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Originally posted by LemonJelloThe Bible is a very profound book of revelation. If you have never asked the Lord Jesus to come into your heart to be your Lord and Savior what I wrote won't make any sense to you probably.
Good Lord. I hope this isn't just the tip of your iceberg.
But if I could give you something basic it would be that first and foremost Jesus is alive. Jesus can be known.
The man Jesus, the Son of God, is in a form in which people all over the world can know Him. This is very basic to the New Testament gospel. People laid down their lives for this fact.
Christ is resin and Christ can be known and received. John's gospel informs of this many times. Here is one passage where he does:
"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name,
Who were begotten not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:12,13)
This verse shows that a woman or man can and must "RECEIVE" Christ. They must believe not only in His name, but INTO His name. You ask the living Jesus to come into your heart. You receive Him. You put yourself into the sphere and realm of His name, His living Person.
Having and intimate fellowship and communion with Jesus Christ therefore accompanies a new birth. That is a spiritual birth in which Christ is born into you. God grants the one who receives Christ the authority to become one of the children of God.
Therefore knowing Christ peronally is connected with being born spiritually. This knowledge of Jesus the resurrected Savior comes with being reborn from heaven in your deepest being. Deep within you when you receive Jesus you are born anew.
Originally posted by jaywillSlight correction. The spiritually dead cannot invite Christ anywhere, let alone into the cesspool of their 'heart.' The verse you are quoting from Revelation 3 is describing the Lord Jesus Christ's relationship with believers of a specific church, not an open invitation for emotionalism on the part of an unbeliever.
The Bible is a very profound book of revelation. If you have never asked the Lord Jesus to come into your heart to be your Lord and Savior what I wrote won't make any sense to you probably.
But if I could give you something basic it would be that first and foremost Jesus is alive. Jesus can be known.
The man Jesus, the Son of God, is in a form ...[text shortened]... om heaven in your deepest being. Deep within you when you receive Jesus you are born anew.
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Originally posted by FreakyKBHIf one feels spiritually dead she does not have to be introspective about whether or not she can invite Christ into her heart. She should just do so.
Slight correction. The spiritually dead cannot invite Christ anywhere, let alone into the cesspool of their 'heart.' The verse you are quoting from Revelation 3 is describing the Lord Jesus Christ's relationship with believers of a specific church, not an open invitation for emotionalism on the part of an unbeliever.
Before the beleivers were believers, they were "dead" spiritually. This is proved here:
"And you, though dead in your offenses and sins, In which you once walked ...Even when we were dead in offenses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved)" (Eph. 2:1,2,5)
As you can see Paul says that "you" the Christians in Ephesus, were dead in thier sins formerly. Then he includes himself as well - "we" were dead in offenses and God made us alive.
So if you want life you simply come to Christ and ask Him to come into your heart. I don't know what kind of theological introspection you are proposing that the spiritually dead cannot invite Christ into them.
Perhaps you are speaking of some hyper Calvinist interpretation. I think pragmatically we don't have to be introspective about it. We simply want life and ask for Jesus to come into us, period. We can meditate on and discuss predestination in eternity.
You want life? Come to Jesus for life - period.
Now, I was not quoting Revelation chapter 3. I was quoting Revelation 22:17.
Is there some problem with that?
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Originally posted by jaywillShe should just do so.
If one feels spiritually dead she does not have to be introspective about whether or not she can invite Christ into her heart. She should just do so.
Before the beleivers were believers, they were "dead" spiritually. This is proved here:
"And you, though dead in your offenses and sins, In which you once walked ...Even when we were dead in offense hapter 3. I was quoting [b]Revelation 22:17.
Is there some problem with that?[/b]
So, regardless of the manner in which God says a person is saved, we should just do this arbitrary act? Surely the 'inviting Christ into one's heart' came from somewhere whether quoted correctly or not. The only basis I can find for it is found thusly, in Revelation 3:20, to wit:
"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me."
By quoting from Paul's letter to the Ephesians, you are not contradicting what I am saying. Paul does not include the mechanism by which salvation is secured in that passage, he is simply speaking to an attendant issue.
Come to Jesus for life - period.
No argument here.
The "dead" spiritually have a hard time thinking of themselves as dead.
They might say "My mind works. My emotions feel. My will chooses. I certainly am not dead."
Yet thought the soul and the body are alive the spirit is not. And this causes everyone to sense that something is missing in life. This vacuum of the deadened spirit causes a feeling that there must be more to living.
