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31	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies !	on: July 03, 2013, 03:17:15 PM
I dont know where you get the idea that believers never had their sins imputed to them. I mean is it because of the sign of the covenant? In that case Abraham had imputed righteousness before he was circumcised. And the confession he made as a righteous person was that he is wicked. You find this same kind of thinking in the declaration in the Psalms that there is no one righteous .. no not one...no one understands...no one seeks God...all have turned aside...all have become corrupted. If in fact all men are in this state then its a very difficult road to take to prove that sin was not imputed to some mens account. We can say as a matter of argument on these universal grounds that there is no human being or institution that can be the absolute arbitrator of justice. If God has imputed sin to all mens account and imputed righteousness to some mens account then it goes to reason that God alone is the judge. In this sense the Psalmist after declaring that all men are sinners by nature and practice...including himself makes a bold statement in his petition as a King. "Those who devour my people as men eat bread and who do not call on God."What he is saying is that sin has created disorder in society. A man under sin does not think about God. His mind is darkened and he has no desire for God because of the universal imputation of sin. The earth that God has established in His creation order has fallen into disorder and chaos. God is present in the company of the righteous...or God reigns from His holy hill over Israel.
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632  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Have We Been Deceived? on: July 03, 2013, 01:22:17 PM Our prayers are from our small perception of the troubles we face and what we think is necessary to address those troubles. In a world that is very topsy turvy...when we ask we struggle with doubt. At the same time we may be confused about what we need for personal healing and what we think is necessary to address the situation we are praying about. I guess God sees these things in a realistic way. If prayer were just a matter of coming to God and asking then we could make a list but never experience the personal care of the relationship. The moment we say that God is not focused on us in a personal way could be the very thing we need that He wants to address to us. We have needs as a matter of survival. This part of our relationship with God is selfish. I mean if we are desperate then we feel confused and unsure. We think of prayer as a spiritual exercise of asking and waiting. But Gods preparation of prayer is part of His answering our prayers. So in a sense our prayer is in the context of God creating desires in us in which He expands our hearts to produce the soil of passionate prayer. So God focuses on us by answering a need that He deepened in us as we unburden our hearts. God has many different faces in prayer. Whatever we need is who He is to us. So there is a sense in which personal prayer is different from circumstantial prayer. Personal prayer is more intimate and is more passionate while circumstantial prayer is our making an argument as to what our purpose is and why we need Him to respond. God doesnt have one way to respond to our purposed prayers. But He enjoys our forming our prayers in a way where He is moved to respond. But the personal side of our prayers is always first addressed by Him as giving us what we need to survive. Reply Quote Notify

633  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 03, 2013, 12:48:28 PM I understand you to say that the whole world means every individual in the human race has been reconciled. But reconciliation involves in a legal sense not guilty and a restoration of peace in the relationship. But in this world there is trouble and broken relationships. So how can there be evidence of men being reconciled to God while at the same time they have broken relationships and things that happen in their lives that cannot be resolved until the new world? God doesnt make peace with all men. If He did then He is powerless to make it visible because the world is a place where there is trouble on every side. To be reconciled is not just a potential of having inward peace but its being freed from all of our troubles. How can we be freed from all of our troubles if God does not right the scales at some point in judgement? If there are broken relationships and God has made peace with some men then how can God make peace if He is slack at defending the people that He has promised to wipe away every tear from their eyes? There is no real lasting joy in just the positive effects of the gospel. God promises to end the pain as a result of broken relationships. God does not get pleasure in punishing the wicked by He does give consistent joy in responding to the pain of the righteous that He has heard righteous cries. Pain causes a person to turn inward. Righteous anger releases that person from self hate. So experiencing peace is the joy of seeing God respond to pain that is unjustified. God has spoken peace as He governs the world. But men have declared war against Gods rules. When men go astray they seek to destroy their neighbor. Its the logical sequence of a fallen world. In a sense there is a natural hardness in this world where men are blind to their condition and they look at personal pain differently than the pain of others. But God knows the hearts of all men. Gods peaceful world is in the sensitivity of responding to pain. God has created men with a self worth to seek for joy over pain. God who is holy addresses pain in a legal sense that we do not understand. He shows His love by using pain to protect others from pain. This is part of reconciliation. Reply Quote Notify

634  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 02, 2013, 02:18:33 PM  "Reconciled to God while enemies !" Stay on topic how the world was reconciled through Christ.... your turn lol Reply Quote Notify

