We really cannot understand the choice man had
in the garden, because we do not have enough information as to the
nature of the fellowship man enjoyed in paradise nor can we fully
understand the freedom man enjoyed so that he chose evil over good. That
kind of freedom remains a mystery. Now mans choices are only
evil continually. Man in his natural state does not seek God. Man is in
bondage to sin. There is no one good , no not one! Dependence on God is
absolutely necessary. Without him we can do nothing. The society
of people that we live among in the church is only safe as we walk down
the path of dependence. We are only safe as we take refuge in Him.
Taking refuge in Him is having saving faith. We have a trust that is in
the only end of our faith , that is the object of our faith is Christ
alone. But the looking part is not the predominate means for our trust
but it is the object that makes the faith work. So its not steps of
faith that gets us to be in the path of righteousness, or in His refuge.
But it is because He has accomplished salvation for us so that we are
rejoicing in Him, praising Him, constantly setting Him before us in this
way that leads us down the path of righteousness. As we set Him
before us we are looking on Him in His word.So that the growth in
righteous both individually and corporately is determine by how much we
know Him and experience Him. When we take our eyes off of Christ we
begin to place them on an idol. Our only movement on the path of
righteousness is only toward Christ, the only other alternative is to
create an idol. We are so close to Christ that we are connected to Him,
so that apart from Him we can do nothing. Our emotional well being is
determined by our rejoicing in Him alone. Any other thing that we place
value on more than Him will lead us to sorrow.
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Forums / Theology Forum / If You Must Assume...
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on: June 09, 2007, 08:50:56 PM
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This relationship that we share with Christ in
this life is the most personal of all other relationships. When we go
to Him in prayer we are going to the throne of grace. Because we are so
deeply sinful, wounded and divided there is no other state of existence
in this life where we are completely enabled than in His presence in
before the throne of His grace. It is a throne where we are able to
share in all honesty where we are at. What is our deepest desire? What
is our greatest hope? What makes us the most afraid? How deep is our
anger? In the grace room we are able to come with all our baggage. Here
is where we are enabled to get to the bottom of that itch that will
break us into an emotional basket case. This grace throne is where all
of those secret things that are hidden from our discerning eye are known
by Him and in Him is complete ability to deal with all of those secret
things at His time and with His resources. We come to a God who knows us
better than we know ourselves and is dealing with us in love so that we
are healed by His intimate exposure by His disposition of always
gracing us with confidence in our secret areas.
God never gets up
and walks out of the throne of grace. He is there always, so that we do
not come to a Person who we are familiar with or that we think we can
figure out. No we do not come trying to figure out His will, or leaving a
laundry list, or using His compassion to get something that is
important to us. We do not come to a person who has no feelings, or is
ignorant of what we are going to go through in the future. We do not
come to a Person who if we say the rite words then we will be blessed.
No we come to a place where we can be what He created us to be, not what
He can get from us. There is no ulterior motives with God. God is
always truthful.
So we can be what He created us to be at the
most in the throne of grace. When we come to Him with our needs we are
coming to ask from the bottom of our hearts. We are getting to the roots
of our asking so that what petition we offer is Him dealing with us at
the point of showing us our need and we agreeing with Him that we need
grace. Because when we are doing what He wants us to do, we are able to
be needy in the way He has designed us to be needy. He is not going to
be misunderstanding about our deepest need, because He created us to
come to Him and express those things. When we learn to open up in His
presence and petition Him in this way, we are learning to trust Him in a
way that no other person would understand. We will learn that all men
are going to misunderstand these sensitive areas. Only God could be calm
enough, and attractive enough in His compassion to receive us in a way
that we will enjoy going to Him in that grace sensitiveness and pour out
our hearts to Him. Unless our hearts are resting in Him we are always
going to be searching for that place of rest. Unless we have found Him
to be Fatherly we will always live in anxiety. He made us to find peace
in Him.
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7350
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Forums / Main Forum / Souls In The Hands Of Angry God
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on: June 09, 2007, 07:31:06 AM
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Does God hold the threat of hell over our
heads? May it never be. There is only one accuser of the brethren. If
God is for us , then who can be against us? For we know that nothing can
separate us from the love of God, that is in Christ Jesus. Because of
His grace we know that we are safe in His family. He chose us in Him
before the creation of the world. We received eternal life by grace,
because we did not deserve it. So we cant keep it on our own strength.
