7696	Forums / Theology Forum / Perseverence	on: March 23, 2007, 01:47:27 PM
We have been given authority to cast down imaginations. We can confront people about trusting in themselves. Unless we understand that men begin life scheming instead of taking refuge in God then we will only be led astray. Lying is not fully trusting in Him. We are not ever going to be without some kind of sin. Having sin is possessing a lie. We cannot take care of sin on our own or with any other human being. Only Christ can remove the sin and its consequences. We must fight harder to take refuge in Him than to trust in man. We must work to relieve our pain and our sin in His forgiveness and in His love. Strong men carry around desires that are fight against the tendencies to relieve  pain in a self righteous way. They have learned that there are no alternatives to the means of faith, prayer, the word, the sacraments, the regulated worship. They would suffer ridicule, torment, any kind of peer pressure for the sake of Christ and the free grace offered as the only means of being free. It is always the intent of all desires that we are mortifying. Unless we go at the intent through the word we will just create another form of righteousness, another system of philosophy that will lead us to be in bondage to another persons designs. The only non control arm is full refuge in His free grace , all other means is control on a human level. We get loved first and then we are able to love others.
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7697	Members Only / Purgatory / Postitive/negative, Grace/judgement, God/satan	on: March 23, 2007, 12:30:30 PM
The power of the keys was given to the church. It is there that God uses the prayers , encouragement , teaching and admonishment to protect those who are Christ. But these workings are not automatic. Satans strategies against the church at the point of the world view direction of that church so that he may attack the saints peace. If prayer is traded for evangelistic activity, programs instead of good oversight in the meetings of the saints as a structure for building the spiritual desires in the members, the life of activity instead of focusing on the cross of Christ and life in Christ, a hope in human goodness instead of teaching against human achievement and dependence on God as our only refuge, focusing on obedience instead of spending 1 hr.morning 1 hr mid day and 1 hr evening  praying for the protection of the sheep , then the focus is all wrong and spiritual warfare will be given up to secularist institutional control.  7699  Forums / Theology Forum / He Was Forgiving And Merciful Before... on: March 20, 2007, 08:10:14 PM How  do we picture Christ as our advocate? Its very important. He is always accepting and always available to listen and respond. He encourages us to bring our request to Him. He loves it when we ask. He is always ready to uphold us when we fall, He does reveal things to us that we cannot handle. He is more concerned that we get our needs met than expecting something in return. Do you picture Christ like an accountability partner. The Him and I theology. When you get heaven the Father ask, why should i let this man into my kingdom, and Christ response is because He obeyed and it was Him and I. I made sure he kept in line. Is He like a priest sitting in the booth ready to hear you confessions and sending you out to do something before you get forgiven? Is He like your coach. Giving you the play book and then demanding that you perform according to the highest standard? Is he like John Wayne, sending you out to do the menial work and beating the crap out of you to teach you some responsibility? Or is He like your teacher giving you 7 steps to attain a goal? No He is there ordering our lives for our own good. He is always at our defense. Even when we sin and are struggling with bad habits Christ is there to forgive us and is really pleased to bless us inspite of our unattractive behavior. He is always defending us even tho some of the stuff is true about us. He is always blessing us even tho we dont work for it. He is always forgiving us even tho we dont ask for it. He is always healing us even tho we test Him at times. He is always keeping us safe from harm even tho we go astray. And when we get to heaven the only reason our Father will accept us is because Christ will tell the Father that we have always obeyed because He obeyed, we always pleased because He always pleased, we did above what we were required because He did always went the extra mile.       Reply Quote Notify 7700  Forums / Theology Forum / He Was Forgiving And Merciful Before... on: March 20, 2007, 06:50:05 PM We dont consider much in todays thinking how Gods love is particular and determinate. His special love is for His children. It is a love that was always determined to be with us before we even were born. That love was not dependent on our performance but apoun Christ accomplishing a perfect life and dieing a death that met all the demands of the law for us. He took all of the anger and sin on Himself and His love for each one of us was fulfilled when He said it is finished. Now we have open access to Him. And in that access we experience His presence as we pray in accordance with His will. When we call apoun Him in faith He comes to us as Father and in that coming we experience a love that is beyond any circumstance that we are in. Our success in faith is girded on knowing that He loves us in the worst of sin, in the most trying of circumstances and in the most angrist outburst we can bring Him. In that love He takes our petitions and reminds us that He will work on our behalf. That is why He is our advocate. Thank Him because He knows our hearts so that we are able to sense His protection. Reply Quote Notify 7701  Forums / Theology Forum / Perseverence on: March 19, 2007, 08:54:18 PM It really is about us. If you dont like blatant honesty then do not read any further. Its about people who attack us christians. We are as angry as we can possibly be. We would have the angle of the lord hunt them down and throw them into hates. Those how whisper against us we would pray that God would cut their mouths off and send them to silence. It is about us! We would pray that those who are scoffing at us in our business that they would have God break their arms and render them helpless. It really is about us. And those who are filled with their own agendas we would pray that God would send a fire to humble