4036	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Essentials of the Faith	on: December 20, 2009, 10:56:41 AM
Quote from: earnestt on December 20, 2009, 10:02:53 AM Hey mbg! Not there yet? I'm trying to understand... If we're not there yet, then why did Jesus tell us that He was the Light of the world and then turn around and say, "Now, YOU are the light of the world?" Why did He tell us to tell others about His kingdom? Why did He tell us to lay hands on the sick and get them healed? His analogy (not mine) is: Jesus = Head; we = Body. A Head can't do things without a body; a body can't do things without a head. Separate, nothing happens; Together, all things are possible!!! Sounds like a co-op to me!  IMHO, we need to get out of the Old Covenant line of thinking: one of 'need' of a Savior and 'lack' of a Savior... one of "waiting on God" to whack us for something in our so-called depravity to teach us a lesson. Old Covenant is gone. We HAVE a Savior. Out with the Old; In with the New! He chose us to be The Holy of Holies. His very spirit resides in us. When in need, why stop and “wait on God” to show up? He’s here already!!! ... Immanuel. And He’s waiting on us. I know I'll probably catch some flack on this, but if God is in control, why do WE pray? And "There is freedom in being weak..." ?!!! For some reason, I don't think someone lying in a hospital bed, a child of abuse or someone who has suffered for years with chronic pain would agree. Why did He give US the power of the Name of Jesus? It truly is ALL ABOUT HIM... His strength, His power, His love, His compassion, His faith, His mercy IN us through Him... and nothing else. I want His compassion to be my compassion. (Call it weakness, if you may.) In His compassion, He did mighty works ... "Most assuredly, I say to you, HE WHO BELIEVES in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater than these he will do, because I go to My Father." To me, "he who believes" = "whosoever believeth in Me shall have everlasting life". Still learning to be a "whosoever"... In Christ, earnestt earnest... let me let you in on a secret since i do not see many people being healed and live longer than 70 to 100 yrs... God starts with the people who have no hope on this earth so that he might teach guys like me and you to not trust in ourselves. One day earnest you are going to go into the doctor and hes going to say... you got a growth ... lets take a look at that.... its inevitable. So... that is something that we are not looking at as passed.... thats something He prepares us for as a reality.. love weakness and trouble in your youth... cause it gets much worse the older you get. Let me just say this about life in general. But i think that there really is only one thing needful on this earth. Because the process of death is not something that we face as older people. It starts long before we actually being to wonder how long. I mean.. all of life is how long? I mean in the quality of life. Because eternal life has all of these qualities of how we begin to resign from our struggle. And in a sense the quality of the struggle begins with the very word of God. What we do not realize is that we are creatures that are concerned for our health. God has given us a real reaction to not wanting to die. I think that we confuse our self denial paradigm with this personal concern for our lives to be extended. I do not mean that there is this over concern for our physical well being. I am simply saying that life begins when we know God. Our most concerns for living are answered in God. This is why this life is so upside down. We begin to develop our kind of life styles in our youth. It never dawns on us that if we lose our lives..  if we spend more time pursuing things that do not matter in this paradigm that the world is going then we actually begin to have a different quality of thinking and enjoying. This is why God made everything simple... i believed therefore i said i am greatly afflicted. I another words we do not consider the things that matter until we see how upside down things are. How confused this world has become. When we follow the course of this world we become mere beast. This is why we need to begin at a young age to seek God with all of our hearts. Not to seek God in the things and ideas of common grace. Not to seek God as a religious add on. It is a world where we can compartmentalize things as finding that we are pretty good with all of the new ideas of science added to philosophy to create a comfortable life for ourselves in which we have a very wide variety of experiences. But a moral world is one where we find God as our chief joy. Because we live with the potential to fall into some kind of trial. Really people our trials come in the form of our hearts desires. Dont think that we can separate desire out to be defined by this dichotomy of common grace with special grace. They all begin to spring from a supernatural cause. What we enjoy has an effect on our general spiritual vitality. The process of death is the greatest enemy.. i mean.. as far as a working power to effect our hearts desires. Its really not even idols of the heart. Let me explain why. Because idols only blind us in some ways to the quality of our spiritual  lives.  But death prevents us from that most powerful spiritual pleasure of enjoying God. Who praises God from the grave? I mean... thats why we have this longing to live as long as we can on this earth... to praise and glorify God. We do not believe in any form of resignation. We believe in quality of life. Its defined as one not separate personalities of body and soul. Every day in focusing on ourselves we ask God for the ability to overcome the sorrows that are represented by death. Any time we have a physical deli ma we will need to have more grace. Because it effects our general spiritual vitality. This is why there is soooo much pain in the older yrs because we have not focused enough of our attention to longing after...panting after God. How can anyone face an accumulation of fleshly powers when there is no answer in the spiritual desire to live for the glory of God on a level in which the joy overcomes the sorrow? Its because of the carnal self love.
