101023 faithposting

[prismaticbleed]

VOTD = LOVE IS NOT AN EMOTION, IT'S A DECISION!! BUT EVENTUALLY YOUR EMOTIONS WILL CATCH UP TO YOUR OBEDIENCE!!!
Jesus COMMANDS us to love; He isn't commanding us to feel certain things but to DO certain things!!


Father Walter Cizsek prayer hits today.
"May I find my true self by living for others in a spirit of sacrifice and suffering... As I seek to surrender to the Father's will, may I come to trust that He will do everything for me."
That immense Fatherly goodness is so difficult to grasp yet, but I know it's true despite all doubt.
It's also not an excuse to be lazy or idle. God does everything FOR you, but only WITH YOUR COOPERATION. That's the paradox of grace! Your part is TO HAVE FAITH IN HIM and to open your heart, mind, eyes, arms, and life to Him TO WORK WITH.
...

"Lord Jesus Christ, I ask the grace to accept the sadness in my heart, as Your will for me, in this moment. I offer it up, in union with Your sufferings, for those who are in deepest need of Your redeeming grace."
I forget that "offering my sufferings WITH Christ" involves me in the REDEMPTIVE work of His Cross-- He was only crucified FOR OTHERS!! So MY sufferings with Him MUST ALSO BE FOR OTHERS!! I never considered that. That's humbling.
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"Lead me away from dwelling on the hurt I feel: lead me instead to thoughts of charity for those who need my love, to thoughts of compassion for those who need my care, and to thoughts of giving to those who need my help."
The emphasis on NEEDING what I SPECIFICALLY have to give is STUNNING.
There is a sly fake humility that rebels with "but I'm not important, that can't be true, I don't matter!" YOU MATTER TO GOD. YOU MATTER TO OTHERS. ACCEPT THAT SO YOU CAN ACT ON IT!!!
...

And this from an app prayer=
"Transform my heart and renew my mind so that I can draw closer to You, and so bring You to others."
Evangelizing isn't an intellectual triumph. I'm so tired of brainpower battles. I'm not a smart person. I'm tired of dictionary wars. Religion is hollow if it is gained and held by mental prowess alone, by scholastic debate, by logical arguments. Those things crumble to dust in the face of encounter. THAT is the might & glory of Christianity: the human Face of Jesus Christ.
...

"Draw me closer to You so that way I look more like You. Teach me how to love like You by protecting others, trusting others, and hoping & persevering on behalf of other people."
Reflect deeply on this. CHRIST DID ALL THOSE THINGS. HE STILL DOES.
He protects us from evil. He has hope for our conversion of free will. He perseveres on our behalf right up until the absolute last moment and He does not give up.
But... trust? Does Christ trust us? Somehow that... doesn't make sense at all. We're all liars, all sinners. We're not worthy of trust.
But... it's a virtue. It's a righteous thing to do. It's an act of mercy, isn't it? So... Christ has to do it, somehow.
...

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Finishing up Gill today.

