GOD = Love, the 3 Omni’s, and Liberty

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God is freedom, God is love, God is omnipotent, God is omnipresent, God is omniscient

People are wondrous creations. We are builders, creators, and investigators. We are communicators, instructors, and nurturers. We are healers, helpers, and leaders. Each of these (and many more) is a facet of our Designer, GOD. We are made in His image, not He in ours. (Gen 1: 26-28 NASV)

Most Americans equate God with church. Right here, I will separate the two. God is NOT the church and the church is not GOD. According to the Bible, The Church – made up of all who “call on the name of Jesus” for salvation – is the Body of Christ. (1 Cor 12: 12-13, 27) Jesus Christ is the Head of the Church. He is our Source and our Goal, not the church.

Problem is, people are fallible. We are imperfect. We are finite, limited in both what we can comprehend and what we can accomplish. Therefore,the church is imperfect, inadequate, and falls short in its mission of Love. It is simply impossible for a finite human to encompass the vastness and the intimacy of God. We each receive a “measure of faith.” (Romans 12: 3) Many of us have experienced betrayal, intolerance, or arrogance from people who align themselves with Christ via the church. Whether priests with perverted sexual appetites or dogmatic church leaders or sheepish followers with little understanding of the Bible, our limitations and imperfections must be seen as a separate entity, attached to God, but NOT God!

• Most of us, as Americans, have heard that God is love. (1 John 4: 7-14) Some have heard and seen various illustrations of this concept. If we can pull ourselves back from the adventure, history, stories, and Laws of the Bible to see an overview from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22, we can trace the single most alluring, captivating, compassionate, and determined love story ever written. It is God’s love story for you and me. It meets us at our conception within our mother’s womb and calls us “fearfully and wonderfully made.” (Psalm 139) God’s love calls him to leave the safe 99 in search of the lost one to return to safety. (John 10:11-15)

  God’s love is deeper, stronger, wider, and steadfast … unchanging … eternal … and unconditional. It is foreign to our human experience. It is intimidating! It is empowering! It is FREE, but will cost each of us everything! It will also enable us to stand no matter what happens in our lives, our nation, or our world. GOD IS LOVE!

• There are three words that are attributed only to GOD:
  
  1. Omnipotence: 1275–1325; Middle English < Latin omnipotent- (stem of omnipotēns ), equivalent to omni- omni- + potent- (see potent1 ) all powerful; having great or unlimited power; almighty or infinite in power, as God.
     • He made the sun stand still in the sky at the request of Joshua. (Joshua 10: 12-14)
     • Matthew 19: 23-26 tells us that “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God,” but “with God all things are possible.”
     • Jesus declared himself to be the “Resurrection and life” and then followed with illustrations. In John 11, we find the story of Lazarus, who grew ill and died. He and his sisters were followers of Jesus, so at the sisters sent for Jesus. Lazarus had been in the tomb 3 full days when Jesus arrived and called him forth from death back to life. (John 11: 17-44)
     • Jesus was also beaten & crucified (for no crime but disputing the doctrine & authority of the religious and political leaders of the time) – documented history. His body, however, is no longer in the tomb. His remains have never been found. Hundreds of people saw him AFTER his death walking around with some of his followers. (Luke 23:44-24:12)

  
  

  

  2. Omnipresence: God is everywhere! Psalm 139: 7-12
     7Where can I go from Your Spirit?
     Or where can I flee from Your presence?
     8 If I ascend to heaven, You are there;
     If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.
     9 If I take the wings of the dawn,
     If I dwell in the remotest part of the sea,
     10 Even there Your hand will lead me,
     And Your right hand will lay hold of me.
     11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will [g]overwhelm me,
     And the light around me will be night,”
     12 Even the darkness is not dark [h]to You,
     And the night is as bright as the day.
     Darkness and light are alike to You.

  
  

  

  3. Omniscience: God knows all!
     • Psalms 147:5 Great is our Lord and mighty in power; his understanding has no limit.
     • Proverbs 5:21 For a man’s ways are in full view of the LORD, and he examines all his paths.
     • Matthew 20:17-19 “[17] Now as Jesus was going up to Jerusalem, he took the twelve disciples aside and said to them, [18] “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law. They will condemn him to death [19] and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”

  
  

  

• FREEDOM is God’s idea! From the notion of Free Will, which arguably is what separates us from the other animals, we can catch a glimpse of Gods heart of freedom. It’s about CHOICE! The argument that God could have created us puppet-like, therefore eliminating the possibility of evil, has been debated throughout history. But God gave us FREE WILL so we could CHOOSE to follow him. Further, God provided guidelines to lead us into the fullest, most satisfying life possible. We choose daily to try our own ways, and when we fall, we either blame God for abandoning us, or we admit our willfulness or ignorance and try his way. God knows there are behaviors and thought patterns that can bind us, that can gain control our lives, but He steers us around those if we allow Him, because He wants us to be free.
  