635  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 02, 2013, 12:02:59 PM Salvation did not begin at the cross. It began in the eternal counsel of God. The cross reconciled all of time both past and present. At each event pre -cross all of the redeeming value of a thing or event spoke in a confrontation as cursing meets blessing, hate meets love, sorrow meets joy. Because all of the saving effects come through  the spoken eternal Trinitarian word of God. In Gods mind the cross which was an event was eternally the remedy that was foreordained in His counsel from eternity past. God is a spirit and has not a body like man. There is no time or place in which God does not exist fully as ruler over all things. Christ is the eternal Son of God. Before the foundation of the world in the counsel of the Godhead it was determined that Christ would enter the world to save His people from their sins. It was decreed by God and was irrevocable. As God exist so His word is sure and steadfast. Christ who was present in the OT ruled as Lord over all the earth. He established His Lordship in entering into the history of Israel to be the intermediate Savior who the Father looked upon. As the Father focused on Christ then Israel was revived and saved. God does not have body parts but He is described with human parts for our understanding. The ot saints had the indwelling Spirit. God did not just act from the heavens to the earth in His sight, touch, taste, or hearing, but He responded in the hearts of the saints as if Christ was in their place. What we see...He is intimately involved with, what we enjoy He is intimately involved with. Our desires become Christ desires. Because Christ acted on behalf of His people as answering all of their needs as if their self image was a reflection in Him being the answer , they experienced salvation like we do. In learning that Christ alone saves they experienced success in this life. Reply Quote Notify

636  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Reconciled to God while enemies ! on: July 02, 2013, 10:56:58 AM Reconciliation in the OT has different connotations. God has come to reconcile the world unto Himself. He chose to approach the Nations through His government that He established in the OT. But God never gave the earthly government absolute authority. God foreordained success in His elect by giving them His statues ,laws and decrees and He established Himself as king over Israel by doing the work of the governor of the world. But Israel as a nation turned away from God. They turned to idol worship. But since God showed Himself as a covenant keeping God , He gave success to His elect in protecting them from this rebellion within the nation and made them prosper when they went into captivity. God used His elect to judge the nations that ruled over Israel in the dispersion. In this way He brought the gentiles in through these dispersions. Gods works are clearly shown forth in the OT account of the history of redemption. The works of God cannot be thwarted. God has clearly spoken through His covenant of grace. He alone established His covenant in the house of David. God gave success to David by being faithful to His covenant. He freely gave Israel all that they needed to be successful. Because their success did not depend upon their works. Rather God worked the works of righteousness alone. He destroyed all of Israels enemies. Each victory was foreordained by God. When Israel was rebellious God through His kindness established their success through His unfailing love. But in order to strengthen His church God sent them into captivity because of the national sins. He shows His unfailing love through the trials and temptations of His people. The greater the trials the more Gods mercy and grace are seen. He always has a smile on His face behind the most severe trials of His people. Because we have a record of Gods covenant faithfulness and His unfailing love then we have confidence that He will never forsake us.  Reply Quote Notify

637  Forums / Prayer Requests / Re: For Our Mbg on: July 02, 2013, 10:38:23 AM I have a really sweet offer... i cherish your prayers Reply Quote Notify

638  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Everything begins and ends in God on: July 01, 2013, 02:09:50 PM Ultimately there is nothing in this world that can answer mans problems. If we really believed that God alone acted in all events then we would be consistent in our prayers. If God acted in every event then all events would be from a supernatural cause. All things would swallow up our individual worth of creating an event as if a meta physical vacuum caused us to be swallowed up in the creative source in Gods hand. We would not stop going before God until we experienced His emanation in this creative act. We would believe that there was no hope of finding reality on this earth unless God spoke. This emanation is a description of all events as God sees them. When we talk about all things beginning in God we become seasoned in how we judge this world that is in the past. We become prophets of the times. God tells us in His word what the world is like. The world mindset began in the creation and fall. It is the actual events that led each one of us to the place were we are at. The saints are taught to see all men as God sees them. We only experience reality as we see these events and the world as God sees them. God has given us natural cries from the heart to take captive every meta physical power of thought. When we learn to view history as God sees it then we are able to judge correctly our present world.  If we just lived in the mindset of our own actions and the state of the present world then we would not experience something that is greater than the physical powers of this world. We would judge every circumstance with a very narrow understanding. We would not compare spiritual things and make applications in this life. But God in this present world has made all things good tho it appears that it is in a tail spin. Why do we not see what is behind the present events? Why do we think that the order of this world began at a certain time in the history of the world? Because we do not listen carefully to what God says about all men on a communication level from the beginning of time. God has given us words that are as existent as He is. As man has said it in his heart from the beginning of time so God has responded to renew its effects.  This is the emanation of speaking the cries, the descriptions of man, the personal experiences as we live before God that brings us into a kind of mysterious creative mindset. We become aggressive in our passions about what God desires. We lose a sense of our own lives as we call upon God outside of the present box.    Remove Reply Quote Notify

