9251	Forums / Theology Forum / Is Theology Your God?	on: April 05, 2006, 06:36:00 AM
Quote Quote \"We are all one; why divide about these things? We must all come and stand together as Christians, and then we shall have power M L Jones.\" So MBG do you think thats what its about \"having power\"? I Don\'t. That is just more self serving and the using of god for self. Most of what I see in life is nothing more then worshiping an idea and at the same time selling to those who are willing to serve self that you are worshiping truth. I wonder what God really thinks about this creation. Gods idea of Himself is the reality of who He is -always. What ever idea God has, becomes reality. God has reveal the ideas in His revelation. He has given us a lively sense of that idea of who He is. We worship a God who reveals Himself through His ideas. No one has ever seen God. Yet we can know God through His revelation. Once He reveals Himself to us we have enough idea of who He is to know Him. "God seeking himself in the creation of the world in the manner which has been supposed, is so far from; being inconsistent with the good of its creatures, that it is a kind of regard to himself that inclines him to seek the good of his creature. It is a regard to himself that disposes him to diffuse and communicate himself. It is such a delight in his own internal fullness and glory, that disposes him to an abundant effusion and emanation of that glory. The same disposition, that inclines him to delight in his glory, causes him to delight in the exhibitions, expressions, and communications of it. If there were any person of such a taste and disposition of mind, that the brightness and light of the sun seemed unlovely to him, he would be willing that the sun’s brightness and light should be retained within itself. But they that delight in it, to whom it appears lovely and glorious, will esteem it an amiable and glorious thing to have it diffused and communicated through the world.Edwards

9248	Forums / Theology Forum / Is Theology Your God?	on: April 05, 2006, 02:12:37 PM
Just as God reveals Himself through His revelation, He also teaches so that anyone who claims they have not enough to understand, or enough to get through this life have not to blame God. To claim this is to say that the teacher does not have enough knowledge. Really the Lord knows the thoughts of man and He knows that they are futile. Man left to himself is just blind through and through. We can trust the teacher. Now this way of teaching comes to us through the counsel and the assembly. That is those who share in the covenant of redemption and then we assemble to share in these great and glorious truths in His word. Yet in trying to understand His word we left to ourselves would only have a carnal knowledge without the Spirit and then without the pleasure of understanding that He causes. He has spoken in His word and He causes us to understand and to get a taste of Christ in that contemplation in the church. And in contemplating those truths we see His hand in our lives. We are all under the great counselor who is imparting wisdom and knowledge because He is showing us that even tho we work, yet that work is filthy rags unless He works in us because He alone deserves eternal praise. Yes, He is working through us and we are working, and so we offer Him all the praise for that work. He provides for us, he has given us all the ability to be counselors and we are all working in unison to effect that redemption in all of us for His praise. He shows us the power of his decrees, that is all of those things that transpire in our lives , the good and the bad, by giving us gifts that other unsaved men in the world have by giving them to us. When we see this power we are convinced that it is by His grace alone through His eternal decrees. This is the process of understanding the fear of the Lord.

Gods voice

Gods voice

9109 God speaks through His word, and the communication is very detailed. He explains to us the boundaries of His love for us just enough for us to feel special other wise if there were no boundaries we would be totally befuddled and overwhelmed, or we would go crazy in his revealing to us who we really are. His voice is not so much to make a certain decision or to go a certain way, although some times He impresses on us in a strong way to go in a certain direction yet He is really interested in our being secure in-spite of the circumstances around us. So his voice is always drawing us in to a relationship with Him through his Son.

His voice is beyond the human definition of a voice. It is sometimes so awesome that it is as if he were blowing new life into us. His voice is so healing that we feel as if the supernatural physician and psychiatrist given instant normality or a super abundance of strength. He gives us insight into things that are happening around us from this breathed strength so that we are sure that his hand is upon us. is so protecting of us that he brings circumstances that are difficult and we would not like to deal with so that we trust in him and we feel as if going any other way is impossible unless he answers us from our prayers. This is his holding us in his grip. 

