7735	Forums / Main Forum / The Purpose Of Pain	on: March 10, 2007, 02:38:10 PM
Quote "Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 4:6-7) So, MBG, have you yourself experienced the truth of this passage? Changing the circumstances are only a small part of relieving the suffering. Think of it this way. My circumstances are part of what makes me , me. In other words we are partly the product of the times we live. We vacillate in the circumstances we find ourselves by trying to get out of them or ignoring them. We seldom consider the reasons for being in the position under the circumstances we find ourselves in. Because we are such secularist, we develop plans that will alleviate the pain of worry, fear, or shame. We are more interested in what will work than in what value the circumstance is in our growing in faith. There is no circumstance that we are going through that has not been ordered by God. God is not a clock maker who leaves the clock to run on its own time. Gods purposes are like a stream that are always flowing and our lives are the effect of that stream. We are never in a neutral position in our lives before a holy God. We are always in His Fatherly hand of time continuance. He is working out His plan in our live as much as He is concerned about the time and the effect of His name being glorified. Once we belong to Him we are under the care of our Fathers great name. Our view of our circumstances is determined by our understanding of the sovereignty of God. He is always working, creating, designing the shape and extent of our lives in this time paradigm so that we are a book opened up before Him in His presence. Forget about legal conviction which contain elements of inordinate fear. That is a pagan concept. Gods grace is determinate, in that it precedes all our goings and comings. From Gods view we are going to be conformed to His image because He has already determined outside of time our entire finite existence. He will bring us to glory by gracing us with His determinate decrees that we will be sanctified in His time with His power. From our view we are always praying for more grace to avoid sin,  over come temptation , receive the gifts He has for us, blessing beyond anything we could ask or think and assurance that we are in His fold. These two dimensions are the onus for dependence on our God by seeing Him as God. \"Nothing in my hand i bring only to thy cross i cling.\" In this converging of the two dimensions is the essence of our extremely supernatural existence. In this is the i-thou dimensions. We are receiving from Him all that we need and He is being glorified in all that we do.
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7736	Forums / Main Forum / The Purpose Of Pain	on: March 10, 2007, 11:42:26 AM
We have confidence because in saving us He has shed abroad His love into our hearts so that when we experience pain, we have an understanding of His love by that pain. Pain is never absent from His design in using it to further our sanctification.  When we go through trials we are force in some way to get relief from the effects of the trial by focusing on divine knowledge in the revelation of the Word made flesh. In Christ we see the one who went before us and suffered the ultimate pain. In our identification with Him we are identify with His suffering. When we begin to see that Christ chose to suffer on our behalf in His passive obedience we begin to sense the in Christ paradigm. Paul would go to any point at suffering for the church for Christ sake. He saw that his suffering was working for others in the body so that they could grow in their faith and by suffering He was taking on the sufferings of Christ. Paul suffered more than any other man other than Christ. It was Pauls calling to suffer for Christ and the gospel. He endured constant physical punishment, hunger, depression, etc for the spread of the gospel. When we suffer as a result of denying the world flesh and the devil, even tho we havent accomplished as much as the apostle yet our suffering is bringing Him glory. It is just mindless to ignore our level of suffering. When we acknowledge our state before a holy God we are letting God be God. When we come before our Father we are coming before Him as one who has an Advocate, and the blood that was shed on our behalf was of greater value than any thing on this earth. We begin to sense Gods grace like we never sensed it before, because our Fathers disposition of love extends to His suffering saint. He bends low to touch us with an inward healing. We have such a sense of His divine presence that we are drawn out of our present state into a heavenly rejoicing. We are led to glorious thoughts of Christ, who is exalted above the earth. We are led into looking on Christ as the Lord of all, the second Person in the Trinity whos closeness in the trinity is glorious. We begin to see that His condescending love is a trinitarian love that we long for to replace any love that we can experience among mortals. His Fatherly love far surpasses any love that we can bask in on this earth. Our heart is touch by the ministering angels so that we live as if we were enjoying the effects of heavens streams of glory. Through the Trinitarian unity of the Father Son and Holy Spirit we experience Him coming to us as fathers in the Holy Revelation of divine knowledge and in that knowledge we are drawn out of our minds view of this world into a view of Christ that we are constantly seeing. When we begin to realize the He uses our suffering to cause us to look beyond time into eternity, by experiencing the effects of the eternal relationship of a Trinitarian kind then we will be touch by the hand of the angels in glory! 