Ask Jesus into your life and what should you expect?
This is the second Person of the Trinity,remember. He was co-existent with God before the worlds were made. He is the Word, present at, speaking into being, the whole of creation. And He's just come into you. By the Holy Spirit.
Exactly where is Jesus going to draw the doctrinal line before He gives up working in you?
An evangelical will say He will change your personality and behaviour and give you eternal hope for the future. (Code for...don't expect much now....but believe for as much as you can after you die.) This is the Passover view of Christianity.
A Pentecostal /charismatic will say Jesus does all this....but in addition He sends the Power of His Holy Spirit in an anointing called the Baptism in the Holy Spirit. This is what it means to "taste the gifts and powers of the world to come". Gifts as listed in 1 Corinthians 12-14....sandwiched with a slopping,running over,inundation of love thrown in!!!! Anything more and you have to wait until you die. This is the Pentecost view of Christianity.
Both these 2 Feast versions of Christianity never preach on the third Feast, either because they've never bothered reading about it....or if they are aware, as I have said....it's relegated to after death or after the 2nd Coming of Christ.
In general, when something is too much for your faith, just put it back a little, to after you die!
It's a great catchall and no one can call you on it!!!
Well I'm calling you on it! This post requires you to read this entry in Wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latter_Rain_Movement
As you read above, you have a choice after you have received Christ and the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
You either run with this and preach the gospel and bring more into the same double brand of Christianity, or as read in this passage you settle back down into formalism....into intellectualizing what you've received....into falling back into what Galations calls trying to complete what is lacking by works.
But as in the passage, there is a third choice. You get hungry!!! And you begin to pray. And you begin to seek God. For two reasons. Because your life still isn't working. Because your life experience in no way matches the New Testament writers.....and unlike all other people...you actually care about that.
So all through history there have been believers, who out of desperation press through to the 3rd Feast. Within themselves. The Feast of Tabernacles.
People criticise these "Latter rain" people. Saying it's unscriptural. It's heresy.
Let's turn this around.
Jesus has been born in you. As a seed, when you invited Him in , either on your own, or in some kind of evangelistic or other kind of meeting.
This is Jesus. The One who spoke the worlds, the Universe,the solar systems into being.
He has come to grow in you. Exactly at what point do you think He is going to stop!
Since he is the Author and Finisher of your faith.
Since He invented the picture tableau of the "earthly sanctuary" known as the tabernacle, described in detail by George Warnock in the links section.
Since He instituted the earthly pattern shadow of the three Feasts among the Jews....
Tell me exactly why it is heresy to expect Him to so grow in you, that as you step more and more wholly into the River described in Ezekiel....that He doesn't take over the whole of you...
such that you become a manifest Son or daughter!
Or is there some regulator built into the Earth,in the same way as in car engines,that cuts you back at a certain point....say 50%, 75%.....to save your body overheating!!!
Hmmmmm!
What is it about falling in Love with God
with all your heart
with all your soul
with all your mind
with all your strength
that you can't intellectually adhere to!
Well said!
ReplyDeleteAll I can say is Amen!!
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