7411	Forums / Main Forum / Kiss It Good-bye	on: May 25, 2007, 02:56:02 PM
Quote Quote . When we have saving faith we enter a covenant with God. The covenant has conditions to enter. The condition is repentance. In order for us to repent we must turn to Christ in order to repent. We turn to Christ by believing that He is our substitute for sin. So the reason I asked that is because recently a family member asked me to pray with her to accept Christ as her Saviour and so I led us in a prayer in which she came forth on her own and asked God to be the Lord of her life. But now she seems uninterested in going any further.  So is this where the work of a disciple comes in. I wish I could just leave her to figure it out on her own. When I was saved I repented immediately and I don't get the difference. Maybe your frustration is not balanced. I mean, its not good for us to go faster than we have the grace to handle the situations. I mean , instead of just thinking about what would work, kind of like pragmatic thinking, it would possibly be good to think that God really does not need us to further someone else's sanctification since He has their lives under His divine guidance even tho we may feel as if we are needed. That may free us up to be loved in order to grow in grace so that we we will learn to be more dependent on His work, rather than our making things happen in our own time. In this day and age , that offers so many answers and very little depth , we need to step back, and a low God to be God, and soak in His free grace through those who love us.   7416  Forums / Main Forum / Kiss It Good-bye on: May 25, 2007, 01:12:33 PM The call to being a disciple of Christ is one of possessing saving faith. When we believe the entire gospel, it will translate into an obedient faith. The obedience will be evangelical, or gospel obedience. Notice that gospel comes before obedience. The reason is because faith is the instrument and not the cause of salvation. When we have saving faith we enter a covenant with God. The covenant has conditions to enter. The condition is repentance. In order for us to repent we must turn to Christ in order to repent. We turn to Christ by believing that He is our substitute for sin. He took our sin and gave us His righteousness. When we believe that Christ is the cause of our believing then we will have a proper view of biblical faith because the faith is instrumental rather than causal. We can also call our faith justifying faith. When we are justified we are declared righteous in the court of heaven. Obtaining justification does not depend apoun any thing that we can do to merit it. It is by grace that we are justified where we are totally passive and He is totally active. It is through faith as the instrument that we know that we are justified. But the faith is not the cause of our justification just the instrument. If the was a condition for being justified then we would be under and obligation. But that righteousness of Christ is a foreign righteousness. We cannot possibly be under obligation to obtain His righteousness, so that it was imputed to our account rather than infused. The imputation is by grace alone and does not depend upon our obedience. We do not need persevere in the faith in order to be justified otherwise we would not really ever receive justification since we do not have the ability to get His righteousness by obligation.  Repentance is turning to Christ away from our sin. It is trusting in His righteousness alone. The focus is not on our own ability to achieve His justifying us by doing something to obtain it. Rather it is embracing His righteousness by faith and trusting in Him. This is called evangelical repentance. The focus turns away from our own work, to embrace His work on our behalf. When we do that we are repenting. The obligation is that we turn to Him alone. We can have confidence that we know Him by our knowing that He has done the work on our behalf so that we are secure in His work and not on our work. So that saving faith is repenting from our sin and embracing Christ.