7744  Forums / Theology Forum / Catholic Apologists on: March 10, 2007, 06:01:23 AM When we say that God is infinite, we mean that He is unlimited in every kind of perfection or that every conceivable perfection belongs to Him in the highest conceivable way. In a different sense we sometimes speak, for instance, of infinite time or space, meaning thereby time of such indefinite duration or space of such indefinite extension that we cannot assign any fixed limit to one or the other. Care should be taken not to confound these two essentially different meanings of the term. Time and space, being made up of parts in duration or extension, are essentially finite by comparison with God's infinity. Now we assert that God is infinitely perfect in the sense explained, and that His infinity is deducible from His self-existence. For a self-existent being, if limited at all, could be limited only by itself; to be limited by another would imply causal dependence on that other, which the very notion of self-existence excludes. But the self-existing cannot be conceived as limiting itself, in the sense of curtailing its perfection of being, without ceasing to be self-existing. Whatever it is, it is necessarily; its own essence is the sole reason or explanation of its existence, so that its manner of existence must be as unchangeable as its essence, and to suggest the possibility of an increase or diminution of perfection would be to suggest the absurdity of a changeable essence. It only remains, then, to say that whatever perfection is compatible with its essence is actually realized in a self-existing being; but as there is no conceivable perfection as such -- that is, no expression of positive being as such -- that is not compatible with the essence of the self-existent, it follows that the self-existent must be infinite in all perfection. For self-existence itself is absolute positive being and positive being cannot contradict, and cannot therefore limit, positive being. This general, and admittedly very abstract, conclusion, as well as the reasoning which supports it, will be rendered more intelligible by a brief specific illustration of what it involves. (i) When, in speaking of the Infinite, we attribute all conceivable perfections to Him, we must not forget that the predicates we employ to describe perfections derive their meaning and connotation in the first instance from their application to finite beings; and on reflection it is seen that we must distinguish between different kinds of perfections, and that we cannot without palpable contradiction attribute all the perfections of creatures in the same way to God. Some perfections are such that even in the abstract, they necessarily imply or connote finiteness of being or imperfection; while some others do not of themselves necessarily connote imperfection. To the first class belong all material perfections -- extension, sensibility and the like -- and certain spiritual perfections such as rationality (as distinct from simple intelligence); to the second class belong such perfections as being truth, goodness, intelligence, wisdom, justice, holiness, etc. Now while it cannot be said that God is infinitely extended, or that He feels or reasons in an infinite way, it can be said that He is infinitely good, intelligent, wise, just, holy, etc. -- in other words, while perfections of the second class are attributed to God formally (i.e., without any change in the proper meaning of the predicates which express them), those of the first class can only be attributed to Him eminently and equivalently, (i.e. whatever positive being they express belongs to God as their cause in a much higher and more excellent way than to the creatures in which they formally exist). By means of this important distinction, which Agnostics reject or neglect, we are able to think and to speak of the Infinite without being guilty of contradiction, and the fact that men generally -- even Agnostics themselves when off their guard -- recognize and use the distinction, is the best proof that it is pertinent and well founded. Ultimately it is only another way of saying that, given an infinite cause and finite effects, whatever pure perfection is discovered in the effects must first exist in the cause (via affirmationis) and at the same time that whatever imperfection is discovered in the effects must be excluded from the cause (via negationis vel exclusionis). These two principles do not contradict, but only balance and correct one another. (ii) Yet sometimes men are led