  “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.”
  Galatians 5:1

  We must choose to remain free, to walk in the freedom Christ purchased for us. This is the freedom that drove those early pilgrims to the New World of America. This is the freedom that drives us as humans to pursue our dream. This is the freedom that inspires invention, creativity, and innovation! This is the freedom that has been allowed to flourish in America, that inspires Americans to pursue not only their dream, but that thing within each of us that connects us to God.

  We are builders, creators, and investigators. We are communicators, instructors, and nurturers. We are healers, helpers, and leaders. Each of these (and many more) is a facet of our Designer, GOD. We are made in His image, not He in ours. He is free because He is God. We are free because we are made in His image, to reflect His character, His creativity, His mercy, His justice, His ingenuity, and His compassion.

None can love freedom heartily but good men;
the rest love not freedom, but licence.
-John Milton 1608 – 1674

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“Aggressive” Israel?

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Coptic Christians, Free Syrian Army, Islamists, Israel, Oil, Syria

A massive explosion lights up the night sky in Damascus (Image from YouTube)

From The Blaze

“New videos posted overnight show dramatic and powerful explosions that occurred on the outskirts of Syria’s capital Damascus early Sunday morning.

Syria’s state television is blaming Israel for striking the military research center in Jamraya just north of Damascus. Israeli officials are not commenting publicly, but a senior U.S. official tells NBC News that Israel was behind the attack.

“The new Israeli attack is an attempt to raise the morale of the terrorist groups which have been reeling from strikes by our noble army,” Syrian television said.

A woman who lives in Damascus told Al Jazeera that she heard a rocket whizzing by after which “everything started to shake.”

“We heard a very huge explosion like ‘boom’” which blew the doors open, she said.”

In this video which is described as overlooking Qasioun Mountain, an initial explosion is followed by a second and then a dramatic, massive third explosion. Qasioun Mountain is a place where military assets belonging to government forces loyal to the embattled President Bashar Assad are situated.

It is likely Assad opponents filmed the scene, as cries of “Allahu Akbar” are heard in the background. More here

Almost everybody wants the Assad regime gone. The trouble is that the expected quick removal, as in Libya, didn’t occur. Not only that, but it appears that Syria was beginning to prevail over the FSA. This, of course, could not be tolerated.

The situation that we see in Syria is the visible part of an international struggle for power and money. In other words; the control of energy supply.

Please take the trouble to read this. It was written a month ago, before the Israeli strikes, by a commentator who concentrates his interest in this region.

Reshaping the Syrian Battlefield

Assuming that you’ve read that, it now seems that no-one is in the mood to negotiate.

I am as staunch a supporter of Israel as I am of America and the free world generally. That does not mean that I willfully blind myself. It seems to me that Israel has accepted the task of militarily supporting the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as it is very hard to criticize that beleaguered nation.

Israel’s recently discovered gas deposits make this more than a self-defense issue. They are supporting the Muslim Brotherhood backed “rebels” when it is the MB backed Hamas that was so recently attacking them from Gaza. The FSA has begun it’s slaughter of Syria’s Coptic Christians, as well as other non-Muslim denominations, disregarding the fact that they have been losing ground until this point.

List of Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel, 2012

Mainstream media refuses to cover the nearly daily missile attacks on Israel, yet they are quick to call Israel “aggressive” when they make a decisive strike clearly saying, “ENOUGH, already!” The attack America experienced in Boston last month is typical of those experienced by Israel more often than we, as Americans, can possibly imagine. They live with the daily threat of attack. They get up each day, go to work or school, raise their families under this stressful threat 24/7/365, and still THEY are the aggressors??? Please!

Syria. Islamists have expelled 90 percent of Christians in Homs

Is ISRAEL the aggressor here, when they simply seek to defend themselves from attack in every direction? If you take a minute to look at a map, Israel is a tiny, nation surrounded completely by those wishing their annihilation! They endure nearly daily attacks within their borders from one faction of Islam or another, yet THEY are expected to “share” their land with Palestinians. They accomplish this with greater “graciousness” than imaginable, yet still more is expected of them.

How generous might you feel if you and I endured “Boston Marathon” attacks daily? Just sayin … Think it though, America! Don’t just buy the “party line!”