Various topics 3

241	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Answering the critics.	on: June 08, 2014, 12:30:00 PM
Max I agree....we know the message of the gospel but its not meant for us to apply it as if we know how to address peoples individual needs. If you have a culture in the church where people are put into categories then either the message being preached is contradictory or its not really the gospel. The gospel always leads to mystery. Yes we have unity in teaching all the gospel and in the structure of the church but it is like our relationship to sin... we dont need to focus on our sin in order to over come it. We already know we are sinners and we focus on Christ work done on our behalf. The unity of the church cannot be defined because it crosses time, culture, nationality and knowing people by their notorious reputation. Its the ability to surpass our view of ourselves because of our being bias. We must accept ourselves according to what God has said about us. My own personal opinion about this is that far to often people just acknowledge their salvation and dont really believe it beyond their expectation of how they have viewed themselves in the past. Most people do not really know who they are in Christ because they have not tasted the creation of the new man. They only see it from the intellect. God has spoken in a way that we can feed on the gospel like eating food. We taste the food, we receive pleasure in enjoying the taste and we are satisfied after we have eaten it. The gospel is not simply a message that addresses our sin but it is the re-creative tool of God that causes us to be united with Gods creation...feeling the effects of the nature of our environment and being empowered by God in our work to feel the unity of our using Gods creation as a gift to us. We enjoy Gods gifts as if we are eating. This is how the word of God should act upon us.  We should be moved by one word. One word of God is a breath of life. We should be able to know His word so that all the words are unified in one word. Just hearing the word God should bring us to the line of blessing and cursing. Let me explain this because we experience pleasure as we understand how to address our own hardness. We should be able to empty our souls of these cursed mixtures ...like the mixture of the worlds sorrows and our inward dread ...as if we have been drunk. The bible compares the way that the king views the events... that is a person who has full control over his kingdom to do as he pleases...to drinking down this alcoholic concoction. You have the pleasure and then you experience numbness because you become drunk in drinking it. This is sort of the way that we receive events as it relates to our own sorrows. We become intoxicated with the curse. Let me stop here.
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242  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Am ah freed from sin? Ah reckon ah am. on: June 07, 2014, 11:57:17 AM When Jesus freed us from sin He took us from a guilty state of being to a blameless. He took the gavel and declared not guilty for all eternity. The Judge no longer counts our sin! And its not two line contradictory thinking. Jesus doesnt declare us potentially not guilty and give us an elaborate set of rules to achieve righteousness... although we are declared not guilty in heaven...lol..the ultimate irrational argument. In declaring us not guilty Jesus put us in a family. God becomes our Father. We no longer are slaves to rules. We no longer think in a way in which we do certain steps to achieve a level of holiness. If we do this we will turn out to be blow- hards and mean snakes. But Jesus has done all the work. He went before us and obtained control over all things. He owns all things. When we are saved we enter into a kingdom. We enter into a covenant with our Father. Its the covenant of redemption. Redemption is God acting as our Father through His covenant to turn all of our bad into good. God renews everything. There is no longer two purposes. God as Father does not need to use bad to make us grow! Our Father displays His absolute control by allowing and preventing. God does not treat us as our sins deserve but He turns the system ...He being our Father Governor... He turns the system upside down. We enjoy the fruits of our labor because Jesus has made all things complete by doing the labor before us. We no longer need to prove that we are loved by God. Now listen this is important. God actually works to judge the wicked by our trials. This is the sweetness of cursing. Listen very carefully. Christ entered heaven as the Lamb of God. His suffering demands payment for our suffering. Now we no longer suffer without a promise. Now our suffering will make Him obligated to repay us and our enemies. Everyone who enters heaven sees the awful injustice that their brothers have to endure. Our Father loves us before He acts to justify us. When we experience that ultimate love...that is seeing Him face to face we will express it in an anger of our understanding Gods love to His servants..servants are Gods example of the just payment for suffering. He will squeeze every drop of blood as the payment for our suffering!   Reply Quote Notify

243  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Answering the critics. on: June 07, 2014, 11:28:57 AM RR.. I agree with that last statement. But I do not believe that we should avoid the bible, church or the sacraments. Although I can see how we could be in a situation for a long period of time where we do not attend church because of the bad example. I know in history that God sent Israel into exile...probably more than when they could go to the temple... and He used His special presence to protect. I think God is most near when the system is the most backwards. Ive experience most of my highest times of worship when I was not going to a church. Im attending now... I believe that our culture is no longer patriarchal...but its a disease ...preventing us from being unified. Everyone will argue to the grave they are right but its a hopeless situation when these practices get to the third and fourth generation.   Reply Quote Notify

