139	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate	on: September 06, 2014, 12:52:48 PM
Ml I really dont want to argue with you about how much scripture you accept. The truth is I seldom think about all the books but most of the time I am trying to find nuggets in one word or phrase that give me the illumination of all the God has revealed. I dont focus on what is not included but I focus on the positive and allow all the bible to speak to me. I could not prove that all the words of the scripture are valid. Its like trying to prove that God exist or doesnt exist. Im the guy who looks at salvation as the only way so if God gives warnings to people who do not show they are saved my answer is not to focus on those verses but to simply turn to grace. So in a sense I am trusting in both the revealed words and the unrevealed words. And if you meditate on one word then it will save you from being the judge over all the other words. I am so convinced that the word of salvation that Israel was always looking for... in each deliverance... was to be vindicated in each deliverance. Included in the word was all the legal pronouncements that freed them from being judged. And this is why my understanding of the word is to use it for my own protection for the single purpose of bringing me to full deliverance. I never say that the word has things we dont understand and for the sake of contradictions i can stand over it and be the judge. It is the final judge because it is the eternal word.
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140  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: King David's census on: September 06, 2014, 11:39:55 AM We must understand how the Jews used the accounts to teach a truth. These accounts are not a historical dogma. But they are written to show Israel the works of God. We must apply the whole teaching that is written in the worship book. In applying the teaching we are seeing the purpose of the author in writing about the event. We must give up our preconceived ideas and allow Gods word to speak for itself. This is a teaching by the author not an historical account per say.  God always brings about events for a single purpose. God does not judge His elect. He always smiles on His people in judging Israel. And we see God working through David to show us that the judgement is not really in the hands of the earthly king. Could David have thwarted Gods design to punish the nation of Israel? No ..God said of David that" he does whatever pleases Me."What we must understand is that any time David suffered on a personal level concerning his sins was Gods way of motivating David to rise up to the line of blessing and cursing. We never look at this relationship of God in a pragmatic way. We cannot lower ourselves to look at these accounts in a purely psychological way. We must always have the single focus that all these events are for the purpose of destroying anything that thwarts Gods redemptive purposes. Anytime we lower our view to these psychological determinations we are idol worshipers. We look at Gods discipline as the fundamental purpose of this redemptive story. But Gods single purpose is to deliver His people. Instead of seeing this as Davids weakness we must look at Davids reaction to God pronouncing judgement. This account shows the wisdom of David by putting it in Gods hands. A man who curses the destruction will always let God be the judge. God meets His people by responding to the cries of His people. God never works to destroy His own elect. The single purpose of redemption is for God to save His elect by coming to their rescue. And you see that David is acting as a judge by giving God the judgement. God is responding to the pronouncement. Reply Quote Notify

141  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Am ah freed from sin? Ah reckon ah am. on: September 06, 2014, 11:14:15 AM Been really busy but still thinking about the forum.  We died to sin therefore recon it to be so. This doesnt mean that we can be sinless but we are declared righteous because of Christ work on our behalf. Christ who is the eternal Son of God was sent to deliver His people from their sins and from the personal struggle with the curse. The reason that we are delivered from sin is because when we were saved God gave us all things as a gift. In this sense there is nothing that we lack. Although we struggle with our fallen flesh and with the adversity of the world by Satan we can still push that struggle away because Christ has taken care of the curse. He became a curse for us. So He not only went out and earned our acceptance but He has broken the power of the curse. What does this mean? Instead of us fighting this fight with our own strength and our own works we simply recon His work as making us complete and acceptable. We recon ourselves as unable. The truth is that we no longer obtain acceptance or rewards in this world through the worlds justice. Instead we view Gods system of justice by His standards. God doesnt make exceptions in making judgements. His standard is measured by the highest judgement. He accepts His people based upon Christ obedience to the law. This means that we pronounce all other ways to gain favor with God as excrement. But you say I have done a lot of non profit work on behalf of the helpless and the needy. All of our labor done on this earth does not measure up to Christ work done for us. We consider it useless... worthless for the sake of giving all the glory to God.. We no longer call ie confess ... good evil and evil good. This part of reckoning is how we grow down. We view ourselves as our own enemy.  We abandon our own view of the value of our work. We are always confessing that we are Gods servants. Gods servants must see His purpose. Not only has Christ gone out and done the work necessary for our acceptance but He is the fire that consumes whatever opposes us. He consumes our enemies on all sides. We must fight the good fight with Gods weapons. We must overcome all opposition in this life.  We must rise up to Gods view of the world. We must react like God reacts. Anytime we view the world in a pragmatic way we are taking the judgement from God upon ourselves. God has cursed this world. He has broken the power of the evil one and destroyed our attraction to the world. This is what He means when He says we are in the world but not of the world. Nothing in this world rises up in power to thwart Gods curse. Every knee will bow and every tongue confess. Gods word of confession is more powerful than the curse. We pronounce judgement upon everything that opposes us. God kills the attraction to this world by the weight of the pronouncement.  In this we are growing down in reckoning ourselves dead to sin.   Reply Quote Notify

142  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: September 01, 2014, 12:05:37 PM I think is very hypocritical of us to feel sense of acceptance by presenting ourselves as part of a culture ie the way we dress, the kinds of things we talk about, our common sense view of the world in light of the pressure we feel to conform, and yet in a place of judgement over the way people conducted themselves in the OT culture. People describe this comparison as if they were more fanatical in their approach than we are. And yet by our own experience we go through our daily routine without much thought to playing within these suppose cultural norms. Seriously with all of the ot rules we describe these people as if they could accomplish their daily task and be able to present every argument for each accomplishment. I seriously think that they had the time be as fanatical as we imagine. You know that any normal person lives with a simple way of thinking and seldom has the time to question the relevance of the cultural norm. They simply practiced those learned behaviors as they were taught from their childhood. So the fanatical focus of the law was only practiced by the religious and political leaders in the same way our society is structured. They had a professional class as we do. In a classroom setting you may get away with this way of stretching the truth but not in the street language venecular. So the average citizen enjoyed the simplicity of living within these class boundaries. They were just as human as we are!  Part of living in grace was being able to narrow their focus on the coming Redeemer. Just as grace protects us from being burdened by excessive rules so to they enjoyed the same saving grace that we enjoy. Lets not over emphasize the cultural differences so that we can describe our view in such an imaginative way. It sounds plausible but they were not super human. There has always been a covenant community that lived within the boundaries of their humanity. Reply Quote Notify

143  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Is this kind of stuff supposed to help? on: August 31, 2014, 04:38:39 PM Im kind of a professional in this way of thinking. My experience in this ot war talk that I engage in has never been met with a positive reaction. Ive spoken these Psalms for years. The language is so offensive that anyone other than the person who prays them will feel threaten by them. In a sense they bring a person before God as if everyone else was and adversary. You look at the Psalmist words... "I believed therefore I said I am greatly afflicted and in my distress I said all men are liars."  So he is saying that the act of believing is standing with the principles that all men treat adversely. In this Psalm belief represents all the needs the Psalmist must have met that only God can fulfill. So God can only be the person in a pure relationship of the give and take of true desire. Mainly because men cannot read the heart. In another place the Psalmist says that God knows his motives. We see that in Gods sight our motives are frustrated rather than evil. In this scenario would it be more distressing to acknowledge sinful motives or motives that we are unable to have fulfilled? If we are feeling helpless then we are more desperate than if we just acknowledged sinful motives. Now if our motives are thwarted and God is all powerful and totally faithful then we would conclude in believing that we are afflicted. Now how does a desperate man approach God to apply for a remedy? He sees that he is like the person who is silenced and in the grave. The Psalms create the vision that we are under so much weight of destruction that we cannot reach out to obtain the success of our desires. It says that "the help of man is worthless." Not only are we unable to obtain what we desire but everyone around us who share in the same corruption are preventing us because they do not have the full power of Gods righteousness. So we are in a fog with men who are desperate and searching. We need a drastic response from God. We need God to not only thwart the powers that stand against our desires but we need to God oppose those who oppose us. There are two types of opposition. There is christian opposition and there is wicked opposition. We overcome christian opposition through grace.  Gods curse has cursed destruction. But the wicked opposition is destructive. And this is why the Psalms are so destructive in their expressions. In my opinion there is no one who responds to war in a positive way. But it is necessary to achieve our purposes. So in this sense every man has a purpose given by God that all other men oppose. Every person would be in bondage if God was not able to meet each mans needs as if that man was the only man on earth and to recreate the purposes of other men so that each man could have his needs met. This is total unity. This is war.       Reply Quote Notify

