Are you pleasing to God? What about loving your enemies. Do you love the liberals and Muslim terrorists?

Do we have to do that to please God?

Who wrote this?

Why aren't all Christians of the same mind, maintaining the same love and united in the same spirit?

There must be a reason. There must be something that keeps us all from having the same mind, but what could that reason be?

That's not necessarily what would please God though. Paul and God are different.

It's interesting to think if one is pleasing to God, and if not, how one can be pleasing to Him.

I'm not talking about salvation. I heard someone ask "What do I need to do to please God?" and it has me thinking.

It has me thinking about a number of things.

Do I please God?

Do God find you pleasing?

Pardon me for making things needlessly complicated, but I happen to think that God wants us to reflect and think on these very things.

We are to examine our ways and "know thyself". It's also good to know what we need to do to please God.

I ask these questions because they are simple, yet no one really thinks about them. They *think* they know the answer until a few more questions are asked. Then it becomes clear that most do not understand or know what we need to do to please God.

Answers like, "Follow His commandments" aren't real answers. They just push the question back one level when one then has to ask what are those commandments, how many do you have to follow for God to be pleased with you, is God pleased with you now and what about the fact that we can all find instances where we aren't following God's commandments?

It's a non answer if one is looking for insight.

It's like asking, "What do we have to do to please God?" and someone answers, "Do the things that please Him".

See? It's a non answer.

Most people just quote the bible left and right but have no understanding about the essence of the scriptures they quote, so they are not helpful.

When I explained to you that "to love" means something different to everybody, I think that shines light on the fact that "to love" is a meaningless answer and to realize this is not a needless complication in my life.

How long will we go on repeating "love one another" and not know what it really means?

I don't know about you, but I want to know if God finds me pleasing, and if not, I want to change that.

If we are to love one another, and most Christians *think* they are doing that (you know how most Christians think they are so holy even though the affect false modesty...), but then we find out that Christians don't love, say, Obama, then is God not pleased with us?

Does this indicate that we have a sort of spiritual infection? Does the devil live in our minds all along while the whole time we think we are pleasing to God?

Do we have pride lurking where it shouldn't? Do we have an evil narrative playing in our minds, reasoning and rationalizing against our own best judgment?

Is this narrative our own voice or is are these thoughts from the deceiver? What is it that we are unaware of in our own spirituality that allows this spirit of pride to make a home in us?

These are all questions that could stem from reflecting on what it means "to love" one another when we get beyond the superficial parroting of the bible and *think* critically about those cases where we *don't* love one another.

I look at questions like "Am I pleasing to God" as an opportunity to discover things about myself that are keeping me from being right with God.

Does this mean that if we don't love our enemies and pray for those that persecute us, we are not going to be sons of our Father in heaven?

Seems that way to me.

Could this be because if you can't come to a point where you can love your enemies, it indicates that you do not have a renewed mind and therefore and not, as Jesus to Nicodemus, born again?

Some people think that all they have to do is go up to the altar, accept Jesus as their lord and savior and they are now born again. If they go on sinning they just say that they do the best they can and all is well. They are still born again. Or, they say that they sin because while their spirit is renewed, their body still sins.

But Jesus said that unless one is born again, he will not enter the kingdom of heaven. To be born again, we need a renewed mind; the mind of Christ. We need a new spirit, the spirit of God which now directs the body and keeps it from sin.

A new mind and spirit would make it possible to be like God, in that we love our enemies just as God has it rain on the evil and the good, and if we harbor resentment and hate toward our enemies, it indicates that we still have Satan's spirit in us and not that of God.

Our battle is spiritual. The whole world is a battle between good and evil and our battle is not with flesh but with spirits. You are either of your father God in heaven or you are of your father the devil and do his thinking, his talking, his reasoning, his rationalizing and his work.

He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.>

<No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.>

1 John 3:9

The verse you quoted is not as precise as this one. Yours is more vague. This one here clearly says that <if> you are born of then, <then> you cannot go on sinning.

This is because now, as opposed to before, <God's seed is in him> and he <cannot> sin.

It doesn't say that it's easier to not sin, but it's okay if we do sometimes (a little bit).

It doesn't say that we shouldn't sin.

It doesn't say that the body will sin but the spirit won't.

It doesn't say that the flesh is sinful but we are covered by Christ.

No.

It says that we <cannot> sin <IF>

<<<<IF>>>>

<if> we are born of God and <now> have His seed in us.

This means that <if> you are a child of God, then you have the nature of God in you and <that> is what makes you born again. You've been reborn with God's nature and no longer have the nature of the devil.