Reply Quote Notify

4037  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free writing on: December 20, 2009, 10:04:46 AM Animism is a very mystical view of the world. Its that sinful disposition that there are human personifications of the expression of personal power. Grant it that people who are given to explaining things in scientific terms are Animist in some ways. I mean the telescope doesnt speak.. hehe...its a dead idol.. daaaa. But this is how God has designed how He views this world through this disposition of love, faithfulness.. and protections. God is not animistic .. but His communications are reality. Every time He speaks its for good and His own glory unto the end that He might be the only one who is deserving of the good outcome of all that transpires. In God is the working out of all that we know as a secure foundation. He hems us in behind .. before.. under.. over... that is He is eternally secure in Himself. Now then there is a lot of mystery in our righteous indignant reaction to our own personal space. I mean that even tho we fear the reality of the danger in this world we are a very complicated human agency. We would never desire the destruction of things on this earth for the sake of our own protection. I mean... after all we are taught that we are soul and body and we treat things as impersonal as we teach ourselves this divided psyche. So this is a world of confusion in itself. There is a web of deceit that is discovered and woven as the world turns. Man develops new ways to express his hatred toward God and His people. Evil schemes have their own progressive revelation!! This is why God is above .. the highest of all of the powers. Because He rules this earth from eternity. Now then just because God is other does not mean there is no personal experience in its highest form. After all we are kings and priest of another world!!How can you argue that we have no way to reach the heavens ... i mean... thats what the apostle is saying... i mean.. as a matter of expressing mans natural ability to be dominate in his own power. Certainly if God is above the tower of Babel then He enacts events that bring men to their knees. To say that Gods rule as the most worthy object of all that is brought into this world as an evidence of His goodness .. is all mystery is to leave men without a sense of being saved from this world. God is not completely other people! Why would we exalt what we imagine how God would work above the most personal communications of all of the powers that we know that make an application to our own meta physical experience that we know would protect us and yet not allow ourselves to imagine .. i mean .. sanctified sooo ..that God would intact something that would be too great for us to imagine in our present circumstances if we were to conclude that hope to be all mystery? Please.. who made us to seek salvation beyond our own reasoning process?    Remove Reply Quote Notify

4038	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Essentials of the Faith	on: December 20, 2009, 09:21:57 AM
Quote from: earnestt on December 20, 2009, 09:02:23 AM Quote This is why we cannot even overcome the effects of death. We are all born to die.. i mean...we are all created in Gods image and all of the in between counts but we do not have the ability to avoid death. We do not even have the ability to conquer death. And even tho we live this life and we do good to others it still cannot overcome the process of death... the potential to have grief that has a crushing effect on our lives. In other words our good actions do not always connect to the kind of sorrow we are going to experience.  There is no equal consequence in this life in terms of a sudden event that transpires as if there was a law speaking on our behalf as the re warder for our past efforts. Good citizens suffer for reasons that are not always understood. Thats the reality of the powers that we face in this life. All of us face things that are too strong for us. We are unable in ourselves to overcome these things. We are like dead men walking around. We have the potential to fall under some kind of dominating power. Whether we acknowledge it or not this is always a real concern that we find in this world where the powers are not really what is in the present physical experience but these adversaries live in the realty of our minds. Because we experience the state of death and pain. In every area of our being both body and soul we are  depraved.      [enter stage Above approximately 2000 years ago] Death ==> LIFE. Grief ==> PEACE. Sorrow ==> JOY. Suffer ==> OVERCOME, MORE THAN CONQUERORS. Dead men ==> SONS, PRIESTS, FRIENDS. Powers ==> CANNOT SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, TRIUMPHED OVER THEM. Adversaries ==> HIS FOOTSTOOL, WHO CAN BE AGAINST US? Concern ==> DO NOT WORRY. (Carnal) Minds ==> MIND OF CHRIST/THE SPIRIT. Pain ==> FORMER THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY. Body ==> TEMPLE, LIVING STONE. Depraved ==> MADE RIGHTEOUS. ... through grace... of Him, through Him and to Him are all things. Still learning what it means to be... In Christ, earnestt I agree ... but we are not there yet. We all are going through a growth process. Paul says that there is no longer a reason for us to sin... we are completely sanctified. We are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Not only in our identification with Him in His resurrection already completely changed our future but we have everything we need in Him. And yet the Apostle would have us conclude as Abraham that we are wicked in ourselves so that we might live by grace and not by law. The process of death still is part of our identity. There is freedom in being weak.. weakness is not an argument for a sinful disposition. We look at ourselves and we say... if i stand before God in my own ability and good works then who can stand? What man can stand before God and talk to Him about his story on this earth as if God was not completely fooled at the mans just conclusions? We conclude that we have no reason to boast. So that we might exalt Christ righteousness in our place of boasting. Now then we are the most undeserved but in Christ we have all things at our disposal. I mean those things that He has determined that are going to make us more like Him. Are we blameless?... yes .. only as He is blameless. Are we crooked ? No... because He is truthful. When we look at our own lives we have only His righteousness to plead on our behalf. This is a reason to be more boastful than the most powerful kings on this earth!! If we conclude that we are blameless by our own ability then we are most miserable. We have not learned that all men will be silenced before Him. There is no way around thinking any other way as  a means of being transformed. We either do it His way or we grow in sorrows.  4036  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Essentials of the Faith on: December 20, 2009, 10:56:41 AM Quote from: earnestt on December 20, 2009, 10:02:53 AM Hey mbg! Not there yet? I'm trying to understand... If we're not there yet, then why did Jesus tell us that He was the Light of the world and then turn around and say, "Now, YOU are the light of the world?" Why did He tell us to tell others about His kingdom? Why did He tell us to lay hands on the sick and get them healed? His analogy (not mine) is: Jesus = Head; we = Body. A Head can't do things without a body; a body can't do things without a head. Separate, nothing happens; Together, all things are possible!!! Sounds like a co-op to me!  IMHO, we need to get out of the Old Covenant line of thinking: one of 'need' of a Savior and 'lack' of a Savior... one of "waiting on God" to whack us for something in our so-called depravity to teach us a lesson. Old Covenant is gone. We HAVE a Savior. Out with the Old; In with the New! He chose us to be The Holy of Holies. His very spirit resides in us. When in need, why stop and “wait on God” to show up? He’s here already!!! ... Immanuel. And He’s waiting on us. I know I'll probably catch some flack on this, but if God is in control, why do WE pray? And "There is freedom in being weak..." ?!!! For some reason, I don't think someone lying in a hospital bed, a child of abuse or someone who has suffered for years with chronic pain would agree. Why did He give US the power of the Name of Jesus? It truly is ALL ABOUT HIM... His strength, His power, His love, His compassion, His faith, His mercy IN us through Him... and nothing else. I want His compassion to be my compassion. (Call it weakness, if you may.) In His compassion, He did mighty works ... "Most assuredly, I say to you, HE WHO BELIEVES in Me, the works that I do he will do also, and greater than these he will do, because I go to My Father." To me, "he who believes" = "whosoever believeth in Me shall have everlasting life". Still learning to be a "whosoever"... In Christ, earnestt earnest... let me let you in on a secret since i do not see many people being healed and live longer than 70 to 100 yrs... God starts with the people who have no hope on this earth so that he might teach guys like me and you to not trust in ourselves. One day earnest you are going to go into the doctor and hes going to say... you got a growth ... lets take a look at that.... its inevitable. So... that is something that we are not looking at as passed.... thats something He prepares us for as a reality.. love weakness and trouble in your youth... cause it gets much worse the older you get. Let me just say this about life in general. But i think that there really is only one thing needful on this earth. Because the process of death is not something that we face as older people. It starts long before we actually being to wonder how long. I mean.. all of life is how long? I mean in the quality of life. Because eternal life has all of these qualities of how we begin to resign from our struggle. And in a sense the quality of the struggle begins with the very word of God. What we do not realize is that we are creatures that are concerned for our health. God has given us a real reaction to not wanting to die. I think that we confuse our self denial paradigm with this personal concern for our lives to be extended. I do not mean that there is this over concern for our physical well being. I am simply saying that life begins when we know God. Our most concerns for living are answered in God. This is why this life is so upside down. We begin to develop our kind of life styles in our youth. It never dawns on us that if we lose our lives..  