639  Forums / Break Room / Re: Nik Wallenda on: June 29, 2013, 01:57:31 PM Redemption is a personal interaction in a way of speaking in a patriarchal paradigm. God describes Himself as being all in all. The ot accounts of Israels history is Gods declaration of His faithfulness in keeping His covenant. When we approach God it is as our Father. This means that salvation in God alone is how we know Him as our Father. God is different from earthly fathers. God is not only the owner of all things, but He is the final judge of all men. And yet this judge is our Father. This relationship to us as Father is only through His unfailing love. There is no other reason to ask Him for anything other than according to His unfailing love. This unfailing love is Gods work in our relationship in which He accomplishes what He demands. When we think of how God approaches us in this life it is through His unfailing love. His unfailing love is our only hope of our existence. Why is His unfailing love so necessary in our growing to know Him? Because when He loves us then there is nothing we need. So the only way that we can grow to know God as Father is to know His love more and more. Why is it so important for us to be convinced that God loves us without failure?  Because all the things in this life come from His kindness and mercy. In order to know God as Father then we must know that He loves us according to His gifting us. If His love was reciprocal then it would not be something that we desire to desire again. It would be frustrated by something that is corrupted that we have. But our Father approaches us according to His love so that we are enabled to know Him better. So He speaks to us like we are dust shielding us from a destructive knowledge of out total corruption. He approaches us through declaring His works on our behalf. He speaks to us through His word and causes us to enjoy the history of His work in this world. Now listen this is very important. God speaks events into existence. When He gives a historical account of His works it is in the understanding of His position as the governor of the world. All historical events are in the personal experience of how we view our culture and Gods creative work in us as He upholds the principles of His governance in us. Our strength is not just a personal experience but its the expression of our position as a saint in the eternal reality of Gods rule over all things. Reply Quote Notify

640  Forums / Break Room / Re: Nik Wallenda on: June 29, 2013, 12:56:12 PM Christ in coming to meet our need is the definition of His redemptive purposes being worked out in this world through His unfailing love. The direction we take in this life is to know Christ in salvation so that we are loyal to Him. The answer is that if we are addicted or hopeless in sin we search for Christ ...even if we do not know Him. We look to the words of the gospel until we embrace these words. How do we become loyal? By seeking Him to save us.... and in the process of our growing in knowledge we know ourselves more. The more we know Him the more we become aware of our own needs. The more we become aware of our own needs the more we know ourselves and the more we know of His salvation which is seeing our needs met in Christ. Salvation in Christ does not depend upon anything in us. So we do not look to Christ to meet our needs according to our compliance. Salvation is outside of our ability to obtain it. If we are not saved we can only find salvation in Christ. We cant find it in anything in us. But He comes to us to meet our needs. This is not a mindless and impersonal mysterious and unknowable salvation. But we are fully engaged. We actually love ourselves more in the rite sense as we know more about Christ. If God ask us to seek Him by confession then the only way that we can sincerely confess is if we are fully engaged in salvation which is a concern for our welfare. Salvation is like a soft landing. The pilot is concerned most of all for safety of the passengers before anything else. This salvation is like a soft landing. The nations around Israel were on mountains. These mountains were rugged mountains. In other words these nations were the movers and shakers of moral excellence. They preached hard work and suffering for good purposes. But the hill that God dwelt on was exalted above ruggedness because His glory shined out from this mountain. It was focused as heaven on earth. What does this mean? The message was that God entered into the history of the world surrounded by the power of nations in their rugged existence. But this King on this mountain ruled through redeeming His people. It wasnt the people who gave the mountain its beauty. But it was God as king. This king had all of the attributes of beauty. He had honor glory and praise ... power, wealth and wisdom. This king rules in a protective mercy over the reeds among the beast. The reeds were branches that could easily be broken. What this is saying is this King rules because He controls all necessary events in history by His word. The nations who twist His word bring in threats and abuse. This King will not allow His people to be ruled by oppression and destruction so He alone conquers the nations. Reply Quote Notify