244  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Answering the critics. on: June 07, 2014, 11:12:25 AM I get the sense that we are using the Buddhist argument that rest equals getting to a state of no self awareness. Any knowledge of self gets in the way of a sense of completeness. Any time I come here and build a case about how important the means of faith are in growing there is an elaborate and very long detailed effort to prove that even the means cannot bring us to this state of non being. But we see right through this sinister scheme and are amazed how hard it is to describe something that is so dogmatically contradictory. lol  How can you describe non being? Your using a lot of effort and dogmatic statements to get to that point. At least I do not need to work that hard. I simply borrow from scripture. But Jesus discipled His followers. And yet He did not follow an outline. He chose His disciples but He hid the traitor from them throughout His ministry. Hey Jesus why dont you come clean? lol He pronounced blessing upon them and then left them at the most troubled time. He came to pronounce judgement upon the religious system doing works that seem to destroy what God established in promising to rule from His holy temple. Instead He shunned the religious culture and spent most of His time around sinners. And at the highest lesson that He taught in which He pronounced a curse upon the religious leaders was His defense of an adulterous. Now that is the opposite of how we would teach a righteous standard. Do you realize that Jesus destroyed the system of the way the disciples were taught to approach God?!!! Any one who comes to the story of Jesus ministry leaving their pre conceived ideas behind would conclude that He was too abrasive to teach His disciples. And yet He did not do it in anger that was controlled by His view of the situation. He simply pronounced judgement upon the religious system and leaders. Even in the temple when He overturned the money changes, He did not harm the people... He simply destroyed their idols. What we need to see is that Jesus came to act as the substitute for His people using His pronouncements to destroy those who were destroying His people. Jesus acted as the Perfect Savior and delivered His people. He did not really try to change their behavior.   Reply Quote Notify

245  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Answering the critics. on: June 06, 2014, 01:03:35 PM Christian repentance is not focused on us or our circumstances but its focused on the goodness of God. Salvation is our standing on Christ success so that everything comes to us as a gift. In repentance we guard the gift. Because the most valuable commodity of our salvation is our being fully justified in His sight. When we speak of any work done in our salvation our representation of the value of the gift is how we value the Giver. You know that God gives freely  He gives in abundance. We are loved by our Father with an unfailing love. So the glory of repentance is focusing on that abundant love. We live a life of repentance. That is we as sinners pronounce Gods abundant goodness by seeing Is absolute justice being carried out. In this we boast knowing that He has not marked our sins. Since He has loved us we cannot destroy what He has given. We become His representatives of redemption standing with Christ in amazement knowing that His just declarations will only bring us rewards since we possess such a great gift. To God be the glory! Reply Quote Notify

246  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Answering the critics. on: June 05, 2014, 12:27:37 PM I dont think the bible is saying that proving my repentance is through my choice to repent. I got from that he based the forgiveness on his want to be forgiven. Im always suspect when we proudly declare than that its dependent upon the sincerity of our want. It like the guy who says that he is tired of talking about these things but his doing them proves his love. That seems so.arrogant. I do not think people say it with that intent but they are repeating the main stream religious talk Ill write the rest later. Reply Quote Notify

247  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Answering the critics. on: June 05, 2014, 05:32:42 AM Its dangerous to make absolute judgements on our past. I spend a lot of time thinking in ways that I have no regrets. Im not a guy who takes the good with the bad.. Im not a two line thinker. I do not believe that I have control over myself if I find myself thinking I am trapped in between two opposite things. I do not believe that you can experience life as you coming at it rather than it coming at you if you do not curse the evil..curse the curse and live in the gospel. The gospel is not simply a message of potential hope but its the power of God that we grab onto to over come all opposition. There is always a purpose in every thing we go through. And the purpose that follows us is that good will rule over evil. Salvation is our living in this reality. But I do not think we rule by sort of pulling up our boot straps. Rather we rule by knowing the causes of our salvation, the ongoing power of it and being confident we will win in the end. Never reduce salvation to two equal truths. Never divide salvation into a list of things. Salvation always unifies our experience. The other thing to believe is that any blame, fear, sorrow is not a benefit but its a curse. This is where we let the cat out of the bag and we start experiencing all the troubles of life as if they rule us. We should never feel as if we are locked up in a prison. We face traps in life but they represent a challenge to grow down. We must push the curse down in order for us to not be controlled by the past event. Most people live as if the events are controlling them. They never get to mystery. Mystery is experiencing the breaking of the powers of this world. We curse the curse because it is our advantage to speak over our bad experiences. Its like a king who has control over his kingdom by pronouncing life or death. We must kill the destruction through pronouncing a curse upon it. I do not believe anyone overcomes a bad event unless they have a constant experience of mystery. When I write its as if there is nothing in the past that has so big and effect on me that it defines me.  Reply Quote Notify

248  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: June 03, 2014, 12:29:19 PM Its hard to explain our relationship with God because  its simple. I mean there are the means of faith that are absolutely necessary in knowing God. Through meditation I have simply spoken the promises, the pronouncements, the curses and the commands. I am simply repeating Gods reality of creation and recreation. Its hard to explain that God shows up through the word. You get really good at something and experience the heavenly reality and most of the time people say it cant be that simple. I get......  God has given us every thing but we must examine the reasons why we do not have them. I simply repeat what God has given me and the pronouncement is the confidence that I have it now. Ive even heard people say that I am self righteous. You mean that you have confidence in yourself because the second line gives you enough wiggle space to interpret a passage the way you want as long as you are challenged to sin less because you really cant trust that God has removed your sins?? Go figure. Your just saying. Come over to my line and we can do this together but I know Jesus has already done the work. I know your just trying to control God. Reply Quote Notify

