As you know grace is the word that gets
watered down by sinners. If you gave grace a body and sin and guilt a
body it could not co-exist with sin and guilt. If you made grace have
magnetic forces, it would push mans will away and be attracted to Gods
will. Grace is soveriegn because God is soveign and Gods will is
soveriegn. The disposition of God toward man is gracious. Grace always
wins over sin. Graces space removes sins space. Man does not naturally
understand grace, cannot continue in grace in himself , never can have
enough grace. When God is lifted up, and He is enlarged in our
eyes, then grace is poured out in us as if we were being filled as an
empty vessel. Grace and liberty are the same coin. Where there is great
grace there is great liberty in the Spirit. When a person is
filled with the Spirit, grace is poured out so that it brings about
great supernatural strength. When grace is poured out in us we
relinquesh our rite to pay for our sins and we rejoice in Christ with
such strong desire in experiencing that forgiveness which is in the
springs of grace that well up in us as if we were a fountain of living
water. In other words our sin is washed away with so much amount of
water that its as if we had waves apoun waves beating up against the
shores of our inmost being so that we glitter with the light of the
Sons glory in those watered shores of our souls. Grace in
confidence are the same coin. Without grace we would be going through
one doubt after another. The waves of grace beat up against doubt so
that doubt is washed out to sea. Grace is the essence of assurance in us
of our estate in heaven and the qualilty of that eternal life in each
moment of our lives here on earth.
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Forums / Steve Brown Etc. / Re: Anger At Church
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on: October 23, 2007, 04:41:47 PM
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We have lost a lot of the common grace that
was determined to place people in the position to have a kind of freedom
that was not naturally mixed with oppressive relational Darwinism which
is deterministic hatred. So that these delusional views have buttressed
the old pragmatic views of man in semi- plagenism. Which has an effect
on the over all disposition of a society of that former supernatural
world view.
God is sovereign and because He is free to choose
how He will work His will out on this earth, He has determined to
accomplish this work in covenant. He has His covenant people chosen
before the foundation of the world. The reason that God determined to be
a covenant keeping God before He gave the law is because God holds
Himself to His promises as the law giver. In other words God acts in
covenant before He gives the laws demands.
It is a wonder how we
could conceive that there is any reason why we deserve such a mighty
and loving God. We are so spiteful to His freedom to work as He sees fit
that we would make our worship of Him determined to work by us. We
would flirt so much with will worship. But because God has determined to
lavish us with all of His promises in the covenant, and He has given us
all that we need, upholding us when we fall, keeping us from being
judged, and providing us with more than we need, it is because of His
sovereignty that we have such a surety. The only other option would be
out of our goodness that was measured by the law, with a threatening of
His judgment if we were to apostatize.
But God has come to us
not primarily by the law but by His righteous standard that was taken
care of in Christ . So that the judgment might fall on those who are
without Christ , chosen from the foundation of the world as sons of
destruction. Because God has the rite to choose who He wants there
really is nothing different between us and them, because there was
nothing in us that was pleasing in His sight. But by that choice we have
been given something more wonderful and powerful than any thing in
this world, and which will lead to an eternity of being without the
negative effects of a rebellious heart and the problem with daily
sinning. The freedom we experience as a result of our covenant keeping
God is that we can have as much grace as we possibly can get , not
because of our own ability , but given by pure sovereign grace as a
result of Christ work on our behalf. It is because God is a covenant
keeping God that we can endure, because God carries our burdens as what
the law of love requires not being met in us, but out of His choice, He
keeps the covenant.
But we are people who were brought along out
of the worst of this earth, with more sin than the world could conceive.
We were the worst sinners. And all of that judgment of the law has been
met in Christ so that we only have a Father who has given us all of the
things that are experienced by a perfect covenant keeper. God has come
to us in grace so that what He wants is nothing good in us ,but to
speak, praise and extol His Son, who went before us and met the demands
of the law so that we might be acceptable covenant people. We are the
army of God whos weapons are singing praises to Him , because of His
goodness to us as God. He is always loving, kind, compassionate,
forgiving and patient. What we know of Him as Father is this personal
example to us that He gives us grace in order for us to accomplish
anything. So that we are always receiving things and being filled with
all the fullness of God because He is God. It is because He is
sovereignly working out His covenant in His time that we can understand
and experience this kind of grace.
