7434	Forums / Theology Forum / Church Organism Or Bureaucracy	on: May 16, 2007, 03:31:38 PM
Church organization has change dramatically over the past 50 yrs. Because of modern methods of communication along with secularism the focus of church unity is more of a herd mentality rather than individual. It is related to the shift in the way people think, rather than transformation by renewing of the mind we are seeing the subtle forms of philosophy intermingle with doctrine. Since we have been declining doctrinially at such a slow rate in this country we do not recognize these clear differences in comparison to the views of a century ago. The church is not a democracy, rather it is ruled by Christ. Christ demands absolute obedience to His way of organism. In place of democratic principles of organization is supernaturalism. In supernaturalism the demands on the members are to much in terms of being able to meet the standards. From the pastor all the way down to the most insignificate part of the body. The working out of these demands looks 180 degrees from the worlds organizational structures. First each member is individually picked by Christ for a specific purpose. And that purpose is related to spiritual gifts, spiritual growth, and in Christ time of completing. The human ability to discern this process is impossible in a relational paradigm. But in an individual paradigm, the supernatural working is only enhanced by the ability for the person to express the gifts as the paradigm is individual. The more the member individually mortifies personally , the more the body will be blessed. So that our of a persons private life comes unity. Rather impossible in a human structure. 7435  Forums / Theology Forum / Perseverence on: May 15, 2007, 09:11:14 PM There is only one place of refuge, one resting place in this very short life. Our lives are like a vapor , we appear and then we are gone. There is something in us that does not want tarry before Him, in an eternal thought frame of mind. From Gods perspective we are like the new grass in the morning and then by the evening we wither and die. The only real lasting part of our existence is resting in Him. Resting in Him in the great assembly, and resting in Him as our only hope moment by moment. Because of the shortness of life compared to eternity it makes each act of worship very important. We live before the Father, Son , and Holy Spirit, and when we are filled with Gods word that divine revelation is not the essence of what we glory in but it is what is in the word , the Persons who speak to us personally. The word leads us to the Persons. And when we worship, we are going before our Father who is speaking to us through His word. Our value is in this life is that time spent listening to the Persons of the Trinity through that revelation. Because of our short lives we experience a small bit of eternity in His resting place. And even tho we are made in the image of God, yet we are only dust, so that we are dependent on His word, who returns us to dust by His command. If we can flame that eternal perspective, then our thinking would be more realistic about what is important in this life. We only see through a glass darkly, yet in His speaking to us, we are led out of our own desires to fix on Him so that we can see that eternity is really all there is. Finiteness is what makes independent thinking fools, who are like beast. But when we hear from Him even His discipline will be our resting place. 7443  Forums / Main Forum / Try To Kill Yourself With Positive Action. on: May 14, 2007, 04:03:37 PM Good post everyone. Its important to know who we serve and be refreshed daily in His word. We spend most of our time thinking about our jobs, the kids, the house and cars. Then we have our daily routine that we go through and we learn to relax and enjoy ourselves since we work we deserve to rest. As we get older we begin to wind down sooner every day. We struggle with pain and we do not have the energy to accomplish the task we used to do. Its not as easy for us to get excited about doing these things. Then we read about someone who is really successful. The information usually comes from the tv, computer, news paper or some other impersonal source. We learn to gain information through impersonal sources so that our thinking is formed by our sources. In that paradigm we form our community unity. In a sense we live in the community that thinks in terms of bits of information being pleased in that learning process. Our minds are formed in being pleased with learning this way. In this thinking shallow driven society , we develop icons. These are the super people , who are self motivated and driven. They have an ability to communicate and focus . Their lives are paraded before us in an impersonal way also. We learn to idolize these people because of their success, and we develop our thinking in terms of the information we get about them through these sources. Thinking with this cultural bias is what gets us into all kinds of relational trouble. In this paradigm we are usually driven by our feelings about information that we get, either it is in a good circumstantial context which gives us a sense of comfort or it is information is about a disaster in someones life or in our world. We learn the art of pleasure in receiving information. We always like to see the gory stuff also. So we learn to process information through our senses and in that process we learn the pleasure we get through each new story. We learn from a very young age that pleasure comes easily and it comes as comfortable as it possibly can through these impersonal stories. We learn to enjoy the pleasure of pleasure. We become feeling oriented with the 5 senses always