If I were you

Israel

BANNED
I'd...


How often has this been said? Heard? Thought?

"If I were him I'd"... or "If I were you I'd..." as though a man can insert himself into the being of another with his own understanding of himself retained...and yet...be that "other".

And we might admit (do I think rightly?) that in the saying or thinking of such absurdity it is from a superior of self position generally...bringing "our better" to a soul we perceive in need of our "better".

If I were you I wouldn't...

If I were you I would...

Not seeing. If I were you...I'd be you...and everything you are; while at the same time...If I were you...I'd still be "all" of me.
Oh, how ridiculous a man I am! To even think I might speak this way. Or, about this.

But, what other lesson might the most presumptuous man of men have to learn? Especially in matter of identity, and the integrity of it? What must be learned, if there is to be anything even remotely perceived of this thing we call "relationship"...except that there must be some clearest or clearing of perception that there is a "one" and there is another? Might one even begin, if "one" is given to speak, say..."There can be no relationship, truly, at all, till identity is clearly established and the integrity therein respected"? Am I a mad man to consider this?

What an untangling must be done! And must be if this thing called relationship is to be "right". (Do I think my thoughts right? Can I? Even if or when they show me...wrong? Does that make me..."thinking right"?)

Am I a mad man?

My learning of this is mine and all of foolery to think (is this thinking right?) "If I were you, I'd listen..."

But. I have a wife. And despite what I may think I know of many of yours others "having" it would be so very presumptuous to assume you "have" yours as I have mine.
But in the having of mine, this is what I am learning...

And I might ask as I no less confess "Do explosions have some power to get your attention...as they yet are able to get mine?"

I step on mines when I (Oh, I might claim "inadvertently" to excuse myself!) cross some line of inserting my approval (or disapproval) of a thing by word, deed, or some process that a lack of respect of the integrity of my wife's identity is made clear...

I so often am dealing only with the wife of my own imagination...until...BOOM! the real person is compelled to appear...provoked by my presumptions. (Or is that merely presumption? Wasn't the "real person" always there...not needing my presumptions for any defining...but simply willing for whatever time to "suffer them" until...?)

The claim of inadvertently (innocently?) "crossing the line" is a false comfort, false meaning lie. I talk a good game about having and being glad to have a "woman of God" but...do explosions have the power to get your attention as they do yet mine?

One who will only remain in some silence...until...
(And I never know nor am told if or when that might be!)
But...is that her fault...or mine?
Suffering a blindness, bearing a blindness, enduring a blindness of mine until..."things are set aright before my eyes?"

Now...just because to me it appears explosive as though something has lost the ability to any longer "contain itself"...does not mean it has....only that to me it feels that way...this thing I so forcefully drew my lines upon for defining in my imagination, is merely shrugging, being itself...but suddenly to me...BOOM! Wow! There's a person there...that is not me! Nor of my fashioning! Nor of my imaginations of them. Nor subject to my control. (As they have just made clear!)

Yet, I cannot deny, Jesus told me.


“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."

How many explanations of this we have heard! "Hate...? ...Jesus? C'mon now, that's just not a word we can easily associate with you especially in regards to "people". Hate sin? Oh, yes, Jesus, yes! Hate...the world..."Oh yes Jesus, yes...lemme show you!"...But...c'mon...father, mother, wife children...you must mean something like "love less"...right?

All of "my own" that constitutes the thing I would call "my life" is just a vain imagination, things I have drawn (in better and worse) to support my own life. To justify my having and keeping it...this life of "my own". If and when it suited me to justify why I am the way I am (to myself) I drew.
What would be the right word for a vain imagination of life...except death?

"If I were you, I'd..."


If I were God, I'd...

And a thing inherited all the vain imaginations of one who thought he could know what it would be like. And tried it.
Tested it...and his hand at it.

Then the appearing of the One who never let go of "the Father is greater than I", not ever denying His relationship to Him.

BOOM.


Hey! Why you gotta be that way?

I'm not...I'm just being me. It just feels that way to you and must...so you can know you are not alone. It's not good for you.

But, I am.
(The good for you)

And because I am, you are.
 
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gemcgrew

Senior Member
“Some of these days there are just going to be two people alive on this earth as far as you are concerned – you and the Lord.” ~ Rolfe Barnard
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
My love for you in Christ is boundless, without hesitancy and the need of the twisted face of a emocon. Boom! My yes just that and my no just that.

If you were like me you would be a fundamentalist and less of a humanist. Your essays would start with scripture verse, followed by a sermon in accord to some work of the reformers who for their compilations of knowledge, and the only work they needed to find the worth of faith alone and much less essays would begin with phyco babble only to end up with bible verse.

Or If you were like me you would be more of a saint than a sinner, that is essays would depard less from my sin nature and my worry for my salvation and more for my sinless nature, which is Christ and his work, and much less the work of spiritual dandies with personalities impaired by overburdens of guild and guilt, fear and a capricious phycology.


If you were like me all the knowledge you own is God's. Good, evil and of oblivion-nothingness. What is important about knowledge is not how much you get, is how much you need to forget. Like you need to know all you can regards God's love, but hate and evil well we should leave that to God. We are born with our feet in the air perhaps but planted in the wrong administration figuratively speaking. We got our noses where it don't belong. And God is not happy about it.

So in the sense that you could possibly be me....and that I would say, If you were I would never say this.

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


But... you as a question.

What is the knowledge we must know? you ask? Do I fundamentally understand you? Or are you just sloughing off saying... to expose an itch? And so it is the knowledge that you itch the subject or something else?

We know that God has a problem and when God has a problem so does Adam. I'm making this expression clumsy on purpose-- to make fresh that what is to know comes from a problem with knowledge in man and that God has a problem with. The problem is in this: God created man in his image, that is like Him man is a creator, however both are not to create from the same foundations. That is you and God from your origin--- that is God is the creator of good and evil and man must only create from good or have no knowledge as to feed from the tree of good and evil. ( Do I need to bible verse?) I will not use it being contrary and purposely clumsy to make my fundamental point plain.

So there you have it the solo scriptura and genuine Christian fundamentals of spiritual identity. God is not happy and so Adam is not happy. ( Do I need to bible verse that God is displeased with man feeding on notions of good and evil. That there is a parting of ways? That there is reconciliation "set in motion" regardless.)

But ... therefore, you have some answer just as mad as your asking the questions---but a madness from affection genuine from fundamental and good intentions. Love is madness to the world which finds at best that love is a transaction.



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

But we have wives. We take on vocation. We make of ourselves something greater in the lockup . We become one out of that which was two. We add to ourselves such knowledge that it is God's. ( Do I need to bible verse?)


