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Topic: Not our ability!
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Eden
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posted
Herr Michael Harrison wrote ze following peace about Eden: quote:
But it is no wonder eden was misread!
Was ist das? Was meanen Sie by das?
love, Edenstein the Ephraimite, von ze Bilhah or ze Zilpah, anywhere
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Michael Harrison
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Well eden, comic relief is pretty good tonic! ![[Razz]](tongue.gif) I hat ta chuckle. No one ever accused you of that before.
Hey Bluefrog! Well, that is the very mistake that eden admitted to in that post, if I may, the one of looking at what is 'actually' happening to you now that you are a Christian. It is fundamentally so in that when one does this, he is looking at himself. That is why I found it funny what you said to eden, but more-so that eden had to reply. Can't let that one go. But it is no wonder eden was misread! And it is ok, cuz u r new. And evidently you are blue. And for sure you are true. So it ain't nothin but a thang even if that doesn't rhyme.
But this saying is attributed to Spurgeon, "I looked at Jesus and the dove of peace flew into my heart. I looked at the dove of peace and it flew away." The moral of the saying is that if one looks at him or herself, he or she takes his or her sight off of Jesus. And that was a point that I was trying to make.
Of course it sounds critical, but it is not. It is actually very important. Someone will say, "Examine yourself to see if you 'b' in the faith." In fact, the way to do that is to look at Him. The Bible (and Jesus) has a funny way of saying things to test someone whether he is looking at his own effort, or if Jesus has his attention. Only God is that smart.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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bluefrog
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Eden said...What ?!!!!
I say...Duhhhh.
I'm sorry Eden. A post or two back I readed:
After reading Michael Harrison's post to me, I was trying to think of "what actually happens to me now" that I am a Christian?
OK, I did 10 push ups. Me Bad.
Rivit
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Eden
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posted
Michael Harrison wrote quote:
I love it!
I'm sure you do. You are the KING of misreading. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
love, Eden
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Eden
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dear bluefrog, you wrote quote:
Eden, ole' buddy! Glad to hear that you are a new Christian.
uhh...never did a man misread me more than that? LOL.
bluefrog, I have been a bornagain Christian for a number of years, a higher number than 10, so I'm not a new Christian. What exactly gave you that idea? ![[happyhappy]](graemlins/happyhappy.gif)
love, Eden
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bluefrog
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Eden, ole' buddy! Glad to hear that you are a new Christian. YeeHawww !
You asked what do you do now. You also gave examples of decision making.
In the simpilist of forms may I suggest that what you do, you do to glorify God. You will find what to do written in the bible and may have lotsa questions. That's the fun part.
And, no you don't count on God to tell you which way to turn in the supermarket, or simple stuff like that, not normally anyway. You don't depend on God to take care of you and your family if you don't buy insurance or food or clothing, n' stuff.
Put it this way...if cussin was in your speech practice start doing away with it. Profanity is a weak mind trying to express itself forceably anyway. If you get drunk or are on drugs that won't do you any good and won't glorify God. If in your past your main interest was Self, then go now and share it with others. (No, not that way, you know what I mean) hehe
Non believers think (usually) that the bible is the book of dread, a rule book of cruelty, and too hard to understand anyway. WRONG ! It helps also to attend a good church and benefit by sharing with others your new life in learning.
As a new thumper (hehe) and a believer you will be helped by the Holy Spirit in understanding.
You are on a journey of love and excitement.
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Michael Harrison
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Eden sed: quote:
Am I as the soul still playing a part in all these decisions? In other words, does the spirit NEED the soul still in order to OPERATE the body?
Can the spirit OPERATE the body without the soul?
If you press your nose to the newspaper you will not be able to read the print. If you are looking at the 'what' or 'how' of something, you are not looking at Jesus. One needs to look at the one who is in control, and just do what they do believing HE is in it.
Of course your soul is in play! Your soul is who you are. Oops! Apart from union with Jesus, your soul is just carnal. It is as Adam was after the fall. In union with Christ, your soul is a "New Creation." (2cor5:17) It is no longer carnal, but spiritual. But synthesis with Christ by living by His Spirit, yields a peaceable fruit.