If we would just praise Him
in the frame of mind of what He wants us to see Him eternally being as
lifted up not just by His name but by His will, then we would experience
the fullness of the sovereign Spirit. What idea of Him could we hold
onto that we cause us so much grief in this world and keep us from
always thinking of God as lifted up. We have been given the Spirit as a
comforter to remind us of the Fathers unfailing covenant love. When we
toy with the idea that it is by our own strength and goodness that
determines Gods design, we are only leading ourselves to experience the
arrow of the poison of our deluded ability, that strikes at our hearts
and causes us to stay at that distance. Our Father wants to come in all
of His goodness, with a grace that is purely free, and by the Spirit
bring the cool waters of peace and tranquility to a lonely heart. He ask
nothing but to trust in Christ.We come not with our own delusions of
goodness , but with a heart full of gratitude, with a consistent eye to
His newness and gracious infusions of the Holy Spirit, who causes us to
alway triumph in Christ. We have a power that is much bigger than the
power of our willing, it is beyond our ability to copy, and it is what
He brings to bear upon a heart that is thirsty for that foreign power
of grace. Oh that we would have that witness of that unfeigned love of
the Holy Ghost showing us our Fathers intense working His love in us. If
we would let go of all of these human inventions we would give Him the
praise He deserves.
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7068
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Galatians, Anger At Church
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on: October 23, 2007, 05:34:49 AM
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In the garden God created man with a body and a
spirit. So man is body and spirit. His body is not the shell and the
spirit the substance of man. But he is body and he is spirit. The body
and the spirit are unique to each individual so that any separation is
an unnatural process. We were made to glorify God, so that our
spirit was made as if we had immediate access fellowship with God and
enjoyment of that relationship with all of the desires toward glorifying
Him. In other words there is no intermediate realm of existence. There
is no carnal component in the creation of man. The carnality is a result
of sin and not from a cause in the way we are made. We are dichotomize.
We are body and spirit. We are not dust to dust and ashes to ashes. But
the death process is unnatural. We were made with a mind will
and emotion. But these properties are body and soul enter related
communication. The body effects the soul and the soul effects the body.
In this paradigm there is much mystery. First because we cannot see as
God sees. We cannot see spirits nor can we observe the communication in
the unseen causes and effects. The workable nature of this
communication is within the divine purposes as first cause effects so
that the kind of constitution of a man is determined by God for the
purpose of working out all things for His purposes in bringing Himself
glory. It is not just in the physical effects that play a part
in the weakness that determines a mans future. But is also in the make
up of the spirit of a man. Some men are of a weak constitution ,some
strong. So that the nature of cause and effect designs are beyond the
understanding of man, causes and effects are hidden, determined, and
designed out of a work that is beyond the local paradigm. There is a
universal purpose the design of man. The work of creation is
from divine origin. So that the working out of the natural flow of
creation is by the divine word. God creates and He recreates. So that
the way a man is made in the secret place is by that word of God in
creating and recreating. A man has been recreated from birth. And
whether a man is recreated before he enters the world or is recreated
being in the world, yet it is what God brings to fruition in the
universal working out of His purpose in the design of the universe of
man and things. With the constitution of a mans soul and spirit
being as individual and having different strengths and weakness, these
workings can only be attributed to having a first cause that is working
to effect a mans life. Because we are subject to a power of working
that is unseen, yet we are under that obligation beyond our abilities.
So that ability is measured by that cause and effect relationship of the
first cause paradigm. We are not just people who have a zero sum view
of struggling with sin or being under the effects of the fall. God
has the working power of keeping us from temptation, sin and the
realities of facing the weakness of disease and hunger. So that we are
completely dependent on these things being worked out in our world, that
is very small in the working out of His purposes. The whole of life is
not what we see with our eyes, but it is what the kind of knowledge we
have that is from the divine. The causes and effects of sin and death
are determined in the unseen properties of powers that are beyond our
view of life. When we have found God we are at the place where we
rest. But these graces of a super naturalistic origin, are what brings
on the kind of place we rest in. What we experience is what He
determines that will be worked out in the power of working or
withholding so that we learn to depend upon Him as the only happiness
that we will experience in the working out of the individual purposes in
our lives. He deserves our praise before we can praise Him, beyond the
strength of praise we can offer Him, and the length of praise we can
give Him on this earth beyond our ability to live those days. He is our
all in all, we were made to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever.
