Liberty is being free to live with the
knowledge that someone may be struggling with a sin and knowing just
what to do in order to help them overcome it with their own liberty. We
are free from the laws of men. Liberty is most expressed in
substitution. The difference of moving ahead of Gods design for us or of
having an understanding of the power that dwells in us.. is the
expression of liberty through self control. Liberty is expressed most
through meekness. My own thinking on this kind of enlightenment
about liberty through the understanding is mostly expressed through the
holistic working in a person.I mean that frustration is expressed in our
understanding because we feel powerless to find a solution in the
experiences of this life. This is why i believe that true liberty is a
spiritually mature understanding. Because liberty is a state of mind
before it is connected to outward circumstances and the things of this
world. Liberty is expressed through these attributes of the Spirits
work. For where the Spirit is.. there is liberty. There is no positive
effects in the working of the law as an expression of liberty. The law
simply shows us our failures. So the notions we have as a natural way of
moving toward unity ... that is in a way the expression of a mature
mind... a mind in the body of Christ... is through the gospel of grace. But
obviously we all have different realities.. we view things and
circumstances ...people and inward trials in a completely different
manner. I mean that liberty is not where everyone comes to the same
conclusions... has the same temperaments.. and communicates in the same
way. But liberty is seen in the unity through differences. In this sense
liberty is found where people are trained to know His voice and
understand His ways. Then this is what every individual is holistically
and individually His expression toward the unity.
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.
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on: March 03, 2009, 04:59:13 PM
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I agree that it is active. I dont recall
saying that it was not. But the glory of God is what our active position
is toward. In this since then when we are talking about behavior then,
it is sanctified by our giving God the glory and not the other way
around. For all the work comes as a result of the desire.Our love for
Christ sums up the law. Thats why Christ says that its not evil that
comes from without... but evil is a heart issue. We have the action
of the mind... that being the weight that we attach to the understanding
as the cause of being pleased with the images that we look at. Not only
from a physical perspective but we have been given spiritual eyes. This
understanding is very powerful because it is at the source of all that
we do. We act out of our understanding of who Christ is. Because we have
been given these spiritual senses to discern the nature of the cause of
all things that exist. We look at nature not as the scientist but we
see the wisdom ... the wisdom that is not of this world. We see the
wisdom of God. Nature sort of takes on another dimension in our
understanding. Instead of looking through a micro scope we are looking
through the eyes our understanding. Thats why the apostle prays that the
eyes of our understanding may be enlightened. Because we have a
reaction as we gaze upon these things. We are looking and then we begin
to rejoice in His glory... the wisdom, and we are seeing His hand in
these things as to the beauty. So that we are rejoicing in Him. All of
this is a cause and effect movement on our souls. We are being
enlightened by this illumination. So that we know that God exist in all
of His glory in a realistic understanding even tho we cannot see His
glory ... but we are sure because of the wisdom of creation. And then we
understand that He has power beyond our understanding.. .seeing that we
could not duplicate the smallest living thing in this earth. We
not only live in this understanding but we partake of His created things
every day. So that we enjoy these things. This desire that is deepened
in us as we grow in our understanding of God is greatly helped along by
our enjoying the things He has made. In this since it is mixed with
pleasure in the taking... that the world would never experience. Because
its not in the thing itself... nor is it in the physical senses... but
it is in the glory of the unseen . We take pleasure because we know that
the things come directly from our loving Father. So that we are made
aware of His great kindness... we rejoice in knowing that the things
were given to us to enjoy from His bountiful grace. Now we may have our
physical senses as a part of the pleasure... but these senses are fading
away. You see then that the spiritual enjoyment is being renewed every
day. In our enjoyment then we are as it were growing in our longings for
Him.. we would leave the pleasure of these things for His pleasure in a
spiritual sense. Until the day when our bodies will have had their last
breath and we are made to have all of our spiritual longings satisfied
in Him when we see Him. But there is a sense in which when we look
upon Him in His revelation... in the illuminating light to our
understanding of His attributes... then we are looking unto things that
are not of this earth. And our hearts begin to glow with His
faithfulness... that is we get a new pleasure in all of His attributes
that we are sensing as being His unfailing love to us. For God is love.
This is all the activity of a saint.
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.