Women execute with tactics and never forget the lessons and men play the strategies and forget and replay them again and again and again. ( This is humanist **.. but might have some merit for the power of observation with ability to conclusions as per the sciences perhaps. A departure from strict spiritual fundaments, I know.)

Psychological exhaustion with blowups is practiced both by men and women. Girls tend to vigorously verbalize it, boys tend to act it out. Same deal, different brain dynamics. ( This might be totally of the devil and therefore I have no quote. It is mostly assumption of occasions when blowup seem to center not only the individual the blowup is directed at but mostly in the person blowing up after the blow up is diffused organically and a sensible person with not pathology can assess and proceed with caution as to stressors.)

Maybe there are no "good" wives or husband in the tangle of good and evil. Rather there is a good flesh that is with good strength that is above one party or the other. In the image of one flesh made of two separate individuals there must be spark at least which mediates between the lesser selves dealing in good and evil behaviors.

Boys are blind because they don't multitask, but girls are just as blind because they do. Boys want to hunt the mountain and girls what to find medicines there. Mediator might be a common vow to the couple, a vow made as per God's design from the foundations of the created earth itself. The mountain meant as a resource to which to invest human capital. Maybe... kinda...
---------------

"All this, that is my own, my self, is vanity" I am quoting what is in my mind that was digested there from your musing about what was your own and how vain it might be. ( Hope it is ok to proceed with my chime.)

"Vanity in man is the root of God's displeasure." I might quote this also from my mind's disgestion-- and Vanity it is a cause to make His designs for man to break down. He does not break down, the designs do and they don't due a restoration "set in motion" through time and times. Bla, bla, bla. I'm being fundamentally a clown here, but nevertheless comedy is a good communication and beautiful if it is meant as serious and intelligent... and funny. Think of the clumsy Charlie Chaplin only I'm his equal as a Sunday painter might be to a work a day artist. Know what I mean? If you were me you'd know... what I mean. Or if you know of other odd balls like me you might have a good stab at knowing what I'm talking about.


Vanity is a heart with heart worms. Or is it a brain with bunions? Guilt is the gout. How's that for being smart and vain? :) I will leave it at that for now. That's what I get from wondering if I were you saying it.

What is interesting is that people have different ways of dealing with the stress of heart worms when sin has been the carrier, the contact source etc...


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


Its not good for anyone to brood on sin so as to worry if one is saved or not. There surely is a system of thought where by God has devised a way and attribute even given freely, but ill perceived perhaps, whereby the worry is removed once and for all.

Gentleman, chose your medicine. All of man's work in putting forward faith as sufficient to salvation or Christ's work sufficient. Gentleman chose or not.

Fundamentally faith is a remedy with one application. It takes or it don't. Hit or miss. Kill or cure. When it takes guilt is gone and so good and evil yet they continue. The ministry of faith is to the sinful man that so he remains sinful he should have no shame or guilt to cripple him of his heavenly health. A salve devised for the man crushed by guilt for his sin... such is said to be in the composition of faith. Once applied it is not required thereafter.

That we are saved from our explosions due faith is due the work of sinners who worried for their salvation because of sin in the world which they found crushing. And they set out to work that God might have a remedy they overlook. It was there all along and it was faith they said. But His knowledge had its genesis from a displeasure with sin, with evil mixed into the practice of good.

So here we are we remain fundamentally sinners and God is the only saint. Though he died for our sins... we muse on as the old codgers who meet at the corner story in fellowship--comforted that like time we are fundamentally in His hands, that knowledge in the end is not ours regardless we do good, good and evil or evil just being ourselves.


The snow in Texas has made the wholesale price of crude to go up worldwide. Such is the power of snow in a small corner of the world. Other than than nothing is new.
 
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Israel

BANNED
My love for you in Christ is boundless, without hesitancy and the need of the twisted face of a emocon. Boom! My yes just that and my no just that.

If you were like me you would be a fundamentalist and less of a humanist. Your essays would start with scripture verse, followed by a sermon in accord to some work of the reformers who for their compilations of knowledge, and the only work they needed to find the worth of faith alone and much less essays would begin with phyco babble only to end up with bible verse.

Or If you were like me you would be more of a saint than a sinner, that is essays would depard less from my sin nature and my worry for my salvation and more for my sinless nature, which is Christ and his work, and much less the work of spiritual dandies with personalities impaired by overburdens of guild and guilt, fear and a capricious phycology.


If you were like me all the knowledge you own is God's. Good, evil and of oblivion-nothingness. What is important about knowledge is not how much you get, is how much you need to forget. Like you need to know all you can regards God's love, but hate and evil well we should leave that to God. We are born with our feet in the air perhaps but planted in the wrong administration figuratively speaking. We got our noses where it don't belong. And God is not happy about it.

So in the sense that you could possibly be me....and that I would say, If you were I would never say this.

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


But... you as a question.

What is the knowledge we must know? you ask? Do I fundamentally understand you? Or are you just sloughing off saying... to expose an itch? And so it is the knowledge that you itch the subject or something else?

We know that God has a problem and when God has a problem so does Adam. I'm making this expression clumsy on purpose-- to make fresh that what is to know comes from a problem with knowledge in man and that God has a problem with. The problem is in this: God created man in his image, that is like Him man is a creator, however both are not to create from the same foundations. That is you and God from your origin--- that is God is the creator of good and evil and man must only create from good or have no knowledge as to feed from the tree of good and evil. ( Do I need to bible verse?) I will not use it being contrary and purposely clumsy to make my fundamental point plain.

So there you have it the solo scriptura and genuine Christian fundamentals of spiritual identity. God is not happy and so Adam is not happy. ( Do I need to bible verse that God is displeased with man feeding on notions of good and evil. That there is a parting of ways? That there is reconciliation "set in motion" regardless.)

But ... therefore, you have some answer just as mad as your asking the questions---but a madness from affection genuine from fundamental and good intentions. Love is madness to the world which finds at best that love is a transaction.



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

But we have wives. We take on vocation. We make of ourselves something greater in the lockup . We become one out of that which was two. We add to ourselves such knowledge that it is God's. ( Do I need to bible verse?)


Women execute with tactics and never forget the lessons and men play the strategies and forget and replay them again and again and again. ( This is humanist **.. but might have some merit for the power of observation with ability to conclusions as per the sciences perhaps. A departure from strict spiritual fundaments, I know.)

Psychological exhaustion with blowups is practiced both by men and women. Girls tend to vigorously verbalize it, boys tend to act it out. Same deal, different brain dynamics. ( This might be totally of the devil and therefore I have no quote. It is mostly assumption of occasions when blowup seem to center not only the individual the blowup is directed at but mostly in the person blowing up after the blow up is diffused organically and a sensible person with not pathology can assess and proceed with caution as to stressors.)

