The wrong tree

[StriperAddict]

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil wasn't just the pivotal point of Adam's disobedience, it was the very thing that rent Adam of the intimate relationship and union by the distraction of his alleged ability to "work out good and shun evil", an impossibility.
Religion keeps eating from this tree. Beware.
Union life provided by a one time sacrifice brings back the intimate life Adam and humanity lost at the tree.

Now the tree of life is freely ours. That's Fathers heart and will in the new covenant.

============

Humanity, by default is born with a false sense of sovereignty and we go to school to learn how to sharpen that false sense of sovereignty!

Some of us call it survival, overcoming, and or doing what we have to do to get where/what we want to get from this temporal life.

Flesh doesn't neccesarily mean sin, flesh always means, "wrong source", which leads to death. Sin is simply the multifaceted by-product! The flesh works just as hard to manufacture RIGHTEOUSNESS (through an attempt at law keping), as it does to manufacture EVIL (through fracture of the law).

Remeber this, the wrong source was ONE TREE with TWO TYPES OF FRUIT (knowledge of good and evil) and they both led to death. Good is no better than evil when they're sourced from the same forbidden tree!
#NowItAllMakesSense #JesusIsDifferent
#ChristOurOnlyLifeSource

 

[gordon 2]

"But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—..."

 

[SemperFiDawg]

The tree of the knowledge of good and evil wasn't just the pivotal point of Adam's disobedience, it was the very thing that rent Adam of the intimate relationship and union by the distraction of his alleged ability to "work out good and shun evil", an impossibility.
Religion keeps eating from this tree. Beware.
Union life provided by a one time sacrifice brings back the intimate life Adam and humanity lost at the tree.

Now the tree of life is freely ours. That's Fathers heart and will in the new covenant.

============

Humanity, by default is born with a false sense of sovereignty and we go to school to learn how to sharpen that false sense of sovereignty!

Some of us call it survival, overcoming, and or doing what we have to do to get where/what we want to get from this temporal life.

Flesh doesn't neccesarily mean sin, flesh always means, "wrong source", which leads to death. Sin is simply the multifaceted by-product! The flesh works just as hard to manufacture RIGHTEOUSNESS (through an attempt at law keping), as it does to manufacture EVIL (through fracture of the law).

Remeber this, the wrong source was ONE TREE with TWO TYPES OF FRUIT (knowledge of good and evil) and they both led to death. Good is no better than evil when they're sourced from the same forbidden tree!
#NowItAllMakesSense #JesusIsDifferent
#ChristOurOnlyLifeSource

This obliques a subject that I've been dealing with for the last year. A quest to come to understand who I am to God, who I am in his eyes. I've come to realize that most of the self-destructive nature of mankind, be it drugs, alcohol, sex outside of marriage, gambling, etc can be traced back to people not feeling good about who they are. As a result they look for something or someone to make them feel better about who they are. The reasons for this are varied, but from my experience and from what I have observed, it's because at a very young age they had a sense of being "less than" ingrained into them, either purposefully or unknowingly. We really do a very, very terrible job of teaching our children their infinite value and infinite sanctity. In most instances it's because our parents were never taught. The depreciation just continues generation after generation to the point it's just accepted as parenting the way our parents were parented, but I digress.

If you go back and really look at the Genesis account of the fall, where Satan attacked Adam and Eve was on this very point: he questioned their understanding of who they were in God's eyes. "Did God really say...?" questioned the very foundation of Eve's perception of her value in God's eyes. Put another way Satan was asking "Why would God treat you so badly?" In her innocence it was akin to telling a young toddler "You mother doesn't love you." Tears well up in her eyes as their very world is shattered.

That's what we have lost: the assurance of who we are in God's eyes and most of us never get that back. If we are fortunate enough to regain it, it ofter comes only after a very great tragedy: only after we have feasted on all the vices to "feel complete" only to reach to the end completely empty and despondent.

