So then a third derivation of question arises. What is the secret? What must I do? How can I attain the fruit and the blessing? Who is the watchman? Where are the doors? What do the keys look like and what is the password?
First, there is no secret, other than as I am earless to hear. However, I do not care which side of the argument you fall on, if you perceive yourself in receipt of something there is some condition by which you feel you attained the answer to the above questioins, and that others must meet the same or similar condition in order to realize the same blessing. But this may lead us to presuppose that we all have the precise same experience, personality, intellect, and spirit, which we know we do not.. If we can at least agree that we are in possession of very personal experiences with God, we can see how it follows that our experiencing God individually is not of exclusionary of us from commonality with all others who have experienced God, but the most sublime addition to our own individuality within the group of those having experienced God and a ready made testament to those who have no experience with God. I will stop here for a moment to state that the preceding statement only reflects the timbre of how I came to know Christ and receive salvation exposing a time in which I did very little, from within a desparation and realization of need, other than express hope and receive faith and assurance of salvation from God through His only begotten Son, my Lord Jesus, and manifested toward me, and within me, by the Holy Spirit.
At some point we are chosen. It is not the intent of this essay to investigate the mind of Christ as to the choosing of followers nor that timing, but rather to uncover something about what it is that informs us we are His. By defiintion, he already knows whether, or when we will respond or not, so the purpose of a set of recognizable conditions by which we experience a saving knowledge of Christ must be for our own and other brethren's edification as well as the beacon call to outsiders to join Christ with us. Or, do our actions not speak louder than our words? So then, the statement "If you don't trust Christ above all, you don't trust him at all" should reflect in our walk, ur behaviour after we have received that Holy Spirit as guide and comfort, power and endurance, knowledge and hope, and the freedom and the discipline. And while I would like to say that I am always focused on God, targeted, I know that many times it is He who has proved to still be aware of me and my need despite my unexhibited trust in Him. What is the meaning of the spirit of the word?
10/07/2005
10/06/2005
Fallen down upward? Stinging, Staining, Stinking
Today, begins a series of essays addressing questions which have come into my life in a most disruptive manner. Questions deriving from what has been described as a situation where one person calls a rose what may in fact be a used tail wipe. And we all know the law of the roses--if it aint a rose, it might be a flower, or something. But the question is, does it stink to high heaven? Sumpin' does.
As I enter the Gates of Heaven, how will I be received? Note that I said after I enter the Gates of Heaven. The pass through the Gates is Jesus. So, for the sake of this argument we will assume that the judgement seat is under the Needle's Eye of the Gates, much as we can imagine Mordecai's seat, or the seat where Boaz went to find settlement.
Some conversations have been concluded, the facts and truth revealed, some judgement passed, but now because of Jesus' advocacy on my part, I have passed through the Gates and in I come! How am I received?
Well, let us look to the first to live and choose, and the first to realize inadequacy and guilt, and first then to receive cover and consequence. Adam, given (by God himself) breath, duty, challenge, sustenance, companionship(help meet), fellowship(face to face), honor, and limit and promise, to everyone's despair, fell, revealing his nakedness. In his despair he tried to hide his nakedness, and for that nakedness was given cover by the shedding of blood, but made to live in flesh outside Paradise, by sweat and frustration. As he had frustrated God's plan for Paradise and caused the Word to sweat, even die, so he received. Did this please God? How was he received through the gates--all we can say is as he lived. Would I have liked the opportunity to reside in Paradise? Wouldn't you? Because of Adam, all must live in flesh outside of Paradise. Life is burdensome and deadly. Man 'O' man, do I hate to sweat! It stings my eyes, it stinks my pits and it stains my shirts.
Stinging, Stinking, Staining sweat. But if I had been there instead of Adam, no different outcome can I imagine. I have had the proof and the test and failed many times.
Thank God for the cleansing flood, the blood of Christ shed on a tree, the bruised heel of Victory's march, that pays my ransom and grants me entrance through the gates. Through the expression of honest humble gratitude I act differently, better, closer to Christlike, I treat others with dignity and respect and care, then as I return to Paradise I become honored in the honor I have tried to give. And as is evidenced throughout the scriptures the attitude of trying, of being ready and willing, of being at my best possible condition, brings a surety to my self, and or as Peter said in NLT from BlueLetterBible.com
2 Peter `1:
3 As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! 4 And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.
5 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians,* and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters,* work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. 11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
to repeat 10-11 in the literal Bible
10. Therefore rather, brothers, be diligent sure of you the calling and choice to make, these things because doing not at all you will fall ever.