under that the spell of the information highways. I speak from experience here. This is what i consider the evil influence of the 20 th century. This is the mammoth idol we erect of ourselves. We learn to measure our worth by our ability to be pleased when we are most comfortable. We are sort of lull to sleep in the pleasure of our own world in receiving impersonal information. Our conversations revolve around the latest gossip, the latest icon. There are so many of these paradigms coming at us that we seldom think deeply. So where is the fight? It begins with who we think God is and what He is most pleased with. Once we buck the cultural course we begin to enter a battle that gets harder as the culture becomes engrossed in these pleasures. We are facing a huge giant, in which there is a tendency to wax us to statues just by being in the world. Our hearts are so easily led astray by our past experience and the accelerated pace of the world system. This idol is not silver or gold, but it is in our own heart loves. The spiritual course is difficult and extremely dangerous. When we do it Gods way we may lose houses , family, friends, and things. The Lord is king and He must have every thing, He must rule every area of our lives or He is not King. He demands absolute obedience to all of His commands. His word is to be obeyed , all of it. The way of faith is not a wide path , but a very narrow path. So narrow that it is pushing in on the believer.  We wage an all out war on the world, the flesh ,and the devil. We are to cast down every imagination that exalts itself against the knowledge of God and fill our minds with His will and desire. In that process we experience, rejection, isolation, turmoil, depression, as if we were in an all out physical war. When the days are evil , there are not a lot of friends of God - So that mens hearts fail them.  In the evil days the cities are full of threats, there are cries in the streets, theft , and men are violent from a constant practice of evil. When the cities are full of evil men are easily led astray. The righteous are the ones who receive the full threat of that evil. It is important for fathers to have so much time in the presence of our Heavenly Father that they know when the elements of hardness enter their own homes. Our experience in His revelation will cause us to confront the course of the world that invades our homes. We must in prayer learn the petitions of warriors in order to save our own family from being under the spell of secularism. We are no longer dealing with a large abundance of common grace, we are dealing with a society that is full of debauchery. It is time of us to till the fallow ground of our hearts. A constant meditation in the scriptures will be the flint that ignites our cold hearts. In low times, spiritual depression is like a bug that hits all at once. Our struggle sometimes is for our own hearts not to fail us. By faith we are to take hold of the promises of God. We take hold by meditation and prayer. These are the days when the deep things are only grasped by deep prayer, they will not come out like in normal circumstances.      7444  Forums / Main Forum / Try To Kill Yourself With Positive Action. on: May 14, 2007, 01:10:30 PM Hi Patrick , Love to read your post. I see you have had a rough time of it lately. I hope you continue to come to these forums. You may think that your not making a postive contribution, but i really miss it. Two things that i see as red lights with the postive thinking community are, 1. Negative circumstances are very real, and God uses them to grow us up. When we deal with sorrow we learn patience, patience produces perseverence and perseverence , character, and character hope. We are divided in this way. Thats why salvation is all of grace, because we cannot persevere on our own. So when the pain of depression comes, the out growth of that is patience. What happens is we get anxious under the strain of our pain, and instead of going to the scriptures and prayer we have a natural human cycle of dwelling on ourselves and our pain rather than turning to the word and letting the word have its effect on our thinking. The choice is not between positive and negative, but between divine revelation or our own thought processes. The second thing is, that some of the positive thinkers teach people how to covet. Thats not hard to do since we all covet naturally. And most of what we think about ourselves is by our nature is slanted. But its dangerous to think about good things and good people since Christ even died for those who think they are good. When we covet to releive pain, we learn to process scemes so that we become self righteous and independent. When a community people reads a book and learns certain techniques on how to deal with pain, unless these books are in agreement with the biblical view of sin, then they are always going to lead men away from trusting in God and His word. Its dangerous to covet and especially if one is given to depression.  