249  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Where is boasting? on: June 01, 2014, 01:54:23 PM The more and more i look at the garden i am befuddled on how to describe exactly what kind of relationship that man had with God. Looking back it seems to me that it was more than innocence. Man actually had fellowship with God. So I always think in these terms. Whatever God declared about the relationship at that time that was what it was. The problem with the garden was that man had no defensive quality. He had no hatred for deceit. Its not wrong to be completely blameless of evil language and know intimately about the adversity. I mean we dont just study righteousness to be righteous. We study the enemy so that we are able to overcome him. So I see this as a progressive revelation. Man was incomplete because man did not have knowledge like Gods knowledge. But by incomplete i am talking about the amount of knowledge. There had not been any revelation of God but only direct communication. And yet God gave man absolute authority over all creation that provided man with everything he needed. But man did not have full understanding of what that was. So in a sense man was too passive. I believe that as the revelation of God unfolded then man became more offensive. You look at Job..one of the oldest books in the bible... Job presents a passive defense of his faith. There was no cursing the enemies. The expression of Job was Gods doing something and I deserve to die. The Psalms that Job spoke were self defeating. But God was building Jobs spiritual muscles. If i could compare Jobs reasoning it would be the present state of the church. Jobs message did not contain enough offensive details to know what kind of offensive weapons were available. Not until you come to David do you find that the best defense is a good offense. Reply Quote Notify

250  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: June 01, 2014, 01:11:00 PM The relationship we have with God is mainly knowing God. Understanding what He has said and seeking to apply it to our souls. Unlike any healing agent in this earthly experience the eternal words of God are re creative. The medicine is the words themselves. God has created all societies. The direction a society is going and the fundamental reasons in the rational description of society are words. God has described to us enough knowledge to be able discern our purpose in society and the state of that society. Just as God dwells in unapproachable light so to He has a vision of all things in this life being made good. When we seek God we are accepted as His child. Just as the student is faithful to his teacher so as we more and more understand Gods views we are able to please Him. The purpose in the christian life is to think in ways that unify all things. God is bringing all things into order for one purpose...to get pleasure in the renewal of His creation. When we experience mystery...that is something that we cannot understand it is in the context of being unified. God accomplishes all things through His spoken word. He has absolute judgement at all times in the accomplishment of all things including our experience in light of our society. The language of this perfect unity between blessing and cursing is so detailed and multi faceted that we could never understand what He has spoken. His language goes to the smallest particle as to where it is placed and the time it is placed. Every particle is upheld by His perfect government. It is according to His absolute justice. When we experience mystery we experience on a personal level. I mean its like being in the presence of a great leader and being awed in the personal connection. Mystery is being in the presence of a God who controls all things by the word of His mouth. There is no earthly explanation of the bigness or the direction of His power. It surrounds us and swallows us up. And yet God has decided to fellowship with us. He lowers Himself to our level...answering us according to our view because He views us in His Son. How do we describe our infinite power that dwells in us ..the fulness of God? And being emanated by that complete communication that is infinitely beyond our understanding yet controlled enough that it doesnt instantly blow us to smithereens? How can God lower Himself to our level so that our experience is being changed to the point that we are no longer under the curse and yet we are able to take the pain and overcome all opposition? This is truely a mystery.     Reply Quote Notify

251  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Salvation: gift, paycheck, or loan? on: May 30, 2014, 01:40:45 PM The difference between the eternal gift of salvation and other lesser gifts is that it is what keeps us alive. The gift of salvation is a gift of eternal life. It begins with the breath of God...God breathing new life into us. This life is not only a spiritual life but its a life that creates a desire to survive on this earth. The gift is real reality...we cant change a happening...you cant go back and rearrange the event...when we speak the word it is reality ... you cant revoke that word of God. Salvation is a confession that we stand on the word of God. We make a confession that every thing is secure because God has described our salvation as having a beginning that will last through eternity. This is not just eternal in the sense of time but its the quality of life. The quality of life is that we are given a family relationship with God and as our family desire grows we recreate our earthly family. The bible changes families. So salvation is the recreation of the original order that was established in the garden.   Reply Quote Notify

