Galations 5:22 but the fruit of the Spirit is.........self-control
In the long scheme of things secularism will be viewed as the period when man got off his religious butt and began applying diligence to the God -given surroundings he found himself in.
Like a one-sided blip in the overall growth process of mankind finding his operation and existence in God.
Imagine a teenager nicely cradled in the love and provision of a home, suddenly realising that it isn't always going to be like this: he or she is going to actually have to learn to provide for his or her own living. And in that crisis awakening, this particular stage of learning does not require any belief or not in God.
But this is a Christian blog. How can you say this Chris?
Well there are two possibilities aren't there? Neither of which alter what you have to learn to do, which is survive.....and hopefully more than survive....become a provider. As I said, get off your butt and learn due diligence.
In the long scheme of things
So, on the one hand, you do all this thinking that God isn't there. But He is. and suddenly , in the crisis of wanting to lean on someone or something, you self-medicate with some addiction or other, or even a relationship. Or the sheer crisis really throws you on God for the first real time in your life. Or you have maintained a relationship with God throughout. But one way or another you have to get up and do.
If you get up and do trying to exclude God.....well , since "in Him we live and move and have our being" still remains true, and there is nowhere we can escape the reach of His love....this godless existence is somewhat of an illusion....but for an unbeliever it is real enough.
The past 200 years of Western life has been a bit like this. Somehow we have risen out of the patriarchal understanding that we are just serfs surrounded by and protected by our noble earthly lord, to where we discovered , in democracy, that, actually America has shown us that we can take our own destiny by the horns, in all areas of life....and generally....errr....corporately...GROW UP.
But the Christianity loudly proclaimed by Richard Dawkins as now totally passe, totally bypassed by our modern secular thinking, was ofcourse never the Christianity in God's mind, when He set this whole thing up.
The truth is, apart from a few notable individuals, hardly anyone in historic Christianity, weaned themselves off a bastard Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil version of Christianity.
In reality, we have continued to defy Proverbs 3:5-6 in exactly the same way secularly as we did before in the Tree of the Knowledge of Religious Good. We have swapped one kind of dead programming ritual for another. When what Jesus came to give us was Life. Out of our innermost being will flow rivers of abundant Life.
For that we have to entirely change not our thinking, but our mode of thinking. Our "nous" greek (as in he hasn't much nous) has to join up with God's Spirit way of thinking, meta meaning together with. Or if meta means to move out beyond the confines of our nous...that too. But either way this is the meaning of
METANOIA or repentance.
It is not just simply a change of mind about SIN.
It is a change of mind about Life. About how we live life.
The Church in Acts 2 came with its own fully installed LIFE KIT....an" infilling or upon filling" of the Holy Spirit.
This is the earnest of our inheritance. The proof that the goods we receive at metanoia are good from the get go. But again like teenagers experimenting with forms of "high", we don't spend the rest of our lives trying to reproduce some Holy Ghost high. And as God likes celebrations, they will often be a by product....no, we get off our butts, and apply due diligence to what God shows us in our heart to do or be a part of. This is what is meant by: Romans 8:14 For those who are (being) led by the Spirit are sons of God.
This is to live in the Melchizedek order of priesthood as commanded by our Eternal High Priest.
One part of which may involve being part of a local gorgeous expression of the Melchizedek order...or local church. However most churches live by sight and not just by faith. They are a dreadful mixture of saints still at immature stages of knowing how we live by faith. So as fast as you are proclaiming the truth that they are the Church of the Living God born from an incorruptible seed, they are not in faith, and are proclaiming it as some kind of human club or organisation that is fully grounded on a collection of human beings known after the flesh, which they see with their eyes.
In the long scheme of things secularism will be viewed as the period when man got off his religious butt and began applying diligence to the God -given surroundings he found himself in.
Like a one-sided blip in the overall growth process of mankind finding his operation and existence in God.
Imagine a teenager nicely cradled in the love and provision of a home, suddenly realising that it isn't always going to be like this: he or she is going to actually have to learn to provide for his or her own living. And in that crisis awakening, this particular stage of learning does not require any belief or not in God.
But this is a Christian blog. How can you say this Chris?
Well there are two possibilities aren't there? Neither of which alter what you have to learn to do, which is survive.....and hopefully more than survive....become a provider. As I said, get off your butt and learn due diligence.
In the long scheme of things
secularism will be viewed
as the period when man
got off his religious butt
and began applying diligence
to the God -given surroundings
he found himself in.
So, on the one hand, you do all this thinking that God isn't there. But He is. and suddenly , in the crisis of wanting to lean on someone or something, you self-medicate with some addiction or other, or even a relationship. Or the sheer crisis really throws you on God for the first real time in your life. Or you have maintained a relationship with God throughout. But one way or another you have to get up and do.
If you get up and do trying to exclude God.....well , since "in Him we live and move and have our being" still remains true, and there is nowhere we can escape the reach of His love....this godless existence is somewhat of an illusion....but for an unbeliever it is real enough.
The past 200 years of Western life has been a bit like this. Somehow we have risen out of the patriarchal understanding that we are just serfs surrounded by and protected by our noble earthly lord, to where we discovered , in democracy, that, actually America has shown us that we can take our own destiny by the horns, in all areas of life....and generally....errr....corporately...GROW UP.
But the Christianity loudly proclaimed by Richard Dawkins as now totally passe, totally bypassed by our modern secular thinking, was ofcourse never the Christianity in God's mind, when He set this whole thing up.
The truth is, apart from a few notable individuals, hardly anyone in historic Christianity, weaned themselves off a bastard Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil version of Christianity.
In reality, we have continued to defy Proverbs 3:5-6 in exactly the same way secularly as we did before in the Tree of the Knowledge of Religious Good. We have swapped one kind of dead programming ritual for another. When what Jesus came to give us was Life. Out of our innermost being will flow rivers of abundant Life.
For that we have to entirely change not our thinking, but our mode of thinking. Our "nous" greek (as in he hasn't much nous) has to join up with God's Spirit way of thinking, meta meaning together with. Or if meta means to move out beyond the confines of our nous...that too. But either way this is the meaning of
METANOIA or repentance.
It is not just simply a change of mind about SIN.
It is a change of mind about Life. About how we live life.
The Church in Acts 2 came with its own fully installed LIFE KIT....an" infilling or upon filling" of the Holy Spirit.
This is the earnest of our inheritance. The proof that the goods we receive at metanoia are good from the get go. But again like teenagers experimenting with forms of "high", we don't spend the rest of our lives trying to reproduce some Holy Ghost high. And as God likes celebrations, they will often be a by product....no, we get off our butts, and apply due diligence to what God shows us in our heart to do or be a part of. This is what is meant by: Romans 8:14 For those who are (being) led by the Spirit are sons of God.
We have swapped one kind of dead programming ritual for another.
This is to live in the Melchizedek order of priesthood as commanded by our Eternal High Priest.
One part of which may involve being part of a local gorgeous expression of the Melchizedek order...or local church. However most churches live by sight and not just by faith. They are a dreadful mixture of saints still at immature stages of knowing how we live by faith. So as fast as you are proclaiming the truth that they are the Church of the Living God born from an incorruptible seed, they are not in faith, and are proclaiming it as some kind of human club or organisation that is fully grounded on a collection of human beings known after the flesh, which they see with their eyes.
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