Today does a believers character display the divine nature, if not should we as believers be displaying similar characteristics to that in which 2 Peter 1:1-11 refers.  What are the obstacles if any stoppping us from displaying the divine nature?.  In relation to the word of God, how important is it for us as believers to display the characteristics of the divine nature in our life. 

2 Peter 1:1-11

 1  Simon Peter, a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ,
¶ To them that have obtained like precious faith with us through the righteousness of God and our Saviour Jesus Christ: 2  ¶ Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord. 3  ¶ According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue: 4  whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. 5  And besides this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue, knowledge; 6  and to knowledge, temperance; and to temperance, patience; and to patience, godliness; 7  and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, charity. 8  For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9  But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins. 10  Wherefore the rather, brethren, give diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never fall: 11  for so an entrance shall be ministered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

 

Come on everyone let us have a reasonable discussion on this subject, remember this is not about just critising others but looking internal at ourselves

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We must first realize that we can be one with God and one with Jesus Crhist. Jesus prayed to the Father that we would be one with Him and the Father. John 17:20-22.  What a privileged and expression of Christ's love for us that He would want to have such an intimate union with us. But it just doesn't stop there.  To be one with God and Jesus would mean that we would be so intertwined with them, that you wouldn't be able to distinguish them from us and us from them. WOW WOW WOW. When we are thus hidden in Christ, and one with God and Jesus, we then can be partakers of their divine nature and moreso, we can be an expression, manifestation, and demonstration of thier divine nature. Jesus said when you see Me you see the Father. When people see us, they should see Jesus and the Father.

 

If we would walk in our God-identity and our divine nature by being immersed in them and them in us, in the union that Jesus prayed that we would have, when we allow them and the Holy Spirit to dominate us, control us and work and move in and through us, when we walk by people, they should think, "Jesus just walked by." Amen!!!

Very well put Apostle!!!
Strongholds, sin and not realizing that we as Saints are OF God's kingdom and should be in God's kingdom  hinders alot of saints from walking in that devine nature. A majority of the time saints are yielding to the flesh and not in communion with the Holy Spirit. We have to stay in God's presence and His Word  so He can rub off on us.

The gifts like the economy are in a state of oppression and depression because Leaders don't see the value in having the gifts present and florishing in the House. Here is the thing. There are saints that are gifted that are not moving and operating in their gifts out of fear and trepidation. I'm not just talking about the five folks either. I'm taking about the Fruit and the Gifts of the Spirit that when made manifest thing MUST CHANGE. The fact that the God in us through the Holy Spirit empowers us to move and to serve is hindered by the natural things. I now from personal experience that your light will shine even when you don't want to let your light so shine. There are those operating in gifts that if harnessed for the Glory of God would set healing and deliverance on a collision course for VICTORY.

 

There is also the issue of CONFORMITY and it's effects on looking the part on both sides. There are those that want to assimilate into the world and then there are those that want to look the part in church but not walk in the spirit.

 

It is important that we get the light from under the bushel so as not to do damage and hold up the light for all the world to see. The word says "And I, IF I BE LIFTED UP FROM THE EARTH I'LL DRAW ALL MEN UNTO ME". The God in you should be reflected so intothe world that people will say what must I do to be SAVED !!!

OK I really don't want to get entangled in an argument on this one, but here goes?

 

There are two camps out there. One camp believes we are here to be like God and so on this path we pick up the characteristics of God and His Heart or Holy Spirit. The other camp seems to be one of dominances telling people what they can and cannot do.

 

The major characteristic that I see is that God is a servant even to the servant and if the object lesson is to be like Him then we also need to be the servant even to the servant or the lowest on earth. I have conversations all the time and ask God why this person is doing this or that and am reminded gently that each of us has been given a free will. The second thing He tries to get across to me is that what changes a person is love.

 

Now granted love is a lot harder than telling people what to do, but I am fairly certain for me at least, love is the only solution and the only way one can tell another what to do is if they are over them in some sort of dominate role.

 

The other side of things is to try and tell people how screwed up we are. In one of the things we deal with on a global basis is abortion. We do not get into right or wrong, but try to express love. We certainly do not feel we have a right to judge or tell anyone they are wrong (telling a person they are wrong is judging them). Out of this statement I hope I don't get a lot of replies at how wrong I am for allowing people to have a free will, but I am risking that. Now I can have personal feelings about abortion and I do have, but what I am here to do and or there to do is represent the love and will of the Father that sends me and if He allows for a free will then so must I if I am of Him. I do have a right to pray for people and love people, serve them and walk with them, but if God does not judge then do I have a right to judge?

 

The second big issue is usually something like prayer in schools, which often times is not about people being stopped by praying, but usually about being a forcing people to accept their beliefs. I say this because people like to for the most part pray in places that normally one would not see prayer. Like for example around the flag pole at a school or at graduation and then like to bring a law suit because they fell they have a right. To us as a policy, if one owns the land and the building then sure have at it. Pray up a storm if you want, but in public places it is or should be about equality and if people have a right to pray to God then under equality witches or Muslims would also have a right to do what they want to do public places. If we are representing God's love and will then we will be representing equality for without equality there cannot be freedom or a free will and without freedom or free will there is not love. One can only love another if they are equal. Forcing someone to accept our beliefs is not a move of the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit is love and where there is love freedom is present.