252  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 30, 2014, 09:20:23 AM Gouda......This passage is in the context of having idols. The passage starts out with God declaring that He has created all things and He has established all things. So He is creating both blessing and cursing. God does whatever pleases Him because there is no other person or thing that can create something from nothing. God simply speaks and it is created. All things come from Gods word. Not only does God create all things from nothing but He establishes all things by the word of His mouth. Both cursing and blessing are Gods creative establishment of the history of redemption. The reason that I believe in sovereign grace is because any other reason for anything that exist in our lives is self destructive if it is not in the context of a gift that God has spoken for our redemption. You cant mask this. The heart is revealed by what comes out of our mouths. This is why we have a distinct confession taught to us. Every word of God is a word of deliverance. We believe that when we are delivered we only seek one thing. We seek the word of salvation. Why do we place our trust in the future deliverance that God creates? Because we confess that salvation was given to us from Gods mouth. He breathed into us new life. This is what is so hard for people. They do not understand how our confession establishes our way. To lie is to believe that we act for our own deliverance. Its saying in our hearts " I am good enough to save myself. I will make this right." But instead we say its not in our horses...its not in our might ...but it is in the Lord alone. What is the logical outcome of this confession?...that we will look to the word of deliverance and trust in God alone. God has ordered the history of redemption by establishing our way by doing the work Himself. He has become our substitute. Everything that we go through in our lives has been planned out before the foundation of the world. It is ordered by a perfect argument. God can explain every thing that exist. And He has given us enough explanation in His word. He has spoken in a way that He puts Himself in the position to be proved. He has covenanted with His people to be always, kind, faithful, long suffering, gentle , and eternally loving. He is the only one who has never used words to destroy or discourage.  NEVER NEVER NEVER! God only speaks blessing to us. But God has proved His covenant by protecting us from destructive words. God curses those who worship other gods. Because their minds and hearts are bent on destroying their neighbors. So God puts an end to idol worshipers lest they destroy the righteous. I think I have cut it straight and given the heart of the problem. Reply Quote Notify

253  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 29, 2014, 08:25:35 PM I think that God has a refuge for us. And I think its a personal world in which other people cannot understand. In the present world we are always judged by the bottom line. But in the refuge world the wheels turn very slowly and there is unlimited blessing. In the real world we are miss understood if we do not do all the things we are suppose to do. But in the refuge world our bottom line is waiting on God. In the real world the problems we face and how we overcome them is what we are judged by. In the refuge world our praying and waiting on God unravels the multiple causes of our adversity that we cannot see. This is why we seem to be so slow at answering our challenges. This is why we spend a lot of time doing things that have no initial rewards. This is what is so difficult about life. Its being able to always rise above our opponent, and have a sense that no problem that we are facing is too big. The refuge world that we live in is God focusing on us , our needs, our success. This world has no past ...it is an eternal perspective. This refuge world is where God speaks and it is accomplished. Its where God draws near and all is put into place. This refuge world is going in the opposite direction of the real world...its doing things backwards from the real world. This is the world where few seem to be comfortable in and yet it is the world were we achieve total unity of heart and mind. It is the world where people are always arguing that it cant possibly exist. I believe we need to understand the kind of opposition that we are facing. It is not nice. But people would rather hold onto their fear, anger and sorrow ..rather than speak the curses. Because of sin there is a universal hatred for the ways of grace. Grace is only powerful if it addresses the opposition in a kind of struggle. A fierce man to man struggle to keep grace and wrestle the trust in the law from the opposition. Our protection is keeping the opposition on a leash. That is we need to learn how to grow down. Because grace is not grace if it doesnt go to the lowest. We will never love to give up our lives unless we learn how to grow down. Reply Quote Notify

254  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Imminent homelessness on: May 29, 2014, 03:33:58 PM tb I was bragging about you the other day. Out of all the people that ive had a privilege to interact her at the forums over the years ...you have had the most impact on my life. I cant think of anyone who has written post that were as humble and kind as yours. When I was losing everything it was your post that kept me going. Thanks brother. Reply Quote Notify

255	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God	on: May 28, 2014, 07:40:41 PM
Ml... let me say this that Ive spoken some of these Psalms where ive said to myself... wow that was very harsh. At other times ive spoken them and thought to myself.. wow ive never felt that sorrow for myself. Ive shouted some of the Psalms and other people who have heard me ask me to be more quiet. So for people who listen they are offensive. But to me saying them... the extreme expressions lead to a kind of rest that I cannot describe.  256  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 28, 2014, 07:33:07 PM Thanks ML...I too have suffered from depression in the past. Although it has not been long periods of my life. And having a mentally and physically handicap son i see the effects of brain injury that causes these mood swings. And ive also seen these mental problems run in families. As well as injury there is also a pre disposition to these types of mental illnesses through genetics. So i do not believe that mental illness is simply a behavior modification problem. But I do not agree in totality with any of the modern day psychological studies. And I have my own theories based upon my many hours of meditating on these soul issues. I still do not believe the bible can cure all mental illness. But I believe the bible can balance out our predisposition to being abnormal. If you look in the bible for the fundamental cause of anxiety, fear, and exceeding sorrow you will find that it is anger of some sort. Anger is like acid to the soul and body. And believe it or not anger is masked in anxiety, fear and sorrow. I believe the book of Psalms are not the first example of the expression of our humanity and spirituality. I believe that Job was the