"...His death would not be natural, but violent, and would be public, and not private... His death, and the manner of it, were [never] uncertain, for it was determined by God, agreed to by Himself, predicted in the Scriptures, signified by types, and foretold by Himself, and was necessary for the salvation of His people..."
I'm really pasting this for my mom, who STILL thinks Jesus was "forced to die" against His will & knowledge by a "cruel God," which is APPALLINGLY FALSE and i have no idea HOW she got that idea. But she holds it hard, so I need to gently pry her fingers off of it with reassuring love.
Still, it's a tough topic, because it's still death-- worse, a violently bloody execution. She struggles with that, and as a parent, abhors the very idea that a Father could CHOOSE to send His Son to it... but does she realize the Son also chose it, freely & wholeheartedly, and that because of His Love for us?
But then again, she tends to reject the very concept of sin, too, for that same fear of death & punishment. The idea that WE deserved that death BY our rejection of God, especially since it "started so innocuously" with Eve... she struggles with it. She's ALWAYS defending Eve, and trying to divinize Magdalene, and fighting for equal male & female church roles, etc. I don't know why. She obviously has a wound. But that's a different talk entirely. Right now the point is= she struggles with accepting original sin, because she doesn't realize the gravity of unquestionably KNOWING God's direct command and STILL disobeying because she became convinced that SHE knew better than Him. The snake couldn't have successfully tempted her if she hadn't already been capable of the sin. So Eve decided she wanted to know what evil was, and once THAT got into her head, well... let me tell you, it NEVER LEAVES. You can scrub away at that damned spot until your fingers bleed, but it won't come out. I know. It's a curse. It really is death. So yeah, it sure seemed harmless before she bit the fig, but the instant that sickly sweetness hit her brain she was doomed. And so were we, because evil is effectively a cancerous STD and we're all born terminal.
So. Christ the Divine Physician knew this better than anyone. He knew we needed more than chemo, more than surgery, more than transfusions-- we needed a whole new body, a whole new mind, one that didn't have Eve's tainted DNA, as it were. We needed to be REMADE... or we would die.
This is where my metaphors fail. What Christ did in truth was purely Divine, a cosmic Miracle of God's Omnipotence and fathomless Mercy.
...


"...this drawing of them to Him, in consequence of His death, supposes distance from Him, want of power & will to come to Him, and the efficacious grace of God to bring them, though without any force and compulsion."
GRACE ISN'T AUTOMATIC. Salvation is freely given but only if we accept it, as a gift.
This also reassures sinners like me who are still incredulous at our deliverance. Was I far, far, far away from God? Absolutely. Did I have any power TO come towards Him? None whatsoever. Did I know HOW to get to Him? Not at all. And notwithstanding all of that-- did I even WANT to go to Him, as distant & weak & lost as I was? No. I did not. I was completely dead in sin. Except... Christ had His eye in me. Except God had preemptively GIVEN me grace, so long ago it seemed dead & forgotten, but it was there, even beneath the centuries of permafrost, and like a Silene stenophylla there was still the germ of life in it preserved against all odds and by God it would not die. That's what efficacious means, man. It cannot fail.
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"The allusion here, is to the setting up of a standard or ensign, to gather persons together. Christ's cross is the standard, His love is the banner, and He Himself is the ensign, which draw souls to Himself, and engage them to enlist themselves under Him, and become His volunteers in the day of His power."
It is stunning how frequently military language is used in Scripture to refer to Christian living, and yet all I typically hear about that is "the armor of God," "be a soldier for God," and "fight the good fight"-- phrases used so often they lose their depth of context. "Spiritual Warfare" is almost a catchphrase. We don't seem to grasp that WE ARE LITERALLY AT WAR, RIGHT NOW. Yes Christ is victorious as He is God in eternity, and so too is His Cross-- but in our mortal lives, in linear time, in this very moment? We've gotta FIGHT LIKE HEAVEN. The war is guaranteed Christ's but are we going to stay on His side until the end? Are we even fighting enough for His cause in this life to BE counted as His Soldiers? And were we volunteers in truth, or were we drafted? All of this matters more than we realize.


""For he that walketh in darkness, knoweth not whither he goeth"= he cannot see his way, nor the stumbling blocks that lie in it, and the dangers he is exposed unto; nor does he know where it leads, and what is the end of it; and just so it is with a man in a state of unregeneracy, and more especially under judicial blindness: he is not aware of the pits and snares that lie in his way, or of the dark mountains on which he stumbles; and though destruction and misery are in his ways, he knows not that he is going thereunto."
Oh man that describes our pagan days all too well.
The worst part was not seeing the obstacles or dangers, because in that fake light I was following, I was so sunblind I saw nothing but brightness. I thought the path was PURE & FAULTLESS, and the vision it gave me "proved" this. How stupid I was. It didn't even occur to me that my very vision was compromised. I didn't realize that it was actually darkness, cleverly disguised-- in that phony brilliance, I couldn't see the truth. I couldn't see the bloody path.
We were also told that it HAD "no end," that there was NO "set goal" other than "enlightenment," and the fuzzy loops of "reincarnation". It's all an adventure, all a game, all a lesson at school! Have fun! Explore! Yada yada yada and then you wake up one morning cold & hungry & alone in someone else's apartment and realize this is all a dead end. It was just darkness. It didn't answer any of the heart's deep questions.
I didn't realize it was killing me until the coffin lid was coming down over my head.
...


