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Areadymind
Member



Joined: 2009/5/15
Posts: 1042
Pacific Ocean

 Re:

I am appreciating some of the answers so far. I will not have time to respond to anything until later tonight. Again I would like to request that responses personally reflect your own walk in some way.

I also am not avoiding throwing my cents into the thread. I am just still praying and thinking about how to respond to my own question.


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Jeremiah Dusenberry

 2012/5/16 8:50Profile
Areadymind
Member



Joined: 2009/5/15
Posts: 1042
Pacific Ocean

 Re:

"I've tried to be quite honest, and I recognize that some of this may cause some to bristle. Please understand that I do not profess that my struggles are correct, and I hope that the context of this discussion allows for the sharing of such a struggle. I do not mean to sow discord." -Philomastix

This is exactly the kind of answer I was hoping to see. Thank you for your honesty Philo.

The bible says that we are to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will exalt us. While discarding all rights at the cross does seem brutal on the side previous to it. The payoff for Christ was resurrection. He humbled himself to the point of death but also "became" the Lord of Glory as a result. Resurrection follows the cross. The whole gospel and not just part needs to be emphasized. For if we suffer with him so also shall we reign with him.

As to your Athenian question, which is rather interesting, and something I had not ever thought of, but it does raise an interesting point. My inclination is to say no, because God specifically chose Israel, but if you remember right, Israel forced the idea of a monarchy, at least the human agency of it upon God. If you remember right God lamented that Israel wanted a king like the other nations because he wanted to be their king, I have found this to be one of the saddest laments in scripture.

I have been thinking about this concept for a while because as I look back on my young Christianity I see that in many situations I looked a gift horse in the mouth due to my entitled democratic way of seeing things. I have been through phases of bitterness and loss of joy for way to long in my walk simply because I am too much like my culture, and less like the culture of the kingdom.

I have also noticed over the past few years how people hop from church body to church body hoping to find rest for their souls but they never do because what they are wanting is somebody to affirm their sin and belligerence, and soon as God uses a brother to reveal that sin...off they fly to foist their problems on another flock. From flock to flock they travel, in search of greener pasture, only to find the pasture would have become green had they allowed the Lord to carry them through the valley of the shadow of their own prideful death. The sad thing I have noticed is that it is consistent that people will use the phrase "doctrinal differences," which is just a fancy way of lying.

I have come to realize that my democratic spirit hampered my walk so much in my youth because God was using brothers who had authority in the body of Christ to reveal a severely handicapped little petulant boy. Instead of realizing that the authority they had was from the Lord. In my heart I devised every possible reason why I did not need to submit to their authority. I slandered them in my heart.

One time, after months of holding this grudge toward one particular pastor, I approached him after a teaching he did and confessed my sin to him. He forgave me and I wept for hours like a lost little child...

What I have not realized until more recently is that even though I sought forgiveness, I think I still justified my reasons. It is amazing how deceiving the human heart is. When somebody exercises the authority of God into our lives, it seems that we are faced with two options. Submit, or grieve the Spirit, and in so doing become more of what you already were.

I was reading the Epistle to the Ephesians by St. Ignacious last night and he made such a bold proclamation about being united under the authority of Gods chosen servants that I could almost not believe what I was reading. But all day long I have been considering how true it is. He basically claimed in a nutshell that we will never experience the full sanctification of the Spirit in our lives if we do not submit to the Godly authorities placed over us in the Church.

I can personally attest to the 100% accuracy of this statement in my life. I wasted so many years of my Christianity harboring a bitter attitude toward brothers in Christ and I masked it all under the guise of Doctrine or Theology...the truth is, I was just a typical rebellious punk who saw all people with authority as a threat. I know that I for one have allowed my culture and my democratic spirit to hamper my walk with God.

I am now convinced that I was not meant or created to possess my own personal will and freedom in opposition to authority. I was created to submit that to God. I now have learned that I want to be a subject in the Kingdom of God more than any other thing. Kicking against the goads is not only painful. It leaves pointless scars. There is more freedom to be discovered in submission to God's authority and how he delegates that out than there is in foisting my will on others, and using supposedly christian sounding reasoning to back up my own sinful pride.

We have been called into a monarchy. How can we say that we submit to God whom we cannot see, if we are unable to submit in the simplest of ways to our brothers whom we do see?


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Jeremiah Dusenberry

 2012/5/17 1:16Profile
philomastix
Member



Joined: 2012/2/17
Posts: 8


 Re:

You wrote:

"The bible says that we are to humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will exalt us. While discarding all rights at the cross does seem brutal on the side previous to it. The payoff for Christ was resurrection. He humbled himself to the point of death but also "became" the Lord of Glory as a result. Resurrection follows the cross. The whole gospel and not just part needs to be emphasized. For if we suffer with him so also shall we reign with him."

-----

These words exude wisdom. I'll not respond at length now, but will reflect. Thanks for your thoughts.

 2012/5/17 1:26Profile
ArtB
Member



Joined: 2004/4/27
Posts: 431
New York

 Re: The Democratic Spirit

The democratic Spirit normally is defined as "political and social - equality."

It is a myth.

Things often are not as they seem.

From George Orwell's Animal Farm:

"ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL, BUT SOME ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS".

I believe there does not exist true Political and Social Equality among any nation. The politicians, the very wealthy, those with power, those who control the mass media, the top 1%, the Secular Humanists, have way far more influence on government laws, policies, and public education, than do us average citizens. Even wealthy and well placed foreignors have more influence on our politics and our societal values than our average citizen. And their secular, social, educational, and political values are far different than the Christian values we esteem.

We who are Jesus Christ Disciples. We Christians are in the world, but we are not of the world. Our allegiance is to God and His Word, that we should love one another, and even our enemies, and do the good toward all peoples, the good that He created us to do. And we will bless those who curse us, and forgive those who wrong us. And we depend on the Holy Spirit to transform our very nature, that we may know and do that good through genuine love, and to make amends upon our failures which come about due to our many personal imperfections.

Apart from God, the peoples of this world will descend to:

From 2 Timothy Chapter 3:

" ... , that in the last days difficult times will come. For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these. For among them are those who enter into households and captivate weak women weighed down with sins, led on by various impulses, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth."









_________________
Arthur Biele

 2012/5/17 1:31Profile





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