Christian Chat

@heartathome Suffering brings about the Best of Good in God's truth. Just pondering the crucifixion teaches that.

@ENKELI @Appleblossom @tyme @Realness

Modified an old poem into a new one

The Worth of the Soul

Our soul is worth more
than all the wealth of the universe,
for truth shapes
the life we consciously live.
Existence itself deserves great love,
while truth stands beside it.
Truth makes us strong
where lies once made us weak.
And truth knows suffering—
for we know suffering too.

The truth of our soul is
the life we have lived:
pain endured, tears shed,
moments survived.
Nothing can rob us
of the reality of a life truly been.
Good or bad,
experience shape who we are today
though not always
who we were meant to be
from the beginning.

Why do we struggle so often?
Because imbalance cannot stand upright forever.
Yet even pain is subdued in time
by life’s refusal to cease.
Moment after moment
life continues.
And in truth nothing is forgotten—
not even our deepest sorrow.

How could our truth not remain?
If one plus one equals two
needs nothing to exist
and yet is always true,
why should we believe
our struggles are lived in vain?
For unseen beauty grows
through trials we barely understand.
Passing moments become memory,
and memory becomes wisdom.

Truth keeps our life stored.
Lies wound us,
but truth preserves us.
Goodness that is lived
remains within the soul.
Nothing truly good
is ever lost.
And so we are shaped
by the good we have lived.

Walking Truth
Life lived truthfully
becomes our reality of being.
If we wish to know ourselves
we must walk in truthful love.
have love that endures.
Love that continues loving true
love beyond passing of time.
And throughout the harvest of life
as we reap what we have sown.

For each day we exist
within an abundance we did not create.
Even when we struggle to love ourselves
life continues to sustain us.
And that simple permission to exist
carries already great mercy.
Every soul is an expression of truth.
Each life a unique identity
within the great tapestry of being.
A truthful image fears no mirror.
Indeed, it does not need one.

For when we seek truth
we live real existence
the good and the difficult times alike.
Suffering has many faces.
Life turns like a wheel
through joy and sorrow.
We know suffering wounds the heart,
yet suffering also deepens
our understanding of goodness.
And so time moves forward
as we shape our future
moment by moment to better.

Our deepest longing
has always been simple:
“I wish suffering would be gone.”
Nothing truer
has ever been spoken.
For the heart knows
life was not meant for misery.
One day truth will stand fully revealed.
And when truth stands
lies will fall away.
Even if our past was imperfect
truth still desires life without suffering.
And truth will guard that life
when life in lies is gone.

Conscious life both gives
and receives love.
Truth grows within us
like a small seed.
From that tiny seed
an inner universe unfolds
even in our darkest hours.
For every moment lived
is held within the greater life.
The Eternal Discovery!

Therefore nothing is greater
than living truthfully true.
Let each day reveal again
the quiet miracle existing
For the truth holds us.
Even as love sustains us.
And our souls as well,
For as Truth's offspring
we have true worth.
Worth more than the wealth
of this universe
is your true value
living true you!

Hi @heartathome , @DownMoreThanUp , @Appleblossom , @ENKELI , @tyme , @Shaz51 , @MissGremlin , @REDLINEZ750 ,

II Thessalonians 1 (plus the following two chapters - sorry it's a bit long)

- From Paul, Silas and Timothy.

- To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

- Grace and peace.

- We thank God for your flourishing faith and increasing love for one another.

- We boast about you to other churches - about your perseverance of faith in all the persecutions and afflictions you are enduring.

- You will be counted worthy of God's kingdom.

- On the day Jesus returns there will be affliction to those who afflict you and relief to you who are afflicted.

- On that day when He comes to be glorified by His saints and marvelled at by those who have believed.

- May God make you worthy of His calling and fulfil your every desire to do good, your work produced by faith.

- So that the name of our Lord Jesus will be glorified and you will be glorified in Him.

II Thessalonians 2

- Now concerning the coming of the Lord.

- Don't be easily upset or deceived.