His voice is always leading us on a path where we must exercise our faith, by trusting in Him in-spite of the circumstances and He communicates to us that we are secure, and we have not struggled so much that we are going to die. With these circumstances he draws out of us longings, and cries, and desires for deliverance so that He will become such a mighty and strong deliver that we will trust him even more and know him in a greater way and more profound way than any relationship we have on this earth. God always sees and hears and speaks in a way in behalf of the best for his children, and that includes the very atoms that we are made of.His voice is spoken into other peoples ears in behalf of us so that what success we have in knowing that person is having Jesus as our friend speaking in behalf of us to others in a supernatural way. In this we know he is speaking to us because we look at what transpires around us and we examine it and we are always seeing that there are precise things that happen to us that are proofs that he is guiding and directing us through each moment

Sometimes he speaks to us in such a way that we are profoundly overcome. He opens up his power to us in a personal way as if he were saying" I am your salvation." We are so over come that we are drawn out of our little world into an eternal experience of worship, with such heavenly raptures that our eyes are opened up into other world, and our ears are listening to the heavenly choir.This communication is beyond any kind of communication we have on this earth. He is so much bigger than mere words.

9446	Forums / Main Forum / Is There?	on: March 10, 2006, 07:38:00 PM
Your post is one of a kind, i think you are being as personal as you possibly can. I for one hate to talk about religion when i am shooting the c rap. I was reading your post and kinda chuckle along the way. Why judge when your trying to be up front and wanting more than just the christian jargen. Thats cool, i hope your having a good time where you are. Its easy to write things that push buttons, but trying to have a normal conversation is almost impossible on the net. Flesh and blood always puts us on our best behavior when we meet people and we are more open to talk about any thing in a social setting. I had to laugh at some of your happy go lucky views in some social settings and how coming on KLF has been rough. For one i am not all that confrontational in real life . Rather i like a good laugh, and like to sit around and just talk. Oh well i would only say dont judge me by my behavior on the net. I am much more relaxed in person.

9440	Forums / Theology Forum / Freedom Of The Will Jonathan Edwards	on: March 11, 2006, 07:51:29 AM
Quote Think about it this way. If you'll say that you have a free choice between accepting the gospel or not accepting the gospel you are saying that your will has a self determining power. You are saying that the will exist as a dominate function until it chooses salvation. But the will is to choose one thing over another. To will is to prefer. The will does make you willing, you prefer one thing over another and that is an act of the will. You are the subject and your will is the predicate. The will is not the subject. If you say that the will is dominate in-between two objects then the will is the subject and does the willing.That is just not proper. You do the willing. There is no such thing as a will that is in an equal Librium state. That is not will. To will is to have a greater desire for one object over another. Here is what you are saying. Picture this you are sitting in a chair in-between two tables , on one of the tables is a peach, on the other table is a pear, you are saying that this is what free will is. This is what freedom is. Yet your will is not exercised . When you desire the peach over the pear then you are willing, then you are choosing what you desire more. So the picture of free will starts when you grasp the peach.

