8333	Forums / Main Forum / Tell Me Why.	on: October 17, 2006, 06:24:50 PM
Steve, I believe because a long time ago in the wild blue yonder God decided to include me in His family. I had no desire to have a relationship with Him. I loved myself too much to humble myself before Him. I still struggle with that and i really believe that He loves me now. But in-spite of my arrogance He still loves me. I believe because every day He makes me believe in Him. I go up and down in my relationship with Him. I am always wandering away from Him, and so i have a very bad problem that only He can help me with. No one around me knows what is going on in my mind. No one around me knows what will happen to me in the future. No one around me cares about me like Him because they do not understand me like He does. He knows just what i need when i need it. He has designed the circumstances in my life for my good and for His glory. He sees me in the big picture in His plan in a group of people, i can only see the small picture. He is the only one that really listens to me. Because He can understand my pain better than any other person on the face of the earth since He has gone through so much more pain than i would ever experience. He loves me no matter what. Even when i am so weak that i have no strength to live good He still loves me. He loves me when i sin, and sin, and sin. He loves me when i am cold and heartless. He loves me when i have nothing to give. He loves me when i am afraid, and lonely, and suffering, and depressed, and quietly suffering, and faithless, and uncaring, and angry, and fretting, and when i am so addicted to sin so that i see no way to get from under its weight, in these dispositions is when He shows me how much He loves me. It is when these circumstances are the greatest is when His love is the greatest. He supports me by giving me things for free. He gives and gives and gives, and I take and take and take. And when i get fixed on something He gives He still loves me. When i love these gifts more than Him HE STILL LOVES ME. It is when i realize that He loves me inspite of the awful predicaments i get myself in is when i love to come and pour out my hurt to Him and thank Him for loving me

8430	Forums / Main Forum / The Definition Of Forgiveness	on: September 24, 2006, 08:20:31 PM
Forgiveness is offered to us in Christ. We are completely forgiven of all of our sins past and present. Forgiveness is really at the heart of understanding the gospel and having an assurance that we are loved by God. We are sustained by God through Christ work on the cross and so we can persevere as sinners in a world of uncertainty, lack of forgiveness or even understanding forgiveness. Forgiveness is not earned by us. It was earned already by Christ when He took on sin and guilt and paid the penalty incurred as a result of sin. He satisfied the wrath of God for sin on our behalf so that we could be set free of that legal obligation in punishment. Christ is our satisfaction from the moment we receive the Spirit to when we are glorified. We rest in Christ for our forgiveness. Satan is the accuser, he is always questioning sinners as to their commitment to Christ. He comes as an angel of light to use scripture, ministers, and people around us who do not understand forgiveness to try to convince us that there is something extra that we need to do in order to be forgiven. He twist scripture so that we will not understand fully what forgiveness is so that we are always questioning the power of the gospel to effect our present attitude so that we will withdraw from our Father and be engulfed in guilt. This deli-ma is more common in Christians circles than any other aspect of christian experience. Understanding forgiveness is so central to assurance and having a vibrant relationship with the Father that it is the underlying root of all hardheartedness. When we were first awakened to our sin, we became aware of our state of helplessness and we saw that our only hope was to trust in Christ . We had a profound experience of forgiveness that lasted days, or weeks of just being unburdened and we were comforted, and at peace, and Christ was so real to us in those first hours of new birth. Then one day it was as if we had began to revert back into a pattern feeling guilt and not having the assurance we enjoyed when as in those first times of love for Him. One of the reasons of getting in this guilt disposition is that we become self centered in the joy of experiencing salvation for the first time and we begin to think that we had something to do with being forgiven. We began to think that we could go back to being under the law so that we could be kept from departing from Christ so that our struggle was a result of not really understanding the extent of Gods grace and not having a deep knowledge of that grace. We needed to grow in our knowing Him in all of our experiences. We needed to have fresh assurances of His forgiveness and as we were assured and growing in the knowledge of the truth, desiring to be filled with all knowledge, praying to be led more and more into the truth we would gain a more profound understanding and appreciation of just how deep and wide was the goodness of God , the love of God , and the faithfulness of God, and all of these assurances are a result of experiencing His forgiveness anew. And in experiencing His forgiveness anew we are given a supernatural peace, as if He speaks peace to our hearts. So forgiveness is not just an intellectual grasping of scripture but it is an experiencing a deep relational communication of that forgiveness as we grow in the word and as we focus on the greatness of God and as we have spiritual fellowship with one another. To really gain a grasp on forgiveness we need to have a vision of the freeeeee grace of God in Christ Jesus. The free access of the grace is equal to the bigness of God. If we have a small God then we will have a very shallow view of forgiveness. If we have a big God we will have a profound view of assurance and forgiveness. Forgiveness is like being rapped up in the arms of the Father, having a sense that there He is with His arms around you and He is so sweet to you. He comes in a manner that pulls away the chains of sin, by giving us a sense of freedom from sin in granting us the grace of forgiveness in a renewal sense. We are so over come with His goodness that our desires are rapped up in praising Him and extolling Him all of our days. We habitually are pleased in our desiring more of Him, we seek Him as a person, we long for Him in our mourning over sin, we desire Him more than life itself. Those desires are very essential to understanding assurance and being single minded with our hearts responding to what our minds know is true. Look, the eternal God who fills all things, who is all powerful, who is all knowing dwells in us! Really, really, really! Our desires could never be fulfilled in this life, because we would be swallowed up by His power if He ever showed us His absolute presence. But yet we are in a sense swallowed up by growing in our desires for Him so that what we know about that power leaves us with a more depressing view of our lack on the other side. We are as it were driven on by an understanding that there is no where else to go except to desire Him more and more.