by a natural tendency to think and speak of God as if He were a magnified creature -- more especially a magnified man -- and this is known as anthropomorphism. Thus God is said to see or hear, as if He had physical organs, or to be angry or sorry, as if subject to human passions: and this perfectly legitimate and more or less unavoidable use of metaphor is often quite unfairly alleged to prove that the strictly Infinite is unthinkable and unknowable, and that it is really a finite anthropomorphic God that men worship. But whatever truth there may be in this charge as applied to Polytheistic religions, or even to the Theistic beliefs of rude and uncultured minds, it is untrue and unjust when directed against philosophical Theism. The same reasons that justify and recommend the use of metaphorical language in other connections justify and recommended it here, but no Theist of average intelligence ever thinks of understanding literally the metaphors he applies, or hears applied by others, to God, any more than he means to speak literally when he calls a brave man a lion, or a cunning one a fox. (iii) Finally it should be observed that, while predicating pure perfections literally both of God and of creatures, it is always understood that these predicates are true in an infinitely higher sense of God than of creatures, and that there is no thought of coordinating or classifying God with creatures. This is technically expressed by saying that all our knowledge of God is analogical, and that all predicates applied to God and to creatures are used analogically, not univocally. I may look at a portrait or at its living original, and say of either, with literal truth, that is a beautiful face. And this is an example of analogical predication. Beauty is literally and truly realized both in the portrait and its living original, and retains its proper meaning as applied to either; there is sufficient likeness or analogy to justify literal predication but there is not that perfect likeness or identity between painted and living beauty which univocal predication would imply. And similarly in the case of God and creatures. What we contemplate directly is the portrait of Him painted, so to speak, by Himself on the canvas of the universe and exhibiting in a finite degree various perfections, which, without losing their proper meaning for us, are seen to be capable of being realized in an infinite degree; and our reason compels us to infer that they must be and are so realized in Him who is their ultimate cause. Hence we admit, in conclusion, that our knowledge of the Infinite is inadequate, and necessarily so since our minds are only finite. But this is very different from the Agnostic contention that the Infinite is altogether unknowable, and that the statements of Theists regarding the nature and attributes of God are so many plain contradictions. It is only by ignoring the well-recognized rules of predication that have just been explained, and consequently by misunderstanding and misrepresenting the Theistic position, that Agnostics succeed in giving an air of superficial plausibility to their own philosophy of blank negation. Anyone who understands those rules, and has learned to think clearly, and trusts his own reason and common sense, will find it easy to meet and refute Agnostic arguments, most of which, in principle, have been anticipated in what precedes. Only one general observation need be made here -- that the principles to which the Agnostic philosopher must appeal in his attempt to invalidate religious knowledge would, if consistently applied, invalidate all human knowledge and lead to universal scepticism -- and it is safe to say that, unless absolute scepticism becomes the philosophy of mankind, Agnosticism will never supplant religion. T Aquianas Heres my problem with this. I do not doubt that reason plays an important part in understanding revealed truth. But reason is not the supreme cause of understanding revealed truth. Reason may be a secondary cause, but really in this day and age secondary cause are not really put into their proper perspective with all of the Agnostic thinking and the lack of care taken on looking at what the scripture says about the soul of man and the various faculties in how they interact in the cause and effect paradigm. There is a distinction here that needs to be shouted from the house tops. These areas of divine understanding are gifts to man by grace. Any reasoning powers as causes of understanding divine knowledge are not from our rational abilities but are strictly from the recreated order of regeneration. What reason we bring to the table is only corrupted. All our understanding of God come to us as revealed ,that is revealing Christ to us. That knowledge is the good in our reasoning that alone belongs to Christ so that He gets all of the glory for us having an understanding of any divine knowledge. 