Crucified Upside Down

oyster67 · Jul 29, 2015

Count the cost. It just might be your lot to be crucified upside down.

Some think that Jesus suffered so we wouldn't have to. Some think that Jesus died so we wouldn't have to. If this is what you think, then you think wrong.

Jesus died to take away our sin and cleanse us from all our unrighteousness so that we might become new creatures in Christ, escape from eternal damnation, and live with Him in heaven someday.

Accept His blood as an atonement for your sin and make Him your Lord today. It just might cost you something, but the cost of neglecting so great salvation is much higher.

Luke 14:26-28 (KJV)
26) 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.
27) And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.
28) For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have [sufficient] to finish [it]?

dcontroversal · Jul 29, 2015

A servant is not above his master and if they will kill the master what will they do to the servants.........If we suffer with him we will also reign with him!

atwhatcost · Jul 30, 2015

oyster67 said:

I've never really understood what Jesus was saying in Luke 17 there. I still don't.

I've made quite a few important decisions in my life and can still go back and remember how I arrived at my answer.

For college, I sent letters out to every state college in my state. State college, because Dad was never going to pick up the tab if I tried for private schools, so state colleges are cheaper. I chose the college based on familiarity (I grew up in that area, so it was the only college I heard of in my state -- not counting Princeton, and I'm not good enough for Princeton), and it was just far enough away from home not to commute, but close enough to visit home on weekends. Granted, bad reasons for picking a college, but I remember thinking that out.

For marrying, the answer was easier. He said, on our first date, he was looking for a wife, and I quickly fell for him and knew if he didn't marry me, he'd be my BFF to the point I'd move away from everyone I knew to stick by him as my BFF. (We were engaged in a week, so it's not like I was wrong about him.)

For moving to Philadelphia? I was terrified. I grew up in South Jersey, moved away for four years, and came back to the same area (because of my choice for college.) If I got lost and found myself heading for that bridge into Philadelphia... eeeks! I choice going into downtown Camden at 1 AM on a Sunday night rather than cross that bridge. (Camden is the worse city in NJ.) I cried once to a toll booth operator begging for permission to turn around on the bridge. I even paid before asking and paid to go back when he said yes. lol Yet, hubby wanted to move there because that's where he's from and that's where he worked. I was unemployed at the time, and we lived in the sticks, so it was logical -- more jobs in Philly than Pitman, NJ, or even Gloucester County, NJ. But Philly is a good place to get lost, and if you get lost here, it is likely you land in really bad neighborhoods. And traffic? Holey schmoley! People think red lights and stop signs are merely suggestions, and most don't take the suggestions. I wouldn't have to merely learn to parallel park. I'd have to learn that to fit in spaces with just five inches before and after my car... on BOTH sides of the street! (Driver's Ed never taught me how to parallel park on the left side of a street.) And all those people! Our neighbors aren't two walls and a side yard away. They're on either side of my walls. There are 50 house on just this one block of street alone. (No exaggeration. I counted. lol)

So, hubby wanted to, and I didn't want to too much, but I do submit, so I spent a week writing a pros and cons list on paper. I even remember one of the pros was Mayor Goode would only be Philadelphia's mayor for another year, while Governor Florio would be Jersey's governor for three more years. That much "atwhatcost" in my decision.

For my house? Yup, kind of like what Jesus said. I truly counted the cost before going with it and it had to be in the right neighborhood too. (I'm talking 5 blocks long 1-2 blocks wide, since the neighborhood is triangular.)

But choosing Jesus? Never happened. I went to see this new musical called Jesus Christ Superstar and was transfixed by the actor in army fatigues on stage. All I did was ask God to make himself as real to me as the guy on stage. Real -- not a permanent fixture. Not committing to him. Certainly not supreme ruler of my life! The next day I woke up and he was all that -- real, permanent fixture, commitment, and supreme ruler of my life! Whoa!

I count cost. I really do. Thus my screen name. That one? Never counted.

So, did you? Do you know anyone who did? This is what puzzles me about that passage.

Mitspa · Jul 30, 2015

1Co 13:3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing.

The ability to serve God is not based on what we might lose or suffer, but its based on what we have been given.

Ro 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:
17 ¶ And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.