7447  Forums / Break Room / Love Poetry on: May 13, 2007, 04:14:10 PM Bright light of eternal glory shines into depths of mens souls Inward pangs of sins tempest darken the flashes of hope. Yea , all of mankind are a driven in this sea to struggle ,tossed by the waves of fear, Nay, in the tumultuous ocean, glimmering lights can ne'er stay afloat. The wayfaring Dove , calms the fear of the storms tempest Eyes in the distance the horizon of Gods unmeasurable love Heavens consolations shine bright lights into the souls tempest Held beneath the storms tempest, escapes on the wings of the Dove.   7475  Forums / Main Forum / What Does Grace Mean To You? on: May 08, 2007, 03:54:00 PM Grace turns mans rational moral compass upside down. Man is born to love self effort and have a system in place of getting what he deserves. Man is always measuring his goodness and badness by a standard of checks and balances. Thats why men love to have comfort, savings, and normality in schedules . Men depend apoun their own strength, their own systems of morals in order to have a comfortable life. Gods grace is favor, giving, and faithful. God is always gracious. God gives inspite of mans terrible self satisfaction. The apostle said every thing that he acheive in his ministry was done by the grace of God. Every action that he performed was not attributed to himself, or his own strength by was attributed to the grace of God. In fact he believe that his very self was i am what i am by the grace of God. Paul attribute his very existence to the grace of God. He was an open vessel to be used for Gods purposes and for Gods glory. Paul life was an offering poured out for the church. He endured beatings, hunger, fleeing from dangers, ship wrecks, and more for others so that he would be a trophy of Gods grace. Gods grace was more important to himself that himself was to himself. Grace is shown in giving of our lives for others, giving of our time for others, giving of our monies for others. Gods relationship with us is always graced with speaking to us with favour. Gods love for us is to be a Father to us and we being His favorite sons. He deals with us as his sons because He is gracious. He gives to us His favor by ill merit on our part. Our very lives and our well being are not determined by how we earn His favor, but it is how free we experience His graciousness towards us. It is when we come to a Father who sorrounds us with security and love, granting to us His promises, keeping us in His forgiveness, and loving us for His own sake that we are going to open ourselves up to love others with unfeigned love. When we are made to feel that kind of assurance then we are being changed from one glory to another. He gives us everything and then rewards us for giving it away.   Reply Quote Notify 7476  Forums / Main Forum / What Does Grace Mean To You? on: May 08, 2007, 12:06:29 AM Grace is like a supernatural liquid. When it is pour out it makes things happen outside the normal. In the liquid of grace is the infinite. When it is poured out and touches the finite it makes its limits unlimited. It is the infinite space in a finite world. Once grace is poured forth in our finite world and in us it changes all of our sorroundings and makes us super abound in power and confidence. Grace is that liquid of Gods presence that is pour out so that it is what we walk in as we move around in this world. When grace is poured out on us it drenches our entire being so that we are baptized in a supernatural protection. We become like Christ who rules the nations with a rod of iron. When we understand that grace is a never ending stream of Gods powerful liquid which flows from the throne of God, we will always want more, we will always have a sense of assurance that God superabounds toward us with pleasure beyond what we can imagine. It removes the stain of sin, it cause all Gods promises to be ours, it cause us to obey Gods word, it causes us to rejoice in Him beyond our ability, it causes God to work beyond what we think He will do in our lives, it causes us to trust in Christ beyond our ability to trust, it cause us to reason beyond our ability to reason, it causes us to be better, more powerful, more able than any other person in our world. When we understand the power of Gods infinite grace we will want to be near where the liquid flows.Gods grace flows from His revelation to us. He pours forth His grace through His revelation of Himself in His word. When we expose our souls to the word we receive grace apoun grace. His word not only is the logic but it becomes our power source, when we get the liquid of Gods grace in meditation we become more aware of the eternal power of God. As we receive His grace we become better, and more able to supernatually effect our world. Once we experience Gods grace we will naturally want more. We could never be sastified with just a taste.   Reply Quote Notify 7477  Forums / Theology Forum / Forgotten People: God Left This Place on: May 07, 2007, 07:17:14 PM In your account however, as I understand it, we screw ourselves. We screw each other. We have choice. We turn our backs on Him. God’s ticket out of Dodge so to speak (again, as inscrutable as it is) therefore becomes amazing kindness. That which leaves space for our suffering also leaves space for real love. It is not a vacuum. We are not Killer Robots. We have free will. But the freedom involves us being able to choose what pleases us most. The reason we are pleased with sin is because we are sinners. There are moral consequences for the choices we make. Even unbelievers have moral choices. The can be very moral. But the point is since the fall there is no one good, there is no one who seeks God, all have turned aside, their throats are open graves, and the poison of vipers are on their lips. Men devour Gods people like they are eating bread. What we need to see is, that the equasion of free choice falls short of the full awareness of ones own soul, and what kind of ability one has in his free choice. When we think in terms of free choice and our view of ourselves making choices , we are always more gracious to ourselves and less gracious to the others. So we are starting with a view that is full of flattery. The point is that we must have truth from a source outside of our ability to measure our freedom, and it is the word of God. So when we are meditating on the word of God, we are not looking at our freedom in terms of how