7749  Forums / Theology Forum / Catholic Apologists on: March 09, 2007, 01:58:31 PM Its very simple. And we have been going round and round. Unless the specific name Catholic is mentioned in the text, then he is making a stretch to say that his church is the only true church. There is so much history here of the gospel spreading to the nations through many denominations. If the cause of the gospel is the apostles through the catholic church then Christ died in vain. Christ is the cause, we are the effect. Since the institutions are the effect of Christ work, then they are subject to His divine mandates. 7759  Forums / Theology Forum / In What Manner Was Christ Tempted? on: March 07, 2007, 12:13:56 PM Quote I don't think I am alone in seeing a connection between temptation and the flesh. The tempting appealing to our sin nature. So I have a hard time wrapping my intellect around how a temptation exists without that accompanying fleshly desire. Though in the case of Christ that is the case. But, I know that Adam and Eve sinned, and did not have a sin nature before the fall. So, in reality temptation is a thing that exist of itself separate of our flesh? Thats interesting to ponder, though I really want to understand more about what it meant that Christ "was tempted in every way" . There is a difference between being human and being human and corrupted. Christ was fully human, He grew in knowlege and understanding, he was hungry, thirsty, tired, weak, expended energy, He experienced every human desire that we experience, but the difference was He had no corruption in His parts. The temptation was about His human desires. Our temptation is about our corrupted human desires , ie we have like a virus in our desires. We have the virus of sin. All of our desires are mixed with -us and the regenerated part.  Christ was tempted by Satan who is evil and by sinners who are evil. He was also tempted in the greatest suffering that anyone could possibly go through. Because He was God when He suffered in His humanity He could withstand a lot more suffering than the average joe because  He was filled with the Holy Spirit in His humanity, and He had more of the Spirit than any other human being. Yet His human nature and His divine nature never mixed. He was not able have greater strength by His divine power from His divine nature being mixed. Yet He was able to read peoples hearts, he did all the miracles.   7760  Forums / Theology Forum / In What Manner Was Christ Tempted? on: March 07, 2007, 08:26:56 AM Quote So what was the nature of the temptation Christ faced? Strictly intellectual? For instance, when Satan met him in the wilderness and made offers to Him to basically circumvent His Father's will, was that a felt temptation or just a simple appeal to His will and mind that He rejected without the kind of draw we feel in the flesh. Did His tempation feel like ours during His ministry? Or was it always just a intellectual thing that He turned down with a determination of the mind? Also, I find it interesting that if a theological topic comes up that involves something to do with US, we get more excited than simply discussing something that is for the most part strictly about Christ. Christ resisted to the point of blood coming out of His pours. Have you resist like that? Temptation starts in the mind, it is what we are pleased with is what we choose. It is not strickly a legal demension. I dont know where you got the idea that i was saying that it was strickly from the mind. It is a desire as James says that we give into. We are sinners therefore we sin, Christ was sinless but in His passive obedience to the Father He endure the full pangs of temptation for us and resisted them perfectly. And He is fimilar with being tempted. He resisted the full force of temptation. Because He existed in eternity in glory, sin was such an offence to Him that we could not fathom. It was so much more of an offence to Him than it was to us. If the offence was that great dont you think that Christ experience an unfathomable greif as a man? Reply Quote Notify 7761  Forums / Theology Forum / Operating In The Gifts... on: March 07, 2007, 05:04:51 AM .Spoken like a true Frozen Chosen, mbG. I keep hearing, \" No emotionals,\" \"No sentimentalisms: I walk through the garden alone ...\"etc., \"Don't go by feelings,\" \"Don't rely on experience.\" I haven't been able to get a straight answer about how one can be in love and live with Jesus (or anyone else) and not have any 'experience, feeling, sentiment, emotion.' Reminds me of an old timey movie \"Return of the Zombies.\" . .Sorry, mbG, it wasn't a curb on excitement, it was instruction to eliminate (1) cliques and idolatry (\"I am of Calvin,\" \"I am of Arminius,\" etc), (2) resentments and animosity toward other members of the Body, (3) chaos and disorder, (4) failure to be in submission to one another, etc. If i am reading you rite, this is the longing of the heart for the saint who is in the valley time. I agree with you these times are very dry. When was the last time you saw the real manifestation of the of the Spirit like the day of pentecost. When the cloven tounges of fire came down on each of the crowd? And then the excitement like they were drunk. Most of the modern day if not all is just theatrics. What follows is not devotion but idolatry.   