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on: March 01, 2009, 01:30:06 PM
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We go through different periods of life. There
are active time where we spend most of our waking hours running here
and there with a longing to settle down and meditate ... rest from the
weariness of the day. Along with these things we develop a habit of
expectation. I mean there are human desires ... mixed with
imaginations... and these create a satisfaction about the way of life...
we live with the freedom to do as we please. With all of these
sensations to our natural senses ... bringing pleasure and enjoyment we
learn to develop callouses in certain thinking paradigms so that we are
protected from the grief in having to lean on other ideas that may
create a certain connection to an uncertain outcome of future
consistency in enjoying.... living with these different pleasures and
consistent returns on our habits. Under the guise of consistent
pleasure is this tendency to find a level of irritation as a natural
reaction to this uncertain outcome.There are potentials for great grief
as it moves in and out of our way of living with a level of pleasure.
Sometimes it moves in with great power and there is a general reaction
of having a desire to move in this uncertain irritation with as much
force and power that we can sustain to hold onto our security so that we
learn to depend less on this worlds returns to us for our habits. In
this way we find a level of happiness in forcing our certainty... our
work... our pleasures as a dependent way of developing these callouses
in keeping a steady hand on the ways of a consistent experience. In some
ways we are drawn into finding relief away from any cause or experience
of desires that are connected to our pleasure. We learn to find these
pleasures as they effect us from without. And we hold onto these
different avenues of understanding in order to live under the love of
sense in experience. First of all the ideas of life have a
multitude of pathways... they are like a myriad of colors.. . such that
we have a natural draw toward painting an image... with a tendency to
focus on one artistic method of interpreting the true idea in all of its
connections to our pleasures and connections to reality. We are drawn
away from holistic experiences from our souls into a very certain
dependence on a shallow level of connection to these myriads of color
senses. Deep calls to deep in the roar of water falls... its some
experiences and connections that are moving up in this artistic fashion.
Gods ways are not our ways... they are so many thoughts at a level that
is circular the outside of time connections ..that they are beyond our
scrutiny and beyond our count. So that in this deepness is this
experience of Gods minding in our minds.
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.
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on: March 01, 2009, 09:33:00 AM
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Thank you for the complement. Can you just go
on ahead and say that i am an antinomianist? But i not only consider
the struggle with sin ... in the flesh futile but I think its down rite
foolish. First and foremost the sinners prayers are just not enough. I
mean...if i depended upon my first prayer in order to have assurance
.... which is essential to growing in Christ.... then i would be without
hope in continuing to sin... i mean it was my asking then... it was my
effort to mark me as guilty.... i guess the natural response from a
little baby would be to equal assurance with the guilt of sin and then
find after the initial experience of newness was worn off... only to
find that guilt was still there. I would say at this point it over turns
the gospel ... its the same person who is an antinomian. Because
salvation really was not a result of my repentance. I mean i have heard
that you enter salvation thinking that it was all of you and then you
look back and find it was all of Him. But that is just from bad
teaching. The ends dont justify the means. Its the same thing as saying
our economic system is put in for the sake of the unsaved ... the greed
of man. Thats suppose to be an argument for the goodness of the American
system? I doubt that it was the reason. The reason being that it is not
the governments responsibility to make good citizens... parent
children... educate people. Its only good for religious societies. Dont
ever argue from an invisible cause to a reality! Thats the two line
theology.
But true repentance was a free act of God to destroy
our old will and give us a new will. So that our willing the good starts
from Gods willing it in us. Or giving us a nature that will find our
life in the life of Christ. The end of all of our lives is in the nature
of the cause of our new life. Repentance is an attitude of our
understanding that is natural to salvation. We live a life of
repentance. We live as seeing ourselves as wicked.... reckoning
ourselves as unrighteous so that by grace we may be counted as righteous
in Him. Again we enter by grace.... that is His power alone. Not our
faith. We can come to Him by simply believing....the believing was His
gift not ours. We really do not need to say a thing. We can on one day
be a rebel.. the next minute we have a divine lite from preaching or
even from a mule speaking... and then we simply believe. No really big
experience at that point. But then it was started from no human source.
It was always a work of God.It is His will that He receive the
glory...all the glory for entering. I think the answers to these
questions is in the details of sovereign grace.