- Apostasy comes first and the man of lawlessness must be revealed.

- The Lord Jesus will destroy him with the breath of His mouth.

- We give thanks to you because you have been chosen for salvation through the Spirit and through belief in the truth.

- So then hold fast to the instructions you received from us.

- May our Lord Jesus Christ and God our Father encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good work and word.

II Thessalonians 3

- Pray that the Word of the Lord may run freely.

- The Lord is faithful and will strengthen and guard you from the evil one.

- May the Lord direct your hearts to God's love and Christ's patience.

- Do not be idle.

- Follow our example of working.

- Do not be busy-bodies - busy with other people's affairs instead of your own.

- Work quietly and provide for yourselves.

- Do not grow weary in doing good.

- The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.

Paul writes to encourage persecuted believers, to exhort the Thessalonians to be steadfast and to work for a living and to correct a misunderstanding concerning the Lord's return (from NIV Study Bible). I have heard the context was that Christians had stopped working because they expected the Lord Jesus to return soon. Paul instructs them to keep working.

I looked up apostasy. The New Bible Dictionary defined it as "political revolt or defection", "great apostasy of prophecy" - "a final catastrophic revolt against the authority of God." Tied in with a man of lawlessness. Paul says this must happen before Jesus will return.

Paul is very strict about people not working in this letter but I don't think it refers to people who can't work due to health reasons. Including complex mental health reasons. I'm sure God would tell us not to feel guilty for not working due to health issues which prevent us from working.

@Realness

Paul was not talking about (working)

People at that time stopped doing anything because they thought the Lord was coming back at any time, but the Lord still wants us to live everyday how we can until he comes back xx

@DownMoreThanUp , @heartathome , @ENKELI , @Appleblossom

Hi @Shaz51 ,

Thank you for sharing that. It makes sense. And opens up the book to be relevant to everyone.

Paul really praises the Thessalonians in Chapter One.

@Shaz51 Good point!

@Realness @heartathome @ENKELI @Appleblossom

And not only did Paul wanted us to keep 'working' within The Lord's Sabbath Rest it is essential James reckons for if our faith is not put into action what worth has it got?

Spiritually many people think that because they once gave their heart to God, they are now fully born again. To me such thinking is rather blind when sin keeps going. Not that it is not important to come to repentance living a life of sin and turning to God, it sure is, yet such is only living Acts 1 and 2. Not everything else written in God's word has come to life yet. Just our Spirit in Jesus where we witnessed Jesus during that exciting time in our hearts, not elsewhere.

That is why Peter tells to be sober minded for the devil goes around seeking whom he can devour. While the Apostle John points out that born of The Spirit will never sin again, and loves brother and sister as self. And of course Paul shows us he understood very well he needed to die every day again until he had completed the race according to the rules. For the laying down sinful life and coming alive into the new is what Paul worried about - all that matters he goes - is believers becoming a new Creation.

This is why thinking that now you are Christian and i'm saved, i would still warn when wrong still reigns! Not that our salvation is not ever not true, but more like who am i when i meet Jesus? For when in my heart sin still reigns and not Him would i not meet Him in His death for me, rather than on the clouds to reign with Him? Like Paul rightly instructs believers 'work out your salvation with fear and trembling', is true for those who are called, not those still blind to the 'works' which follow any walk in Christ's faith.

Jesus baptise us with fire John the Baptist hinted! We best take him very serious about all that my wife and me have been finding out the hard way the last few months.💞

Where suffering leads us into the right direction much more than living blessed physical realities.

To love true is the blanket we all need when it comes to that.

Hi @DownMoreThanUp ,

Thanks for your post. I love it when people make my post more complete. Like you did with teachings from James, Peter, John and Paul.

@Realness For so many years i felt totally unworthy as a husband and father because i could not work and earn an income any longer and my wife had to go to work instead. That were horrible times, especially rock bottom depressed. And i think mainly because my wife bore her lot bravely and never kept it against me, did i get over it, but it took me eating grace many years before i was brave enough to ban the accusation out of my mind.

