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ChadC
Member



Joined: 2017/1/10
Posts: 29
Western Edge, North Dakota

 Re:

"The true Word and Word Lived, ( manifested ) in us also brings an offense.
From the time or soon after we begin to Live under the Anointing of The Lord, that same Word,lived out through the leading of God' Spirit, in us, ...
The cross of Christ,.... we too will experience forms of persecution. It will automatically come."

Well said Elizabeth,

I believe the crux and apex of the offense is to the degree that it is not of this world.

I use to think, as the OP mentioned, that the cross itself and the opened door via repentance it orchestrated was the "offense", and to some degree it of course is, as anything of God is at enmity with the world. However the "I have been crucified with Christ" life is along the lines of daily dying to our own self and carnal nature in favor of allowing the Lord and His life to be manifested in and through us.

The offense was the daily cup Jesus drank following the Father's will culminating in His purposed and faithful cross... not an end, but one of many beginnings!


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Chad C

 2017/1/13 13:23Profile
RogerB
Member



Joined: 2007/4/5
Posts: 267
Bruceton TN

 Re: Good though James

The early church had something we didn't have when we began our journey. They had fear of God and discipline. The early church was stronger than today. They saw the cross for what it was. Paul wanted to know more about it and the resurrection. New things. Having seen and touched the one who came was awesome indeed. To give one's life up for that was such a wonderful thing. Stephen didn't cry for them to stop stoning, he kept revealing to the crowd what he saw.

Is it true that Jesus walked among the early candlesticks but now stands and knocks at the door trying to get back in? Have we become rich with our theology and doctrines. I've had to ask myself those questions. I must die daily. I must seek what they sought every day. I must ask Christ to replace all the evil thoughts and ways that are still in me to be replaced with fruits of the spirit. (There was an excellent reply on this a week ago). Christ wants our allegiance just as he did of the apostles. It's his work.


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James R Barnes

 2017/1/13 21:36Profile









 Re:

I am not out to argue with anyone or prove them wrong. I’m fighting with the 2000 years of evil doctrine and theology that have trapped today’s believers in powerlessness as they long for God in the midst of their pain and bondage to sin.

Galatians 5 is a good example. Paul was concerned about believers getting tangled back up in the law because of teachers who had a different view of the Gospel. In verse 1 he says that if a person doesn’t continue to insist that God’s truth is true and thus chooses to believe something else, the end result will be a yoke of some type of slavery.

In verse 2, he focuses on the lie being taught that the men must be circumcised in accordance with Jewish law in order to be saved. This contained two lies. 1) They needed Christ plus just a little performance on the men’s part. 2) Women were less than men. But, Jesus had elevated women. The Judaizers were seeking to put them back where they had been. Paul said if this is the route you want to go, then Christ won’t benefit you.

In verse 3 he tells them that if they choose to follow even one law in order to please God then they have to follow all of them. Why? Because if they are not going to depend solely on their believing Christ as the security of their salvation then they have to save themselves.

In verse 4 he continues by telling them whoever chooses to live by rules (law) “has become barren, because they have moved away from Christ.” He then says they have fallen “out of the grace.”

As he says in verse 7, they knew the truth. They had been living in victory. “Who has cut into the truth so that you are no longer persuaded of it?” The word “cut into” is consistent with what the Gnostics and other heretics sought to accomplish. They sought to turn the oneness of God’s revelation of Himself into different pieces. The Triune God was no longer a whole unchangeable being but a monster with many faces, and you could never be sure which face was looking at you.

In verses 16 through 26 he wraps it all up by reminding them of the source of evil behavior, which in verse 19 he calls works, because those works make life a continual struggle. He then compares such evil behavior with the fruit of the Spirit. It is no struggle to make a vine produce fruit. All you do is properly feed, water, and remove the weeds and it will produce wonderful fruit, with no additional effort. The weeds are primarily wrong beliefs because of wrong teaching.

Paul, like John, was combating terrible doctrine which, if the people chose to believe, would make them powerless, “so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.” It wasn’t the flesh or what they were doing that was causing them to sin. They were sinning because they were believing teaching that was contrary to what they had been taught in the beginning.

By the Fourth Century, the Church Fathers were seeking a way to codify sound doctrine by creating what came to be called the Nicene Creed. Unfortunatley, the Nicene Creed was the final gasps of a Church that was being overwhelmed by heresies seeking to remove all of its power and what made believers look different from the world.

In less than 200 years after that the world had entered the dark ages where the knowledge of God no longer was visible. When the world began to emerge from that darkness in the 1500s, believers no longer had the foundation laid by Jesus and the Apostles. They had the Greek texts. Everything they needed was there, but they had no foundation upon which to discern what God was saying. So, their understanding of what they read was filtered through each person’s own personal theology, which had just emerged from the dark ages.

I don’t believe people were seeking to believe lies. They were looking for answers to perplexing and disturbing realities in their lives and society. But, they didn’t have the foundation needed to properly understand the scriptures they were studying. Their interpretations of scripture were honest, but wrong.

This was not the design of man but the design of Satan. With very little help from any original documents, they were studying scriptures from the perspective that God was not really Who He claimed to be. If anyone would have suggested God is love, their proof otherwise was the 1000+ years of hell through which the world had just come and the misery they were still living. Their perspective is understandable. Newly emerging believers had little, if any, knowledge that would support that God is love or that He didn’t have a mean streak and was out to get anyone who crossed Him. But, they had plenty to confirm that the split in the nature of God promoted by Gnosticism was the truth. That split is what has enabled religious leaders to gain such control over the masses as well as making Christianity one more source of money power.

