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Discussion Forum : Scriptures and Doctrine : Things that My husband learned from God.

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romanchog
Member



Joined: 2011/10/27
Posts: 338


 Things that My husband learned from God.

For those who have not followed my thread, my husband moved on to Heaven on January 1 of this year. I felt led to write some things that he taught me. During the last three months of his life, he had very deep insights which I hope to post here for the benefit of others that might learn from them to love God more deeply and to hate sin and this world as God and Jesus do.

My husband knew the Word better than anyone I have ever known. He studied it day and night. He was a college instructor who taught physics, chemistry, biology and math. He said that if people studied the Word as they study for their college courses or their exams in physics and chemistry (mainly about 40-60 hours a week counting class time), people would know the Word and would be able to discern when they are being taught falsely. He said the problem with Protestant Christians is that they THINK they know the Bible because they have heard so many of the scriptures, but they do not realize that they have heard them out of context, because they only hear one verse or two at a time in Church. (Catholics, he said, know that they do not know the scriptures.)

As an example: Often, Christians cite from Jeremiah the verse

"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." Jer 29:11

It is very true that this is God's heart. But when taken out of context, this verse does not truly give the entire meaning of the verse. Jeremiah made this statement AFTER telling the people of Israel that they would be suffering in a foreign land for 70 years. Read in context, this verse tells us that this suffering IS part of God's plan to give them a future and a hope. People try to use it to claim that there will be no suffering.

Similarly, in Jeremiah 32:27, the LORD says: "Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh; is there anything too hard for Me?"

This verse is used for us to ask for impossible miracles. It was given to me as a verse to pray for my husband's health. While it is true that nothing is impossible for God, I would never use this verse in Jeremiah to ask God for a miracle for me, because the next verse says:

"Therefore thus says the Lord: Behold, I am giving this city into the hands of the Chaldeans and into the hand of Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon, and he shall take it" Jer 32:28

In other words, God is saying that nothing is impossible for Him, and therefore He is sending the people of Israel into judgment and punishment so that in their suffering they can learn to love and obey the Lord.

Another scripture that is often used out of context and therefore misused is Paul's statement that "in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us." Rom 8:37

So misused is this scripture it is sad! People use it to justify all kinds of worldly things. If they were to actually read the context, they would understand that Paul was saying that IN GREAT SUFFERING to the point of death we are still conquerors.

For Paul says before this:
"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written:“For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Rom 8: 35-36.


My husband taught us to sit down with a book in the Bible and read it and study it from beginning to end, always with much prayer and pausing. He told us not to ask ourselves questions (that is talking to yourself) but to ask God who would reveal to us the answer through the Spirit. His Bible is highlighted (in a color coded form). He focused on the New Testament because He said without thorough knowledge of the New Testament it is impossible to understand the Old Testament and we can in fact be misled into incorrect doctrine.

I love my husband and thank God for the Wisdom that He gave him, and that he was able to at least impart some of it to me.


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Natalie

 2013/1/13 11:50Profile
mama27
Member



Joined: 2010/11/20
Posts: 1482


 Re: Things that My husband learned from God.

This brings tears to my eyes, Natalie...how very precious the things the Lord left with you thru and from your husband...and what a legacy to your children. Now it is your turn. But don't be burdened by that....even though God wants you to take the baton, He is gracious to bring you healing while He works it all out. Love to you....

 2013/1/13 12:06Profile
DEADn
Member



Joined: 2011/1/12
Posts: 1395
Lakeland FL

 Re: Things that My husband learned from God.

May I submit to you that there are at least 2 reasons I can think of as to why the bible is not always read in context.

1. It temds to be used out of context in order to twist the hearts of the people in order to get something out of the people. When the hears don't know the whole scenerio they are easily taken. Prosperity movement is a prime example.

2. How often do you ever have a preacher read more than one verse when preaching? Most tend to skip around because they want to hit only highlights or we have a low attention span for the reading of the bible and so we only get what we 'like'.

There is a certain independent baptist preacher, I know of, who, when he preachers, there are times when he will literally read an entire chapter even if it is the OT in order to layout his sermon. I don't know of too many other preachers who would do such a thing.

What would happen if the preachers read more of the bible and expounded on each verse as they read them verse bouncing around to hit a certain topic?

Sounds as if your husband has hunger for the deeper things of GOd. Just the type of person I would have salivated to be around yet I would consider him a needle in a haystack.

John


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John

 2013/1/13 15:54Profile
ccchhhrrriiisss
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Joined: 2003/11/23
Posts: 4779


 Re:

Thank you for sharing, dear sister.

I think that the issue of "context" of Scripture is extremely important today. Many cults and sects pick a verse upon which they build high and binding towers of doctrine upon. I listened to a preacher on the radio who went about "claiming" the property that belonged to others because he took the words of an Old Testament prophet completely out of context. His "claiming" sounded quite a bit like "coveting" the belongings of his neighbor; yet, the preacher was proclaiming it as if it were a virtue.

Like DEADn mentioned, I enjoy to hear ministers teach from the Word of God reading entire chapters of Scripture.

I was also touched by your post for a different reason. I hope that I have lived my faith in front of my wife so that she would be able to say that there are things that she learned from me -- as I have learned from Him -- too.

Be encouraged, sister.


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Christopher

 2013/1/13 16:26Profile
Compton
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Joined: 2005/2/24
Posts: 2732


 Re: Things that My husband learned from God.

Thank you, Romanchog.

MC


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Mike Compton

 2013/1/13 16:58Profile
ginnyrose
Member



Joined: 2004/7/7
Posts: 7534
Mississippi

 Re: Things that My husband learned from God.

Beautiful, Natalie! What a wonderful legacy to leave behind...

Hope to hear more lessons he taught you.