first Psalmist. I am different from any of the theological studies on Job. I do not believe that Job was blameless in the sense of moral ability but he was wise enough to describe what he was going through not only as a wise man but as a man who was experiencing inspiration in the biblical sense. So I believe the way that we overcome a problem is knowing how to express it to God as God senses problems. Whatever emotion we experience is a form of anger and Gods anger is purifying. Most if not all of our communication is an expression of what we believe is the truth about our circumstances and what is going on in side of us. When we describe it we are staking our view as the truth other wise we would not speak. In a sense we are saying that it is true and all other descriptions are false. So in our view of the truth is a potential for disagreement. When we disagree we are saying that the weight of our statements are greater than any other view. This is exactly what anger is...it is a weight attached to the expression of truth. Even tho we do not say it with personal anger yet we say it with holy anger or conviction. Anger is not wrong as long as we do not use words to harm someone else. Im not talking about using forms of speech in writing to show contrast. But I am talking about what we say in personal relationships. We should never lash out. If you look at the Psalmist you will find all of these psychological problems like feeling sorrow for ourselves, lashing out, showing addictive tendencies ...etc... acted out before God. In other words we have the advantage doing things in private as a kind of taking the lid off and letting it out of our souls before God. And if you look at history you will find this kind of expression through the arts. People expressing through writing, music, and painting what is going in inside of someone who is facing all of these cursed things in this world. What we have done today is try to erase the negative parts of life and put them out of our culture. So if we are facing something that we cannot handle we simply take something to mask the pain. But I do not think this is an individual problem. I believe that society is like a way of speaking. So the majority who simply repeat something over and over then it becomes the pressure that is moves people to act apart from what they are feeling.     Reply Quote Notify 257  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 28, 2014, 03:55:44 PM My view of myself is distant to me. I do not enjoy anything that has always been enjoyable. Its all the same enjoyments over and over again. So i spend a lot of time trying to get into Jesus skin. For what its worth i really do not understand how I get into His skin. Its become apparent to me that He approaches me. But this experience is all mystery to me. Non the less I do not think of myself as if I existed. Ok...its Christ in me. And Im surrounded so that Hes never understood at any finite view. So any reason to feel like i am imaged in a finite way as if there was an explanation of what I am like or who I am doesnt affect who I think I am. I feel free like Jesus is infinite.   Reply Quote Notify 258  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 28, 2014, 03:04:25 PM Ml I love the arts...spent about 10 years in community theater. I like to spend time in the imaginative world. I think it gives us a picture of how we think about the events in this world in a creative way. You watch people take on another character ...an attempt to portray a duplicate image of the real thing. In the arts world there is no real boundaries. The focus is on meta physical beauty. I believe it is a test tube of how we live in this world. We learn to view ourselves as we understand gifted image ... in a very confused world. The ultimate view of the world and its true beauty is Gods view. We really live in a spiritual world. What is it like to understand the purpose of everyone and everything? In acting we laugh at the miss messed up lives of others because we make an effort to get into their skin and it becomes more than a observance but we begin to sympathize with our character as we are placed in their circumstances and think and feel what they were going through. Outside of our view of our own little world is a very complex interaction of other peoples views. I believe there is always and underlying factor in reality. We are always having initial reactions to our circumstances. But in a sense everyone who is messed up are reacting because they want to survive some kind of abuse or they are living according to the cards they have been dealt with. Ive always tried to seek the perfect view of this spiritual interaction through seeing it through Gods eyes. I really believe that if I could have a glimpse of the reasons that God has created this disorder and the sense of what it is to be put back into order that I could be a leader in recreating everything around me to become unified. How do we get this vision? By seeking the image of Christ. Christ entered into this world as the most miss understood man of all time. He basically wiped disease from society when He was on this earth. But there really was no man who saw the beauty and the perfect unity that Christ displayed. They miss understood His purpose and sought the re image everything about Him. But He created perfect images prior to Him being present in a situation. I believe His vision was seeing everything reorder as He walked on this earth.   Reply Quote Notify 259  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 28, 2014, 09:31:43 AM Gouda the bible has very high standards for relationships. This is why I do not depend upon my own understanding of the world or people. Ive spent a lot of time going from a situation in the world to hours of meditation and wanting illumination. God doesnt have a have a grading system. Its either all or nothing. He has protected grace by putting barriers up to prevent people from doing it their way. He has declared that anyone who trust in their own righteousness will look to the law for their acceptance. When a person depends upon the law God places upon their heads the weight of the entire law. Some people think that this is the way that God sanctifies us. He shows us the extent of the law and we see our failure. But in my opinion because I see the legal necessity of being blameless ...it would seem to me that the law is only cursing those who it is directed to. This is why I believe that we are able to use the law for our own benefit as a universal body of Christ. It really is too good to be true to stand as incomplete sinners who are the judicial arm of God over all creation. Two line has been an