Maybe there are no "good" wives or husband in the tangle of good and evil. Rather there is a good flesh that is with good strength that is above one party or the other. In the image of one flesh made of two separate individuals there must be spark at least which mediates between the lesser selves dealing in good and evil behaviors.

Boys are blind because they don't multitask, but girls are just as blind because they do. Boys want to hunt the mountain and girls what to find medicines there. Mediator might be a common vow to the couple, a vow made as per God's design from the foundations of the created earth itself. The mountain meant as a resource to which to invest human capital. Maybe... kinda...
---------------

"All this, that is my own, my self, is vanity" I am quoting what is in my mind that was digested there from your musing about what was your own and how vain it might be. ( Hope it is ok to proceed with my chime.)

"Vanity in man is the root of God's displeasure." I might quote this also from my mind's disgestion-- and Vanity it is a cause to make His designs for man to break down. He does not break down, the designs do and they don't due a restoration "set in motion" through time and times. Bla, bla, bla. I'm being fundamentally a clown here, but nevertheless comedy is a good communication and beautiful if it is meant as serious and intelligent... and funny. Think of the clumsy Charlie Chaplin only I'm his equal as a Sunday painter might be to a work a day artist. Know what I mean? If you were me you'd know... what I mean. Or if you know of other odd balls like me you might have a good stab at knowing what I'm talking about.


Vanity is a heart with heart worms. Or is it a brain with bunions? Guilt is the gout. How's that for being smart and vain? :) I will leave it at that for now. That's what I get from wondering if I were you saying it.

What is interesting is that people have different ways of dealing with the stress of heart worms when sin has been the carrier, the contact source etc...


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


Its not good for anyone to brood on sin so as to worry if one is saved or not. There surely is a system of thought where by God has devised a way and attribute even given freely, but ill perceived perhaps, whereby the worry is removed once and for all.

Gentleman, chose your medicine. All of man's work in putting forward faith as sufficient to salvation or Christ's work sufficient. Gentleman chose or not.

Fundamentally faith is a remedy with one application. It takes or it don't. Hit or miss. Kill or cure. When it takes guilt is gone and so good and evil yet they continue. The ministry of faith is to the sinful man that so he remains sinful he should have no shame or guilt to cripple him of his heavenly health. A salve devised for the man crushed by guilt for his sin... such is said to be in the composition of faith. Once applied it is not required thereafter.

That we are saved from our explosions due faith is due the work of sinners who worried for their salvation because of sin in the world which they found crushing. And they set out to work that God might have a remedy they overlook. It was there all along and it was faith they said. But His knowledge had its genesis from a displeasure with sin, with evil mixed into the practice of good.

So here we are we remain fundamentally sinners and God is the only saint. Though he died for our sins... we muse on as the old codgers who meet at the corner story in fellowship--comforted that like time we are fundamentally in His hands, that knowledge in the end is not ours regardless we do good, good and evil or evil just being ourselves.


The snow in Texas has made the wholesale price of crude to go up worldwide. Such is the power of snow in a small corner of the world. Other than than nothing is new.


What is the knowledge we must know? you ask? Do I fundamentally understand you? Or are you just sloughing off saying... to expose an itch? And so it is the knowledge that you itch the subject or something else?

You make many wonderful observations...along with asking some questions.

And I hope you don't mind if I borrow from another thread because I see its place also here.


The first quote I receive, the second I endorse, but anyone can see the issue. (Notwithstanding the first quote also has a scriptural counterpart "The heart is deceitful above all things...")

So, yes, in one sense I find an itch...but...my motive?

Oh, you ask too much of me to discern!

For if looking to my own self to seek to uncover it...I find the first quote...a heart so willing, engaged, continually about deceit...that to say either "my motive is this or that" even such a thing "that men might know" or need to, (as if I could be some help to them! ha ha!) or even if I were to fall back to "the Devil made me do it"...
Do you see?

I believe. Or at least I believe, I believe.

It's interesting...isn't it...to see Adam's deportment?

When asked "where are you?" He only gets around to it after "I heard your voice in the garden..."

You...your doing, your being, your speaking...only then eventually leading to the "why" he was hiding.

But the question was none of that, was it? It was..."Where are you?"

So, no less with the second question "Have you eaten...?"

Not "yes I did".

But now "The woman you gave me..." persisting still in all the seeming whys attributable to "others" (LOL...do you see the theologian's predicament? "We sin because of Adam"...?)

Remember those guys? "Had we lived in the days of our fathers we would not have stoned the prophets!" Oh! But Jesus makes plain the kinship they confessed!
Funny right? These guys were essentially saying "If we were them..."
Jesus says, seeing, well be them then! in fullest of measure! Go ahead, fill it up! You who think you are better than those from whom you issued.

Oh, that heart! That heart! Working all ways...at least easily discernible in both/two ways...for Adam thought to inculpate the one who issued from him, Eve! Is there a severance...a legitimate severance...from that heart!?
If I deny, or try to inculpate Adam to exculpate myself...I show only the same heart!
If I embrace Adam as father...but...(and how can I deny him? unless I think myself "better")...I am bequeathed of him all duplicity!

Wretched man that I am!

Is there no one "else"...there?

And maybe that is it. This thing to know..."Is there no one else there?" runs far deeper than I knew. But how I discover this, even of being able to say "it's deeper than I know" of both question and response is all I am able to offer. I can only scratch "on the skin"...but the itch? Oh, the itch is so far below it that to reach it I cannot see resolved but by a total of laying myself open...which then might show the source of the itch...but also, and no less...must kill me...and any hope of my scratching it to relief! Another must relieve me!

Ahhh, death is the only legitimate severance! And entrance.

What can I say? Do you see a man dying...or living? Either? Both? Neither? I don't know if it even matters to ask.

About all I can say (and it's almost odd to me being left to echo Pilate)...who may have given straighter response than Adam with his whys...I have written what I have written. Yes, that was "me".

But Gem quotes another man...to me a better distiller.

“Some of these days there are just going to be two people alive on this earth as far as you are concerned – you and the Lord.”

Yes...the ultimate reduction of all question by proclamation (and o! so bold!) of "is there anyone else there?" What hope to one who wanders! In and out of imaginations...even in some (even if minuscule!) righteous fear of "making things up" (lying!)...should a liar have any fear? Does that fear...itself...testify of righteousness' itch? Can a liar "show" he has the itch?

Or only scratch?

Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.

I am what I am. I have a hope for a second touch...where "other" men no longer appear as trees walking, but are as real to me as I am to myself...no less in depth and breadth though I would so easily (in vain imagination) consign them otherwise.

Wretched man that I am!