2Co 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Gal 6:15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Eden
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After reading MichaelHarrison's post to me, I was trying to think of "what actually happens to me now" that I am a Christian.
I am still at the soul level whose former "body of actions" has been crucified on the cross by God ("our old man is crucified with Christ" Romans 6:6)). But my soul is still there as an instrument.
So what happens to me now that I am a Christian? As I walk through life with the "new life of the Holy Spirit", the "I" in me gets an idea about something or the "I" in me gets "told" to turn left here in a supermarket or the new life Holy Spirit in me shows me the best answer in any given situation.
Am I as the soul still playing a part in all these decisions? In other words, does the spirit NEED the soul still in order to OPERATE the body?
Can the spirit OPERATE the body without the soul?
As I walked around today, I'm getting in-the-moment ideas or instructions of what to do or say next. It is "I" who notices those ideas or instructions, so is it also "I" who still has to IMPLEMENT what the Spirit of God SUGGESTS to do.
Does the new life of the Holy Spirit SUGGEST a behavior to me that I then can either agree with, or not?
I am however getting to the point where I am beginning to recognize "when it was the Holy Spirit" or whether it "was me who just responded that way".
So can the spirit of man directly operate the soul without the soul having to do anything else but trust?
How is it that the spirit of man can operate the soul? Are they not two different instruments?
I guess what I'm trying to find out for myself is what work or responsibility still remains for the soul to still do ... is all the soul does now is "trust in the new life and that's all that's needed", or does the soul STILL have to decide, even if it is at the speed of light, "I'll do it that way" or "I'll do it this way"?
To what extent can get the soul "out of the way" and have the body instructions still being executed?
love, Eden
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Michael Harrison
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posted
Our faith is tested in 'choices' oneinchrist.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
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Here's the thing Eden: The soul prism is crystalline, or transparent whenever the heart believes what His Spirit and Truth teaches it to believe. It is one thing. It boils down quite simply to what the heart knows. This then works like "Transition Lenses," (I suppose that is a proper trade name, I do not know), only backwards. But what is important is that the lense is clear to let light through (not to block), whenever our heart realizes, or allows, His full reign. It is simple, yet hard to grasp. But only He can reveal it.
All that this means that one ministers Him, and not one's self. It is a question of which well springs forth. Having said that, we notice that Paul had a personality. His personality is what we see most of the time. However, Paul was not just Paul. That which came through his personality was Jesus, even if not recognized. But here is a clue about that:
- 1Co 7:6 But I speak this by permission, and not of commandment.
Here we see that Paul broke forth with his own personality. And we see that it was a 'trust' thing. Paul found that place in God, where God trusted him, and Paul's opinion here was one that came out of a place in Paul's prepared understanding, rather than out of the mind and spirit of Christ, as a direct matter. It reveals that Paul was for the rest of the time speaking 'by' Christ, as the mouthpiece. It is more like they were 'ONE'. Cool, bless and praise God!
You too!
It is like he was "Hidden with God in Christ. And the life that he then lived, he lived by the faith of the Son of God," as being one with him.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
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oneinchrist: Of course! We make decisions all day long.
There is a peril in superspiritualizing the relationship, even though it is so in nature. But by faith, our understanding is fruitful in realizing that our source changes (has changed). We realize our source. We are not the source of anything any more (Praise God!). We see that all things are in Him, and of Him, and it comes down to just two spirits, His, and evil. There is a kind of intuitivness according to His spirit and all one has to do is to let Him 'do' it all. (Don't try to anylize it; just take it by faith.) So this scripture works in here rather well:
- Heb 5:14 But strong meat belongeth to them that are of full age, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
That is what this passage means. We recognize Him. And we recognize what is not of Him. That is, day in and day out there will be things which are challenging Him. In these cases, having our senses 'exercised' we know His will, basically. We 'reprove' darkness.
- Eph 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.
God Bless extra well!
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Eden
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Hi, oneinchrist, if I may jump in here for a moment, you wrote to MichaelHarrison quote:
In this close knit relationship with God that you are describing, do you believe that God ever leaves anything up to us?
