5401	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: February 27, 2009, 07:34:09 PM
No but you got to ask yourself.. where did all that struggling lead to? Does it end with your sweat equity? Now just because adultery was the sin of the day so to speak does not mean a hill of beans in the way God thinks of you. I mean it may be a sin that is bringing big guilt... but just because you point to a sin that you have so to speak grown past... well... lusting is adultery also. So heres where the rubber meets the road. If your sin cause you to look for relief in any other object other than Jesus then its self righteous sweat equity. I mean i never have committed adultery in the physical way, never gotten drunk, and was saved at a young age. It means absolutely nothing to my spiritual sweat equity. Its just a means to boast! Even if i were to tell you what sins i have done... that to is a means to boast...because boasting is placing the focus on my sin or my righteousness. Its not about my sin...its about His grace. It just grates at me to see people sharing things because they feel guilty and then it becomes a way of religion. It grates at me to have people take a minor point in scripture ... turn it on its head... and make it a major means of the gospel. We do not define sin in just a manner of the "one sin" we define sin in the entire universal sense. Then we point to the individual sin. But.... God sees us as all sin in ourselves. And we see the outward sins... and our guilt fools us as to the importance of measuring ourselves as God sees us. Trust this.. we are always before God troubled by our sin. If we were not troubled then we would have no reason to extol Gods acceptance of us. So that its the attitude about our sins not necessarily the production of our willing!Any other view of grace is just a denial of the longing graces. Its a secret love of ourselves in not thinking that we are totally depraved and our hearts will never be trained to rejoice in Him as real.... i mean... real adulterers... fornicators... lust mongers etc. For as long as we are on this earth we will sin as bad as the most depraved society in Gods eyes. 5403  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: February 26, 2009, 01:34:46 PM If the plague cannot be stayed, we can at least die in the attempt to remove it. Every voice that is lifted up against Anythingarianism is at least a little hindrance to its universal prevalence. It may be that in some one instance a true witness is strengthened by our word, or a waverer is kept from falling; and this is no mean reward. It is true that our testimony may be held up to contempt; and may, indeed, in itself be feeble enough to be open to ridicule; but yet the Lord, by the weak things of the world, has overcome the mighty in former times, and he will do so again. We cannot despair for the church or for the truth, while the Lord lives and reigns; but, assuredly, the conflict to which the faithful are now summoned is not less arduous than that in which the Reformers were engaged. So much of subtlety is mixed up with the whole business, that the sword seems to fall upon a sack of wool, or to miss its mark. However, plain truth will cut its way in the end, and policy will ring its own death-knell. Spurgeon 5405  Forums / Theology Forum / The Spirit of Revival on: February 25, 2009, 03:24:08 PM Now there is something brewing here and else where. As i have been reading these last couple of days i find there are some evidences of this work of the Spirit. I feel a oneness with how we have been filled with the Spirit. I want to be so revived that it will break out all over our cities. May God do a work in us that will spread like fire!!! 5409  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: February 25, 2009, 12:06:13 PM Our heavenly Fathers love compared to earthly fathers is so far beyond our imagination... even... ours is earthly hatred. Because our heavenly Father sees to the very depths of our souls. Now all the injuries that we have accumulated as a result of being scorned in our earthly relationships is a concern to our all seeing and all knowing Father. It is not that He gives pain in order for us to see the inconsistencies. Its that He sees our pain as a result of a lack of understanding.. a lack of vision... and a lack of the proper motives in others and in ourselves in order to bring about healing in that particular hurt that defines being in the state of the scorned. This defines the paradigm... that state of hardness from living in this world among sinners... that causes us to see the utter inability to answer our deepest longing by trusting in anything other than Him to know and renew... reform... re energize.. and position the balm just in the spot that we are aware that He has loved us beyond our understanding of the scornful hardness. For all men are self serving scoundrels in listening to the undercurrent of what it means to identify with another human being like our Father does in His will for Christ. For He knows how we are formed... He knows that we are dust. Not that we are dust in the sense of value... but dust in the sense of understanding the level of communication in valuing the identity of a struggling ... weak... frail ... creature in His sight. We are always imprisoned in the expectations of men who are self serving first. We are always seeking to be free in His understanding of us... in His holistic manner to come to our rescue... we are always ... every minute of the day.. being delivered from ourselves and the expectations of others to rest in His eternal and unfailing love. Because His love is communicated to us as unfailing.... being able to go where ever it is intended to match our longing...our desperate scornful state on this earth. Oh how many miss communications... in failures of men... how many harsh words... how many motives to destroy... does the soul delve into the utter abyss of confusion. We believe therefore we are greatly afflicted. 5431  Forums / Main Forum / Re: How does God speak to you? on: February 24, 2009, 01:31:57 PM Heres what i mean. Lets describe a person by his convictions. Lets take a group of people with the same convictions and call them a camp. Now lets say that one camp disagrees with another. Ok.... i see this happen all the time. Now for the sake of continuance the leader will sacrifice his principles... his convictions... in order to keep the peace. Now... do you think that it is any different than say a man who refuses to attend a church because he sees the hypocrisy. I am talking about the doctrines of salvation here. Its a worse sin in the church. 