awful teaching. In fact Calvin as i have read only alluded to it but never wrote in a two line way. We really live in a kingdom where we stand as blameless. And this is true of us when we sin because God works good out of our sin. This is what is so evil about teaching that we are fully righteous but in this world we are unrighteous. That we are blameless but in this world we are blame worthy. It is absolutely speaking a contradiction. We are saying that we caught a 100 pound fish but in reality it was only 50 pounds. Both cant be true at the same time. God put the angels in front of the garden to protect us from entering it on our legal terms. The law stands as our friend because Christ has already fulfilled the laws demands. Here is the way of grace. We simply say that Christ has done all the work and we are blameless. Christ has determined that the way we communicate is whos side we are on. If we are on the laws side then we speak evil continually. But if we are on the grace side then we have the cross of the law that we put up in front of the vampire. We have a pronouncement of a curse to anyone who puts their confidence in the law. We have the weight of the curse in God placing the whole law in judgement of anyone who trust in it. We have been made completely free. God has taken the curse away. He has placed us in His family. He has decided to not only be our defense but our substitute. So we speak like we have a completely sovereign substitute who does whatever pleases Him. He has pronounced the final words in curses and blessings. We are free because He cannot fail to work good in our lives. We argue from this position.     Reply Quote Notify 260  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 27, 2014, 06:56:43 PM A lot of people think because I hear it all the time that we give up control so that Christ can control. Now just think about this. If Christ used all of His faculties in perfect harmony to His Father then why would He ask us to give up our desires, our wants, and our logic in order to understand Him? I mean... we understand God because we understand ourselves. And really if Christ is in control then controlling ourselves is the reason that we do not want to control others. If we know Christ in a greater way the more we will know ourselves. Because Christ controls everything and its for His glory and for good. If its for good then then everything we possess is a gift to us. Why would we give the gift back if it was given to us? We have full control of the gift. Its like two line...judge me for wanting to get what I desire...wanting to fulfill what you have gifted me to be. Obviously the more we experience Christ in control the more we will see the value of the gift and the more we will enjoy it for ourselves. The reason the people try to control others is because they are not controlled by Christ. Why would we want to feel, think, or experience anything that is different from the perfect Man? If we are controlled by the Perfect man then there is nothing too big that would affect our relationship with Him that comes from the world.  We would believe that all things are possible because we would experience Christ recreating all things. A person who is not controlled by Christ will react as if that person is the sole controller. But a person who has been with Christ will be free of controlling others. Because the person will enjoy himself. Reply Quote Notify 261  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 27, 2014, 05:43:12 PM Thanks LI...ive enjoyed reading your post. I get challenged by how you think through things. But I really like certainty. I like control of all things. I know that seems like a terrible thing to say but ive been drawn to this through Davids prayers. Ive pray through them for hours. In my life Ive prayed in a more passionate way as the tribulation increased. And quite honestly it was because I was losing control of my world. But Ive always been drawn to a desire for control outside of what I consider my world. Sometimes after praying them Ive experienced a quietness that I cannot describe. I mean its like when I went through hurricane andrew...after the storm the whole electrical grid was destroyed. There was a silence that I remember that was extra ordinary. I compare that to this meta physical silence that Ive experience many times. I often wonder if theres some kind of evil in the air or if there are evil spirits that are always present and at that time i chased them off. But as Ive said before I am not a charismatic. So the only way that I can rationally explain this is that these experiences are contained in the Psalms. So if I try to explain them outside of that context then it gets irrational.  Christ has absolute control over all things. What is that like? Christ vision of all things is His upholding all things. He controls angels, spirits, demons and all governments. But the bible also says that we are in Him. And because we are in Him we inherent all things. A lot of people do not think of this because it is something outside of the practical explanations of our every day life. Here is where ive gone in this. Through many years of praying the Psalms ive experienced a communication as if Christ was exposing His desires perfectly to His Father. The vision is this perfect Man who has an eternal standard praying in a way where the joy is beyond what we could experience, the anger is beyond what we could understand, the protective shell of righteousness around this vision Man is beyond what we could want in being protected from evil and the world. So i can explain it like this ... I am driven beyond myself and into the heart and mind of this perfect God Man. So when I pray these Psalms I am praying as if the whole world was under my control. And this brings me to the after effects of this. I experience heaven and earth coming together. Which many times ive tried to explain it as the unifying of all things. And its difficult for me to feel a part of what people normally express in their loves and so on. Sometimes I get so detached that i dont feel like im in space or time.   