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841	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Have We Been Deceived?	on: November 25, 2012, 05:19:41 PM
The society is becoming unraveled. I hear this story all the time. I have people who have crossed paths with me who have lost their wives.. Their wives come home one day and tell them they do not love them any more and want a divorce. And so you have kids being torn apart because both partners have good reasons to be mad at each other but do not want to continue on in the relationship for one reason or another. It used to be the only legitimate reason for divorce was adultery but now any reason is given. Ive seen the financial ruin that happens in a divorce. This is why marriage is the most complex institution in our society. There are all kinds of questions that need to be answered ..especially if you have children involved. And the problem is that no one comes out a winner. Its always a consultation prize. Its probably worse to compromise in a divorce than in a marriage. At least in a marriage you can agree to get something and the partner gets something out of the compromise but in divorce there is a third party that makes decisions where both parties come out injured. Ive never been divorced and I already have kids that are adults so i see the other side of this with appreciating someone that ive spent years with bringing security and attention in these after years. And another thing is that we can agree when we see this society unravel about how uncertain it is and how it ruins lives. But at the same time everyone is experiencing some kind of trouble because there is so much more trouble in a cultural sense. So the question is ..is it to much for God to turn our lives around and make some sense of something we cannot control? You begin to think about this and you half to admit that God is very flexible because He not only is a loving God but He allows people freedom to live ..having to guide people who are really messed up and broken ...and yet with all the lack of structure because no one has been reacting in a way that would provide a secure structure ..then God is gonna give us flexibility. So for every evil thing that we see that we cannot control..especially if our responsibility as fathers is lessened then we must try to see the good in the kids having to be exposed to a society that has lost this structure. Because we can become disheartened and miserable if we allow it to control us. We must begin to think that sometimes evil can be worked by God for the good of everyone. So maybe its not as bad as it looks.
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842  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 18, 2012, 03:16:56 PM Let me talk about his lying spirit. Because this is like a two headed monster. So we are not just talking about being lied to. But we are talking about experiences the ultimate confusion in society. One faction going against another faction for reasons that are legitimate. But we know that anytime society turns away from God the authorities rule through threats and destructive behavior. Along with promises of peace and prosperity. With a design to turn on their victims with sudden acts of violence. So much so that men will seek to die rather than endure this confusion and pain. Now this experience is like a Judas experience. Those leaders who are to be trusted actually turn and devour the people. There is no remedy for this because God has designed it to be a sword in between people. The only hope is for Christ to be revealed from heaven and all men will be exposed to the truth. Then they will know what they have done. Reply Quote Notify

843  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 18, 2012, 02:50:40 PM The lying spirit is Gods curse upon the people who accept those words. Remember this.. a friend of God is a friend of a friend of God and an enemy of God is an enemy of a friend of God. So God has cursed His enemies and these curses are upon our enemies as well. But Gods enemies are said to curse as well. So you have Gods curses in the law and the curses of His enemies. What are the curses of Gods enemies upon God and His people? They are lies or language of derision that redefine Gods purposes and attack Gods people. Why do Gods enemies believe the lie? Because every person that is made by God has a desire to worship a god. They are said to curse the living God by devising in their hearts the worship of dead things. In the bible a thing that God has made is gonna die because God cursed sin. So in worshiping things that God has made is the same thing as wishing to die. Because the bible says that those people who worship idols are gonna end up in the same fundamental relationship to God as that idol. The problem with men worshiping idols is they act against Gods design in the universe in which He rules. God is ruling from a design of renewal. How does God renew the earth? By His word and Spirit. The Spirit gives life but the flesh is death. What is this Spirit giving life about? It is an implantation of life by the living word of God. One word of God defines all the words of God. So the implantation is the word of salvation or deliverance given to Gods people. This includes the curses of the wicked. But man in his natural state births rebellion by devising a way that leaves God out of the plans. Man from birth is said to go astray in his thoughts. And the expression of how he views the success of his way is to curse God out of anger.  And so its not just saying something hateful to God as a curse but its seeking to remove God out of his way of success. How does man remove God? In his heart he refuses to think of God .. or think Gods thoughts after Him. So not only is mans refusal to bow the knee to God an act of defiance but his pride in his success is a direct scheme to remove any thought of God. Its not necessarily an ongoing process of talking against God but its the system that man sets up that works without his direct present knowledge that he is responsible for.  The bible calls this a kind of hero worship. Human beings worshiping other human beings who are successful. What we need to see is that this world system curses God and His people through its destructive personality. So unless God sends them a lying spirit they would destroy the whole earth.   Reply Quote Notify

844  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 18, 2012, 12:44:39 PM The world is a creation by language. No event ever happened that did not originate from the mouth of man. So we see that the world is not ordered by the majority but its just from a simple word spoken that can alter events. Every evil that comes downward on the helpless and the poor is from the words that created that disaster. Behind every trouble in this world is a leader that is hidden. This is why God holds the powers of this world in derision. A whole generation can be destroyed by one bad leader. So God deals with the high places in a more direct way than He does among common folk. We read into the jewish text our modern day democratic interpretation. But the truth is there is no place in the universe where God does not rule absolutely. And He will bring all of this to an account. He will expose those hidden decisions on the day of judgement. Reply Quote Notify