""that ye may be the children of the light"= that is, that they might appear to be such who are enlightened persons; and such are truly so, who are made light in the Lord, or who are enlightened by the Spirit of God to see their own sinfulness, impotency, and unrighteousness, and their need of Christ, and His righteousness and strength, and of salvation by Him; and who are made meet, by the grace of God, to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light; and which is made manifest by believing in Christ, and walking on in Him, as they have received Him, and by walking honestly, as in the daytime, and circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, for such walk as children of the light."
THIS is the TRUE DEFINITION OF "ENLIGHTENMENT". It's not some "woke" fad-mentality or secular nihilism or moral relativism or new-age fancy. It's AWARENESS OF OUR INSURMOUNTABLE MORTAL FRAILTY & UTTER NEED OF GOD'S SALVATION.
...I shouldn't be so agitated. I'm sorry. Lord forgive me, soothe my poor burnt soul. Help me release that lingering sharp bitter regret, without losing the contrition.
...
But seriously, think hard upon this.
To be enlightened by the Lord means to let His Light fill you-- to let HIM inundate your inner being with Himself, Who is both Light and Truth. His Presence reveals ALL the things the fake lights and real shadows conceal: the obstacles, pitfalls, traps, crooked paths, dead ends, dropoffs, and crouching foes.
When His Light truly enters our hearts and truly shines, we SEE ALL OF THAT, and cannot deny it, or hide it, or run from it. We must face it, and admit it, in all its terror and all our helplessness... and not despair! Christ did not reveal it to shame and damn us, but so HE could begin to clear it all out and so save us!!
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Walking in Him AS we received Him...
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Walking HONESTLY, in the daylight-- remember how the other day I talked about the horror of a wicked heart that waits for darkness to conceal its true motives? Christ PREVENTS that sort of evil sneakiness and THANK GOD! At first it is scary, ironically, for EVERYTHING in your life to suddenly be out in the open daylight with Him... but
...
"Circumspect" means "cautious, wary," literally "looking about on all sides"... "deliberate, guarded, well-considered." Philippians 2:12.
...


""They believed not on Him"= the miracles done by Christ before their eyes, which they could not deny, nor disprove, and were so many, and so great, were aggravations of their unbelief; and such indeed is the nature of that sin, and so deeply rooted is it, that the most powerful means, and mighty works, will not bring a person to believe in Christ, without the powerful and efficacious grace of God."
This is so terrifying to me. Unbelief is just that fatal. The only cure is God's merciful grace.
Lord, I fear that I have this curse of unbelief. My emotions are so dead, my heart so scarred from years of the most heinous sins... I am newly "saved," but am I really? Do I truly believe? Have you given me that grace? Oh Lord, please do, I beg of You, I WANT to believe, more than I can possibly verbalize. It's just a wailing ache of agony in my soul. I feel the distance between You and me, I see the beautiful fire of faith in others that I cannot kindle in myself, and I am scared to death. Please don't let me die, oh God of Mercy; You saved me from hell, so please bring me to heaven. Please help my unbelief. With You anything is possible; without You I am doomed.
You grace never fails. Please open my heart to it, then let the ocean in.


