If you say you have a brother, I would accept that, because millions of people have brothers and there’s nothing peculiar about it. If, however, we met for coffee and you gestured toward an empty chair and said, “And here’s my brother!” ... well... we’d have a problem. And if you told me that if I believed first, then I’d “see” him, I would made a gentle excuse and grab my coffee and get away from you as quickly as possible.
Free Republic is pro-God. You are at a convention of people who do hear Him - in truth, who are routinely speaking with Him all around you and have for years.
Is it rational to presume that all of us are nutz because you cannot hear Him?
What if you were at a convention of physicists?
Would you deny that the cosmos exists because you cannot noodle it? Or the quantum?
Would you deny relativistic time because you cannot conceive of it?
Would you deny that you are rocketing through space at over 550,000 mph simply because you cannot physically sense it?
Envision how those physicists might react to such a person at the convention - and compare it to how your correspondents have reacted to you.
Man is not the measure of God.
Hi Lady,
God is Spirit. Jesus speaking said in John 4:24 "God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
You must eat His flesh and drink His blood. Jesus said in John 6:53 "I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. ..."63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life..."
If you are thirsty, you can come to Him to drink. Jesus said in John 7:37 "On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. 38 Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 39 By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive..."
His kingdom is not of this world. Jesus had this conversation in John 18: 33 "Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?" 34 "Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?" ...Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. ....But now my kingdom is from another place." 37 "You are a king, then!" said Pilate. Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."
Do you see it now, Lady? I hope you do.
Jesus also said to His own in John 14:15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you."
However, Jesus also said in John 10 to those who asked "If you are the Christ, tell us plainly." 25 Jesus answered, "I did tell you, but you do not believe. The miracles I do in my Father's name speak for me, 26 but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. 27 My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. 30 I and the Father are one."