I was thinking about this very same thing yesterday and I thought that it would be possible that a person (a soul) would SO TRUST that ALL the new life is good and beneficial, that the soul basically sets the soul faculties on "always open" much like a sluice in a dam, and just "lets all the new life through the soul prism right through to the body" because the soul really does not need to "reexamine every new life instruction" to "see if it is good or not", once the soul trusts that "it is ALL good", and in that case the soul ONLY HAS TO TRUST that the new life is ALWAYS good so the soul has to "do nothing more than trust".
The only question I have with the above idea is whether the new life can just "flow thru the soul prism" without the soul having to take any further action; in other words, CAN the new life just "pass thru the soul without further action by the soul", OR is the soul the ONLY instrument that can "operate the soul" so that even every new life instruction needs to individually be "activated and executed by the soul itself" and that there is "no such thing as the new life passing through the soul without the soul having to do anything further" (other than trust). That part I don't know yet.
love, Eden
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oneinchrist
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Hi Michael,
In this close knit relationship with God that you are describing, do you believe that God ever leaves anything up to us? Does He ever leave us with choices to make? or courses of action to take in the faith? One more question Michael......In what way do you believe that our faith is tested?
With love in Christ, Daniel
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scythewieldor
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posted
Dear Believers (including Eden and Michael Harrison),
This thread has much edification, exhortation, and comfort.
Keep it going.
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Eden
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posted
Amen to that Michael Harrison.
Eden
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Michael Harrison
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Very good piece!
Concerning: "For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith." (Romans 1:17) In this verse, it is not stated, but implied, that the just 'die' by faith. For one cannot live by faith without dying by faith. But it is so stated in this verse:
"Likewise reckon yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." (Romans 6:11)
For we 'reckon' by faith. And what all of this means is that we are taken out of the way that HE may live. And you are correct to say that He said it: So HE did it! We are invested into 'did'. That translates, present tense, into "He is doing," it. If HE is doing it, then we are 'having' it. It is by faith. Therefore we do not live by our effort, or will, but by the Bread of Heaven. And the Bread of Heaven does not sin, so, as we live by Him, we are delivered from it. We do not have to operate as self-dependent beings. Sin comes from self dependence.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Eden
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My "dear" MichaelHarrison, you wrote quote:
What this means is that what they thought was that they were to "operate at the soul level." For this reason Paul had to 'travail again, until Christ be formed in them', for they didn't yet get it!
Exactamundo. By faith I BELIEVED that God SAID that "Jesus died for my sins on the cross", when I BELIEVED that God REALLY MEANT WHAT HE SAID, I WAS SAVED.
But many Christians STOP there at that very FIRST FAITH that they believed FOR SALVATION. But if they had read or been taught further, there are MORE FAITHS required of me before I can go on deeper with my God.
After salvation, I had to have faith to further believe that "God really put me IN Christ when Jesus was on the cross":
1 Corinthians 1:30
But of Him {God} are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.
Just like I had to believe what God said about "salvation", I also have to believe that God meant it when God said about He had "put me IN Christ Jesus". So once I believe that God REALLY DID put me IN Christ,” I am exercising the same kind of faith with which I believed that God REALLY FORGAVE my sins because God had SAID that “Jesus had died in my place on the cross".
And after I had faith to believe that God had REALLY meant when God said ithat He had "put me IN Christ" on the cross, a third faith was required because God SAID that Jesus also “rose from the grave on the third day” and that “as Christ rose, we who were IN Christ ALSO ROSE WITH CHRIST”. I have to believe God that when God said that “we also rose with Christ”, that God REALLY DID IT.
And next I have to believe that when God SAID that God now therefore “counts me as being alive unto God":
Romans 6:11
Likewise reckon yourselves also to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Then God further says that now that we are declared to be “alive unto God”, God said that He will “begin to give us new life” and “newness of life”, and so again I have FAITH that when God said that He is now going to “give me new life”, that God is REALLY GOING TO start giving me this “new life”.
The effect of me believing that God is really giving me this new life that He has promised (for God cannot lie), then I can feel safe to “lay down my soul life” because I now HAVE FAITH that God is REALLY streaming this new life into me and through me.
So basically I “shut down the soul level operation” as much as possible, by continuing to have FAITH that God is really streaming this new life in me that God PROMISED:
Romans 6:4
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: but like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, evenso we also should walk in newness of life.
