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[prismaticbleed]

 
DISASTER DAY

Horrendously hot night. Window open
HACKS

Oblates mass! The priest was from CALIFORNIA!
Rosary, led 4th mystery. Inspired again to record audio prayers

Thrift / Wegmans / Walmart / Drop-off, Redners, Riteaid, HOME

BK prep + unpacking WORST POSSIBLE OUTCOMES haha
Too hungry & dissociated to function

Finally sat down, ate most of the carrots, and then mom called to be picked up 😂

FINALLY BREAKFAST AT 4PM GOD BLESS!!!!

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Still working through Adam Clarke. Verse 40.

"This verse is taken from Isaiah 6:9, and, perhaps, refers more to the judgments that should fall upon them as a nation, which God was determined should not be averted, than it does to their eternal state. To suppose that the text meant that God was unwilling that they should turn unto him, lest he should be obliged to save them, is an insupportable blasphemy."
In contrast, God actually repeatedly says the exact opposite. He IMPLORES sinners to repent so that they won't die. He practically begs us to return to Him. He is constantly portrayed as a forgiving Father and Husband, Who may indeed briefly be engaged with our sins BUT Who ALWAYS welcomes us back, of His Own free will, and does so forever. "His anger lasts only for a moment, but His favor lasts a lifetime." God is ENTIRELY and ENTHUSIASTICALLY willing that we should turn unto Him, to the point of giving us multitudinous opportunities TO do so, and lavishly pouring out graces upon us so we CAN. He removes every obstacle in our way so we can run home to Him... that is, except for the mountain of our own free will. And yet He will help us even through that, step by step, if we give Him even the smallest concession. He is just that willing. So that point is clear.
As for obligation-- God isn't obliged to do ANYTHING for ANYONE, EVER. He is Sovereign above all. Arguably, though, in a wonderful paradox, He IS "obliged" to save those Who come to Him through Jesus Christ. Then again, Jesus IS God, so Who exactly is He obliged to? You see the blissful loophole He has made for us even here! And I assure you, such an "obligation" does not deserve such a hard word as that. It is His JOY and GLORY to save poor sinners through Christ! He does so because He wholeheartedly WANTS TO-- the whole thing was His idea to begin with, after all!
So, as for Isaiah 6:10. I'll admit, it used to terrify me too. But I never knew God well enough to understand His Words properly. Knowing His Character better, now that I pray and study Scripture far more... then my foundation for grasping that verse IS what I just wrote: God WANTS to forgive, WANTS to heal, WANTS to restore-- He WANTS sinners to look and listen and love and understand. He is not contradicting Himself; He certainly is not changing His disposition! So, knowing that, what IS He saying?
He is speaking of that mountain of freewill.
He is speaking of how men have CHOSEN to REJECT His pleas and providences, scoffed at His graces and gifts, and outright turned their back on the Loving and Living God to serve idols and themselves.
So, God is speaking, at terrible last, of His due Justice.
Yes, God wants all men to repent. No, He does not want to destroy men. HOWEVER. THE WAGES OF SIN IS STILL DEATH. And if we repeatedly disregard Life when He reaches out to rescue us... well, then ultimately, He will "respect our decision" and turn the tides on us. He doesn't stop loving us. He just also hates the sins we brazenly keep committing.
(Stop rambling. Finish this later when Tilly isn't trying to drive)
https://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/pusey/isaiah_his_heaviness_and_his_consolation.htm
https://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/shalders/judgment_and_mercy.htm
https://biblehub.com/sermons/auth/clarkson/the_shadow_of_sacred_truth.htm
ALSO YOU ALREADY TYPED ABOUT THIS YOU DINGBAT!!!!