 

[StriperAddict]

This obliques a subject that I've been dealing with for the last year. A quest to come to understand who I am to God, who I am in his eyes. I've come to realize that most of the self-destructive nature of mankind, be it drugs, alcohol, sex outside of marriage, gambling, etc can be traced back to people not feeling good about who they are. As a result they look for something or someone to make them feel better about who they are. The reasons for this are varied, but from my experience and from what I have observed, it's because at a very young age they had a sense of being "less than" ingrained into them, either purposefully or unknowingly. We really do a very, very terrible job of teaching our children their infinite value and infinite sanctity. In most instances it's because our parents were never taught. The depreciation just continues generation after generation to the point it's just accepted as parenting the way our parents were parented, but I digress.

If you go back and really look at the Genesis account of the fall, where Satan attacked Adam and Eve was on this very point: he questioned their understanding of who they were in God's eyes. "Did God really say...?" questioned the very foundation of Eve's perception of her value in God's eyes. Put another way Satan was asking "Why would God treat you so badly?" In her innocence it was akin to telling a young toddler "You mother doesn't love you." Tears well up in her eyes as their very world is shattered.

That's what we have lost: the assurance of who we are in God's eyes and most of us never get that back. If we are fortunate enough to regain it, it ofter comes only after a very great tragedy: only after we have feasted on all the vices to "feel complete" only to reach to the end completely empty and despondent.

Great points, for the sake of not being too wordy I didn't include satan's involvement in the scene. Thanks for bringing that and how his misdirection put lies in the face of Adam (and us today), and how he influences - ever since that one choice was made.
I think knowing Father's heart and especially His truth in who He calls us can have us aware of satan's strategies.
Renewing the mind, yes, let that be our last battlefield together. Although some disagree or misrepresent, isn't the knowledge of His love and life within the body the very purpose of our affirmations to one another?

Of whence does our help (life?) come from?
Our life comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
Selah (a psalmist pause!)

 

[StriperAddict]

SemperFiDawg,
Perhaps the "less than" which was ingrained in US in our childhood as well as spiritual upbringing came by way of parents and well meaning friends who misunderstood the life giver, and the gift itself, Christ Himself, and they feared the gift could influence us into pride and not bring us into life, as is such the case today in many 'dump grace add Moses' messages.
I digress as well.
But I'm not without seeing I once did the same thing, and practically and horribly once nullified the grace of God in Christ. This in unbelief, and my once unbelief a greater killer than all the other sins and transgressions I've ever committed.
Yes, there was great grace and Another's faithfulness then too.

Love and mercy opens the eyes of the blind.

 

[gordon 2]

A) So Adam 1 divides the body and the spirit from a single human nature into to initial natures at least.

B) God goes along with this, yet warning of the consequences. God is set to get the divisions back into one wholesome entity and save man from himself, and provides that for such a division death of the body will occur and hope for a single human nature will return and eventually the single human nature will be restored: Body and spirit will again form a single human nature and they will not be subject to corruption (s). The fruit of the heavenly tree will never be separated from its seed, which is not the case with the fruit from the three of good and evil which Adam chose to pick from.


C) The second Adam or Adam 2- a spiritual and physical being- intensifies the hope for restoration of the original human nature because through the resurrection of Jesus ( Adam 2) the body or the flesh does not fall to corruption due death, in fact the flesh is no longer condemned to death. Adam 2 points to a spiritual clean up...

D) Everybody should want what Adam 2 has because life is no longer a study of good and evil, life and death to get an individual and mankind to the single human nature of his origins before the split of body and spirit. With Christ all is in all, one nature.

E) So salvation is the assurance that body and spirit will not draw from corruption of the body or the spirit but rather from the righteousness of God, that His creation was just right in the first place and Christ is such an example to draw from.

F. To be saved from the world of the existence of half measures good and evil we are called.

G. Man's redemption is through the spirit or his spiritual nature no matter how sloppy that spirit might be or might have become. Works who are motivated by the flesh are of no account. The flesh cannot save itself. Works that are motivated by spiritual house cleaning and nurture are great, but greatest yet is to know the truth from God Himself.

H. There is one spirit that we can cleave to as dependable to point to our wholeness as intended from before creation itself, dependable to forgive, dependable to guide, dependable to be caring, dependable in friendship and to be with empathy and with fullness of love and a wholesome example that God never abandoned man and that is Christ Jesus ( Adam 2) said Savoir who is with us--Emmanuel.

I. My list is finished.

So today we continue to fall in with Adam 1 even if our hope is in Adam 2. We do this even we don't know we are doing it. Does it need to be this way? It seems so. Until the final resurrection we are in bed with corruption(s), including spiritual corruption (s).