I first felt it accutely one night when I crawled out on my roof top in the late moonlight. The moon shone beautifully on the fall leaves. But inside I acked. "Why? Why is this not enough to make me happy?" I asked myself.
I felt that something was missing. I did not know what it was. This is like a three dimensional person living in a two dimensional world. He longs for the third dimension.
Then came the day that I could call God "My Father. My Father". The missing piece fell into place. To know life you must know the Father. To know life you must know God. To have life you must have Jesus. No one comes to the Father except through Him.
The blood of Jesus removes the sins and thier stains from one's soul. And then the human spirit is life because of righteousness. Life become a part of you. Part of you becomes divine life because of righteousness.
This birth is not of human blood. It is not something that parents can pass down to children. It is not of the will of the flesh. It is not of the fallen man's effort. It is not a birth of the will of man. That means even the good part of man which God created cannot facilitate this birth.
This birth is of God the regenerating Father. The Father dispenses His Spirit into our spirit and we are born of God to be a child of God.
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Originally posted by FreakyKBHThe initial basis I gave you for receiving Christ was John 1:12:
[b]She should just do so.
So, regardless of the manner in which God says a person is saved, we should just do this arbitrary act? Surely the 'inviting Christ into one's heart' came from somewhere whether quoted correctly or not. The only basis I can find for it is found thusly, in Revelation 3:20, to wit:
"Here I am! I stand at the door an aking to an attendant issue.
Come to Jesus for life - period.
No argument here.[/b]
"As many as RECEIVED Him, to them He gave the authority to become children of God, to those who believe into His name, who were begotten ..."
That covers receiving the living Christ, believing into His name, and being begotten.
Now receiving into the heart. Where could we substantiate such a phrase from? Before I suggest a place let me first say that one need not jump to the conclusion that receiving Jesus into our heart must be a one only time matter. I need to let Him more and more into my heart everyday. So just because I encourage the unregenerated to receive Christ into thier heart does not mean that such receiving cannot and should not deepen after one is born again.
Now here is where the New Testament speaks about Christ and the heart:
"That Christ may make His home in your hearts through faith" (Eph. 3:17)
Through faith Christ can make His home in your heart. Initially He comes to the heart in the born again experience. One only needs to be born once. One cannot be unborn again. And one only need to be born spiritually once as one only needs to be born naturally once.
Now the heart consist of the mind, the emotion, the will, and the conscience. Christ authority over these inner parts on one's being can deepen and grow. So through faith we receive Him into our hearts to a deeper and deeper degree even once we have been regenerated.
You are correct that the epistle to the church in Philadelphia speaks of Christians opening the door to let Christ in. There the door is the door to the church. He is on the outside of the church and knocking to be inside where He belongs.
I think that is certainly related to each individual believer in the church opening their heart that He may more come into take possession of that lukewarm heart. This verse is borrowed by many evangelists in preaching the gospel. I would consider that applying the verse rather than interpreting the verse.
The proper interpretation, as I think you pointed out, is that these are already disciples. But though I did not refer to it I think we can borrow it and apply it to Christ knocking on the door of the heart, anyone's heart, seeking to come in to sup with them and they with Him.
If you are hungry to feast with Jesus, you qualify. No one advances spiritually in either case without a hunger for God.
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Originally posted by jaywill😲
Christ is resin
Thanks, but I don't need any resin right now. Besides, there are a number of good resins that are commercially available for a wide range of applications.
Watching you and Freaky -- the two most rigorously absurd posters in this forum -- go at it is enough to fill my heart completely, anyway. I can save you more trouble by saying that I do not find secret decoder ring theories (intermixed with selected biblical quotations) very compelling or even all that interesting. If you have any logically valid arguments, I'd be interested in hearing those, though.
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Originally posted by LemonJelloresin is of course a typo. Risen is of course intended. Thanks.
😲
Thanks, but I don't need any resin right now. Besides, there are a number of good resins that are commercially available for a wide range of applications.
Watching you and Freaky -- the two most rigorously absurd posters in this forum -- go at it is enough to fill my heart completely, anyway. It makes me feel really good that I am me, and not, ...[text shortened]... sting. If you have any logically valid arguments, I'd be interested in hearing those, though.
The portion of discussion which Freaky and I were having is outside of the realm of your experience. That is okay. But if you want to mock and belittle two Christians for speaking of a few matters which seem nonsense to you because they are outside of your experience then I will explain something to you.