Magenta · Jul 30, 2015

atwhatcost said:

Most of my life I was interested in spiritual things: I pursued them, studied them, immersed myself in them, dabbled in them, attended seminars about them, read all about some of them, practiced them professionally, felt called by them, was led by them, found comfort in them, reveled in them. God said to me, "Put this down." I laid it all down for Him. The cost was great. It was my sense of self apart from Him, who I was in this world. I am still finding myself within Him, as I learn to surrender my will to His. It is an ongoing journey.

crossnote · Jul 30, 2015

John 21:18 (KJV) Verily, verily, I say unto thee, When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldest: but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not.

Easier...

John 21:18 (NET) I tell you the solemn truth, when you were young, you tied your clothes around you and went wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and others will tie you up and bring you where you do not want to go.”

atwhatcost · Jul 31, 2015

Magenta said:

But did you ever think, "Hold on, God. Let me think this one over?"

I read Spurgeon recently and he said that God made such a compelling case to each of us that we're left with no other choice. I also don't remember the compelling case.

Kaycie · Jul 31, 2015

SONG: Must Jesus bear the cross alone, and all the world go free? No, there's a cross for everyone, and there's a cross for me.

"Whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."

It's better to be tortured to death for an hour than to be tortured to death for all eternity.

Magenta · Jul 31, 2015

atwhatcost said:

I did think it over. The idea that God still actually spoke to people flabbergasted me. I was astounded! I did not know it was possible. I wondered if maybe I was crazy... for months I wondered that, as I weighed the possibilities, while trying to figure out what had happened, and what I was going to do about it. On that day, I decided to consult a study Bible I had been using mostly as a reference book. I wanted to see what answer it might supply, since it seemed dubious that anyone would believe God had actually spoken to me. Even I could hardly believe it, and wanted to deny it, despite the fact that there was, at the time of the experience itself, an unmistakable knowing that it was God. So I reached for my Bible; I wanted to avoid the fire and brimstone of the OT, so made sure to open well into the NT. My eye fell on a paragraph that ended by saying that the very thing I was practicing professionally as a pagan would earn me entrance into the fiery pits of hell. That was SO not what I wanted to hear! I pondered some more. I was very uneasy, deeply troubled by the whole experience. I didn't know what to do, when what I should have done, in retrospect, is fall down on my face before Him. But no, I could not accept that this was all really real. Surely I was imagining things? Whom could I consult about this? Then Jesus appeared to me. I shake my head now, to think back on how disquieting it all was for me at the time. Jesus appeared to me. He was a presence, visible but silent. A presence that left me with the distinct impression that a question had been put to me once and for all: would I believe? Could I accept the reality of God's existence? I found I could not, at least, not for a while.

Perhaps you were more prone to belief, or more willing to believe. I know I was not. I was not willing to believe even after I experienced in a very real way God's unconditional love and forgiveness fifteen years earlier (that story also told below), nor was I seemingly any more willing after seeing the face of God and having Him speak to me, to get my attention when I was putting my mortal soul in danger, nor was I any more willing to believe when Jesus appeared to me. I had stood opposed to God for so long, that to capitulate, to yield, to throw it all over at once seemed too much to ask of me. I halfheartedly did a little bit more of my pagan practice, but put it down within a week or so. I could not deny that I had been called out of it. Still, I was looking for more answers, to explain what had happened.

Did you see my post on spiritual circumcision? (I re-posted below.) After I said no to God that day, as I lay in bed fruitlessly trying to sleep, I was spiritually circumcised. That is a term I am using now that I have only ever used once before, in the post I just linked you to (except links go away when you preview). I just looked it up now and found this...

It is a personal, spiritual encounter with God whereby a person's very nature is changed from the inside out. These passages in Colossians 2:9-14 point out that the spiritual circumcision is performed by the Spirit of God. When a person is born again a circumcision takes place. Something of the old flesh nature is cut away and the Spirit of God is imparted. Where no life change take place there has been no spiritual circumcision and thus no salvation.

Circumcision was a sign of God's covenant.

Colossians 2:9-14
In him you were also circumcised with a circumcision not performed by human hands. Your whole self ruled by the flesh was put off when you were circumcised by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism, in which you were also raised with him through your faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.

