Luke 2:10,11
"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."
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“Good news” =
agathos=
That which, being “good” in its character or constitution, is beneficial in its effect.
Being morally honorable, pleasing to God, and therefore beneficial.
"And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.
For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord."
NOT
Some people, not many people>>>>>>
ALL people!
Jonathan Mitchell N.T.=
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And then – look and think of this! – all at once [the] Lord’s [= Yahweh’s] agent (or: messenger) took a stand upon [their encampment], in the midst of them (or: stood at their [side]), and [the] Lord’s [= Yahweh’s] glory (Theophanous manifestation) shone (gleamed and radiated) around about them, and they became afraid [with] a great fear (= were struck with terror).
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And so the agent (messenger) says to them, "Stop being afraid (or: Do not continue fearing)! Look, and consider this – for you see, I, myself, am now bringing and announcing good news (a message of ease and wellness) to and for you folks: great joy which will progressively be for all the people (or: will continue existing in the entire general public),
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"that a Savior (Deliverer; Rescuer; Restorer to health, wholeness, and to your original state, condition and position) was birthed and brought forth to, for and among you folks today, within the town of David, Who is (exists being) Christ [the] Lord (or: [the] Lord Christ; or: an Anointed Lord, Master and Owner; an Anointed One, a Lord; = Messiah, [the] Lord)!
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“And now this [will be] a sign to and for you folks: you will proceed finding a Babe (an infant) having been wrapped in long bands of swathing cloth, and continuing lying within a manger (feeding trough; [note: the average home kept domestic animals in the house at night]).”
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Then unexpectedly and suddenly [the] fullness of a band of heavenly soldiers (or: a full number of an army which inhabits, and can be compared to, the atmosphere) came to be with the agent (messenger) – ones continuously praising God and repeatedly saying,
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"[This is] a reputation for God, in the highest places!
(or: Glory to God, in the midst of the highest [realms];
or: [It is] a manifestation which call forth praise to God, among the highest [peoples];
or: An appearance and a manifestation by God, within the midst of a most elevated location;
or: A notion and an imagination within [the] highest places in God);
and upon earth – among humanity (or: within mankind; in union with people) – a peace and harmony having the qualities and characteristics of well-thinking and goodwill
(or: [= shalom] whose source is good opinions and imaginations of well-being; or: peace which is a manifestation and a reputation of good and ease; or: a peace which belongs to good pleasure; peace from a disposition of goodness)!"
- And so it happened, as the agents (messengers; folks with the message; [A, D, Y and others add: – even the humans]) went away from them into the heaven (or: the atmosphere), [that] the shepherds began speaking to one another, saying, “We should by all means pass through now, clear to Bethlehem, and we can see this gush-effect (the result of this flow; or: this rhema declaration and saying) that has happened (been birthed), which the Lord [= Yahweh] makes known to (or: for) us.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpgaWm2pnNs
No more let sin and sorrows grow,
Nor thorns infest the ground;
He comes to make His blessings flow
Far as the curse is found,
Far as the curse is found,
Far as, far as the curse is found.
From eternity past God intended that the most vivid and profound demonstration of his glory would come in the form of His work of salvation on the cross of Christ.
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God then made man to punish him.
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He made him perfect and thus unlikely to ever need punishing, or, for that matter, a Savior.
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By a happy coincidence, and against all the odds, this perfect man sinned, thus allowing God to fulfill His purposes for both the man and Christ.
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When he sinned, God, who is suddenly confronted with the prospect of being able to fulfill all of His original plans, becomes furious.
What you have just read is not a joke. I wish that it were.
Rather, I have simply enumerated the points that comprise the Calvinist theological system, or, as I call it: the Happy Coincidence model of sin and salvation.
It reflects what can only be described as an Alice-in-Wonderland reality, in -which the only sense is nonsense, and logic is the enemy. -Stephen Campana-
DIVINE COUNSEL
“…having made known to us the mystery concerning His will, according to His good intention, which He proposed to Himself within Himself…” (Translation of Eph. 1:9 by Eddie Browne).