8429	Forums / Main Forum / The Definition Of Forgiveness	on: September 24, 2006, 09:09:42 PM
Quote Glory, I praise God that He has given you clear answers. You are so Good and Faithful God.  How can we ever doubt you? Donna Just want to write one more thing. One of the reasons we are so unsure of our position in him,( and really i am not talking to you personally but just as what i have experienced.) , is that we are not clear in our prayers as to the difference between the desires of the wicked and the desires of the righteous. And so we are left to wonder so much about just who we are in Him. So we must consider our position in Christ. We must begin to develop a set of longings that mirror His work on our behalf so that what we pray for is one with what His wills. We should see how all of these temptations, the wickedness in society and all of the humanness that we carry around have an effect on that pearl we have in us. That new life in the Holy Spirit, which begins with all of the holy desires that are averse to our natural state in sin. We are not like what we think we are in our natural selves, but  we are new! We are not surrounded by things that bring us down as if they had a power over us. We are not under the law as if it were beating us to submit. We are free to worship ,adore, desire in HIs will what ever He wants so that we are looking into the face of Christ in our prayers and we are becoming more like Him. Oh what advantage we have to go to the psalms and pray like the psalmist. Tarry there a little while, and then ask for a double portion of His Spirit! Say to Him, show me your salvation, say to me I am your salvation, oh speak sweet Spirit, grant me more grace to desire you more than water! What ever we are experiencing in our humanness is not sin! We cannot talk ourselves out of His good graces. He knows our frailty! He even comes in our weakness and brings a strength to long for more of His grace so that our weakness becomes a pleasure of being set free to communicate to Him from the deepest part of our cries. Cry to Him to elevate your experience so that you will know that He is gracing you in your weakness! He must speak!