144  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 31, 2014, 01:43:44 PM I wanted to address Bills proposition that we seek a Person and not the word. I agree that we are seeking Christ alone. But we cant assume we know the Person unless we are able to describe Him in words. And its John that says we go from the infant stage of trusting in the word to trusting in the Person. I think he was showing that those who are used to applying the word correctly know how to recognize the Person. If we pick and choose what is Gods word then it will only be to our disadvantage. I believe that Gods future court will and the rewards we receive will be how faithful we were to speak correctly. Because the word is not just something we use to agree upon. But it is the precise legal language that argues for our justified position in eternity. And if you look in Revelation you will see that those saints who have gone on are not just sitting around reading the beauty of Christ. But because they have seen the perfect blessed state of heaven they begin to argue for those who are suffering on the earth. Why is this? Because Gods written revelation is His description of His governing the whole earth. God establishes His throne not necessarily as a local and visual throne but in the character of His description and creative uses of His spoken word. When the bible talks about Gods throne it is speaking of His soverign rule over all things that are spoken perfectly as if He were setting everything in place so that we could experience the ultimate beauty and pleasure of His expression. God is not a kind of sinister character trying to prove that He rules by brute force. But God acts in perfect justice and symmetry to bring about the most success. It is man who threatens and dirties Gods purposes.  Gods kingdom is the establishment of His justice in perfect peace. But man introduces chaos and destruction. The reason that I have described Gods throne is because everything that is visual about what He has created is through a description of His perfect order of words. God doesnt just do things because He proves that He is sovereign. But God does things that are completely in line with His justice and equity. The problem is that we do not know every explanation of God by what transpires in our world and in our lives. This is perfectly understandable that we would question God about these mysterious descriptions that we do not understand. The point is that God doesnt just neglect our needs for the sake of proving that He can hold a mystery and show us through suffering that we should be humble. No God extends enough of His word in order for us to be successful even tho we do not have a full explanation. How does God do this? Does He simply give us a set of doctrines and then warn us not to go outside of these orthodox teachings? No God expects us to know more than the boundaries of doctrinal orthodoxy. He wants us to be experts in using His word to promote His purposes and our good in the whole of life. We are responsible to apply His word correctly or it will argue against our justified position in heaven. Every thing we believe about God and express it in this earth will be recorded. And we see this in the ot saints . We understand that God records every tear. Is the Psalmist talking about physical tears? No He is talking about prayers that we pray in time rising up like smoke before the altar ...that is the line we experience in this life between blessing and cursing ...the purity of our justified argument. In other places the Psalmist speaks of Gods gift to Him to rule over the earth as being united to Gods purposes. It is the Psalmist application of the word as the only basis for his success in those purposes. In this sense every time the Psalmist rose up to that line of blessing and cursing was the point at which his tears were recorded in heaven. He experienced Gods wrath being poured out upon the wicked and received a renewed conversion of the unity of his purpose with God. This is what the record contains. The word is absolutely essential as the single agent that gives us a justified position in heaven as our reward.   Reply Quote Notify

145  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 30, 2014, 03:33:34 PM Mark I have a hard time with the red letters of Jesus. Its hard for me to put them in the context of the whole bible. So they can be very destructive to my confidence. I dont believe we should be so hard on ourselves. I agree with you the problem of sin has been taken care of. I do not believe the nt authors present this great struggle we have with sin but we are saved from sin and because of this we do not need to further convict ourselves but know we have the saved funny bone. Jesus was addressing people who wore funny robes, covered themselves with ashes and made three times as many principles of behavior than God required. But they also were hard headed and did not want to change this deeply embedded culture. I dont see any evidence of this kind of behavior in this culture. Its been quite a while since Jesus approach a certain way of doing things. His actions that have been seen for a long time have made cultures a lot more compliant and free. I find that people are not as legalistic or ready to kill the wayward kids.  What say you? Reply Quote Notify

146  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 30, 2014, 01:50:44 PM Bill I am very strict on the education of children. When I was in my early 20s I began to memorize large portions of scripture. Partly because of my struggle with depression and I grew up in family relationships that were on steroids. So its not surprising that I had deep desires for connection. But this quest began to take a course of its own. This is why I took seriously the education of my own children and propogated it through the homeschooling community. I believe the bible starts from Gods view in the heavens and filters down to the poor. I believe that the Revelation is detailed description of how God responds to evil governments. In my view God holds the people in authority responsible as He responds from heaven. I do not believe the bible addresses the sins as a focus on individuals but upon the collective relationships in society. The ot law was not applied evenly to every person in society but had stipulations that addressed the needs of the poor. If you use the Psalms to pronounce Gods judgments they are always directed toward the religious and political governments. In a pure equality everyone would be guilty equally but the bible holds the people with more authority responsible for the suffering of the masses. Reply Quote Notify

147  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 30, 2014, 01:06:27 PM I do not believe we experience anything ...i mean emotionally that God has not ordained.  Because God has an eternal mirror that we look at in which our reactions to events in this world are magnified in their intensity in eternity. The point is that as we view our emotional life in Gods judgement the more time and eternity come together. The neat thing is that God gives us prayer to express these emotions in His perfect rightous alignment that mirrors Christ emotional response. In this sense we have a vision of reigning with Christ in the future judgement. We already have a teaching on Gods judgements in the biblical pronouncements. The ultimate just standard is us as God dwells in us. The sweetness of the cross is that the judgment has been rendered and we have been declared righteous.So much so that God no longer treats us as our sins deserve. So a His completed judgement is our true image of ourselves. We are truth because He has done all of.the work in order for us to stand in this life on the basis of the Christ completed judgement of all things. This is the kind of freedom we enjoy. We pronounce the beginning from the end in His revealed word that brings all things into unity that will be exposed in the great judgement. Reply Quote Notify

148  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 30, 2014, 12:32:58 PM Yes Bill.aim so glad you expressed your feelings. In this society we try to ignore them and they build up in us as an angry core. For years I have searched out exactly how to apply a certian Psalm to a situation I was going through.  The sermon at my moms funeral was centered around a Psalm. God used that Psalm in the following days as my meditation to search my heart. I experienced some anger and spent a few weeks blowing it off in prayer and meditation. Through this illumination God allowed me to experience a celebration of her life. But its not always this easy. Ive experienced some depression in the past. Reply Quote Notify

149  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 30, 2014, 12:12:52 PM You have described your suffering eloquently brother. That post you had about a month ago speaking of the problems we face in our society blew me away. You detail and condensed logic was striking. I wouldnt know how to equal that detail although what I have gone through in my life and im sure others can relate. I just do not focus or describe the terrible things as important. I mean in my private thoughts and i could never become as detailed and focused as God is so the anger becomes powerless over me  I ignore most of the decisions made by other people and deal with what it translates in my own experience. If it is.destructive i turn the experience into bringing Gods judgement as a wish it has its full effect.  The anger will either destroy me or it will be consumed in Gods future judgement to protect me from catching the viruses of other people who have cause me harm. But I enjoy your gift of.describing events with such detail and passion. Reply Quote Notify

150	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness	on: August 30, 2014, 11:20:00 AM
Obviously this lady has gone be with Christ. The truth is that we cannot control the choices of anyone in this life. But if she has be brought to the ultimate place of peace and security because Christ is pleased to bring her to Himself and this position in heaven has brought her to a place where blessing has completely been reconciled in Christ judgement then as Christ will render each man according to his works , then she stands in complete freedom representing the redemption of our suffering. She indeed rules with Christ. If this be true then why is it so difficult to reconcile this blessing in our experience? Why are we hurt by her being translated to such a position with all of our beloved saints who have gone on before? If death is the door to bringing all things together in Gods judgment then the things and people we trust in this life dwarf our inner gift of eternal life. We were made to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. If we are to rise above our experiences of this earth it will be to take comfort in a God who makes these ultimate decisions of death and life at all times in all circumstances. Because we are inhabited by God we enjoy the fullness of God dwelling in us. We have the ability to go beyond our experiences and our relationships by rising up to line of blessing and cursing to experience the awful judgements of God that have been turned away from us and to be infused with a greater spirit of eternal life. Our personal struggle with self defeating anger will be consumed by Gods righteous indignation and Gods pleasure in both His judgments and His gifts will follow us. This promise to guide us through Spirit and word will crush the power of our Adversary. This is the spirit of mystery that is described in the bible
151  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 29, 2014, 09:47:22 AM The religious expression in America is very reserved. I think its because we are taught contradictions. The bible is not a book that we stand over and treat it as a school book. But it is the words that create the collision of love and hate, judgement and blessing, etc. Its a book we use to wrestle with. I remember having this one pastor who engaged me in one on one conversions of the things of life once every two weeks. My approach to these things is like wrestling. And I learned so much by just talking to him. I probably grew more in those one hour conversations than any sermons that I heard. I kind of thought that he endured my approach. But in private i am used to very serious expressions and getting impassioned about my faith. I am used to coming on strong as they say. Reply Quote Notify 152  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 29, 2014, 09:20:58 AM cont. Let me give you a picture from the Psalms... I believe that when Israel would go to war, as preparation they would have a war prophet. This person would pronounce Gods word out loud. Its kind of like a coach who does the pregame speech. The guys are nervous and focused on themselves and their assignments. Then you get the coach to speak in a passionate way to rally the guys and get them to play together. So you sort of have a very calm atmosphere and then after the coaches pep talk everyone gets filled with passion to go out and win. But in a more serious way and through pronouncing judgement there is the rising of the passion for going to war for eternal consequences, it becomes clear that Gods pronouncements were the foundation of Israels passion for victory. This is the way Gods pronouncements work. You hear them and then there is a sort of frenzy to see these works happen...like a huge wave of faith that crashes down on you. This is the way of repentance. Its a conversion of faith.     Reply Quote Notify 153  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 29, 2014, 08:46:39 AM I agree with this Bill but I am not sure about the idea that my trusting these things is the way that I apply them to myself. Its very confusing to me to apply the gospel in focusing on my willing and yet also forgetting myself. I am not a proponent of two line theology because it is teaching two opposite truths as equally important. I always come out with the impression after hearing two line that there is no single purpose or direction. I believe that the gospel unifies all things but it seems to me that two line creates chaos. My understanding of the application of the gospel is that is I turn my attention away from myself...i mean ... saying that my making these truths real by believing doesnt motivate me to seek the object of my faith. But in my opinion the act of believing is applicable to me when Gods word is a mirror to my soul. So Gods word is a cause of my act of believing. Its like the person who is able to stand outside of himself and view himself as he is. So in my opinion I simply point to Gods word as my confidence that I believe. Luther used to say that if you cut him the word of God would bleed out of him. If my first question was do I believe this? Then it seems to me that I would start with myself. So my confidence would be based upon whether I believed something or not. But my experience is that when I go to Gods word then i experience a kind of new creation of confidence. So its like looking in the mirror. I do not know what I am until I look at His word as a kind of mirror to show me who I am. So in this sense I do not really trust in myself as pointing to my trust. In forgetting myself I point to His word alone and then I express trust. Like a mirror.   