845  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 18, 2012, 12:26:36 PM cont... I believe that God has decided in His substitutionary role to deal with us in our level of language. We do not try to understand God by the absolute standard that God knows of Himself. But He speaks to us like we are babies. Its equivalent to speaking in a very crude language. But because Christ has taken our place as sinners then He acts like our intercessor in how we begin to image who He is. One of the ways is that He speaks on our behalf. Look at Moses. Kind of like we are. Could not speak in a way that he is confident that he could save his people. So God had to bring along Aaron as one who would intercede. So God in Christ speaks on our behalf as weak and sinful people. The primary way that He does this is to see our potential and through preventing and re-imaging us by blessings and cursing we are treated as someone who we are not but potentially can be. Which brings me back to how the universe is ordered and why i absolutely despise the greek mindset.  Reply Quote Notify

846  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 18, 2012, 12:07:11 PM In reading the stories of the ot you see instances where God reinterprets the events by withholding all of the truth, which could implicate his covenant people. And you look at the lie Abram told to Abimelech about his wife being his sister. God doesnt implicate Abram in the lie as it is described but instead Abimelech becomes afraid that God will judge him for his treatment of Sarah. There are numerous instances where God tells people to relay information that is not entirely true to the account in order to protect his people and that person. Why is this? I believe that God has a view of events in light of every word that is spoken about it by every person who has communicated to create the event. This includes going back to prior generations. At the same time God doesnt just destroy people for saying things that can alter events. Which He has every rite to do. But this shows me that there are some things that happen in life that cannot be completely redeemed. So we see that God is patient and long suffering in His view of us and will not destroy us by encouraging more pain and misery by exposing all the truth in a given story. So we see that truth is an analogy of a meta physical weight. You know the old adage that those who have a lot of knowledge experience a lot more sorrow because of understanding more of the potential of destruction by having more insight. And you magnify this by a number that is unimaginable about what God can handle of the truth ..the weight of knowledge that from His view and in comparison it would consume us and destroy us. This is what the Psalmist says about resting in Christ. You know there is a value of not knowing the evil by experience. The Psalmist says that "I do not concern myself with things to wonderful for me. I have stilled my soul like a weened child with his mother." So there is danger when we go out searching for something that we cannot handle. And all of this happens in relationships where things are said that further injure the person. It all stems from not being satisfied with one thing. If we were really stilled by God then that simple experience would be the equivalent of avoiding unnecessary anxiety. I dont even want to discuss how the right to privacy in this day and age has been reduced to the level of animals... its the ultimate rude society.   Reply Quote Notify

847  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The coming of the great Apocalypse on: November 17, 2012, 12:22:58 PM Christ is revealed from Heaven as the Lion of Judah. The Lion rules the whole earth. This was Gods ordained plan from the foundation of the earth. Christ is the eternal ruler who is the Most High Lord. There is no other option than to kiss the Son lest He be angry and you be removed from authority. When we are looking at Christ eternal rule we are thinking of it in terms of how He deals with human governments. Because the basis of His rule is how He determines what happens in the order of this world as authority is worked out. When we are talking about the ox as how the work is accomplished in nations we are looking at a direct relationship to Christ in real justice, and judgment. So these checks and balances of the value placed upon things in this world in the smallest way will be responded to in the final judgement of rulers. Why is Christ exalted so that all things are put under His feet? Because He had to become human and be the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world from before the foundation of the earth. Christ is the eternal lamb of God. From Him comes the perfect response to evil governments and real protection of His covenant people. This relationship that we have to the Lamb of God is valuable because of that blood that purchased us so that He has led us who are captive in this world to be rulers and judge's over the nations in the eternal state. Our Father in scripture is compared to an eagle. Who spreads His wings over us.. His favor and protects us. We dwell in the tent of God ... that tent in which we look at the first heavens and the earth that have been established. Our Father is worshiped in light of His holiness. That holiness that pronounces woes as promises to us that God will avenge evil governments in the final judgement. This is the description of how God works to subdue evil powers in all the history of the world from His throne. We can be sure that God will repay evil governments and bless His people by returning to them all that belongs to Christ. He will reverse our suffering on this earth and we will judge the nations.   Remove Reply Quote Notify

848  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 17, 2012, 11:46:02 AM We are required to ingest Gods word so that the analogy is that if we are made to bleed it is Gods word that comes out of us. In the future those who receive rewards are gonna find that its how well we inscripturated our lives. Because Gods dwelling is like our legal system as we come before the throne of God in the proper communication of what its gonna be at the judgement. The only way we can be miss guided and find that day impersonal to us is to reduce these truths a philosophy that makes heaven distant to us. We should be dwelling in the heavenlies before we go to heaven. The words of scripture are for our benefit. They are words that are given to us to deliver us from this earthly system of checks and balances and create a full recovery of justice and righteousness in which we are presenting our case as if we are appearing before this judgement throne. The truth of God is revealed enough for us to be fully persuaded that God is who He says He is. When we miss interpret the scriptures we do not prove that God is mystery but we reduce the truth to man made principles and philosophies. This is describing heaven in an untruthful way. Reply Quote Notify

