~Historical Gospel~

[crossnote]

well, maybe minimally, they would have to be at 31%

i can tell someone is not as good of a racquetball player than me, if we play a match, and if they aren't i could i guess assign a measure to how 'beneath' my skill theirs is. but i'm not a 'perfect' racquetball player -- and if i play someone better than me, i can discern that too, and i would have a harder time ascribing a number to that sort of player. all i could really legitimately say is, if for example i have 35% racquetball prowess, that that person has 36% or better.

That may be true in relative terms, but to know that someone is 30% we must ask 30% of what? And to know that 'what' we'd have to know what 100% is.

 

[NayborBear]

"Political or religious correctness is always in some order, as we live in a world out of order.
In today's restlessness, lies a profound reality of truth...we as a society have lost our spiritual equilibrium.
Myself, you and everyone has contributed to this by being saturated with deceptive practices of the 'adversary'
of many 'faces'. The solution, there is none. Is not God's love a tough love. We need to be tough
and bold in our love of Christ our Lord God, and loving one another, whatsoever the way one may choose
to define their faith. Unity of one purpose, as to share the glory of God in today's world has been
drastically fragmented by mankind's imaginary 'thinking'. Free will does have grave consequences."
'Praise God'.....

I agree Bingo! There be a whole lotta "foolish virgins", giving up their "oil", so to speak, in the false interpretation, and misrepresenting of what Jesus said, and meant in "love your enemies." (not only in) These days, has this gone on, but for quite some time. This "giving up our oil", to our enemies has rendered now, not just 1 who is not fit? But, 2! Yea, and many many more! However much oil the adversary can "beg, borrow, or steal" from as many "virgins" as it can.
Which has, and still, renders this "Spirit of adoption", That IS in Christ Jesus our Lord and Savior, to "bend the rules of adoption" to such low levels, that, it is of little wonder "Christianity, AS A WHOLE", is viewed by the world, and "skeptics", "where defenders of the Faith" are made. Yet? THIS? Is only part of the battle! (not all)" CONTENDERS of the faith", is what is REQUIRED in successful spiritual warfare! (EVEN UNTO DEATH!....If needs be!) (the working out one's OWN Salvation with fear and trembling)

A "problem" with many many "believers", is that what they have been "taught" by blind "shepherds", is that EVERY "attack", in the spiritual, is an attack by the adversary! THIS? Is certainly NOT the case! There are MYRIADS of Angels, in one's "spiritual journeyings!" MYRIADS! Running around betweenst these 2 ears of ours! With very different duities and/or jobs, if you will. Some? Take you "to the Judge?" Some? TRY to "steer and guide" one, where one is supposed to go. With varying degrees of success. Some? That takes away "only certain parts", off to prison, where it remains, until EVERY PENNY of the fine that has been assessed on them has been PAID! "But?....But? Jesus PAID my debt!" Didn't He?!" "Not HERE He didn't!" Comes the reply from the Judge! (this is where "fear and trembling" is worked out for spiritual maturity). Not for "Salvation ONLY?" But, for spiritual maturity (Election ASSURANCE) as well!

 

[NayborBear]

I think God does this on purpose for our growth and development.

There is definitely a call for some people with the gift to encourage people to come to Christ. But this is mostly the milk of the word. Those with this call would not agree. They would think they are doctorates in the Will of God.

But as we grow in Grace and work out our own Salvation we learn that there is much more to Christianity than the beginning of Salvation.

Don't think I am knocking these beginning stages. I love the preachers who are called to this and I love (most of) what they preach.

But then the question begs "I am saved, now what?". Or even more important "Am I truly Saved?"


On a side note I once had the Lord say to me also "Men cannot give you what I give you". These seemingly small statements show us where our reliance must always be. Learning from and relying on the Lord rather than the teachings of your denomination or preacher/pastor.

And, this is what I, and several others, have been "screaming", from "these house tops", that this thing called "internet" affords us, in these last days.

And like yourself, Grandpa, I'm not saying they are at all "wrong!" Well? So long as they grow in Christ, and not become "willfully ignorant", which by definition, already indicates to which direction/s they'll be drawing whichever particular "assembly of believers", they have crept into. Quite unawares too, I might add.