People that I am around get frustrated because I will say that in the future I will create this or that.  But then when it happens they will say you created it. Then I will say not God alone through His word brought this about. How can I do something that is beyond my initial control? I simply borrowed Gods word and used it. Reply Quote Notify 154  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Gift on: August 29, 2014, 08:16:06 AM I do not believe that Christ died for every man. First because Gods plan of redemption is His governing the whole earth. When sin entered it turned the whole government of God upside down. The whole earth was thrown into chaos. Man began to use his own language to redefine Gods language of peace and tranquility. As the sovereign ruler God had to answer every false word of man. Now man seeks to become his own god and through this new language he seeks to destroy his neighbor. So in this sense all the action of God was accomplished before the creation of the world even tho it had to be worked out in history of the world. Gods governing the world was expressed in His sovereign rule over everything in words that were spoken that brought everything into existence that was in the mind of God in His eternal counsel. God as the governor over the world is absolutely holy because He established all things in His mind before they came into existence. This included Gods choice to save some men and judge others. Reply Quote Notify 155  Forums / Break Room / Re: Name Your Loneliness on: August 28, 2014, 11:46:54 AM  The hardest people to fix are family members. As adults there are privacy issues and personal identity problems. The people that know us the best and are closest to us in our view of the world will not listen to our advice. Its best to avoid taking these things personal. The funny thing about families is that if there is a sense of unity in withholding judgement then these are healthy relationships. I have discussed this in the past about Gods desire for us. God has extended families. He puts the lonely in families. So we all have times in our lives where God gives us father figures.... friends that are like brothers etc. I can point to my experience and name these friends who met that need in me to further my growth. But I also believe that we rule the earth through righteous families. So God is always reordering life to hold families together. It is part of my teaching on the use of curses and blessing.as a creative tool. Reply Quote Notify 156  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Gift on: August 28, 2014, 11:24:44 AM Quote from: billbennett on August 27, 2014, 01:04:56 PM mybigGod - "Gods view of time is seeing the begining through the end. God knows everything about a person at one time and is completely just in rendering His justice as final since He alone is judge." That is true and a neat way of describing the nature of God. Looking back I can see God's love and providence working in my life even before I came to know Christ. That is understandable, because in the mind of God I was already His. Before I was even born, God knew me. Knew everything about me. You are right that God is the only just Judge. We just don't have the insight to look into another person's heart to judge their actions. It is good to be back on the forum and I will try to post regularly. I have enjoyed our discussions in the past and pray God will bless you. Bill Bill I am so glad to see you posting again. Ive had a few big things that have happened since we last connected here at KL forums. The death of my dear mother and my move to SC. Hoping to read more of your positive post. Looking forward to discussing these great doctrines with you. Been a little busy. Ill respond later . Tom Reply Quote Notify 157  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Gift on: August 27, 2014, 12:26:33 PM Gods view of time is seeing the begining through the end. God knows everything about a person at one time and is completely just in rendering His justice as final since He alone is judge. In Gods view there is life and death at all times. It would be foolish of us trust a God who was pragmatic. Our sorrows would be in limbo until God decided to make a judgement. And if God was not free to make His promises and warnings either yea or nay then we would be lost in the sea of pragmatism without hope of the weight of His promises being equal to His deciding the future. Our personal since of lostness would be expresses by His weak faithfulness to decide to keep His promise. Our only hope is that God pronounces life and death at all times. Reply Quote Notify 158  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 27, 2014, 11:54:18 AM Its the way we look at life that motivates us to rise above our personal troubles. You can try to divide your past according to blameworthiness or the credit you deserve but it wont motivate you to be successful. There is so much irony in our lives if we paint a picture in which we value our work enough to acknowledge that we are not able to control what transpired by our choices alone. In some sense the christian experience which is an image related paradigm gives us the ability to play many parts on the stage of life. Even tho we face disaster there is pleasure that we can draw from the negative by seeing the irony of it all. Reply Quote Notify 159  Forums / Break Room / Re: Name Your Loneliness on: August 26, 2014, 11:42:50 AM We were made to be social creatures , being able to interact in the same experiences. All of these weaknesses are common to man. I dont think it is through figuring out what everyone else is going through but its connecting through common traits that we understand about ourselves. Understanding others comes through self knowledge. Its just like visualizing nature. You sort of are taken captive by its vibrant colors, the pleasant smell. But the comparison is over simplified with the interior experience of the soul. Our experience to natures colors is more complex. Simple organism are more aligned in there function. I believe that we were made to express our gifts in a united experience of body mind and will. But I do not believe that we are frustrated by a lack of vision as much as holding onto anger that keeps us from the full experience in connection. We must learn to express ourselves before God as the vehicle to unburden the cause of our lack of freedom. When we have learned to speak to God correctly the our experience will be animated in a way that we see people with the most vibrant colors. Reply Quote Notify 160  Forums / Break Room / Re: Truth versus Conflict on: August 23, 2014, 12:41:05 PM Let me discuss the difference between the noisy language of the world and the peace that the elect enjoy.  The natural man promotes himself. The natural man is born with a desire to be his own god. He does not acknowledge God. He does not think thoughts after God. The bible gives us a very detailed description between the wicked and Gods elect. It describes the thought life of both men. There is no respect for God in the thoughts of the wicked. This translates into the wicked devising a plan that comes from his atheistic desires. This is how he directs the course of his life. Every thought is represented as an aggressive attempt to to hunt down the righteous. This is the expression of the natural mans arrogance. "In all his thoughts there is no room for God." I think the room is the place of a quite view of life. So there is an order here. A wicked heart produces godless thoughts that set men in a course of life that is an attack on Gods order in society. This is what the bible describes as the noisy chatter of the wicked. The noise is what the righteous experience when a wicked man describes his view of the righteous. The bible presents the difference in language in comparison to war. The noise is compared to the righteous walking along a path in which the natural man digs holes and sets traps. The holes are likened to how the natural man describes the righteous man and puts an evil context on Gods elect. Anytime we face a threat in life it is in the context of our conflict with the world. The war is between the world view of the elect and the world view of the wicked. When we are saved we receive everything as a gift. We lose our aggressive attempt to promote ourselves. We go from an experience of being cursed to a kingdom of the blessed. We can no longer rule our world through our own desires and descriptions. Our bad desires are consumed in Gods creating good from bad. The bible says that the wicked curse God. But the law curses law breakers. We use the curses of the law to promote Gods purposes. So our desire for our personal salvation to order our own lives is consumed in Gods anger and love. This is why the entire law is placed upon the wicked as the definition of the law cursing the wicked. Our single purpose is to wish good on our brothers..." may they always say the the Lord be exalted who delights in the well being of His servant." This is the same kind of swearing to be loyal to the soldier you are fighting along side of. The word servant is likened to a swearing to allegiance in fighting for ones country. Thats the definition of servant hood and loyalty.  Would you give up your platoon in a concentration camp? The mere act of silence is compared to the language of the righteous. Reply Quote Notify 161  Forums / Break Room / Re: Truth versus Conflict on: August 23, 2014, 11:52:38 AM When we seek the truth we will find that God honors us with a happy selfless life. Gods purpose for us is to avoid a noisy way of talking about the events of this world. God wants us to learn to hear truth in a still small voice...in the invisible creative work that He does in creation and the heart of man. The pleasure of God is expressed in His creation and recreation. We find that God speaks through His word...the spoken word that brings all things into existence and the sustaining of those things as well. God recreates all things by His saving word. When we look into His word and we receive illumination from His Spirit, the pleasure we experience from this illumination causes us to forget ourselves. As we grow in the spiritual things we are more and more enabled to part with this world. But there are different times in life. God may give us the gift of giving everything we have in the service of others and then decide that its time for us to lose our horses. The horses represent those powers that we have that we trust in. So usually God teaches us through giving up the world but then He decides to stretch us to trust Him beyond the religious box we have put Him in. Anytime we practice religious standards we are in danger of reducing God. We cannot mock God. God must be seen in the things that we cannot understand. He must be experienced beyond our selflessness. Let me say that everything that God does in our lives whether He gives us more pleasure in the service of others or He draws back to teach us to trust in Him in a further reducing of the things we trust in we cannot depend upon our reputation but upon everything that God gives us as gifts either for our selfish pleasure or for our selfless pleasure.   Reply Quote Notify 162  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Being Set Apart on: August 23, 2014, 11:25:02 AM When we are born into this world we do not have a desire to seek God. Im not sure how it is described in scripture when it says that the natural man wants to be godly which is a noble desire but he does not have the capability to pull it off. I do not believe the natural man at any time thinks correctly about God. Instead the natural man sets himself up as god. He says in his heart " Where is your God?" He does not believe that God is watching. So he seeks to control people with impunity. The natural man is always depicted in scripture as a powerful man according to the standards of this world. Because the bible gives us Gods pure view of all the thoughts of men from the beginning of time. God sees the heart. God doesnt curse a man because that man is a threat to Gods power. But the natural man thinks thoughts and says things that demand a just consequence. The natural man is a war with God and is said to eat Gods people as "men eat bread." God pronounces a curse upon his life by saying that all the success a natural man produces in this life through digging holes and laying traps against Gods people is really digging his own grave. The desires of the wicked tho in the worlds eyes are noble will come to nothing. God doesnt destroy men but they destroy themselves by rejecting God. Because the evil in this world and the consequences are so destructive then in comparison the spiritual man is blessed "beyond what we could ask or think." If we do not see how destructive it is for the natural man then there is no reason for us to embrace this new life as something that is beyond our own works. This is exactly how the bible describes this life of grace. We must see how upside down the world is as God sees it. When we view events with our own eyes and then we see how God describes the thoughts and the intents of a mans heart our reaction is "How can this be?" But this is the reaction that saves us from ourselves. We cannot understand how destructive supposed "good" people are in Gods eyes. This should make us feel enough lack of understanding to be reduced to give God all of our struggles. Because we see that we really cannot trust ourselves. When we have gone down to the bottom of the experiences of the world we will be struck to the point of the experience of mystery. Our powerlessness to do one thing about it is equal to Gods attributes in response to the course of the world. We will find that our feelings are not that powerful. It is at this point that we experience Gods view of all of this destruction. When we view it as Gods sees it then we are experiencing the just declaration of God in Christ. If we are powerless to overturn the worlds destruction and to change the course of the world then we are unable to save ourselves. How can someone save himself if he cant save his neighbor?  