Whatever is good...

I believe the Kingdom of God is here, and that when Jesus said "The kingdom Of God is in your midst..."(Luke 17) He was not teasing us. God created everything so everything, in it's purity, is perfect and should be celebrated. What I am out to do here is find the good, find the pure, the perfect things in life and set my mind on those things. When we talk about the Kingdom being here... now... I get excited, this means that when we feel pain here it matters. When we are sick here it matters... God is not silent in the storms of our life. His Kingdom is here, it is about partenering with Him to reconcile the world to Him and do away with whatever turned this life created to be pure and beutiful into a land drenched with death and oppretion. I want us to realize that jesus is not our ticket to heaven... He is the answer to the question the redeemer of broken lives and the way to a life worth living... HERE and NOW!

Comments

wellis68 said…
Cameron,
thanks first of all for commenting on this blog. You've given me quite a bit to respond to. realize first that these questions haunt me as well they are unanswerd to me. I can only give insight and that is what I will do in response.
You said "How can the kingdom of God be in our midst? There are still children dying. The righteous are still perishing and the wicked still ruling." HARD QUESTION!!! I did say in my blog that I believe that the kingdom of God is about doing away with those things, doing away with the impure and getting down to the atomic essence of things the "real" essence of life.
You asked also, "If God created everything then God created evil and is inherently evil and is therefore a flawed being. How can you worship such a God?" the problem of evil has been in question for centuries. I follow with the conclusions of Saint Augustine on the subject and say that evil is not an entity that was ever created it is simply anything apart from God. I believe that God created in us something beutiful, no "sin nature" nothing "evil." I believe He created a nature in us that is to be beutiful and perfect and within it is a capacity to sin not a "nature of evil." You might simply refer to this as "free will" I think there may be somethige deeper to it but I am still searching. This sustains God's goodness and I will say, though it is still a little sketchy, it explains the problem of evil. What do you think?

About God being "silent." I will say I think I can relate to this. I think first of all that God is revealed in people. I see people come to my aid and there is something mystical in when a person helps another person. I will also say that though it may seem like a copout answer I see God moving and Yelling through the scriptures (the bible). I think that all over the world God is using His people to answer their cry. it might be hard for a "fat white American" to see God when you might think you have no need for him. But look deep at the broken pieces of your life, the scars you carry from past hardship, you may find that if you examine those parts closely you will see God crying out to you longing to redeem you from that. I see this in my life often. That is the Kingdom of God, that healing redeeming power. No the job is not finished but I believe it's life giving water is all around. God is compassionate and that word should be the loudest one when the church is at work for the kingdom.
wellis68 said…
Danny, I want to say thanks again you are stretching me alot. These questions are very deep. I feel a little guilty of unfair assumptions I do not know that you are "broken" I appologise. I know I'm broken and I was hoping you could relate.

About Augustine. Augustine was acctually not a christian at the time He came accross these ideas. He was a philosopher. He studied Manachaeism and decided their view on God was not the perfect holy sort of god he felt there had to be. He followed Manichaeism for nine years and then found the studies of plato on the subject. Neoplatonism were the roots of his conclusions. I will work on finding his writings on the subject and be sure to get them to you.

If I sound I am speaking christian appologetics I am sorry. I do not mean to sound that way. I really don't think arguing the validity of the bible, though it may be important and carries it's value in some other way, is what will satisfy those who do not believe it. I simply want to introduce the sort of life Jesus was talking about when He said "...Life more abundantly..." and pour that into other peoples lives.
wellis68 said…
Ashley
Your answer does make since but I'd like to address a couple of things.
You said " Now we are apart from God, which is why we can be evil and he remains good, pure and righteous." though I respect this view I do not want be an advocate for it. I do not believe we are at all apart from God. If we are than where do you think He is? Are you saying that He is not here? I believe we live in him “we live, and move and have our being.”(“we can’t get away from Him” the message) (Acts 17). We are surrounded by Him. Heaven and hell is not about separation from God in distance it’s about separation from God in definitions. We are separated from God not in distance but definition. It says in the scriptures that God is not far away He’s here.

I do not believe we are evil! We are created good. We have capacity to do evil things but to say that man is evil and leave it at that might raise questions about God’s character.

Other than that I enjoyed your comment and it seemed right out of my own heart. I don’t want it to seem that I am degrading your view and if I have mistaken what you were trying to say please correct me. Thanks.
wellis68 said…
Danny
There's just one thing I'd like to say in response to your comment to Ashley.
You said"Also, your premise contains the word 'good.' This word doesn’t mean a whole lot except to the person that is saying it." I agree with this statement.
My only issue is that you are critiquing Ashley's use of the word good yet here we are in this forum talking about God. There are certain things that are not logicaly pure. There are certain things that simply cannot be said.

now lets stop there for a second and clerify. when I say "said" I mean it mure specifically that they way I commonly mean it. Yes there are certain things that can be uttered but in reality they carry no real truth value. When we talk about God we are simply making utterences. When I talk like this I do not dismiss that things that cannot be said should be thrown out I do not question their"meaning." We just need to understand them as utterences and take it's meaning contextually.

Now these things that "cannot be said" can still be "shown." "they make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical."

Imagine a sunset, assuming we've all seen one" now try to say it. Try to put it into words.You simply can't do it. Until the sunset was made manifest You had no thought of it. thoughts about these things cannot precede their manifestation so our words about them are logically "silence."

God and good are mystical, cannot be said. So Danny if you are be so facesiouse that we are to question our use of the word good then you are a hypocrite. Stop talking about God, if you are a logical posetivist, or play by the rules and understand these utterences in context.
wellis68 said…
Works cited in last comment:

"The Tractatus"
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
wellis68 said…
"I am still learning and searching and discovering myself."

Aren't we all...

I think you responded very intelligently to our arguements and I understand your confusion in putting your thoughts into words. I share your dilema.