Reply Quote Notify 7762  Forums / Theology Forum / Catholic Apologists on: March 07, 2007, 04:47:27 AM Anyone who understands those rules,(Theistic position) and has learned to think clearly, and trusts his own reason and common sense, will find it easy to meet and refute Agnostic arguments, most of which, in principle, have been anticipated in what precedes.Catholic encyclopedia -attributes of God Our reason and logic is corrupted. We know what to do most of the time and we still sin. We need to trust Gods word which is the logic. The object of our trust is not our rational abilities, but it is Christ. All truth is revealed truth and must come from outside of our own abilities. True divine knowlege comes through regeneration. Reply Quote Notify 7763  Forums / Main Forum / Working Women Pleasing God? on: March 06, 2007, 05:15:55 PM Quote Ok how about on a set date we or week we all put up a retro ricture of ourselves in the avatar?? what do you think/ Good idea. It would be like a class reunion on the internet.   Reply Quote Notify 7764  Forums / Theology Forum / In What Manner Was Christ Tempted? on: March 06, 2007, 04:06:01 PM Quote By the way, I do not have a manifesto on this topic I am prepared to lay on anyone. I am still deep in the pondering, meditating, state! He went as far as He possibly could and yet without sinning. So i would say that he went farther than any of us, yet did not sin. Since He was absolutely God and coming from the glory of heaven , in a perfect relationship in eternity with the Father and the Spirit, and then becomeing acquanted with human weakness and temptation. The knowlege of God meeting the weakness of men was the extent that He had to humble Himself in order to become a man. It is an unfatomable descent.   Reply Quote Notify 7765  Forums / Prayer Requests / For Our Mbg on: March 06, 2007, 03:54:15 PM Man you guys are so kind! If one of you lived near me i would do some repairs on your houses. God bless all of you! Reply Quote Notify 7766  Members Only / Purgatory / Ok, What I Do? on: March 06, 2007, 03:50:33 PM Dude , I read your stuff all the time , you are either funny or joyful. Man i know all the physical stuff you are dealing with , and it encourages me to see your courage. I dont always respond but i appreciate you being here.   Reply Quote Notify 7767  Forums / Theology Forum / Operating In The Gifts... on: March 06, 2007, 03:40:16 PM Quote Quote I would love to go back to the early church days. The devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine to the fellowship to breaking the bread and to prayer. I do not look at church history as a straight line where we are growing in knowlege, but as peaks and valleys. Any time in history where there is a peak is what has helped us get through the valleys.  The logic of this is that we long for revival so that we can experience the effects that the early church experience warts and all. There are reasons why the church is in the valley today and to fail to attribute that paradigm of comparision would be to neglect the reality of Gods workings by His Spirit in revival. Arguing with that historical perspective gives us a clearer view of the reasons we are in the desperate state we are in today. Yeah but... they still had quarrels, and strife, and wrong teaching, and misunderstanding, and, and, and. Plus, they didn't have electriciy and running water. I think I would rather stay here! Eric You make my point eric. I really do believe in the logic of peaks and valleys. Compared to the experience of the early church with their  devotion and even the false teaching in comparision to todays church we have not much devotion, and we have more false teachers. In the early church Paul was trying to curb some of the excitment in his letters. A much better postion to be in with all of the adding to the church back then than it is for pastors today. We cant even get excitement and devotion like that.   Reply Quote Notify 7768  Forums / Main Forum / What About The Ones.... on: March 06, 2007, 03:25:17 PM Quote Quote Maxx said: Quote When one truly seeks God, even they don't know Christ's name, they will find God, and by virtue of this, find Christ. This is where I am at the moment.  I believe that each person at sometime during their life is given Light.  If they follow that light and seek more light God will not refuse them. However, in the  absence of written law, I also think that folks will develop their own law.  And they will not even be able to follow the law that they set for themselves. Hence the need for a righteous savior. Call me kooky. BTW--I haven't officially welcomed you to the KLF--Welcome.  I have been reading your posts and I find them interesting and well thought out. What is the difference between the rich man who came to Christ with his riteness of life and what did Christ tell him? He told him to sell all that he had. Now it seems that our best efforts are the reason we do not come to Christ. THe beggar who was absolutely destitute and depraved to the point where he would fit the spiraling down to the end of himself in the romans passage would be the one who was given grace. I do not agree that we can somehow get to God by our own righteousness.  