1. If Jesus was the long awaited Messiah, sent by God - not just to the people of Israel, but the world - then the second portion of the question stands on its own, without the dependent clause, “If Jesus was the Messiah,…”
2. Jesus the Messiah DID bring peace. It came, though, not in the form that people demanded, i.e., political and religious freedom from Rome’s domination.
3. The form of peace that Jesus the Messiah brought was another Kingdom - invisible to the naked eye.
4. It is helpful to understand ’normality’ the way Jesus expressed it: on the basis of what one has ‘lost’, and the reality of what one ‘gains’ by believing in Him. Jesus’ words to Nicodemus, recorded in John’s Gospel, chapter 3, verse 7 (3:7), remain helpful in this regard.
5. In light of this normality, Genesis 3:7, therefore, speaks to a loss of the Life of God (breath of God) from the human spirit.
6. If normality is defined on the basis of how Jesus described it - and He Himself claimed to be speaking the words of the Father - then we can have confidence in Him, regardless of a lack of peace due to human and non-human evil.
7. Inner peace for the believer in Jesus as Messiah is a ’sign’ of being secure in His Love. A lack of peace presents a different perspective/expectation to individuals/groups on what Jesus’ mission was while upon the earth. ]]>
If I may ask, you said you are an active Buddhist… So, what place does God has in your life? Do you feel like you have God in your life? Is it true that Buddhism leaves God, the Creator & Designer of it all, out of the picture? That it teaches that you can “do it” on your own? ]]>
The Feasts are amazing- Yeshua, Jesus, was born on the Feast of Tabernacles, which is all about G-d ‘tabernacling’ with people. Lamb Chosing Day, or otherwise celebrated as Palm Sunday, is the day that Yeshua entered by the Sheep Gate- the same time that all the Passover lambs were entering the city. It was as if G-d was saying, “Here is My lamb; will you chose Him?” For four days the Passover lamb is kept and examined to make sure there are no blemishes. Yeshua was closely examined during these four days and no fault was found in Him. The daily morning sacrifice was at exactly the same time Yeshua was nailed to the cross- 9 AM, on Passover. 3 PM, the hour of the final sacrifice, is the same hour that Yeshua died. Yeshua is the lamb that was slain from the foundations of the world. He is the Aleph Tav. G-d planned every detail long before Yeshua’s death happened.
]]>
[url=http://www.tat4free.com/]Ivan[/url]
]]> islamic names
]]>god forgiven ]]>
I think your own story is a courageous one. There is a book I recently ‘discovered’ through a friend doing a PhD in Wales, UK. It is called, ‘Jewish Believers in Jesus: The early Centuries,’ co-authored by Drs. Oskar Skarasune and Reidar Hvalvik (Norway). It is an important text, and highly readable. It makes use of important historical documents, archaeological works, and scholarly citations, making it an overall appealing work indeed. Here is the link: http://www.fetchbook.info/compare.do?search=9781565637634
Sincerely,
AM
PhD student in Theology.