849  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Christ in us Scriptures on: November 17, 2012, 11:18:46 AM When Israel was led out of Egypt they were led by nite with God going before them in the form of a light and behind them as a fire. This was the way that God led His people from bondage through redemption. This picture of Gods redemption of His people is how He showed that He is faithful by His covenant. So this is an analogy of Christ care for His people by being their Shepherd. Because we see Christ actually walking the same path that we walk in the order He has described in His covenant then we understand more our relationship to Him in this proper interpretation. One of the mistakes we make is to take the nt word fellowship that is used to describe our relationship to God as walking along our side is an analogy of equal responsibility. But fellowship really is in the context of identity. It goes much deeper than a position of authority and responsibility. It is a picture of substitution. Christ takes our place so that we receive all that we are promised when we think correctly in this ot relationship to Gods people in leading them out of bondage. The ot picture of the fire that goes before Israel is a Trinitarian work of protection and faithfulness to Gods people. Which came first? The giving of the law or the covenant made with Abram? Why did God give the grace covenant before He gave them the law? Because God had to do what was require to establish that covenant by Himself. He had to walk in between the slain animal alone. This analogy of God covenanting with His people is not just part of a covenant that was given as the answer to the giving of the law. But it was a full picture of God plan of redemption in which He promised to redeem by His work alone. God was not balancing out the works covenant with the grace covenant. But in this matter of law keeping God was showing that because He walked in front of His people that He had to be the full substitute for them in matters of law keeping. Christ had to be the only man who kept all the law so that we might be accepted to God on that basis and not intrinsically.   This path of the righteous is so intertwined with the analogy of God as a consuming fire going out before His people to make their paths straight and to destroy their enemies on every side puts our identity with Christ in its original context. When we think of our being redeemed it becomes clear to us that walking down this path is more than following God in the rite direction. We are talking about an analogy of redemption in which we enjoy a full substitution in our being safe because Christ has already done the work ...like He created the world out of nothing so He recreates our steps not only according to His covenant but in a legal sense as well.     Reply Quote Notify

850  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Spiritually dead on: November 17, 2012, 04:03:11 AM We are dead spiritually. We are made alive in Christ. But do we ever become self confident that being made alive in Christ gives us ability where we once were unable in ourselves? Now this is the sticking point even with reformed Americans. Because our salvation does not automatically teach us what it is to be made alive. If we automatically were given ability to do as we are commanded then why does the bible warn us about trusting in our own wisdom? Is it now that we have half an ability and half an inability? Is it a matter of trusting as we are being taught wisdom in the christian experience? Is it dangerous to our growth to acknowledge that we are still unable in ourselves to do one good thing without God? Are we require to still not trust ourselves? This is why the bible explains salvation in terms of how we view ourselves. Is it carnal to conclude that we had a part in our own salvation? This is where i believe we miss understand the effects of salvation. So we dont really seek to be converted to a deeper trust because we fail to see how unable we were to come to Christ and thus there is no foundation for us to come to ourselves as believers and experience a new conversion of self denial. But the bible says that we are in more danger of taking these things for granted after we are saved than before. But the problem is not one of strength. God has told us that all men are dead .. like a corpse ... for a very good reason. He is more interested in convincing us of our powerlessness than of how sinful we are. Why is this? Why does God remind us that we are small and unable? Because He is always bringing us back to grace. You see if we just responded to being really bad sinners then we would try to balance our guilt with our efforts. But God loves us too much to deal with us on the level of our guilt. The truth is we would never experience conversion if we did not acknowledge that its not by our strength that we get better. In acknowledging that we are unable He frees us to try to balance the good with the bad. We would never fall back on grace if we did not fully come to terms with our inability. Thats how we experience a new conversion. Reply Quote Notify

851  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 17, 2012, 03:21:05 AM Quote from: Gouda on November 17, 2012, 12:05:31 AM MBG, I’m glad you allow for the absolute truth existing alongside mystery, but many Christians just don’t handle the Bible that way. I wish you had seen Joker’s summary of  the problems with present-day evangelical hermeneutics. It was excellent. Look at Galileo, for instance. He was put on trial and condemned as a heretic for daring to say that the Earth moved around the sun, because the Pope interpreted “the Earth is firmly established, it is not moved” in a completely literal (no allowance for mystery) way. People who believe in the absolute literalism of the Bible cause damage to others. It’s inevitable.  It may be in the form of mockery or shame, or excommunication, or it may be in the form of burning someone at the stake. Questioning, pondering, and making new discoveries don’t discredit God (as if that were possible)—they simply remove a tiny bit of the mystery and give cause for greater awe, but the pioneers and discoverers among us are often persecuted as heretics. Yes Gouda there is so much knowledge today about all of these confessions and doctrines. We have a tendency to line them up like beer bottles on a wall and pick and choose them according to what we think God needs to do to that person to change them. Its so easy for us to stand above all of the truths of scripture and use them to control our institutions and other people. This in my opinion is a greek mindset. Where we look at these truths as the fundamental instrument that God uses to change people. This is why we take the law- gospel distinction and talk about them as if there is potential danger if we do not balance them out. We are very scientific in our approach. Societies evolve and in some ways like a frog in a frying pan. We have all the books and teaching not only in understanding them in an intellectual way but in our deep knowledge of the historical significance they have played in the role of developing the system of government that gives us the freedom to use whatever there is both in terms of teaching and the gift of all the things we enjoy so that we take them for granted. In my opinion the greek balance mindset is dangerous because as we are losing more and more of the freedoms not as citizens of a country but as enjoying a society that is predominately patriarchal the message of balance has no power to counter act the long declension that we are seeing. We are proud of what we had of the former days but trusting that this balance is not leading us down into losing our freedoms. This is why we use the law gospel distinction to control people. We say that one person needs more law and another person needs more gospel. We must understand that all of this learning is not the end. It doesnt justify our purposes. But God who is most mysterious is not just what is difficult for us to understand. But its that He most mysterious in His simplicity. We must return to God- Himself. We can find God if we seek Him. Reply Quote Notify