Nowhere in the bible does it say that <if you are a child of God you can still sin>.

For in my inner being I delight in God's law;but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.>

This is because we are either of our father God in heaven or our father the devil and do *nothing* of our own.

<Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, >

We are not in control and act either on the spirit of God or Satan. Either way, we have one spirit of the other and not both.

<but it is sin living in me that does it.>

Paul did not yet have God's nature because if he did, he wouldn't have the devils nature in him but rather, <God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.>

When you are born again, God puts His nature in you and you go back to the Father. God does not share <His Temple> with Satan.

His <sinful nature> is that of his father the Devil. His mind is shown to be powerless against Satan (he wants to do what is right, but freewill or not, he can't do it. He's a slave) so he needs God to renew his mind and give him a new, <Godly> nature.

The body is the Temple. The Temple is not shared with Satan.

You serve one master and not both.

God's renewing of your mind leads to being reborn <of God's nature>. It's only with <His> nature in you that you can overcome Satan.

A person born of God will still be tempted by the Devil, If the person stumbles but sincerely repents, then God forgives that person.

Stumbling is a euphemism for sinning and John tells us that once we are born again <of God>, we can no longer <stumble>.

<No man can be perfect.>

That's because we are imperfect before we are born again. After that, we <cannot sin>. It's impossible because we have <God's nature>.

Also, just because we sin no more doesn't mean we are perfect.

Nowhere in the bible does it say that once you are born of God and once you are a child of God, you can <stumble>.

God forgives our sins but once our nature is renewed we <cannot sin>. If you do, then you have not received a new nature.

And the verse you just posted can be the state man is in before he receives his new nature as a <child of God>.

Remember, if you have God's seed in you, you have His nature and <cannot> sin. If you sin, you are of your father <the Sinner>.

So what is sin?

I don't think sin is drinking, smoking pot, running around with girls and so on. Those are the things we do if we have a fallen nature and live in a fallen state. The sin, the real sin, is having anger, pride, resentment and making ourselves, our desires, our passions more important than God.

In short, I think our real sin is the <choice> to identify with pride rather than with God. That is the sin and that separates you from God, leaving you to lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery, murder and so on. Those things are just actions that we take in a fallen state where we are already separated from God.

The real sin happens silently, with us being almost unaware of it. It seems as though we are just contemplating some thoughts when in reality, we are choosing to identify with the deceiver. His thoughts seem like our own and use our own voice. His thoughts are in the emotions and feelings, which cause us to want to satisfy our passion, flesh, desires and his narrative, which seem like our thoughts, inflame our emotions and passions, causing us to feed them, think on them, want to satisfy them.

The sin happens silently, insidiously. The sin happens when you open the door and let Satan talk to you in your thoughts. You invite him into your house and then, it's like inviting the hot neighbor next door over for tea when the wife is away, you sin.

What I think is that to avoid sin, we need to be aware of what it really is, and how the world is a battle between good and evil, and it's spiritual, and we are included in it. We need to have a truer idea of what sin is and have insight. We need to examine ourselves and consider our ways, and think long and hard on it. We need to realize how we are being deceived in our thoughts and, once you are aware of that, we can resist by just watching the thoughts without fighting them or judging them, and knowing that those thoughts are not our own, even though they seem like they are.

It seems like once that happens, you lose the identity of the spirit of Satan and you can return back to the Father. When that happens you can overcome hate and anger, making it possible to forgive those you love to resent. Once you forgive, God can forgive you and you can enter into the kingdom of heaven within.

I see people who think that all they need to do is <accept Jesus as your lord and savior> at church and that's it. Then they leave church, get in the car, and go back to their sinful lives like it's nobodies business. They are <children of God> but they have messed up lives, messed up families, terrible relationships, the lie, cheat, steal, commit adultery and they do it by the truckload.

They can't help it because they were taught this stuff by their parents and the preachers and the priests, all of them experts in wickedness and leading lives full of sin, spreading misunderstandings about the bible and God's word.

This is why I don't like the superficial passing back and forth of scripture as though it is clear that each scripture means the same thing to all of us.

<"For if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." Romans 10:9>

I believe this so I'm saved.

<1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.>

People can and do stumble... badly.

King David committed adultery with Bathsheba and even had her husband Uriah killed by sending him to the forefront of a battle.

God forgave him in spite of that abominable sin, and God still had the Messiah descend through David's line.

Saint Peter sinned and he was forgiven.