 

[StriperAddict]

"The Devil played his highest card there in the Garden. "

Yes, and still he lost.

Yet to us, that became a Life treasure found.

To us, a Son is born.

 

[gordon 2]

In some ways Christianity is the only or one of the few religious beliefs on the planet where you can have your cake and eat it too and still have a claim to righteousness. In much of the old traditions you had to get rid of the cake itself let alone eating some of it to even imagine being a saint.

 

[StriperAddict]

Gordon, talk about a u-turn (above), you seem to carry the common belief and horrific misunderstanding that grace causes believers INTO sin, or "delighting in ungodliness." Cake, sin, and forgiveness? Try Rom 6 on that please and get back.

ANY attempt to “do better” APART from grace, aka the dependence on HIS WORK, HIS righteousness, will soon become a lesson in pointlessness, if we're open to being honest with ourselves.
The biggest problem is either you’re not hearing the truth of who you are, or you’re simply not receiving the truth of who you are……in either case a grace-less gospel is a lifeless gospel. It's still a lie, and a responsibility that you’re not able to handle. If you could handle the responsibility of self improvement or sin-less-ness "cake-eating fun?" then Jesus died in vain!
The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness, and continues to do so relationally in Jesus as He renews our minds in His truth. Tell me what is confusing about such simplicity? Sorry, no mantras have I, and no myriad of institutional dogmas either. If you're well with those other religious excesses then I digress.

 

[gordon 2]

Gordon, talk about a u-turn (above), you seem to carry the common belief and horrific misunderstanding that grace causes believers INTO sin, or "delighting in ungodliness." Cake, sin, and forgiveness? Try Rom 6 on that please and get back.

ANY attempt to “do better” APART from grace, aka the dependence on HIS WORK, HIS righteousness, will soon become a lesson in pointlessness, if we're open to being honest with ourselves.
The biggest problem is either you’re not hearing the truth of who you are, or you’re simply not receiving the truth of who you are……in either case a grace-less gospel is a lifeless gospel. It's still a lie, and a responsibility that you’re not able to handle. If you could handle the responsibility of self improvement or sin-less-ness "cake-eating fun?" then Jesus died in vain!
The grace of God teaches us to deny ungodliness, and continues to do so relationally in Jesus as He renews our minds in His truth. Tell me what is confusing about such simplicity? Sorry, no mantras have I, and no myriad of institutional dogmas either. If you're well with those other religious excesses then I digress.

Thank you for you interest in my spiritual makeup and you willingness to help me in that it should be in the best form possible.

What I meant by having one's cake and eating it too, is not that grace causes believers into sin. What I meant is that due grace we can eat most anything we want, and or we don't have to make vows of denial to get close to God... which is the case of many religious traditions world wide. There is noting wrong in doing this either, but in Christianity one can be close to God, redeemed, intimate and be engaged in all kinds of human activities, be wealthy, take joy from the horn of plenty etc and still be known as a saint.

Although to a rich man Jesus asked him to sell everything he had first and then follow him, to a poor man he might say to get up and work (walk).

Never the less I might be to a horrific misunderstanding, I am far from perfect.

Now for me Christmas Pudding is no different that Turkey for Thanks Giving.

I will say this however, if your not willing to get yourself where you take your spiritual life seriously, as serious as you financial life or your work life for example, in that you will never ask-- many things you will not receive to the point that one's conscience may become seared and judgement impaired.

When we begin reading the gospel we read early in the story that Jesus is in the desert where he is tempted by the powers of the world or the flesh. We know that these powers are temporary and serve the temporary. Jesus choses otherwise. His choice is the power of the eternal. I understand that a rich person or a poor person can do likewise. God judges the heart and I think this is were we can have our cake and eat it to...when we judge from the same heart as Christ's, wealthy or poor we can have the wisdom due truth.

For the grace of God, your brother in Christ, season's greetings and prosperity to you and yours my friend.

PS.
Thanks for trying to guide me. I do appreciate you concerns. I personally don't see that anyone on the planet works to be saved and that Christ is not only with Christians. As we know Jesus was with the Hebrews in the dessert according to scripture. Yet they knew Him not as such or as we know Him now. So God is at work in us before we know Christ and we are at work towards Christ anytime we chose to want to meet up with God.