Let me say something
here in this awful day of pelagianism. These things of grace are set in
motion. Just like a weight given to the natural forces of gravity. One
power moves into another position. But we are dealing with opposition to
these grace paradigms. And it is sin. But sin is the way of the wills
of men. So that when men speak ... they speak with falseness. All men go
astray at the point of a real understanding of paradigms... the concept
of reality. So then there is opposition at the point of understanding
paradigms... the cause and effect of the universe of the working out of
all things. Whether they be visible or invisible. We then move from a
mis understanding... to a formation of an idea that is in opposition to
God. This is the reality of doing. For what is done in the moral cause
and effect of an idea is done in the will. So we live and act in who we
think we are. So that this involves a conflict. And this is where we
pull down every imagination that exalts itself against God,... i mean
the act of pulling down... and we take captive... i mean the act of
taking captive ...how do we do this? Praying in the Spirit with all
kinds of prayers... by taking the word of God which is the offensive
weapon and crucifying the flesh ... putting sin to death. All of these
paradigms like crucifying, putting .... taking... praying.. these are
all actions.
So that the opposition to the motion set is to take from
the glory of God for ourselves. We are under an obligation to live
according to the Spirit... that is we live as tho we have been bought
with a price.. we give Him all the glory as a sacrifice. We are being
renewed in the spirit of our minds. The opposition is from the very
idea... its i want the glory... its forming our opinions by this
constant call. But we live taking it captive. Giving Him praise for
every thing!
"For God’s working in and together with all
second causes for producing of their effects, what part or portion in
the work punctually to assign unto him, what to the power of the
inferior causes, seems beyond the reach of mortals; neither is an exact
comprehension thereof any way necessary, so that we make every thing
beholding to his power for its being, and to his assistance for its
operation.....everywhere obvious in Scripture, of the stirring up of
men’s wills and minds, of bending and inclining them to divers things,
of the governing of the secret thoughts and motions of the heart, as
cannot by any means be referred to a naked permission, with a government
of external actions, or to a general influence, whereby they should
have power to do this or that, or any thing else; wherein, as some
suppose, his whole providence consisteth." J Owen
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5400
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Forums / Main Forum / Re: Anyone else feel like this?
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on: February 27, 2009, 07:49:22 PM
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Father God,
I
love You with an awesome love. It’s as though I suddenly realise the
truth of what love is and what it feels like. All at once I am a child
again; I can hardly bear to take my unquestioning, adoring eyes off You
and I earnestly hang on Your every word out of a compelling,
irresistible desire to show my love for You. Celebrate this innocent,
honest love with me Lord, sing a song of happiness with me and dance a
dance of joy that my heart is willingly, eternally Yours.
I was
so blind before. It staggers me to see what I overlooked as I concerned
myself with me; as I busied myself with this world and served only
greed and selfishness. It’s as though my eyes have finally been opened
to the reality of Your magnificence, Your greatness and Your grace.
It
amazes me to think that You have always loved me. As I squandered Your
gifts and ignored Your will You were waiting for me with infinite
patience. While I worshipped money and possessions and allowed myself
to be seduced by worldly desires and ambitions You had faith in me; You
persevered with me and now I realise with absolute gratitude that one
day You extended the hand of Your Grace and took me for Yourself.
Gratitude
is such an inadequate word for the way I feel. It is simply impossible
to define how indebted I am to You for Your compassion and mercy. That
Your Son would die for me; allow Himself to be ridiculed, reviled,
rejected, tortured and then murdered in the most hideous and painful way
for me, pushes the boundaries of my comprehension to their infantile
limits and humbles me beyond description…
When I think of Him and
what He did to save me I almost wish I could become humility itself… I
feel as though I would like to take onto MY shoulders the shame of those
who did that to Him; to somehow atone for their actions and save Him
from the Cross. But I know I would have failed Him too, just like
everyone else... and though I long to look into His infinite, merciful,
perfect loving eyes I could never hold His gaze, because my eyes would
be cast down to His feet… those sacred feet that brought the best of
news… and which I long to smother with never ceasing kisses of love and
thanksgiving.
Father God, I love You with the breathless,
grateful love of one who has been rescued from the brink; pulled back
from a certain icy death into the warmth and security of a perfect
embrace. All that is inevitable in my life now is You. Through Your
Son, by Your Love, the brightest of lights shines into my heart,
obscuring everything but itself, and my whole being is filled with the
music of Your Grace and the sweet song of Your Glory.
It
is impossible to believe that all You ask in return for this is my love
for You. How can I NOT love You? I owe everything to You. I see it
as clearly as I see my own hands… I am nothing without You and I have
just one purpose on earth… to be a vessel for Your love.
Here I am Lord, here I am.
Thank you G.... this is heavenly.
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