 

The other major topper out there is a whole bunch of people that seem to feel that Muslims do not have a right to be in this country and some in the church are doing everything they can to point it out why Muslims do not have a right to be in this country. Making that statement does not mean that I personally agree with what Muslims believe. Good or bad Muslims stick together where the body of Christ has not learned to do that.

 

What are the obstacles in front of the church? The church is both the problem and the solution. It is the body of Christ that has all power and authority in heaven and earth, but there are two things that come with that as we the bride of Christ carry the same weight as the groom; the first is responsibility of what happens on earth. Authority and responsibility go hand in hand and if we are not willing to accept responsibility for what is happening out there, then it is difficult to handle the authority. The other thing required is that we move in love and out of love we will move in agreement for it is in agreement that whatever we agree to and touch in His name will be done.

 

So what stops us from being in agreement?

Bad Beliefs;

  • Not our Problem,
  • Governments problem, Gods problem, etc.
  • Problem Too Big
  • Too Busy
  • Must be God’s Will, because He is in control
  • Jesus will deal with it when He comes again
  • Leave it to Jesus, He is in control.
  • If God wants Problems resolved He will tell me to do something. I am waiting on God

That of course is a short list of bad beliefs, but the worst belief is that while everyone believes that the Bible is true, they then come up with arguments that it is not true, (to me I go huh? you can do the same if you feel led). Ephesians lays out that there are some called to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, but for the edification of the body of Christ so that we will no longer be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine, so that we can be neatly fit together. Being neatly fit together is describing unity. There is this really rotten belief that we can agree to disagree. Scripture say if we are not in agreement there is a familiar spirit, but for some reason that is ignored. 

 

I find the Holy Spirit and those from the Holy Spirit are always in agreement. Today the teaching is there that apostles are no longer needed in the body of Christ, which does everything to contradict what scripture says. I find that the feet of the body of Christ is the prophet and the apostle, which tells me the body is not going far in walking together if the body does not accept the apostle or prophet. Today we argue in the church whether starvation is something the body of Christ is responsible for. Each day we argue about it some 14,000 per day starve to death. When the apostle or prophet is not welcomed the church tends to lean towards building buildings and personal stuff then using the money to help people.

 

The apostle is required of God to represent not only the will of God to all on earth, but His love as well. Apostles should not be speaking from the brain, but speaking exactly what God speaks to them as they are a messenger of God to the body of Christ.Prophets are not about telling people bad stuff, like turn or burn, but installing believers in their calling and purpose. Evangelism should not be done unless the church can handle the babies so each can be raised properly. Does it bring glory to God when we do not even have enough love to care for our very own in the body of Christ. Now if your a preacher or teacher you might get the idea or concept it is about preaching or teaching, but the reality of it is that it is supposed to be about love one for the other. If we loved we would not be sending people to the government to be cared for because when we do that we give the government the power and authority we had. What we are saying simply is that they will get more help from the government than from the hand of God.

 

The body of Christ taking people to court? HUH? When we do that we give the courts rule over the body of Christ. I could get into the deception of the 501c3, but I will try not to bore anyone with the details except to say that to have a 501c3 we have to agree with the laws of the land and not use the 501cs in any political way against anyone in the government, which means that we get our buildings and stuff, but then we no longer have right to come against what the government does.

 

Last but not least and I know that some of you are saying to yourself, dang I wish she would get done already! Blessed are the peacemakers as they are the children of God. In Christianity we find that more wars have been created in God's name and more wars are supported in God's name where scripture is clear; blessed are the peacemakers for they are the children of God. I am almost certain peace making is not dropping bombs on people? Sending our sons and daughters to go drop bombs on people probably is also not peace making? Love is peace making, the rest is not.

 

I know there was a big issue with the events in or on 9/11 in the US. It was a horrible thing, no doubt. More money was spent on weapons and bombs and all that goes into it than if the money was used properly, we could have fed and housed everyone on earth. The point is it is our thinking that is off. The church allowed it by not loving people across the planet. If we had fed and housed everyone on earth, there would be no reason to blow up the twin towers. I mean the dumbest of the dumb knows not to bite the hand that feeds you. More money has been spent on church buildings and stuff in general, then it would have cost to feed every man, woman and child on earth, but condition of our hearts has been to build buildings called churches more than it is to love people and care for their needs.

 

We are all of a royal priesthood and as such we should all be crying out for God's mercy to spare us, for not becoming more like God. There is today a call in the church for repentance 2 Chronicles 7:14 and with that the promise is that God will heal the land if we turn from our (not the world or those in the world) but our wicked ways. It will do no good to repent for those that want an abortion or those that want to pray publicly if if the end result is to build more buildings, giving up our birthright to the government through the 501c3. It will only do good to repent if we give that stuff up and be determined to represent the love and will of God and for God to spare us all. It is not sufficient to seek after the heart of God or even to just have the heart of God, but actually do something having the heart of God to be like Him. 