them so that they would not trust in themselves. It really is about us. For those who are killing babies we would pray that God would return the favor on their own. And i am not talking about the mothers who are caught in their web of deceit. It is about us. For those who have plotted a scheme to capture the poor and the helpless we would pray that they would be caught in their own schemes. It really is about us. And for those who scoff at the bigness of God and try to render him powerless we would pray burning coals on their heads, so that they go down to the pit to be with the rest of the scoffers. It is about us. But for our neighbors who are real people who we know singularly we would love them. It is about us. 7708  Forums / Main Forum / Charisma - It Is Him Not Us. on: March 16, 2007, 02:58:17 PM These areas of the charisma are terribly important. Because we live in a supernatural realm we dwell in the eternal subjective as where as objective mind set. We do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers. So in being charismatic we are rising above our own sin and against the world,flesh and the devil. When we learn to rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory, that weight of that spiritual dimenision will cause us to walk in the Spirit. These spiritual gives are a manifestation of the Spirits presence in and through us. As we grow in His word we begin to experience the effects of the Spirits work in us. We begin to increase in our love for God , and our longings for Heaven. As we become more aware of Gods work in and around us. As we become more aware of His hand in everything in our lives we   become like Christ. We not only tell others the truth of Gods word but we begin to influence the sweetness in these relationships. Our aliveness manifest the Spirits personage so that we are aware of Him as a person who moves us to long for the regeneration of all things. The physical universe of time and our awareness of finiteness give way to the reality that we are not our own, we are given to a very real Person. As we fellowship with the Spirit in becoming fathers in the faith we are experiencing His Spirit witnessing with our spirit and having a constant assurance the our Father is present. The more we are assured profoundly the more we are going to be zealous for His house. In our zeal we exercise these gifts by an understanding of our particular place in the body. Our carasma is very important in the use of the means prayer, the word, and the sacraments as we fellowship with the Trinity in order to the  exercising of our gifts. Reply Quote Notify 7709  Forums / Theology Forum / God's Sovereignty on: March 16, 2007, 02:18:12 PM Hi angi, Heres a different perspective. God is absolutely soveriegn over all of mens actions. Everything that comes into our lives including the bad stuff is from the hand of God. We are an open book before Him at all times. He knows what we are going to think before we think it. He holds all things together by His power. And His knowledge is not just like us knowing something about a particular situation, but He decrees the situation because He is fully aware of what it will do and how we will react. He decrees when we are going to sin and He uses our sin for His glory and for our good. He uses it to humble us so that we will not trust in ourselves. There is an on going communication between God an the believer at all times. Even tho we do not hear Him all the time He is speaking through His word in our every thought. If we just sit quietly for a while as believers we would feel His presence, because God does'nt waste our time and our space. We are the ones who are always calling out to Him and petitioning Him, and praising Him. We not only have His ear but we have His care, in His nearness to us,  His receiving our burdens, in conquering our foes, forgiving our sins, keeping us from going into sin, keeping us breathing, watching over us , teaching us and directing us in the rite paths. He is always available to us so that we know by this kind of relationship that there is nothing we need that is outside of His direct involvement in our lives.   Reply Quote Notify 7710  Forums / Theology Forum / Neo-platonism on: March 16, 2007, 01:14:53 PM This is terribly important. The principle here is not stating necessarily a moral cause but is making a moral statement about who God is. The moral cause in all reasoning is a cause prior to choice. That is the moral equasion. There is no cause in self -determination. This simple inclination is not from truth, it is a lie that only originates from the mind of man. If we conclude that morality is from a cause outside of the eternal being (God )then we are making God an it a principle of immunations rather than a being that always existed. To attribute any kind of rational or knowledge in the principle of self determination is to make God a causeless cause. We are created beings whos lives originated from an eternal being. In Him we live and move and have our being. Because God is a being that is immense as well as always existing He is present in every place in totality because He is a person. He is not spread over the universe like liquid. These conceptual applications in our understanding form the desires we have as real supernatural caused movements in our desires or on the other hand desires that comes out of a conceptual view of God that is not revealed but is from our own corrupted mind. There are only two states in which we exist. Life or death. The principle cause of all moral goodness does not come from being good or bad. The principle cause of all acts are desires that come out of a soul that has been made alive. How we veiw our actions depends apoun our view and understanding of who God is that is drawing our life from His life. This is the only only cause of good choices. What we know of the workings of our soul has a direct apoun our worship. We offer ourselves to God as a sacrifice of worship by renewing our minds. We renew our minds understanding  revealed truth from a mind that has been given divine knowledge so that we not in being made good but in being made alive can see taste touch and feel spiritually. Our conception of God is drawn from a mind made alive. Our concepts are not originally from a moral ability but the are from a sense perception , a spiritual taste. We know because we see Him in the word through a glass. We know ourselves by that glass of His word or revelation to us in that glass.