The only way that I can stop operating my own body from my soul life level is “by being certain that God is REALLY going to flow this new life in me and through me”, because if God DOES NOT FLOW HIS NEW LIFE to me, then I have to take the reins of my life up again with my soul power, “lest we cast up against some rocks” or “we be drowned”.
Michael Harrison, to get back to what you said quote:
What this means is that what they thought was that they were to "operate at the soul level." For this reason Paul had to 'travail again, until Christ be formed in them', for they didn't yet get it!
Romans 1:17
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith. ![[roll on floor]](graemlins/6.gif)
love, Eden
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Michael Harrison
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quote:
So follow we must. But we can only follow if we execute that new life at the soul level. For it is still US who can decide what to "stay with God's will" or "abandon it for this or that issue". It's still a battle. More than "just following", until:
Galatians 4:19
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you.
Exactamunde! Paul has said that he 'travails in birth,' until Christ is formed in them. Not only, he 'travails again' until Christ is formed in them. Who was he saying this to? And why was he saying it? He was saying it to people who thought they were on the right track, but who weren't, though they were true believers. And he was saying it because they were puffed up so, in thinking that they were right. And they withstood him, as did so many who were unappreciative that God had provided an instructor of the way in Paul.
The point is, they didn't recognize that they were missing the narrow way, and like others in the church of the day, they didn't recognize the authority of Paul to exhort them into the truth.
And let be noted that they weren't 'struggling'. They thought that they were 'hot' on the trail and 'doing' the right thing. What this means is that what they thought was that they were to "operate at the soul level." For this reason Paul had to 'travail again, until Christ be formed in them', for they didn't yet get it!
Then too, all of the epistles were left here and there as a guide for future generations, that the account of Paul, and the condition of those who were self assured (yet without the 'revelation' they were called to, being manifest in them), may be known even today! But so much can be made of the word, besides the very point that our God wants to make, that the very one, the one of the 'mystery', is not secured but by very few.
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Eden
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1 Corinthians 1
30 But of Him {God} are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.
Romans 6
10 For in that He died, he died unto sin once; but in that He lives, He lives unto God.
11 Likewise reckon you also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 6:4
Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life.
By faith I was saved when I beleived the God of Israel when the God of Israel said in His Word, "Jesus died on the cross for your sins" and I believed that God meant that and so by faith I have forgiveness of my sins.
But by faith I also have to believe that "I am alive unto God" and "therefore God is now streaming new life into me", and I have to believe it because the God of Israel said it in His Word.
I believed that when God said it, then it must be so, for salvation, but I also must believe it when God said that, "I am now alive unto God and God is now going to stream new life to me", so that I now "expect by faith that God is streaming new life into me".
But I'm located at the soul position, and I still have to decide whether to "execute these new life instructions" or whether to "execute my own ideas still".
Galatians 5:17
For the flesh {the soul life} lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit lusts against the flesh: and these two are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would lke.
James 4:5
For, do you think that the scripture says in vain, The spirit that dwells in us lusts to envy?
So follow we must. But we can only follow if we execute that new life at the soul level. For it is still US who can decide what to "stay with God's will" or "abandon it for this or that issue". It's still a battle. More than "just following", until:
Galatians 4:19
My little children, of whom I travail in birth again, until Christ be formed in you.
love, Eden
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Michael Harrison
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Not according to our ability, but His: "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven," not our will. And He is able to perform that which He desires. We do not lead. We follow.
SO the question is, who are you Lord? And what do you do? And am I following? Because following means letting Him do what is necessary. We can only receive. Otherwise we offer up that which is not of following, which is a sacrifice, but not of service. For to serve is to follow. To serve is to receive. To serve is to believe. To serve is to 'have' His will done that HE may be glorified.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
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But His! It is not according to our ability that anything wonderful is manifest to, or through us, or purposed towards heaven; but according to His ability. Therefore we are more easily able to understand this, that anything done according to our ability is only 'dead' works, however much we want to try. As we discover that it is not of our ability, but according to His ability, then we finally understand the meaning of the Cross. He is freed in us to work on our behalf.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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