"And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled in those who are perishing, in whom the god of this age has blinded the thoughts of the unbelievers that the illumination of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, might not shine on them" (2 Cor. 4:3,4)
In this passage "the god of this age" refers to Satan the enemy of God. No I don't mean a guy with horns and pitchfork in a red jump suit. There is a cosmic enemy spirit who has deceived the whole world.
This passage says that this spiritual enemy has veiled the minds of the unbelievers. It could be that you are in the process of "perishing" and your mind is under the darkening spiritual veil.
The thoughts of those in the process of perishing, Paul writes, are blinded. There is spiritual light in the gospel. But those who are in the process of perishing have a blinding veil from Satan through which the light of the gospel is trying to shine through.
Another passage:
"For the word of the cross is to those who are perishing foolishness, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God" (1 Cor.1:18)
This passage also says that those who are in the process of perishing and who will not repent deem the word of the cross of Christ as "foolishness". This is the attitude you reflect in saying we write absurd things.
"But the soulish man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he is not able to know them because they are discerned spiritually" (2:14)
Here again the Apostle Paul explains that the "soulish man" who has no spiritual discernment or spiritual experience deems the things of the Spirit of God as "foolishness"
I write this not to insult you. And I don't write it to make you feel helpless or to furnish you with excuses not to repent. Because naturally I expect your response to be that if this is the case no one can understand the New Testament gospel.
But most of us who were once unbelievers have had some amount of experience of this veiling and this deeming the teachings of the Bible as foolishness. We also were in the process of perishing. We also had our minds blinded until we repented of our hardness of heart and grasped something of the words of the Bible.
Some of us were not brought up in Sunday School all of our lives. We were in the world as hardened unbelieving opposers to the gospel. But God had mercy on us and we repented and received Christ.
So don't gloat. If you say "I don't have any idea what the heck you are talking about." I can identify with that and have empathy for that. But if you want to mock as you are it is only because you are in the process of "perishing". You are being damaged and corrupted by the sin nature and it effects your ability to even hear spiritual teachings from the Bible.
Don't be like the people Jude discribes who oppose the gospel:
"But these revile the things that they do not know; and the things that they understand naturally, like animals without reason, in this they are being corrupted" (Jude 7:10)
Rather it is wise to pray and ask God that you would not be veiled and that you would not have your thoughts blinded. You would rather that He have mercy to take the veil away from your heart so that the light of the gospel could enlighten you to your need for the Savior Jesus.
The morning this light came to my heart is was like coming to the end of a long dark tunnel of sinful reasoning and hardness against Jesus Christ.
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Originally posted by jaywillThe problem is that you and Freaky and others continue to act like your beliefs here constitute knowledge. They don't, probably just in part because they lack justification. You still have some other avenues for your holding these beliefs -- maybe utilitarian or pragmatic reasons or.... Whatever these alternate reasons may be, you should view and present them for what they really are.
resin is of course a typo. Risen is of course intended. Thanks.
The portion of discussion which Freaky and I were having is outside of the realm of your experience. That is okay. But if you want to mock and belittle two Christians for speaking of a few matters which seem nonsense to you because they are outside of your experience then I will explain s ng dark tunnel of sinful reasoning and hardness against Jesus Christ.
I hate to break it to you, but the Bible really doesn't have much to "teach" us. It has some reasonably good lessons that lie in its (pretty run o' the mill) secular maxims and parables. But as any sort of moral guide, the Bible is needlessly ambiguous and vastly inferior to other secular ethical theories and teachings. I put the Bible down long ago, in favor of more enlightening reading and thought. Your book sure the heck wasn't God-inspired, unless God is a person of only moderate intelligence.
EDIT: I suggest you take a cue from Rev. Kirksey (page 14), who I think had a reasonable take on your lectures.
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Originally posted by LemonJelloSo why don't you share with us about the superiority of your secular ethical theories and teachings, instead of making unsubstantiated claims.
The problem is that you and Freaky and others continue to act like your beliefs here constitute knowledge. They don't, probably just in part because they lack justification. You still have some other avenues for your holding these beliefs -- maybe utilitarian or pragmatic reasons or.... Whatever these alternate reasons may be, you should view and prese ake a cue from Rev. Kirksey (page 14), who I think had a reasonable take on your lectures.
I suggest you look up Dr. Ravi Zacharias and hear what he has to say on this topic.
Originally posted by LemonJelloThere is a knowing of God. There is a knowing the ways of God. There is such a think as two people or two thousand people understanding each other that they share a common experience with God.