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Forums / Key Life Forum / Re: Today's Broadcast
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on: October 21, 2007, 11:46:25 PM
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Does God have a purpose for guilt? Is there such a thing as legitimate guilt? Is illegitimate guilt a test, or a trial, or spiritual warfare? Or a combination of all three? God
has made us so that when we sin we experience guilt. Experiencing guilt
is not only a result of sin but there is a fallen condition of selfish
pride that helps to make the conditions for guilt to continue. The
problem with having guilt is not the feeling, but the guilt reminds us
of what we did. But its not really the feeling of guilt that God has
determined to remedy. Its the sin. So the guilt is more of the process
of the conscience reacting to the sin. It is the natural out working in
the fallen condition of man. So that mens natural love of himself is
mixed with sorrow about sin stemming from guilt so that he can hold on
to the hope that he can remedy the problem with doing another good thing
to alleviate the feeling of guilt and not remedy the sin. So that this
process is naturally appealing to every man in his fallen condition. This
natural condition creates the fertile ground for practicing self
righteousness. Some people who have received salvation are so addicted
to thinking this way that they mix faith and legal conviction without
knowing it. They spend most of their lives in the pit of feeling guilt
as if knowing that they are sinners equals having a guilty disposition.
There is a natural pre dispostion to growing past this paradigm as we
mature in Christ. We may feel the guilt but grace is the fertile ground
that holds us to seeing Christ. We naturally have the problem of
being under the weight of sin and guilt in a feeling since. If we are
honest about the way sin works in us we would feel more guilty rather
than just picking one sin and transferring all the guilt we have to that
one sin. Our problem is not that we have sin, but that we are deceived
about how much sin we have and how deep the sin really is, and its
presence not just as individual sins, but as a nature that we are still
battling with. So that we must deal with sin as it is in the light of
Gods word, rather than how we feel about a particular sin we are always
feeling guilty about. We shouldn t be devastated to have guilt.
Because God is not looking at our sin like we are. If we think that God
is trying to get us to be perfect by always having an eye to showing us
our sin by making us guilty then we are warped as to the relationship we
have as a son to His Father. God is looking at the longings of our
hearts. He knows us most at the core of our souls. He knows us better
than we know ourselves because everything is open to Him. We may have
the weight of sin and guilt but God is answering our longings. He is in
the process of renewing our desires so that we have a transformation
from the core. Confessing sin is what makes us feel better than
if we had no sin at all. Because the process by which we experience
forgiveness is the process by which we know His unfailing love. If we
never sinned we would not know the greatness of His loving forgiveness.
We know He is greater because we are sinners. But we not only know
intellectually , but we have been given our cry from our lips as the
point of realizing the interrelation between our deepest desires and His
spiritual reviving. Christ has taken care of sin at the cross, once for
all, and the work is finished. Now we have open access to the throne of
God in prayer by that work. We have the Holy Spirit who fills us with
joy as a result of being forgiven. His renewing us in the desires is
what heals us and causes us to deepen in the illumination of Christ name
being hallowed. And it is through this joy unspeakable that over comes
the naturalness of legal conviction. As we ask that the joy of the Holy
Spirit offered to us in forgiveness not be taken , we learn to worship
in that revived desire. It is the basis for standing in the grace of
God, and worshiping with a wholeness of confidence. When David worshiped
, he worshiped with all his might. This might was the revived spiritual
experience through the redemption that we have in Christ, and the joy
that the Holy Spirit gives in that forgiveness. Praise God for His
forgiveness for without it we would be most miserable and under the
constant legal desire.
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Forums / Steve Brown Etc. / Re: Anger At Church
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on: October 20, 2007, 08:21:17 AM
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Worshiping is being in the presence of God and
having a sense of that inward struggle between acceptability and the
need to feel the awesomeness of His powerful Spirit. I mean there is a
difference between knowing that we are accepted and having a conversion
to greater acceptance. It seems like the great search in all of life is
finding God in His temple. And once we have found Him then all is well.
For a short time we are released from the tension of life, and we rest
like a child being weaned by its mother. That is when our souls are
still within us. Its when we have experienced that quietness and
stillness that we are drawn to the beauty of the vision of Christ. We
learn that our souls were made to focus on Him and then there is the
eternal experience. In the stillness there is waves of glory that pass
through our souls. This glorious sense is mixed with a longing for
heaven where He is. It is true that we are what we think, but we also
visit the other side in that beatific vision, at least for a few
minutes. Its not just a pipe dream, but the experience makes us complete
in feeling accepted without the need to want more.