I think that works proceed due God's call and ministry... When God calls he calls us to loose and to gain. Some things we gain by loosing others and some we still hope for, not willing or unable to loose what would be required. What is to gain in Christianity that is perhaps due to grace that we would need not deny ourselves to obtain is truth or love. That gain in a rich man or a poor man is beyond our measures. It is as our cake that we can have and eat too.

I hope my judgement is not horrific. That grace gives occasions to sin I know better. If my statements indicate this I am willing to rephrase as the days are long.

 

[gordon 2]

And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel's, who shall not receive a hundredfold now in this time—houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands, with persecutions—and in the age to come, eternal life.

You have to wonder about how powerful is the separation, the life, from a specific way of being to another specific way of being. There is truth that blood is thicker than water, but also the case that it is not so.

"For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink...

" Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; . "

On both these two levels we can see what is life and what is death, what is essential and most important and/or two perceptions of a waste of life.

 

[gordon 2]

I think it is best that I should repeat what others say in my communications and then--- " Is that what you mean?" might not come up to encumbrance.

I understand why people say, " The bible says" now. It is a lot simpler as a means of making a point than my making essays on them.

Ok so there are generally two ways to look at feeding the hungry. A) to give them freedom and independence C) to keep them captive and dependent.

The view from the raider side of man's personality... is conquer territory for the raider's benefit of resources and peoples ( if any are left). Human dignity is given to the raider within the context of empire for example, or colonialization etc... This has been a way of life since Adam was kicked out of Eden.

On the other hand the view of the saint, from a circumcised heart or born again is directly opposed to the raider personality and opposed to raiding for its own sake or as a way of life.

The miracle of empire is that one can cut off your opponents hands and sleep well at night and with dignity. The miracle of the saint is that the hands would be restored and all would be given their dignity.

Hunter-gatherer and farmer within a raiding social and psychological context versus a spirituality that would have a circumcised heart or born again heart and sociology and psychology in extreme conflict with each other, so much so as to create lighting and storm as when cold air and warm air collide in the heavens etc....

--------------------------

We are the heirs of:

• Persian empire. Also known as the Achaemenian Empire, the kingdom created under Cyrus the Great stretched from Iran into Central Asia and Egypt.
• Han dynasty.
• Umayyad Caliphate.
• Mongol empire.
• Ottoman Empire.
• Spanish empire.
• Russian Empire.
• British Empire.
• And recent ones...

What Christianity for example proposes from its kingdom is radically different that the common motivation for these empires. The manifest destiny of empires is opposite the manifest destiny of Christianity for example.

So if I'm mildly correct we are knowingly and unknowingly heirs of Cain. What Jesus does is to wash away our Cain nature by making available an other one in real time and space which we can have by a new heritage-- one that is a God sent... We are born again to where the beast is plain as bible readers can show you and yet we join forces with the beast for a lot less than what caused Cain to club Able. Maybe.

???? ( I find this perplexing... if I'm correct of course.) I think that man has ever been at odds with empires or the beast. I think for example of the Hebrew captives who although they were stiffed necked and mostly pagans prayed none the less that they would be rescued from captivity and given them their freedom. ( We know that they could not keep their freedom. I have to wonder if they had a Benjamin Franklin of their own who warned them. " So now you have it. Can you keep it?"

It is not a case of it is greener on the other side in this case for the Hebrews, it is that God is with the down trodden as the only hope! It's the "In your fox hole thing... you, God and the Beast. Who you gona call?" To fight off the enemy only to become like them is not spiritual, it is buying into the beast sociology that oppresses. It is simply saying we will be the oppressors not YOU! But that is not what God has in mind when he would motivate people to get up and walk and be somebody--Be my people. etc... It is not what God has as a salvation plan.

What is good and evil for the politics of empire or a raiding culture ( tribe-clan-cabal-family) is not the same source for the good and evil in the politics of the saint and sometimes, many times saints mix the two like it was second nature to do so...

I find this perplexing. Seems we are slow to repentance or even unwilling.

 

[gordon 2]

I suppose.

There is life where good stands by itself. Where what is thought does not suffer from need of "in perspective", of similar and opposed, of metaphor, of symbol, of sayings things said of which they are not what is stated.