@Shaz51 @heartathome @ENKELI @Appleblossom

The Breath of Love

Before the stars had learned their song,
The Father spoke the world in His grace.
The living Word spoke existence born.
Spirit breathing life into time and space.
Creation rose to light and Love's holy fire,
An universe held in Truth’s hearts desire.
Sadly wandering hearts believed the lie,
Lush gardens filling up with grief and fear.
This is why Christ descended into our night,
The cross reveals a Heavenly Father very near.
For the truth through wounded love has shown
No world, no soul, no one is left alone.
See Spirit blow the chaff and alight the flame.
Awaking life where all hope had long gone.
The Father’s heart the Son’s bright name,
Makes all good creation rise up as one.
In self, once lost, becoming His Bride
God dwelling His Kingdom Come inside.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoYulw3CF6k&list=PLGwNMsVcQ4UyV3ArIIkw6A5k-4OPgS-vE&index=34

Dear @DownMoreThanUp ,

I hear you on the feelings that came with not being able to support your family. For me I have a heap of questions for God on why He allows poor health. I don't really know the answer but I know God's Word is often upsidedown to what the world values. The poor are blessed. Those who mourn are blessed.

I like your term eating grace. I'm glad you were able to ban such thoughts from your mind.

Romans 8:28 just came to mind. All things work together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to His purpose. For years now I have clung to this verse.

@Realness Not to rock the boat but to share you my experience about poor health and the place Jesus had there in my life.

For many years i suffered from poor physical as well as mental health. Although in those days i thought being depressed was God's way of getting back at me being in my raging alter often for days either sick or pretending to be sick hiding away from my family. Anyhow for years i suffered in pain or sick in bed. So often depressed and miserable as. And more often than not medications did not help. In those days i would charge God with lying in Isaiah 53 for i said if Jesus took all my illness upon Himself why am i sick? And if He paid the price for my sins why are you still making me feel like crap ever day although i asked for grace? Why do you not take the fever, pain, or anxiety away?

Yet now i have learned to understand that very often when i was sick i would focus on me feeling crappy and even more often i be overcome by it. for i be fixating and over thinking the symptoms. Without really being aware i was suffering my illness carnal minded and not Spirit minded.

Yet now i began to understand that only when i'm in the truth of Scripture in Spirit will i meet Jesus. While focusing on my illness is doing it wrong. And so i began learning to focus on Jesus and how in Him i lived the same moments with Him. It was then that i began living Isaiah 53 consciously, such are incredible experience dear sister, where words begin to fall short. For suddenly suffer is okay, and we mourn sin in and with Jesus in a bond of love, spiritual oneness indescribable awesome.

i know i sure gnash my teeth when my focus is on illness instead of Jesus. Why was i so blind those days?

@Shaz51 @heartathome @ENKELI @Appleblossom

Even today i do not always have the faith to keep my focus on our Lord. Certain moods, like deeply down and paranoid, i still find it hard to have faith and to let the suffering be and past bad life go. i do know that satan fights his hardest when i try and keep focus on our Lord loving me in this state of being 2000 years ago already. i know in the end i will overcome the seven overcomings and also be allowed to rule with Christ there.

You find that at times you are close to Jesus and then illness does not seem to matter, or even have you thank Him for it, and times you suffer in darkness and cannot reach Him?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVXJ8GyLgt0

Hi @DownMoreThanUp ,

I listened to Joni's story. Amazing faith. Jesus is interested in the state of our soul. In needing God every moment Joni was given a tremendous joy in the now.

I thought of Philippians 4 - think about what's good - as I read about your journey from focusing on your illness to focusing on Jesus. Times of even thanking God for the illness - recognising we are closer to God because of it. What is good for the soul is often different to what is good for the body.

I remember finding God's Word when I was eighteen. Before that life had a heaviness - like a cloud was over me. Whenever I read the Bible the cloud would lift and life felt light. I haven't stopped reading the Bible since. I am so thankful for the written Word and that I love reading.

Life feels a bit heavy at the moment. It's time to read the Bible again.