I recently received two questions on this from different folk so I thought it might be useful to raise the question here.

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Ron Bailey

And the layperson jumps up from the peanut gallery ...

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Mike Balog

To expound a bit
Some Philologos style Biblical algebra...

A) in + 'of'* = "Your's" ?

B) in + of = "His" ?

C) in - of = "Lord, Lord, did we not ..."

(* Thinking along the lines of mental accession)

Pardon the slight diversion, but it does seem that in large part this does relate to the idea and the 'sound' of "inviting Christ into your life" if referenced to the result of "A" above (Your's) as it is much promoted in our modern day and gives one (at least this one) a case of the 'willies', that squirmy feeling that we are giving people the wrong end of the stick.

Who did the inviting?

Mat 23:37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!
Mat 23:38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate.

Mat 19:14 But Jesus said, Suffer the little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for to such belongeth the kingdom of heaven.

Joh 6:44 No man can come to me, except the Father that sent me draw him: and I will raise him up in the last day.

Yes, quite familiar with the usage of;

Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

and the application and/or whether this applies 'only' to the church...

But frankly, it's a takeover plot and if we give the result of "A" instead of "B" we end up with "C".

Even the demons believe in part of the equations.
Think I have lost myself in all this math...

Guess I am just trying to say, "Who's got who?"
"Belonging to" as Ron put it.

And as it relates to this discussion there is much [b]faith in[/b]... all kinds of who knows what, "Faith [b]in[/b] 'Faith'" of the prosperity gospel\Word of Faith type, "Faith in Christ" as some type of fire insurance (never reading the fine print)... I digress, sorry for the length, just some brain dumping, do ignore the fumbling...

Better said by Paris Reidhead;

[i]He's like a fellow driving up in a big Cadillac you know, to someone standing at a filling station saying “Fill her up, Bud, with the highest octane you got.” Well, that’s the way it looked, he wanted power for his program. And God is not going to be a means to anyone’s end.

I said, “I’m awfully sorry, I don’t think I can help you." He said “Why?” "I don’t think you’re ready. Well suppose, you consider yourself coming up with a Cadillac, you’ve talked about your program, you’ve talked about your radio, you’ve talked about your Sunday school and church. Very good. You’ve done wonderfully well without the power of the Holy Spirit.” That’s what the Chinese Christian said you know when he got back to China. “What impressed you most about America?” He said, “The great things Americans can accomplish without God.” And he’d accomplished a great deal, admittedly, without God. And now he’s wanted something, power, to accomplish his end even further.

I said “No. No. You’re gonna, you're sitting behind the wheel and you’re saying to God, 'Give me power so I can go.' You won't work, you gotta slide over." But I knew that rascal, 'cause I knew me. I said, “No it’ll never do. You gotta get in the back seat.” And I could see him leaning over and grabbing the wheel. “No,” I said.
“It’ll never do in the back seat.”

I said “Before God’ll do anything for you, you know what you gotta do?” And he said, “What?” I said, “You gotta get out of the car, take the keys around, open up the trunk lid, hand the keys to the Lord Jesus, get inside the trunk, slam the lid down, whisper through the keyhole, ‘Lord, look, fill her up with anything You want and You drive, it’s up to You from now on.’” [/i]

[url=https://www.sermonindex.net/modules/newbb/viewtopic.php?viewmode=flat&order=0&topic_id=1573&forum=40&post_id=&refresh=Go]"The Revival Hymn" Audio Transcription[/url]

Got a feeling I really botched this up and made it more confusing than necessary and didn't want to go off on some negative dirge...

Maybe the simplest way to put it is that you can't separate one from the other?

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Mike Balog

Hi Bro Ron and Bro Mike,

A couple things pop-up in my mind. I know that one of the gifts of the Spirit is faith and that God has dealt unto every man the 'measure' of faith. In both cases it seems clear to me that the faith in question is a gift from God to us to exercise as needed. It would seem that faith IN Christ would be to exercise the faith OF Christ (Christ's faith that he gave to us) in Him. Perhaps faith is the catalyst that activated the power of God; but in all cases it seems God's will must come into play. I don't know how you would diagram that statement? :-?