641  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Trust on: June 27, 2013, 02:00:31 PM God commands us to love. If God only pleaded with us then He would not be a God who loves perfectly. Because we would be accepted with our measure of love. Some people look at Gods commands as a matter of force on our part. But God makes absolute demands to show that His love never changes. He loves us faithfully.  But some people feel an attack when they are confronted with the commands. I guess its easy for us to tell each other that God commands us to love. But our personal experience with the gospel as God speaking to us directly should calm our burden of the difference between God loving us and other men. Obviously when confronted with the commands we feel that we cannot meet the demands. This is the difference between our confession to love and Gods perfect conviction in loving us. Grace teaches us that we are never defined by the lack of power to fulfill the command. Rather there is a transformation that takes place in us in the holistic experience of grace. We are involved with a recreation of not only ourselves but the future events of our lives. Failure or experiencing lack is in the small battles but never affects the outcome of the war. So we are looking beyond the battles to the outcome of the war. That is the mysterious effects of our weakness meeting our confession as a wish that creates future success. As I have said that all things work together for our good through recreation. The gospel gets us to focus on the important things. We want to experience the most personal effects by avoiding lesser things and keeping our eyes on the goal. It is obtaining salvation in which we find the happiest boasting in the Lord. This is why we always approach God as continuing an ongoing relationship. We try to learn how to fellowship with Him from application of the word rather than coming to Him in word alone. Reply Quote Notify

642  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Trust on: June 27, 2013, 12:20:12 PM This is a common teaching in a Greek context. The truth is multi faceted. But the principle is always that what God demands He gives in ability. So the question is in understanding that this really is the definition of sovereign grace then how does God approach us as viewing us personally and how He looks over us in our circumstances? If God demands love from us then He must give us the ability to love by loving us first. We find that God loves us first before we can love. A lot of people confuse our confession of doing the works with Gods promise to do His work in us. They make this two equal promises. But the OT is not really a record of Israels success. Its Gods display of His works on Israels behalf. The bible is a record of Gods redemption. This redemption is what Paul talks about when He says that the true righteousness comes down out of heaven. Its not a reciprocal response from heaven but it is one sided. This righteousness is depicted as coming down out of heaven through conflict. It is metaphorically depicted in battle as a tornado or storm striking Gods enemies with bolts of lightening. This idea is taught by the apostle who says that God silences all men in the teaching of total depravity. Gods redemption is a government from heaven in which Christ rules. Man must be reduced to being man. All of the history of redemption is reducing the power of man. Christ comes with His government to lead the captives to His kingdom. This is the NT redemption in and ot picture of the people of Israel being led out of captivity and back into the creation order of worship. This is Gods government on display throughout the history of the world. It is an eternal government that works through eternal attributes. The only plea that we have is the foundation of this government which is His unfailing love. Redemption is one sided. Salvation is in God alone. Reply Quote Notify

643  Forums / Break Room / Re: Nik Wallenda on: June 27, 2013, 11:36:36 AM I dont think that God rejects our prayers when we acknowledge our need for Him in these circumstances. I saw Nick walk across the Canyon. He was confronting his fear and uncertainty with dependence upon God. It was a great lesson on what we go through in life by our experience in different situations.  Reply Quote Notify

644  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Trust on: June 27, 2013, 11:29:09 AM Quote from: Lone Arranger on June 26, 2013, 03:21:24 PM Quote LA if you lost a friendship over 45 years and you are in your 30s it doesn't make sense. Just goes to prove my point, that you can't trust anyone.  I covered the issue of my age with ML4H before.  I use my resurrection age, which I believe will be about what Christ was when He was here.  My age really isn't anyone's business anyway.  You see I'm just suspiciousness enough not to trust honestly listing something that anyone and his uncle can readily access.  I have trust issues. Oh i understand now.. I like discussing and do not mind different view points. Thanks for participating..... Reply Quote Notify

645	Forums / Main Forum / Re: Trust	on: June 26, 2013, 12:20:55 PM
LA if you lost a friendship over 45 years and you are in your 30s it doesnt make sense. The bible says that ultimately no man can be trusted. It leaves no room for us to trust in man when it says that you cant even trust Princes. And short of Christ anything on this earth has no power. This is taught in the statement that you cannot put your trust in your horses. Horses represent the ultimate power of a nation. It is the military might of man. It even says that the power of man is worthless. But there still is a kingdom of Christ on this earth. Its one thing to say that man is powerless and quite another to say that man is malicious. This makes all the difference in the world. The christian no longer has the desire to act with fore thought to destroy another man. There is no real reason to have that thinking process in a renewed mind. Christ teaches us to think on heavenly things. We really are not man centered judicial thinkers. We are always bringing our judgements to God who says that He alone is to be trusted with His judgements. But we are powerless in ourselves and sinful so we are not trustworthy. This prevents us from making absolute statements about other men. Even tho we have been wronged its not in our power to balance the scales. Because God weighs the hearts of men. A believer is no longer fundamentally a traitor to the cause. If we treat a christian like that it is considered in the bible a malicious act. The principle is that we are freed from treachery of other men. So we do not deal  treacherously with other men. But we are given freedom to argue in Gods court with Gods words. Because we cannot ultimate put our trust in this world. It is not only wrong but its foolish. Rather all violent language is contained in the bible in how we use it as offered to God. Any language that is not doctrinally correct is doing violence against Gods kingdom. But God condesends to His people as a faithful God to renew them through grace. He uses the words of the wicked to fall upon their own heads.    