852  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The finality of forgiveness on: November 16, 2012, 06:48:35 PM But we the gospel is not a theory. Its not really something we reach up to that is hard to reconcile with the common man. The gospel reaches down into the most vile and destructive experiences of man. It doesnt seek to offer something that is imaginative but it shows the reality in the depths of sorrow. When sin came into the world God cursed the ground and the human race. Everyone is heading toward the destruction of their bodies. This means the life is filled with pain and disease. The gospel gives us the only remedy for dealing with the consequences of sin. It gives us the ability to decompose our metaphysical pain and answer our physical pain through Gods gifts. Because God curses these curses. This means that our anger and frustration that we bring to God is consumed by Him. There is nothing too big .. no anger to strong.. no frustration that is beyond His ability to address. At some point we get consumed in Gods love. So we dont avoid the consequences of sin but we freely curse the curses. This is giving God the rite to avenge. We do not live in a kind universal impersonal love but we come to God as we are ...where we are at and we pour out our hearts to Him. We acknowledge our sorrow, anger, sinful condition. We go down beyond the level we believe we are at. And we find Gods hand under our lowest level so that there is no sorrow that can go below His hand. We go down beyond what we thought we could.   Reply Quote Notify

853  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Some concepts of Biblical inerrancy on: November 16, 2012, 06:19:25 PM Every word of God is flawless. Why is it important for us to be dogmatic about every word in the bible? Because the words of the bible are strung together like beads that cannot be broken. If the bible is self authenticating and it claims to not have one false word in it then to say that the bible has errors in it is to deny the truth of its self authentication. The reason that we believe that the bible is self authenticating is because we believe the bible is the only book that is revealed. The fact that the bible is the spoken word of God separates its words from mans words. This gives the bible the authority to judge all other words. All the words of the bible are from God. So all the words are Trinitarian. All the words of the bible create deliverance because one word defines all the words.  The bible then is the Word revealed. So when we trust in His promises we are looking to the word of deliverance. That word of deliverance is His spoken circumspect word that makes all things right about us and our circumstances. So looking to Christ is looking for His word of deliverance with the view of hoping in His revealed word.  So the bible is both simple to understand and yet is completely mysterious. That is the holistic healing message to us. It realigns us in healing us with the gospel words in the understandable part and yet these same are also mysterious causing us to believe with a supernatural confidence in  future events by it being Trinitarian that is beyond human. We call this hoping in His word.        Reply Quote Notify

854  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: calvanism and the mormon missionaries at my door on: November 13, 2012, 06:57:35 PM Calvinism is the truth about how God works to show Himself faithful to sinful man without hindrance or trying to have Himself explained as if the way the average person connects is different in language by the how God loves man. Calvinism is the most genuine explanation of true human connection. If Gods power, and will is lessened in any way then we are tempted to speak of God as someone He is not. So if we miss speak of God as He is then we are miss representing His intentions when we think of Him as the only perfect man. Why would we want to describe the only real man in a way that we think it would make other people like Him? If He is free to love other men without hindrance then we are more aware of true love with other men. If He does not do as He pleases then He is in some way thwarted in His example of love as a man to other men. Because He is sovereign then we are free to love in as genuine a way as Christ is successful by His not being thwarted. So Calvinism actually increases our confidence as men to show true love because Christ cannot fail.    Reply Quote Notify

855	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Snuffing out the Light - Not Everything is a Debate. Corners are OK.	on: November 13, 2012, 06:05:44 PM
The light is Gods working in all things to bring Himself glory. Gods glory is the effervescence of His splendor. God displays His works and they are seen by His power, wealth , wisdom and strength , honor , glory and praise. The brightness of Gods glory cannot be extinguished. It is not God lacking in anything in His creating all things and sustaining all things but it is our inability to understand and see the light of the glory of God that is the weight that keeps us from being filled with the emanation of God so that we are overcome by His power, wealth , wisdom and might.. His honor glory and praise. But one day we will see His glory and we will respond as He deserves. But God has not changed in His working out His glory in this darkened and sinful world. Because all things in heaven and on earth and under the earth give glory to God. Why do they seem to be under the effects of sin and death and yet still work to show God as all glorious? Because God has cursed the world and the effects of sin lead to death so that God is free to determine the end of all things which end is His glory. In working out of all things He is preventing them from overcoming His purposes through His promise to destroy them. In God cursing this world He has freed us from the weight of death and destruction. God is the king of the earth. He decrees whatsoever comes to pass. When we look at God as He is on His throne we see all things under the heavens as being worked out perfectly as God is displaying His power over all things. The faith in understanding that Gods kingdom cannot be thwarted is rooted in His personal promises to us. These promises are yea and amen. When we speak of Gods glory as He rules this earth our mouths are filled with praise because we see all things bringing God glory. This is the proper way to speak even in a world that is under the power of Satan. Because God has freed us from the powers of this world through bringing destruction upon the wicked. Every reason to praise God has an opposite promise to destroy whatever does not bring Him glory. This is why we can look at the worse evils in society and extol God for being free to work to bring Himself glory because we know that we are free from them because God has cursed them away from us. In this world our vision of God is without faithless desires that He is somehow being thwarted. When we hear the voice of God it comes to us in God never changing. The voice of God is the voice of completed victory in the face of the worse the world has to offer.    