In need of probing! To being laid open. To learn...not merely if, but how, it is at all possible to love...the thing I think (and like to think!) myself like the least...another.

To somehow know...and by what (in full measure) God, who is not a man nor liar...would yet be so invested in all He is not...created things.

I have found the little love I carry...even for one I would claim most dear of them (a created thing whom I can even see!) so often reveals "I don't really see her at all".

BOOM!


What will happen when the "real" person who assigns person(s) and personhood...appears?

I am told to pray that I...(and how remarkably this now is so linked to "others!")...may be able to stand at that...

BOOM.

I am only beginning to believe Jesus Christ alone knows all He is talking about. And...recommending? Instructing...

Commanding.


Thanks be to God we are given practice shots!

And yes, my wife takes mine too well for me not to be, in some way...slapped awake.

"Who knows O wife..."
 
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gordon 2

Senior Member
When we find ourselves in those "some of these days moments" when we are alone with God... personally not be surprise he calls me Adam and knows me as none other than Adam. For "some of these days, I don't see me as the guy back there but in reality Adam presently or previously the same dude pushing my colic on Eve's cooking.

What makes me alone with God does not remove Eve from the picture-- Eve I liked as myself in those days. This will be a time when the flesh will speak and not a Gordon 2 as out of body. It is resurrected flesh in God's time. Adam, I am myself on one of these days when I find myself alone with God-- in God's time.

It seems to me Jesus has opened the gates of heaven to somethings or someones who are able to go back and forth...

" And God will open wide the gates of heaven for you to enter into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ."

I think we are to two different clockworks... Personally I think Jesus wants us to wear both watches. ( Like one for diving and one work, except the diving is the serious one).

I don't think that being in "God's time" is impossible. In Christ on earth's time and in God's time. I think one can know what they are talking about in both time zones. The problem might be that two interlocutors might be in different time zones. Hard to say maybe some of us are looking for healing and others are looking for forgiveness.. Hard to say.


Jesus was a parable talking kind of dude. He said the reason he talked such is because only some could understand. The "under"stood is in the communicative ability of speaking and understanding in parables. Personally I suspect that some could do this because they could be in two time zones at the same time where flesh was strengthen from a position of weakness for only being to one's time zone to another or "one of these days" time. In "other" words they could be present to God and Christ and that person just might be Adam in God's time.

The point of all this: You can know who you be and who God be on "one of those days" and "alone" might just be a parable... like others before it.

"To be misinformed is to be disempowered" such makes me a fool.
 
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gordon 2

Senior Member
Brother have a "look" at the same spirit with two different departures. Both seek a resurrected flesh but one from a flesh of troubles it is reaching externally and the other it reaches inwards from of flesh of first order-- both to "some day moments".

Both seek the same things. One yearns to find it out of a world and the other in or on the earth. Both seek to find love after death and so achieving it have glorified bodies and a justified flesh--some day soon, some day soon.

Both, we get what we pray for-- what God has joined.


Both have read the lines, both sing them, but one especially tells of a love and of a soul without trying or judgements that lives on earth within God's time.

1.


2.

 
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hummerpoo

Gone but not forgotten
I'd...


How often has this been said? Heard? Thought?

"If I were him I'd"... or "If I were you I'd..." as though a man can insert himself into the being of another with his own understanding of himself retained...and yet...be that "other".

And we might admit (do I think rightly?) that in the saying or thinking of such absurdity it is from a superior of self position generally...bringing "our better" to a soul we perceive in need of our "better".

If I were you I wouldn't...

If I were you I would...

Not seeing. If I were you...I'd be you...and everything you are; while at the same time...If I were you...I'd still be "all" of me.
Oh, how ridiculous a man I am! To even think I might speak this way. Or, about this.

But, what other lesson might the most presumptuous man of men have to learn? Especially in matter of identity, and the integrity of it? What must be learned, if there is to be anything even remotely perceived of this thing we call "relationship"...except that there must be some clearest or clearing of perception that there is a "one" and there is another? Might one even begin, if "one" is given to speak, say..."There can be no relationship, truly, at all, till identity is clearly established and the integrity therein respected"? Am I a mad man to consider this?

What an untangling must be done! And must be if this thing called relationship is to be "right". (Do I think my thoughts right? Can I? Even if or when they show me...wrong? Does that make me..."thinking right"?)

Am I a mad man?

My learning of this is mine and all of foolery to think (is this thinking right?) "If I were you, I'd listen..."

But. I have a wife. And despite what I may think I know of many of yours others "having" it would be so very presumptuous to assume you "have" yours as I have mine.
But in the having of mine, this is what I am learning...

And I might ask as I no less confess "Do explosions have some power to get your attention...as they yet are able to get mine?"

I step on mines when I (Oh, I might claim "inadvertently" to excuse myself!) cross some line of inserting my approval (or disapproval) of a thing by word, deed, or some process that a lack of respect of the integrity of my wife's identity is made clear...

I so often am dealing only with the wife of my own imagination...until...BOOM! the real person is compelled to appear...provoked by my presumptions. (Or is that merely presumption? Wasn't the "real person" always there...not needing my presumptions for any defining...but simply willing for whatever time to "suffer them" until...?)

The claim of inadvertently (innocently?) "crossing the line" is a false comfort, false meaning lie. I talk a good game about having and being glad to have a "woman of God" but...do explosions have the power to get your attention as they do yet mine?

One who will only remain in some silence...until...
(And I never know nor am told if or when that might be!)
But...is that her fault...or mine?
Suffering a blindness, bearing a blindness, enduring a blindness of mine until..."things are set aright before my eyes?"

Now...just because to me it appears explosive as though something has lost the ability to any longer "contain itself"...does not mean it has....only that to me it feels that way...this thing I so forcefully drew my lines upon for defining in my imagination, is merely shrugging, being itself...but suddenly to me...BOOM! Wow! There's a person there...that is not me! Nor of my fashioning! Nor of my imaginations of them. Nor subject to my control. (As they have just made clear!)

Yet, I cannot deny, Jesus told me.


“If any man come to Me and hate not his father and mother, and wife and children, and brethren and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple."

How many explanations of this we have heard! "Hate...? ...Jesus? C'mon now, that's just not a word we can easily associate with you especially in regards to "people". Hate sin? Oh, yes, Jesus, yes! Hate...the world..."Oh yes Jesus, yes...lemme show you!"...But...c'mon...father, mother, wife children...you must mean something like "love less"...right?

All of "my own" that constitutes the thing I would call "my life" is just a vain imagination, things I have drawn (in better and worse) to support my own life. To justify my having and keeping it...this life of "my own". If and when it suited me to justify why I am the way I am (to myself) I drew.
What would be the right word for a vain imagination of life...except death?

"If I were you, I'd..."


