We Forgive

It surprised me that when Jesus taught us to pray, He taught us to ask God to do 6 things (in blue below), but asked us to do only 2 things (in red below).  Lets  look at the Lord's Prayer. Matt 6:9-14.

Our Father who is in Heaven
We (and the angels) praise your name
You bring your kingdom come
You cause your will be done on Earth as in Heaven
You give us our daily bread please
You forgive us our sins as
We forgive those who sin against us
You lead us not into temptations
You deliver us from evil
For yours is the kingdom, the power and the glory
For ever and ever. Amen

It goes to show how important it is for us to forgive those who have hurt us.  Here, Jesus did not ask us to give to charity or be grateful or be obedient.  Forgiving others is utmost important.

In our lives, someone may have bullied us, maligned us, raped us, unjustly and unfairly fired us, disfigured us, hurt our ego and dignity, cheated us.  Jesus said "Forgive."  Do not be trapped in bitterness.

Praising our God, and forgiving our fellow humans, make us whole.

2 Types of God's Plan

I am not a Bible scholar.  I am just a pragmatic Christian. From experience, I recognize 2 types of God's Plan.

Firstly is God's Intended Plan.  God intended Adam and Eve to live happily in the Garden of Eden.  But they disobeyed Him and sinned.  So God revised His plan.

So Secondly, is God's Revised Plan.  In response to what humans do, God constantly revised His plans.

Example: God did not intend the Israelites to have a king.  But the Israelites insisted on having one.  So God revised His plan and appointed King Saul, King David, and so on.

Example: God intended Jesus to return within one generation's time.  "Truly, I say to you, this generation/race will not pass away until all things take place...Be on guard..." Luke 21:27-36.  The people believed Jesus, and waited for His impending return, so much so that they slackened in their daily work.  Paul had to admonish them. 2 Thess 3:11-17. But God has revised His plan.  We do not know when Jesus will return physically.

So God is revising His plans all the time, depending on what humans do with their free-will.

So pray to God and ask Him to grant your dearest wishes.  He may just grant them, even though initially He did not intend to.

Below is another view on God's plan. http://www.crosswaychurchwa.com/images/PrayerHandout4.pdf

In his book, The Prayer of the Lord, RC Sproul lays out three different types of God’s will.  The first is what we call the sovereign, efficacious will of God. When the Bible speaks of the will of God in this sense, it is describing the will that causes whatever He decrees to come to pass. The sovereign, efficacious will of God is the will that brings to pass whatsoever He decrees.  Second, the Bible speaks of the will of God with respect to what we call His preceptive will. The preceptive will has to do with His law and commandments, the precepts He issues to regulate the behavior of His creation.  Please note that the preceptive will of God can be violated and is violated every day. Being sinners, we disobey the will of God.   Third, the Bible speaks of the will of God in terms of His basic disposition or inclination. In this sense, God’s will has to do with what is pleasing or displeasing to Him.

Who decided the books in the Bible?

Believing that the Bible is 'God-inspired' is not enough.  Christians should ask who decided that the Bible books are 'God-inspired'.

How come some Bibles have more books than others?

Although I am not convinced that this article is entirely correct, it is a good reference.
https://st-takla.org/pub_Deuterocanon/Deuterocanon-Apocrypha_El-Asfar_El-Kanoneya_El-Tanya__0-index.html

To summarize:

1) Jesus, in His time, used the Septuagint Version (Greek) of the Old Testament Scripture.  The Septuagint includes the 7 additional Old Testament books now found in the Orthodox/Catholic Bible.
2) The Jews, during Jesus' time, did not accept Jesus' ministry.  Hence the Jews avoided the Septuagint, and hence the 7 additional books too.
3) After Jesus' death, the apostolic church continued to use the Septuagint Version of Old
Testament.
4) Even in the late 4th Century AD, in the Apostolic church, the Councils of Rome, Hippo, and Carthage, were using the 7 additional Old Testament books.
5) Right up to 1546, the church had been using these 7 additional books in the Old Testament.
6) Then came Martin Luther.  He rejected the 7 additional books, purportedly because these books contained scriptural proofs of the doctrines of the Orthodox/Catholic churches.
7) The New Testament books were agreed upon at the Council at Carthage in 395AD.

I often wonder whether or not it was a right thing for Martin Luther and the Protestant Movement to remove some books from the Orthodox/Catholic/Apostolic churches' Old Testament.  On balance, I think it was not a good thing.

By the way, the 7 additional books in the Old Testament are (total 46 books):
a) Tobit
b) Judith
c) 1 Maccabees

d) 2 Maccabees

e) Wisdom of Solomon
f) Sirach
g) Baruch
(reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_Testament)