But Jesus told Nicodemus that unless you are born again of God, you will not enter into the kingdom of heaven.

And we know from John how we can tell we are born again of God.

<<1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.>

People can and do stumble... badly.>

Not once they are born again of God and become a child of God.

<<No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.>>

It's not <stumbling>, it's <sinning>

Use the right word.

We know not to sin before we are born again, and sometimes we avoid sinning even in our fallen state. Then we can ask God for forgiveness, but if we have been born again then, as John said, <we cannot sin>. This is the result of being born again.

<Jesus replied, "Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again."> John 3:3

People do not want to give up their sin, so they tell themselves that this is not true:

<No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God.>

They actually look at this verse and rewrite it to mean this:

<No one who is born of God will continue to sin <<all the time>>, because God's seed remains in them; they cannot <<"cannot is a mistake in the bible" - they *can sin* if you call it stumbling>> go on sinning, because they have been born of God.>

If we take the word <cannot> and change it to <can>, then Christians are happy because they love to <stumble>.

That's not what I'm saying. We all sin, but <once you are born again of God> you <cannot> sin.

Don't blame me for saying this. John put it in the bible.

Christians like to rationalize this verse away and even ignore it. Again, most Christians read it like this:

Galatians 11:1 But when Cephas (Peter) came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he stood condemned. 12 For prior to the coming of certain men from James, he used to eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he began to withdraw and hold himself aloof, fearing the party of the circumcision. 13 The rest of the Jews joined him in hypocrisy, with the result that even Barnabas was carried away by their hypocrisy. 14 But when I saw that they were not straightforward about the truth of the gospel, I said to Cephas in the presence of all, "If you, being a Jew, live like the Gentiles and not like the Jews, how is it that you compel the Gentiles to live like Jews?>

If Saint Peter can do that 14 years after receiving the holy spirit. Just imagine.

<1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.>

He provides a way out and it's here where some people (not all) stumble.

In other words: the Devil will continue to harass believers in Christ to make them stumble.

(I've had some moments of temptation that thank God, I managed to resist.)

Anyway, it was interesting talking with you.

I don't know exactly what it means to receive the holy spirit, but if he was sinning, then according to John, he is not born again of God, because if you are born again of God, you <cannot sin>.

Hypocrisy may not be a sin. I don't know if it is or not. I don't want to assume.

<He provides a way out and it's here where some people (not all) stumble.>

They don't stumble. They <continue sinning> and there is a difference.

1 John 3:9 says that if you are born again of God then you <cannot continue sinning>. Not because you shouldn't want to, but because your nature is changed to God's nature, whereas it used to be Satan's fallen nature.

<Devil will continue to harrass>

Yes.

<...believers in Christ to make them stumble>.

It's not stumbling, it's <sinning>. Use the word <sin>.

So then it comes down to a question of what the word <sin> means. The Sermon on the Mount equates the desire, or the temptation, to commit adultery with the act itself. Who is free of such desires? No one I know.

We need Christ as our Savior because we *can't* sanctify ourselves, redeem ourselves, attain righteousness by our own efforts, or anything else.

No it doesn't. Jesus was tempted by Satan and it was not counted as sin. What the sermon means is that you can commit to sin in your mind, which is exactly what happens.

It means to be careful what you think on and how you think about your temptations, lest they become sin. Sin starts in the mind. .

So that means <no one:> at all that is born again of God < will continue to sin> 1 John 3:9

We are not required to find living examples to prove this scripture true. One either believes John or not.

<winding me up>

No worries, I am always wound up anyways but in a good way. I have enthusiasm for these topics.

And you don't agree with <chancho> and disagree with me, because I've said nothing. I am only sharing scripture, 1 John 3:9.

So if you disagree that <No one who is born of God will continue to sin> then you disagree with John.

If you think 1 John really means <No one who is born of God is free from sinning (stumbling)> then I don't know what to say. I'm just reading the verse.

It is my view that most Christians are deceived and not saved because they are not born again, because they refuse to let go of the sin they love so much. The devil has deceived many into thinking that you can actually be a son of God, have God's nature in you, be <born again of God> and sin.

Nowhere in the bible does it say that <once you are a child of God> and once you are <born of God> that you can sin sometimes, a little bit, once in a while, that it's unavoidable.

Instead it says quite forcefully that you <cannot> sin once God has given you rebirth.

But the devil has everyone believing this feel-good Christianity stuff where you can do his work and have the nature of sin instead of the nature of God, and <still> be a son of God.

I've said all I need to say about this and will only repeat myself if I continue discussing this point.