If I were God, I'd...

And a thing inherited all the vain imaginations of one who thought he could know what it would be like. And tried it.
Tested it...and his hand at it.

Then the appearing of the One who never let go of "the Father is greater than I", not ever denying His relationship to Him.

BOOM.


Hey! Why you gotta be that way?

I'm not...I'm just being me. It just feels that way to you and must...so you can know you are not alone. It's not good for you.

But, I am.
(The good for you)

And because I am, you are.
::;Praying:lovey:
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
When is God engaged with life and when is God an idea? Is this possible? Is it possible that there is after all no life in the sacred and everything is a contract? What makes baptism sacred or not? And marriage what makes it sacred and/or a contract?

Good, do we know it from ideas or from what is sacred of life? What is the origin of good? Who first pointed to it and spoke that it was? Is God a man of contracts or a man to live within the sacred? Yes, no, maybe?

I'm praying also?

"What is the witness of yourself O Lord? Do you witness of yourself outside of ideas and into experiences?" "When we are on the same page do I measure your eyes against mine? Do I read the fine print of your eyebrow, measuring it? Do you read it only with your touching? My measure too often is as a drop of water and so Lord sound my heart from your rule what ever that might be. What is good you said it. Make it so I live there with you."
 
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Israel

BANNED
This honor we see in Christ...this integrity...integration...the unity of Father and Son unbreakable, uninterruptible, unshakable, so that to even say "to hear the One is to hear the other" even breaks down a bit some residual understanding of "One and another" as though "two are" with some line of definition discernible between them.

Our God is One...and we learn that any line of discerning...were we to draw it of that place where one "stops" and the other begins...would then be a line (no matter how finely or narrowly we may think ourselves skilled or seek to draw) where neither are...and the Spirit will not suffer this darkness in us. Where we try to draw...in order for our understanding...is that place where "our understanding" is relentlessly resisted.

This is where I find your question of

When is God engaged with life and when is God an idea? Is this possible?

so salient.

If I (or you, or any man) say "I am father of my word(s)" those, and that which I "give out", that which proceed from me, those birthed of and from me...an idea is "born".

And I can only ask if, in your question(s):

When is God engaged with life and when is God an idea? Is this possible?

is contained:

"Will...(Can?... Does?... Might?) God suffer appearing (seeming in being to a man or men) an idea?

Is God willing to suffer the one (as I hear in "Is this possible?") as a thing a man thinks is "his" (idea)...till such time as ...what? Till a man might come to understand...?


Is this possible? Can God even make that...most ultimate of reversal of right thought...work?

Toward and till:

"No, I am not an idea of yours...you are an idea of mine! All your being as you know it is only sustained by my thoughts of you!" Is clearly heard?

I think some of us would have to say "Only God...and none other than God!...could make that work"

Oh how Messiah came to all who "loved" the idea of Messiah! And was made willing to bear such "love of idea". Till...

Surprise!
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
Well we were hoping for a restoration of the the Kingdom and David to come back again and so God would be for us again and we back to our way of life again. But this is how it all come down: "Seek the kingdom first and His righteousness...and you'll get all these things."

What is the truth on His righteousness, all the truth and nothing but the truth?

What is truth?

"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth."

What is sanctification?

Why do we pray of this need of sanctification, this added hoop of sanctification to my yearning which was in the beginning simply a yearning for David's return?

Why should I "seek" (which is a work) His righteousness and then His truth even I had faith to begin with? Why saddle me now with more weight and with issues of sanctification and justification? Why if I began with faith does the gate get narrower within it?

And finally what's love got to do with all this? Why do we often repeat " God so loved the world that...

"So loved"

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

So let me be me for better or for worse, and worse I would not wish, I don't know about you, but if you were me you would want to love more than be loved. Why? Well I'm more myself when I love than when I don't. When I love I create time(s) and space(s). It seems more natural to me to love. To hate is a no brainer.

It seems to me to love God and my neighbor with all my heart ... is a song of experience. But what songs do the theologians sing other than what the bible says. And yes some sing from experience.

And what do I think might be the witness of a theologian in the grip of sin, and so in the worry of his/her salvation? Pastors with ministry to the flock who are often the pastors flock of troubles? Don't laugh... I have witnessed it. Sermons on marriage to the flock in regard to problems in the sermoners marriage or the sermoner's behaviors. Don't laugh.

Now what do I think might be the witness of a theologian in the grip of love. Salvation not a worry? Pastors in ministry to flocks who are the object of God's love? Don't laugh... I have witnessed it. Sermons on marriage by some not married... Don't laugh.

Both the theologians above have faith... who's gate is in the narrows?

Again let me be myself. Faith sends men and woman to scripture of that there is no doubt. Both the first and the second theologians go to it.

How do I reconcile these two? Does God want to even? I would beg that if love is our drive, than sin it must be rubbed out by love making in experience and less by doing so in the narrow gate of words. This is to say that marriage is not a contract to which we write down our names but rather it is the will to what is good far beyond what a contract might provide.

I seems to me that faith might be belief and belief in what we don't understand or see, but faith is also something we can know from experience. Yet when faith made sensible or reasonable to conform to ideation it can be like this:

What is God's truth? " Scripture says."

So to be or not to be ---present to the Lord? What a question. :) Does faith make us-man present to the Lord? It can. It has.


Can life be from an engaged experience of God or can life only be engaged with the witness of life pointing to prophecy?


What's your take if you were me? Life with God present and tomorrow will be a continuity. Life with God as to prophecy there will be cutoffs and today is not like tomorrow will be. In the first case I have no excuses that measures today are not for tomorrow. They are. As in the second where I can cut measures to fit my ideas to fit today which I know will change that I can change them with the rising suns.
 
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Israel

BANNED
Well we were hoping for a restoration of the the Kingdom and David to come back again and so God would be for us again and we back to our way of life again. But this is how it all come down: "Seek the kingdom first and His righteousness...and you'll get all these things."

What is the truth on His righteousness, all the truth and nothing but the truth?

What is truth?

"Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth."

What is sanctification?

Why do we pray of this need of sanctification, this added hoop of sanctification to my yearning which was in the beginning simply a yearning for David's return?

Why should I "seek" (which is a work) His righteousness and then His truth even I had faith to begin with? Why saddle me now with more weight and with issues of sanctification and justification? Why if I began with faith does the gate get narrower within it?

And finally what's love got to do with all this? Why do we often repeat " God so loved the world that...

"So loved"

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

So let me be me for better or for worse, and worse I would not wish, I don't know about you, but if you were me you would want to love more than be loved. Why? Well I'm more myself when I love than when I don't. When I love I create time(s) and space(s). It seems more natural to me to love. To hate is a no brainer.

