100323 faithposting

 

Devotional had THIS powerful System relevance=
"Resentment is like an infection in our hearts. It damages our soul and prevents us from finding peace. On the contrary, when we show forgiveness, we help the offender to reconsider what they did."
First, that heart infection is absolutely the Plague.
Second, forgiving our offenders to the point of their honest transformation is EXACTLY WHAT OUTSPACERS ARE ABOUT.
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Cyril continues, from John 12:26.

"He that does things pleasing to God serves Christ, but he that follows his own wishes, is a follower rather of himself and not of God."
I'm both struck & shaken by the consistent equating in Scripture of "one's own will" with "rebellion against God." It seems to imply that there is God's Will, and then there is human will, and the two CANNOT agree?? Like, just by being human, ANYTHING I choose to do "of my own will" IS A SIN. That's a very scary thought, and it quickly drives one to despair.
How do we reconcile this? Does God's Will, once we are made AWARE of it by His Laws, act AS His Will in the hearts of men who, by grace, WANT to obey? Is their human will ABSORBED into the Divine? Because only this situation of KNOWING God's Will (as well as we mortals can) would ALLOW a man TO choose to follow himself RATHER than God.
Still... it's upsetting, even if true, that HUMAN NATURE is so far fallen that human will can rightfully be said, BY DEFAULT, to be in rebellion against God. That's a very humbling and harrowing realization. Nevertheless, it also is a powerful impetus for salvation, for surrendering our wills completely to Christ, the NEW Adam, to REMAKE us in harmony with God at last.
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So that brings us right around. TO do God's Will we MUST be the servants of Christ FIRST, and "where He is so shall we be." But how DO we serve Him, with our corrupt wills? By "hating our worldly lives for His sake"-- by TAKING UP OUR CROSS WITH HIM.
But we're powerless to do this on our own, remember. It's ALL by grace. Thank God if you have even a speck of it, and use that tiny piece to pray ardently for more, for His Own sake.
Rambling. Sorry. That's what happens when we exhaust our brainpower & vocabulary; the Spirit cuts us short to prevent deterioration of honesty. Time to move on.

"He shewed Himself a Man born of woman, not in deceptive appearance or mere fancy, but rather by nature and in truth, possessing every human quality, sin only excepted. And fear and alarm, although they are affections natural to us, have escaped being ranked among sins."
THAT IS ACTUALLY A GAME-CHANGER.
That has MASSIVE consequences for the System AND the League!
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THIS is what I was so clumsily grasping at earlier!=
"[But] profitably were the human feelings troubled in Christ: not that the emotions should prevail and go forward, as in us; but that, having begun, they might be cut short by the power of the Word-- as nature, in Christ, is being transelemented into some better and Diviner condition. For in this way and no other was it that the process of the healing passed over even unto us. For in Christ, as the firstfruits, the nature of man was restored to newness of life, and in Him we have also gained things above our nature. For on this account He is also named in the Divine Scriptures a second Adam... Therefore the Word of God made one with Himself human nature in its entirety, that so He might save the entire man. For that which has not been taken into His Nature, has not been saved."
HOW AM I JUST NOW LEARNING ALL THIS.
Oh man but this is profoundly enlightening.
What can God NOT take into Himself? SIN. However-- our humanity, our emotions, our sufferings, are NOT inherently sins, and Christ took ALL of them into Himself during His Life as Man, and HE "TRANSELEMENTED" THEM into a "Divine condition", by being now part of HIM??
Oh dude he says this AGAIN later in CLEARER WORDS=
""Moreover, just as death was brought to naught in no other way than by the Death of the Saviour, so also with regard to each of the sufferings of the flesh: for unless He had felt dread, human nature could not have become free from dread; unless He had experienced grief, there could never have been any deliverance from grief; unless He had been troubled and alarmed, no escape from these feelings could have been found."
That is so beautiful it aches. Why did I never learn this before. I never realized how much sheer transformative LOVE was in EVERY ASPECT of His Incarnation.
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"...But Glorify Thy Name. For if, through our dangers, it comes to pass that God is glorified, let all things be accounted secondary to that end."
In total honesty, that line has been emblazoned in our soul for years, against all despair in suffering. I don't know how or when it was first branded in there, but I know the Holy Spirit did it, and it has saved our soul in a real sense-- because it is an embrace of the Cross, even just a splinter.


"...the world was [not] now being condemned, when the moment of its justification was come; but judgment, in the sense of vengeance, shall come upon the world hereafter. Again: the prince of this world shall be cast out. There shall be, He says, judgment against him that wronged the world, and not against the world that endured the wrong. For truly, as Christ Himself said: God sent not His Son to judge the world, but to save the world. This then He says will be the character of the impending judgment, that the prince of this world shall be cast out. And cast out whence? Manifestly, from the dominion that hath been gained by him through violence, and from the kingdom that in no wise belongs to him. And "out" indicates the punishment of Hades and the passage to it."
This ties INTO the final judgment! If we side WITH the devil, by proudly making ourselves "like God," in claiming righteousness and denying sin, then we are no longer victims of Satan's ancient malice, but COOPERATORS in it, and therefore WE will be judged WITH him, and cast into hell-- BY OUR OWN WILL.
HOWEVER, the OPPOSITE happens when we admit our weakness & sinful fallen state, and put ALL our faith in Christ AS SAVIOR, BY HIS CROSS. That detail is essential-- we must admit that HIS DEATH WAS IN OUR PLACE. Only then are we spared from His vengeance against sin.
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Starting Cornelius À Lapide tonight.
My favorite part of Lapide's commentary are the mystic/moral interpretations. They enrich the text even further; it's beautiful.

"Mystically= God made all things in six days. On the sixth He made man; in the sixth age of the world He willed to redeem him. He suffered on the sixth day of the week, and died at the sixth hour.”
When your hexakosioihexekontahexaphobia kicks in, THINK OF THIS INSTEAD and so overpower the devil!! GOD OWNS ALL NUMBERS, and this one is ACTUALLY BLESSED in being related to the work of redemption. When you see that number, let it bring your mind to CHRIST CRUCIFIED and His MERCIFUL LOVE, and let THAT move you to STOP BEING STUPID & SINFUL, instead of freaking out in fear over the devil.