Almost 80, and God is still teaching me.

[OneLight]

I agree @Arrabon.  As we age, less of the world look enticing.  I can say I care less about things or if I'm missing out on something exciting, like I did when I was much younger.  Instead, I now have the time to reflect on life and what the meaning of life is.  God has opened my eyes more after I turned the half century mark many years ago.

Edited April 7, 2021 by OneLight
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[Willa]

To me the deepest things of God are sometimes the most fundamental, like Christ and Him crucified.  Then we discover the blood sacrifices running all through the Bible that foretell God's gift.  We see the Temple veil torn and allowing us access to the Holy of Holies and the Mercy Seat.  Then we find it is a shadow of that which is in heaven.  While I normally check the things God is revealing to me with commentaries, it is much more exciting to just listen to Jesus as He opens up the Scriptures to us.  Hebrews is such a beautiful book.  We see Jesus as our Great High Priest and as the better sacrifice.  He is our everything.  

[Willa]

1 hour ago, Arrabon said:

@Willa

Yes, books and other learning tools are expensive, and heavy and cumbersome, but there are things in books you can't get anywhere else, at least to me. I have a whole library of books and other study helps, and yes the level I study at is expensive, but what price can a person put on their salvation and faith. For me it's priceless, and when it's obvious that God is calling me to add to my library, because he has a new level of learning for me to be exposed to, who am I to be worried about money when God always provides for me ahead of time, and then rewards me financially in a greater amount than what I spent.

You can't outspend God. I have spent many many thousands of dollars to study God's word in English and in koine Greek, and God continues to keep me well supplied in an "ABUNDANCE". I live to continually know Him better and continually seek His plan for my life until it ends, and continually seek to serve Him and serve all those He brings into my life, and I continually seek to know the ONE truth of His word, as the Holy Spirit continues to lead and guide me in the way and truth of His word.

His Son suffered and died for my sins and salvation.

What can He ask of me that is "TOO MUCH or too expensive?"

My name is Arrabon

I started to learn Greek but got sick and had to drop out.  However, I still love word studies.  When it comes to the Hebrew, I can sit at George's feet and Ravi Jacob Ben Avraham in the Hebrew Roots area of the Theology forum.  My mind just doesn't think like a Jew or a middle easterner.  My mind is stuck in Greko/Roman gear. 

Rarely do I read other types of books anymore, but my favorite author is Corrie ten Boom.  She can simplify truths using analogies like Jesus did.  It is like when I was in college and we were learning cell biology.  My prof was a genius who had her doctorate in genetics.  And a Christian.  But she could turn a strand of DNA into a Choo Choo train for us, and suddenly the light went on.  That is what makes an excellent teacher.  She was only 28 but was going back for her MD. 

[Arrabon]

To all here, many up there in age, like myself, I have come to find the wonders of the aging process a thing of beauty, a time of peace, a magnificent time of resting in the Lord, and having so much joy in my faith and truth that I struggled to find for decades, knowing that the road left to travel is much shorter, than the long road that brought me here, but I am still continually excited for all the new revelations from scripture that have been in front of me all my life in Christ, and as in the past, God, at the right time will open my eyes to still show me new depths of knowledge in His word, that will still cause me to find new meanings in His teachings, that will change not only my thinking, but will change how I live for Him, and how I live for and with those around me, in my actions and in my Love for them.

What a joyous and marvelously stunning faith we have been given by His incredible grace and mercy.

PRAISE GOD for all OUR GLORIOUS SAVIOR, and who He chooses to be to each one of us PERSONALLY - AMEN!!

My name is Arrabon

[Guest kingdombrat]

On 4/3/2021 at 10:06 PM, Arrabon said:

I love my Christian faith !! I love my God and Savior !!

I love to study God's word more and more the older I get.

There are always new and important "MEAT" of the word studies that God brings to me when I least expect it.

When you study for over 40 years you build a foundation of faith that God can use to continually build on, and that's exactly what he's been doing.

I was studying a topic today I've been working on for sometime, and while researching, these new words and ideas that have always been there, but I have always read over many times, like everyone has, started to become my focus for hours - Totally exciting and exhilarating. God and His word excites me.

When I study I use 2 monitors now, each 32" wide, that I can use independently of each other with one computer, and print commentaries from each monitor on one printer.

I can move my cursor from monitor to monitor.

I designed the system and had it built so I can do research on one monitor while writing the results of my research on the other. I dreamed of this for years and the technology finally caught up so I could do it. The results for me are "spectacular" for my process of learning and growing. I have a third monitor, as my system will do 4 monitors, but I'm still getting used to all the new choices I have, including on-screen prompts for more options.

I feel like I have entered the "Twilight Zone" of learning, with so much more technology still available.

I can study up to about 6 topics at one time, but before it was so much more difficult with only one source to do research from. I would get my topics mixed up.

This has opened up a whole new world of study where I can compare side by side, commentaries from different authors, and see how much they differ or compliment each other in their conclusions, and with more monitors, up to 4, I can also, at the same time, type out my own responses and conclusions, and then print them on one printer from any of the 4 monitors - CRAZY , BUT SO FUN!

I've entered a whole new level for developing  new learning skills and researching - I am pumped !!

My name is Arrabon.

 

Amen!

[JohnR7]

On 4/4/2021 at 12:06 AM, Arrabon said:

When you study for over 40 years you build a foundation of faith that God can use to continually build on

We are just getting started after 40 years of being a christian. 

[Arrabon]

7 hours ago, JohnR7 said:

We are just getting started after 40 years of being a christian. 

@JohnR7

Your absolutely right.

I was into my 36th year of my faith and study, when God called me to a 7 year desert experience of the deepest learning time I've ever had, led by the Holy Spirit. This was none of my own doing, as I felt the Holy Spirit HEAVY in my spirit as he made Himself strongly aware of Himself to me, and the direction He was taking me.

Everyday of my study time, He would lead me and speak to me in those quiet impressions, that were nevertheless so strong and understandable. Never once have I ever had a hard time recognizing His voice or his intentions, or those words He speaks through those nearly "AUDIBLE" impressions, that are somehow translated into very strong meanings and leading.

It was quite an experience to just turn my life over to God completely, never done it to this level before, and let Him have His very strong and purposeful complete will in my life, guiding me exactly where he wanted me to be, and showing me what he wanted me to learn and showed me the tools (Books) I should acquire to help me get to wherever he was taking me. To say the least, it was INTENSE!!

So here I am now with a solid foundation of faith to grow from until the end of my life.

I'm definetly not the person I was when I started over 7 years ago, and what I believe now has either been highly expanded from where I was in my faith, or so much has been added to my faith, that in most circles of faith discussions, I simply no longer fit in.

What I learned from the Holy Spirit is nothing like what you hear in church, and a lot of what I learned from the original koine Greek language helped me to study about things you will never hear in church, but it's right there in scripture, just waiting to be discovered and studied and become a daily part of how we live our lives.

The strangest part of all this was that time didn't seem to pass. it seemed to stand still, and there was no sense of time. When the 7 years was over, I felt like I was where I had started 7 years before, just in terms of my life.

But in my head and my heart I wasn't the same person and never will be again.

My name is Arrabon

Edited April 8, 2021 by Arrabon

[JohnR7]

On 4/8/2021 at 10:17 AM, Arrabon said:

What I learned from the Holy Spirit is nothing like what you hear in church

I tend to limit myself to what people can relate to. Jesus said: "If I have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe, if I tell you of heavenly things?"  (John 3:2) People have enough trouble relating to what is earthly.