Does Christ speak and how?

[tam]

May you have peace!

A question that continues to be posed to me is with regard to my bearing witness to a living and speaking Christ. How does He speak? What does that mean? How can we test that?

I imagine that one reason the questions are continually posed to me is because I cannot provide the proof that some are asking me to provide. I can only provide evidence in the form of:

a) Personal testimony from having heard Christ
b) The written testimony of or about others who have heard Christ
c) What Christ Himself is written to have said on the matter


If none of the above are acceptable to someone, then I am not sure what more that person and I would have to talk about on this particular matter. We could hopefully discuss respectfully from a point of love, reason, logic. For those who are interested...


Christ said that His sheep would hear His voice.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me." John 10:27

"I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd." John 10:14-16



Written testimony about/from others who heard His voice, confirming the truth of what He said:

The Spirit told Philip, "Go to that chariot and stay near it." Acts 8:29

**
In Damascus, there was a disciple named Ananias. The Lord called to him in a vision, "Ananias!"

"Yes Lord," he answered.

The Lord told him, "Go to the house of Judas on Straight Street and ask for a man from Tarsus named Saul, for he is praying. In a vision he has seen a man named Ananias come and place his hands on him to restore his sight." (Acts 9:10,11... and it continues)

**
There is Peter's vision telling him that he should eat foods that he considered unclean, and then after his vision:

While Peter was still thinking about the vision, the Spirit (Christ) said to him, "Simon, three men are looking for you. So get up and go downstairs. Do not hesitate to go with them, for I have sent them." (Acts 10: 9-20)

**
There are of course multiple examples from Paul. The entire book of Revelation is from Christ to John. There is a warning against hardening our hearts if we hear His voice.

As has just been said: "Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion." Hebrews 3:15

Then of course there are the examples of Abraham, who heard, Noah, who heard, the prophets, who heard, Joseph, who heard, Daniel, who heard, etc, etc. Their faith is based upon the evidence of what they heard.



My own personal testimony


I did not always know that Christ spoke, and I did not always recognize that voice within me as being His. But someone else bore witness to a living speaking Christ, and it bothered me, lol. I had just ended a two year bible study with a certain denomination, and I did not want to get misled by man ever gain. But here was this person claiming that Christ spoke. If I believed this person, that they were from God, then what was wrong with me that I allowed myself to get misled yet again. On the other hand, what was wrong with me if this person did hear Christ, and I rejected them?

But soon into my dilemma (and my asking how I might know, even though I thought I was just asking myself) I heard:

Test WHAT this person is saying. Test the message. Do not pay attention to the person. Test to see if what this person is saying is true, or not. Then you will know who this person is from.


I still did not know this was Christ speaking to me. I just thought, "Oh, of course... that is what I will do."

So that is what I did. Along the way, I saw all these verses and examples and testimony that Christ does indeed speak, that God spoke also, though now speaks through Christ. In dreams, in visions, in direct words, in reminders, in opening eyes and ears to a truth that one might read, see, or hear. Once I realized that Christ is supposed to speak, I asked for ears to hear as well. Even though I did hear Him; I just did not know I heard Him. I needed to learn His voice and recognize Him.

**

I was asked how does He speak

He speaks in words. He speaks in visions (I have never had a vision that I am aware of). He speaks in dreams. He can also bring to mind something learned, read, or experienced in the past to help me see the truth in something He is teaching me. He has opened my eyes to something that is written, if I am reading the bible. He can and has read to me something that He is written to have said, so that I hear it in His voice. That was enlightening.

Sometimes when I am responding to something that someone else has asked, He will give me the words to say, or reveal something to me (as in open my heart and ears to understanding something) that I had not previously understood.


The language that He speaks is truth. He has never spoken anything to me that was not true, and that was not from love. And everything He teaches me deepens my understanding of love: His love and the love of His Father.



(As for testing the inspired expression... anything that is in conflict with what Christ teaches cannot be true. Also Christ (truth) comes from love (God), so nothing that He says will be in conflict with love. Especially since the law that is written upon our hearts in the new covenant is the law of love.)


**

I do not expect anyone to take my word for these things. I do not take the word of others for what they claim came from Christ. I explained above what I did, what I heard from Christ TO do.

If I have shared anything that helps anyone, then great. If not, then no problem. I am not the one people should be listening to if they are following or desiring to follow Christ... I can only point TO that One: Christ Jaheshua, the Holy One of Israel and Holy Spirit, the Chosen One of Jah. Christ, who is Himself, the faithful and true witness of His Father, Jah.



If one wants to know the truth of this matter themselves... then ask Christ. That is how one can confirm for themselves. Ask for ears to hear, and in the meantime DO what He has said to do, so that you prove yourself to Him. He does not have to prove Himself to us.

"If anyone loves me, they will obey my teaching. My Father will love them, and we will come and make our home with (in) them."