"A man must hear the words of Christ in order to believe them; and he must believe, in order to keep them; and he must keep them in order to his salvation."
My faith has suffered for so many years because I really wasn't hearing the Words of Christ, EITHER audibly or spiritually. As a child, I read the Bible nightly, and I LOVED it. But once I hit middle school, I just... stopped? I don't remember when it was exactly, but by high school, I was only hearing Scripture in Theology class or at Mass on Saturday evening. THAT WAS IT. How was I not spiritually starving??? Or rather, since I inevitably was, how did I never feel the hunger pangs???
...
I remember how, in 2012, Q & Y would read a few verses of Scripture every night before bed, and they invited us to join them. I will NEVER FORGET the unexpected fire that ignited in my heart. I immediately knew, I NEED THIS. THIS is what I've been yearning for all these years. It felt like coming home.
Unfortunately and inexplicably, I dropped the ritual when I moved out? But my memory disappears entirely too, so God only knows what happened in general.
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...However, I'm forgetting to mention the real trouble. Point two. I didn't exactly believe. Not since childhood, at least, and back then my faith was too small, confused, and uneducated to have true roots yet.
...Actually, SLC was ALSO the FIRST TIME I DID have faith in earnest since childhood. That event was separate from the Bible study, although it did strongly affect it. I'm talking about the Cathedral of the Madeleine. 
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(I immediately thought of my religiously-mangled upbringing, and how "faith comes by hearing," and that although I DID hear the words of Christ I DIDN'T HEAR THEM PROPERLY. They were out of context, misquoted or mistranslated, and in general only represented a fraction of ALL He actually said FOR me to hear.)
STOP BASHING YOUR FAMILY YOU COLDHEARTED SNIT.
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"You shall be judged according to My doctrine: the maxims which you have heard from My mouth shall be those on which you shall be tried in the great day; and you shall be condemned or acquitted according as you have believed or obeyed them, or according as you have despised and violated them. See this proved, Matthew 25:35, etc."
Oh wow, linking THOSE TWO VERSES absolutely deepens the impact. I never saw the connection before and shame on me.
This REALLY emphasizes the moral duty of every Christian to ACT ON what Christ had said to us. When He gave us the Beatitudes, for example, He wasn't just speaking pretty words & giving us inspiring one-liners to quote. That's unfortunately how many of us unconsciously treat them, though. We recognize their moral beauty and truth, sure, but then what? Do we PROVE them as such in PRACTICE? Do we make their truths TANGIBLE? Why do we hear Jesus's instructions and then just... not do them? Is it because He doesn't bark orders or list rules? Is it because He teaches to the heart, leads by example, and speaks in parables that we somehow miss the insistent and indispensable call to action within it all? Or do we hear it all at a distance, as metaphor or symbol, as "not spoken to ME," as something "too good to be true" or "too difficult to be literal"?
I'm drifting. What I'm trying to say is: if Christ's mission & commandment is Eternal Life-- if EVERYTHING He speaks serves that mission-- then how would we ever expect to GAIN Eternal Life if we disregarded & rejected those very Words?
Jesus REPEATEDLY says that "eternal life" is obtained NOW. You "HAVE" it, IF YOU KEEP HIS COMMANDMENTS. If you don't, then the opposite is just as terribly true. If you have faith in Jesus, you will love Him, and you will believe His Words, and therefore you will keep His precepts, and eternal life will be a reality in you right now.
It's so simple yet so profound, as it always is. So LISTEN CAREFULLY TO HIM. Pay close and vigilant attention to ALL His Words. DON'T DETACH FROM THE HEARING of them either-- when Christ speaks, DO WHAT HE SAYS. Since He is God, ALL His Words are TRUTH, and are therefore effectively ALL binding to obedient response. If we DON'T live according TO those words, then we're living a LIE, and a lie CANNOT be eternal, OR have life to begin with!! So BELIEVE JESUS'S WORDS, with your whole heart, and MAKE THEM YOUR LIFE.