It seems to me to love God and my neighbor with all my heart ... is a song of experience. But what songs do the theologians sing other than what the bible says. And yes some sing from experience.

And what do I think might be the witness of a theologian in the grip of sin, and so in the worry of his/her salvation? Pastors with ministry to the flock who are often the pastors flock of troubles? Don't laugh... I have witnessed it. Sermons on marriage to the flock in regard to problems in the sermoners marriage or the sermoner's behaviors. Don't laugh.

Now what do I think might be the witness of a theologian in the grip of love. Salvation not a worry? Pastors in ministry to flocks who are the object of God's love? Don't laugh... I have witnessed it. Sermons on marriage by some not married... Don't laugh.

Both the theologians above have faith... who's gate is in the narrows?

Again let me be myself. Faith sends men and woman to scripture of that there is no doubt. Both the first and the second theologians go to it.

How do I reconcile these two? Does God want to even? I would beg that if love is our drive, than sin it must be rubbed out by love making in experience and less by doing so in the narrow gate of words. This is to say that marriage is not a contract to which we write down our names but rather it is the will to what is good far beyond what a contract might provide.

I seems to me that faith might be belief and belief in what we don't understand or see, but faith is also something we can know from experience. Yet when faith made sensible or reasonable to conform to ideation it can be like this:

What is God's truth? " Scripture says."

So to be or not to be ---present to the Lord? What a question. :) Does faith make us-man present to the Lord? It can. It has.


Can life be from an engaged experience of God or can life only be engaged with the witness of life pointing to prophecy?


What's your take if you were me? Life with God present and tomorrow will be a continuity. Life with God as to prophecy there will be cutoffs and today is not like tomorrow will be. In the first case I have no excuses that measures today are not for tomorrow. They are. As in the second where I can cut measures to fit my ideas to fit today which I know will change that I can change them with the rising suns.

I believe I am getting a sense of some of what you say and ask. And would you have meant to put a question mark at the end of this?

I seems to me that faith might be belief and belief in what we don't understand or see, but faith is also something we can know from experience. Yet when faith made sensible or reasonable to conform to ideation it can be like this:

What is God's truth? " Scripture says."

It is not that I am thinking it should be there or that you intended it as though faith from experience and faith in ideation do not coexist. For scripture itself says many things that in "idea" appear even contradictory or paradoxical that can only be resolved to a man in experience.

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes

For would it be unreasonable for a man of only reason (or at least his own reason)
to ask..."Then what am I to do?" If it be only an instruction manual..."do I answer, do I not answer?"

But here also might be an entrance, no? Even to experience for that man...even to that moment convinced it is a little more than a "cookbook". (Like that clever assertion BIBLE= Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth.)

So the man, at the precise moment of question may enter an experience of questioning...which he may discover is the more that is beneficial, that is...being moved to ask.

Ask, seek, knock.

But I wonder if you (yourself) are asking either "is it mutually exclusive?" or "must it be?" That is...is the faith of experience in a vs situation with faith of ideation...or in some way able to be perfectly consistent with one another? I am more convinced your question is the latter, that one does not exclude the other, at all. Even that "they" are both consistent...and even necessary.

We do enter a strange place for our "own" reasoning.

Do I ask because I do not have? Do I ask because having tasted some...I seek more?
Is it all only a "someday" thing...or is their a fullness in rightly seeing today that provokes a faith to "and things are only getting even better...and more clear." (At least to the man's experience?")

Do these "two" mean anything?

"Beloved, now are we the Sons of God, but it does not yet appear what we shall be..."

and

"Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet. For in that he put all in subjection under him, he left nothing that is not put under him. But now we see not yet all things put under him."

Even regardless of how a man might esteem the writers...and their point of view is this; and these may seem as hard words to be weaponized only for debate(?).

For are we not persuaded even the writers must agree..."God surely knows how and as what we shall appear...and no less, God knows what in the all has been placed in subjection under His feet...even if we do not yet see."?

So, is this (are these?) a forbidding, or an invite? (Is that a fair question?)

I believe I know what my experience tells me. But is it in conflict with the ideas it seems presented? Or...might they, these words be doing all that is the writer's deepest hope...now inspired...perhaps even beyond their own full knowing in wonder...of "how" to bring a man face to face with God? For I can go "nowhere else" for either understanding...or resolution.

God...are you withholding?

or

God are you waiting for a man to ask for "what he does not yet see"? To be even provoked by a knowledge there are things "not yet seen"?

But God forbid it seem I exclude what could appear a third possibility....that a man might be given from God an understanding that He wisely withholds...for His time and purpose. Even in a mercy that "your frame cannot yet bear it". Car keys and pistols are not given to toddler heirs even if all intent of "what's mine is yours" is a father's heart.

Can a man be made to bear before the Giver of all..."not yet"?

How then could he ever be made able to bear..."now"?
 
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gordon 2

Senior Member
"You will have plenty to eat, until you are satisfied. You will praise the name of the LORD your God, who has worked wonders for you. My people will never again be put to shame. Then you will know that I am present in Israel and that I am the LORD your God, and there is no other. My people will never again be put to shame."

"I am --- present in Israel. My people will never again be -- put to-- shame.


Seek and ye shall find.

My point is finding this due that it is there in scripture? Is it because that it is in scripture that I can be a prophet for the future? Or is it from some experience that I am able to find it in scripture, what was there all along?
How many worry about what will be--when the Lord made a promise to it and yet they knew to read scripture inside out and to find for themselves salves? Who claims to not know what we shall be? We shall be a people and we shall not be put to shame.

Now who reads scripture because he or she is put to shame? Calling themselves sinners they do. Knowing themselves sinners they are. Worried for their salvation they are. Knowing themselves sinners saved by faith-- yet constantly put to shame. And so we read scripture in the same faith which had the Hebrews with added signs which to follow. Our added sign is the cross and our experience is not ours.


God present-- I am present-- does not seem to me to be a type of what experience will be --at some point in time. It is not a type for when God is present it seems to me and for the Christian there is no veil. The sinner is no more and shame even less. God present now in experience is God present to all times. Experience explains scripture and not the other way around.

Now who who would put God's people to shame or try to? Not God's people. Yet for shame we search where? Do we search for the experience of Christ, of God or do we search what scripture says. When we seek do we set out on the paths to seek God or the witness of God by others?

So what will the future be. I have faith in the prophecy of God, which I joint to. If I read that others have recorded it in scripture...it is for experience that I could find it-- for had I not had the experience I would not look and see. I would try to find agreements from verse to verse, instead of from experience to verse.