The heart of a man is his final counsellor for he is created according to God’s likeness, the likeness of the God who counsels Himself within Himself in accordance with His (determinative) good intention. It is with man, as it is with God, that the heart is where all knowledge and emotion come together to determine what will become the acted-out person - - garbage in, garbage out.
The heart is that “place” in a man where intuition, cognitive thought and emotions come together to form a complex of self-creation. The result can range from utter vacuity of persona, all the way to the fullness of eternal personhood lived out in the aeons. The situation there in the heart amounts to a committee sort of thing - - I’m reminded of my dear friend, Ding Teuling’s, definition of, and joke about a committee as:
"A group of the incompetent, chosen by the unwilling, to do the unnecessary."
That’s a picture of what often goes on in the human heart. A committee of all kinds of internal and external input forms within the heart with each member possessed of its own unique confusion, which together builds to a critical mass of misinformation, disinformation and mixed feelings creating a cacophony of opinions out from which emerges the dysfunctional existential self which is in a state of desperate insecurity regarding its worth.
The human heart is the seminal spiritual Babylon the Great. One cannot be fully delivered from spiritual Babylon without dealing with its seed in one’s own heart. With God, no such confusion exists. Peace reigns in the heart of divinity, for there all knowing and feeling are counselled by the divine passion. The divine passion is the all-wise and ultimately influential advisory board member.
What shall God do? How shall God act? According to the Divine Nature’s passion, that’s how. God’s passion is that we shall have all of Him, and He shall have all of us. That passion allows for no disagreement in the Godhead. It is agreed that God shall have us all in the depths of our humanness and in the universality of our humanity.
How does the Lord make our hearts to be like His?
How does He quiet the maddening bedlam at our existential core? Upon our hearts descends the shadow of a cross, an awful, terrible cross that breaks through all our alienation, and persuades us as only it can, that God is FOR us.
After all is said and done, there, and only there, under the shadow of the cross am I convicted that God is really, yes really for me. There I know I am loved and I discover the all-determining passion of God. Jesus hushes the storm of internal voices that mix promise with disqualification to keep me in bondage to the useless effort of self-determination. -John Gavazzoni-
I see an army - I hear a song
rise in the nations, beautiful and strong.
A song of mercy that shatters pride,
a song of great love that purifies.
I see warriors with hands upraised,
holding no weapon, but their swords of praise.
Strongholds shatter. Kings bow down
before the Master and yield their crowns.
And every eye will see Him as Love wins through at last.
And every heart be drawn unto the Lamb.
Every voice will cry out what every heart will know
and before the throne we stand.
I see the earth now, its groanings cease.
Creation lifts praise to the Prince of Peace.
Wars have ended and weapons fall.
An invitation to one and all.
I see the Church now as a passionate Bride.
I see her Lover with His fiery eyes.
All His longing and her desire
join as one flame in heaven’s fire.
And every eye will see Him as Love wins through at last.
And every heart be drawn unto the Lamb.
Every voice will cry out what every heart will know
and before the throne we stand.
I see a kingdom that never ends.
I see a Judge now who calls sinners ‘Friends’.
Who gathers rebels and overwhelms
Them with His mercy so He can dwell
in hearts He’s captured and rules in love.
He wraps around them a robe dipped in blood.
His tears are washing their fears away
and then He lifts them to see His face.
And every eye will see Him as Love wins through at last.
And every heart be drawn unto the Lamb.
Every voice will cry out what every heart will know
and before the throne we stand.
All will gaze in wonder at the reach of heaven’s plan.
How could mercy touch the lowest man?
Drawn from every nation, every voice,and every tongue, amazed at what the Lord of Love has done.
amazed at what the Lord of Love has done.
I see a King now and I believe.