The narrative of Pharaoh vs Hebrew, Moses vs Egyptian, the history of good and evil for this tree, teaches the Pharaoh and Hebrew, Moses and Egyptian a law from the law. Such is the teacher to millions, perhaps billions. The law has two eyes, two horns and a good nose ring is required to manage its man. And even with a nose ring the rod and worse cannot be spared. ( I am saying things that are not about the things I say in this context. I speak from both sides of my mouth for good and evil, both, yet my heart would not knowingly, willingly seek evil. I see not evil yet it is within my fabric. If I am righteous, it is with an eye to that which is not.

But there is another way to be and that way is the way of the sinless Christ who I discern not due an opposition to good and evil. The secret of Christ for me is not the crucifixion, the ins and outs for it, but the resurrected Christ that would through grace teach directly from the tree of life alone ( that is without the perspectives of good and evil.)

My problem is not with the world. The world keeps the law and clings to the history, precedence of the law, and so defining God and man for it. This man feeds from such a tree.

My problem is with the Christian who abide that Jesus had not come to do away with the law and so are willing to live by its tree because they are bound to live "in the world" and so when in Rome... We wait for the trumpet and an end to our sins and sorrows they sing. They teach themselves these things.

My problem is with Christians who are wiser than Solomon, having baptized themselves in Christ, OSAS, born again who are motivated by the perspectives of the law.

I am perplexed on where the emphasis in this verse is most generally applied:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Believe:

Personally I believed and filed down belief to a sharpness that if I had kept it up I would have destroyed the knife. ( I say things but mean somethings else.)

Everlasting life:

Not everyone has the same definition for everlasting life because we all have different perspectives. We are not at all at the the same place going up that great mountain that will deliver the "good".

For God so loved the world:

Yes God is love, love is God. The perspective is a no brainer, being a perspective for the occasionally encouraged out of their laziness.

-----------------

So it seems it does not matter who we are in Christ, it does not matter that Christ would in fact remove our sins, or heal us, or teach us directly we walk in the world by the ways of the world, by the world's perspectives of good and evil.

Is the famed heart of flesh but a reminder of the heart of stone, that the heart of stone still has room in our bodies oru beings to use(s) against the world because after all is said and done we are bound to the world till the last trumpet call. Is our heart of flesh to use as perspective, as if it was gained from the tree of good and evil?

Yes I'm perplexed. I speak with double entendre most of the time. I can convince myself that I have been fed by love that the world does not know, yet I read prophecy with double entendre...my yeas are half hearted or double hearted. Maybe, maybe-not a fence sitter depending who asks.


“If anyone hears my words but does not keep them, I do not judge that person. For I did not come to judge the world, but to save the world.

I heard and I kept...what only God can give to his, not as the world gives to its own. So I am perplexed, shocked that I talk from both sides of my mouth and understand prophecy on many levels. It frightens me depending who asks.

 

[gordon 2]

To rejoice. To re-joice. Joice-Joyce

Joice as a girl's name is a variant of Joy (Old French, Latin) and Joyce (Latin), and the meaning of Joice is "joy; lord".

 

[gordon 2]

Quote: Good is no better than evil when they're sourced from the same forbidden tree! End quote.

Joy is no better than Tribulation when sourced from the forbidden tree?

So it will boil down to God as the proper, or good only, source. This tree opposite the tree of good and evil, and who's got the best knowledge of God, the best definition of who God is, and what God is about? It will boil down to the knowledge of the ways God communicates with man and the best of these.

It will boil down to Two ways of hearing at least, and many understandings. It will boil down to being and moved one way as in heaven and being and moved one way on earth.

Our Joy is but the ancient hope that there will one day be peace on earth goodwill to men.

I recall reading that a Zen Buddhist master while he was working at bagging rice was asked what is Zen? To which he replied, " It is rice." I can only assume that the master had trained so to free his mind and his self, at the point that the focus to rid all distractions was what ever he had in hand in his work. Long were gone the days where he had to sit still to purge all the illusions that occupied the space between the stillness of his mind and mindlessness or no mind and a what was in his hand be it rice or no thing. For him there was but a grain of rice dropping and giving form to mind for the sound of a voice asking a question. One was never without the other. One was ever two at least.