It really is His salvation. We have been given everything for
life and Godliness. And we are new creations in Christ Jesus. Even tho
we experience sorrow over sin and over the circumstances of this life,
our sorrow does not equal the pain of the dread of the wicked. Nor do we
retreat into fear, and dread. But we are more than conquerors through
Christ Jesus. Our state of mind is that even tho we are helpless in
ourselves, we have been given powers beyond ourselves to fight a good
fight of faith. Our state of mind is that when we look to Christ we can
fight faithfully against the world the flesh and the devil. We can know
by faith that our struggle will ultimately be complete victory. And yet
our state of mind is to be in a battle that gets really intense at
times. We are not overcome by the sorrow but we are tempted to draw
back, to do something in the flesh, or to trust in our own horses. But
this battle takes all of our strength because we must focus on the
prize, like a long distance runner. The more we see Christ as the end,
the more confidence we will have that we are conquerors. Christ
said that we would suffer hardship. We suffer because He suffered. When
we stand with Christ we will experience persecution. When we take refuge
in Him alone we will be misunderstood by the Pharisee, or we will be
tempted by the wicked. The battle is to go the path of resistance
against the self righteous and the wicked. Both of these groups will use
threats to intimidate us , on the one hand , to lead us to curb the
appetites by not tasting, not touching, in order to go through a set of
steps to attain self righteousness, and then the others will encourage
us to sin by turning against those who are resting in Christ in order
for us to make our lives easier. We must fight these temptations in
prayer. We must cast down these imaginations, because we know that the
grass is not greener on the other side. But that these worldly views
will ultimately lead us to trust in ourselves, so that we are not hoping
in His word, we are not taking refuge in Him alone, or we are trapped
by our own lust. It is a joy to partake in these kinds of battles
knowing that with each little victory there is a prize. 
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7363
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Forums / Theology Forum / The Snake Pit
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on: June 06, 2007, 10:38:55 AM
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MBG, yesterday I was midrashing with my
pastor about my thoughts on will being self driven and why circumstances
and influences shape us without needing to interject God into our every
action and he mentioned Edwards' \"Two Lenses\". Now I am familiar with
what he is speaking but I wanted to get your thoughts on it. Also, I
wanted to ask you the same thing I asked him, \"Isn't it possible
(notice I did not say it is so) that ST is a lens unto itself which more
or less encourages its followers to view everything through it's
lens?\" I am not sure about the two lenses but i will
speculate here. I guess you are talking about his metaphysical side
along with his theological side. In studying his works, i have found
that he does not contradict any proposition found in the biblical
revelation. As long as teaching is taken from the exegesis of
the text then having those propositions we can argue for divine origins,
the Trinitarian theology, and the identity of Christ in a logical way. I
think Edwards employs logic so that what is revealed about God is made
clear by his logic. Every document of man must be subjected to scrutiny
of the word of God so that the revealed revelation is clearly understood
from the ideas that are from mans inventions. Edwards theology
of the soul of man is proposed from that biblical world view. It is the
most profound and balanced view of the workings of the soul that has
ever come into print. His logic in the use of grammar in his freedom of
the will has changed my world view about origins and about freedom.I
see nothing wrong with his metaphysical approach.
We have these
analogies of faith throughout the new testament. Our life in Christ is
compared to being identified with Him in His death and being raised with
Him to newness of life. We are not physically present with Him in His
death and resurrection even tho those terms are employed to describe our
salvation. In another place Paul says that he wants all men everywhere
to lift up holy hands in prayer. Another analogy to mean that that
describes saints coming together corporately to pray , a historically
accurate exegesis of that text in Timothy. The holy hands simply are
stating another way to describe saints. The same thing with the blood of
Jesus, or His stripes, or The holes in His hands. All analogies to the
death of Jesus as a substitute for us. And then we have here the
anointing of oil, but then the text makes no reference to that being the
thing that gets forgiveness, but rather the prayer. So that its another
analogy of special prayer for the one who is struggling with illness,
or sin or some other malady. Its our great Shepherds love for us that is
expressed through our shepherds in prayer that intercedes on our behalf
in a priestly sense that is part of our saving process. The Holy
Spirits presence in the Shepherds prayers is the healing balm for the
saints.
We need to see that our new covenant worship is in the
Spirit. The life of our Sovereign Lord is flowing down our of the waters
from heaven that are before His throne, and they are brought down by
the Spirit into our hearts so that out of our hearts flows this living
spiritual life. And it is mainly through the Spirit and the word that we
receive this gracious infusion of life. What happens is there is peace
like the earthly waters who are like glass in the morning , of which we
experience in a corporate way through the ministry of the word and
sacraments for a spiritual worship and a favor of grace that is
authoritative as God looks on the anointed or the shepherd. So that the
Sovereignty of grace is expressed corporately by the saints calling on
God to look on our shepherd, look with favor on your anointed. This
corporate grace is a ministered through the prayers of the shepherds in a
spiritual sense so that our spiritual worship is of a nature that is of
one heart and will show forth in the great assembly. When we understand
the nature of our Lords rule through the word and the sacraments we
will take our supernatural prayers very seriously, because our methods
are mainly spiritual as our worship. We worship in spirit and truth.
Have we seen the Lord look with favor on our shepherds? Do we know what
that kind spiritual transaction works out in the practice of worship?
Have we experience the well of waters welling up within us by the power
from on High? Do the waters from the throne of God pour down from His
throne in our cooperate unity? May He look upon our anointed one.
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