To seek the kingdom first is not to settle what it is in your mind. The kingdom sought is a reality, spiritual maybe, but nevertheless real. It is so real that all of your being is to it-- and all of our being cannot be into the constructs of the mind.
So there must be a footing in spiritual experience other than how we can use scripture. And so if the kingdom is real now, and not some thing we know not that will be some day as some understand, then our kingdom is rained upon from heaven then for this we can do offering to heaven--or we witness from experience to experience. All in all it is only a good "deal".

Perhaps we can ask: But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

And so the Holy Spirit will teach.

"O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Before your very eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed as crucified. I would like to learn just one thing from you: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? 3Are you so foolish? After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh?…"

I can ask what have we done with faith?

Go on Utube and see street ministries. So how they try to convince an unbeliever of their economic undertanding of what the cross has done. More than not if the person(s) ministered to are honest listeners they will not be convinced. The economic theory provided does not home to home economics. There is a disconnect the termodynamic of free air don't match up to what the floor duster can do. Nor is this what Paul preached. Christ crucified on the cross, dead and resurrected so you can get eternal life vs. Christ crucified on the cross, died and resurrected so you can be a free ranging sinner and yet not go to ****.

Now from scripture there will be 1000 takes on this mostly and mostly against, but from the experience of one God --present-- after the veil was rent? I prophecy that the currency of His kingdom is love-- it is minted there like there is no tomorrow. Let the takers come.
 
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Israel

BANNED
When we seek do we set out on the paths to seek God or the witness of God by others?

So what will the future be. I have faith in the prophecy of God, which I joint to. If I read that others have recorded it in scripture...it is for experience that I could find it-- for had I not had the experience I would not look and see. I would try to find agreements from verse to verse, instead of from experience to verse.

That's some question a man could face.

When we seek do we set out on the paths to seek God or the witness of God by others?

And I find it a worthy one to ask, always. Are we seeking after the source, or evidences of the source to be found among men?

And a man might not know himself at all if he were quick to think he knows the answer for himself. Or could know it of himself.

And whether one find it of any benefit...or even detriment to know himself really isn't the matter at hand, at all. The matter is that the knowing of God, in God without exception or confusion, is true.

If I (or any man) "use" the scripture as a testimony of this...yes...I am either in the place bearing examination for "its use", or shown unable to (bear examination). Either to be displayed as empty mimic simply drawing my (or one's own) conclusions...or something else (and I am not even saying that "something else" would necessarily be for the better, God knows).

Were a man to say, even as I might:

"The statement(s) of faith will not suffer the necessity of man's bearing witness to it (or them)"

I am convinced some know as true. It is not found per se "in the Bible" but I am persuaded those who have also found it there, know it to be true.

Yet, I am also as convinced that if any man know this he is as equally convinced he is not the only one knowing this.

I could recite the several "places" by which I might seek to justify my knowing of this by the testimony of the scripture, but front to back (so to speak) I see carrying it all.
God needs no agreement, nor is supported by the agreement of man, yet, there is a curious (if that word can bear examining...would "very particular" be better?) substance by which God extends to man the knowing of agreement He does not deny (happy is the man who sees its endorsement) of Christ in Himself. He needs no man to say "it is", but the extension of its being "there" to man is all of this substance.

God is sole author (authority in) and giver of this. And not even deterred in its giving by the knowledge (in all His own fullness of knowing) that man is made subject to its mishandling knowing that of such relentless working of this substance...even if "touched" ignorantly in misunderstanding (or wrongly)...will work to its own end...just by "its" sending to the touching.

This matter (in all, not material), this substance, is cause of all response in and by man. The man says "I woke up"...but God knows. It is the giving of God of His wakefullness.

But, this is just a primer, and no man need me nor my exposition.

The substance of "reality" is all of self evident.
 

hummerpoo

Gone but not forgotten
That's some question a man could face.



And I find it a worthy one to ask, always. Are we seeking after the source, or evidences of the source to be found among men?

And a man might not know himself at all if he were quick to think he knows the answer for himself. Or could know it of himself.

And whether one find it of any benefit...or even detriment to know himself really isn't the matter at hand, at all. The matter is that the knowing of God, in God without exception or confusion, is true.

If I (or any man) "use" the scripture as a testimony of this...yes...I am either in the place bearing examination for "its use", or shown unable to (bear examination). Either to be displayed as empty mimic simply drawing my (or one's own) conclusions...or something else (and I am not even saying that "something else" would necessarily be for the better, God knows).

Were a man to say, even as I might:

"The statement(s) of faith will not suffer the necessity of man's bearing witness to it (or them)"

I am convinced some know as true. It is not found per se "in the Bible" but I am persuaded those who have also found it there, know it to be true.

Yet, I am also as convinced that if any man know this he is as equally convinced he is not the only one knowing this.

I could recite the several "places" by which I might seek to justify my knowing of this by the testimony of the scripture, but front to back (so to speak) I see carrying it all.
God needs no agreement, nor is supported by the agreement of man, yet, there is a curious (if that word can bear examining...would "very particular" be better?) substance by which God extends to man the knowing of agreement He does not deny (happy is the man who sees its endorsement) of Christ in Himself. He needs no man to say "it is", but the extension of its being "there" to man is all of this substance.

God is sole author (authority in) and giver of this. And not even deterred in its giving by the knowledge (in all His own fullness of knowing) that man is made subject to its mishandling knowing that of such relentless working of this substance...even if "touched" ignorantly in misunderstanding (or wrongly)...will work to its own end...just by "its" sending to the touching.

This matter (in all, not material), this substance, is cause of all response in and by man. The man says "I woke up"...but God knows. It is the giving of God of His wakefullness.

But, this is just a primer, and no man need me nor my exposition.

The substance of "reality" is all of self evident.

We are told a story of an intimately related group of men who sought to establish themselves as one, and through their joint efforts reach up to heaven. In that story God identifies the essential element of their impending success to be their clear and concise communication among themselves. Their goal not being His, in the story, He insured their scattering by disrupting their communication. We have relationship, including communication, with other men by God's grace, for His purpose, to His end, for His glory. Anything else is just babel.

While finding another man who has the same or similar view as your own comforts the soul, it is only really beneficial when it carries comfort to the spirit from the Spirit.
 

Israel

BANNED
This is an aside, but I believe implicit in some of the above posts.

And like so many other matters, it is only subtle till it is seen.

It is the matters of men taking into their own hands "a" or "the statement of faith."

It is not unusual to find men congregating around their agreement to "their" statement of faith, generally published and made available to those who might care to "join" this congregation which is often called a "church".

The church is of those being brought by the spirit into agreement with God and His mind through His Christ, and not the derivative thing of men who agree to agree with one another.

In the first case men might find agreement with each other...yet, they might even find some conflict residual as mind is being renewed...yet the Spirit testifies of a unity...even in conflict.