856  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Denying Yourself on: November 10, 2012, 10:46:36 PM Gouda i like all the response here and i am not threatened by anyone. Although a lot of the guys seem to reduce everything to not being sure i cant quite see the reason that everyone is sure about not being sure. But they seem to identify with something that is not what was already talked about historically. So i guess their message is not easily understood in a collective context so they seem to get along about having no point. lol Or maybe im not quite getting it so i need to keep reading. Im probably missing something. But i look at the christian life no necessarily as teaching from a book. But i look at it as having true dispositions. I do not think the dispositions can be described and we try to match them. So there is a kind of blessed experience as opposed to a cursed experience. You know sometimes your really walking in Gods promises and you experience a trust that you cant describe. And sometime even your anger feels good. At other times all the worry's of life seem so far away and your able to carry the load of life without too much adversity. But at other times worry seems to sneak up on us and we become anxious and angry. Sometimes God speaks to us of His love and its like He wraps His arms around us and we get those goose bumps. And at other times we are wondering where God went. Why do we feel so distant from Him? But can we become disconnected from ourselves so that its quicker for us to let go of the worries and embrace the love of God? Is there a way or a measure for us to know what its like to unburden our souls to God and know He has taken them and we feel free? I believe there is a way. Its reprogramming our minds to continuously think the gospel. This is what the bible does. Its listening to God describe how He loves us and then we are always rehearsing it. God wants to be direct. He does not need to wait for us to do something to change us. He speaks to us so that we do not need anything else to satisfy us. I think this satisfaction is something that is available to us to live in but we do not always listen intently to Him. Reply Quote Notify 857  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The finality of forgiveness on: November 10, 2012, 10:20:07 PM When we are talking about forgiveness it is not certain that we have a real understanding of Gods unfailing love. Everyone has an idea of the experience of forgiveness. Some people put more emphasis on forgiveness because of some very good reasons. Some people do not connect how they are loved by being forgiven. Why do people always talk about forgiveness like it is showing love to someone or experiencing Gods love? I think one of the reasons is because people experience pain from guilt  fear and anger. So when we experience the initial effects of forgiveness we feel a weight lifted off of us like we are free. And so we relate this experience as being loved by God. So as well as wanting to be loved we also want to experience freedom from pain and sorrow. You know the way we are programmed as to how we are rewarded. We do something and then we get the results of our accomplishments. Its like having a job. We work for a reason. We profit when we work hard. So we are tempted to look at the moral equation of the christian life as primarily good when we accomplish what God wants us to do. This is not only doing something good like working but its in our dna as we respond to the bible. This is why the christian message is so hard to digest. Because it goes against every thing we do in reacting to the circumstances in this world. It goes against our own desires as to what is good for us. We have a tendency to make these teachings like forgiveness a way to get to God. So we are always talking as if our inheritance and the promises of God are attainable in the future. Its like work. And forgiveness is a way to get loved by God. We must think of it like this. We are people who are very complex in how we react to the circumstances of life. As well as being complex we have a hard time understanding what it is to focus on ourselves and balance this out with understanding the way we are going and what is the proper course we are to take. Because we are always thinking that value is according to what we do. But value in Gods eyes is Him doing something in us so that we believe that He is who He says He is. So how we understand who we are and what the message God is trying to accomplish in us is not always on the same wave length. This is why God is primarily interested in His message proving to us as who He says He is. Our great deception is that we turn it around and try to prove to God that we are who we say we are. What we need to understand is that we begin with God in need of understanding and insight. Because God has a view of us and what we are and need that is much bigger than we normally believe about ourselves. God is focused on us. He is changing us in ways that we do not understand. We say about this holistic way that God moves in our lives as the only healthy response to the human soul. The reason that God has decided to give us a message in His word that is the only way that we are examined in a circumspect way is because He is the only one who has the understanding of seeing in us the effects of sin and releasing us from the pain and sorrow of fear , guilt and anger. God does not need to go through our will to accomplish what He proves Himself to do. God rather releases us of these terrible sorrows through His unfailing love. God gives us grace for free. He begins with His promise to remain faithful when we are not. He begins with His showing us love by communicating His deep concern for us.    