5438  Forums / Main Forum / Re: How does God speak to you? on: February 24, 2009, 12:20:25 PM Quote from: living_in_the_power on February 24, 2009, 12:12:22 PM ok so the scriptures are searched to find HIS standpoint, and  then the nudging and impressions are what the Holy Spirit? God talking with my spirit through His Spirit? then the confirmation throu other believers (because GOD doesn not respect a person so all of His would be in agreement? ) then the circumstances we are in. all this together is His communication with us. HE no longer can be excuse me not can be but will be auditable. As you know Jim and i do disagree on divine sovereignty. I do not believe that i do anything that God has not decreed from eternity. So my accepting that God communicates to me is direct because He directs me in the way that i should go. Now even tho i am weak and sinful... He actually communicates His power through my weakness. Now that is through witness... or it can be speaking to my mind that He is doing exactly as He did in the power that i experienced in my weakness. He can tell me that He is doing this. He uses my sin for my good and His glory. Otherwise ... there would be no glory in the death and resurrection of His Son. There would be no praise worthiness... my ability of overcoming my sin would detract from His redemption of me. So i dont have the strength to keep myself from temptation or sin. He communicates to me His strength or for thought of victory so that even when i sin... i am confident that I have been forgiven for no reason except for His purpose. Its not His speaking to me that is the problem ... its my understanding what He means by what He has declared in His word that is t he problem.  5440  Forums / Main Forum / Re: How does God speak to you? on: February 24, 2009, 11:01:34 AM These are some very good responses. I love to read about your love for the Lord and everyone listening to His voice. I can only say that i have an insanity in how active my mind is. Ive been reminded by others that work around me as well. But there are so many angles when we are talking about the reality of God entering time and space in His communications to us in all of this invisible warfare going on. I doubt that there is no activity that inter mingles with our every day affairs. This is all a mystery to me... but in acknowledging the reality of the divine... we must acknowledge what He has already revealed about this kind of wrestling we are actively involved in with these invisible things. I mean we are not suspended in a universe where we are the recipients of a commander barking out orders for no reason. Obviously if He knows things that man could never understand and He does things that we do not understand then there is a reason in the spiritual realm as to our being enable to find a resolution with our physical senses. So that we are never resting in a suspended warfare. This is an activity... forcing the enemy to retreat. We are resisting but not to the point of blood as our Savior did for us. So there is a sense in which we fight in our prayers. Now then all things are determined to move in Gods time in all ages by the wills of men. But we are commanded to pray so that God is going to move by our prayers. Now if God depended upon our prayers to move then He would be very limited. But God moves at all times and when we pray He answers by moving on our behalf. The wheels of Heaven move slowly. Could it be that as we learn to pray in the Spirit that we begin to sense the moving of God? Now this can be a very frightful experience. After all ... we only want to see deliverance and salvation. We want to be protected from all of these things,.. these negative things that happen in the natural devastation brought on by the world. But we are determined to pray as God would have at this  time in our world. We are to know the times and we are to be wise in our prayers. So that some times when we pray the opposite destruction is the way that God is moving. And it is a terrible and frightful thing to watch. Oh...God is powerful. He has taken captive the Devil by the resurrection of Christ and He will cast Him down in the final battle. But we now are privileged to use Gods power to move the forces of evil to retreat. When we pray in the Spirit we go beyond our own strength and we experience the demonstration and the power of God as those wheels turn slowly in our praying.    5441  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: February 24, 2009, 10:27:32 AM I thought you said prior that you love someone and the the feelings will follow. Now your saying that you love other people because you have experienced the love of Christ. My observation is that you have presented two very different propositions entirely. You have made my point. I mean if you love someone because of a man made principle... ie... loving from no feeling... the philosophy of stoics... then your saying that you will get rewarded. Its really no different than rewarding a dog. He does something His owner is proud of and then he feels good about his good love... then he gets a treat. Ok... i really think that this can become a self fulfilling prophecy or a self righteous process. I mean words mean things... ideas that are introduced create the reality. Is if for the purpose to feel good after the action because the reason was to get a sense of purpose in the prior want to do the action? I really think this describes the process by which belief is just an intellectual assent to a fact and not an experience of desire. I see religious people go through this process all the time and end up completely exhausted. But your second point was that you love because Christ loves you and demonstrated that love on the Cross. I hardly think that Gods reason for dieing for such undeserved reprobates was out of principle that He would be pleased with Himself if He took that action. I mean God is not a force nor is He a rule. But God demonstrate His love because He loves by His disposition. How can God love without demonstrating His pleasure in His love? If God is the highest good then He is the most worthy of praise. One single act of divine love is one act of ultimate good and is worth the highest praise. How can someone love an object without a desire to love? How can someone love out of desire being absent of feeling? Reply Quote Notify 5442  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: February 23, 2009, 12:40:23 PM ts very dangerous to teach someone to love out of indifference. The old saying is that if you just choose to love then the feeling will follow. Well then i got to ask why i choose to love from what the other person said about the reason i did it like they said it. I had enough passion to follow their advice. But that is not what comes to the persons mind about desire preceding love as the expression of freedom. What they get caught in is a pattern of loving from some other persons principles. I mean the truth is that i can love from a desire to please a teacher in order to love the object to get the feeling. But we never love out of not having a desire to love. I mean if there is motion then there is movement. As long as the force of gravity is pulling down the act is always motion. If the object were to be balanced with the weight on the other side and it created perfect equilibrium then that is not freedom but that is suspension. The moment the object begins to move under the force or power of the weight then that is freedom. Because then that is motion toward the object. So that there must be one motion to another as the object moves down. Its not that the object gets its motion from the counter balance of equal weight. Indifference does not express freedom of the will. So that there is a cause of us loving the object. There is a maturation of power prior to the movement. This is why there is the meditative nature in choice. We love because we are pleased to love over our desire to not love.