Hi Guys

 

I am going to set some ground rules, this is a serious topic, one in which we should study in relation to the prescribe Scripture and of course you are free to interject other Scriptues that will assist you in supporting your point of view.

 

First off I am not interesting in the the them and us camp, I want your informed take on the subject and questions raise.  Yes you are free to respond objectively to points raise by others but please do not use insult use Scriptures and objective arguements to show why you believe they are wrong and you are right.

 

Now you do not need to use this forum to constantly remind us that there is a them and us camp because if we look through Scriptures we will always see opposing camps for instance in the garden of Eden we had the tree of dependance and the tree of independance, good and evil , God and satan, love and hate, right and left, the wheat and the tares, the wise virgins so do not turn this into a slagging match with the this and them cap.  Insteadplease concentrate on the issues that will help us  and who knows if you put your points across and obejectively show others where they are wrong we might all end up on the same camp.  With this said I will tackle one of the divine characters:

 

 

LOVE is a divine characteristics that seem or appear as if it or the very act of it is a simple one, however, I believe it is the most difficult feat for us as believers to accomplish in relation to the second commandment which said 'Love thy Neighbour as Thyself'.  Why do I say love is dificult it is because we are not just required to love our neighbour but instead it says we are to love our neighbour as OURSELVES.  So you see it is the as THYSELF that I belive make this the most difficult of the divine characteristics, because most people do not love themselves, therefore how can we possible love our neighbour as ourselves when throughout most of our lives we have come to devalve who we are because someone somewhere have messed with our mind by telling us we are no good, we wont amount to much.  And the other half of us spend our life time being dissatify with parts of our body so we spend time hating either our weight , nose, looks etc. 

 

 With the low self esteem and self confidence issues within ourseleves most of us could not love our neighbours because we don not yet know how to love our self, so what we do is find faults with our neighbours becuse we see fault in ourselves.

AMEN. I beg your forgiveness if I offended. I love the Word and God's people especially and it is not my nature to divide the very house that I live in. I humbly beg your forgiveness if I transgressed. I think I will become an observer. I think only PHD and DD and other Theologians have the answers. 

Preacher this  discussion  is for all of Gods people to partake in, as children of the light should we not be able to have a discussion without slanging match can you not recall Jesus as He sat in the temple joining discussion and asking questions  at the age of 12 and if He is our example why cannot we do the same.  This discussion is for all of Gods people I don't have any title after my name I am a plain old Sister who desire to walk in heavenly places.  So please do not just sit on the sideline, partake in this discussion and dont assume I was addressing you .  If you will note that  I did not refer my response to any particular person, I just wanted some ground rules to hopefully keep us on track.

 

 

Right I place ground rules for everyone because I want an informed discussion I do not want mud slinging .  Therefore those rules are for everyone please stop getting parnoid.  I want a fruitful discussion

Reply by Rev. Anthony R. Watson 4 hours ago

"I'm not paranoid, I simply asked you a question, goodness. The "mud-slinging" has already started with a certain post talking about "two camps," which I'm sure prompted you to set these "ground rules for everyone" in the first place. Regardless, everyone was pretty much in compliance until that post appeared."

 

Stating that there are two camps does not mean I was mudslinging in any way shape or form. I was stating what I saw and see and should have a right to be able to speak without some one attempting to put me down. I realize in the church one does not have a right to speak openly and honestly about what they see, but in the US we have more rights to free speech? Your statement saying that I was mudslinging is in the finest tradition of spin.

 

Yes there are two camps. One camp is a group that work to be servants and the other camp works to be over and control everything or as much as they can, which is not the law of liberty. I said nothing that was inflammatory and instead of it being dismissed I see that the reason we will not see the characteristics of God are the things that stand in the way and in large part what stands in the way is control and bad beliefs. 

 

One of the points that I saw at least in what Jaja Azikiwe, Prophetic Teacher was saying is one is not over another in the body of Christ.[Let] nothing [be done] through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. What he was saying was that people are to serve and not be over the other. I get it honest, you guys are saying that you are better than I am and are over me (except I am not buying it).

 

What I was saying is exactly that no one has a right to judge another. "I do have a right to pray for people and love people, serve them and walk with them, but if God does not judge then do I have a right to judge?"

 

Now I was talking about myself. Not sure how mudslinging can take place if one is talking about themselves?

 

If I am in error you get to pray for me, but no where does it say you get to criticize. If you don't understand why I wrote what I wrote, ask questions about something.

 

"Regardless, everyone was pretty much in compliance until that post appeared." I honestly hope you don't think your post was in compliance of anything. 


 

 

Well, I for one fully agree!

To me Jesus is the gate. He is my brother. He gave His life so all may enter, but having said that if we are really like Him then as He came to represent the love and will of the Father who sent Him, then we as we grow in Him, which can only come through the five fold gift ministry, will also lay down our lives and will (1John 3:16) and represent the love and will of the Father who sends each of us.

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