646  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Everything begins and ends in God on: June 26, 2013, 11:04:43 AM God creates something from nothing. The physical universe is sustained by His hidden word. Because He has created man as a thinking and reasoning being, He has determined to give man a conscious understanding of the power of that hidden word. In this context of the ultimate purpose of our lives we are marked by possessing something that brings us into the unity of all things in the glory of God in which we feel helpless to discern our errors. Because God reorders all things by His perfect justice and equity. God makes His rules come alive in our hearts as we observe Him reordering our culture and our purpose in this world. God never changes His plan. Just as the sun rises and makes it circuit so through His perfect law He renews all things. God produces life in a world of death. The letter kills but the work of the Spirit brings life. The Spirit takes the word and illuminates our hearts to establish Gods kingdom on this earth. God does not need for us to be good in order to establish this life in the world and in our hearts. He works in His word to transform us by producing His life in us supernaturally through His word and Spirit. We are actively involved in the renewal of all things by our praying according to His word. This is so important to us that we would not understand our purpose in this world if He rejected our meditation. Because He uses His word in us to bring life into the world that goes beyond our circumstances but reorders the universe. Our own power in approaching God would be limited to a physical relationship of the law. We would see reality as purposed in our deeds. Our context would be the physical universe. It would be limited to our view of the heavens and the physical aspects of the earth. But by Gods word and Spirit we see behind the order of the heavens and earth as God producing life by implanting that life in our hearts. So that all of the meta physical realities as well as the mechanics of reality are reordered by that word that is hidden in our hearts. We begin to see the light behind the workings of the physical universe. As we experience God shining in our face by experiencing His justice and equity bringing life into our hearts we feel the pleasure of Gods creative hand in working in all things.    Remove Reply Quote Notify 647  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Trust on: June 25, 2013, 08:13:11 PM The foundation of trust is based upon the faithfulness of the person. The basic teaching of trust is in covenant. I do not believe that we would spiral down into guilt, shame, fear..etc if we had perfect trust. This is why I believe that trust is enabled by God who is never slack concerning His promises. In this sense trust is in the necessity of a future event as we live in the reality of that necessity and is the creation of a future event by the perfect language. Trust is experienced as God working out His covenant by His word. Trust is never something we grasp in thinking the world is just a matter of all of the choices. When we think of a covenant that God makes it is not based upon what He does but upon who He is. If we tried to figure out what God is like by His law we would always measure God by what we think is the standard of His law. The basis of our trust in any situation is that God through His condescending word acts by His covenant speech. He acts according to who He is. He comes to us in a relationship and not as a law giver. God cannot fail. This is why He can be trusted. He does exactly what He says. All necessary events come from the mouth of God. This means that God who orders events as He renews all things unto the end in which no event that we experience will be adversarial to us is presently ordering the world events in a way that are to wonderful for us to imagine. This is experienced as the Spirit applies the promises of the covenant in a way in which He removes all obstacles from our path. The Spirit who is actively ordering all events in applying them to our hearts speaks to us that we are the children of our heavenly Father. We actually experience a witness when He speaks His ongoing word....that emanation of an assurance from Gods Trinitarian covenant language in the confidence we experience as if our Father declared it as a witness on our behalf in the event. Reply Quote Notify 648  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans Chap 7 on: June 22, 2013, 04:13:13 PM The apostle is simply advancing the Hebrew idea of sin and the flesh. Whatever sin taints is corrupted wholly. A little leaven ..leavens the whole lump. The question is not how the apostle avoids his responsibility to sin in his making sin that foreign thing. How do we confess Christ work in His death and resurrection to be sufficient in taking care of sin if we then give sin powers in us that reorder that work? The apostle says that if we have been saved by grace then how can we sin any longer? But he makes an absolute statement that were sin abounds grace doth more abound. So there is a concern to address the sufficiency of Christ work in the logic so that we wont contradict what we confess. Teaching in the biblical sense is prophetic. The words are not just