5491	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: February 18, 2009, 02:23:48 PM
Ok let me describe the ways of man. You get two people together in accountability. Now then... Jesus has said that the last time you looked and lusted that you are forgiven. Now you feel guilty... you are condemned... you need help... a little talk... a little encouragement from a friend. Now God says... look i am rite here ... twenty four hours a day. I am already here .. just as if you did not lust. But you just dont think that you can relieve your guilt by simply trusting that it is forgiven and it takes no work. So you climb the sorrow hill... its like the experience of having pity from your partner. You work up enough sorrow and then you look to the pity of men. Mean while God is saying... i love you.... man....i loved you before you went and did that sin... i accept you... no need to gravel. Look there is my Son... He is bigger than your sorrow and your sin. Look at that beautiful love... come now ... you think that your guilt is going to earn His hard work on your behalf?Please... you are not able to do one thing to connect your sin with His righteousness. Please dont lower My name like that. You two guys need to quit the useless imagination.
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5492	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: February 18, 2009, 01:50:59 PM
Now heres the problem. No one can repent on his own. Hes not saying that they should try a little harder to avoid a situation. It may mean that we avoid certain situations. But there is no power in avoidance. If it depended upon us leaving a sin by doing something different... then we could in essence prevent temptation by our works. But our works are filthy rags before God. And God tells us that He doesnt mark our sins. Either we believe that God does not mark our sins, or we think that He marks some sins, or He marks our sins until we get them unmarked. If we believe that God is saying that you must leave this particular sin in order to come to me... then we are saying that we must do something in order for God to not remember it. Why would we be justified by a foreign righteousness if we had to review our sins and do an action in order to remove them so that we could enjoy peace with God again. If He doesnt mark our sins then He doesnt hold them to our account. What He is saying is that we have been given grace. Now the problem is that we still practice sin, sins, and we live under sin because we are corrupted in every part. What He is saying then is not that we offer a pure life by removing a bad sin. He is saying that we are required to love God with all our hearts , all our minds and all our souls. This is the law that fulfills all the law of God. Well when have we loved God with all our hearts? Not in a pipe dream..... Not in the wildest imagination. But we still have that obligation. That is the mark of a believer. The only way that we can do this is to have a new birth with a new desire to live for Him. We must be born again. Then and only then can we understand that we are under grace so that our best efforts to please God by our obligation is only filthy rags. So that we are repenting when we are acknowledging that we are not able to become acceptable by our own repentance. We see ourselves before a holy God who is treating us as if we never sin because we are fully accepted in Christ. We have open..... i mean..... full acceptance.... because Christ righteousness has made us rite before a holy God. Now we can move on knowing that there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus. We rejoice because we repent.Oh man Eric, you are going to get me in trouble. But this is so good. Now from the time of Joshua where he declares as for me and my house we will serve the Lord, then the people respond we will serve the Lord. But the "will" in the text was a future tense verb. In other words Joshua was showing them the two mountains as he had led them out to the wilderness. Now this was very different than the normal worship in the temple. Well he pointed to the mountain on the rite and he said this represents cursing. And then the mountain of the Lord represented blessing. A very clear difference. The rugged mountains represented cursing. These mountains were majestic. They were powerful. But the worship of Jehovah was on His mountain. Now the rugged mountains were numerous..... Very over powering. They represented a system of man who ruled with the ways of the world.  But when the ark of the covenant was placed in the place of worship on the Lords mountain there was a tremendous fanfare. The singers were in front ... which represented the power of rejoicing in God alone. Nothing about the armies leading here. For God is their strength. He made them march like a band around Jericho to destroy that city. God always wants His worship according to His ways.  Now men always rebel by worshiping other gods. They love their idols in their lives. Joshua was telling them to leave their idols. They were telling Joshua that they would leave their idols some time in the future. So then in the text the verb changes to the present tense.In essence Joshua told them not in the future but now.Well we know what happened, they went rite back to their idols. And it was so bad that they were offering their children on the altars of pagan idols. They in essence had blood on their hands and then going through the ritual of blood sacrifices and temple worship. And yet they were worse than the nations around them. Thats why when God judged the nation of Israel.. their enemies came through and killed their babies. God always protected His remnant within the idolatrous nation. 