Reply Quote Notify 858  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Denying Yourself on: November 07, 2012, 02:14:52 PM If sin prevents us from the image that keeps us from being most transparent then how much success can we have in knowing ourselves since our view of reality is tainted with sin? Is there ever a successful way to fight off sin enough so that we can see the truth clearly? Is fighting with a list of sins the primary way of becoming the most that we are suppose to be? Could it be that no matter how much we advance in overcoming sin that it never really loses its power over us? Is our understanding of who we are determined upon the process of our fighting with sin? Is it responsible of us to forget ourselves , forget what is behind us, so that we avoid dealing with our sins?Does this forgetfulness bring us to a more genuine understanding of ourselves because we believe that fighting with sin as a primary way of living life demands to much of our time to enjoy what we have in Christ? What is the real you? The person who lives so serious and focuses on fighting sin so that he can get over the hurdle that prevents that person from living in Christ or the person who accepts that sin is taken care of as a gift in order for that person to be able to spend his life rejoicing? This question is the nuts and bolts of how we teach ourselves to live in this life? So we come to a clear difference of what the value of sin is about. Because if sin is only real if it is mixed with the law then there is no purpose of good to us in it being present in us. But we see that sin is valuable to us because where sin abounds grace abounds more. Why did God reverse the answer to who we are by how He decided to deal with sin? Because God wanted to take away sins power once and for all in Christ. So that He might work out His purpose of sin in our lives through grace. God decided to use grace as the way through which He might destroy sins power by keeping us thankful and happy enough to forget our sin so that we could find success over sin by constantly rejoicing in Him. Reply Quote Notify 859  Forums / Prayer Requests / Re: For Our Mbg on: November 04, 2012, 09:23:49 PM Thanks Tuggs... hope we get an early christmas present on tues.... ive been so focused on the political scene lately because this is an historical election... we wont come to this cross road again if it goes the wrong way. Reply Quote Notify 860  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Finding my way back to me... on: November 02, 2012, 07:26:28 PM No one every really connects in a fluid sense. Connection is in glimpses but most of the time its two selves in retreat. So the retreat is the experience of the humanness in feeling connected. Because its easy for us to be what we feel we are instead of understanding who we are by the holistic message that is objective. Because we are always in the most personal sense an image of our genuine understanding. We are made to glorify God by enjoying Him forever. This is true unity of purpose. In this spiritual sense we create unity by our glorifying God. Which is our vision that we cannot describe as we experience more and more a genuine worship of the true God. So there is a creation of unity that is something that is outside of our causing it to be. Which is our living in our minds this one spiritual purpose that creates real connection. Because real connection is what we describe as the real need and the communication of describing what is necessary to meet that need. We are all made to have one vision of the value of the gift and how it is given. So in this sense real connection is understanding the value of a thing in all the comparisons that we think when we think of value.  This is what the bible calls as sharing with one another. God values connection so much that He emanates Himself to us as the reality of how we experience value. He does this by extending gifts to us freely. In other words God has made it so that we cannot avoid the increasing value of His gifts as the basis of our understanding the difference between appreciating basic human connection and glimpses of two hearts being joined together. Reply Quote Notify 861  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Finding my way back to me... on: November 02, 2012, 06:34:25 PM I dont feel like anything can define who we are in an individual sense and a collective sense. We really are little kids playing in the park with nothing to worry about. But this reality is something we experience that is beyond anything in this world. So its the beginning of shedding our adult self that helps us experience a joyful forgetfulness of our old self. You know we gain a lot of value in our being successful. Its because we are made to measure the value of the adult self in terms of addition and ledgers. I think the bible describes this as never being satisfied. You get a thousand dollars and you want two thousand. Its almost being hunted like a dog by the dog catcher and getting tired of running. When we are trying to describe the true image of ourselves its like a mystery in trying to describe what we are running from and where we are going.  I guess the point is that we need to learn how to go out of ourselves in order to experience being freed from ourselves and the mountain of tension that seems insurmountable. So the beginning of the journey that seems to be a long rode to being freed from ourselves is really in what we are counting as important on a moment by moment basis. And i guess you could experience being freed with the history of counting that gives you a perspective of what is important even tho your not really consciously counting. This is what the bible describes as counting yourselves dead to sin but alive to God. When the apostle talks about his accomplishments he counted them as worthless. This is the question .. How did the apostle come to the reality that for him to live is Christ and to die is gain? Wasnt this him acknowledging that he had come to a place where he was freed from himself?  Reply Quote Notify 862  Forums / Main Forum / Re: God is jealous for you.. on: October 28, 2012, 04:09:25 PM Quote from: Kings_kid on October 28, 2012, 04:00:17 PM mbG:  "If He was under the power of something or someone else then God would be dead." K_k:  The one exception to this is when He gives someone else power, temporary ability, to oppose Him, for the purpose of His perfect Plan.  As He does with satan, and all those who persistently refuse to accept His Love and Lordship.  As He did with us who are now His. Temporary power.  Temporary ability to rebel.  Temporary evil.  Until the Time arrives for the "power-on-loan" to be removed, and all evil to be ended. Kks deal maker .. the great used car salesman in the sky. lol Reply Quote Notify 863  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Denying Yourself on: October 28, 2012, 03:17:55 PM cont... let me say that the bibles approach to a holistic christian experience is through a Shepherd mentality. We are dealing with people not necessarily people who are sinners. But broken people. And this is why maturity is more vision than activity. Because the bible talks about these sorrows of the curses that are like being sick. So it is in the context of medicine and not just the destruction of sin. Yes the value of sin is worth losing a limb but the methods of approaching sin through grace are very specific in scripture. So God is the only person who knows the growth process of a person. We do not have that ultimate responsibility. In a sense a curse is not just from sin but its also dealing with sorrows and destructive things that we do not really understand. In the context of getting better then we do not want to add to the curse.. the destructive sorrows of the person. It is very important that we know the Shepherds ways through meditation and prayer. There are a lot of sorrows that people deal with that we do not understand.  