"God or Christ blind and harden not by any positive act, but by leaving and giving men up to the [willful] blindness and hardness of their hearts, and [therefore] denying them the grace which alone could cure them and enable them to believe, and which They are not obliged to give..."
...
I want to defend God in this, if I may be so bold. I tremble but I must, for I hear so many speak cruel falsehoods against Him because of this truth, and I cannot simply stand by and tolerate such impiety.
Do you think God never offered them grace? How then did they hear the Gospel? Is that not grace? How else did they become hardened against God, if He had not called them before? Brain patterns take time to set in. We cannot blind ourselves to something we've never seen before; the decision not to see is based on a sight already received yet rejected.
God is merciful, but He is also just, and if someone repeatedly refuses His Mercy, there is only one other option.
Remember Ezekiel 18. God wants everyone to be saved. The trouble is that we have the free will to oppose that ourselves.


"they had made a decree in the sanhedrim, that whoever confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, should be cast out... this had struck terror in the minds, not only of the common people; but of the chief rulers themselves; for it was looked upon as a very dreadful thing to be put out of the synagogue."
I JUST REALIZED, THIS WAS LITERALLY PLACING THE SYNAGOGUE IN OPPOSITION TO CHRIST. You were now forced to reevaluate your religious stance entirely. You COULDN'T have both. The expulsion from the synagogue was only dreadful IF it was your highest priority-- which in ANY other circumstances WOULD BE PROPER. But now, something greater than the synagogue is here. The ONLY way to face that dreadful risk was for Jesus to become the new center of one's life. HE HAD TO BECOME YOUR RELIGION AND LIFE. This decree was actually forcing the hand of believers to commit, because IN MAKING THIS CONTRAST THEY ACTUALLY REVEALED THE STAKES. It inadvertently TESTIFIED TO CHRIST'S DIVINE AUTHORITY; otherwise He wouldn't be put on par with the entire Jewish worship system. You had to choose Grace or the Law. You had to choose the Pharisees smug approval or the humble footsteps of Jesus.

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JUST STUMBLED ACROSS THIS AND OH MAN =

"Is it an infliction of God? — From such passages as Isa 6:10, some have said that God commands the prophet to do a certain thing to this peoples and then punishes the people: nay, this appears stronger still, where the passage is quoted, as (Joh 12:40), He hath blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts; which seems to be contradictory to Mt 13:15, where: the people themselves are said to have closed their own eyes; and so Ac 28:27. These seeming contradictions are very easily reconciled. God, by giving plenty and abundance, affords the means of the people's abusing his goodness, and, becoming both over fat with food and intoxicated with drink; and thus his very beneficence may be said to make their heart fat, and their eyes heavy, while at the same time the people, by their own act, their overfeeding, become unwieldy, indolent, bloated, over fat at heart, and, moreover, so stupefied by liquor and strong drink, that their eyes and ears may be useless to them: with wide open eyes, "staring, they may stare, but not perceive; and listening, they may hear, but not understand; and in this lethargic state they will continue, preferring it to a more sedate, rational condition, and refusing to forbear from prolonging the causes of it, lest at any sober interval they should see truly with their eyes and hear accurately with their ears, in consequence of which they should be shocked at themselves, be converted, be changed from such misconduct, and I should heal them — should cure these delusory effects of their surfeits and dissoluteness. Is this state hopeless? — That shiners may, by a course of persistent opposition to God, so far destroy or deaden their conscience as to be beyond the hope (but not absolutely the power) of divine grace, is a fearful fact, and one corroborated by the Holy Scriptures (1Ti 4:2; Ro 1:28; 2Th 2:11; Heb 6:6). But this condition, again, is not so much the result of God's determination as of their own inveterate perversity."
THAT LITERALLY JUST DESCRIBED OUR EATING DISORDER.
There is no other explanation. There is NO other explanation as to why I'm not dead & rotting in sin right now. It's all grace. It's all unmerited, undeserved, unexpected, unstoppable grace. God decided to save my putrid life and that is the SINGLE REASON WHY I AM NOT IN HELL RIGHT NOW.