if we spend more time pursuing things that do not matter in this paradigm that the world is going then we actually begin to have a different quality of thinking and enjoying. This is why God made everything simple... i believed therefore i said i am greatly afflicted. I another words we do not consider the things that matter until we see how upside down things are. How confused this world has become. When we follow the course of this world we become mere beast. This is why we need to begin at a young age to seek God with all of our hearts. Not to seek God in the things and ideas of common grace. Not to seek God as a religious add on. It is a world where we can compartmentalize things as finding that we are pretty good with all of the new ideas of science added to philosophy to create a comfortable life for ourselves in which we have a very wide variety of experiences. But a moral world is one where we find God as our chief joy. Because we live with the potential to fall into some kind of trial. Really people our trials come in the form of our hearts desires. Dont think that we can separate desire out to be defined by this dichotomy of common grace with special grace. They all begin to spring from a supernatural cause. What we enjoy has an effect on our general spiritual vitality. The process of death is the greatest enemy.. i mean.. as far as a working power to effect our hearts desires. Its really not even idols of the heart. Let me explain why. Because idols only blind us in some ways to the quality of our spiritual  lives.  But death prevents us from that most powerful spiritual pleasure of enjoying God. Who praises God from the grave? I mean... thats why we have this longing to live as long as we can on this earth... to praise and glorify God. We do not believe in any form of resignation. We believe in quality of life. Its defined as one not separate personalities of body and soul. Every day in focusing on ourselves we ask God for the ability to overcome the sorrows that are represented by death. Any time we have a physical deli ma we will need to have more grace. Because it effects our general spiritual vitality. This is why there is soooo much pain in the older yrs because we have not focused enough of our attention to longing after...panting after God. How can anyone face an accumulation of fleshly powers when there is no answer in the spiritual desire to live for the glory of God on a level in which the joy overcomes the sorrow? Its because of the carnal self love. Reply Quote Notify 4037  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Free writing on: December 20, 2009, 10:04:46 AM Animism is a very mystical view of the world. Its that sinful disposition that there are human personifications of the expression of personal power. Grant it that people who are given to explaining things in scientific terms are Animist in some ways. I mean the telescope doesnt speak.. hehe...its a dead idol.. daaaa. But this is how God has designed how He views this world through this disposition of love, faithfulness.. and protections. God is not animistic .. but His communications are reality. Every time He speaks its for good and His own glory unto the end that He might be the only one who is deserving of the good outcome of all that transpires. In God is the working out of all that we know as a secure foundation. He hems us in behind .. before.. under.. over... that is He is eternally secure in Himself. Now then there is a lot of mystery in our righteous indignant reaction to our own personal space. I mean that even tho we fear the reality of the danger in this world we are a very complicated human agency. We would never desire the destruction of things on this earth for the sake of our own protection. I mean... after all we are taught that we are soul and body and we treat things as impersonal as we teach ourselves this divided psyche. So this is a world of confusion in itself. There is a web of deceit that is discovered and woven as the world turns. Man develops new ways to express his hatred toward God and His people. Evil schemes have their own progressive revelation!! This is why God is above .. the highest of all of the powers. Because He rules this earth from eternity. Now then just because God is other does not mean there is no personal experience in its highest form. After all we are kings and