What I do have a problem with, is in their collectively expressing that "God's adoption process", along with those who are IN the midst of it? Are DOING Wrongly!
Ezekiel 13
2 Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the Lord;
3 Thus saith the Lord God; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!
5 Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the Lord.
10 Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter:
18 And say, Thus saith the Lord God; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?
19 And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?
22 Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life:
23 Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and ye shall know that I am the Lord. Ya see Grandpa? For the larger part? They won't even RECOGNIZE that it's God HIMSELF, that has taken His people OUT of these "assemblies of believers!"

 

[FollowHisSteps]

There was a danger of our thrusting ourselves between men and the Gospels, and refusing to leave the individual man alone with the sayings of Jesus.
There was a danger that we should offer them a Jesus who was too small, because we had forced Him into conformity with our human standards and human psychology. To see that, one need only read the Lives of Jesus written since the 'sixties, and notice what they have made of the great imperious sayings of the Lord, how they have weakened down His imperative world-contemning demands upon individuals, that He might not come into conflict with our ethical ideals, and might tune His denial of the world to our acceptance of it. Many of the greatest sayings are found lying in a corner like explosive shells from which the charges have been removed. No small portion of elemental religious power needed to be drawn off from His sayings to prevent them from conflicting with our system of religious world-acceptance. We have made Jesus hold another language with our time from that which He really held.
In the process we ourselves have been enfeebled, and have robbed our own thoughts of their vigour in order to project them back into history and make them speak to us out of the past. It is nothing less than a misfortune for modern theology that it mixes history with everything and ends by being proud of the skill with which it finds its own thoughts— even to its beggarly pseudo-metaphysic with which it has banished genuine speculative metaphysic from the sphere of religion—in Jesus, and represents Him as expressing them. It had almost deserved the reproach: "he who putteth his hand to the plough, and looketh back, is not fit for the Kingdom of God."
It was no small matter, therefore, that in the course of the critical study of the Life of Jesus, after a resistance lasting for two generations, during which first one expedient was tried and then another, theology was forced by genuine history to begin to doubt the artificial history with which it had thought to give new life to our Christianity, and to yield to the facts, which, as Wrede strikingly said, are sometimes the most radical critics of all. History will force it to find a way to transcend history, and to fight for the lordship and rule of Jesus over this world with weapons tempered in a different forge.
We are experiencing what Paul experienced. In the very moment when we were coming nearer to the historical Jesus than men had ever come before, and were already stretching out our hands to draw Him into our own time, we have been obliged to give up the attempt and acknowledge our failure in that paradoxical saying: "If we have known Christ after the flesh yet henceforth know we Him no more." And further we must be prepared to find that the historical knowledge of the personality and life of Jesus will not be a help, but perhaps even an offence to religion.
But the truth is, it is not Jesus as historically known, but Jesus as spiritually arisen within men, who is significant for our time and can help it. Not the historical Jesus, but the spirit which goes forth from Him and in the spirits of men strives for new influence and rule, is that which overcomes the world.
( anonymous )

For me a simple truth is when christians confess they cannot read the sermon on the mount
because it condemns them.

Jesus's words are eternal along with their meanings
We are to dwell on them, for they are our life, our bread, our being, our existence

But a different gospel is being preached where to be like Jesus is the impossible, and
wallowing in sin and ones failure is spiritual maturity which the self-righteous lie about.

Without communion with God, His will and His ways how are we to know the creator of the world?
And if you had the heart of God before you, why would you not want to know Him and His ways?

Because too many live in unbelief, and believe they know God while staying far from Him, and
claim all the promises while denying the cost.

 

[crossnote]

For me a simple truth is when christians confess they cannot read the sermon on the mount
because it condemns them.

Right, it doesn't condemn us, it's a description of the fruit that a true Christian bears.

But a different gospel is being preached where to be like Jesus is the impossible

It is impossible, but thank God, that isn't the Gospel, it's the result of the Gospel.

Without communion with God, His will and His ways how are we to know the creator of the world

And how are we to know God without first being born again?

 

[Bingo]

"Are we not witnessing abnormal 'events'...North to South...East to West.......
For has the 'time' not arrived, when ALL should seriously take an 'inventory'
of 'self-defining' of ones own self...allowing worldly things to be the master...
and it will be. And such precarious indulgence...let not ones inner most spirit become ...bankrupt.
For of an insolvent, 'soul life'......liabilities shall remove essential assets."
'Praise God'......