In control of God ?

[StriperAddict]

Interesting and poignant study.
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Frank Friedmann
- Religion Free Movement

It seems to me that man is always coming up with "systems of theology/doctrine" in an effort to categorize God and be better able to understand Him. I often wonder if the goal behind this, is so we will not be surprised by Him.... so that we can keep Him under control... so that we can be "in the know" when it comes to things of God.

I am learning to NOT want that kind of God. I want a God that I cannot fully understand. I want a God Who I cannot figure out! I want a God Who is bigger than my answers. I want a God Who confuses me sometimes. I want a God, Who though I know Him intimately, remains infinite and in many ways, mysterious. If I am able to "fully understand God" - then He is not a very big God.

I think of Job. There was struggle for Job as he encountered a fallen world and an enemy who used that world to decimate him. When he cried out to God for answers, God did not provide those answers.
Instead, He took Job through a course on the creation of the universe, to lessons that were way beyond Job's pay grade. A dear friend of mine puts it this way, "Job was seeking graduate school learning when he himself could only really understand kindergarten." In doing so, God provided Job "the answer." God Himself. It is as if God said, "Oh Job. Let me show you just a glimpse of how "BIG" I really am.

After that encounter with a God Who was larger than he could ever comprehend, Job was stunned, and simply stated, "I used to say I knew you, but now my eyes really see (paraphrase).
For much of my life, my God has been way too small... and as I have journeyed in this fallen world, I have been way too big. That needs to change. This is true, even for us who are in the economy of the New Covenant. Though we know God, and we really do, we will never fully know Him. We are destined to be eternal students.

I think of Ephesians 1:13-14. There we are told that the Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance. DO NOT READ THAT CASUALLY!

The Holy Spirit is God!
Yet, He is called our "down payment?"
A down payment is a promise of more to come.

So, the Holy Spirit, Who is God, is the down payment that we have more God to come? How is that possible? We already have God! The only answer is that God is infinite, and for an eternity we will be learning of and receiving from Him...

Though we should stand confident in what and Who we know, we should also sit very humble and teachable for all that we have not yet come to know.
I want a BIG GOD!!!
Truth be told... I NEED a BIG GOD!!!
And so do you...
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[gordon 2]

It is not God we want to control, because we want all the blessings. We are not gona throw out the baby with the bath H2O but we want to control the effects of his affections. For many or all they are overwhelming. We would rather turn our face to affections when from God and so God given. We have our limits, still.

I once met a guy he was a very demonstrative worshipper... basically he put all his body and mind-heart in worship, raised his hands up in the air, cried, rolled on the floor and sang his prayers into hymns etc. This was all fine when he was with people like him say in a New Life Church group or with Pentecostals perhaps, or with charismatics...

Until. Until he worshiped this way at a Salvation Army bible study from which he was escorted out and told that this was not the way to worship at the assembly of the Salvation Army. I mean I can understand that deacons dressed in military parade dress would sort of seem out of place tossing and turning limb and hat in worship.

So I suspect that what is wanted to control is total affection... and despite all the talk that our sins are forgiven, even in worship we still wear Adam and Eve's first new dress. We just can't stand naked to total affection just yet. God's affection is what we control... as in how much we can take of it. Just a little of it is a seasoning that goes a long way to upsetting apple carts. I can't begin to imagine what Adam and Eve gave up.

 

[StriperAddict]

Adam & Eve lost union life, but redemption makes a new way for God to make His home in our heart. The temple made of stone, not His house any longer.

Might Father's affections for us be realized more and more, without our control?

I see that as a comforting thing, intimate, relational. Fruit bearing.

And certainly worth greater understanding, "Lord, show me how united with you, how loved I am in you, with you." Would a tender hearted Father not delight in such a request?

It begets a new focus, not of shame but rest for those "weary climbers" up to the lap of Father (how religiously foolish). For He scoops us up by a work not ours and gently dashes our self sufficiency to attain this delightful union.

Indeed, if I focus on how enormous His love is for me I just might have great consolation in Christ and greater fruit of the Spirit.

I believe it so.

 

[gordon 2]

Listen or read: I know you are genuine. But I also know that "focus" is a work you deplore. You say so in many ways all the time. The need to get focused or focus is worldly unless it is a focus to go where Jesus is.

I recall when Jesus was in my heart as one baptized, but not his love as I know it now. When I read scripture and focused what God wanted to "teach" me Jesus was a wise man-God. Everyone was telling me that Jesus, the Holy Spirit was in me... and darn all I could do is spit out declarations that I knew were true but in my heart they were true but cliche. They were not platitudes, they were true and I knew they were true... but other Christians were teaching it, and not the Holy Spirit.

And then one day I focused on the Christians around me and someone prayed with me that Jesus would come in my heart in a new way and nothing happened. Except one day Jesus showed up and I was there and the prayer was not in vain. I was filled up with Jesus going by...not unlike Zacchaeus.

So what I'm saying is in my case I could focus all I wanted and yet God's love was as a spider's tread to its web. When the Holy Spirit really "tough" me on love the bible was no where near that I could focus in it. All your preachers that you quote that quote scripture to make their points were of no use to me. The understandings I got from them was "worldly"....with a petina of the heavenly.

I suspect we were both baptized... yet in my case until the Holy Spirit though me directly...I was an orphan. How could I focus on the enormity of his love if I had not experienced it and knew it only from other saints-- what they said about it?

So in hindsight I focused not on Christ in me, nor in the bible, but on Christ in the Church. That is where I met him personally and I've never been the same since. One day Jesus showed up and I was there.

 

[StriperAddict]

In response to the above, I'm not trying to complicate faith. If our Lord has said that upon believing Him in the work of the cross and resurrection we are made right - whether we "feel" it or not, it is true from the moment we believed and then through all our struggles (of life, faith, the world - flesh & the devil) to right here right now - He has promised His intimate, relational life. "Never will I leave you. never will I forsake you".
I've taken and still take moments of great joy in the assembly of the body of Christ. In the covid challenges of the day the physical geographical separation of the body is certainly painful. I wouldn't assuage this distance any further, but in fact the knowing our closeness in Christ is real and forever, well, I for one take great hope in that. I'm sure you do as well.
And there are relational ways we may reach out with this union, hopefully in the goodness and grace with joy, in every moment.

 

[StriperAddict]

And focus? Deplore? Seriously?
C'mon man!
Any moments of my day that my wayward thoughts don't get in the way AND I have a mindful focus on His great love and care for me is an experiential win-win !!

 

[Madman]

So in hindsight I focused not on Christ in me, nor in the bible, but on Christ in the Church. That is where I met him personally and I've never been the same since. One day Jesus showed up and I was there.

I believe this is a something unexplainable to ones who have never experienced the sacraments and it is also difficult to explain to someone exactly what the Church is and the sacramental worship therein.

Christ himself explains the real presence in the Mass which has been given to us by him, through his Church.


John 6:49-58

49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live for ever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.”
52 The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” 53 So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. 54 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. 55 For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. 56 Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. 57 As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live for ever.”