In the romans passage Paul is trying to convince the self righteous teachers that they are just like the people who have sprialed down under Gods judgement. God has made it so that man in sin is already a totally depraved person and man only greases the wheels so to speak in the spiraling down. The absence of Gods grace is the reason men find themselves in such dire straights. This is so no man can boast. If there was anybody who could have boasted of his compiance with the light it was the apostle Paul. He followed the law better than any of his contemporaries. Yet what did he conclude about his life of self righteousness. He had to call it what it was , dung. He found that all of his works were filthy rags. That is that they should be tossed in the garbage heap. All of his acolades and all of his holy club disciplines were of no value. All of his accountability partners and all of his self generated washings, and his cleaning the outside of the cup was dung. The only thing of value the apostle clung onto was that he was a coverter of Stephens gifts and his self righteous endeavors contributed to his coveting. Only Christ had value in Pauls theology. Reply Quote Notify 7769  Forums / Main Forum / What About The Ones.... on: March 06, 2007, 03:11:58 PM Quote Maxx said: Quote When one truly seeks God, even they don't know Christ's name, they will find God, and by virtue of this, find Christ. This is where I am at the moment.  I believe that each person at sometime during their life is given Light.  If they follow that light and seek more light God will not refuse them. However, in the  absence of written law, I also think that folks will develop their own law.  And they will not even be able to follow the law that they set for themselves. Hence the need for a righteous savior. Call me kooky. BTW--I haven't officially welcomed you to the KLF--Welcome.  I have been reading your posts and I find them interesting and well thought out. What is the difference between the rich man who came to Christ with his richness of life and what did Christ tell him? He told him to sell all that he had. Now it seems that our best efforts are the reason we do not come to Christ. THe beggar who was absolutely destitute and depraved to the point where he would fit the spiraling down to the end of himself in the romans passage would be the one who was given grace. I do not agree that we can somehow get to God by our own righteousness.  In the romans passage Paul is trying to convince the self righteous teachers that they are just like the people who have spiraled down under Gods judgement. God has made it so that man in sin is already a totally depraved person and man only greases the wheels so to speak in the spiraling down. The absence of Gods grace is the reason men find themselves in such dire straights. This is so no man can boast. Reply Quote Notify 7770  Forums / Theology Forum / Operating In The Gifts... on: March 06, 2007, 02:58:43 PM I would love to go back to the early church days. The devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine to the fellowship to breaking the bread and to prayer. I do not look at church history as a straight line where we are growing in knowlege, but as peaks and valleys. Any time in history where there is a peak is what has helped us get through the valleys.  The logic of this is that we long for revival so that we can experience the effects that the early church experience warts and all. There are reasons why the church is in the valley today and to fail to attribute that paradigm of comparison would be to neglect the reality of Gods workings by His Spirit in revival. Arguing with that historical perspective gives us a clearer view of the reasons we are in the desperate state we are in today. 7790  Forums / Main Forum / What Is Sin? on: March 03, 2007, 04:30:02 PM Sin is explained by the apostle by a metonomy. It is like having a person living on the inside of us and is attracted to the weakest area, or is present at the areas were we are not aware of it being there. Sin resides in us as a principle, as if there was a law of sin, a weight of sin. We do not use fleshly means to wage war on sin. Sin is much deeper than just the outward behavior. Sin is like a tree that has its roots deep in the soul of our hearts. We must get to the root of sin in order to get victory over the sinful areas of our lives. The only way to mortify the deeds of the flesh, or the man of sin is by the Spirit. We are in a war and we are yeilding to the Spirit in order to put sin to death . The Spirit uses the word as the means by dividing what is sinful from what is good and transforming us through Christ death and resurrection. That is the process of sanctification. When we see the bigness of God, we begin to rejoice in the power of His work on our behalf. We begin to see the value of putting to death the misdeeds of the body. We begin to take all of our sin seriously. We are not only concerned about certian sins, but we are concerned about sin in lite of all of the counsel of God.