Reply Quote Notify 262  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 27, 2014, 04:04:10 PM In my thirty years of praying the Psalms i have experience total loss of everything twice. But my loss is a trophy of my salvation. Its like when you seek something that is more important than anything in this world in suffering loss you point to it as proof that it was worth it. And it becomes a reason to become more bold. Kind of like suffering the wounds of war and receiving a medal. lol So it makes me feel more embolden to enjoy the mystery of it all. I actually experience less attachment to the things of this world having experience the loss of all things. Kind of like God burning His love in me by using the loss to find more of His gain. It also makes me sorrowful when I see others holding on so tight to the things of this world. The Psalm meditations have led me through this spiritual journey. Kind of like waves of experience followed by losing the world. This is an experience of feeling detached from the fleeting part of this world. This is what I call being overcome by the mystery of God. Kind of like heaven coming at us from the future. We feel like we want to be swallowed up in the experience of our enjoyments in this world that will be much greater in the new earth. I feel like God has made me a warrior in my loss. He emboldens me to seek Him not through work but through gifts. Reply Quote Notify 263  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Personal Relationship with God on: May 27, 2014, 03:44:16 PM I used to be a guy who loved doctrine. But it was something that I sought because I wanted to know God through a some points of doctrine without being transparent before Him. I never prayed passionately to God in a begging way. So I never approached Him like prayer was an exercise of emotion while doctrine was more intellectual. I never got much out of praying what I felt. It was always something that led me to fall asleep. It wasnt until I took on the task of memorizing Davids way of praying that I began to see how many ways we could approach God. I never understood how important it was to plead with God by laying arguments before Him. I always was taught that prayer was mainly a devotion of the heart. But as I began to ingest one Psalm after another I began to learn how to argue my case like a lawyer goes before a judge. I was brought up in a culture where religious studies were separate from judicial studies. I never saw the importance of the legal part of the gospel. The Psalms taught me that words were a form of war. I never saw the negative importance of the weight of the law. The Psalms taught me that the law was a destructive instrument to use to argue for Gods allowance or granting of His power. I never saw how I could teach my mind to be absolute. The Psalms teach us to be in our right mind. We experience a perfect division between the curse and blessing. Ive experience such a alert sensitivity to everything through the practice of finding this line between understanding and mystery. I never realized that God was so accepting of our way of doing things. The Psalms teach me that if my idea is good then God would be swayed to my position. I am learning that God wants me to use my own way of viewing the world and to present my arguments to Him. I do not think that we could be all that interested in a God who would demand for us to all have the same purpose and the same likes. But God actually comes down to our level and listens to us. He is more passionate about what we like than we are. The Psalms have taught me that what I desire is valuable to God.   Reply Quote Notify 264  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Christian or Spiritual Type Writers we like, and why. on: May 27, 2014, 03:15:33 PM Quote from: morning listener on May 27, 2014, 12:42:38 PM Quote from: mybigGod on May 27, 2014, 12:40:22 PM Ml Its difficult for us to view every circumstance as if we were trying to understand it for the first time. I use to slip into progressive thinking . But since ive spent so many years decompose these cultural codes through cursing so that I actually feel that God alone is the judge I now have an unquenchable thirst for living in mystery. The only thing that gives me satisfaction is getting myself to that mysterious disposition. I believe that i have not touched the goodness of God but every day my desire grows to experience something Ive could not imagine. So I have a desperation that I have molded by pushing the curse down so that I sometimes pant so much my heart turns over. This is why I dont think in a two line way as if I have in some kind of suspension standing in between faith and works and speaking in a way were I embrace contradictions for the sake of balance. If I.question my salvation i simply apply grace and I save myself. Sorry brother, I don't follow... Did you mean to address this to KK? I read the one you wrote before it was deleted. Reply Quote Notify 265  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Christian or Spiritual Type Writers we like, and why. on: May 27, 2014, 12:40:22 PM Ml Its difficult for us to view every circumstance as if we were trying to understand it for the first time. I use to slip into progressive thinking . But since ive spent so many years decompose these cultural codes through cursing so that I actually feel that God alone is the judge I now have an unquenchable thirst for living in mystery. The only thing that gives me satisfaction is getting myself to that mysterious disposition. I believe that i have not touched the goodness of God but every day my desire grows to experience something Ive could not imagine. So I have a desperation that I have molded by pushing the curse down so that I sometimes pant so much my heart turns over. This is why I dont think in a two line way as if I have in some kind of suspension standing in between faith and works and speaking in a way were I embrace contradictions for the sake of balance. If I.question my salvation i simply apply grace and I save myself. Reply Quote Notify 266  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Christian or Spiritual Type Writers we like, and why. on: May 26, 2014, 04:20:36 PM One of the reasons I have a hard time with Kk is that he makes general statements that imply our obedience creates our being nearer to God. When we are sinning a lot then we slow our growth down. This in my opinion is rigid. In my experience Ive enjoyed a more vibrant relationship with God when I sin the most. Why cant we make rigid markers that help us read into how God speaks to us? Because we are in a relationship with a Personal being and not a coded description that we can trust in. I do not believe we are in a give and take relationship with God. Its easy for us to speak in a way in which God is like humans. This broad stroke in his statement as we give more obedience to God we grow together is like saying that God is waiting for us to fulfill His expectations before we can grow. It seems that he is trying to simplify the relationship. Whether he intends to say that it is simple to make it organized , it comes accross as trying to control God. Reply Quote Notify 267  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Christian