And the bible places in the context of the Shepherds care of souls that we avoid the cursed way. Reply Quote Notify 864  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Denying Yourself on: October 28, 2012, 02:56:47 PM My understanding of a scape goat is that which takes the blame for the guilty party. The ot message of salvation is centered on forgiveness. But i do not think its human forgiveness. I struggle with the idea that any human can be completely realistic of Gods forgiveness in understanding that God does not remember our offenses as the standard of how He views us in which He does not blame us again. How can God reinforce the importance of the value of the weightlessness of blame in distinguished divine knowledge as opposed to human knowledge? In my understanding blame and human anger or hate are very close companions. So in my understanding putting the blame on a scape goat is the same thing as putting the weight of the hate on that animal. Because we are not just dealing with a psychological way to experience forgiveness but also unburdening the destructive process of hate in which a person is disrespectful. We see what God thinks of blame for a believer. God curses anyone who does not have the believers best interest. How does God curse those wicked people? He does it through the law. Christ has become the scape goat because He took the blame that we deserved. Christ received all the anger and hate in the punishment from the wrath of God placed upon Him.  In other words Christ became a curse for us. Because we embrace Christ...that curse is past..it no longer has power over us. The curse of blame, sorrow, fear, and dread of judgment. But we still deal with hate and anger. In my opinion this can be a form of self blame. Which is touching that unclean thing. But how do we deal with our anger.. the real problem that draws us into a destructive power. We place our blame on the scape goat. Thats why the apostle says that love covers over a multitude of sins. So the path to forgiveness is to flee the cursed object. Taking the anger and directing it to Gods rite to vengeance. Thats why the animal was sent away into the desert or the world. We always proceed into the world with a scape goat. Because we get better by the anti intuitive divine love.     Reply Quote Notify 865  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Overcoming evil with good on: October 28, 2012, 02:12:56 PM The bible teaches Gods working good in this world by anthropomorphic language. Its interesting that God describes His hands as the invisible work that is done on our behalf. Now when God describes Himself with eyes, hands, feet, and arms it is in comparison to the idols that man makes. So we say that all mankind are dead because they do not understand or see Gods invisible parts at work. But when God describes His invisible work in the anthropomorphic language He raises the standard of value ... riches, wealth, honor to a level where He alone does the work. As if there was no one on this earth that was performing. The reason that He does this is because He always shows Himself faithful, long suffering, kind etc in using this language of His parts in a way that condescends to mankind. Now this is interesting because God actually talks to us as if we have invisible hands too. God has not made us robots but as created beings who create things according to the gifts we receive from Him. This is how God enforces His promises to us to always deal with us according to these attributes i describe as His covenant love. Now this will blow your mind but God actually shows His hand by our invisible hand. Because God gives us vision of the things that cannot be seen in a physical sense. God gives us the eyes of faith. And so we see this as a view from a spiritual family sense. Reply Quote Notify 866  Forums / Main Forum / Re: God is jealous for you.. on: October 28, 2012, 01:51:39 PM God is always , kind, long suffering, faithful, gracious, full of unfailing love and merciful. This is Gods covenant love. But we are very complicated and subject to fits of emotion were we are impossible to understand from a perfect view of things. So Gods jealousy is not destructive as if He was worrying that we would abandon Him. That is human jealousy. God is jealous of us in a protective sense. Its like a parent watching over a baby. In terms of Gods view of all of time in a single picture He must do whatever pleases Him because you cant have the evidence of divine love through creatures who experience such drastic changes. The point is that Gods sovereign rite to rule is the the only evidence of love. Because in comparison to Gods actions which is the evidence of perfect love and mans actions it makes mans actions hateful. You can either have a God who does whatever pleases Him or worship a dead idol. Man is hopelessly destined to destroy himself and all of mankind without Gods covenant love. Because God describes Himself as doing what pleases Him because He never changes according to His covenant love then we are brought face to face with a God who brings everything into existence from nothing. This means that He describes Himself to us in absolute terms and we are required to believe what He says. But we would not believe it if He did not enforce it by His doing whatever pleases Him. There would be no God who is faithful, compassionate, long suffering, gentle etc if He was subject to our view of Him. If He was under the power of something or someone else then God would be dead. Reply Quote Notify 867  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Besetting Sin.... on: October 28, 2012, 01:22:50 PM cont... you only have one option with God. You must seek His face! Its not wishing you were something that God would think better of. But its life and death. This struggle with ongoing sin requires us to confess that we will not be shaken by any kind of sorrow. You are facing more than a tension of warring with the flesh. Your walking with a dead corpse of yourself that is cursed and it will infect you like a disease if you touch it. How do you touch that dead corpse? You retreat.. you get all religious.. you look back at the old guy. You give into your sorrow. You lose your first love. We as believers can never again face the curse of death. But we can be infected with a disease of sorrow from the curse. Why would we want to go back to those old relationships? What is so appealing to us about the power and respect we earned in the old life? It was fleeting. We were on the tread mill of anxiety and unrest. That old life is like a dead corpse that smells and causes us to be spiritually anemic. It was a life were we experience no hope when we sin... we had no answer to guilt, fear, sorrow. We were sick and under the power of these cursed disposition. The christian life is about fleeing that old life and the old image. Reply Quote Notify 868  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Besetting Sin.... on: October 28, 2012, 01:06:19 PM The problem with sin is that it never stops exerting its power over us. Sin ensnares us and traps us. This is the teaching of scripture. It draws a parallel to real life. And yet we need to have the rite analogy of its working when we distinguish between a christian struggling with sin and an unsaved person. Because the bible gives us the boundaries of destruction and blessing and we acknowledge its absolute rite to be the ultimate judge. God tells us what is best for us and we embrace it because He is the one who made us. God has absolute authority over the whole world. He puts whole generations at a risk to fall into many sins. Because sin has