WT: The most important thing for Jehovah is to sanctify himself.

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

 @"a holy place"  Oh dear, and do you believe all that you've written or copied ?

Quote "The problem isn't trying to figure out ‘the times and seasons’, it’s contending with the disappointment of not getting it right at “the proper time” and moving past that."

That is so funny when you look back at all the failed predictions. Predictions that would not have been made if God was actually 'running the show'.  

It is one thing for you to suggest that God 'didn't give all the information at one time'. BUT why would God deliberately want His org to tell lies or make false predictions ? 

[Kosonen]

@b4ucuhear 

You quoted 1John 5:3 "For this is what the love of God means, that we observe his commandments;+ and yet his commandments are not burdensome,"

 

I remember when I for the first time learned about this scripture. I thought, oh that is easy, you don't need to have any special feeling (love), just do it! Preach, go to meetings, avoid serious sins, and try to do all the things WT org suggests. By that I thought I had fulfilled the most important commandment in the Bible to "love Jehovah your God from all your heart, soul and strength". That was what I tried to do more than 15 year from my baptism. I was pioneer for 5 years, ministerial servant, and I had a lot of assignments in the congregation. My faith was based on performing and performance. Now thinking back to that, I realize that I was very active but it was very superficial. Instead of feeling love for God my worship was in fact based on trying to be righteous. I had mistaken that to be love for God in its entirety. Sadly during those years my prayers were very short, and often I could not come with many things to pray about. And I was so busy with keeping up with all what was imposed by the WT organization that I had not time to seriously read the Bible. It was like a choice between reading the Bible or reading the literature and preparing for meetings and for talks. 

So I think there are many JWs out there like me who have misunderstood 1John 5:3. But later when I begun diligently prayerfully to read the Bible with the aim of making further spiritual progress I remarked countless scriptures about love for Jehovah and Jesus and fellow humans and even enemies. And I remarked scriptures that showed what love is. Finally I understood that love is a feeling and when it is accompanied by accurate knowledge it motivates to do fine works that please God and rejoice people.

True you can like a machine do fine works, and be quite righteous. But it will be like forced. Probably people will remark in that case that there is not love behind all those works. Such a person might well appear stressed even irritable doing all those works for God and surrounding people. 

Apostle Paul had understood that there is a problem when good works are done without the right feeling, the feeling of love. He writes:

1 Corinthians 13:1 "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a clanging gong or a clashing cymbal. 2  And if I have the gift of prophecy and understand all the sacred secrets and all knowledge,+ and if I have all the faith so as to move* mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.*+ 3  And if I give all my belongings to feed others,+ and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love,+ I do not benefit at all.

4  Love+ is patient*+ and kind.+ Love is not jealous.+ It does not brag, does not get puffed up,+ 5  does not behave indecently,*+ does not look for its own interests,+ does not become provoked.+ It does not keep account of the injury.*+ 6  It does not rejoice over unrighteousness,+ but rejoices with the truth. 7 It bears all things,+ believes all things,+ hopes all things,+ endures all things.+

8  Love never fails."

To make it even easier to understand we could replace Paul's wording 'love is' by when 'you feel love'.

Then it would read:

When you feel love you are patient and kind. When you feel love you are not jealous. When you feel love you don't feel for bragging, and you not get puffed up,+ 5  and when you feel love you don't behave indecently,*and when you love you don't not look for your own interests, and you don't become provoked. When you love you don't bother to keep account of the injury.* 6  when you have the feeling of love you can't rejoice over unrighteousness, but you will rejoice with the truth. 7 When you love you bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things.

And here is an other scripture showing that love really is a feeling.

1Peter 4:8 "Above all things, have intense love for one another,  because love covers a multitude of sins."

Is it not evident that as soon as you feel love to somebody you don't bother to remember of a fellow person's sins. 

It has been said that it is thanks to love we will be able to endure and remain faithful to God. In this case specifically the feeling of love is the vital force that enables endurance.

