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Author
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Topic: God is about power!
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Michael Harrison
Advanced Member
Member # 6801
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posted
"Be ye perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect."
People cannot comprehend the concept of 'perfect' because they don't do it, or can't. They can understand 'doing', which is not 'perfect' and they are unable to consider anything else. They insist that it is up to them 'to do it' somehow, to help or to at least attempt. But they cannot understand 'perfection' because only HE can do it. Therefore it is out of reach. So, quite simply, all are unable to put their confidence in what HE does, but rather, they are able to grasp what 'they' are able to do because it is tangible. So are we able to see that what is happening is that people trust in themselves, in their natural ability or desire rather than God when they are looking for results in service, feeling that what they contribute counts. Doesn't that make them to be depending upon themselves?
Well, for clarification, the word perfect in all its simplicity means 'provided for'. That is what the term implies.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
Advanced Member
Member # 6801
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posted
I don't want anyone's post to "go south." So I am moving this one here, with garnishes:
quote:
Molinos talked about an entire cessation of self-consciousness, and Madame Guyon maintained that she could not sin, for sin was self, and she had rid herself of self. Molinos and his doctrines were condemned by Pope Innocent XI in 1687.
You are a great resource Carol. See, all things work together for good!
I do not even know her, but I have these observations about Madame Guyon; probably that it is a misread of what she actually represented to be true in her day, purposely so done by those who would misrepresent the whole truth for their own gain, or perversion. If so, the same was done in the very spirit of the Pharisees, which still exists today, and which is vehemently practiced by the blindest of people, as were the Pharasees, and without seeing their fault. And isn’t it interesting that one a discussion site such as this one, people like “The Pope,” are often villified, until it is convenient to make ones point in an argument against another. Then he is suddenly a saint! In fact, this reminds me of the Middle Ages when true saints of God were killed if they did not compromise with the liars who claimed that they represented the church of God on earth. They are still rampant. They still kill.
Says someone claming to represent the truth: quote:
Sanctification begins the moment one is saved. God begins, at that moment, working in us, conforming us to the image of Christ. I am then responsible to FIGHT with my flesh and resist sin. I must put off the old man, be renewed in my mind and put on the new man. We must then walk under the influence of the Holy Spirit, allowing his work to be done in and through us.
Trumbul is teaching a form of sinless perfection, although his adherents will deny this. In practice, this IS sinless perfectionism. By ceasing to struggle, he teaches self is annihilated and Christ is formed in us. So long as one continues to "rest in Christ" one is filled with the spirit and free from sin. This is a gross misunderstanding of sin. Sin is not just voluntary, it is part of your nature. At no point will a Christian ever be free from sin - and certainly not by ceasing to struggle.
Your borrowed quote stating that when we are saved, God begins ‘working in us’, defies what my scriptures say, that:
Heb 4:3 For we which have believed do enter into rest, as he said, As I have sworn in my wrath, if they shall enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.
If they were ‘finished’ from the foundation of the world, why does HE just begin ‘working’ when we are saved? This question stands alone.
Everything this person whom you have quoted says is a work of ‘doing’, as though he is responsible for it to be done. Yet, what can he do? That is the whole point, always.
for if God doesn’t ‘do’ it, it doesn’t get done. And how can one ‘fight’ with his flesh and resist sin? He will only serve it by struggling to resist it. He will become deeper ensnared. That is the opposite of being crucified. For to fight against the flesh as described, is to fight ‘in’ the flesh, which is useless, for it makes you to live by the very nature of your fighting, which is not of faith, but struggle, and not of HIM who conquered sin in the flesh.
Nay; Joh 12:25 He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.
He who struggles, seeks to preserve his or her own person. That is why he does it. That is the opposite of what we are called to do. For it rejects God while seeking to ’contribute’ to Him as an appeasement. He isn’t appeased.
This is the lamest of the lame statements ever, if I may be so rude. It is a statement of utter denial:
quote:
Sin is not just voluntary, it is part of your nature. At no point will a Christian ever be free from sin - and certainly not by ceasing to struggle
If this were true, the Apostle would not have repeatedly needed to speak of being 'crucified' with Him, or of the flesh needing to be 'mortified', dead(Romans 6:7) and so on.