It is an imagination. What can we conclude if there is a system of justice that is a mystery to us? It is Gods sovereign rule over the secret thoughts of man? We can say that we understand that God is absolutely just in all that He does. Because our very small experience of justice is consumed in Gods absolute standard of justice. We could never get to the point were we are able to counsel God. Reply Quote Notify 163  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Sovereignty and..... on: August 22, 2014, 12:02:24 PM We have taken the doctrine of divine sovereignty out of its biblical context and made it a class room teaching. Most of the time when we take a doctrine and view it as a scientific experiment then we will keep it in the trial stage. But in the bible all truth is dogmatic. This is why we need to apply truth in light of the entire context of the bible. We will find that the bible takes the truth out of the class room setting and places it in the context of the universal laws of nature and the just consequences of its success. When we are applying divine sovereignty to salvation it is in the context of justifying the ungodly.  The question is how can a sinner be justified in Gods sight? The application of justification is only successful as God is absolutely sovereign. Because if God is somehow a spectator in the courtroom of history so our justification comes to us in many uncertain voices. And if God is subject to a cross examination then our salvation is not to be trusted. No need in us can be completely satisfied unless we place our justification in the hands of an absolutely sovereign God. In this sense those who express their deep need for acceptance express it in the defense of Gods absolute sovereignty just as an expression of their security in a complete salvation. The attack on divine sovereignty is the arrow that pierces the heart of our trust in God. As God is unable so we are guilty. We have a gift of a single desire. In this new desire we are able to focus on an object and raise that desire to a new level. When our focus is raised we experience mystery. Because this desire has been gifted to us it begins to flourish in us on a new level as we exalt the Giver. At the core of this high worship is our focusing on the just shall live by faith. In some sense our confidence is not necessarily on the word but upon the application of a legal position that is spoken as a pronouncement. We have heard the case and now we are animated to pronounce a verdict. But we can have no confidence in the verdict if God is not absolutely sovereign. If we do not have a God who knows the beginning from the end then the pronouncement has not legal authority. And if the pronouncement has no legal authority then we have no reason to be excited.   Our need of salvation is met when we trust in a God who is able to speak and it is accomplished. In this sense Gods creative ability is only as good as He is sovereign. The level of blessing that we experience as God is able to turn bad into good. And if God is dependent in some way then we cannot trust in His ability to overcome the bad. As we allow God to be lowered so is the amount of time we experience the dread of sorrow of guilt, shame, and fear..etc. Every moment that we are reduced to struggle with the powers of the curse is how we learn to have no confidence.   Reply Quote Notify 164  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 21, 2014, 11:42:14 AM Tb over the years that you have come here and exposed your loss of confidence and sometimes your coming to the end of yourself has resonated to encourage me. God lowers the bar so that we can still be free. If we cant achieve to a standard then He takes great care to make us acceptable in our powerlessness. Some of my most cherished moments was going to parties with the unbelievers. Im not a guy who has addictive problems but the fun I had was greater than the dirty feelings I had the next day. I admit that I gloried in being free as a sinner. If God isnt big enough to love me even tho I took fun a little to far then He isnt really there at the bottom. If He isnt at the bottom then we would never be able to live transparently before other men. I found a secret that when I curse I hang out at the bottom where His rest is. Ill pray that you can rest at any position you find yourself in life. Reply Quote Notify 165  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Consequences on: August 20, 2014, 11:33:18 AM I never think that my choices determine whether I will suffer or be blessed. We face a universal principle that opposes the the causes of our being successful. We are subject to the laws of man. In the time of the judges Israel would plant crops only to find them being ravaged by wicked rulers. We think that if we own a house , raise two kids, have a secure job that we are righteous in Gods sight. But in scripture these things and people we trust in are fleeting. The reality is that we live in a world that is passing away. We must begin to see the real value of life. That value is greater than all the gold this world offers. Its seeing every thing in this life as Gods gift to us. We must understand that God as our Father will always take care of us. Since He created us He will take care of our daily needs. He simply opens His hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing. Our Father has ceased to remember our sins. He has separated our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. In other words we are eternally blameless because we are loved eternally. Now the eternal judge has become our Father and He treats us with a special care. We now cannot fail because He causes the world to be destroyed faster.than we can be threatened. We now have that destruction behind us. We are led along by the Captain of our salvation. We cheer Him on as we take refuge in Him. We are saved from the words destruction. 151  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 29, 2014, 09:47:22 AM The religious expression in America is very reserved. I think its because we are taught contradictions. The bible is not a book that we stand over and treat it as a school book. But it is the words that create the collision of love and hate, judgement and blessing, etc. Its a book we use to wrestle with. I remember having this one pastor who engaged me in one on one conversions of the things of life once every two weeks. My approach to these things is like wrestling. And I learned so much by just talking to him. I probably grew more in those one hour conversations than any sermons that I heard. I kind of thought that he endured my approach. But in private i am used to very serious expressions and getting impassioned about my faith. I am used to coming on strong as they say. Reply Quote Notify 152  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 29, 2014, 09:20:58 AM cont. Let me give you a picture from the Psalms... I believe that when Israel would go to war, as preparation they would have a war prophet. This person would pronounce Gods word out loud. Its kind of like a coach who does the pregame speech. The guys are nervous and focused on themselves and their assignments. Then you get the coach to speak in a passionate way to rally the guys and get them to play together. So you sort of have a very calm atmosphere and then after the coaches pep talk everyone gets filled with passion to go out and win. But in a more serious way and through pronouncing judgement there is the rising of the passion for going to war for eternal consequences, it becomes clear that Gods pronouncements were the foundation of Israels passion for victory. This is the way Gods pronouncements work. You hear them and then there is a sort of frenzy to see these works happen...like a huge wave of faith that crashes down on you. This is the way of repentance. Its a conversion of faith.     Reply Quote Notify 153  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Around the Wicket Gate on: August 29, 2014, 08:46:39 AM I agree with this Bill but I am not sure about the idea that my trusting these things is the way that I apply them to myself. Its very confusing to me to apply the gospel in focusing on my willing and yet also forgetting myself. I am not a proponent of two line theology because it is teaching two opposite truths as equally important. I always come out with the impression after hearing two line that there is no single purpose or direction. I believe that the gospel unifies all things but it seems to me that two line creates chaos. My understanding of the application of the gospel is that is I turn my attention away from myself...i mean ... saying that my making these truths real by believing doesnt motivate me to seek the object of my faith. But in my opinion the act of believing is applicable to me when Gods word is a mirror to my soul. So Gods word is a cause of my act of believing. Its like the person who is able to stand outside of himself and view himself as he is. So in my opinion I simply point to Gods word as my confidence that I believe. Luther used to say that if you cut him the word of God would bleed out of him. If my first question was do I believe this? Then it seems to me that I would start with myself. So my confidence would be based upon whether I believed something or not. But my experience is that when I go to Gods word then i experience a kind of new creation of confidence. So its like looking in the mirror. I do not know what I am until I look at His word as a kind of mirror to show me who I am. So in this sense I do not really trust in myself as pointing to my trust. In forgetting myself I point to His word alone and then I express trust. Like a mirror.   People that I am around get frustrated because I will say that in the future I will create this or that.  But then when it happens they will say you created it. Then I will say not God alone through His word brought this about. How can I do something that is beyond my initial control? I simply borrowed Gods word and used it. Reply Quote Notify 154  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Gift on: August 29, 2014, 08:16:06 AM I do not believe that Christ died for every man. First because Gods plan of redemption is His governing the whole earth. When sin entered it turned the whole government of God upside down. The whole earth was thrown into chaos. Man began to use his own language to redefine Gods language of peace and tranquility. As the sovereign ruler God had to answer every false word of man. Now man seeks to become his own god and through this new language he seeks to destroy his neighbor. So in this sense all the action of God was accomplished before the creation of the world even tho it had to be worked out in history of the world. Gods governing the world was expressed in His sovereign rule over everything in words that were spoken that brought everything into existence that was in the mind of God in His eternal counsel. God as the governor over the world is absolutely holy because He established all things in His mind before they came into existence. This included Gods choice to save some men and judge others. Reply Quote Notify 155  Forums / Break Room / Re: Name Your Loneliness on: August 28, 2014, 11:46:54 AM  The hardest people to fix are family members. As adults there are privacy issues and personal identity problems. The people that know us the best and are closest to us in our view of the world will not listen to our advice. Its best to avoid taking these things personal. The funny thing about families is that if there is a sense of unity in withholding judgement then these are healthy relationships. I have discussed this in the past about Gods desire for us. God has extended families. He puts the lonely in families. So we all have times in our lives where God gives us father figures.... friends that are like brothers etc. I can point to my experience and name these friends who met that need in me to further my growth. But I also believe that we rule the earth through righteous families. So God is always reordering life to hold families together. It is part of my teaching on the use of curses and blessing.as a creative tool. Reply Quote Notify 156  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Gift on: August 28, 2014, 11:24:44 AM Quote from: billbennett on August 27, 2014, 01:04:56 PM mybigGod - "Gods view of time is seeing the begining through the end. God knows everything about a person at one time and is completely just in rendering His justice as final since He alone is judge." That is true and a neat way of describing the nature of God. Looking back I can see God's love and providence working in my life even before I came to know Christ. That is