9700	Forums / Theology Forum / The Bible Driven Church	on: January 25, 2006, 10:50:12 PM
Grace is a favor granted to the undeserved. First in order for us to understand grace we must understand the nature of the condition that we were brought out of. We were darkened in our minds and unable to apprehend any thing spiritually good. We were dead in sin and trespasses. We were without hope. We were given over to all kinds of lust to fulfill them. We had no control over our impulses so we were in bondage with all of our motives being selfish. The law was a school master to us. We heard the law and we felt condemned which made us afraid of God. We recoiled from any thing spiritual because it reminded us of that being under the weight of guilt, with such a burden that we would imagine evil in others who had no reason to attack us. We hated God with a violent hatred. We joined with others like ourselves to mock God so that we could relieve our consciences so that we could feel better about ourselves by bringing God down. The reason we hated His commands was that they seemed to condemn us and we did not understand why God would be so picky about every little thing. We ran from God until He out of sheer mercy regenerated us to see the truth. Until that time we lived in a dream world. When we first had the heinousness of our sins revealed to us we were struck with how little we understood about ourselves. We were exposed to the renewal of the Holy Spirit and we began to feel a peace for once. Like a big heavy burden had been taken from us. It was so real that we woke up the morning after to see if we had that same feeling of peace. It was so enlightening to our minds and hearts that we knew that we had received someone more valuable than any thing we had ever understood before. We experienced a simple trust in Christ when we understood grace. We were so transformed at the point of salvation by being so needy that Gods grace was pleasant to us. Even though we did not have a deep knowledge of grace and its importance we ,being exposed to ourselves made grace valuable. Then we began to struggle with some of the sins that we had turned from. We could not understand why our initial salvation experience wore off. We began to fear that we had only tasted of Gods grace. Yet not having a deep experiential knowledge of grace we seemed to be at a cross roads between what we perceived grace had saved us from and what grace could be to us as we began to deepen in our christian understanding. Real grace is poured out on us as the ocean waves beating against the shore so that we grow and overcome, grace doesnt die in us. Once we have saving grace we have it forever! Look there is no merit in grace or it wouldnt be grace! When we are saved we are thrown into this struggle between self righteousness and disobedience. We are in a sense little god makers. We perceive things that are not true of God and not true of ourselves. That is we make a god for ourselves. That is what self righteousness and disobedience does. Our relationship to the law is no longer a condemning relationship. We hear the law and we turn to Christ and receive grace freely! We can look into the perfect law and make an honest assessment of ourselves because we have someone who fulfilled the requirements of the law as our Savior. We love the law knowing that in Christ we are forgiven so that we live in grace. When we obey we receive more grace, but the obedience was Gods grace for us to obey. Our obedience is corrupted so we need the righteousness of Christ to be our acceptability before the Father. This is grace being worked out in us. When we sin we have an advocate Christ who finished the work of ending sins power over us so we can be forgiven. When we experience the Fathers forgiveness because He accepts His Sons sacrifice we experience the effects of grace in us. We begin to rejoice that such mercy and grace was extended to us and this experience begins to deepen in us as we grow in His word. We are cast upon Him through meditation of His word and His Spirit witnesses with our spirit that we are His child, then we begin to cry Abba Father! We begin to more and more value His mercy and love and our Abba Fathers get repeated often in our walk throughout the day. If we understand that our inner life reflects to others what the truth is, they will want to know not just how good we are, but what kind of supernatural grace could this be in us. Live so near the Father that you will morn when others are sad and you will rejoice when others are happy. Remember that life in the Spirit is a struggle of your flesh in the inner man and the Spirit. He is jealous for control. Meditate on the word let the Spirit illuminate to you the value of Christ over any thing in this world. There is not a power on this earth that can stand up against His power! When you feel powerless tell yourself that the power is in Him and it resides in you by the Holy Spirit. Come to Him lay at His feet, see Him crucified, victorious, mediating on your behalf. Seek His face ,so that you can be filled with the knowledge of Himself, seeing it illuminated in His face. Grace is an illuminated reality in the face of Christ that gives us the confidence to approach the throne of God with boldness. Plead the promises! pour out your hearts before Him! He will take your burden and give you grace!

9696	Forums / Theology Forum / The Bible Driven Church	on: January 29, 2006, 06:13:09 AM
I am not disagreeing with you. I am giving you the confession as well. I agree that we must work toward being sanctified. As i stated we are given the means of grace in order to be sanctified. What do you mean that i am trying to cut sanctification out all together? My problem with what you said above is that you left out the details of the doctrine of justification and our corruption and good works. Do you believe that good works are only acceptable because of Christ righteousness? First you are mixing pelaginism with semi pelaginism in your description of the other side. I was not saying that the semi pelaginist believed that we must work to be saved. That is the Roman error-pelaginism-. Semi plagenist believe that we are saved by grace through faith but they have a kink in their system of doctrine when they say that the will is not corrupted.Which has a profound effect on how they view justification by faith. Now they say that a person must exercise faith in order to be regenerated. We believe that we are dead in sins and are unable to come to God until He regenerates us. They believe in a different grace than we do. They believe that grace can be resisted, we believe that grace is irresistible. Now if i believed that grace can be resisted dont you think that i would approach these practical out-workings in a much different way than a Calvinist? If i thought that i was able to choose salvation of my own free will ,dont you think that i would live my christian life with that view in my works? I would try to hold onto my salvation by working to keep it even tho i acknowledge that salvation was by grace. I believe that words mean things, we create propositions with them that bring about a world view that effect how a person lives. We do not think in a divided way about doctrine and the practical. We are not saying \" Now that we know the doctrine lets get to the practical\" which would be like saying \"now that we are saved lets put our bibles on the shelf and create a system of philosophy for behavior. \" Which simplified is \"God will do when you do \"We believe doctrine makes the practice correct. \"Sanctify them by thy truth thy word is truth.\" The word is the chief means to effect the proper practical outworking. A semi pelagenist represents the will as being in-between two equal forces ,the good and the bad. This makes the will powerless, which puts the force on the object of choice. This is pragmatism. This thinking elevates philosophy to an equal level of scripture. Scripture must stand alone as the absolute authority. This thinking has a great effect on the practical out-workings of individuals and church societies. We need to be very detailed as to what we believe in order for us to logically think through the doctrine of sanctification because we are either too self righteous or we are always disobedient. Both extremes are sin.