I hear His voice now and He’s calling me.
-Song by Pastor Randy-
God’s Ultimate
“We do not wish to belittle the awful judgments of God. They will be terrible enough. But we desire to get all the perspective of Scripture and look to the end God has in view.
We do not believe that orthodox theology has done this. It has stopped short in the ages themselves and has misnamed them eternity, and has therefore presented the vision of a heaven full of saints and a hell full of tortured sinners in endless existence. In such a survey of the ultimate there is no place for the vision that Paul gives when God shall be All in all (1Cor. 15:28).
We contend that nothing less than the reconciliation of all would satisfy the heart of God and be a fitting consummation to the shedding of the blood of His Son.”
-A.E. Saxby-
God In Creation Redemption Judgement & Consummation
God in Creation, Redemption, Judgment and Consummation, by A. E. Saxby
God is the Source, Guide, Goal of ta panta
Welcome to the Ultimate recovery program
"God rescued us from dead-end alleys and dark dungeons. He’s set us up in the kingdom of the Son he loves so much, the Son who got us out of the pit we were in, got rid of the sins we were doomed to keep repeating.
Christ Holds It All Together
We look at this Son and see the God who cannot be seen. We look at this Son and see God’s original purpose in everything created. For everything, absolutely everything, above and below, visible and invisible, rank after rank after rank of angels—everything got started in him and finds its purpose in him. He was there before any of it came into existence and holds it all together right up to this moment. And when it comes to the church, he organizes and holds it together, like a head does a body.
He was supreme in the beginning and—leading the resurrection parade—he is supreme in the end.
From beginning to end he’s there, towering far above everything, everyone. Everything of God finds its proper place in him without crowding. Not only that, but>>>
all the broken and dislocated pieces of the universe—people and things, animals and atoms—get properly fixed and fit together in vibrant harmonies, all because of his death, his blood that poured down from the cross." -The Message-
Antiphonal Worship
You are worthy to take the scroll,
And to open its seals;
For You were slain,
And have redeemed us to God by Your blood
Out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation,
And have made us kings and priests to our God;
And we shall reign on the earth.”
Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice:
“Worthy is the Lamb who was slain
To receive power and riches and wisdom,
And strength and honor and glory and blessing!”
And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying:
"Blessing and honor and glory and power
Be to Him who sits on the throne,
And to the Lamb, forever and ever!”
Then the four living creatures said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshipped Him who lives forever and ever.
A.T. Robertson Word Pictures=
Every created thing (pan ktisma). Every creature in a still wider antiphonal circle beyond the circle of angels (from ktizw, for which see 1 Timothy 4:4 ; James 1:18 ), from all the four great fields of life (in heaven, upon the earth, under the earth as in verse James 3 , with on the sea epi th qalassh added). No created thing is left out. This universal chorus of praise to Christ from all created life reminds one of the profound mystical passage in Romans 8:20-22 concerning the sympathetic agony of creation (ktisi) in hope of freedom from the bondage of corruption. If the trail of the serpent is on all creation, it will be ultimately thrown off.
Let’s speak today regarding our Fathers cherished purpose in the Son of His love, our Lord and Saviour of all mankind, Christ Jesus our Lord.
"…so abundant was God’s grace,the grace which He, the possessor of all wisdom and understanding, lavished upon us, when He made known to us the secret of His will. And this is in harmony with God’s merciful purpose for the government of the world when the times are ripe for it— the purpose which He has cherished in His own mind of restoring the whole creation to find its one Head in Christ; yes, things in Heaven and things on earth, to find their one Head in Him. In Him we also have been made heirs, having been chosen beforehand in accordance with the intention of Him whose might carries out in everything the design of His own will, so that we should be devoted to the extolling of His glorious attributes.
The Healing leaves of the Tree of Life =
THERAPUEO
Serves as a therapon & attendant.
To care for the sick.
To heal. To treat. To cure.
therapeutics