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7412  Forums / Main Forum / Kiss It Good-bye on: May 25, 2007, 02:35:25 PM In my own experience , salvation is a life of repentance. Specifically speaking it is confessing that we are sinners, and in our minds we are convinced that we are as all men, who are under the law, defiled and corrupted. In that state we are being saved by grace alone. Who can say that they are righteous or that they seek God on their own? Name me one person. No we are all gone astray we are all like sheep. We need the life of God in the soul of man to feel the need for dependence upon His life in us, His grace strengthening us, and causing us to flee from the wrath of God to embrace His forgiveness and righteousness. When we are low, we are able to see His greatness, so that living a life of repentance is living in the light of seeing ourselves before a holy God, and seeing Gods greatness, by His eternal unchanging love for us, His faithfulness because we are not faithful, and His goodness because we are needy. It is bringing nothing but our sin to Him, and appealing to His unfailing love as our only hope of sensing His acceptance of us. Living in repentance is seeing who we are and who God is by His word, living in the light of what He has said about Himself and what we are in our selves. In repentance we morn not only our sin, but the deadness of our hearts. We want so much to have the desires that are pleasing to Him. We want to have those longings that so fill us with His Spirit, that we are convinced of Him as Father, who speaks to us by raising us up above our concern for ourselves, being so under the power of adoration and praise that we really discern when we are being raised up to be seat with Christ , in experience as well as knowing it through His word, for if we are thinking Gods thoughts after Him, then we are pleased with what He is pleased with, so that we are enjoying that fellowship that comes with His revealing to us Himself through His word. We are experiencing the effects of Gods revelation to us. In our heavenly mindset , we are mixed with deep sorrow over our finiteness, or inabilty, and we are so inflamed to praise an adoration, that we are raise up to the rock of Christ that is higher than we are. In other words we loose ourselves in a spiritual sense in the worship and adoration of that face to face encounter. Our loss of any other object than Christ , is evidence by our feeling His pleasure beyond and pleasure we recieve from people , objects or situations in this world. We are to live with that inward renewal.   Reply Quote Notify

7413	Forums / Main Forum / Kiss It Good-bye	on: May 25, 2007, 02:09:41 PM
Quote Quote . When we have saving faith we enter a covenant with God. The covenant has conditions to enter. The condition is repentance. In order for us to repent we must turn to Christ in order to repent. We turn to Christ by believing that He is our substitute for sin. So the reason I asked that is because recently a family member asked me to pray with her to accept Christ as her Saviour and so I led us in a prayer in which she came forth on her own and asked God to be the Lord of her life. But now she seems uninterested in going any further.  So is this where the work of a disciple comes in. I wish I could just leave her to figure it out on her own. When I was saved I repented immediately and I don't get the difference. It depends upon how much teaching she has had in the past. Salvation is also a process as well as a point in time action. Just confessing Christ with the mouth is no evidence of saving faith. We must also believe in our hearts. Obviously repentance is little by little. Just as salvation is an ongoing process so repentance is ongoing also. We are saved through the means of grace. That is the word and the Spirit. The word implanted is like a seed that is implanted in the heart. When we are saved we are translated from death to life, that is from a state of spiritual death to spiritual life. This is regeneration. Regeneration is a secret work that is done by the Spirit, just like the wind blows, you cant see where it is going or where it is coming from. The reason that believing in regeneration as the initial inward work in salvation is that there is an effect when a person goes from the state of death to the state of life. If you saw a dead man get up and walk, what would you see? You would see something the evidence by His entire body and soul going from a still lifeless frame to an active frame. Salvation is not just an intellectual change of mind. But there are evidences of new life that can be seen on the person who has saving faith. In regeneration , the saving is the person being totally passive in receiving the life, the new light of divine knowledge, or the new understanding of the spiritual realm. In that new knowledge to understanding there is are new senses, spiritual senses that are the evidence that a person has gone from death unto life. That is a new taste, touch, feel, seeing. There is an evidence on the face, or a weeping or a joy that is beyond normal. Do not discount that salvation is of the entire man. Even tho different people react differently toward a cause , yet the new set of desires that come from the new senses will be the evidence. There is an emotional response as well as an intellectual apprehension. In the new method of invitational ism,knowledge and sense are played down , and the outward act of a one time confession is put in the standard for salvation. But salvation is more than a confession, it is a saving of the entire man. Salvation is an inward act of the Spirit who uses the word to convict, and to save. Salvation comes out of a deep awareness sin, even to the point of seeing a person go through the pangs of guilt until their beyond themselves. That is the legal conviction that proceeds salvation. Then there is a release of that experience to new joy beyond the normal. Where are the effects? 