This statement alone nullifies this man's accessment without any other supporting scriptures.
Rom 6:7 For he that is dead is freed from sin. For if one is freed, he doesn't need to struggle. And the Holy Spirit is free to work through him. But show me freedom in someone struggling!
And 'the nature', our nature, is supposed to be CRUCIFIED, which is the whole point! So "The Nature" cannot hinder if it is crucified. That is the meaning of verse Rom 6:7.
Here is another reinforcing verse.
Gal 5:24 And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh [the nature] with the affections and lusts.
Can 'crucified' affections and lusts be part of the nature? They cannot, so long as they remain dead. But they do not have to remain dead.
Here is an example of what people interpret as 'doing', i.e. menaning something that they are to do. I insert this because the tendency in reading the word is to seek out what one can do.But we know that the only way we 'do' anything whatsoever is through faith, meaning that HE does it as we believe! So our doing is in believing. Nothing happens outside of faith. Therefore when Paul says that 'we' have crucified the flesh, he means through faith in the one who accomplishes this. For we cannot! The whole of it is about faith. For there is no condemnation within faith. Oh, you heard it this way? "There is no condemnation to those who walk not after the flesh, but by the Spirit." Well, how does one walk by the Spirit, but by faith.
Now:
Gal 2:20 I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
How am I crucified with Christ: in my imagination only? Am I 'crucified' with Christ? It has to mean something, and not that things are as they were before. Else one is not crucified with Christ, truly, but wishfully.
Paul is talking about a fact. That fact is that through faith he is crucified, and further; It is not Paul alone who lives. It is Christ in Paul, living through Paul, 'giving' Paul life. And Paul actually 'lives' by the very faith of the Son of God who gives him life. That is relationship. It is the relationship. Else one lives for God only, which he cannot. He is dead in trespass and sin if he lives 'for' God, because he rejects the gift of God. He can only live 'by' God, and that not unless he does it by faith.
So a man 'lives' by faith.
God fills the faith.
This means one is alive unto God, and visa versa because of faith.
Faith is believing, is having. Heb 11:1 "It is the evidence of that which is unseen. Evidence means tangible, or somehow witnessed, or manifested to the one.
And this necessarily makes one dead, meaning to be under the cross, for he cannot be alive to self and to sin, and realize God.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
Advanced Member
Member # 6801
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posted
You know, "faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word." It does not have to be literal Bible reading. It can simply be the hearing of the truth by the ears, wherein the hearing of the truth is accomplished in our spirit. For many hear who have never read the Bible. And HIS Spirit bears witness to their spirit. Faith comes! Joy bursts out.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Michael Harrison
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Member # 6801
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posted
Eden, these are all subject to the finished work and working. These are all passive acts, meaning, they are not deeds which accomplish, but rather 'receive'.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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Eden
unregistered
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posted
Hi, Michael Harrison, you wrote quote:
But failed, and sinful creatures have nothing to contribute except their own broken selves.
Don't we have to contribute Bible reading and prayer?
James 4:2
... you have not, because you ask not.
Matthew 7:7
Ask, and it shall be given you ...
Romans 10:17
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Mark 4:23
If any man have ears to hear, let him hear.
MH, isn't it a combination of us reading the Word of God and finding out that way Who God is and What God has done for us, while God works on the inside of us to "guide our steps"?
Isn't it thus a "combined effort"? Indeed, is it not BECAUSE you heard the Word of God one day that you gained faith to be saved, and then you continued reading the Word and you found more and more things about God and what God does and has done for us?
It wasn't as if God was laying next to you in bed reading the Word of God TO you, was it?
love, Eden
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Michael Harrison
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Member # 6801
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posted
![[Cross]](graemlins/cross.gif)
God has lots of contributors. Some are truly saved, and some are not. (And many think that sanctification is something they ‘contribute’.) But those who are truly saved, who ‘contribute’ thinking that is the method of ‘walking’ out the Christian life, are missing something beautiful. God Himself! God is Power. He is the power of an endless life. He is power over sin. He is ‘the power’ of comfort, the power of conciliation. The list goes on. But failed, and sinful creatures have nothing to contribute except their own broken selves.
Posts: 3273 | From: Charlotte N.C. | Registered: Sep 2007
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