Whereas in the beginning believers knew where the concept of a dual nature God had come from, they now didn’t even know that the doctrine was heresy. Their own lives were proof of the duality and there was little to no evidence available to take them back to what the early Church had really believed. Too many, who by then were in “control” of the Church, had too much to lose by considering the real Gospel, if they even knew one existed. Until this day, there have been few to stand up and say, “The emperor has no clothes.” Now only God can restore what was lost, and He is.


Regarding Todd’s comments about the breaking point of God’s Word, don’t confuse human reasoning with God’s reasoning. Reasoning that uses God’s Word to say He meant something other than what He said absolutely does break down. But God is truth, and when what He says doesn’t make sense to us, He invites us to come boldly to His throne where He will joyfully tell us what He means. He doesn’t want us to change what He says to fit what we believe is possible. We don’t have to be afraid of taking God literally. What we need is for our eyes to be open to see what He is really saying.

Just because I disagree with you doesn’t mean I’m offended, because I’m not. Todd, you are the one that said if I can’t agree with you then this conversation can’t continue. "If you can't agree with even this point how can the discussion continue?"

Dave, you’re straining at gnats while swallowing flies. I thought the fact they died was too obvious to address it in my responses, but I give in. The Greek word translated sleep does, metaphorically mean death... OF COURSE those people who fell asleep died. That wasn’t the point. Does the fact that they died preclude falling asleep first? Of course not. Many First Century believers understood their union with God in Christ. They had no fear. Their fellowship with God was like Jesus being sound asleep in a raging storm that had the disciples apparently screaming in terror. There’s no contradiction. Yes, they died. But, don’t ignore the fact that it was common for believers’ everyday lives to be what today would either cause church members to stand in awe, or throw them out. Please don’t reinterpret the scriptures to say only what you believe is possible. Rather, let’s look at God’s Word and say, “Father, I believe you meant what you said. Now cause me to learn everything you can teach me from it.” Much of the world of theology experts hates what I am saying (and others like me) because they only want a God they can define as they see fit. You may not have thought of this but, if those believers who died really fell asleep first, then massive amounts of theology break down. It’s time it happened.

Let’s keep going in the things that will let believers discover the victory they long for. I’ve had enough of religion. What say you?

 2017/1/14 12:31
TMK
Member



Joined: 2012/2/8
Posts: 6650
NC, USA

 Re:

I'm game, James, but I am still not sure what you are driving at.

You seem to be suggesting that you have discovered the "secret" of how the very earliest Christians lived that was lost during the dark ages and no one else has discovered. Please tell us what this secret is. I am definitely interested; I agree 100% that much of what passes as Christianity today is failing miserably at changing Christians into being more Christ-like, much less at changing the world.


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Todd

 2017/1/14 16:07Profile
StirItUp
Member



Joined: 2016/6/4
Posts: 949
Johannesburg, South Africa

 Re:

I agree with Todd, James.

Please stop being mysterious and come out with this revelation of yours so we can benefit from it.....if we are ready to receive it.


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William

 2017/1/14 16:15Profile









 Re: Someone suggested little bites. Here's the first.

Someone suggested little bites. Here's the first.

In so much of our lives, we use formulas to get results. Exercise and eat well and you will be healthy. Work as hard as you can and you will be successful, etc. As we all have experienced, formulas don’t always work.

How about the formulas you learned to be a good Christian? You know the ones like read your Bible and pray every day, go to church every time the doors are open, witness, give enough money and/or time, etc. How have these worked for you? Sometimes, for some people, these formulas seem to work. But, you can never be sure. And if they don’t, most Christians will tell you that you didn’t do it right, you didn’t have enough faith, God’s punishing you, etc.

Decades ago God did give me a formula. It wasn’t so I could get the outcome I wanted. It was a formula to help me understand how He had created humans to work. As I began to understand how my heart and mind work, it became obvious why my Christian life was such a struggle and why I couldn’t be the person I thought Jesus wanted me to be. No formula worked for me.

God showed me that the source of every behavior is what we think. Everything we do and feel and tell ourselves is a result of what we are thinking, and everything we are thinking is always a result of what we believe. Not just about God but about everything. Bottom line, we live what we believe so, we always act on the lies and truths within our belief systems as though they are all true, and never know the difference. It’s easy to see this in other people, but not in ourselves.

God showed me this formula was about me. I couldn’t see myself like He did. I had thought everything I believed was right and that everyone else was wrong if we disagreed. But, as I applied the formula to my life and began to see that my wrong attitudes and behaviors were clearly a result of what I believed, I discovered God was right and I was wrong. The source of every one of my bad attitudes and behaviors was always a lie. And, when I changed my mind and believed the truth God showed me, the attitudes and behaviors changed.

This formula enabled me to understand myself. God told me it applies to everyone but it isn’t my job to look for lies in others, because the Holy Spirit is working in each of us. It’s my job to be honest with Him and admit I am wrong when He shows me. This is the First Century meaning of metanoia, later translated repentance. It means to change your mind about what you believe that isn’t true.

We all know that lies are everywhere and that everyone believes some of them, right? So I ask you, can you tell yourself three things that you believe that you know are lies? Of course not, or you wouldn’t believe them.

This goes to the heart of what God is seeking to do in our lives. He wants us to believe His truth. Is our life the truth or is God’s truth the truth?

 2017/1/15 15:43
BranchinVINE
Member



Joined: 2016/6/15
Posts: 1268
Australia

 Re:



Interesting, James ...... I'm all ears .......


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Jade

 2017/1/16 8:19Profile









 Re:

I think ending this thread with Jade's comment is appropriate. I will now start a thread called Small Doses (1) Why do people sin?

 2017/1/17 20:09
sermonindex
Moderator



Joined: 2002/12/11
Posts: 39795
Canada

Online!
 Re:

This thread is locked.


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SI Moderator - Greg Gordon

 2017/1/17 21:18Profile





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