Play online chess!

From	Message
coram_deo 25-Sep-21, 09:53	What is Sin? Atheists and a believer in another club are debating what constitutes a sin. It’s an interesting question, and I believe the Biblical definition of sin is an offense against God, which makes sin, from an atheist’s standpoint, an irrelevant and meaningless word. But, from a believer’s standpoint, the question becomes, What does God consider an offense against Him? We know God’s character and what He values was revealed in the Mosaic Law. But Jesus Christ summed up all of the Law and what God revealed about Himself through the prophets in this passage from the Gospel of Matthew: “Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matthew 22:35-40) So love is essential in not sinning and the reason I think it’s essential relates to other passages from the Holy Bible: “A good man out of the good treasure of the heart bringeth forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure bringeth forth evil things.” (Matthew 12:35) “Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” (Matthew 7:16-18) But humans by their nature *mostly* operate out of self interest (I believe an obvious exception is parents sacrificing their own desires, and in some cases needs, for their children.) So the only way to counteract this default self interest is through inward transformation; simply trying to better one’s behavior without inward transformation is, imo, doomed to fail. I believe that’s why God the Father’s desire now and 2,000 years ago was that people accept and believe in Jesus Christ. Because when they do, they receive God’s Holy Spirit, and God’s Holy Spirit upon indwelling a new believer begins to change him or her from the inside out. “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.” (John 14:16-17) “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:17) Elsewhere in the Bible, God talks about wanting man to have a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone and that He will write His laws on their heart. This is the New Covenant established by Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and Resurrection. “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.” (Ezekiel 36:26) BTW, the book of Ezekiel was written 500+ years before the New Covenant was established through Jesus Christ’s crucifixion and Resurrection. God was speaking through a prophet about what He was going to do. Humans will continue to sin even after they’ve accepted Christ and received His Holy Spirit because they retain their nature and free will. This struggle between the flesh and the Spirit was known to the Apostle Paul, who wrote most of the New Testament: “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” (Galatians 5:16-17) Paul speaks on this topic from personal experience in Romans 7: “For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” (Romans 7:22-25) So I think it’s apparent from those passages that the Holy Spirit’s work in transforming a believer is gradual and dependent upon how much the believer is in fellowship with God through prayer, reading the Holy Bible, listening to Grace-based preaching etc. One request I almost always make in prayer is to walk in the Spirit and not in the flesh. But I and every other believer still sins. But we should be sinning less than we did before we accepted Christ. And when we accepted Christ, all of our sins, including future sins, were forgiven. “And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;” (Colossians 2:13) youtu.be But, counter intuitively, being forgiven of all my sins - past, present and future - doesn’t make me sin more; it actually makes me sin less because I’m no longer under condemnation and all the negative emotions that come with condemnation. “There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (Romans 8:1-4) And God can forgive future sins because He exists outside of time and knows the end from the beginning. “Remember the former things of old: for I am God, and there is none else; I am God, and there is none like me, Declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure:” (Isaiah 46:9-10)
coram_deo 25-Sep-21, 12:45	Major omission on my part! While it’s true God revealed His character and what He values through the Mosaic Law and the words of His prophets, God most directly revealed Himself through Jesus Christ, His Son. “If ye had known me, ye should have known my Father also: and from henceforth ye know him, and have seen him. Philip saith unto him, Lord, show us the Father, and it sufficeth us. Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Show us the Father? Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works.” (John 14:7-10) And Jesus was not the only member of the Triune God to say He was the Son of God and Messiah: “And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem. But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him. And it came to pass, as they departed from him, Peter said unto Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here: and let us make three tabernacles; one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said. While he thus spake, there came a cloud, and overshadowed them: and they feared as they entered into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him.” (Luke 9:28-35) “And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” (Matthew 3:16-17) And Jesus Christ fulfilled the Law and the prophets, by keeping the Law perfectly and by accomplishing what the prophets predicted centuries earlier the Messiah would do. “Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.” (Matthew 5:17)
coram_deo 25-Sep-21, 12:51	I’ve been spending too much time lately in the Old Testament lol. Jesus Christ is in the Old Testament too, but not nearly to the extent and explicitness that He’s in the New Testament.

GameKnot: play chess online, chess clubs, online chess puzzles, monthly chess tournaments, Internet chess league, chess teams, free online chess games database and more.