The faith folk seem to believe faith is a force that can be weilded. They believe that God used the force of faith to create the cosmos (Hebrews 11 is their proof text). Yet, I understand that passage to say; "By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God..." Faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. I understand by faith, not God created by faith. Who was it I read here that said, "Faith where there is no promise is superstition?" This is exactly my point. If faith can be weilded as a force...

Any thoughts?

God Bless,

-Robert

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Robert Wurtz II

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Robert Wurtz II

This has really stayed with me and forgive me for the earlier tangent, not sure I was fully engaged at least in attempting mathematical equations.

Still fascinated with the implications of these questions and the tense of those 2, two letter words in this context of the questions asked originally.

Another that jumped up;

1Co 2:16 For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he should instruct him? But we have [b]the mind of Christ.[/b]

Still thinking along the lines of [i]both[/i]. And I think another reason is that it applies to much of our dialouge when it comes to 'dying to self', justification by faith and a whole host of other questions that come up, especially early on in this walk.

Reaching back to those early days when the mind is beginning to be torqued into all kinds of uncomfortable positions...And as it ought to be, being born again should produce some crying as the Holy Spirit begins to deal with us, revealing our hearts, touching our pride, anger, unforgiveness, that 'old' disposition and it's bents toward evil ("You, being [i]evil[/i]...)

And it isn't too far along where the confusion set's in as to 'who has which job' now. Do I sit passively by as 'the Lord works through me'? What am I supposed to [b]do[/b]? All the implications and the stalling at Romans 7; 'Wretched man that I am...'

Albert Barnes has some excellent commentary on
1Co 2. A snippet;

"[i] The faith of Christians does not stand in the wisdom of man. Every Christian has evidence in his own heart, in his experience, and in the transformation of his character, that none but God could have made the change on his soul. His hopes, his joys, his peace, his sanctification, his love of prayer, of the Bible, of Christians, of God, and of Christ, are all such as nothing could have produced but the mighty power of God. All these bear marks of their high origin. They are the work of God on the soul. And as the Christian is fully conscious that these are not the native feelings, of his heart - that if left to himself he would never have had them; so he has the fullest demonstration that they are to be traced to a divine source. And can he be mistaken about their existence? Can a man doubt whether he has joy, and peace, and happiness? Is the infidel to tell him coolly that he must be mistaken in regard to the existence of these emotions, and that it is all delusion?"[/i]

Preaching to the choir? Trying to keep in mind that you never know who may be peering in on these conversations.

More and more am beginning to see what it means in the spiritual sense of "He must increase, I must decrease" and where the "Faith [b]of[/b]" and the "Faith [b]in[/b]" meet. Something that Oswald Chambers weaves into much of his writing and has crept into my thinking; Disposition. Not as much as a 'replacement' per se but as in changed, "[i]being conformed into[/i]."

Two more words:

[b]ac·qui·si·tion[/b]
Pronunciation: "a-kw&-'zi-sh&n
Function: noun
1 : the act or action of acquiring; specifically : the obtaining of controlling interest in a company —compare MERGER, TAKEOVER
2 : a thing gained or acquired


[b]merg·er[/b]
Pronunciation: 'm&r-j&r
Function: noun
1 : the absorption of a lesser estate or interest into a greater one held by the same person —compare CONFUSION

~~~~~~~

This latter definition strikes me as quite profound as it applies here, especially the irony of 'CONFUSSION' tacked on to the end. So in that sense the "Faith [b]in[/b]" is 'our' part with the "Faith [b]of[/b]" 'His' part along with the 'controlling interest' of this merger...

Glory!

Of course there is still Hebrews 11 to be brought out into all this.

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Mike Balog

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Ron Bailey

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Ron Bailey

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Robert Wurtz II

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Mike Balog