Oh my goodness, Lynn, I am sorry to be going on and on at you about this but honestly I am finally just now really beginning to understand more fully what happened to me that night after I said "No" to God. A couple of people suggested something similar to me, one of them my pastor's wife, but I was uncertain and did not have the Scriptural support I have just now found while composing this response to you... I looked for answers for a time before finally surrendering, consulting the same spiritual teachers, healers, and practitioners I had been studying with, consorting with, and wanting to emulate. They had no answers for me, and/or answers that were entirely unsatisfactory to me, for where before I had thought much like they did, I could no longer accept their answers as being true. They said things like, God does not really exist, and, those stories about Jesus are just stories. No, I could neither accept what they said as true nor accept it as entirely false. I sat fairly firmly on the fence for almost half a year.

Then I met someone in the rooms (AA) whom I spoke with on a fairly regular basis. We had a lot of common interests; I had no idea he was a Christian, but he eventually explained to me Who Jesus Christ was. I stepped down from my opposition to God. I started going to church. I started attending the Alpha Course at one of the churches I was going to. I finally surrendered. I was baptized November 7th, 2004.

It was the biggest change of my life. Did I count the cost? It cost me everything I had once held dear, but what does it profit a woman to gain the whole world if she loses her soul? I count it as gain to side with God.

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spiritually circumcised

One of the most shocking and unexpected things I ever experienced was having God unmistakably reveal Himself to me. It was upsetting, and disturbing. I was set against God, and resisted. I did not want to believe He really existed. I had been seeking spiritual truth for years, but when it came right down to it, I was not looking for God. God knows the lost are not seeking Him. However traumatizing, it was as if the question were put to me once and for all: would I believe? In my own power, of my own self, governed by my desires in the natural self and according to the flesh which is enmity to God, I could not. I needed to be spiritually circumcised.

The following was not part of my original post on this. As I lay in bed that night of the spiritual circumcision, I could feel energy around my solar plexus. You may very well think I am crazy, but I have felt energy moving through quite a few of my chakras at different times. It was one of the things I used to be interested in. Any way, the energy penetrated my body, and ripped something out of it, which I felt in my physical body and in my etheric layers as it was torn out. Yes, that was the number one most terrifying experience of my life. Thank you so much for helping me finally get a better understanding of it. It is not something I talk with many people about, so thank you for that, also.

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God's unconditional love and forgiveness

I have a slightly different understanding because of the way I have experienced God, even while I was still running from Him in disobedience, rebellion, and defiance. I consider myself to have been lost at that time from my present perspective, but God knew exactly where I was. This was quite a few years ago, twenty seven to be more exact. My marriage had broken down following two first-trimester miscarriages, and a still birth that occurred less than two weeks before the nuptials. I also had a lot of baggage from my past that I had been unable to deal with/put "closure" on. It was around Passover in 1988, and a neighborhood evangelical Christian church was showing a movie on the life of Christ based on the Gospel of Luke. I had been brought up in a fairly strict religious environment but did not know Jesus, and was curious, and living in a world of unremitting emotional pain, so I went. As I sat in that church after seeing the first or second part of that movie, I am not sure at what point the following happened: my whole body was filled with the Light of God's unconditional love and forgiveness for me and all I had done, all the ways I had messed up my life, all my failures and mistakes, all of it bathed in the Light of His absolute understanding of how and why I had become the person I was, all of it bathed in the Light of His unconditional love and total forgiveness. I tell you, I wept. I felt so broken and so lost and so unredeemable, but most of all I felt unworthy. And of course I am unworthy.

Even after that, oh yes, it was a cherished experience, but even after that I did not believe in "that" God. I had begun a spiritual seeking phase, and carried on in that for another sixteen years until God clearly called me out of what I was doing. And yes, even after that, even after that clear calling out, my stiff-necked stubbornness was so set against Him it took another year following the calling out for me to surrender my life to Him.

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I do understand the irresistible Grace of God

DasLicht · Jul 31, 2015

dcontroversal said:

I think some people have an unconscious death wish.

oyster67 · Aug 1, 2015

DasLicht said:

I have a very conscious eternal life wish!

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Crucified Upside Down

oyster67

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dcontroversal

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atwhatcost

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Mitspa

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Magenta

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crossnote

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atwhatcost

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Kaycie

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Magenta

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DasLicht

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oyster67

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