"I know that this commandment is life everlasting" — These words of our Lord are similar to that saying in St. John's first epistle, 1 John 5:11-12. "This is the record, that God hath given unto us eternal life, and this life is IN HIS SON. He that hath the Son hath life.""
Oh wow I never understood that before. Now I do.
Christ Jesus, quite literally, IS eternal life. His Words are Truth, and show us the way to life-- a way which leads to Himself, Who embodies every Truth He speaks, because He IS Truth, and therefore IS the Way, in His very Person. It sounds circuitous but it's an upward spiral. At first we think of Truth as an impersonal concept, as a definition, but Christ reveals that Truth is God, and HE is God made visible, and everything that can be saud to be "true" is in Him, because of Him, by Him, for Him. Same thing with seeking the "way" to truth, as so many nowadays do-- it becomes so staggeringly simple, yet even more Ineffably mysterious, when you realize also that since He IS Truth then the ONLY way TO know Truth is to know Him. He IS the Way.
And... He IS the very Commandment God gave Him. Do you realize that EVERYTHING Christ spoke is meant to lead us to salvation-- which is THROUGH HIM? Every Truth He spoke taught us more about Himself, just as every miracle brought that Truth into practical reality. ALL of it shines with the Kingdom light-- with eternal life-- with Himself. No one could have done any of it, except Him.
This connection to John's epistle is amazingly, beautifully life-changing, as it sinks in ever deeper into our hearts.