understandable, because in the mind of God I was already His. Before I was even born, God knew me. Knew everything about me. You are right that God is the only just Judge. We just don't have the insight to look into another person's heart to judge their actions. It is good to be back on the forum and I will try to post regularly. I have enjoyed our discussions in the past and pray God will bless you. Bill Bill I am so glad to see you posting again. Ive had a few big things that have happened since we last connected here at KL forums. The death of my dear mother and my move to SC. Hoping to read more of your positive post. Looking forward to discussing these great doctrines with you. Been a little busy. Ill respond later . Tom Reply Quote Notify 157  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free Gift on: August 27, 2014, 12:26:33 PM Gods view of time is seeing the begining through the end. God knows everything about a person at one time and is completely just in rendering His justice as final since He alone is judge. In Gods view there is life and death at all times. It would be foolish of us trust a God who was pragmatic. Our sorrows would be in limbo until God decided to make a judgement. And if God was not free to make His promises and warnings either yea or nay then we would be lost in the sea of pragmatism without hope of the weight of His promises being equal to His deciding the future. Our personal since of lostness would be expresses by His weak faithfulness to decide to keep His promise. Our only hope is that God pronounces life and death at all times. Reply Quote Notify 158  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 27, 2014, 11:54:18 AM Its the way we look at life that motivates us to rise above our personal troubles. You can try to divide your past according to blameworthiness or the credit you deserve but it wont motivate you to be successful. There is so much irony in our lives if we paint a picture in which we value our work enough to acknowledge that we are not able to control what transpired by our choices alone. In some sense the christian experience which is an image related paradigm gives us the ability to play many parts on the stage of life. Even tho we face disaster there is pleasure that we can draw from the negative by seeing the irony of it all. Reply Quote Notify 159  Forums / Break Room / Re: Name Your Loneliness on: August 26, 2014, 11:42:50 AM We were made to be social creatures , being able to interact in the same experiences. All of these weaknesses are common to man. I dont think it is through figuring out what everyone else is going through but its connecting through common traits that we understand about ourselves. Understanding others comes through self knowledge. Its just like visualizing nature. You sort of are taken captive by its vibrant colors, the pleasant smell. But the comparison is over simplified with the interior experience of the soul. Our experience to natures colors is more complex. Simple organism are more aligned in there function. I believe that we were made to express our gifts in a united experience of body mind and will. But I do not believe that we are frustrated by a lack of vision as much as holding onto anger that keeps us from the full experience in connection. We must learn to express ourselves before God as the vehicle to unburden the cause of our lack of freedom. When we have learned to speak to God correctly the our experience will be animated in a way that we see people with the most vibrant colors. Reply Quote Notify 160  Forums / Break Room / Re: Truth versus Conflict on: August 23, 2014, 12:41:05 PM Let me discuss the difference between the noisy language of the world and the peace that the elect enjoy.  The natural man promotes himself. The natural man is born with a desire to be his own god. He does not acknowledge God. He does not think thoughts after God. The bible gives us a very detailed description between the wicked and Gods elect. It describes the thought life of both men. There is no respect for God in the thoughts of the wicked. This translates into the wicked devising a plan that comes from his atheistic desires. This is how he directs the course of his life. Every thought is represented as an aggressive attempt to to hunt down the righteous. This is the expression of the natural mans arrogance. "In all his thoughts there is no room for God." I think the room is the place of a quite view of life. So there is an order here. A wicked heart produces godless thoughts that set men in a course of life that is an attack on Gods order in society. This is what the bible describes as the noisy chatter of the wicked. The noise is what the righteous experience when a wicked man describes his view of the righteous. The bible presents the difference in language in comparison to war. The noise is compared to the righteous walking along a path in which the natural man digs holes and sets traps. The holes are likened to how the natural man describes the righteous man and puts an evil context on Gods elect. Anytime we face a threat in life it is in the context of our conflict with the world. The war is between the world view of the elect and the world view of the wicked. When we are saved we receive everything as a gift. We lose our aggressive attempt to promote ourselves. We go from an experience of being cursed to a kingdom of the blessed. We can no longer rule our world through our own desires and descriptions. Our bad desires are consumed in Gods creating good from bad. The bible says that the wicked curse God. But the law curses law breakers. We use the curses of the law to promote Gods purposes. So our desire for our personal salvation to order our own lives is consumed in Gods anger and love. This is why the entire law is placed upon the wicked as the definition of the law cursing the wicked. Our single purpose is to wish good on our brothers..." may they always say the the Lord be exalted who delights in the well being of His servant." This is the same kind of swearing to be loyal to the soldier you are fighting along side of. The word servant is likened to a swearing to allegiance in fighting for ones country. Thats the definition of servant hood and loyalty.  Would you give up your platoon in a concentration camp? The mere act of silence is compared to the language of the righteous. Reply Quote Notify 161  Forums / Break Room / Re: Truth versus Conflict on: August 23, 2014, 11:52:38 AM When we seek the truth we will find that God honors us with a happy selfless life. Gods purpose for us is to avoid a noisy way of talking about the events of this world. God wants us to learn to hear truth in a still small voice...in the invisible creative work that He does in creation and the heart of man. The pleasure of God is expressed in His creation and recreation. We find that God speaks through His word...the spoken word that brings all things into existence and the sustaining of those things as well. God recreates all things by His saving word. When we look into His word and we receive illumination from His Spirit, the pleasure we experience from this illumination causes us to forget ourselves. As we grow in the spiritual things we are more and more enabled to part with this world. But there are different times in life. God may give us the gift of giving everything we have in the service of others and then decide that its time for us to lose our horses. The horses represent those powers that we have that we trust in. So usually God teaches us through giving up the world but then He decides to stretch us to trust Him beyond the religious box we have put Him in. Anytime we practice religious standards we are in danger of reducing God. We cannot mock God. God must be seen in the things that we cannot understand. He must be experienced beyond our selflessness. Let me say that everything that God does in our lives whether He gives us more pleasure in the service of others or He draws back to teach us to trust in Him in a further reducing of the things we trust in we cannot depend upon our reputation but upon everything that God gives us as gifts either for our selfish pleasure or for our selfless pleasure.   Reply Quote Notify 162  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Being Set Apart on: August 23, 2014, 11:25:02 AM When we are born into this world we do not have a desire to seek God. Im not sure how it is described in scripture when it says that the natural man wants to be godly which is a noble desire but he does not have the capability to pull it off. I do not believe the natural man at any time thinks correctly about God. Instead the natural man sets himself up as god. He says in his heart " Where is your God?" He does not believe that God is watching. So he seeks to control people with impunity. The natural man is always depicted in scripture as a powerful man according to the standards of this world. Because the bible gives us Gods pure view of all the thoughts of men from the beginning of time. God sees the heart. God doesnt curse a man because that man is a threat to Gods power. But the natural man thinks thoughts and says things that demand a just consequence. The natural man is a war with God and is said to eat Gods people as "men eat bread." God pronounces a curse upon his life by saying that all the success a natural man produces in this life through digging holes and laying traps against Gods people is really digging his own grave. The desires of the wicked tho in the worlds eyes are noble will come to nothing. God doesnt destroy men but they destroy themselves by rejecting God. Because the evil in this world and the consequences are so destructive then in comparison the spiritual man is blessed "beyond what we could ask or think." If we do not see how destructive it is for the natural man then there is no reason for us to embrace this new life as something that is beyond our own works. This is exactly how the bible describes this life of grace. We must see how upside down the world is as God sees it. When we view events with our own eyes and then we see how God describes the thoughts and the intents of a mans heart our reaction is "How can this be?" But this is the reaction that saves us from ourselves. We cannot understand how destructive supposed "good" people are in Gods eyes. This should make us feel enough lack of understanding to be reduced to give God all of our struggles. Because we see that we really cannot trust ourselves. When we have gone down to the bottom of the experiences of the world we will be struck to the point of the experience of mystery. Our powerlessness to do one thing about it is equal to Gods attributes in response to the course of the world. We will find that our feelings are not that powerful. It is at this point that we experience Gods view of all of this destruction. When we view it as Gods sees it then we are experiencing the just declaration of God in Christ. If we are powerless to overturn the worlds destruction and to change the course of the world then we are unable to save ourselves. How can someone save himself if he cant save his neighbor?  It is an imagination. What can we conclude if there is a system of justice that is a mystery to us? It is Gods sovereign rule over the secret thoughts of man? We can say that we understand that God is absolutely just in all that He does. Because our very small experience of justice is consumed in Gods absolute standard of justice. We could never get to the point were we are able to counsel God. Reply Quote Notify 163  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Sovereignty and..... on: August 22, 2014, 12:02:24 PM We have taken the doctrine of divine sovereignty out of its biblical context and made it a class room teaching. Most of the time when we take a doctrine and view it as a scientific experiment then we will keep it in the trial stage. But in the bible all truth is dogmatic. This is why we need to apply truth in light of the entire context of the bible. We will find that the bible takes the truth out of the class room setting and places it in the context of the universal laws of nature and the just consequences of its success. When we are applying divine sovereignty to salvation it is in the context of justifying the ungodly.  The question is how can a sinner be justified in Gods sight? The application of justification is only successful as God is absolutely sovereign. Because if God is somehow a spectator in the courtroom of history so our justification comes to us in many uncertain voices. And if God is subject to a cross examination then our salvation is not to be trusted. No need in us can be completely satisfied unless we place our justification in the hands of an absolutely sovereign God. In this sense those who express their deep need for acceptance express it in the defense of Gods absolute sovereignty just as an expression of their security in a complete salvation. The attack on divine sovereignty is the arrow that pierces the heart of our trust in God. As God is unable so we are guilty. We have a gift of a single desire. In this new desire we are able to focus on an object and raise that desire to a new level. When our focus is raised we experience mystery. Because this desire has been gifted to us it begins to flourish in us on a new level as we exalt the Giver. At the core of this high worship is our focusing on the just shall live by faith. In some sense our confidence is not necessarily on the word but upon the application of a legal position that is spoken as a pronouncement. We have heard the case and now we are animated to pronounce a verdict. But we can have no confidence in the verdict if God is not absolutely sovereign. If we do not have a God who knows the beginning from the end then the pronouncement has not legal authority. And if the pronouncement has no legal authority then we have no reason to be excited.   