brotherjim
Member
Hi Iris,iris89 said:
First, let me thank and praise the Lord God that you were able to receive my last post in the Spirit of Love, Meekness and Peace from which [I allege] it came forth. And thank you, too.
Since you seem both knowledgable and teachable--a rare combo, amen?: all glory to God and Grace--I may be able to offer some insight in regards to the above. But it must take of necessity a circuitous (sp??) explanation.
We, whether Christian or not, have so vastly underestimated the power of pride and its resultant arrogance. We have not looked deep enough into it, never contemplating how Lucifer, who was wise far beyond the wisdom of mortals, could still fall prey to pride's destructiveness.
I'll say it brief and blunt: unless someone receives a specific, supernatural/divine revelation regarding humankind's arrogance, they have little-to-no chance of what I'm saying here being profitable for them.
[The above notwithstanding:]
A good place to start might be Prov. 6:16-17, followed by asking God why He put FIRST on the list, pride's symptom: a haughty face (what we have all come to know as normaltive self-confidence), even ahead of murder among those things He hates most. Coincidence? Irrelevant [insofar as the order in which it was given]? I claim not.
As such, then, God has worked into the Kingdom, various, ahhhh, ummmmmm. . . tensions. These are absolutely necessary from God's point of view, for they keep man from being puffed up more than he already is. Without them, God would be too greatly tempted to break His promise to Noah (satirical). We just have NOT A CLUE as to how God is unable to look upon our, especially Christian, haughtiness. It makes Him puke. (But I cannot say enough, for no matter how many expletives [oops!--sorry, wrong word] I use, someone still needs that revelation.)
Okay, back to it (I haven't forgotten the point {-_-} ).
One of the methods God incorporates into His economy to bring about these restrictions of man's propensity to pride, is by Him keeping us in the dark. Unless you are a someone who was force-fed the interpretation that "for now we see through a glass darkly" refers to the pre-New Testament time, then I can add that Scripture as a witness to what I'm saying here. God would LOVE to give each and every one of us, all His Wisdom and knowledge of Himself, but He cannot. WE restrict Him by our attitudes and susceptibilities. Kindly read and meditate upon the basic Christian principle of John 2:23-25, and catch a glimpse of how God fully knows how we take His stuff and strut it around before our peers like a peacock in heat. WE, WE, WE restrict God and what He can give us.
So, if you can receive it, God has divied up His Truths into, say, 52 doctrines of the Bible (the title of, for me, an adult Sunday School textbook, btw). He numbers them 1 through 52, and to Iris He has revealed the Truths of #1, #2, #3, #16, #22, #39, etc. But to someone you are attempting to talk to, they have been given #1, #2, #3, #11, #29, #41, etc., i.e., their own set of doctrines. Hence we have charismatics who beat their head against the wall, totally unable to comprehend why the Evangelicals they speak to, show all the Scriptures to regarding it, etc., just don't see in the Word that there's a "second blessing." Likewise, the Sovereign Gracer attempts time and time again to show their Arminian neighbor--. And the converse of the above, perhaps {-_-}. [The above merely illustrative, of course. And the intellectual would likely staunchly disagree, for most approach the Bible as a literary work, and like any literary work believe its Truths can be disemminated through skullduggery and its various humanistic devices of intellectualism (reflexives, etymologies, etc., etc.). So such conclude that any man, if he is intelligent enough and studious enough and lives long enough, any man can learn all "52." And of course, if they lead, their congregations insist on it. Ah, pride.]
And so on.
All in God's time, "a time for every season," but above all, ALL in direct correlation to each man's level of pride and arrogance, or, from the other end, it's holy enemy, the degree of UNfeigned Meekness. [Growth in the knowledge of God, without a corresponding growth in the Graces of God, equals imbalance, and imbalances lead to self-destruction, or in tyhe least , disqualification. "Knowledge puffeth up . . . (but the balance of) Grace edifies."]
(Ohhhhhhhh, how greatly we need also a revelation of Jesus' Meekness!!! [Not humility, but Meekness, the Fruit of the Spirit--2 diff. things.])
Lastly is man's (forgive me, I'm old school, remember?), make that the human's natural tendency to commit the sin illustrated by Paul and John on the Mount of Transf. We take the things given to us by God, whether our New Birth experience or the enlightenment of some doctrine or whatever, and we build a temple of worship around it, from henceforth worshipping the holy thing created rather than the Creator Himself. (Can you handle this stuff? It IS harsh.) [And for those doctrines "of the 52" the Lord has not revealed to us, man insists on filling in the blanks through deductive reasoning, conjecture, presumption, common sense, adopting the studies of others, etc., and these, too, can easily become pet idols of the heart.] So when you attempt to show someone something contrary to a belief they have already stored as an idol in their heart, you are attempting the impossible (unless God intervenes, of course). Only God can miraculously deliver us from our hearts' idols (John the B's. "I must decrease. . . ."), and in fact commands that we allow Him to do so ["purify your hearts"; "sanctify . . . your hearts"].
Well, I lied; REALLY finally:
The pride thing also has a lot to do with the proclaimer.
When we share a Truth with someone, or administer some blessing, or do whatever other positive-for-the-Lord thing, as we lay our head down on the pillow that night our Adversary begins his sermon. He's going to tell us how very wonderful we were that day. He may even paint portraits in our mind which somehow exalt us in our own eyes. He may, if we're Catholic, and only for example, clothe us with cardinals' robes or give us audience with the Pope (still in our fantasies, of course). See where I'm going?
And we, because we love the things of flesh more than God, we will not tell the devil to shut up, at least not right away. We want to revel in the enjoyment of our accomplishments that day. Puff, puff, puff--.
Guess how long it will be before someone will again receive some doctrinal Truth we attempt to share with them? [God just won't bless it; He cannot allow it to blow us, the proclaimer, out of the water.]
The above is further illustrated by the "forgetful man" of James 1.
"For by Grace are . . . so that no man can boast."
[The entire Kingdom had to be designed around man's weakness of pride.]
Whew! In His Love for you, Iris, all glory to Him (it's ALL Grace, for "apart from [Him, Jesus, we] can do NO THING"), bro. jim
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[But I fortgot to add my all-time favorite reason, the following Scripture paraphrased according to such interpretations as Douay-Rhimes (sp?) and Young's Literal (et al.), and amplified according to the Wisdom I allege:
["The husbandman who labors must, FIRST, be partaker of the (FULLY RIPE) Fruits (of the Spirit and of Wisdom and of obedience)."
[Kindly see my thread "The Only True, Apostolic Gospel . . ." for a further explanation.]
[Edit additions for clarity, inserted within brackets throughout this post.]
["Who is sufficient for these things?"]