"Christ taught us, not the things of men, but the deep, everlasting truths of God. As His Father's envoy, Christ came to us; and He proclaims only God's Truth... Christ, as the Messiah, received His commission from God, as to both what He should command-- everything that related to the formation and establishment of the Christian institution: AND what He should speak-- all His private conversations with His disciples or others. Therefore, He, as man, always commanded and spoke through the constant inspiration of the Holy Spirit... and God's commandment/ commission is, Preach salvation to a lost world, and give Thyself a ransom for all; and whosoever believeth on Thee shall not perish, but have everlasting life. Every word of Christ, properly credited, and carefully applied, leads to peace and happiness here, and to glory hereafter. What an amiable view of the Gospel of the grace of God does this give us! It is a system of eternal life, Divinely calculated to answer every important purpose to dying, miserable man. This sacred truth Jesus witnessed with His last breath. He began His public ministry proclaiming the Kingdom of God; and He now finishes it by asserting that the whole commission is eternal life."
This says it so much better than my rambling.
Honestly though I only ramble because I'm so moved; this is all so deeply moving and beautiful that my heart just overflows-- and since my natural means of sincere expression had proven to be language, that's what it overflows into. So I apologize for any annoyance in these floods but I'm not sorry that they happen; they are proof that I am affected by what I am reading, and that I am letting them begin to work a change in me, at long last.
Anyway. Let me then humbly yet joyfully think upon these things.
First: nothing Christ spoke was of human invention. That is important. Yes He was human, in that He took on our nature, but "took on" is key-- at His core, His essential Nature WAS GOD. He unites humanity TO Himself BUT He never ceases to be perfectly God. It is this contrast that is implied here: "human" versus "divine"; "imperfect" versus "perfect"; "fallible" versus "infallible". Christ was human but without sin; He was human yet He remained perfect. He was INCAPABLE of pride, of dishonesty, of selfish ambition-- and of course, He was absolutely incapable of speaking incorrectly of divine things! So, from this standpoint alone-- even without actively considering His commission from God-- EVERYTHING Jesus spoke was, necessarily, true and perfect and right. It was not anything a mortal could think of. It was not a perishing idea or a personal opinion. It was not even "wise insights" or "righteous principles" that a well-educated or respectably religious man could teach. Christ went BEYOND all of that, because His speech was INHERENTLY AND INVARIABLY TRUE, with all that entails, and it was so Because it was ALWAYS THE SPEECH OF GOD. I know I keep emphasizing this point but really it's IMPERATIVE to properly understanding the ENTIRE GOSPEL, and treating it with due reverence & obedient deference! Unless we truly comprehend that Jesus's words-- ALL OF THEM-- are the INCONTESTABLE WORDS OF GOD and are MEANT EXPRESSLY TO GIVE US ETERNAL LIFE, then we will never be complete in our Christian faith. We will not be living from this great depth of love, and so will be unable to respond in kind.
Second: a small addition to the first. YES, EVEN JESUS'S "CASUAL SPEECH" WAS HOLY. All His private teachings and conversations were STILL springing forth from His Divine Heart. His language did not lose any veracity or dignity or sanctity just because it was not formally dictated to a crowd. "EVERY word... leads to peace & happiness and glory," when we listen with humble faith, and then respond with trusting love. Again, we must hear those words AS God's Words, before we can respond properly, and before we can receive the virtues that flow from His Divinity alone, speaking through those words, not from merely seeing them as theologically or ethically admirable speech. You can respect Christ's words without faith in Him, and still be humanly motivated or inspired by those words, but then they will not change your heart, and they will not be for your salvation. Faith is WHY He spoke those words. Faith in Him works miracles... Faith in Him is what saves us.
Third: THE HOLY SPIRIT!! Don't ever forget about Him! He is WHY AND HOW Jesus's as a human WAS able to communicate His Divinity as the Son-- because lest you forget this too, GOD IS FOREVER A TRINITY, AND THE THREE PERSONS OF GOD ARE INSEPARABLE. Where the Son is, SO TOO ARE THE FATHER AND THE SPIRIT, ALWAYS. We don't usually talk about that, let alone even acknowledge it often!
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Fourth: The "actual" commission-- in other words, the underlying and all-encompassing motive & purpose of every action & word of Jesus's Life as a man, the ultimate goal & constant effect of His Incarnation, the functional definition of Who He Was on this earth, so to speak. "This commandment IS Eternal Life", and "that Life is given to us IN Christ"-- "I do & speak only what I have been commanded by the Father"... and what did He do? He preached Himself to us, He gave Himself for us, He united Himself with us.
"And whosoever believeth on Thee shall not perish, but have everlasting life."
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Fifth: "It is a SYSTEM of eternal life, Divinely calculated to answer every important purpose to dying, miserable man." Please forgive the italics, but that means a lot to me. It's ORDERED. It's INTENTIONAL. It's PURPOSEFUL AND EFFECTIVE. There was nothing haphazard, random, unsure, unfit, or unexpected about it.
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"The public work of our Lord was now done; and the remnant of His time, [leading up] to His crucifixion, He spent in teaching His disciples-- instructing them in the nature of His Kingdom, His intercession, and the mission of the Holy Spirit; and in that heavenly life which all true believers live with the Father, through faith in the Son, by the operation of the Holy Ghost."
READ THAT AGAIN.
ALL TRUE CHRISTIANS LIVE WITH THE WHOLE TRINITY.
I mean, on one hand, It's logically obvious, because if Christ the Son is within us then so are the other Two Persons, inseparably... BUT STILL, WOW. WOW.
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But even without using explicit language of the sort, Jesus was teaching that very Truth to His disciples-- BEFORE He was crucified! That's before they even fully grasped HIS Divinity!! So that Truth then must be couched in the other truths, in the less mindblowing details of their faith foundation.
But I can't type about this yet. We will once we get to those chapters. Just keep this point in mind.
The Kingdom of God, even now as we are able to glimpse it on earth, necessarily includes the whole Trinity. So already, whether we realize it actively or not, we can be in a state of grace where that reality is actual, in this moment?
I just keep thinking "Holy Mass," seriously.
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"Many persons are liberal in their condemnation of the Jews, because they did not believe on the Son of God... But those who condemn them do not reflect that they are probably committing the same sort of transgression, in circumstances which heighten the iniquity of their sin. Will it avail any man, that he has believed that Christ has come in the flesh to destroy the works of the devil, who does not come unto Him that he may have life, but continues to live under the power and guilt of sin? Paradoxical as it may seem, it is nevertheless possible, for a man to credit the four evangelists, and yet live and die an infidel, as far as his own salvation is concerned. Reader, it is possible to hold the truth in unrighteousness. Pray to God that this may not be thy condemnation."
This is the final bit from Clarke on this chapter and it's a truly terrifying thought.
This is exactly what I actually was talking about earlier. It's not just "believing without acting on it." It's hearing the words of God IN CHRIST and assenting to their Truth, to their Righteousness, but not then living out those words. It's believing with your head that Jesus did die for us, that He did offer His Life to ransom ours from sin and death, but not acting on that with your heart. You don't come to the Cross. You don't repent and confess your sins. You don't admit that you are powerless to save yourself and you cannot change your life without His grace. You don't nail your ego to that gibbet to die with Him. You don't forgive.
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