priest of another world!!How can you argue that we have no way to reach the heavens ... i mean... thats what the apostle is saying... i mean.. as a matter of expressing mans natural ability to be dominate in his own power. Certainly if God is above the tower of Babel then He enacts events that bring men to their knees. To say that Gods rule as the most worthy object of all that is brought into this world as an evidence of His goodness .. is all mystery is to leave men without a sense of being saved from this world. God is not completely other people! Why would we exalt what we imagine how God would work above the most personal communications of all of the powers that we know that make an application to our own meta physical experience that we know would protect us and yet not allow ourselves to imagine .. i mean .. sanctified sooo ..that God would intact something that would be too great for us to imagine in our present circumstances if we were to conclude that hope to be all mystery? Please.. who made us to seek salvation beyond our own reasoning process?    Remove Reply Quote Notify 4038  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spurgeon - Essentials of the Faith on: December 20, 2009, 09:21:57 AM Quote from: earnestt on December 20, 2009, 09:02:23 AM Quote This is why we cannot even overcome the effects of death. We are all born to die.. i mean...we are all created in Gods image and all of the in between counts but we do not have the ability to avoid death. We do not even have the ability to conquer death. And even tho we live this life and we do good to others it still cannot overcome the process of death... the potential to have grief that has a crushing effect on our lives. In other words our good actions do not always connect to the kind of sorrow we are going to experience.  There is no equal consequence in this life in terms of a sudden event that transpires as if there was a law speaking on our behalf as the re warder for our past efforts. Good citizens suffer for reasons that are not always understood. Thats the reality of the powers that we face in this life. All of us face things that are too strong for us. We are unable in ourselves to overcome these things. We are like dead men walking around. We have the potential to fall under some kind of dominating power. Whether we acknowledge it or not this is always a real concern that we find in this world where the powers are not really what is in the present physical experience but these adversaries live in the realty of our minds. Because we experience the state of death and pain. In every area of our being both body and soul we are  depraved.      [enter stage Above approximately 2000 years ago] Death ==> LIFE. Grief ==> PEACE. Sorrow ==> JOY. Suffer ==> OVERCOME, MORE THAN CONQUERORS. Dead men ==> SONS, PRIESTS, FRIENDS. Powers ==> CANNOT SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, TRIUMPHED OVER THEM. Adversaries ==> HIS FOOTSTOOL, WHO CAN BE AGAINST US? Concern ==> DO NOT WORRY. (Carnal) Minds ==> MIND OF CHRIST/THE SPIRIT. Pain ==> FORMER THINGS HAVE PASSED AWAY. Body ==> TEMPLE, LIVING STONE. Depraved ==> MADE RIGHTEOUS. ... through grace... of Him, through Him and to Him are all things. Still learning what it means to be... In Christ, earnestt I agree ... but we are not there yet. We all are going through a growth process. Paul says that there is no longer a reason for us to sin... we are completely sanctified. We are baptized into the death and resurrection of Christ. Not only in our identification with Him in His resurrection already completely changed our future but we have everything we need in Him. And yet the Apostle would have us conclude as Abraham that we are wicked in ourselves so that we might live by grace and not by law. The process of death still is part of our identity. There is freedom in being weak.. weakness is not an argument for a sinful disposition. We look at ourselves and we say... if i stand before God in my own ability and good works then who can stand? What man can stand before God and talk to Him about his story on this earth as if God was not completely fooled at the mans just conclusions? We conclude that we have no reason to boast. So that we might exalt Christ righteousness in our place of boasting. Now then we are the most undeserved but in Christ we have all things at our disposal. I mean those things that He has determined that are going to make us more like Him. Are we blameless?... yes .. only as He is blameless. Are we crooked ? No... because He is truthful. When we look at our own lives we have only His righteousness to plead on our behalf. This is a reason to be more boastful than the most powerful kings on this earth!! If we conclude that we are blameless by our own ability then we are most miserable. We have not learned that all men will be silenced before Him. There is no way around thinking any other way as  a means of being transformed. We either do it His way or we grow in sorrows.