or Spiritual Type Writers we like, and why. on: May 26, 2014, 12:05:54 PM The teaching today is two lines one line is uncertain and represents Gods sovereign plan. The other line is certain and represents our action. But if our action is not correct then God must exert force to get us to obey. But if God is sovereign then we cannot thwart His will. Now this is a contradiction. But we are taught that God provides all that we need by grace and He has accomplished the work that brings us success. The details of scripture teach that not even our sin can thwart His will. There is a big difference in these two teachings. If God is always successful then we can be sure that He is renewing us even though we struggle with the same sin and commit it over and over again. This means that we can enjoy security as broken vessels because we value the work of Christ by treating our sinful weakness as the basis for our dependence. Our confidence is based upon trusting in His covenant promises when we push the curse away by acknowedging that He alone is doing the work. We grow as we experience releasing our power to overcome sin to His work done without sin. This gives is a rest in which we experience real.deliverance. We simply cease to struggle. Reply Quote Notify 268  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Where is boasting? on: May 25, 2014, 07:34:44 PM The law was established in the creation of all things. When we are discussing the commands ,decrees, statutes and promises we are teaching that God governs all things by His will. So the law given to Israel was not just directed to Israel but it was to show true justice, equity, and glory of God who rules from the heavens. In this sense every idea presented has a just value. The law not only addresses outward appearances but the action of the heart..... that is each man creates his own reality by the action of the mind, will and emotion. When we are saved we become Gods elect people. We in essence become His children. This means that we go from a relationship with the law as our school master to being freed from the law in a few ways. We now enjoy a covenant relationship with the Judge of all creation. God views our lives in relationship to the entire history of the world and His present view of all things working together. Our view of the law is limited to space and time. We have a very small part in unifying all things. This is why when a society begins to fall into all kinds of wickedness then the righteous use their own hands to do wrong. So there is a time when society becomes so wicked that its hard to tell the difference between the righteous and wicked. Our view of eternal rewards and punishment are very limited. You see Jesus suffering this very predicament. They were accusing Him of evil by being associated with sinners and tax collectors. That Jesus was performing miracles by the power of demons. So God views everything thing in black and white but we not only fall into patterns of societies outward wickedness but we also insinuate evil into a situation because we have a view from the awful extent of these evils. This means that God must act to thwart social evil in order to protect His elect. It means that we are caught in between Gods universal curse upon society and Satan cursing God. The function of the law was to prevent the elect from being judged... we only receive rewards and to thwart the evils of society by God declared will. I will give you the way to think about these relationships to society, christian prosperity, and ruling powers. There is a very distinct language that governs all bible exegesis. Reply Quote Notify 269  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Where is boasting? on: May 25, 2014, 12:46:10 PM We make a big mistake when we have a philosophy in which we try to reason from the position of the system of reaping and sowing. And its part of the culture of christianese to appear wise by listing our righteousness as distinct from Gods righteousness. Because of this we divide our lives into receiving punishment we deserve and at the same time defending Gods justice. This seems so selfless to champion Gods ways in order to punish us. One of the problems we have in this attempt to divide our righteousness and Gods is that we place ourselves in the position of being without a remedy. Is the christian a man both righteous and unrighteous? And it has become a game of words depending upon which side we are on in this opposing view about grace. Is there any good in acknowledging the other guys view point as a kind iof all inclusive list so that we all agree. Or do we seek to unify the doctrines so that we start from point A and end with point B? Reply Quote Notify 270  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Where is boasting? on: May 24, 2014, 11:44:14 AM Why is boasting excluded? Because salvation is by grace alone. If we have anything to do with our salvation then because of our side we would have something to offer. If we offer something then we have something to boast about. So boasting is not only saying that we deserve salvation but its describing salvation as a weapon used to show the necessity for us to obey. We boast when we say that we are responsible to change. If there is something that we do to make our salvation complete then we are saying there is something that we have that God will accept. This is not direct boasting but its a proud full way to say that we do something to be accepted by God. The scripture makes distinctions between a proud man and the elect who struggle with pride. A proud man is someone who thinks he has the power to be saved or to keep himself saved. The bible describes all men as being religious. God has made every man with a desire for the perfect image. Each man is a soul because he has the ability to see himself...having an intellect, understanding and vision. So every man is either imaging Christ or he is imaging a false image. Man either worships God or he worships false gods. The bible describes men who worship false images as the proud, wicked, or haters of God. There is no hope for a proud man. He is under Gods judgement and will be destroyed. Proud men have no desire to think of God. Instead they say in their hearts where is your God? Because they have no desire for God they create their own gods. A man who worships false gods makes himself a god. When he does not believe in God he speaks in a way to suppress God showing hate for God by using his power to destroy society. Any man who does not submit to God will practice destruction. No man gains status by himself. He always destroys others and steals what is ritefully Gods ...for himself.