we are moral or not, but we are looking at a perspective that we are much worse than we view ourselves and we are less able than we think about our ability to choose. It is the Spirit and the word that bring us to our senses about our view of our free choices. This warped view of our freedom is shown in the process of our memories. And we have a thousand thoughts that go into our degenerate hidden areas. We lust, hate, and covet most of the time we are insincere enough so that we do not go out of our way in mourning with those who mourn, and rejoicing with those who rejoice. We are not really loving others as they would want to be loved, even tho we consider our loving actions acceptable. Even when we communicate the pain we are experiencing, we trust in the experience of that process so that it comes more from selfish motives, rather than letting scripture determine and define our deep hypocrisy in our motives, so that we learn to process knowing ourselves in the initial light of divine revelation rather than in community. What we are always doing is trying to believe we are better than we are, and others are worse than they are. We live in this corrupted mold, so much, that we really only get to the roots of our inward freedom in a millimeter at a time. We love to think that we can change faster than what really happens. We flatter ourselves thinking that if we follow somekind of program, then we are going to get better faster. As long as we can feel better about ourselves than we really are, and keep others in the same steps we are taking to get better, then we are feeling better about ourselves in a very shallow society. We never like to think that we sin alone. We are always looking at others sins and getting relief from feeling that alot of other people do the same things , so its not so bad. We love to keep from feeling alone in our own sin. It is so ingrained in our sinfulness that we cannot find our way out of our own flattery even tho we think we have found the truth. Thats why we will remain in this finite sinful existence until we get to the other side. On this side there is not a day in which we are not embattled with multiple sins, deep lack of awareness of ourselves, a lack of feeling toward others, and a constant comparision in our guilt. Its just what we are . Much worse than we think we are. Reply Quote Notify 7478  Forums / Theology Forum / Forgotten People: God Left This Place on: May 07, 2007, 03:25:50 AM Quote Shalom, morning listener. I believe that I caught what mbG was saying. He's basically saying, "Put timeout on 'ignore' until he's being forthright in his questions." Understandable, but I feel that if he is flooded with enough of God's Truth (i.e. God's Word, both the Bible and Yeshua) that eventually the light may begin to dawn. I believe no one is a "lost cause" until they've breathed their last and sealed their fate. Even the Pharoah who inhibited the children of Isra'el hardened his own heart at first and then YHVH hardened his heart for him at the end! Do we have a thread somewhere in the past (like before I joined) that dealt with the Calvinism/Arminianism controversy? I'd like to review it to see if I can help to soften the adamant stance of our friend. TULIP is great for giving all the credit to God, but as a tool for dealing with the rest of society, I personally found it quite lacking. Its a judgement call for me. Its not a fast rule here. There is plenty of doctrine especially in the theology forum that he can read. Every so often i read one of his responses to see if he has increased his openess. He is rather narrow in his reasoning. My problem with him is that there are others who have left the forum who are in need of some support and his constant faithlessness has driven them away. I would rather trade them for him.     Reply Quote Notify 7479  Forums / Main Forum / Isn't It The Heart That God Judges? on: May 06, 2007, 02:23:35 PM Quote Quote Retro I can appreciate the time you take to write your posts. But taking what you have said and then reading mbg's post says something. To me it does. One of the things that I got so tired of with religion is all this confusion. You said one thing and mbg contradicted what you said. And vice versa. I'm not putting anyone down here just pointing out what seems clear to me as THE problem with the Bible. I have no idea if either of you is interpeting correctly. Your at opposite ends. It makes no sense to me to believe God could be behind the writing of a book that confuses people left and right. Shalom, timeout. I'd like you to know that mybigGod and I are not that far apart in our thoughts. We just choose to see things from different perspectives, IMO. I'm not sure whether mybigGod would see it that way; I can't speak for him, but I have done a LOT of research into the Calvinist/Arminian views and I have concluded (for myself) that they were both seeing truths from the Scripture but were ignoring other truths...the opposite truths, in fact! I've used the analogy before, but, to me, it's like walking through a doorway that says above it "whosoever will may enter" and once passing through, looking back at the doorway and seeing above it the phrase "chosen before the foundation of the world." Both views are equally true from the Scriptures, yet somehow we have problems accepting both truths. Most will either camp too much on the "whosoever will" or will camp on the "chosen before the foundation of the world." Just because mybigGod chose to point out the truth that it is all of God who does the choosing, does not negate that Scriptures also say "whosoever will may come and drink of the water that I shall give him." It is also, at least from our perspective, partly our choice. Retrobyter