(Please note that He says that they will obey HIS teaching. Not man's teaching. Not religion or religious leaders, not Paul, not the law, or anyone or anything else over Him. If we love HIM... we will obey HIM. If we love someone or something else more, then we will listen to and obey that one/thing. Including if we love our religion more than Him, although we might not realize it at the time. Including if we think the bible is the Word of God, especially when even that book states that Christ is the Word of God; and Christ himself said, "You diligently search the scriptures because you think that by them you have eternal life. These are the scriptures that testify about ME, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.")



May anyone who wishes them be given ears to hear, to get a sense of these things, and to hear as the Spirit (Christ) and the bride SAY to you, "Come... take the free gift of the water of life."


Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 50 by tam]

Test anything I have shared (as I learned from Christ) against Christ (if you hear Him, then ask Him;

As you acknowledge, this cannot be done by myself or others like myself, so this is out.

if you do not hear Him then check it against what Christ is written to have said and done)

So basically, go through what tam says and check it against the Bible? Problem there being, the Bible is extremely open to interpretation. It is possible that I could find something that tam has said, find a Bible verse that indicates the opposite and for tam to say "Christ has told me the true meaning of that verse, you've gotten his intended meaning wrong"...all with no way for me to check this new claim! So this is out too

and test it against love, because nothing that comes from Christ or God is in conflict with love.

In previous dialogues with you, I asked for what the heck this phrase means 'test against love'. Not once have you ever explained it plainly. Not once have you ever gone about giving us a method to do this thing. It's just like if I suggest that you out-run Alpha Centauri. What does that mean? You don't know, and I don't explain.

(and I associated capital T truth with Christ; not myself)

The things that you say are Truth, the things that you say you hear. You have a belief, you say this belief is true, with a capital T. You call your belief Christ, you call Christ Truth.

Nor have I ever said ever that anyone should listen to or follow me;

You may or may not have ever explicitly made this or a similar claim, but you have, have you not, said on multiple occassions to ask Christ? Why just in this comment alone you said to test against love, to listen to Christ and hear him. This is acting like a teacher, just as if I told you what to do to get past a difficult boss in a video game.

HE is the test of truth, because He IS the Truth.

This is a very unusual sentence. If something is Truth, AND also the test of truth (this truth with a lower case t for some reason...), how is that not a rigged test? I could call myself Truth, and say that I, rikuoamero, am the test of truth...and then say that when you test me, I come out with flying colours 100% of the time.

Not me. Not religion. Not man. Not tradition. Just Christ. Listen to Him. Not because I say so, but because God said:

"This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him." (mark 9:7)

And because Christ said:

"I am the Truth, the Way, and the Life." and "Come, follow me."

You don't offer any evidence at all that God said those things. I know for a fact right now that those are things that mortal men wrote in a book just short of two thousand years ago. I have no evidence whatsoever that the things those mortal men wrote (whoever they were) were actually uttered by a god man.
So I have no reason at all to listen to Christ, especially not with these verses. What you've just done is circular logic - believe what the Bible says because the guy quoted in the Bible says he is the Truth. That's not enough

Of course if you are not a disciple of Christ, then do as you choose and may you have peace on your path.

Right back at you. I do want to tell you though that back when I was a Christian (just before I stopped believing) I worried a great deal about other people, about non-believers. I worried about the fate of their eternal souls. I felt guilty because I worried I wouldn't be able to convince them to believe.
I didn't have this attitude of "Well, if they don't believe, no skin off my back".
Just to be clear, it's OK to have this attitude...but in the context of trying to lead people to God and get them to believe (because believing is the best thing that could ever happen to them, in your eyes) should cause you some worry.

[H.sapiens]

[Replying to post 47 by tam]

I do not think you knew my Lord. I have no reason to doubt that you wanted to, and even tried to follow 'Jesus'. But I think you got caught up in religion (or were born into it), and followed man instead. I think this based upon what you have said about yourself, and testing that against Truth/Christ. What you say about the gifts you received makes no sense; and as long as you were still touching the unclean thing (BTG, and her daughters, the lies in them, the lies taught about God), then Christ could not have taken you in. He could certainly have been calling you OUT of her, as HE says, "Come out of her my people!"

Readers, please notice that in her dialogue with Clownboat, tam calls his former belief false, says/intimates that her own is true (with a capital T no less) but offers absolutely NO way for anyone to verify her claims. She says that there are false prophets out there, people who claim to hear and/or speak for Christ, but does not explain how a third party is able to verify that she is not included in that group, how she herself can show that what she teaches or says is not lies.

Dear readers,

Test anything I have shared (as I learned from Christ) against Christ (if you hear Him, then ask Him; if you do not hear Him then check it against what Christ is written to have said and done); and test it against love, because nothing that comes from Christ or God is in conflict with love.

