A response to Paul’s posting in the last thread.
Paul, I understand your point about loving each other and God revealing Himself to us in His time. But I do not see the connection you are trying to make with that line of thought and belief. For Example, I do not get what you are trying to say when you say: “Wow, I have read all of the postings up to this point, but have yet to feel true belief in any one posting. You all mention the belief in Christ, but manage to miss the entire BELIEF....hmmm.”
While I would word your the prayer emphasis not as God give me strength and peace and comfort but as us praying for the Father to be our strength: He is sovereign; and for Jesus to be our peace: He is the Prince of Peace; and for the Spirit to guide us: as He will in all truth. This is not a semantics game but a true shift in my focus as I pray. It is good to look at the nature of our prayers.
Faith is God’s gift to us, it is not a matter of our power that we chose where to place it. For Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. In my own words, I think this clarification supports your reasoning that we are to keep our eyes on Jesus—that is faith, that is belief. For as the apostle Paul says in Acts 17.26-28 to the people in Athens: “From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’”