7417  Forums / Main Forum / I Am The Most Spiritually Immature Woman Ever... on: May 25, 2007, 08:49:24 AM And yet some of us go through life experiencing great trials . It may be that we are destined to be struggling more than others for the purpose of being the examples of how powerful God is in His discipline. We are experiencing more days in the wilderness than in the promise land. God is holy and since we live before Him every moment of our lives we are the most miserable examples of His holiness. His standard of reverencing Him is far beyond our ability to reason. That standard of reverence equals His determined wrath to be poured out on the sinner. So any kind of blessing that we receive as a result of being a sojourner in this wilderness life is by His grace. So that if He were to have trophies of His grace He must display examples of His discipline in order for humanity to understand a little more of His wrath against sin and sinners. And so we spend our days under His wrath against sin. Then we are going to die with a moan. Not only has our sin in Adam brought on that curse and that discipline, but God has decreed that we will return to the grave at a specific time. Yet He has shortened our days in this life in order for our suffering to be shortened. In understanding the holiness of God , we are raised to contemplate not so much the times in our lives as we are to be raised to actually live before that Holy God so that we see that love of God in calling us to Himself in salvation, and taking us home to be with Him in a very short life. That is Gods love being seen, when He takes us home without much of the experiencing of His wrath being poured out on sin and sinners. If He were to relent of His display of discipline, then that would be what He has designed for our lives in His own will, and not by our trying to change in order to lighten the load of the punishment for sin. Gods free grace comes as a result of His word to save, even in the most minute details of our lives. When He commands to deliver, we are delivered, because all things come into being as a result of His word. God speaks and it happens. But there are reasons for God to make people trophies of His grace through being under the troubles of this life. If we were in ease, if we had no problems, if we were not physically tried and tested, then we would get proud and we would not need Him. We would have no respect for Him and His awsome power. So He has determined to be a resting place in the midst of His powerful wrath. And His love is found in the shadow of His wings, in a faith that knows His power to deliver.   7420  Forums / Politics Forum / Positional Taboo on: May 23, 2007, 06:36:54 PM I hate to be pessimistic. But , i have voted since i could remember. And it is my duty. But really , all the signs of a foundational crack are gradually showing as if we were on the titanic and the water was coming in through the crack that was beneath the surface. Wow, no one really interest me, but i got to go with the front runner. Hey, i cant complain unless i vote.      Now, both parties are settled into an imperialistic paradigm. Ya cant reverse the ship from sinking because there is just too much repenting to do and a lot of reversing democracy. Wow, try going back to a constitutional government at this stage. Ya think we would need God to raise up a generation that was educated and dropped from heaven. It just aint goin to happen. Hey i love them rose colored glasses, but man, they be dark red now, really hard to see out of, since we been killin so many youngins. We really are in need of a revival, and i mean a big one. Or at least a reformation.     Reply Quote Notify 7421  Forums / Main Forum / This Is An Unhealthy Place. on: May 23, 2007, 05:58:23 PM Quote We should all be on the same page and that page should be the one of grace. But maybe I should just go visit a site with all nuns on it too Yes , and what is grace? It is an unmerited favor , so unmerited that we had nothin to do with its presence in the realm of humanity. And even the idea of grace , common to all man was determined by God when He designed the heart of man, to be a natural worshiper so that all men have a sense of the value of redemption. And even the natural man, the unsaved man can experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit in the preaching of the word as a God gracious striving with men and their sin. God does good to all men in His striving with them in their sin. But Gods special grace is not extended to all men. Otherwise all men would be saved. Salvation is God centered. God who is self existent, all knowing, and who has decreed everything that comes to pass in time, is outside of time and sees everything as present. Salvation is Gods, who initiates salvation, who sustains salvation, and who orders whatsoever comes to pass has worked salvation in spite of man. He alone saves for His own glory, so that it will be seen that He alone deserves all of the praise and not man. Because salvation is in God alone, we receive the benefits of His working out His salvation in us, so that He alone gets the glory for the working out part. What ever is good in our salvation is a reflection of Gods being pleased with Himself. This is why grace is so free. Its really is just a favor. Reply Quote Notify 7422  Forums / Main Forum / I Am The Most Spiritually Immature Woman