Anything Divine in the Bible?

The staggering depth to which my salvation reaches is an ongoing source of spine-tingling. Two central planks, which are tied in together.Ephesians 1:4/5 talks about what is (pre)destined to occur to those who are saved. The thing which causes my heart to thump-thump is the promise that I will be made holy (and thus, pleasing to God). This aspect of salvation: being made holy, is a drum-beat message of the Bible, so the Ephesians example is but a single reference.To be holy means I will be finally and completely free from the influence and reach of sin - completely outside it's grasp. I won't be capable anymore of being: selfish, unkind, jealous (of the green eyed monster variety), a liar, proud (of the self-serving variety), greedy, arrogant, uncharitable, mean-spirited, slothful, etc., etc., etc.Allied with the above, the thing that causes the greatest excitement to well-up in me would be described by the likes of Matthew 5:8 and 1 John 3:2

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5:8Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

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2Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears,we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

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To see God from a position of holiness is to see God in the only way I'd want to see him. What could that be like: to spend eternity with the person capable of creating the heavens and the earth and all in it - fallen and all though it is. There could be nothing to beat that. Just nothing. I can barely wait..Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Oh, I see what you mean. In that case: 1 Corinthians 2:14 contains an invaluable piece of divine wisdom - especially applicable for the evangelist. If one didn't understand that people can't actually understand the things of God they could get frustrated in their trying to explain it to them again and again. "But it's a plain as the nose on your face..." (perhaps some evolutionists here, after years of dealing with creationists can 'amen' that?)Reminds me of the story of William Wilberforce taking his good friend William Pitt, the non-believing Prime Minster of England of the day, to hear a Christian service. The man speaking was somebody Wilberforce was particularly impressed by. Sure enough, the preacher was on fire that evening and Wilberforce could hardly contain his excitment as gospel truth after gospel truth poured forth - as if custom designed for Pitt. Leaving the service Pitt turns to Wilberforce and says "You know William - I didn't understand a single thing that man said all evening"You'd be crushed by this kind of thing. Were it not for the wisdom of 1 Cor 2:14.Then there is this not-insignificant verse The consequences of this sat amongst the first earth-shattering realisations that dawned on me on becoming a Christian.Before that I looked on all the trouble in the world and figured it to be the result of disparate, often complex causes. The war here, the famine there, the drug addiction all over, etc. And all over, people and governments were trying to fix things, to stem the misery with policies employed at this, money thrown at that, programme supporting the other..But the world lies under the control of satan, and all the trouble and strife could be traced back to his machinations. The evolved misery and suffering has a common ancestor. And he wasn't going away until the end of it all.So rather than despair at the state of the world I understood that the world was operating precisely as it could be expected to be operating. I was free of the need to build up hopes in an Obama-dawn. Or place my trust in the burgeoning economy. Or wishful-think my way to the notion of increasing harmony between man and man. The world has been this way since forever and will be this way until the day it's wrapped up like a garment.In the measure I retain this wisdom, I am rendered free from dependance upon the world for my contentment. My view shouldn't be mistaken as fatalistic - it's full of hope for the world as it shall be. You can't be fatalistic about something that isn't intended to be a success.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : No reason given.Edited by iano, : insert the word "divine" in first sentence

Against what would you calibrate your catch? So as to figure it truth, I mean? Edited by iano, : No reason given.

Seconded.

jaywill has already made the point that different people will suppress their conscience in different degrees, in different areas where conscience can operate - so its very difficult to measure any degree of imbalance (given that Gods perspective on sin is the measure being applied)There is also this to consider: the purpose of law giving (via conscience) is not so much to restrain us from sin as it is to convict us that we are sinners. Which means that it's imperative we sin!Suppressing conscience in order to sin can lead in one of two directions finally:- continued suppression, to cope with the seared conscience caused by the previous suppression. On and on and on until the last breath is drawn (or the conscience is finally extinguished).- the will of a person, whilst suppressing conscience in order to sin isn't prepared to suppress to the bitter end. It is unwilling to fully bury/ fully excuse/ fully justify what it knows to be evil - whilst finding itself unable to stop committing evil. In the measure it doesn't suppress, it must bear the pain of a seared conscience.Hopefully, a persons continued sin will lead to increasing despair over their sin, to an impoverished spirit they at least can recognise - whatever the external appearances might indicate.Blessed are these impoverished in spirit - for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.Edited by iano, : No reason given.

It was an oblique attempt to deflect the commonly held unbelievers view that being "good" will be enough to enter heaven (should it be the case, the unbeliever thinks to himself, that God, heaven, Judgement turn out to exist afterall).- Given that my comments were aimed at unbelievers and not Christians, one could argue that the unbelieving person would be better off cutting ties with the attempt (conscious or no) to self-justify by attempting to refrain from sin.Clinging to such self-justification is certain to result in damnation - indeed, it's a deadly dangerous thing to do. For all it's many downsides, a headlong rush into depravity at least gives one the opportunity to end up at the very bottom of the barrel. To submerge themselves completely in the stench of sin.How very often is it that a person finds God there?- In the case of the Christian sinner, not at all, at all.