explanations of truth but they are medicine for the soul. When we describe the work of sin we need to look at it in view of who we are as body and soul and how we describe Christ as being fully God and fully man. We think is a spiritual way comparing spiritual things and making spiritual applications in this holistic way. How sin is interrelated to the body and what kind of spiritual emanation it produces in the desire is multi faceted. The saints feel the weaknesses of the body in piercing pain. But the piercing goes through the spirit as well. Both body and spirit are weakened. And yet the bible gives us an illumination of a enduring spiritual desire and physical as well. We would in some way deny the true humanity of Christ if we did not acknowledge that He suffered pain in His body. Pain and endurance based upon His potential as a perfect human being. We find these ot saints struggle with pain as interrelated to Christ experience of pain in the messianic Psalms. In this way there is in our renewed desire a spiritual unity in Christ perfect work on our behalf. So we have a longing that surpassed both physical and spiritual wholeness. This is part of our identity in Christ and has in it the necessity of self talk in terms of this identity. Reply Quote Notify 649  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Good and evil on: June 22, 2013, 01:14:08 PM The course of healing is defined by God. This is why God ascends to worship with the captives, helpless, widows and fatherless. God must reduce all powers to silence so that the helpless are sustained. Mans success is his attempt to replace God. Man curses himself and God. James says that man has both blessing and cursing on his lips. Man seeks to build his own kingdom in blessing god and cursing other men. Or man destroys others by his profits. Man curses God by trying to be righteous in himself. Man attempts to develop a system that is imperialistic. Our natural way of feeling a sense of accomplishment and happiness is devising good by our own sense of equity and justice. We do not like to reason in a way were we experience a supernatural joy by being suspicious of our success enough to lose everything. We are always trusting in the creation of a process that gives us security. Its hard for us to come to experience a new creative act of a personal God. Reply Quote Notify 650  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Good and evil on: June 22, 2013, 12:40:05 PM God is the judge. Not only does He judge men according to their actions but He upholds His children by His decree to go under them ..holding them in His hand so that all good comes to them from His acceptance and not their intrinsic blamelessness. He is on His throne with the guilty on one side and the innocent on the other as He describes them according to His creative word. The goodness of His children has a foundation of His work on their behalf in which His children are caused to rejoice in Him that proves the success of His word. God does not grade on a scale in His courtroom. He decisions are absolute. The standard of acceptance is according to what Christ has accomplished. His judgement is according to this redemptive acceptance in Christ. In this way God decides beforehand who belongs to Christ as the standard of His acceptance of His children. We experience mystery as God is exalted above the earth in His rite to declare everything corrupted so that He alone deserves the glory. Reply Quote Notify 651  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Sola Fide on: June 22, 2013, 12:09:38 PM We are saved by grace alone through faith alone. This means that we are delivered from our old life. But the deliverance is very rarely a one time complete change.  We are delivered but we still have the old patterns and propensities that we had before we were saved. These old patterns of thinking and acting are not just mechanical but they are powers that we were under. God made us to enjoy this life because He created us to choose something for our own good. So anything we choose saved or unsaved is something that we enjoy. I do not think we can conclude that salvation gives us the ability to break these powers. But we begin to reason in a way where we go from impossibility to possibility. Because we are not talking about a change in character by a behavioral modification. Our focus now is on complete deliverance through a redemptive way of thinking. This means that we must reduce everything to nothing so that Christ work on our behalf might be our only hope. The only way that we can reduce this way of change is identify those ways of thinking that come from destructive powers and on the other side from mens philosophy. Our love for Christ should be unfeigned. But we experience this infantile struggle with our flesh. The difficultly comes in how to approach this struggle in grace. Our flesh desires to overcome these old powers through our own strength. We are not only fighting the destructive powers of the flesh and sin but we are seeking to attack the flesh in a way that we are not naturally accustomed to. In the world system the way to overcome something is to work at it. But in the christian experience we must follow a way where we experience a supernatural power where true joy is experienced. And its not working to feel the joy but its fighting to reduce all other powers to nothing. We experience eternal life when we experience mystery. Our personal struggle is how we view ourselves. We are what we think. But christian thinking involves our desires. The way that God becomes real to us is through focusing on us to meet our needs. These doctrines of grace not only give us hope that we will understand who we are but they protect us from destructive powers that seem to be too strong for us. We live in a world where we come in touch with destruction in which we are reminded about the familiar experience by our desires of fear, shame, guilt and hopelessness. As christians what comes from the world that we view is no longer who we are even tho we are still attracted to it by past experience of destructive sin. In reducing the powers of everything we push this curse away.   