Morality, violence and Crime

 

Morality Violence and crime

It is easier to hate than to love because people are learning more about hate, exploitation of others, greed, selfishness and less of love your neighbour, love your enemies, turn the other cheek, do unto others as you will have them do unto you, it is better to give than to receive, be thankful, think of others first, forgive 70x7. Help the poor and those less fortunate than you. Pray for the good of others. God is watching, respect and honour God, fear the consequences of our actions, don’t fight nor kill for we are all God’s creatures, God will be the judge, think twice.

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Many of us went through the rigors of these moral teachings. Being good was worth striving for and even the ‘hard-ears’ still understood it to be an ideal to be reached even if not at the time of their indulgence in sin but sometime later they hoped to reform or change. They knew when they did wrong it was wrong. They knew right from wrong. Many of our children are skipping Sunday school and are learning a new ‘morality’. One without God. How many Christians don’t send their children to Sunday school raise your hand? If it is not important to us, why should we expect the non-believers in God to send their children to ‘God’ for lessons. Unfortunately, too many Bible schools teach stories but not morals. Unfortunately, those teachers are selected based on their ability to teach at secular school not their Christian maturity and the belief that strong moral values need to be impressed upon children. Hence on closer observation these classes have more entertainment value than moral value.

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Morality without God as the starting point remains humanistic in origin and is therefore relative, individual, cultural or nationally determined. While God’s morality is objective, absolute and universal for all despite their geographical, political theological or a-theological position. It is not determined by man and therefore not flexible, relative, changeable nor fixable by man.

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So, if Godly moral teaching is present but too little it is of no use or not present at all then we must expect the violence and lawlessness to increase, waxing worse overtime.

So, back bitters, thieves, liars, adulterers and the list go on cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. The wages /consequences of sin is death. Judgement and Hell are reserved for all who refuse to change/repent.

vincent

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Free will

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The fabulous mind God gave to us can reason, understand and will (to choose among our thoughts and desires). We may yield our will to God or not. We ‘WILL’, freely and uninhibited. We exercise the freedom given to us by God to will without interference or compulsion from Him.

Freedom of choice was a gift from God to man it is not carnal. We did not make ourselves. We are autonomous (self-governing).

 

One consequence of the will.

Rom 2:2-6.  2:1 [KJV]) Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.(Rom 2:2 [KJV])But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth against them which commit such things.(Rom 2:3 [KJV])And thinkest thou this, O man, that judgest them which do such things, and doest the same, that thou shalt escape the judgment of God? (Rom 2:4 [KJV])Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness and forbearance and longsuffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance?(Rom 2:5 [KJV])But after thy hardness and impenitent heart treasurest up unto thyself wrath against the day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God; (Rom 2:6 [KJV])Who will render to every man according to his deeds:

 

Man, heaps upon himself God’s wrath because of man’s own will or freedom to think. Acting on your will means you are responsible; therefore, God’s judgement is just when he blames and judges man for his actions.

 

Did you will to believe God, did you will to repent, did you will to baptise. Then by your free will you made these choices and none of these are carnal all are spiritual. Isn’t this true? With your mind/will you choose to follow the will of God for you. This is not carnal. Our brains are made of flesh so it is carnal but the mind is not. The content of our mind maybe figuratively speaking, carnal (flesh) or spiritual. God wants us to renew the content of our mind so that it maybe filled with thoughts of the spirit not of the flesh. Who does the renewing of our minds? Who does this? The man made of carnal flesh is told to empty his mind of carnal thoughts daily because they lead to carnal decisions and instead to fill it with spiritual thoughts that leads us to spiritual decisions, which results in a spiritual life. When we obey it is a free choice an act of free will. Our will to obey God means we have just aligned our thoughts/will with God’s thoughts/will and desires for us. Refusal means we have not aligned our will with His. The consequences of this free alignment means that we are going to do God’s will. Here we can say God’s will is done. It is achieved in us first and then through us to the world environment.

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God uses His people to accomplish His will but the only way this is done is to be obedient. Through obedience we are aligning our will to His will. This is submission of the will but we still retain our ability to will, our will does not disappear we still have control over that. This is not carnal. No one sees us anymore but they see God through us. The more we remove ourselves which is not carnal but spiritual, the more God’s spiritual will is being perfected in us. So, a man who desires the spiritual things willing becomes a slave to the spirit, i.e. he willing submits his mind, he willingly empties his mind of any resistant and rebellious thing to God. He is doing this freely of his own accord, he is still exercising freewill.

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A gift from God. The will to choose is not because we have a brain or nature developed a mind all by itself. No. God designed us with a brain which has some effect on the mind and the mind some effect on the brain. God gave us a mind (it’s a gift from God) or the capacity to think and to choose, willing to do this or willing to do that. Also, how the mind works is a gift from God i.e. the freedom to freely will (think and choose). No one can take credit for this but God, not us not some laws of nature nor evolution. When God made us He said it was good.

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God blessed Adam with freewill and He spoke with him (Gen 2) about his freedom to choose (His will) and the responsibility that he must accept with his choices and hence the punishment he may accrue in exercising his freewill wrongfully. God allowed him to eat as he freely will from any tree. Then God prohibited Adam (DO NOT EAT), to will from eating from the tree of evil and good. How did He prohibit Adam, by removing his freewill? No, God forbid. He allowed Adam to continue to exercise the gift of free will He gave Him. He did not force Adam’s will or coerce his will to go in one direction or the other. It was God's will that Adam may eat from all the other trees. It was also God's will that Adam will not eat from the Tree of Good and evil. Apparently, Adam was eating from the other trees and therefore fulfilling the good and perfect will of God towards him. Later, after the temptation Adam willed to eat from the tree of good and evil and therefore acting not in accordance with God's good and perfect will for him. His will was no longer in alignment with the will of God. It fell short. It missed the mark (sin). However, Adam was exercising the same will, his freewill gift in both good and bad circumstances where he pleased God and disappointed God. He exercised the same will to follow God and the same will to disobey God. It was not a different will. There was no God’s will operating puppetry on Adam’s mind and then Adam broke free and started using a carnal mind for the temptation scene. The will is a beautiful gift from God. It is how it is used that is the problem not the gift. Our body is the temple of God. What we do with it is the problem not the temple.

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