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Galatians, Anger At Church
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on: October 16, 2007, 10:18:16 AM
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Obviously if Christ hadnot come in the flesh
and died we would all be stuck with a very profound corruption of our
identity as we were once purposed to be. We were under the delusion of
sin and of our father was the devil. We were deceived because our minds
were blinded by the fall. But we really have a new identity in Christ.
We are completely different in thought, word and deed. We were
translated from death into life. Our purposes for living are completely
changed. But because we are still struggling with sin and death
we must be reminded of who were are. We can still struggle with thinking
that we are not identified with Christ. So this is an ongoing process
of being transformed in our thinking by the renewing of our minds ,
through the work of the Spirit and the word. We must present ourselves
as to Him as living sacrifices. This is the process of what the new
identity is in reflecting upon the object of our faith so that we can
know who we are as new men to understand who we are in Him. Simply put ,
He has done all of the work on our behalf, we simply learn to rest in
Him. We go up and down in knowing our new identity. Because we
struggle with believing we also struggle with our new identity. Our
strength in holding onto our new identity is not focused on our
believing, but is on the object of our trust. As we are reminded moment
by moment that we are forgiven, loved, cared for, fully confident under
sever trials , we begin to have peace that passes all of our own
understanding of who we think we are in this struggling. We surpass our
own view of ourselves, we forget ourselves so that we experience our new
identity. We forget that we forgot and we are cast into a mournful
state and a divided identity.
| 7110
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Forums / Main Forum / Re: Goals and life
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on: October 15, 2007, 03:00:51 PM
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I dont think so. There was a cluttered mind
with Martha. Well maybe we can see that man looks on the outward, but
God looks on the heart. I mean it just looks better to prepare some good
stuff for Jesus, but He has a way of turning things upside down when it
comes to what is important to man. Was there a need for Marthas
service? Yes and no, i mean is service the chief responsibility of a
believers life? Couldnt Christ have made out without the preparation? He
after all was a man with no real place to stay. And then He does own
the things that meet those physical needs. But here the lesson is, i
mean in the covenant, He promises to take care of our needs. If that was
the chief means by acceptance dont you think Her sacrifice would have
been acceptable as a service? Or maybe what is an acceptable sacrifice
is not service but a broken and contrite heart. It really was always the
attitude of the heart, and now, in this account, doesn t Christ show
that Marys heart was aright in Her response to His presence? Mary
recognized that she has the living Gods attention and it was worth more
than the outward service. It was the means by which she actually had a
conversion to see Christ as her all in all. It is in those moments in
which we have that choice to spend time with Him or be busy, that may be
the moment in which we experience a conversion in understanding the
doctrines of grace, and we are brought to a liveliness that we had not
understood because we had an experience of God in a more profound way as
we fixed our eyes on Christ.We stayed our eyes upon Him beyond even our
physical needs being met. We became weak in our calling on him night
and day. He led us to the rock that was higher than us.
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Forums / Theology Forum / Re: God's Blessings
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on: October 15, 2007, 12:54:42 PM
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Very good verse from Ps. If we trust in Him,
then we may experience some dark times but we can never fail. Because
God lights our way. And he actually shields us from what may destroy us.
God is not just a shield and light in theory. But we are His children
so that He determines to use us as He is working in us to will and to
do. If we are experiencing some trouble we are physically under the
effects of these dark workings in our hearts. We physically feel the
pain of being under the trial. But because God shields us from utterly
giving into this inward anguish, we are being delivered from the effects
of the enemies intentions to destroy our faith. God is our shield and
our rock. Upon the pangs of fear, anxiety, and hopelessness God is
working to subdue our enemies and to strengthen our faith, and give us
physical strength to endure.
We can rejoice as a king that in the
end God will conquer all of our foes and bring us to rejoicing in Him,
by speaking to us that He alone is our salvation. When we wait in hope
for His deliverance we learn to rest in a life of being in great trials
and longing for Him to speak salvation so that we have a more profound
vision of Christ resurrection power over our very experience. We learn
that we are beggars before His throne, having nothing to offer , but as
beggars we are standing on a rock that works all things for our good.
What we see in the end is a more profound beatific vision of the One who
rules the heavens coming to rescue us at the point of our greatest
need. When we feel the most helpless is when we learn the most about His
power, when we are weak, He becomes strong. That strength is inbided on
power from on High as if there was a tornado that comes through and
leaves us in the silence of joy unspeakable and full of glory. When we
hear His voice we are where He has created us to be. It is what makes
everything clear and full in our lives of faith.
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