Reply Quote Notify 652  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Good and evil on: June 15, 2013, 04:40:43 PM Because the world is evil we are gonna suffer as a result of destruction and loss. But God determines before hand what we are gonna go through. Because all things come from the hand of God. "He opens His hand and satisfies the desires of all creatures." The working principle is that what God takes away with one hand , He gives in abundance with the other. Behind all evil is Gods smile on His children. God is an enduring God. All things that we are and have are gifts from God. God describes Himself as connecting with us through His attributes. We think of this as Gods promises to us that are sure and steadfast. God makes a covenant of redemption with us. When we suffer the loss of things it is Gods intention to lighten our load. But we do not experience this freedom in the context of a loss but in being drawn into a mysterious freedom. God always approaches us through responding to our need to satisfy our want. The way He acts towards us is slower than how we receive things in the context of this world that is under the constraints of time. God approaches us in the context that is outside of how we suffer loss and pain. He comes to us in person to person context. He establishes a face to face relationship in this covenant of redemption breaking through the constraints of this world and causing us to see things that are too wonderful for us to imagine. This face to face connection is His speaking to us in a way that makes all things right. God is the only person who has absolute authority over every thing in this world including the wills of men. So that in causing all things to work together for our good He establishes this in how events come about through the wills of men. This covenant of redemption is through God overruling the wills of men because He works to establish His own success in displaying Himself as longsuffering and faithful without needing us to respond correctly.He works in this way to bring heaven to us in time which is our ongoing reception of eternal life. He reverses sin and suffering in our experience of His goodness in this mysterious way. Reply Quote Notify 653  Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Good and evil on: June 15, 2013, 03:54:00 AM Evil has its purpose or God would not have determined for it to exist in this world. But evil is not absolute or eternal. It is necessary because God decreed the fall. But is evil really understood by corrupted people? Is it just the opposition of good or is it also good that is taken to an extreme? "Too much of a good thing"? If it is something that has many faces then how can we know it absolutely by our own judgement? How can we trust our own faculties? If God is absolute in His power over all things then the exercise of His goodness over evil is absolute. But we are not God and any less resistance than absolute resistance over evil is how evil has its life. So that from Gods view 50 percent good resistance is all evil. Why then does God see us as all evil and the world as a place were evil is on every side and yet have absolute control over the course of history for good to prosper in all things? Obviously God not only sustains the moral balance of evil and good but He allows and determines in His ability that we can only imagine. In this sense God works through an idea of the potential of a thing. So maybe evil exist only as God sees it in His foresight as He determines it. Reply Quote Notify 654  Forums / Break Room / Re: power struggles on: June 06, 2013, 11:58:37 AM That idea is as old as I am. They used to say that a person divorced because they lost themselves.. lol...wow...how can another person steal something that dear to us? Its more of a problem with understanding Gods covenant love to us. Reply Quote Notify 655  Forums / Break Room / Re: power struggles on: June 06, 2013, 11:07:41 AM I try to avoid personal descriptions of myself and my circumstances. Some people think that speaking scripture is a way to avoid being practical. But if you like novels then i guess its ok. lol The bible describes the context of the people around us. The more knowledge we have about identifying circumstances the more we are gonna be aware of what they do.  Everyone is drawn to their level of spiritual growth in the people they surrounded by. The bible describes only two paths. We cannot know absolutely what path other people are on. But we do have the ability to create a distinction in receiving ongoing wisdom. There are scriptures that teach us to wish away the desires of the wicked. The teaching is also includes asking God to see in our overcoming. When God sees its His work on our behalf as we look back and as we trust that we are going in the rite way. Gods direction is absolute. Whatever we do wrong is worked out for our good. But its knowing God that gives us the victory and not being concerned that we have slipped. The way of the righteous is like walking in a forest as a soldier. We are walking to get victory. Our prayers are directed as if we were facing an enemy. I mean in a view of God as creating blessing and cursing in the same event. Spilling over to inability to ability in a christian context. We learn the battle by engaging ourselves in prayer. The times we avoid prayer are wasted times. If we know how to describe the opposition and we pray with wisdom then God will be moved. Our encouragement to pursue prayer in this way is that we are promised to see and be rewarded for things that are too wonderful for us to imagine. We are seeking an experience and in that we get wisdom. Our need being met is represented as being lifted above all the circumstances to view all the people. This is God coming in His presence to make all things rite. So we long, to long again. Maybe for many years and then suddenly He answers and it is in the word of salvation. A new deliverance. We gain a new perspective of faith. Its a conversion to view God lifted up high upon His throne. We experience an expanding of our desires so that we lose a sense of our former self.   