Our need of salvation is met when we trust in a God who is able to speak and it is accomplished. In this sense Gods creative ability is only as good as He is sovereign. The level of blessing that we experience as God is able to turn bad into good. And if God is dependent in some way then we cannot trust in His ability to overcome the bad. As we allow God to be lowered so is the amount of time we experience the dread of sorrow of guilt, shame, and fear..etc. Every moment that we are reduced to struggle with the powers of the curse is how we learn to have no confidence.   Reply Quote Notify 164  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 21, 2014, 11:42:14 AM Tb over the years that you have come here and exposed your loss of confidence and sometimes your coming to the end of yourself has resonated to encourage me. God lowers the bar so that we can still be free. If we cant achieve to a standard then He takes great care to make us acceptable in our powerlessness. Some of my most cherished moments was going to parties with the unbelievers. Im not a guy who has addictive problems but the fun I had was greater than the dirty feelings I had the next day. I admit that I gloried in being free as a sinner. If God isnt big enough to love me even tho I took fun a little to far then He isnt really there at the bottom. If He isnt at the bottom then we would never be able to live transparently before other men. I found a secret that when I curse I hang out at the bottom where His rest is. Ill pray that you can rest at any position you find yourself in life. Reply Quote Notify 165  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Consequences on: August 20, 2014, 11:33:18 AM I never think that my choices determine whether I will suffer or be blessed. We face a universal principle that opposes the the causes of our being successful. We are subject to the laws of man. In the time of the judges Israel would plant crops only to find them being ravaged by wicked rulers. We think that if we own a house , raise two kids, have a secure job that we are righteous in Gods sight. But in scripture these things and people we trust in are fleeting. The reality is that we live in a world that is passing away. We must begin to see the real value of life. That value is greater than all the gold this world offers. Its seeing every thing in this life as Gods gift to us. We must understand that God as our Father will always take care of us. Since He created us He will take care of our daily needs. He simply opens His hand and satisfies the desires of every living thing. Our Father has ceased to remember our sins. He has separated our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. In other words we are eternally blameless because we are loved eternally. Now the eternal judge has become our Father and He treats us with a special care. We now cannot fail because He causes the world to be destroyed faster.than we can be threatened. We now have that destruction behind us. We are led along by the Captain of our salvation. We cheer Him on as we take refuge in Him. We are saved from the words destruction. 166  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 19, 2014, 04:37:16 PM The christian self is experienced when we experience death to whatever prevents us from our purpose. The self is being fully engaged its purpose as we understand the line between mystery and reality.  How can you understand yourself doing something for the wrong reasons? Obviously there is a greater weight that prevents the self from all that the self is in achieving that purpose. As to living in mystery the self is forgotten. As to living in reality the self is enjoying complete freedom of purpose. When we acknowledge the limitations we have understood the legal limits of self. To be just we must put to death any imagination that our real self is understood in mystery. If our real self is all that Christ is then we are true when we image that self. If we are identified with Christ then we are mysteriously united with Him in all that He is. Do we understand ourselves as Christ understands Himself? Obviously not. But Christ has not prevented us from having the success according to all that He is. Anything that prevents us from being successful in Christ is destructive. When I say that we can be successful in knowing who we are by who Christ is ...is because He has destroyed destruction. His purpose is to justify all that we do because of all that He has already done. If we are to understand our true self then it must be in the way it is communicated to us. All created reality is pure , right , and just because it is ordered by the perfect communication of God. In this sense we are at every moment what God has decreed how things work together. But everything that God communicates has not been revealed. But God has revealed to us a simple way to understand everything by giving us the spoken word. All of His revealed words are Trinitarian. We have what He has revealed and a more detailed mysterious communication. But we have the full understanding of self because it is spoken in a way that we receive it holistically. It is spoken in laws, decrees, commands and promises. All of these different forms of speech are given to us through pronouncements. These pronouncements overturn disorder. The true self is always experienced when we come to the true line of blessing and cursing. Because we understand the reality of what is mystery and what is revealed.    Reply Quote Notify 167  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 19, 2014, 11:49:58 AM In my opinion we are born being disconnected in experience from every thing around us. This is why our working principle is to replace the void with incorporating a part of the whole. In my opinion this is a temporary fix. Our experience both human and physical comes from the unity that our ancestors achieved. This unity is interwoven in the dna and spiritual paradigms. Our natural state is to experience separation through a divided self experience. When we are born again we experience life. This life begins from a very small embryo of unity and as we grow to experience the eternal verities we lose the disconnection to creation and the boundaries of time. This renewal is described as Christ in us. Our purpose is rooted in the unity with all things through our spiritual experiences breaking into time. When our past spiritual experiences break into our present experience then we experience completeness. The more we experience eternity the more our past comes into the present. In a sense this experience connects us to the eternity past that unites us to our ancestors. We find that we generate new life into our desires from Gods eternal counsel. Reply Quote Notify 168  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 18, 2014, 01:03:15 PM I do not believe I can control my life. So Ive always been very simple in my plan of action. I get up in the morning a have a view that if I get my heart happy then everything else is icing on the cake. I focus on one thing only. So whatever I encounter does not occupy my mind as if it was the end of the world. I found out through living with this view for so long that I always enjoyed life as like I was at a party. You know that when people party there is not a lot of weighty issues that get on the way of having fun. Even tho in public I was careless in how I interacted with people yet in private I was ferocious in using the Psalms to create a kind of utopian society that I interacted in. I seek to destroy the destructive spirits and try to take captive those thoughts that would keep people around me in bondage. If I did not see and experience a level of freedom in my interactions I was motivated to a.more passionate pronouncing in private. In private I would not put with the potential trouble. I have experience a level of shared freedom in my interactions in establishing these disciplines. Reply Quote Notify 169  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Lonely David pleads for God's turning on: August 17, 2014, 03:48:44 PM We are made to feel something. We usually feel after we think of something. But because we are corrupted in our faculties our souls are not functioning as one. If we are confronted by a bad experience we naturally begin to feel adversity. And if we are confronted with a good experience we feel good. But in this world the vision of good and bad is turned upside down. Christ was always consistent with His reactions. His approach was simple. He did exactly as He said He would do. But we are very complicated because our action never matches our words perfectly. This means that our mind doesnt discern everything that we are confronted with and our feelings do not always line up with our reactions. This is why we need the word and Spirit because it searches our hearts and and discerns the intents separating the soul and spirit. That is it brings us to the dividing line of blessing and cursing. But God is perfect in His desires. His word is an expression of His desire. If God did not feel then we would not know the feeling of pleasure, pain, or anger. The fact that God feels is part of His searching our hearts. In other words whatever problems we have, being confused about how we feel, being hardened by anger, or being tempted by lust , God searches our hearts exposing our inward desires and reorders our feelings or consumes our feelings. But we are required to read and understand the word of God.  14 But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. If God searches our hearts He does it by His word. The word is a perfect expression of the perfect man. It gives us a holistic understanding of the perfect spirit of Christ. So we find in the Psalms the description of the emotional life of Christ. The description of governments, evil, the wicked ,the righteous, pleasure and desire. These words are pronouncements that reorder all the descriptions of this disorder. We can say that fountain of feelings is rooted in perfect justice. Christ emotional life was expressed with perfect justice because His soul was perfectly aligned. All of the experience of Christ was legally binding. I do not believe we can separate feelings with action. Ive heard people say even tho you dont feel it just do it. This is a very dangerous view of life. We have a responsibility to examine everything. We are not automatons trying to act correctly but we have Christ living inside of us, by identity "for me to live is Christ." I will discuss later how our souls are like an empty vessels that get filled up.       Reply Quote Notify 170  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 17, 2014, 02:18:38 PM Now the post have begun to take a Freudian turn. lol First I do not believe that we can just divide all of these family relationships , examine each one of them and make a wide sweep about how a child turns out. Once we say absolutely that this is the process and this is the diagnosis then we are guilty of judging that person. Having lived in this culture it amuses me how precise this kind of language is and how destructive it is to a person who is forever labeled. It kind of reminds me of the soap operas where the whole story is built on old wives tales. I do not believe that a person sexual performance is dependent upon the relationship of the family. Rather I believe it has to do with body image. I m not one who spiritualizes the union of a man and a woman. Rather the success that part of the relationship is about two people being comfortable in their own skin. So you can have someone who is promiscuous who has a better understanding of their bodies than a religious person. The bible says that when the child is rejected by the mother and father that the Lord will receive them. I do not believe the end result of the parents relationship should be that the child has healthy relationships but that person understands their identity in Christ. I do not believe there is any child that has a one hundred percent healthy relationship with their parents. There are so many variables of the reasons about what is going on in a person that only God knows the solution. The bible says that our identity is formed by being loved by God. So the number one reason for a parent to reach the child is if the parent is experiencing Gods Father love on a daily basis. I do not believe anyone can get the love across to the child by receiving it from anyone else. A good parent focus on how he understands Gods love. The reason that this is so important is because there is only one attractive quality that is needed and that is for a parent to show how to live in freedom from guilt, shame, anger and sorrow. I do not believe we can communicate this to a child by words. You cant fake freedom. Being free is more than trying to appear to be free. Ive traveled down the road of Freudian Psychology. In  fact in my younger years any thing that was presented to me that was complicated made me feel proud that I could repeat the mantra. I may say something psychological about a person as a diagnosis to try to communicate that in a cultural way but it is not my fundamental position. After focusing so much on the Psalms which is a book of counsel, Freudian Psychology has no basis in reality.    