So as conclusion to this we need to cultivate the feeling of love so that it would abound in us and have accurate knowledge so we could project that feeling in a right way.

Philippians 1:8 "For God is my witness of how I am longing for all of you with such tender affection as Christ Jesus has. 9  And this is what I continue praying, that your love may abound still more and more with accurate knowledge and full discernment; 10  that you may make sure of the more important things, so that you may be flawless and not stumbling others up to the day of Christ; 11  and that you may be filled with righteous fruit, which is through Jesus Christ, to God’s glory and praise."

 

 

[Arauna]

11 hours ago, Kosonen said:

which is through Jesus Christ, to God’s glory and praise."

True, but you must remember we all have different backgrounds and must fall and get up to have tested faith. We do not have perfect love for God but with time we get better when we work at it...... and then we still fail and do not give perfect love. However, we can improve all the time. God knows we are imperfect flesh.  We continually "miss the mark" . This is why we should look only at ourselves and not judge others. 

Therefore, when we are immature and try to please God- he is the one who judges is it not? He remembers that we are dust.

15 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

it’s contending with the disappointment of not getting it right

You will be so busy fighting and contending that Armageddon will be here and you still would not recognize it......

17 hours ago, Kosonen said:

Let's dig deeper into this subject. 

Thanks for the thank you. Now that is a positive attitude. I like it. 

[Kosonen]

On 1/9/2020 at 5:09 AM, "a holy place" said:

 

 

On 1/9/2020 at 5:09 AM, "a holy place" said:

You said-   "If we love God more than ourselves, then sanctification of God is more important than our own salvation. That means we would be ready to die for God, even for no reward. That would be love in its full sense."

Surely you’re not saying when a person dies faithful to God his motive should be for no reward?  I wouldn’t be very happy with that outcome.

 

 

No, I am just saying that love can be so great that some are ready to die for for others without expecting any reward. Some atheist could propably do that. Well that thought came to me from apostle Paul. He expressed his extraordinary unselfish love when he said in Romans 9:3: "...... I have great grief and unceasing pain in my heart. 3  For I could wish that I myself were separated from the Christ as the cursed one for the sake of my brothers, my relatives according to the flesh, 4  who are Israelites. 

I am of course fully aware that God will reward his faithful ones. But as I understand  mature faithful people to God are primarly motivated by love for God. And only secondly by the reward of everlasting life. 

[Patiently waiting for Truth]

 @"a holy place"  Oh dear, and do you believe all that you've written or copied ?

Quote "The problem isn't trying to figure out ‘the times and seasons’, it’s contending with the disappointment of not getting it right at “the proper time” and moving past that."

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This is something that I quoted from '@a holy place', as you can see.

However @Arauna does this :-

 

21 hours ago, 4Jah2me said:

it’s contending with the disappointment of not getting it right

You will be so busy fighting and contending that Armageddon will be here and you still would not recognize it......

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I do hope others don't suffer in this way. That poor woman seems to need to misquote me every time. 

She is pretending that they are my words she is answering when in fact they are from a quote of someone elses. Why does this woman need to do this to me every time ? 

 

[Kosonen]

@"a holy place" The WT article explains how sincere the WT organization is. That would be nice if that was true. Maybe  they were sincere sometime in the past. But they proved to me that they are not sincere currently. If you don't know, I must tell you that elders must have instructions from the Governing Body not to listen to suggestions on correcting WT doctrines. Because they told me not to show them any scriptures to prove my points at the judicial meeting. And I have regularly written a lot of letters and sent them to the GB when I have understood new important things they still do not understand. And I have not recieved even once a reply. 

I just make the conclusion that God uses different vehicles for his purpose in different times. 