(and I associated capital T truth with Christ; not myself)


Nor have I ever said ever that anyone should listen to or follow me; or that I am a teacher. We have one teacher: Christ. I am just a witness pointing to Him. HE is the test of truth, because He IS the Truth. Not me. Not religion. Not man. Not tradition. Just Christ. Listen to Him. Not because I say so, but because God said:

"This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him." (mark 9:7)

And because Christ said:

"I am the Truth, the Way, and the Life." and "Come, follow me."


Of course if you are not a disciple of Christ, then do as you choose and may you have peace on your path. But if you are a disciple of Christ, then these words should matter. Not mine. But Christ's and God's.


Peace to you all,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

Testing something that is only in your mind, against your communication with, or alleged writings of a mythical being seems a bit tenuous.

[tam]

And please lets be clear about something . Man makes mistakes, even among those who belong to Christ. I am not suggesting that someone has to be perfect to belong to Christ, or to be a Christian. Some misunderstand, and some are carrying baggage from previous beliefs/teachings that they do not even realize that they are carrying, until Christ or someone else shows them where they are in conflict with Christ. Hence, we can reason together, but all the while keeping our eyes upon Christ. So that we are not looking at other people to lead us, but rather looking to Christ. He can and will correct us, but we have to be listening to Him.



So if there is anything wrong in what I have shared in the OP, then please point it out. Does it conflict with Christ - his words or his deeds? Does it conflict with love? Does it conflict with what is written?


No one ever has to just take my word for anything, nor should you. I am just a man (well, woman), pointing to the One God gave you to listen TO: Christ. Listen to Him.



Peace again to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 53 by tam]

Question tam - are you going to continue making these claims about hearing Christ, now that it's been pointed by both myself and others AND YOURSELF TOO! that no-one should 'take your word for anything'?

In fact...now that you mention it, the OP...there's something there that I just noticed. I don't think anyone else caught this. Did anyone?

From the OP

c) What Christ Himself is written to have said on the matter

What Christ...has written. That's a very specific word with a specific meaning. If I listen to Stephen Hawking and write what he says, I am transcribing what Hawking says. Hawking himself doesn't write anything. Or replace the name Hawking with any other person.
Where are these documents that Christ Himself wrote? As in, Christ Himself put pen to paper (or whatever it was they used in those days)?
Can't be the Bible, that's a bunch of documents written by a bunch of different men ABOUT God/Jesus, not BY God/Jesus.

Yes, we all make mistakes. One of the points I like to make is that at no point have you given us anything that indicates that you aren't mistaken about the entire thing.

[tam]

[Replying to post 53 by tam]

Question tam - are you going to continue making these claims about hearing Christ, now that it's been pointed by both myself and others AND YOURSELF TOO! that no-one should 'take your word for anything'?

Of course I am. I am bearing witness to Him, that He lives and speaks. This is my personal testimony. But you (general you) don't have to take my word for it. Hence, the OP. Hence the response to Ken (post 16 I think) on how one can hear Christ, for themselves.

Why write this thread at all if I just expected people to take my word for it?

In fact...now that you mention it, the OP...there's something there that I just noticed. I don't think anyone else caught this. Did anyone?

From the OP

c) What Christ Himself is written to have said on the matter

What Christ...has written. That's a very specific word with a specific meaning. If I listen to Stephen Hawking and write what he says, I am transcribing what Hawking says. Hawking himself doesn't write anything. Or replace the name Hawking with any other person.
Where are these documents that Christ Himself wrote? As in, Christ Himself put pen to paper (or whatever it was they used in those days)?
Can't be the Bible, that's a bunch of documents written by a bunch of different men ABOUT God/Jesus, not BY God/Jesus.

I did not say "what Christ has written."

I said "what Christ ... is written to have said." Meaning, what others wrote Him as having said.


Otherwise, I would have just said, "what Christ wrote".


Peace to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 55 by tam]

My mistake then. I think the way I said that sentence c) quote in my mind, I must have inserted a comma, so that it became "What Christ is written, to have said" (i.e. to have written AND said).
Either way, that still doesn't save your point c). So a bunch of people say that Jesus said these things. I have no reason to believe them. It's still circular logic to say "Trust Christ because Christ, in the Bible, said "I am the Truth" "

Anyway, my point for this comment is that now you are just offering a completely unsupported opinion. I have gone through the three things you provided in an earlier comment, so now your witnessing of Christ is...the kindest word I can think to use here is baseless, from what the third party can see (not baseless from your point of view, but baseless from the third party's point of view).
What will you offer to strengthen your witnessing? Just repeat over and over again to other people that you hear Christ?