I have to wonder if our Christ, God, is as the Master's grain of rice and our minds are born again to hope or newest hope. The world is but an old echo, asking questions, or supplying answers possible from their own motivations-- the world of legions.

Now does that leave us with this knowledge and as Christ's, having his hands in our hands, to a firmer reality than the world's as it feeds off the Tree of Good and Evil? His heart in our heart to a firmer reality?

Jesus says I give you not as the world gives and more precisely:

"Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

One thing ( peace) is give and no two things ( fear and troubles) should be made of it. If I understand correctly.

What is this "Peace" which is Christ's? That our hearts not be fearful or afraid? Somehow I don't think this "Peace" is picked up and with training it becomes a handful of rice as per above mentioned? But it is surely not hope alone either.

What is love? What's it all about picked up from Jerusalem, yet picked up today in real time, from an event in real time 2000yrs ago ? What has endured that many generations have picked the same fruit of a single tree, the same tree...as if it will feed for all time all the earth or heaven and earth or on earth as it is in heaven?


Why going to first love is so important?

We say God is love. Do you think we will ever say, " Man is love?"

Why/ Why not?

Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. How do we dance this that it becomes not a dance but our walk itself? Is this possible/ Is it too much to ask? Are we ever condemned to fall short of the glory of God?

 

[gordon 2]

"And even to this day when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. 16But whenever anyone turns to the Lord, the veil is taken away.…"

 

[StriperAddict]

My problem is with Christians who are wiser than Solomon, having baptized themselves in Christ, OSAS, born again who are motivated by the perspectives of the law.

I am perplexed on where the emphasis in this verse is most generally applied:

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”



I heard and I kept...what only God can give to his, not as the world gives to its own. So I am perplexed, shocked that I talk from both sides of my mouth and understand prophecy on many levels. It frightens me depending who asks.

I'm getting back late per all manner of life entanglements, lol.

Thank you (both Gordon and Israel). I'll check the remaining posts after last Sunday and glean ya'lls considerations.

My first reply, especially to the above quote, is for you, myself and all who have called on Jesus to know the peace of Him that really does pass all understanding. It is to this end I write.
Of course, I have also the strains of life perplexities often in my face but knowing the gentle peace of Him who has taken up a permanent home.
I understand many persons problems with calling the God life gifted to us as something that can never be removed, aka OSAS, but the comfort of this RELATIONSHIP (and as some have issue with "relationship" also), well, I'm certain there's more to say on the heart and spirit transformation that also keeps us "in the love of God" and no matter of self steering the wheel can remove Christ within.

As to the world and its pressure against the divine life? Harrummph! (Bah humbug??? ) GREATER IS HE ...

1 John 4:4:
Ye are of God little children (security!), and have overcome them(have overcome them, past action (faith in Christ, which results in a present reality!):
because ... (hearken, listen up, this is REALLY GOOD),
greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.




I trust your celebrations of the human birth of Immanuel, God with us, will bring you and your families joy this week.

 

[gordon 2]

I'm getting back late per all manner of life entanglements, lol.

Thank you (both Gordon and Israel). I'll check the remaining posts after last Sunday and glean ya'lls considerations.

My first reply, especially to the above quote, is for you, myself and all who have called on Jesus to know the peace of Him that really does pass all understanding. It is to this end I write.
Of course, I have also the strains of life perplexities often in my face but knowing the gentle peace of Him who has taken up a permanent home.
I understand many persons problems with calling the God life gifted to us as something that can never be removed, aka OSAS, but the comfort of this RELATIONSHIP (and as some have issue with "relationship" also), well, I'm certain there's more to say on the heart and spirit transformation that also keeps us "in the love of God" and no matter of self steering the wheel can remove Christ within.

As to the world and its pressure against the divine life? Harrummph! (Bah humbug??? ) GREATER IS HE ...

1 John 4:4:
Ye are of God little children (security!), and have overcome them(have overcome them, past action (faith in Christ, which results in a present reality!):
because ... (hearken, listen up, this is REALLY GOOD),
greater is He that is in you, than he that is in the world.




I trust your celebrations of the human birth of Immanuel, God with us, will bring you and your families joy this week.

Your trust is well placed. The same to you.