@divegeester
If I contiune to defend me, me, me it is distracting to the matter of encouraging everyone [EVERYONE] to receive Christ so as to walk in Him.
There is hope for eveyone as long as it it called today.
"As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him." (Col. 2:6)
The believers are made FULL . . . in Him not in themselves in instrospection and excessive seld examination.
"And you have been made full in Him, who is the Head of all rule and authority." (Col. 2:10)
For we need to be IN Him to receive true light.
Accusation may not be full of true light from the Holy Spirit.
Accusation may just be the drip, drip, drip nagging of other forces.
So this is why the blood of Christ is so crucial to shut the mouth of accusation that we may have peace toward God and peace toward men.
PAul dealt with many troublesome situations in the churches. Many of his letters begin or end with grace and peace be to the listeners. He did not ignore problems. He did dispense grace and paece to them encouraging them to look away to the Perfect Lord.
Paul makes a comparison of plants rooted in rich soil to believers rooted in Christ.
The idea is that by being rooted in Jesus all the nutrients, vitamens, healthy elements of His perfect humanity can be drawn up into our soul.
Being ROOTED in Christ suckes up all that Christ prepared for man in Hi living of a perfect human life to be our enjoyment.
"As therefore you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him.
HAVING BEEN ROOTED AND BEING BUILT UP IN HIM, AND BEING ESTABLISHED in the faith even as you were taught, ABOUNDING IN THANKSGIVING." (Col 2:7,8)
Thanksgiving for who and what Christ is nourishes faith and brings out His faithfulness to you.
Says the man who believes that people who have different beliefs than him are "not fully human".
This is not good logic.
The Bible doesn't say men need completeing in thier humanity because they have different beliefs from Christians.
This is a twist in misunderstanding.
It is a bitter and sardonic warping of the matter.
The PROCESS of being completed must get underway to all those who would be
saved. And a step in the PROCESS is to have your human spirit enlivened, made
alive, (virually resurrected) from its comatose and dead state.
Don't twist Christ's teaching to say "You must be born again because you disagree with Jack." It is not we must be born again because we disagree with some person.
It is we must be born again in order to even see nature of the kingdom of God, which is a kingdom of God's life.
"Jesus answered and said to him, Truly, truly, I say to you, Unless one is born anew, he cannot see the kingdom of God." (John 3:3)
Do not twist this in bitter sardonic sarcasm to mean "You must be born again because you disagree with Jack."
@sonship saidI don't seek forgiveness nor do my comments require forgiveness.
@Ghost-of-a-Duke
Seek help immediately.
You are obsessed with either consuming Jesus or being inside Jesus. Why not just follow his teachings and example?!
Seek help huh?
Okay, Here's a FMF style "Oh So Civil" comment.
I forgive you.
@FMF
Without going back to double check what I wrote, I will lay out my thoughts here afresh.
All people possess intrinsic dignity bestowed upon them because man was created in the image of God and according to God's likeness.
That puts ALL human beings on equal standing. The unbeliever and the believer alike are precious to the Creator because they are all made in the image of God.
In other words when I look at one another we see something of God.
We all came into the world with a deadened human spirit. Our soul and our body (most of us) were functioning. Our human spirit was comatose.
When one opens us to receive the Lord Jesus into his or her heart, God causes substitution to justify them before the perfectly righteous uncreated Person - God.
That makes it suitable for them to have contact with the holy and righteous One who is distinct from all other things - God.
This connection occurs because the dormant and deadened part of the man is made alive in Christ. And he knows it. SOMETHING which was unknown to him previously becomes emmergent within him like a further consciousness.
God is not longer just a philosophy or objective dogmatic thing to argue about. God becomes the Daddy, the "Abba Father" in sweet and intimate communion.
The grass can seem greener.
The sky can seem bluer.
There emmerges a consciousness within the man "Now I see. This is my Father's world. Now I know what I was missing before but did not understand what it was. It was my Father, God is my Father. God is my dear Father."
YOU may think that I said you were incomplete without a regenerated spirit in order to injure you. I did not. It was to be frank. It was to be tuthful. Another dimension of reality emmerges.
"WHOLLY" as in sanctify you WHOLLY means you turn over to God your whole "spirit and soul and body" . But we come into the world with our spirit deadened from the fall of Adam.
The FIRST thing is the God makes Christ our very righteousness.
Then because our righteousness is Christ Himself before God, our spirit can be made the life of God, the uniting with the Holy Spirit who is God in a form in which He can be imparrted into our innermost being.
" . . . the [human] spirit is [divine] life because of righteousness." (Rom. 8:10b)
This germ kernel of God's life implanted in us making is know the Father intimately, personally, will grow and spread and develop into a fountain of life to swallow up eventually our entire being spirit and soul and body.
Like Jesus told the woman at the well.
"EVeryone who drinks of this water shall thirst again,
But whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall by no means thirst forever; but the water that I will give him will become in him a fountain of waterspringing up into eternal life." (John 4:13,14)
Since this fountain of divine life is springing up from within the WHOLE man is made holy, sanctified wholly in preparation to meet the Lord Jesus and partake of the coming age.
"And may the God of peace Himself sanctify you WHOLLY . . . and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Faithful is He who calls you, who also will do it." (1 Thess. 5:23,24)
We shold not despise the day of small things.
The beginning is small.
The climax will be glorious and with splendor.
sonship and his industrial-strength vanity.
The vain man has hope in Jesus.
The narcisstic man has hope in Jesus.
The unbeliever, if he opens his heart to Jesus, has hope in Jesus.
The point is that the PERFECT PERSON is here - in Jesus Christ.
This is true truth.
We are made full in Him.
The process of being saved wholly may be underway from the new birth
on.
@sonship saidSave it for the vulnerable and weak people you presumably prey upon away from here. Tell them they are "not fully human" until they subscribe to the narcissistic, misanthropic ideology you regurgitate.
@FMF
Without going back to double check what I wrote, I will lay out my thoughts here afresh.
All people possess intrinsic dignity bestowed upon them because man was created in the image of God and according to God's likeness.
That puts ALL human beings on equal standing. The unbeliever and the believer alike are precious to the Creator because they are all m ...[text shortened]... but did not understand what it was. It was my Father, God is my Father. God is my dear Father." [/i]
Interestingly, the fourth generation of man they named Enosh (frail moral man).
When men fell further away from God they realized that they were frail, weak,
And in that realization of honesty "men began to call upon the name of the Jehovah."
And to Seth also a son was born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time men began to call upon the name of Jehovah" (Genesis 4:25)
FMF scoffs "Save it for the weak and vulnerable people!"
No problem.
Those who are well have no need of a physician.
For the rest of us - stand up next to Jesus Christ to see if you lack anything.
Stand in the light of the Son of God and see if there is any lack in you before God.