[tam]

[Replying to post 50 by tam]

Test anything I have shared (as I learned from Christ) against Christ (if you hear Him, then ask Him;

As you acknowledge, this cannot be done by myself or others like myself, so this is out.

if you do not hear Him then check it against what Christ is written to have said and done)

So basically, go through what tam says and check it against the Bible? Problem there being, the Bible is extremely open to interpretation. It is possible that I could find something that tam has said, find a Bible verse that indicates the opposite and for tam to say "Christ has told me the true meaning of that verse, you've gotten his intended meaning wrong"...all with no way for me to check this new claim! So this is out too

Please re-read what I wrote. I did not write test against the Bible. I wrote test against what Christ is written to have said and done. These things are written about in the bible, sure, but a much smaller portion than the entire collection of books.

and test it against love, because nothing that comes from Christ or God is in conflict with love.

In previous dialogues with you, I asked for what the heck this phrase means 'test against love'. Not once have you ever explained it plainly. Not once have you ever gone about giving us a method to do this thing. It's just like if I suggest that you out-run Alpha Centauri. What does that mean? You don't know, and I don't explain.

I have explained. But let me try again. Because if you can understand to check against Christ, then you should be able to understand how to check, but against love.

Lets use the Inquisition as example. The imprisonment, torture, and execution of those who the RCC considered to be heretics.

No pope or religious head heard from Christ that they should do these things. I can state that without hesitation because a) Christ did not imprison, torture or execute anyone; he also did not give the order that His followers should do such a thing; he did in fact state that we should love even our enemies; he did in fact ask forgiveness for those who did these things to Him... and this is just based on what is written regarding what He said and did. B) Even from the rest of the NT, even the apostles taught that what one should do with regard to apostates (heretics) is not to listen to them, not to invite them into your homes. None ever said that we should imprison, torture, execute them.

So this order and action fail on the basis of being in conflict with what Christ said and did (all according to what is written in their own holy book, even); and also in conflict with what is written from the apostles (those I believe the RCC claim as early church fathers).

If the Pope had been listening to Christ, this would not have been done. If the people had tested the Pope's (or other religious authority's orders) against Christ, then they would have known it was not from Christ, and if it was Christ they were truly following, then they would have refused to do this thing. But they proved that they were following a man (the Pope - or whomever else gave this or similar orders), over and above Christ.


Then there is the test against love. This should be an easy one. Where is the love in the order to torture (etc) these so-called heretics? Where is the love in following that order for these so-called heretics? Where is the love for Christ and God in listening to men, and doing these heinous things... in complete and total conflict to Christ (the Image and Word of God)? In their own holy book, Christ is written to have said:

Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.



Peace to you,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 57 by tam]

Please re-read what I wrote. I did not write test against the Bible. I wrote test against what Christ is written to have said and done. These things are written about in the bible, sure, but a much smaller portion than the entire collection of books.

You still haven't resolved that dilemma. So...

I can state that without hesitation because a) Christ did not imprison, torture or execute anyone;

No but he did chase moneylenders out of a temple with whips, apparently. Your own holy book has him using violence on at least one occassion. This isn't even counting the Old Testament, where God does all sorts of stuff.

If the Pope had been listening to Christ,

How do you know though? How do you know Pope Random-name II wasn't hearing Christ, that Christ didn't change his mind and decide to be evil and bloodthirsty? Oh wait, that's not what the Christ voice that you hear tells you? Oh great, that solves everything then.

and if it was Christ they were truly following, then they would have refused to do this thing.

I'm thinking Binding of Isaac here, where the patriarch of the religion didn't refuse to do something, and this is an act praised by the believer.

But they proved that they were following a man (the Pope - or whomever else gave this or similar orders), over and above Christ.

If so, then Christ still bears responsibility. He's not here then, enforcing the meaning of his words (enforcing is the best word I can think to use there). Absent him, what we have are hundreds or thousands of different denominations, each with its own leader or leaders convincing the populous that they understand Christ, to follow them. If Christ were to reappear, this wouldn't happen, right?

Where is the love in the order to torture (etc) these so-called heretics?

Well if one thinks that getting them to recant their sins and confess to the one true interpretation of the words of the one true God by any means necessary is love...obviously I disagree, and so do you, but again, all we have are our own subjective interpretations.

Again, as I've pointed out elsewhere multiple times, all you've got is your subjective understanding of gentle Jesus, meek and mild. Other people would and did say something like "Old Testament God is a violent brute, Jesus is the same because of the moneylender incident, so violence isn't completely out the window. Jesus even promises to pit brother against brother, to bring not peace but a sword, and he tells people to hate their families".

[tam]

[Replying to post 58 by rikuoamero]


To be clear, you understood the point being demonstrated with the example. So there should be no more, "you have never explained what you mean when you say test 'against' love, etc'.

You may disagree, but you understand what is meant. Yes?

Peace again,
your servant and a slave of Christ,
tammy

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 59 by tam]

Quite right. We'll agree to disagree, but now you have explained yourself.