5494  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: February 18, 2009, 10:51:16 AM I have never wanted to love God like i am supposed to. Now it has been revealed to me for no reason that i can think of as to why i would be a recipient of His favor. I have been saved by the grace of God. I dont even know that there is a reason in myself prior to Him telling me that He loves me. All i know is that He has loved me from before I was born. I really do not like men who confront me with my sin and weakness. I really have questions when i find this grievous situation. I get angry and then i go to God. I mean that God has never been so angry with me that He has decided to cut my legs off. I have never experienced a God who tells me that if i say this thing to Him that He is going to prove that He is holy and give me so much grief that i would be nothing but a beggar. I mean that i am always so overwhelmed with His love... it is the reason that i know Him... that i can go to Him and be consumed by His love in my anger. If i thought that I could instruct Him as to how He is going to react to me, then there is no reason for me to be secure in His love. What makes me change is that He is love and i am in Him. Thats why when i feel the pain of this life... no matter where it comes from... my reaction is not what it means to me. I know that He will respond to me in His love. I was changed into love in the love of God before there was any reason to experience the pain. We are not preaching to anyone in particular. This isnt a game of gotcha. We are preaching before God Himself to find in Him every remedy for every one including ourselves. We are preaching love to the end. For God is the end. That is the all consuming end. The Spirit just told me to put this here. Exodus 34:5-7 5 Then the LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him and proclaimed his name, the LORD. 6 And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming, "The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, 7 maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin. Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation."- Those outside the covenant. 5498  Forums / Main Forum / Re: what have you done for me lately? on: February 17, 2009, 01:32:15 PM Quote from: Gouda on February 13, 2009, 09:44:10 AM Klab, when I'm feeling the way you describe, about my own relationship with God, I look again at some words that helped me, from Steve Brown: == "Every Christian I know wants to be better than he or she is. There may be an exception to that, but I haven't found one. In other words, most Christians aren't getting any better and sometimes are getting worse…but they really want to be better. Do you know why most Christians don't get any better or why you don't get any better? It's because you're doing it wrong, dummy! You are obsessed with sin and your faith has become another "system of laws" whereby you feel guilty and try and try and try to do better. It doesn't work, never has worked, and never will work. Only really shallow people keep doing the same thing over and over again with the same result, thinking that the next time the result will be different. So stop it. You're just making a mess out of it. People get better by obsessing on Jesus and his love…not by obsessing on their own sin and disobedience. That's what the cross is about, to wit, a covering for sin. So that's not the issue anymore. Not only that, the imputation of Christ's righteousness to our account is a gift beyond measure assuring that God's anger will never be directed at us again. And, by the way, an obsession with sin may be the greatest form of pride. Frankly, it is quite narcissistic. (If you're going to get neurotic on me, that's a good place to start.)" == I know that's probably something you know already, as I did, but going back over the words sometimes helps me snap out of a mood, or it at least lessens the sting a little. It also may be a mis representation of repentance. If we focus on our behavior changing then we are preaching down the substitution of Christ. When we preach down we are presenting a man centered repentance. Repentance is not faith. Repentance is simply turning to Christ.... faith is apprehending His work. Now look... can i ever say that i totally repented of all of my sin? Can i say that the sin i repented of will never be revisited? See now... lets be honest ... repentance is an attitude that i am not able in myself to turn and leave the sin. I mean when i say repentance is turning its acknowledging that i need Christ power in order to have a rite attitude about my sin. In a way the rite attitude is that i will acknowledge i need Christ every day and i will look to Him as my only hope to ever have an acceptable sorrow over my sin. In this way i am understanding His grace before i understand my sorrow. If you are preaching a man centered repentance... then no one... no listen to me... there is an undercurrent conversation going on here .... no one will want to go to a Christ who demands more ability and accessibility than can be acquired at the time. For where ever God demands He accomplishes. Thats mainly why people get stuck. Its a refusal to preach free grace.