Reply Quote Notify 656  Forums / Break Room / Re: power struggles on: June 06, 2013, 09:50:41 AM From before the foundation of the world God decided in His counsel to display His glory in creation. Counsel is simply going in the way of the spoken word of God. God created a world in which He governs through His foresight by His foreordained ability to see the beginning from the end. In Gods governance the end of time has already been decreed in the ongoing establishment of His laws, statutes and promises. The law has spoken and it is the final declaration over some men. God has established His promises through His covenants that cannot be annulled. When we approach God we hear His word that is the holistic counsel of all the words in the spirit of what way we should walk in. Our wishing to receive ongoing counsel from God is in this context of blessing and cursing.  All of these powers that we trust in are from the reality of sin and are self taught to us. We trust in words as counsel. So there is nothing that we think about that does not involve self counsel. But in Gods view our circumstances are perfectly worked out with the absolute word of His authority over all things in blessing and cursing. We simply agree with God. The law of love is in the absolute authority and power to meet all the needs of all creation. This is why there is only one true lover of our souls. Gods view of us is through His perfect action of His law to address all of our needs. He loves us with a perfect love. Why would we place man in that position? What man can see all that God sees? God knows us intimately by seeing each individual cell. God looks on our hearts. He sees our desires. He sees us through His love. He blesses us in His foresight. The power of cursing has been destroyed. How can we trust in the power of men if their love is like hate to God? Obviously every counsel of men is met with Gods absolute scrutiny. God takes the weak things and works through them in the ultimate power. A wish is a creation of a renewal. Reply Quote Notify 657  Forums / Break Room / Re: power struggles on: June 06, 2013, 09:00:54 AM Any time you decide to go in a direction its from a wish that its in your best interest. A person who has been saved is given new desires. These desires increase as we grow in the knowledge and understanding of scripture and the work of the Holy Spirit through illumination. So in this sense no one belongs to another. We are taught in the bible how to conduct human relationships but our relationship with God comes first. This relationship is increased as we seek Gods counsel. We find it in as a refuge in word and Spirit. Self knowledge is to know God. It is the beginning and end of knowledge. The world has become a place where there are a multitude of counselors. The bible describes salvation as a point in time change and an ongoing renewal. We are not really changing in the sense of getting better but we are being delivered from one struggle to another. This is ongoing deliverance. This is why we cannot short change how God saves us by dividing the christian life into what we receive and what we do. So the scriptures encourage us to reduce everything that we trust in to our inability to live the christian life in our own strength. You will find this difference in our relationship with the Holy Spirit in receiving wisdom from God and mans counsel. But in this day and age the distinction of Gods counsel and mans counsel is not focused on. This is why the Psalmist seeks to reduce the power of anything to nothing. So that He might encourage himself to fall back on Gods power. The predominate experience of a christian is knowing God through listening to the counsel of the heart. With the encouragement that includes mens counsel. But its easy for us to trust in mans counsel. This is why there is so much teaching on idol worship. To go in the wrong way is spiritual adultery. The way of wisdom is like walking on a path. This path is what the bible describes as a way counsel. We cannot copy this voice of the Shepherd. Jesus says My sheep hear my voice and walk in it. Its a distinct voice for each individual person. This way cannot be overcome by any power. We will receive our rewards. Reply Quote Notify 658  Forums / Main Forum / Re: Cool out and let God in Christ do it. on: June 03, 2013, 02:29:28 PM Christ must always come to us. This is a rule of resting in Him.I don't think its easy to get to this experience of resting in Him. So the bible not only gives us a teaching about this but we find that our understanding of that rest is a clear distint voice of a Shepherd. We must teach ouselves to distinguish it as essentail as being sustained by food. battery going de Reply Quote Notify 659  Forums / Theology Forum / Everything begins and ends in God on: May 29, 2013, 02:27:09 PM If we try to figure out by an idea of who we are or what to do or what we have done then I do not think we have understood our purpose. If everything begins and ends in God then there is nothing that we plan or think that is something that we can trust in. This includes trying to think of the idea of ourselves and the normal way that God responds to us according to the ideal we have from His word. It also includes what other people have an idea of who we are by their experience of God. If everything begins in God then there is no redeeming value in a thing or in an idea itself. Nor is it absolutely true of the logical sequence of a moral drawn from our lives that the idea in a logical process of our identity can be fundamentally true of who we are. We are fundamentally who we are as we understand the source of our identity as being gifted to us by grace as the problem in need of an answer of all things of an idea of ourselves that comes from God. We are most happy when we have found God. Reply Quote Notify 660  Forums / Break Room / Re: How long have you been posting here, I'm curious? on: May 29, 2013, 02:03:35 PM It shows when we joined if you go to the profile of the person. Mine has been since 2005. I wished I had started when I was much younger.