Ever... on: May 23, 2007, 04:58:21 PM I hate it when i get into a guilt paradigm. Because nothin good comes out of that thinking process. Its something we got to deal with as long as we are doing things wrong. Heres some principles i learned about getting released from the grip of guilt. First, if it comes as a result of another person making me feel that way, then its either not from the Spirit or it may be that i have done something wrong, so that i need to give it to Christ. In Christ i get released from guilt, even tho i may be struggling with a bad habit, I have found that the majority of people deal with guilt by association rather than by imputation. In other words if i am focusing on Christ then my sin will be dealt with by His work on my behalf, that involves pure grace, my sin imputed to His account and His righteousness , or His goodness and forgiveness , covers over the bad habit by covering over the sin each time i do it. My point is that we need to deal with sin as an individual rather than as a group or by association with others. We need to stand alone on Christ as our only hope, even tho others are making us guilty by doing something, we need to take an individual stand and rest in Him. The temptation to flee to another remedy is just as real as the guilt we are dealing with. Only Christ can remove guilt. 7425  Members Only / Purgatory / Postitive/negative, Grace/judgement, God/satan on: May 20, 2007, 08:50:09 AM Quote Quote Willis: My point on these issues is and has always been nothing more than to say that God can use pain and suffering to help us grow..... Quote Willis: .....Referring to one of your favorite passages concerning bearing fruit...notice that there is a lot said on the subject about pruning. God prunes so that those who are fruit-bearers will bear more fruit. The dead limbs just get thrown in the fire. As Willis stated---we all need to take a deep breath and a step back and then discuss the dividing issue--if there really is one.  Sometimes I think you/we are actually closer in view than we all realize. The truths that Patrick is speaking along with the truths that Willis is speaking.  God talks to BOTH issues in His word.  There is truth in BOTH sides.  At least that's where I'm at currently. Thoughts outloud-- There is suffering in our world---because there is SIN in our world.  Big hurts, little hurts, disease, death, crimes, all sorts of things-- "Blessed are they who mourn for they will be comforted."  that is TRUE and in God's word! (praraphrasing because I'm too lazy this morning) God works all things to our good, to those that He loves and are called according to His purpose.  That is ALSO true and in God's word. God does prune us--and often times our circumstances can be used to prune us---for our good. God also doesn't want us to live there--to believe all the lies of "who told you that you were ______?" He wants us to step out in a if you will in a 'positive' direction and believe what HE says about us.  Take steps--make plans...let Him guide us to and through those. So meshing those two thoughts are complex to say the least!  But are they really all that far apart? Believe God and take Him at his word!  Well, His word speaks to both sides of the issue! Another paraphrase---whatever is true, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable---..... think on these things. So that's pretty clear we are NOT to think on all the things that plague us but rather the awesome beautiful things of the Lord.  Where your mind goes--the man will follow! That has always been atleast for me--the points of going back and forth in understanding--- To think on all the things of God and keep my mind stayed on HIM.  But if someone STICKS me with a pin---I'm going to say OUCH!  I'm going to FEEL that.  I live in a world that has sin and pain in it...and sometimes that pain hits ME.  I FEEL IT! At those points though I need to turn to Jesus and trust in Him with everything.  There is VICTORY in Jesus and what He did on the cross.  That victory is for ME and you.  I need to step forward in that...believe what God says about me.  Sometimes I'm faster than others at moving forward.  God still works in me no matter how slow I am...uses it ALL for my good.  The whole bottom line rests in that relationship with Jesus. I don't know if my ramblings here have made ANY sense at all.  I woke up at 4am this morning---VERY UNUSUAL for me. It's a GLORIOUS sunrise!  So even if I didn't make sense--I got to enjoy that Our trying to change from glory to glory is always faster than the pace than the amount of inward strength we possess at the time. So that most of our struggling is done by the principle of what works and doing it in our own power that has not much depth for spiritual renewal.The temptation is much greater than in the past since we are all products of our culture. We do not have the patience required to bear others burdens, or to patiently wait on the Lord to renew our strength. As Steve says, we need to be loved in order to love. This process is about relationship , not about pragmatic scemes. When we do the christian life ahead of the grace, then we are only going to get frustrated and give up. But God will teach us by this process of corruption, and through our own pride we must learn that we are both sorrowful and joyful throughout our journey. And it is when we learn patience, we will learn not to depend apoun our own strength but by the power of Gods love and discipline. We are encouraged in these paradigms. It is through the word that we are reminded about who is leading and who is following. Then we will all be reciprocating renewal by taking burdens and by receiving gifts of grace.