The second matter, of men agreeing to agree will not be able to suffer such conflict due to the lack of the testimony of the Spirit that "they" are being built together into a Holy habitation for God's dwelling in the spirit. Trying to build instead, rather than allowing the spirit to build together in the unity to which He testifies.

Some will say the second case is more orderly...and it would only appear so. The name of the pastor is published so everyone "knows who he is", who fills what office and position, etc.

But in the church, as absolutely no less than in the Lord...revelation is first and required for any recognition of calling.

And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.

Oh! Paul...you couldn't resist, could you?

who seemed to be pillars

Nevertheless...
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
I will return to this latter.

I must note with a smile :) that it appears that "seemed" is not the word seemed in many translations.. Seemed might have been just right in James' days.. and has interesting differents in meaning with English various translations. It is yet different in other languages... So perhaps "seemed" was more a figure of speech in the days it was used here than a direct comment on what Paul had in mind concerning the apostles mentioned here. ( James' boys were tasked with a translation that ordinary folks could cleave to with a common understanding--- but also they had a parti-pris perhaps.)

Nevertheless... ( I'm glad you brought this up... very interesting.)

KJ21
and when James, Cephas and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the heathen and they unto the Circumcision.
ASV
and when they perceived the grace that was given unto me, James and Cephas and John, they who were reputed to be pillars, gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship, that we should go unto the Gentiles, and they unto the circumcision;
AMP
And recognizing the grace [that God had] bestowed on me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who were reputed to be pillars [of the Jerusalem church], gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, so that we could go to the Gentiles [with their blessing] and they to the circumcised (Jews).
AMPC
And when they knew (perceived, recognized, understood, and acknowledged) the grace (God’s unmerited favor and spiritual blessing) that had been bestowed upon me, James and Cephas (Peter) and John, who were reputed to be pillars of the Jerusalem church, gave to me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship, with the understanding that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised (Jews).
BRG
And when James, Cephas, and John, who seemed to be pillars, perceived the grace that was given unto me, they gave to me and Barnabas the right hands of fellowship; that we should go unto the heathen, and they unto the circumcision.
CSB
When James, Cephas, and John—those recognized as pillars—acknowledged the grace that had been given to me, they gave the right hand of fellowship to me and Barnabas, agreeing that we should go to the Gentiles and they to the circumcised.
 
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gordon 2

Senior Member
Your view of the church is also interesting. Much to study right there. Some do seek according to the findings of their fathers yes. But few seek to know the findings of other's fathers. I do. And if I have as perspective my fathers' well... so be it. Nevertheless... I also have something else...I have my own experience that no father can have, your's, another's, nor mine. I proceed with my experience in Christ and from there I study the experiences of others.

Again my search is to know why people post what they do in the political forum ( as sample of society) with focus on the society at large which informes the members. And a great part of that information comes from church in the social context presently and historically...

So I continue.

Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that heareth my word, and believeth him that sent me, hath eternal life, and cometh not into judgment, but hath passed out of death into life.


and...


For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

So I continue. And so if I were you...
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
PS and if I were you. I have always been surprised how many people go to "foreign lands" on "missions" and never take the time to find out about the people they are going to visit. Not knowing the societies their work called them to , not their histories and not about the history of Christianity to these places even.

It seems to me a good thing to do however. In my case I'm studying the people who go on missions under that banner of the great commission. God knows why he made me be this way... but He did.
 
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Israel

BANNED
We are told a story of an intimately related group of men who sought to establish themselves as one, and through their joint efforts reach up to heaven. In that story God identifies the essential element of their impending success to be their clear and concise communication among themselves. Their goal not being His, in the story, He insured their scattering by disrupting their communication. We have relationship, including communication, with other men by God's grace, for His purpose, to His end, for His glory. Anything else is just babel.

While finding another man who has the same or similar view as your own comforts the soul, it is only really beneficial when it carries comfort to the spirit from the Spirit.
The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.

Is what your post put me in mind of.

Those subject to that wind sense it...but know they do not control it, nor are they "that wind"...but just as they have come to know it in themselves by its work of motion(s) carrying them (in any and every sense)...so do they sense it of one another so captured. They are..."moved" by them. Yet they know it is that wind within, even as the treasure is housed in earthen vessels..."that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us." They see "in others" and the effects of that wind within.



It's very interesting to me that Jesus tells some "You know not what spirit you are of" in response to their expression..."Shall we call down fire...?" upon those not welcoming the Lord as He passed through for Jerusalem.
Yet, He does not tell them, nor does the account tell us "of what spirit they are"...only that they do not know. We might infer what we will, but it is without need of inference that Jesus is declaring He knows that they do not know.

To some perhaps, this will not seem "enough"...that is... "enough" that Jesus sees and knows.

Aha! What turmoil to be settled in that upheaval! The wind itself in beginning its work to settle itself as sole motion to the soul (from the spirit) from the soul knows it must be withstood! The soul glorying in all its former occupation of believing it "knows life"...of where, which, and how to find it. Its buffet table seen all but scattering delicious contents on the floor.

Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee;

blah blah blah...(and it will take a "spirit" to discern whether this is mocking of Paul or the scripture...or an agreement)

Oh! Jesus!

We heard him say, I will destroy this temple that is made with hands, and within three days I will build another made without hands.

(But neither so did their witness agree together.)

Aha! Liars caught! (Jesus has a remedy!)

And so it is..."we will show how much we agree with Paul! We will make buildings and statues, some we will call a "church" or the church there...naming it after him! See how we honor him! See how we esteem him! We shall call such and such St Paul's! Or such and such...St Peter's...St Thomas, ...St John's..."church". All of this will be to show how much we agree with the saints...who we agree...agreed with Jesus!


yes, babel.

To see what the wind has blown away, to sense what the wind has blown away in a man...to see the soul "blown through" of all laying waste of derivative things (a man can make a fortune in derivatives! and also lose one)...to some is comfort, to some too terrible to imagine endurable.

Nevertheless the wind blows where it will...
 

gordon 2

Senior Member
The great spiritual outdoors is very interesting. Isn't it? What is common is recognition that we all belong to it. We don't all live the same lives, nor seek the same lives, but we all seek and find in the great spiritual outdoors what gives life to live in the great spiritual outdoors.

When the wind blows to the east the deer bed with their noses to the west, and when the wind blows to the west the duck come into the blinds a particular way. It is enough to know that the wind blows and so live. Maybe. Perhaps. Kinda.


Maybe, kinda, perhaps, Christ's personality is charismatic in the great spiritual outdoors. Maybe the Holy Spirit permeates the wind with the fragrance not unlike a wild roses' which has no purpose but to be there so the bees can feed in waiting when our gardens are but budding fields fresh with hopes.
 
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