Reply Quote Notify 171  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Lonely David pleads for God's turning on: August 16, 2014, 07:07:51 PM When David is speaking of being alone it is in the context if suffering some kind of adversity that has turned him inward. He uses extreme statements because he is describing how he is feeling rather than God being in control and it will be ok. In the American culture we approach problems by dividing them up and identifying them. We try to attack them one by one. We try to incorporate something new in the personality. But in the Jewish culture it was to outwardly express what is going on inside. And you see how my talking about anger has already led to a miss understanding. I wasnt teaching that we are to take our anger out on the person who offended us. I was simply explaining an art form that we approach God with. I was trying to show that transparency before God is being able to describe what we are going through and how it has effected us. Our culture assumes if you do something in private that it absolutely must be exposed in public. But we see that David exposed himself in private and took on the personality of a troubled man. But it did not carry over into his public affairs. Most people in this culture are obsessed with being strong and unfeeling. It shows because we take medications to numb the anxiety and stress. But the Jews saw the struggle as being overcome by the curse. It wasnt that God was testing them but rather if God was God then they shouldnt be overcome with the outward troubles. So they approached it with anger because the experience was destructive. People in this culture do not start with the position that they are blessed and that means that being troubled is not acceptable. They seldom approach their struggles expressing anger. We see David understanding that Gods standard of relationship is always loving , faithful, kind and long suffering. He knew that Gods desires would consume his desires. So David was not afraid to show his transparency in describing the struggle as distressful as he could. Also when you read the portion like this and look at it in a purely academic way then your gonna focus on the words and conclude...look at this guy.. look what he is going through. But when you take his words and cry out to God with them then you experience healing. When I am describing loneliness it is in the context of me already experiencing healing by using the words. It is like a mirror. You use his expression and you experience a kind of new personality. Your led to focus away from those troubles. I looked in the mirror already and came out the other side. And thats how I write. Reply Quote Notify 172  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 16, 2014, 04:37:27 PM Quote from: Lone Arranger on August 16, 2014, 11:18:18 AM MBG, your posts on anger are a perfect description of an abusive personality type.  I'm not saying that you are, so don't take offense.  But I've been studying what makes people abusive, and the number one reason is desire to control (which, let's face it, is driven by feelings of powerless).  That desire comes out of a feeling of justification.  "I am right, you are wrong, therefore I can be enraged and take whatever action I feel necessary to keep you in line."  The more powerless you feel the more force you feel justified in employing.  That, taken to completion is abuse. I don't disagree with you re. God's need and justification to judge and take punitive action because God alone is holy and would be less than loving or just if He didn't do that.  I do seriously question, however, man's opinion on who is needing punishment and who is righteous - who we feel we have a right to be enraged with.  Even David, though flawed, cried out for God's action vice taking his own.  He could have killed Saul many times.  Had him in his hands, and would have been justified in the eyes of man in doing so for self defense, but he humbly deferred to God to act. Now, my question to you is, "What is the real reason you feel so powerless, and hence, enraged?  What happened 'way back when' in childhood that started it all?"  It may take great courage on your part to uncover and share this. Blessing, brother.       Yes I understand your confusion. I think your diagnosis of me is wrong. I am naturally passive and lacking strong identity. It took me 10 years to change the way that I naturally approach situations. Im a middle child and prior to my quest of memorizing the Psalms I spent most of my time trying to mend other peoples fences. I can say with confidence that I have changed. Let me show you some of Davids approaches and how he dealt with his anger. I can assure you that I am taking scripture and putting it into my own words. Ive spent so much time and energy meditating and musing in the Psalms that I do not even know myself in comparison to how other people talk about themselves in this psychobabble communication. I spend my leisure time meditating on the Psalms over and over and over again. I like to hear stories of people who excel in something because they have such a strong discipline in that area. I love to watch the Olympics because I see athletes practice their craft for 4 years for only 3 weeks of Olympic performance. I brag about being obsessed with the Psalms. I can say with sincerity that I do not think about a situation without first meditating on certain Psalms to get a pure perspective. I am a person who ignores situations... the trouble in the situation...for the sake of using the trial to motivate me to a more passionate cry. When most people naturally react to a situation I retreat into the Psalms because I have a different standard of how a person is blinded by their natural reaction. I watch how people get excited and i just muse at how easy they are drawn into a conflict. Every trial that increases in a persons life is usually because they get slowed down by taking all of these side roads. We must understand the kind of salvation that we have received.  When a person is saved they go from being a child of the devil to beings Gods child. All of the former communication that motivated them has changed. Gods salvation is so successful that we receive a completely new identity. We get that identity front loaded as you like to say. When the Psalms say that a person who meditates on day and nite will be successful in all they do it is not talking about our occupations in life. Its much deeper than this. Its talking about being translated from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of light. Are we just servants of this new kingdom? Not really we are kings of a kingdom in which God is the King. You know people get obsessed with opposing absolute control. And it is amusing to me to hear the other side talk about how they choose something first in order to prove they control their lives and yet when we describe inability they talk about how we are obsessed with control because we somehow feel inferior to God. lol. But anyone who is serious about the Psychology of David knows that there is a hiccup in this psychology of control. It is hidden in the text so that only those who apply themselves to understanding that most of the words are written as poetry and comparison they insert their ideas of the will. We know that David approached this idea of control in a specific way. The danger is that only go to the scriptures we like. We must see the whole counsel in order to understand how the Psalmist became willing. There is a kind of hiccup in the Psalmist view of control and this is why we get confused. The Psalmist first acknowledges his inability to do anything righteous. This acknowledgement extends to all that the Psalmist does. Not only in trying to do the religious exercise but also in the occupation of battle. How can a king be absolutely helpless and yet be in control of the world? How can a human king be in control of the nation and yet call God the King of the nation? There is only one way this can happen and that is both kings must be united to one purpose. Now this is impossible if you think about it. Because one king is sinful and the other King is completely just and righteous. This leads to the first conclusion. The king must acknowledged that God alone rules. In acknowledging that God alone rules the king must confess that the power is not in the military machine. Now this is one perspective of a multifaceted view. And if we look at through this one perspective it is the pure idea of control of the other perspectives. So when we see the king acknowledge that God alone rules and works to bring justice, equity, and faithfulness to a nation, we are acknowledging that king David is in absolute control. Because this acknowledgement is a pronouncement. In other words the king in confessing that God alone is in control is pronouncing judgement on the nations that reject God. Because the king acknowledges that God alone acts alone to rule the nation then he acknowledges that the king could not rule by compliance with the law. Instead the king confesses that he is worthy of judgement as a law breaker. Every time the law speaks the king must confess that he is worthy of judgement. But again this is not just in the context of a confession but a pronouncement. The king in acknowledging that he cannot keep the law pronounces that those who live by the law should have the whole law condemn them. This pronouncement is the motive for the king to make war with the nations. Because the law pronounces judgement upon those who live by it. Again we are talking about absolute control of Gods king. There is other perspectives but i will stop here.       Reply Quote Notify 173  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 15, 2014, 05:20:09 PM How do you kill the curse? Thats an oxymoron. lol Its gonna get worse as we get older. Try living your life as going to the doctor to hear whether you are gonna live or not. Thats 10 years etc of your life that has not yet happened. lol I mean the threat of death is gonna dwarf all of your younger struggles. When I say i am pushing it down i am talking about reducing its power over me. The more I push it down the more it is reduced. Ive lived with a lot of problems. But when i talk about pushing it down for 30 years im talking about living as if i could crush anything in my way. I do not mean with my physical strength but the level of spiritual power that I experience on a day to day basis that if it was reduced I would really suffer. I have a big appetite for spiritual power that I am used to. I normally feel like I am laid open. Its the experience as if Gods loving hands were tickling me. Its the feeling that whatever pain I experience is numbed by His healing hand. I feel so enlarged sometimes that I am looking around to see if there is an angel standing next to me. I feel swallowed up by God. Now Gods power works much greater in us than anything we can muster up. When I talk about pushing the curse down I am acknowledging my own inability. How does a person push the curse down? What can they do? Ask someone to pray for them? Tell a counselor they have these cursed fears, sorrows that are like a plague? The only way is for God to do it by His word and Spirit. We simply use His means to effect something that is beyond our sight and control. When I am talking about pushing the curse down I am describing the power of His word that I am experiencing. Im not talking about the physical makeup of the brain...the problems with chemical imbalance Reply Quote Notify 174  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 15, 2014, 04:25:52 PM The Father image is very important. Maybe I can explain it as the Father coming from the inside and not out there some where. Ive wrestled with this for a long time. But the core of any struggle is how we know our own anger because the Father image is our need of acceptance to be justified in our view of the lack of acceptance in these earthly relationships. The closer we are in relationships the more heat of anger we feel toward those who hurt us. When our anger is justified then we have a special interior connection to Father love. Everyone wants to have a perfect trusting relationship. Anything short of how we describe that trust is how much we react in anger. The Jews used to consider their family dead if they were not loyal to the religious group. The reason they did this was an expression of anger. To not be loyal to the cause was the same as murder. So murder was extended to the hate one feels about another person. I do not agree with the idea of disowning a son etc. But I think that the anger we feel is part of our experience of Gods communication in us. God has a righteous indignation. His anger compared to lightening striking a mountain and it is reduced to smoke. I believe that any disconnection we experience between us and our Father is because of hidden anger. Some people think that Gods love should overcome our anger. But Ive experienced Gods righteous anger consuming my personal anger. In the past few years I have experienced loss. Some of the loss is not justified. It has a real effect on life. So that situation demands that I confront my inner anger. When I apply certain Psalms to what is going on inside of me I experience a very hot anger. After going through the application i feel as if I get closer to justice. Justice represents God as Fathers attention to my need. But He has more anger than I do. It has been my experience that no matter how big the injustice is and how hot I can experience anger that His personal care for me is that I am reduced by the sheer magnitude of His anger. I begin to heal through this process.   