God bless.

ginnyrose


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Sandra Miller

 2013/1/13 18:19Profile
ginnyrose
Member



Joined: 2004/7/7
Posts: 7534
Mississippi

 Re: Things that My husband learned from God.

Natalie,

When our daughter was terminally ill, there were well-meaning people who would come by and quote verses out of context - just like you mentioned - in order to get us to think positively about her condition. They told us one should not even mention death because this is giving the devil the license to kill her (or, something like that). If you think positively you can set in motion divine healing.

It becomes a serious problem to know how to effectively deal with these well-meaning people. They love you, I know they do - they did not want this young mother to die and leave two little children motherless... In the end, the most cruel thing a person can do is to raise false hopes for the healing of your loved one. They allegedly speak words of faith, say they are speaking words from the LORD. But the person dies, then what? Who was lying?

God is the God of reality and that means one must face life head on honestly at all times. We cannot conjure up divine healing at all - least of all when God has said, "no".

Natalie, I hope your children will take to heart what their dad taught them about the WORD, how it needs to be studied in context and not make scripture say something that it does not imply. I suspect they will have enough to deal with in the time to come without them beginning to doubt God and their supposedly lack of faith in God because he died.

God bless for sharing. Hope to hear more of what he taught you all that means a lot.

God bless.

ginnyrose


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Sandra Miller

 2013/1/13 23:10Profile
David01-72
Member



Joined: 2012/3/23
Posts: 58
Texas

 Re: Things that My husband learned from God.

Thank you for sharing sister, may God Bless you and your children!

In Love in Christ
DavidC


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David Cisneros

 2013/1/14 0:21Profile
romanchog
Member



Joined: 2011/10/27
Posts: 338


 Re: Things that My husband learned from God.

In the last year or two of his life, my husband was deeply concerned with understanding sin. I do not even know how to describe the depths of his desire to understand what sin is.

This seems, I am sure, to many, like an odd question to ask. It may seem that we all know what sin is. It is disobedience to God, or following after what we want, etc. But does that really answer the question of what sin is.

My husband was a deep thinker. He always wanted to get the full understanding of everything (this is what made him so good at science and at teaching). He learned, and he taught us, that thinking is talking to yourself. If you have a question, he told us, don't think trying to get an answer out of your brain because you don't have the answer. He told us that if we have a question, we are to ask God and not to talk to ourselves in our head. God is faithful to answer.

This is what he did with this question of sin. I found him on his knees many mornings (he always rose before I did) with his face to the floor. He never spoke to the LORD unless he was on his knees, even to say grace before meals. He felt the need to humble himself in prayer.

The LORD revealed to him some very interesting and scary things about sin. A lot of it he received through his illness.

The first thing that my husband taught us is that the world asks the wrong question. Often we hear people say, "If God is so good, how can He send people to hell for one sin?"

My husband said the question was backwards. The proper question to ask is: "What kind of a monster is sin that one sin will send you to hell?"

Also, my husband asked, "What kind of monster is sin that for one sin our LORD Jesus had to suffer and die?" He said that if we are trying to battle sin, we must be very afraid. Sin, he said, is scary and there is no way to beat it in our own strength. Unless we are following God, and relying on God, and repudiating sin (2 Cor 4:2) we will always fall. It will be a constant battle until the day we die, but with God and the Holy Spirit it is no longer scary.


He was very aware of sin in himself at the end. For example, when he spoke with assurance of something that he felt he did not know thoroughly, he said this was lying. He detested anything that had to do with the world in any way, however minor.

The last statement he whispered to me a few hours before he died (he could not speak after this) was: "Very soon, the world is going to turn black or white."

I don't know if he ever truly got a full understanding of sin; at least up to the point that he could speak at length he still did not understand it to his satisfaction. In reality, I don't think we will truly comprehend the horror of sin until we leave this physical world and see things as they really are.

In his seeking to understand sin, he also understood mercy. This, in his life, was a great act of God, because it is something that had been lacking in him. It pained him to think that we, such awful sinners to God, can fail to extend mercy to others who have wronged us so little in comparison.

He told us that we are to see everything in light of eternity. He said that in eternity everything that God forgave does not exist (scripturally, 2 Cor 5:17 - "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new." Psalm 103:11-12: "So great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.") So when he looked at me, and I asked him to forgive me for all the pain I had inflicted on him over the years he told me: "That never happened." He said we must live in that reality.

When he was sick he wept bitterly for all the wasted years in which he had failed to serve God. He struggled with his lack of works for such a long portion of his life and for all the pain he had inflicted on us by his worldliness. It was my turn to say to him: "That never happened." This reality finally brought him peace, and I never heard him question his salvation after this.

Often he would open his eyes and see me sitting next to him, and he would simply point his index finger to heaven. He was telling me: "Live in eternity." (Col 3:1-3: "If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.")

I am trying to follow this. May the LORD guide me on this journey and give me strength, for at the moment I don't have the strength to even live.




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Natalie

 2013/1/21 0:55Profile
ginnyrose
Member



Joined: 2004/7/7
Posts: 7534
Mississippi

 Re:

Natalie,

Solomon tells us in Ecclesiastes it is better to go to the house of morning then to the house of feasting. I have concluded it meant that when faced with death one gains a completely different perspective of life. Your testimony proves it.

Natalie, you have surrendered your husband to the LORD and now ALLOW the LORD Jesus to be your husband and your guide. Just abide in Him and He will comfort you. I know...I found it fascinating the things the LORD used to comfort me... since he did it for me, I know He will do it for you.

Thank the LORD for such a beautiful memory - not all widows share your testimony.

And thank-you for sharing...

God bless.

Sandra


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Sandra Miller

 2013/1/21 1:07Profile





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