6213	Forums / Theology Forum / Re: Romans and the Flesh Monster.	on: July 06, 2008, 03:19:09 PM
Our language indeed does not begin to describe the extent of the truth of who God is. But this language is the means by which God works His sovereign plan in time. We know that the truth of God has a back drop of the reality of our own humanness. So that we describe God as other, that is we do not understand His ways, and on our own we are in complete darkness, not being able to know God. The bible describes God as being other because in order for us to know Him we must be made holy by His revealing to us that divine knowledge , otherwise we would stay completely in the dark. But God is not completely other, since what He is like is evidenced by what He has made. He is three persons and yet one in substance. So that what He has made is an emanation of Himself for which He has worked His goodness for the purpose of bringing Himself glory by His goodness and pleasure in the end of His creating. If God were just other, then our purpose for existing would be from nothingness. But God works in creation for His pleasure of His goodness, and we receive that purpose in our existence by His perfect good working in us. And even tho we come with the corruption, yet Gods purpose in the working out of all things is Him emanating the pleasure through each second cause so that we experience that good pleasure. If God were only "other" then we could not understand who we are in that working. We have been created in His image, so that each person is of value, having a mind will and emotion. The potential of faculties is in the process of being renewed in God working out all things for His glory and pleasure. If we had no ability to understand who God is, then what He made us to be would be a bad reflection on His purposes. But since He has made all things for the purpose of bringing Himself glory, then our understanding of who He is in order to bring Him glory is essential. Other wise the universe would be a complete contradiction. And we know that Gods determination to work out all things for His glory cannot co exist with nothingness's in our understanding. If we understand any thing about who God is, it is by His giving us that ability. Other wise God could not communicate Himself to us in that bringing Himself glory. Here we struggle with sin. And from our view, we lack faith to see beyond the corrupted views of His working out all things in us for our good. Our natural predisposition is to think independently and we have a terrible time with struggling in this paradigm with a hardness of heart. Our vision is not as God sees. But He has given us some descriptions of Himself for the purpose of strengthening our faith as we are meditating on these truths in His word. What He has spoken is a breath of life, so that we cannot be extended in our believing unless we are being en grafted by the truth of that illumination. We must begin the process of vivification in order to make these eternal realities our normal dispositional sense. For we are to set our affections on things above and not on the things of this earth. Because the work that God does in us is seen in the spiritual realm, in the eternal mindset, with new spiritual eyes. We eye Gods purposes when we live by faith and not by physical sight. So that we are cast into turmoil since we have a love of our own way. We must experience His perfect light by having a greater understanding of Him being to us always faithful. We experience this by Him speaking to us His promises, in the illumination of our understanding. And since we are not always having the same assurance, then sometimes we must struggle long and hard in order to have that assurance once again. So that sometimes we sink into the depths of the circumstances of this life, and then we are in a desperate crying and we are weeping before our loving Father. And since He is always available to us, then there is always a place we can go to, as the only place where we could receive this ongoing grace of assurance. Our Father does indeed work in the unseen, beyond our ability to reason. How we have come into this world and how we know our weaknesses by that are what He is to us in each struggle. All of our thinking of these things are what He has done in us to draw us to Him by the level of that struggle. He has given us a perfect asking in His word for every malady. Our hearts were made by Him, and He knows just what to teach us to say to Him so that we are made aware more and more of His working these things out through us. Even when we sink and struggle, yet He knows, He reaches down to our level. And He wants us to communicate to Him as we pour out our hearts to Him. The malady we have as an experience is what He uses to make His word and work in us come to fruitation. If we can learn to plead the promises and ask according to His will, then we can be raised up above our anxiety to look at His salvation. Because our natural state of being under these trials is what makes us to struggle to go to Him and get that relief and assurance of having our hope strengthened by the experience of the illumination of His promises being ours by that fellowship of the Spirit of understanding. Oh that we would be strengthened to be able to stand firm!