7312	Forums / Theology Forum / Orthodoxy - Chesterton	on: June 22, 2007, 08:00:51 PM
I understand what you are saying. But from personal experience i have not found this to meet the standards of Christ in discipleship. After all Christ did not teach that balance between mens responsibility and Gods sovereignty would lead to a trust that was radical. This paradigm of balance can be mis applied to be a paradoxical paradigm of autonomy and self effort. We really do not understand the power of the struggle with the flesh. Jesus teaching on this was radical. In other words what we are dealing with is making the personality of the trust more important than the trust itself. Here is what Jesus said was the problem. 16.      \"But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market places, who call out to the other children, 17.     and say, `We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.' 18.     \"For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon!' 19.     \"The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!' Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.\" 20.     Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent. Its not really the freedom to exercise the will, but its that we are fighting against the tendencies to regard these neutral things by choice as an excuse to disregard the importance of these times in our lives that are ordered by God so that we treat them as common. ie worship, selflessness, mortification, a serious disposition , having pleasure in Christ alone. Its not necessarily sin that takes the place of these times, but it is good things, and because of the flesh we are always waring against wanting to do the opposite in what God has determined at the time, or really not giving all of our strength to the means of grace.