11. so For richly will be furnished to you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of the Lord of us and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My best try at this passage tells me that if I have actually believed in the Creator of my Salvation then I cannot help but do those things which give evidence of that belief and salvation. So then I will be received as I lived, else how have I have accepted the Son and rejected the Spirit with which He offered His life-in service to die.
So yes smitty, it does matter what I do once the blood of Christ covers me, but no smitty, it was not good that Adam fall. To state such feels antithetical to the Holy Spirit of Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Goodness, Kindness, Temperance and Meekness.
Who is raised that I must see
His bronzed skin at the height of tree?
His frozen stance upon some crain"!
His esteem we must behold,
His story yet goes so untold,
E'en in the brightness of his light,
How can I be so cold,
Such 'til yet to be so quiet.
As I enter the Gates of Heaven, how will I be received? Note that I said after I enter the Gates of Heaven. The pass through the Gates is Jesus. So, for the sake of this argument we will assume that the judgement seat is under the Needle's Eye of the Gates, much as we can imagine Mordecai's seat, or the seat where Boaz went to find settlement.
Some conversations have been concluded, the facts and truth revealed, some judgement passed, but now because of Jesus' advocacy on my part, I have passed through the Gates and in I come! How am I received?
Well, let us look to the first to live and choose, and the first to realize inadequacy and guilt, and first then to receive cover and consequence. Adam, given (by God himself) breath, duty, challenge, sustenance, companionship(help meet), fellowship(face to face), honor, and limit and promise, to everyone's despair, fell, revealing his nakedness. In his despair he tried to hide his nakedness, and for that nakedness was given cover by the shedding of blood, but made to live in flesh outside Paradise, by sweat and frustration. As he had frustrated God's plan for Paradise and caused the Word to sweat, even die, so he received. Did this please God? How was he received through the gates--all we can say is as he lived. Would I have liked the opportunity to reside in Paradise? Wouldn't you? Because of Adam, all must live in flesh outside of Paradise. Life is burdensome and deadly. Man 'O' man, do I hate to sweat! It stings my eyes, it stinks my pits and it stains my shirts.
Stinging, Stinking, Staining sweat. But if I had been there instead of Adam, no different outcome can I imagine. I have had the proof and the test and failed many times.
Thank God for the cleansing flood, the blood of Christ shed on a tree, the bruised heel of Victory's march, that pays my ransom and grants me entrance through the gates. Through the expression of honest humble gratitude I act differently, better, closer to Christlike, I treat others with dignity and respect and care, then as I return to Paradise I become honored in the honor I have tried to give. And as is evidenced throughout the scriptures the attitude of trying, of being ready and willing, of being at my best possible condition, brings a surety to my self, and or as Peter said in NLT from BlueLetterBible.com
2 Peter `1:
3 As we know Jesus better, his divine power gives us everything we need for living a godly life. He has called us to receive his own glory and goodness! 4 And by that same mighty power, he has given us all of his rich and wonderful promises. He has promised that you will escape the decadence all around you caused by evil desires and that you will share in his divine nature.
5 So make every effort to apply the benefits of these promises to your life. Then your faith will produce a life of moral excellence. A life of moral excellence leads to knowing God better. 6 Knowing God leads to self-control. Self-control leads to patient endurance, and patient endurance leads to godliness. 7 Godliness leads to love for other Christians,* and finally you will grow to have genuine love for everyone. 8 The more you grow like this, the more you will become productive and useful in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 But those who fail to develop these virtues are blind or, at least, very shortsighted. They have already forgotten that God has cleansed them from their old life of sin.
10 So, dear brothers and sisters,* work hard to prove that you really are among those God has called and chosen. Doing this, you will never stumble or fall away. 11 And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal Kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
to repeat 10-11 in the literal Bible
10. Therefore rather, brothers, be diligent sure of you the calling and choice to make, these things because doing not at all you will fall ever.
11. so For richly will be furnished to you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of the Lord of us and Savior, Jesus Christ.
My best try at this passage tells me that if I have actually believed in the Creator of my Salvation then I cannot help but do those things which give evidence of that belief and salvation. So then I will be received as I lived, else how have I have accepted the Son and rejected the Spirit with which He offered His life-in service to die.