already brought on the end of this world as we know it through the temporary destruction of all mankind. The consequences of sin is death. No man escapes death. Death is not only a destiny but it is a process. We see the inescapable destructive power of sin over the physical process of death. Anyone who practices a sin who is under the power of that sin is receiving the consequences of that sin because it brings death. The power of death cannot be overcome. And yet the apostle says that since Christ conquered death He has taken the sting of death away from the believer. Now this sting is not only seen in our confession of faith unto the end but its also an answer to the ongoing experience of sorrow due to guilt, fear and anxiety. How does the bible draw parallel to the power of sin in a christian mans life? We distinguish our conflict with sin as opposed to the terrible sting that the wicked experience. We have an answer to the difference in the quality of the guilt we experience as opposed to the wicked. We sin because we have sin dwelling in us. There is an ongoing tension in us as we struggle with sin. This war we experience is anti intuitive to what the world thinks is the way to have success in this life. Why did God only give us one remedy over sin? Why didnt He offer a way for us to appease our guilt by some kind of performance? Why did not He decide to hold us to a standard so that we would not endanger ourselves and those we come in contact with? Why did God draw such a hard line of grace that cannot be crossed? Well the answer is very simple. God had to make the way impossible to atone for sin so that He alone could answer its consequences. God had to place all of the weight of sin in terms of an absolute relationship. He had to keep us from a partial way to be accepted. Reply Quote Notify 869  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: The coming of the great Apocalypse on: October 21, 2012, 04:03:19 PM The Revelation is an ot concept and teaching. Revelation is a an account when God begins to act against the evil nations of the earth and not just a general judgement for all time. I am thinking about some things and offering a something that i pondering. Because this book must be placed above any vision on this earth that man describes as the most beautiful and majestic vision that has ever been written. This is the point of God describing how He responds to big world events throughout all time. It is a description of other beings that we do not see on this earth. If you go back you will see in Ezekiel and other prophetic books and introduction of the armies of heaven at evil times even in Israel begin to move. So you have the description of the word ...as a word of judgment upon the prophets lips. It is opened up like the scroll in revelation and it begins the judgments. (An angel proclaims it) You have the description of the 7 blazing torches which could be 7 angels. I believe that an angel always begins the judgments. Although I believe that the living creatures oversee the judgement from the heavens. So in my opinion they are introduced in the ot and in Revelation and then they begin to enact the judgments upon the nations. Its interesting that there is one angel who begins the seals and the trumpets. David would pray for the angel of the Lord to avenge his enemies. "The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear Him and he delivers them." You have the angel that comes up from the east having the seal, and the angel who is in the mist of the 7 angels who have the 7 trumpets... possibly these are the seven blazing torches. But you have this other angel who has a golden sensor and hurls the fire from the altar onto the earth. So there is an angel who begins the major battles in Davids time. You see this same language in Ezekiel.  God declares judgment upon the nation of Israel and the living creatures begin to as it were fly in mid air and begin that judgement. The language of the evil that attends this judgment is the same language that describes the nations. And all of this is in response to the evil governments that create economic disaster,death,persecution of the church, and unleash an oppressive destruction that engulfs the nations.   Remove Reply Quote Notify 870  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Denying Yourself on: October 21, 2012, 02:58:09 PM I agree ML the message is a healthy one not just a way to fight sin. So our space has boundaries that God teaches us and directs His attention to us by how He describes His going through the ugliness of obtaining victory over sin and death. This is why it is so easy to focus on the insignificant things and begin to fall back into our old patterns of following the law. First we must start with God. What does He do in His approach to us that communicates in a way in which we experience His love being greater than our sorrow? He begins by explaining that His love has no boundaries. God loves us with an eternal love. So He approaches us on a daily basis in showing us His love. But on the other hand God enforces His love. Because there is a danger in us to be short sighted and weak. And our biggest weakness is to make this communication of His love bigger than it really is. In this sense is all we need to do is think bigger of ourselves than we really are. Ive always wondered why God would have me sit and listen to Him tell me all the time that He loves me. It would seem to me that if He teaches me something about Himself that i would love Him a little bit more. But God is very simple. He tells us that He loves us first and He teaches us to reinforce that love. Because God has made us to always be motivated by love in order for us to learn all of these other things. I guess this is why there is so many physical types in the OT. In reality Gods love is proved to us by His faithfulness, long suffering, gentleness, kindness, forgetting our sins, and showing us His unfailing love. So the point of the sacrifices and the blood is not to show us in the ultimate sense our terrible evil and our pride but it is to remind us that God has given us a remedy where by He can love us. Now this remedy seems to be very simple..the blood...but if we think about terrible circumstances about our lives without the remedy we must have something that far surpasses the good that the remedy brings. Most of our problems come from stressing one part of the story or type. We never get to the value that it brings to us. The point is that we are easily led to focus on the wrong things. This is why Gods love is captured in eternal language. Its all given to us in promises. So when we hear that He has things planned for us that are too wonderful for us to imagine... when we hear that He Himself took upon Himself our sin and in place gave us His love and grace... when we hear because He took our sin that He no longer remembers our sins...when we understand the principle that God smiles on us when we think He is angry with us...we begin to understand that Gods love is based upon His providing us with the ability so that He actually takes our bad forgets it and argues for what He will give us  as to why we do not deserve what we deserve. The reason for this is because His love is greater than we could ever imagine. Now that is real freedom.