5993	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Steve's messages on repentance	on: October 13, 2008, 12:11:43 PM
Quote from: billbennett on October 13, 2008, 10:18:13 AM From one Bill to another: Here is something to check out and share with your friend. The Greek word used in the N.T. verses linking repentance with salvation are all derivitives of the word metanoia. This word is formed from the following: meta = change noia = mind So biblical repentance is primarily a change of mind not a change in behavior. By the way I like Steve's definition of agreeing with God about who we are, who God is, and what needs to be changed. This avoids  the error of preaching repentance as something we do in and of ourselves to obtain God's favor. Hope that helps. Bill Good point Bill, Repentance is not tied to faith. Repentance is a gift of God, but in repentance we see our sin as an offense to Gods holiness. But that is not the method to have a positive change. There is no amount of human want to work up in order for us to turn from our sins. Otherwise we could just have the scriptures that condemn behaviors and a command to leave them. But the bible explains these different terms in order for us not to think that we are repenting in ourselves or that we are able to meet the requirements of the law by simply stopping the sin. That is not the historical definition of turning from sin. That is a form of self righteousness. IF He should mark my sin, i could nt stand as acceptable before Him. If He marked my view of my sin or the way i think of my repentance, or the kind of believing i have in His present mercy, then i am a willful abuser of the value of His work on my behalf.  But in order for us to change repentance does not have the quality of the positive effects to change. We must turn to Christ for grace to change. And in turning to Christ we rest from our own desire to meet the requirements and we trust in His work on our behalf. We cannot have confidence in our own righteousness. If repentance was just turning from our sin by being confronted with the law, then our lives in living a life of repentance would be without hope. My personal experience in all of this is that if a person carries around repentance like a chip on his shoulder then as a negative paradigm , the amount of hopelessness is equal to the amount of his own righteousness he trust in. Its an ugly thing in Calvinism to hold repentance over someones head as if God has determined to use you as the instrument to break someones spirit. Or Gods will is for you to be the pronounce r of personal disaster. Its a very lazy person who has not studied these truths closely in a historical way. The devil is in opposing the details.
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5994	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Fell off the wagon again..	on: October 13, 2008, 11:43:43 AM
Quote from: The G Man on October 13, 2008, 11:37:43 AM I plan to start doing more meditation, because I have come to realize that my subconsious mind is a lot more intelligent than my conscious mind. The dreams I have had lately are a real testiment of the power of the mind. I couldnt have come up with something like that with my conscious mind. 5998  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: October 13, 2008, 10:41:31 AM Yes and what is the purpose of our lives? To glorify God and enjoy Him forever. I do not see anything about the high view of our "own choices". Wow, its so simple that we can bypass our fixation of how good and enjoyable it is to choose our own things, our own ways , and focus on knowing God and enjoying Him. Wow, just to have a God consciousness is so artistically enlightening that the mundane things in life are determined to be found to be most pleasing to Him, and so we find our rest in Him when we find Him to be most pleased in the insignificant view to us of His working . So we spend our days with having a God that is much bigger than our own plans of what is good and pleasurable. If we begin with God, then we will begin with being empowered by Him through the Holy Spirit and we will find our pleasure in His making us able. God causes us to rejoice in Him by causing us to rejoice in His work, that work that He has done in us. When we are most pleased is when we are most dependent on Him for our ability.   God is all powerful. Can we go on in our extolling His power if we believe that we have a share? Can we go on in enjoying Gods presence if we are confident in ourselves? Oh what a decline in our love to Him if we should exalt ourselves in the ordering of the circumstances and the cause of our own view of how we reflect His glory in that ordering?  So much of our grief is a struggle with our own pride from resting in His eternal present power , as if we could wrestle with God in our accepting our position to bring Him glory.     The Father of all enjoyment is positioned in such a way that we are only treacherous when we have tried to share that glory with Him. For He has trained us to leave our former ways and give our full attention to seeing His glory that is over all the earth. If we could be rid of this weight of sin, then we could enjoy the freedom that we will have in our new home. How we are going to experience the full effects of His glory being worked in a perfect universe where there is no ability to sin. Reply Quote Notify 5999  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster. on: October 13, 2008, 10:06:45 AM If our desire meets the present circumstances in wanting to go in a definite direction then that desire will not be thwarted. God has given other believers the insight in helping us along the way. Whether the circumstances give us a certain amount of freedom to explore our desire, or we are experiencing a greater amount of adversity and resistance in the way we are to go, yet if it is from God then they will not be able to thwart it. So that we are always facing life as if we were already called but not there yet. Because leadership is by example, 90percent. We are confident that God will place us in the society and position that He has called us. God has a view of history that does not center on one generation. Since we are part of the greater plan in the next generations, then the beginnings of any work have a very slow procedure. There is a sense in which we all start from the position that were left to us in past generations. Unless God decides to go outside the means and use us in ways that are visibly miraculous. How we face these different circumstances in our early years will determine the level of usefulness we see in our latter yrs. Since we view the world with all of the peer pressure and the tendency to be conformed by our present circumstances then we must see that God does His work in the heart of man before he extends his exposing that man to being enable to resist this pressure even to the loss of life. We can do anything we want as long as our view of the world is formed by the word of God. But our trust should always be in knowing that God has determined to keep us in His will by the former way of His bringing about the change in the world by the former history of the saints. So that we are always bringing into our view these ways of God. It is by the Spirit through the gifts of His servants that we have been preserved in this time in history. We are facing things in our world that we left undone by our spiritual fathers. But we are seeing that it is because they failed in going the way of setting themselves up as the cause of the success of the gospel that God has determined to humble us in this present situation and bring us back to the simplicity of the gospel. That is casting down imaginations about our christian world view that man has defined as being from God, and seeing that Gods salvation is the power of God alone in how He has moved in the redemption in history.