The problem is that you and Freaky and others continue to act like your beliefs here constitute knowledge. They don't, probably just in part because they lack justification. You still have some other avenues for your holding these beliefs -- maybe utilitarian or pragmatic reasons or.... Whatever these alternate reasons may be, you should view and prese ...[text shortened]... ake a cue from Rev. Kirksey (page 14), who I think had a reasonable take on your lectures.
There is such a thing as people reading the writings or autobiographies of Christians of centries ago and saying "I understand that. I recognize what that writer is talking about. I have experienced that."
Regeneration, sanctification, transformation, consecaration, repentence, conformation, the walk by the Spirit, answer to prayer, discipline of the Holy Spirit, spiritual knowledge are experiences both teachable and knowable. You are mistaken if you think they are not. You are simply mistaken.
Just as in the natural life a younger person may not be able to go along with an older person. But the older person can go along with the younger person. That is because the older person has passed through the life stage that the younger has gone through. Yet if the older person says some things the fellowship becomes incongruous. As it is in the natural life it is also in the spiritual life.
Now you say the Bible doesn't teach anything. I don't know where you get funny ideas like that. There is not only some doctrinal teaching in the Bible but there is also teaching by way of record and history.
I don't know who Rev. Kirkasey is. I don't practice the clergy / laity heirarchical form of ecclesiatical organization. I don't see such a system as biblical. So I don't recognize Popes, Cardinals, Clergy, Reverends, etc. If they are Christians they are simply brothers. If they are not Christians they are simply people with opinions.
If Kisksey has something to say to me he or she is welcome to post it here or anywhere.
I have no question at all that the Bible is divinely inspired. It has many facets and speaks in many different ways. Some parts are simplier and other parts reflect an extremely detailed oriented writer. Whoever discribed the tabernacle's measurements and design was obviously intelligent and given to technical detail.
Other part like the Psalms are simplier. So it speaks to all kinds of people. It communicates to people of different levels. And elite minded who assume to look down their noses at the intelligence of the writers of the Bible only betray the narrowness of their own hearts.
Why should not God want to reach out to people at all levels of culture? God is love. Whereas you are behaving narrow and prideful.
You should pause one evening and thank God for the mind that He gave you. Why are you so proud and unthankful to God? God has afforded you at least many days of happiness in spite of some problems. Did you ever turn around and thank God for the many days of happiness that He has blessed you with?
Originally posted by kirksey957When you see the words of Jesus saying we must be born again, what
I go to church. I read the Bible. I even went to divinity school. I read your post carefully, but I honestly have no idea what you are saying. I will confess to being a slow learner, but doesn't it make more sense just to acknowledge that Jesus loves you.
do you think he is talking about?
Kelly
Originally posted by LemonJelloThe problem is that you and Freaky and others continue to act like your beliefs here constitute knowledge.
The problem is that you and Freaky and others continue to act like your beliefs here constitute knowledge. They don't, probably just in part because they lack justification. You still have some other avenues for your holding these beliefs -- maybe utilitarian or pragmatic reasons or.... Whatever these alternate reasons may be, you should view and prese ...[text shortened]... ake a cue from Rev. Kirksey (page 14), who I think had a reasonable take on your lectures.
Given that the spiritual life has a protocol, and that exposure to that protocol will necessarily impart knowledge of the same, your definition obviously requires alteration.
but the Bible really doesn't have much to "teach" us.
Presumably, you have weighed it and found it wanting. Now the only question is what standard you used in your analysis.
I put the Bible down long ago, in favor of more enlightening reading and thought.
And yet it persists in compelling you thusly. Interesting.
Also, it is interesting that you and your ilk have taken great pains to reducing the truths of Christianity to matters of mere taste (something along the lines of 'I've tried Guinness, and it's just not my cup of tea. If it works for you, so be it,' or some such). What you and the members of your clan have failed to do is to answer the charges of the Bible, or failing that, shown the Bible to be in some manner or another, wrong.
The fact remains, what the Bible offers is not simply another path to truth. The Bible remains steadfast in its portrayal of itself as the ONLY path to truth, the ONLY source of God's word. What you (don't feel bad on this one: you're joined by thousands) have failed to do is discredit or damage that position. One would think with a position that resolute, that obvious, it would be rather easy to knock the one so holding it off the mountain. But alas, after many tries, nothing but failure. I salute your tenacity.
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Originally posted by kirksey957Don't you think that the first words of Christ were important when he started his ministry?
I go to church. I read the Bible. I even went to divinity school. I read your post carefully, but I honestly have no idea what you are saying. I will confess to being a slow learner, but doesn't it make more sense just to acknowledge that Jesus loves you.
What do you think he meant when he said, "Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand."?