I guess you are a  two pointer? Well if the 5 points are not logically interelated then the new math is correct. That is 4 +4 could equal any other number than 8. TULIP is the full flower. It doesnt need any new scientific genetic restruction. Even tho you may try to make orthodoxy- Retro orthodoxy the historical orthodoxy of the 5 points is the pure lineage of Pauline teaching. If man is totally depraved, then he is more than just morally corrupted but he is spiritually dead. The only answer to this delima is God  moving toward man unconditionally. God choosing man since man is dead to God and without hope. If God purposes in His choice, if He determines to save man, then His determination is without help, without insincerety, without failed ends. That is why His purpose in election is proved in His finishing that work at the cross by its effectiveness in that purpose in the salvation of the elect by the cross. His purpose was without hypocrisy in dieing for the elect. So that it is finished was that work of salvation and the power of grace that could not be resisted in the future transaction of that work. Because it was finished truely at the cross, because no truth has a purpose of a lie in it, then the transaction of that personal work to each of His sheep was in free grace, free from all of mans unbelief. So that man is abled to persevere in that free grace for all eternity. Reply Quote Notify 7480  Forums / Theology Forum / Forgotten People: God Left This Place on: May 06, 2007, 01:53:59 PM Quote A theme came up for me yesterday. I was reading some blog somewhere and one of the replies, froma guy simply named Doug,  to the blog entry said the following: to fully share the human experience, and thus to enable us to share the divine life, Christ is (and I'm unabashedly Trinitarian) the God who goes where God is not so that those who are not may enter into the presence of God. ... the Jesus who reaches out to the prostitute, tax-collector and sinner. I thought to myself, 'that's true enough' and went about my day. Last night I rented Blood Diamond. If you havent seen it, do. It depicts civil war in Sierra Leone and the horribly violent and corrupt diamond trade and the people who exploit it. So much bloodshed and injustice. In one of the scenes it is remarked, "God left this place long ago". And I was struck. And I remembered that blog entry. And I though of all the wartorn regions in the world. All the disease and poverty ridden regions of theworld. The prisons. The mental institutions. The child soldiers, drug addicts and prostitutes. I didnt search inside for answers or shake my fist and  demand understanding from God. I just heard a question inside me: 'Did God leave their place?' I didn't serch inside for answers. I didnt demand an explanation from God. I just My reason for coming to these forums are two fold. For doctrinal clarity, and for the society of the needy, humbled, and the hurting. The reason i think TO is so detrimental to these discussions is because he is not forthcoming about what he truely is going through, and he is always disinguish. He does not add any thing to the conversations except a trail of insincerety and evil questioning. I for one choose not to respond to him until he has been forth rite about his intentions. Reply Quote Notify 7481  Forums / Theology Forum / Why I Believe The Bible Is The Word Of God on: May 06, 2007, 10:00:36 AM Thanks Bill, Good post! The Bible is the revelation of God and His will. Because it is Gods word , its language is God breathed, every word of it, and even the accents. This ancient language gives life. And being ancient it must be understood only by an eternal teacher who is from old. Gods always was is the paradigm for His life giving wisdom. He knows as God. He is eternal. We are finite and limited. Our limitations are not only in us being created as being from Adam the first man. Even Adam who had more ability than us, was limited in His knowledge. Being created with a spirit and a body Adam was able to access his full potential. But Adams temptation and fall brought on his new knowledge of sin in sin rather than a knowledge of sin and eternally righteous. So instead of us being able to resist the Devil, we were plunged into bondage and sin. We were cast into a state of spiritual darkness. We cannot see, feel, taste, touch any divine knowledge. We lost our ability to understand divine truth. Even as believers we are still lost without the ableness of the Spirits revealing that knowledge to us. When the Trinity reveals any truth, it comes to us by the work of Christ , through the Fathers will, in the Spirit of the Trinity. His breathing is in God revealing to us the essence of His Godness. It comes as the pure revealing of the Trinitarian essence. We must be regenerated , given a new set of senses to understand Gods revelation. It is by Divine decree alone. In the post modern paradigm, we are confronted with 2 generations of determinism. This is the spirit of the age. That determinism spirit is the spirit of depression. In the atmosphere of determinism man is at the center of the universe creating his meta narrative. The ancient divine wisdom is replaced by mans new scientific knowledge and ability. In the warped view of that mindset is the seeddetermined self deception. In that new seed to tree growth comes a spirit of death. It is  spiriling down from the normal means through common grace. It is sucide in a relational universe of dark sayings and self determined breaks in communication and purpose. In the destructive paradigm of determinism comes the ultimate deception of breaking with the ancient wisdom and spiraling down into the abyss of an uncontrolable spirit of lonliness and sin.