There is nothing in this psalm that says we are not to medically treat illnesses or attempt to prevent contracting illnesses. My husband and I pretty much self-isolated through the first year of Covid, ordering groceries online, taking drives to places that were not crowded, like the beach or mountains to have a day out with picnic lunches, only associated with a few people who also took precautions.

Was it lacking faith to do these things? I don't think so, just as it wasn't lacking faith to take the vaccine. Nor is it lacking faith to get treatment for other illnesses or to take other preventative measures such as flu and other vaccines, using inhalers for asthma symptoms, taking allergy medications, blood pressure meds or diabetic meds or anti-seizure meds, etc.

I do think that there were millions of Christians praying and fasting for God to intervene in this situation. He did.

Your questions come off as accusatory rather than encouraging. I think you may have underestimated the faith of believers and their commitment to walk in the Spirit in these matters. There have been many plagues throughout human history that have killed far more than Covid has. Many Christians did die in these plagues. Does this mean that they did not fast and pray or have faith in God? Not so.

Yes, David,

The Chruch is the true Israel of God and heirs to God's promises to Abraham

Galatians 3:29 'And if ye be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.'

Galatians 6"15-16 'For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature. And as many as walk according to this rule, peace be on them, and the mercy, and upon the Israel of God.'

All who are in Christ through faith, as Abraham was, are the seed that receive the promise of God to Abraham, the inheritance Abraham looked forward to, the heavenly Jerusalem. Hebrews 11:10.

The promise of the physical land to Abraham and the Israelites was a shadow pointing to the heavenly land of promise, the New heavens and new earth of eternal life with Jesus. The land of Israel was described as flowing with milk and honey, the New Jerusalem is described as flowing with living waters and fruit from the tree of life continually. Both figurative language for the abundant blessings of life in abundance from God for those who are of the faith of Abraham.

Well put and I agree , if we are Christ's ,then we are Abraham's and heirs of the promise . We have been grafted in , there is one nation , the Israel of God , made up of the faithful Jews who were waiting for their Massiah but never got to see him and then those biological Jews who accepted Christ as the promised Massiah along with us Christians . Christ is the Only Way ,we are all one in him .

Hi David,

Thanks for your responses.

I'm working so I will get back to you at my earliest convenience.

God bless.

Mr. Spencer,

Acts 7:38 This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which spake to him in the mount Sina, and with our fathers: who received the lively oracles to give unto us:

Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock{the LORD Jesus Christ}I will build my church{the Eternal Church, All True Believers throughout history, the ISRAEL OF GOD}; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Mark 4:34 But without a PARABLE spake he not unto them: and when they were alone, he expounded all things to his disciples.

The historical events that God records in the Bible are absolutely accurate in their historical account. But God did not record these events in the first instance to give us a history lesson. They are recorded to teach us some aspect of the Gospel which is God's Judgment and Salvation program for Mankind and this World.

And the Book of Jeremiah, like the entire Bible, is exactly that.

Mr. Spencer,

Ephesians 3:1-15 For this cause I Paul, the prisoner of Jesus Christ for you Gentiles, If ye have heard of the dispensation of the grace of God which is given me to you-ward: How that by revelation he made known unto me the MYSTERY; (as I wrote afore in few words, Whereby, when ye read, ye may understand my knowledge in the MYSTERY of Christ) Which in other ages was not made known unto the sons of men, as it is now revealed unto his holy apostles and prophets by the Spirit; That the Gentiles should be FELLOWHEIRS{of the New Heavens and New Earth}, and of the SAME BODY{the Israel of God}, and PARTAKERS OF HIS PROMISE in Christ by the gospel: Whereof I was made a minister, according to the gift of the grace of God given unto me by the effectual working of his power. Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, is this grace given, that I should preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; And to make all men see what is the FELLOWSHIP, OF THE MYSTERY which from the FROM THE BEGINNING OF THE WORLD HATH BEEN HID IN GOD, who created all things by Jesus Christ: To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the CHURCH {All True Believers throughout history} the manifold wisdom of God, According to the ETERNAL PURPOSE which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence by the faith of him. Wherefore I desire that ye faint not at my tribulations for you, which is your glory. For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the WHOLE FAMILY IN HEAVEN AND EARTH{All True Believers throughout history}is named,

Ephesians 3:21 Unto him be glory in the CHURCH{All True Believers throughout history}by Christ Jesus throughout ALL AGES, world without end{the New Heavens and New Earth}. Amen.

There is ONE SALVATION, ONE INHERITANCE for all True Believers throughout history, i.e. the ISRAEL OF GOD.

Certainly, I can provide some insight into the subject for God-fearing people who are concerned about their loving pets during the rapture, drawing from the verse Adam reply - mentioned, Revelation 5:13.

The verse he quoted is part of the biblical book of Revelation, a book that contains visions and prophecies about the end times and the return of Jesus Christ. In this particular verse, John, the author of Revelation, describes a vision of worship in heaven. Every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and in the sea is heard praising God and the Lamb (Jesus Christ) with blessings, honour, glory, and power.

While the Bible does not explicitly address the fate of pets during the rapture or in heaven, some theologians and religious scholars have explored this topic with different perspectives.

1. No Direct Scriptural Mention: As you noted, the verse in Revelation 5:13 refers to creatures in general, but it does not specifically mention animals or pets. This absence of direct scriptural mention makes it difficult to provide a definitive answer. The Bible primarily focuses on humanity's relationship with God and the salvation of souls.

2. God's Love and Care: Many God-fearing individuals believe in God's love and care for all of His creations. Since God cares for His creation, it is not unreasonable to think that He would also care for animals, including our beloved pets.

3. Theological Speculation: Some theologians speculate that since pets are part of God's creation and bring joy and companionship to people, they might have a place in God's eternal plan. They suggest that animals may be part of the new heaven and new earth mentioned in Revelation 21:1, where God will make all things new.

4. Symbolic Representation: In some interpretations, animals are seen as symbolic representations of God's goodness, beauty, and creativity. They are considered a reflection of His attributes, and in that sense, their presence in heaven is understood metaphorically.

The global spread of SARS-CoV-2 and the thousands of deaths caused by coronavirus disease (COVID-19) led the World Health Organization to declare a pandemic on 12 March 2020. To date, the world has paid a high toll in this pandemic in terms of human lives lost, economic repercussions and increased poverty.

Question: How many Christians or religious people FASTED AND PRAYED?

Question: How many preachers and teachers came forward to call a FAST and repentance from sin?

Question: Where were all those great teachers of knowledge who preached about healing and The Holy Spirit

Question: Who did the Church of God listen to, was it their earthy master or Heavenly Master?

Question: Did you read Psalm 91 and trusted and had faith or took the vaccine?