Reply Quote Notify 175  Forums / Break Room / Re: When Christians sin on: August 15, 2014, 03:30:19 PM These kinds of statements are not just for teaching but they are pronouncing judgement upon the nations. The teaching is that if you are part of the elect you have received a gift. The gift is not just regeneration but it extends to everything you receive. It is part of Gods promise in the covenant of redemption. And in fact the Psalm that zeros in on this redemption covenant states that those who enjoy the out working of this covenant must fight to obtain it. Upon victory there will be no more breaching of the walls, no more going into captivity, no more cries of distress in the streets. So the church has a responsibility for maintaining cultural freedom. The state makes a covenant to protect the poor and the helpless and the church enforces it.  I mean that is how it used to be.  The teaching is that there is a righteous communication both political and religious. But when the wicked outnumber the righteous then the city is filled with anxiety, worry, fear, etc. The righteous cry out to God. God gives the righteous their desires while the wicked desires come to nothing. The church pronounces judgement upon the schemes of the wicked. The prayers of the poor and the helpless are filled with pronouncements. God acts upon the prayers of the righteous and the city is rescued. This is the context of the above verse. Reply Quote Notify 176  Forums / Break Room / Re: When Christians sin on: August 15, 2014, 02:51:46 PM One of the problems I have with focusing on the bad that sin brings us is that we are promised by God that we are no longer treated as our sins deserve. You look at the verse" Trouble pursues the sinner but the righteous are rewarded with good things." and think about what the Solomon is saying. Is he saying that when we sin we are pursued by trouble and when we are good we are rewarded? Or is he protecting the elect by making a fast rule by saying that the wicked are judged both temporary and eternally for their sin? This is a typical poetic statement of the ot Psalm book..also Job...stating a covenant promise that is both religious and political. I know people who make my distinction but then they will apply the two line theology to the verse. They will say that it is focused on the unbeliever but it can apply to a believe because we sin too. lol. Let me say that anytime we embrace a contradiction we will always end up at the same place we started. If you want to never move on in your christian life then embrace contradictions. You will think you have traveled a long way only to find in the end it was in a circle. lol I was talking to someone about this and I was trying to get my point across so that they would know the seriousness of embracing these contradictions. If you were suffering from an inward trial but the next day you found yourself in a war where you had bullets flying at you wouldnt you put the inward conflict aside and try to save your life? The fear of the war would make you forget the inner fear. This is sort of what happens to us when we become christians. We enter a conflict where we cannot go back to the lesser adversities. It no longer is trying to get to work the next day rather its being involved with a universal enemy. We find ourselves in the midst of people who want to silence everything that God has said. They want to destroy our new found faith. The truth is that Christ has accomplished a salvation that gets us through the door and now we are in the most peaceful, innocent, and non threatening kingdom. The problem is that even if we have all of the natural tendencies to remain in that rest we are surrounded by people who are trouble makers. We are in a place where power comes from a still small voice. The blowing of the wind. But the conversation of the wicked is noise. Loud noise represents anxiety, fear, sorrow and worry. Not only is that foreign conversation destructive to our faith but the conversation is directed toward us to destroy us. When the ot makes clear distinctions between the sinner and the righteous it is talking about the difference between a righteous nation and the other nations. It is two very different ways of communication.   Reply Quote Notify 177  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 15, 2014, 02:16:17 PM  I ve lived in my head all of my life. I used to be sensitive about the relationships I was in. I used to go away from a conversation rehearsing everything that was said and wondering if I had said the wrong thing. I do not know were I learned being comfortable with regret and shame but it was part of my early experience. I look back and see how destructive my thought process was. Anyway I learned to put the bad things i thought about in a box for awhile and just focus on God through scripture. I had a struggle at first because its hard to let old patterns of thought die. I now believe that there is not gonna be much change in confronting these bad habits but ignoring them and meditating on God. I began to enjoy God talking to me through scripture. So I would use scripture to experience the communication of Gods love. I cannot read other peoples minds but I can hear how they are talking and get some insight into what they are focused on. Most people occupy their minds with what they need to do on a daily basis. They make goals and think about the plans of the day. My problem comes when I explain to people how I learned to think. Its always how irresponsible I am in my focusing on big ideas and being lazy in my planning. I used to get frustrated at the reaction but now how I think is like being at home. Its just become natural because it feeds my motives so that I get the most out of whatever I am accomplishing. I tell people who question my philosophy that ive learned that I can create something in the future that comes back to me in my connections to things and people. I used to hear that the answer for worry and anxiety is that God is in control so why worry? It never was explained to me that God recreates reality and not just that He created all things. This creative artistic stroke by God is done through pronouncements. He makes promises and then He acts upon them. What I am saying is that God creates good by His spoken word. I think most people have a kind of natural disassociation to what happens in their lives and what God has said in His secret counsel about the events. I used to enjoy Disney movies. Where the witch would cast a spell on her victims. Why do people enjoy watching this kind of word to action association? I think its part of our love for redemption. We like to hear stories of people who we think are lucky to win the lottery. When we think about people who receive something that is too good to be true we feel good. What happens if God gives us words in scripture that kind of cast a spell? Did God just give us these words to challenge us to obey or did He intertwine them with His desires so that they move Him to act? Ive learned that there is a christian disassociation in how the average person talks about planning and doing. I think there is this whole magic idea that moves God by pronouncing what He has said. And I cant explain how it is accomplished. I just know that it inflames my motives, it gives me a feeling that God loves me beyond what I could think and it makes such a big disassociation from one day to the next of the natural working of things that I no longer feel the events themselves are as necessary but only how God is gonna create good from them. So even when I screw up i never feel as if it was out of order ...there was something I needed to hear or learn that is necessary for my good. Its total unity. Reply Quote Notify 178  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 15, 2014, 09:35:58 AM Its very short sighted of us to present ourselves as standing outside of the entire paradigm of relationships and create different categories of personalities with fast rules. When we seek to divide people into personalities and speak of them as parts that make up a holistic healthy society we view them as if we could control them. We need to come to terms with the absolute standard of God. If there is any defect in these parts then the whole paradigm is corrupted. To stand outside of oneself and view people is to see them as God sees them. This is why we seldom get to mystery. We do not attempt to apply Gods absolute pronouncements as the way to create healthy connection. If we are to experience the unity of all things then we must know who God is and who we are. But if God is totally other then we are annihilated. And if we present ourselves totally other then God is annihilated. We have corruption that is common to all. We can conclude that because God created us with a self it is the evidence of His self. So to be two separate selves we must express ourselves as God expresses Himself. If God is totally other then we could not value His expression of self. And if we were totally other then we could not understand ourselves. If we are to express ourselves in a godlike fashion we must be able to do it as individuals. If knowing ourselves is determined upon knowing God then we must express our will as God expresses His will. This is why I do not believe in worm theology. Worm theology is a teaching that since Christ has through His incarnation justly placed all things under His feet by His obedience and work on the cross then we have a future identity in which we receive all that Christ possesses. But if we are not fully identified in Christ now then we do not mirror Gods expressions as He created us. Is our earthly identity kings and priest or are we sinners who need other people to complete who we are? Do we rule now or are we simply parts of the body of Christ that are essential to the whole? If we are simply parts of the whole and God is the King of the universe then why did He give us control over creation? It would seem to me that our inheritance has been given to us and as we express our kingship then we are expressing how we are made by God. If the ot teaches that we are kings and priest of the Most High then why do we present this teaching as regressive while we are promised our full inheritance in the future? I thought we already possessed all that we are promised but we have not yet overcome all of the obstacles. It would seem to me that we are progressively becoming the kingly identity that was taught in the ot. If we are now kings and priest then this changes the whole structure of justice and equity. It gives us the full expression of self.   Reply Quote Notify 179  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 14, 2014, 11:35:56 AM I dont believe you can truly understand these different areas of the world where you see trouble without seeing it as you deal with your personal struggles. So in a sense our being able to reduce the power of the bad that comes in our lives is determined upon the amount of control we have. This control is exercised in our confidence that good will win over evil. So those who live with this hope actually rule the world. I mean the reality of living in personal confidence will determine the weight of the worlds.curse than we cast off. In the OT the prophets pronounced a blessing on Gods covenant people in this distinct confession. It was their national expression of pushing the curse away. They would confess that God put the elect in exile to prepare a greater judgement to the nations while preserving His own people. Through this pronouncement the elect enjoyed Gods special favor on the worse of times. Gods invisible hand is seen most when the world is turned up side down. We can enjoy growing down in cheering God on as we can in the best of times. Ill fix the errors when get on my computer. Reply Quote Notify 180  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Loneliness on: August 13, 2014, 09:37:03 PM I like being by myself. I think loneliness is a disposition of lacking the understanding of the sorrow we experience and a confidence that without a doubt we will find good in our future. A lot of people use prayer as a devotional time. I think that is not a good motivation because you will get tired. Prayer is a communication of our just cause as Christ sees it. Not as we see it. The only way that it can be personal is if we are able to argue from our perspective. Most people do not experience prayer as if they presented themselves before God as the ruler of the earth. Their view of prayer is broken up into these different forms ie petition..etc. But prayer is being able to pronounce Gods decrees upon your situation... the pronouncing is what He has said in His covenant and in between pronouncing we are presenting our arguments. So ive seldom experienced being lonely because this is like an occupation with me. I pray in a just way about things that transpire in my life for years....every day...using bad things and good things to motivate me. I wont let anything go that He has decreed in my life until it is settled. I always want to overcome. Reply Quote Notify