So yes smitty, it does matter what I do once the blood of Christ covers me, but no smitty, it was not good that Adam fall. To state such feels antithetical to the Holy Spirit of Hope, Peace, Joy, Love, Goodness, Kindness, Temperance and Meekness.
Who is raised that I must see
His bronzed skin at the height of tree?
His frozen stance upon some crain"!
His esteem we must behold,
His story yet goes so untold,
E'en in the brightness of his light,
How can I be so cold,
Such 'til yet to be so quiet.
Especially when grappling
one must be gentle but firm.
In a comment to a post herehosted by Dr Rick Davis, on multicultural expression within the anecdote of the local church I commented the following in response to comments to my on leading comment:
I would only ask, if perhaps in our zealousness to be faithful in our understanding and use of the language, through Baptist anecdote, we might not be attributing to that faith(LDS), strictures, which are not there other than as some of their own members have misunderstood or mistated them, and herein is the point that makes that anecdote they use a false one in my understanding, because rather than further explanation I end up with further confused questions. As a good disciple of "What is free choice without free thinking?" I submit that Jesus in our own New Testament has suggested the need for labours and the reward for those labors,ayaaahh ooh nooo-
do not misquote me, I am not saying that salvation comes as a result of my accomplishing anything other than accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and that as best I can glean from reading the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, without the apochrypha, God and Jesus and Spirit are One yet Each distinctive(perhaps perichoretic circumincession unveiling a panentheity), to say much more than this, as regards the Three in One, becomes my personal anecdote and susceptible to the limitations of my experience and intellect or else God's supersession. Does God speak to you? He seems to say that we are to reach out to even those we detest, re: the Samaritan woman.
After she leaves...read it in John 4:31-42, speaking to His desciples, He is not hungry-His meat is [for]doing the will of God.
The fields are ripe to harvest, the reapers should get busy and harvest so that fruit in life eternal may be enjoyed for both the sower and the reaper. see also 2Peter 1:1-11 and Galations 5:18-25. Not to forget James. All of this I bring not to further dischord but to hopefully find some way of reaching into a culture whose anecdote, as evidenced by its growth of membership and the demeanor of that membership, has some sort of appeal, that we as Baptist and Christians would do well to effect a calm and respectful conversation with its proponents so that we might, by the presence of Truth, some degree of right living and the Holy Spirit, encourage them to be weaned away from what are becoming more and more obviously, thank God for good science, false concepts.
In a comment to a post herehosted by Dr Rick Davis, on multicultural expression within the anecdote of the local church I commented the following in response to comments to my on leading comment:
I would only ask, if perhaps in our zealousness to be faithful in our understanding and use of the language, through Baptist anecdote, we might not be attributing to that faith(LDS), strictures, which are not there other than as some of their own members have misunderstood or mistated them, and herein is the point that makes that anecdote they use a false one in my understanding, because rather than further explanation I end up with further confused questions. As a good disciple of "What is free choice without free thinking?" I submit that Jesus in our own New Testament has suggested the need for labours and the reward for those labors,ayaaahh ooh nooo-
do not misquote me, I am not saying that salvation comes as a result of my accomplishing anything other than accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, and that as best I can glean from reading the entire Bible, Genesis to Revelation, without the apochrypha, God and Jesus and Spirit are One yet Each distinctive(perhaps perichoretic circumincession unveiling a panentheity), to say much more than this, as regards the Three in One, becomes my personal anecdote and susceptible to the limitations of my experience and intellect or else God's supersession. Does God speak to you? He seems to say that we are to reach out to even those we detest, re: the Samaritan woman.
After she leaves...read it in John 4:31-42, speaking to His desciples, He is not hungry-His meat is [for]doing the will of God.
The fields are ripe to harvest, the reapers should get busy and harvest so that fruit in life eternal may be enjoyed for both the sower and the reaper. see also 2Peter 1:1-11 and Galations 5:18-25. Not to forget James. All of this I bring not to further dischord but to hopefully find some way of reaching into a culture whose anecdote, as evidenced by its growth of membership and the demeanor of that membership, has some sort of appeal, that we as Baptist and Christians would do well to effect a calm and respectful conversation with its proponents so that we might, by the presence of Truth, some degree of right living and the Holy Spirit, encourage them to be weaned away from what are becoming more and more obviously, thank God for good science, false concepts.
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