8408	Forums / Theology Forum / Election?	on: September 29, 2006, 09:03:36 PM
I will attack this Arminian thinking in another fashion by asking a question and then answering it according to a Calvinist and a Pauline approach. What is Gods work  and  what is mans work? Does God do 50 percent of the work and man does the other 50? Does God do only what man wills and then God works according to what man does? Does God wait for man to do before He will do? Does God look to see if man is going to do in the future and then after waiting for man to do God responds? All of these hidden messages are part of the armianin mentality. They use biblical phrases and stories but basically these are the questions that always come up after listening to an armianist. This mixed message is what creates the man centered salvation mentality we have today. The moment a Calvinist begins to have these questions we are accused of not being practical. We are accused of not being simple enough. What we believe is that God does all, and we do all. God doesnt wait for us to do. His grace is so complete that there is no way we could do anything unless it was first gifted to us by His grace. Graces power is not subject to mans will, but graces power makes man willing. So God does all, and we do all. Without Him we can do nothing. That means that 0 good works come from us without Him. If we have hidden human effort  messages behind the preaching of the word then we are going to have a theology that is confusing. We are going to come to the conclusion that we do not do enough and God is waiting on us to do more. This happens when we do not give God all the doing.

8401	Forums / Theology Forum / Election?	on: September 30, 2006, 08:50:18 AM
Im not sure what I believe on this subjuct MBG. But, I can tell you this far that I do believe it is a calling that brings a person unto salvation. I think we would all agree there.

But really in the judgement at the end of all things doesnt God choose that person for eternal destruction? I mean couldnt He have made a remedy at that point? The person who is going to destruction knows he deserves it but God chooses to send Him there, that person does not decide in any fashion. There really is at no point in a persons existence where he has a free choice in the Arianism sense. We believe that Adam had a free choice in the garden, meaning that he had the power not to eat in himself, but we also believe that God predetermined Adams choice. That is a mystery at the point of choice in Adam. Because if we consider that the circumstances had any thing to do with the power of Adams choice then Adam would have been at a disadvantage in comparison to us being that the garden was profoundly more pleasant than post sin circumstances. So Adam had a power in himself yet he chose to sin not by any other means than what was in Adam.
We are seen in Adam, so that we are seen making the same choice, and that is why sin is imputed to our account by God. We know that freedom does not mean that we have the ability to choose between good and evil, between heaven and hell, but that we can choose what we want when we want, when we reach out an grasp the object that is most pleasing to us. What determines our choices is the state of our souls, the condition of our hearts prior to our actions.  Our responsibility falls on the fact that in that ability to choose from what we are pleased with the most.
 
The scripture says that we are unable to choose good. We do not have the power to choose any good. The objects are too heavy so that we cannot lift them. Inability does not impede free choice. We still can be free to choose to fly, but we are unable to accomplish staying in the air.
We are only enabled by being regenerated. So in a sense we are not responsible for our lack of ability. Because each choice is enabled by grace. So in a sense we can lack the grace and be unable. We can be babies in the faith and not know in an experiential way and be unable. Really there is no difference between what we do and what God can create in us to do. Just because there is a lack does not necessarily fall completely on our shoulders. That is the security that we have in having a proper view of God. That is all of our abilities are short of being able to meet Gods standards of strength. We cannot perform one thing by our own ability. So really there is no seperate willing that falls short by us and what good we do that meets the standard. Every thing we do is enabled by God

Ps 111 2 Great are the works of the LORD ;
they are pondered by all who delight in them."
The Psalmist is teaching that the great work of God was to create all things and decree the fall of man. God decreed in eternity past that His creation would become corrupted by the fall of man. God ordained that He would save His creation by decreeing the history of Redemption. The Psalmist teaches that God accomplished the sovereign work of salvation by reversing the effects of sin and corruption in cursing the creation in order to prevent man from sharing in the renewal of all things. God created all things according to eternal value. God redeemed all things by paying the eternal price in order to avenge the suffering of His elect in being devalued. God secured the salvation of His elect in reversing the corruption by cursing the cursed.
God ordered all things according to His word. He spoke all things into existence for His purpose. God created the things to work together for good according to His value. When sin and corruption entered the world man began to devalue the things of God by redefining Gods creative word. Man seeks to control Gods creation by speaking so that he defines the value of Gods creation. He steals from Gods eternal value and seeks to enslaves men in his finite scheme. But God puts the wicked on a leash because He owns all things and returns the theft by taking it from the wicked and giving it to His people. Salvation is in God alone because no one can escape Gods addition and subtraction.
Gods restoration of the eternal value of all things was accomplished in the His work of redemption. This is why the Psalmist compares Gods work to the presence of the light by night and the fire by day in leading Israel to the promise land. Because the people were constantly moving they had no institutional structure in order to create the wealth that would meet their needs. God led Israel through the dangerous territory by meeting all of their needs. The Psalmist is comparing this special providence of a people who had no access to institutional structure with the work of Christ who met Gods standard of value in His work in becoming a man. The Psalmist is saying that Gods eternal value is restored to His people in the plan of redemption by pronouncing death to the wicked. The justice of God decreed from eternity past reestablished the line between blessing and cursing in Christ work in order to repay His elect. Gods law that speaks the curse brings about the condemnation of the wicked as the weapon in the history of redemption in avenging Gods people. The plan of redemption is the repayment of God to His elect. 6 He has shown his people the power of his works,
giving them the lands of other nations.
7 The works of his hands are faithful and just;
all his precepts are trustworthy.
8 They are steadfast for ever and ever,
done in faithfulness and uprightness.
9 He provided redemption for his people;
he ordained his covenant forever-
holy and awesome is his name.