During Jesus' time he used the people that had the religious authority in Israel. Then John the Baptist was sent to turn the people from their sins to righteousness, then came Jesus Christ. And after that were christian congregations formed. And as predicted they would be influenced by Satan and the wheat and the weeds would continue to grow mixed. Under the authority of the Catholic church the 66 books of the Bible were determined. Then later Martin Luther achieved some improvements and started the protestant reformation. After that more separate churches sprung up driving the reformation further. Then Russell came and advanced the reformation and we have the WT organization. What is next? Well WT organization think they are the last reformation before Jesus returns in his kingly power. Sure the WT organization wishes that it would be so. 

But God foresaw how it would be in the end time. That there would be too much wickedness within God's organization and therefore it will cease to function,  because it will be forced to that by earthly authorieties. During that time however 'those with insight will be the source of spiritual guidance, individual anointed.

Daniel 8:9 Out of one of them came another horn, a small one, and it grew very great toward the south and toward the east* and toward the Decoration.*+10  It grew so great that it reached all the way to the army of the heavens, and it caused some of the army and some of the stars to fall to the earth, and it trampled them down. 11  It exalted itself even against the Prince of the army, and from him the constant feature* was taken away, and the established place of his sanctuary was thrown down.+ 12  And an army was given over, together with the constant feature,*because of transgression; and it kept throwing truth to the earth, and it acted and had success.

Daniel11:31 And arms* will stand up, proceeding from him; and they will profane the sanctuary,+ the fortress, and remove the constant feature.*+“And they will put in place the disgusting thing that causes desolation.+32  “And those who act wickedly against the covenant, he will lead into apostasy by means of smooth words.* But the people who know their God will prevail and act effectively. 33  And those having insight+ among the people will impart understanding to the many. And they will be made to stumble by sword and by flame, by captivity and by plundering, for some days. 34  But when they are made to stumble, they will be given a little help; and many will join with them by means of smooth speech.* 35  And some of those having insight will be made to stumble, in order to do a refining work because of them and to do a cleansing and a whitening+ until the time of the end; because it is yet for the time appointed.

The WT organization deceives itself teaching that those prophecies got their fulfilment in the past. Instead it is something that will come over them in the future. And a final refining will occure. And remark "And those having insight+ among the people will impart understanding to the many."

Clearly this cannot aply to the Governing Body, because they are not among the people. But the 20000 anointed are spread among the people. Surely many of them will have insight.

[Kosonen]

Let's look at how important Jehovah God's own sanctification is for Himself. 

This is important to understand. If it would be the thing God cares the most about and if everything else is secundary, then God does not appear that loving after all. And that kind of  belief would impede us to love God from all our heart. And because we imitate God, that would make us also less loving. 

Then that would mean that we too are right to be very defensive about our own reputation. Already this feels wrong. We are not proud, haughty, selfcentered me-first people. To be primarly interested about one's own reputation is not compatible with Christian values, such as humility.

It is in fact evident from the Bible that God prioritizes other things than having a good reputation. God has let people mock him for long time and he has let Satan try to destroy God's reputation. 

We can read In Bible accounts about people who ask God to think about His own reputation and do something about it, as if God did not think about it.

In Exodus 32:9-14 Jehovah wanted to exterminate the people he had brought up from Egypt because of how obstinate, rebellious and disobedient they truly were. But Moses pleaded Jehovah God to think about His own reputation and not do it. So Jehovah reconsidered his intent to exterminate them.

https://www.jw.org/en/library/bible/study-bible/books/exodus/32/

Psalm 74:10 How long, O God, will the adversary keep taunting?+Will the enemy treat your name with disrespect forever?+11  Why do you hold back your hand, your right hand?+Draw it out of your bosom* and put an end to them........22 Rise up, O God, and plead your legal case. Remember how the foolish taunt you all day long.+23  Do not forget what your foes are saying.The uproar of those who defy you is ascending constantly.

Here we see that Jehovah has other things he prioritizes, to the degree that many God's servants have wondered why God is not hurring to put an end to those who damage his reputation. 

 

2 Peter 3:9 Jehovah is not slow concerning his promise,+ as some people consider slowness, but he is patient with you because he does not desire anyone to be destroyed but desires all to attain to repentance.