Ps 87 7 As they make music they will sing,
"All my fountains are in you."
The Psalmist is teaching that Gods presence in the Ark of the covenant reestablished the creation covenant. God created all things according to His law, covenants, curses, statutes, decrees and promises. These gift of the holistic foundation of creation where gifted to the Psalmist in pronouncements and petitions in order to create the meta physical health of the soul as streams under the city of Zion flow and rise up in springs to supply fresh water to the thirsty.
In Psalm 1 there is a promise that those who meditate on the Psalmist will be like a tree planted by streams of water. When we pronounce the commands, covenants, curses, decrees etc then we receive illumination. The Psalmist teaches that Gods counsel comes to him in the morning, noon and at night. The pronouncements are the gifts of creation given to Gods elect in order create future reality in the world. The Psalms are written in order to ascend and descend. The pronouncements control all experiences of the Psalmist. When we ascend by pronouncing the law ,covenants ,decrees and promises, we ascend in experiencing the strength of God that brings pleasure to the soul. We ascend in the strength of God as we are converted to a supernatural confidence as we envision the future unity that is created by these pronouncements.
We receive these pronouncements as the future glory coming into the present. In reality our lives are like blinking in comparison to eternity. The only words that contain eternity are the words of God. In order for us to be identified with Christ we must experience the future glory coming into the present. The effects of pronouncing the gifts are the springs of joy and pleasure that rise up in us. The ascending is like advancing into the battle and destroying all opposition by calling eternity into time.
When we pronounce the covenants we are opposing the natural desire to have confidence in our own reasoning. Because of the fall we create idols by our thoughts. We do not think about the creation according to the value of God. We must not trust in the work we do in our creations. We must pronounce the covenants that command God to establish our success by creating our future outside of our understanding of our future circumstances. We rise up in the pronouncements as we experience self forgetfulness. Pain comes from trusting in our own plans. But when we pronounce Gods sworn testimony of His creation then we will experience the answer in the future as we change in our image. This experience is pleasurable.
As we pronounce the law, we are speaking life and death. Our natural way of thinking is to change by process. There is no hope of growing by our efforts to change our weaknesses. We must die in pronouncing the law that curses the wicked. We experience change in the christian life in mortifying the flesh by Spirit and Word. The law is the only instrument that pronounces death our trust in our own creations.As we pronounce the curses our trust is not in the promises of man.God wants us to be bold by being confident in the power of the law. God is not pragmatic. This confidence rises up in us in waves of pleasure.
When we pronounce the curses we have no desire to think of retribution. Anger is a disease of hardness of heart of living with a balanced view of life. The curses convert us to enjoy every word of God as dogmatic. We naturally are afraid to be dogmatic about the doctrines because we naturally have a high view of man. The curses teach us a quiet confidence in God as we live in a world that exalts man. This is very pleasurable.
In these gifts etc we rise up in experiences as we meditate and pronounce. We keep reaching for new heights through all the years of our meditations. We create deeper and deeper springs.