The Center of Life

[beloved]

In the Book, "Repenting of Religion- Turning from Judgment to the Love of God" by Gregory A. Boyd, Mr. Boyd speaks about returning to the source of life Himself as the center of all life in every sense, instead of living in a carnal, worldly existence searching for what will bring peace from the external instead of the internal. Here's a little taste of what he discusses:

Restoring the Center

If we are to live the life God intends for us, if we are to participate in the ecstatic love of the triune God, God must be restored as the center of our lives. We must die to ourselves as center, die to our addiction to idols, and die to the perpetual judgments we entertain in our minds. God can only be our source of life when he is the center of our lives. So long as we thrust ourselves into the center, we will be forced to seek life from idols, judging good and evil, and thus be "cut off" from our source center. We will live a life that is actually death. The only way to discover true life is to die to the "life" of living as the center and be restored to our true source center. (Matt. 20:39; 16:25; cf. Gal. 2:19-20).

Christ Restores the Center

In a most profound sense, this restoration is already accomplished in Jesus Christ. Christ overcomes our separation from God and restores God's Tree of Life in the center of our existence. On the cross, Christ in principle condemned every person as a rebellious and empty center and reconciled every person to God by restoring God as his or her true source center.

When we by faith say yes in the core of our being to what God has already done for us in Christ, we begin our participation in this new reality. What was true and what is true about Christ becomes true of the believer. The self that lived as the center, trying to derive life from the world, judging everything as good and evil, is crucified in Christ's Crucifixion. The self "in Adam" is "old", for it no longer has any validity. The believer is a "new self" that lives in Christ and thus participates in God's divine nature (Rom. 6:3; 2 Peter 1:4)."

I thought this was a very good way to describe what our relationship to God should be, and how if we get outside of Him and make ourselves the center of our lives, we become bottomless pits; always needing, wanting, and never finding or having peace without him. We cannot have true life without Him as our center, our life source.

God Bless,
beloved

[beloved]

The Center of Life (prt 2)

In order to live in our new self we must die to the old by realizing that the old is dead and no longer has dominion over us. The only part of us that's left that is old is our brains, which we must renew, rewire, reprogram to who we are in Christ- to who we are as new creatures in our spirit beings. When we quit identifying with the lusts of this world, and identify with our new nature, then the old nature actually becomes what it has already been declared by God- dead.

Paul tells us reckon ourselves dead. What does that mean? It means to believe that the old person (with it's sinfulness and worldly desires) died with Christ so that we can live a new life with Christ from within; a new life that springs from the Source of life. We must deny who we believe we are, and should be in worldly expectations, and be who Christ redeemed us and re-created us to be.

There is a war between our flesh (our minds) and our born again spirits. We are "new creatures", "alive in Christ", in the spirit from the moment we accept Jesus as our Savior. But the old mind, the old man (the flesh) does not change at the new birth. If we do not retrain, or rewire, or as Paul calls it, "renew our minds", then we continue to live from the old carnal nature instead of from the nature of the new person within.

A lot of people in Christianity believe that what we must renew our minds to the law so that we won't sin. If we fill up our minds with right and wrong, then we'll do right, is the theory. The problem with that is that although the law is good and profitable, it cannot change anyone. The law was weak according to the New Testament to ever do that, so God made way for the New Covenant. Indeed, Paul tells us that the law was our school master, teaching us right from wrong, until something better was to come along. That something better was a restoration of the life of God on the inside of our spirit beings, it was making us alive unto God again and changing our spiritual nature. Through that nature we can walk out the law, and therefore live in love toward God, ourselves, and others. But we have to get the old nature (the flesh) buried where it belongs- with Christ's death. How? By reminding ourselves that we must live the law and please God? No, by renewing our minds to who we are in Christ. "As a man believes in his heart, so is he." The answer is to rewire our brains to believe who Christ has now made us to be. To learn to identify with that instead of the old person we were. I am not an "old sinner saved by grace", and neither are you. I was an old sinner, who (thank Jesus) was saved by grace, and had now been MADE the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am now God's child, God's heir, Christ's co-heir etc. Christ took all of my sin, and offered me all of his righteousness before the Father. Christ died in my place, taking my punishment for sin, and defeated death on my behalf so I could live forever with Him. Then He gave me the opportunity to receive this free gift that He provided for me- salvation. Once I received, the old passed away and the new came. The old me (inside) was reborn and new life came to me inside in the real me that lives on when this mortal body dies.

So, do we get free from sin by trying to live out the law? NO, we get free from sin by believing what Jesus did for us. He already freed us from sin! It no longer has power over us to rule us! We have to believe that for it to manifest in our lives, just as we had to believe Jesus saved us from the penalty of our sins, and accept it as ours, and tell Him so before it became manifest in our lives. Christ died for all mankind for all time, shedding his blood for the remission of their sins. The forgiveness and reconciliation with God has been provided for every person, for all time. But salvation will not be manifest in every person. Why? Because they have to trust (believe) in Jesus as their Savior, before it will ever be manifested in their lives. YOU HAVE BEEN FREED FROM THE BONDAGE OF SIN! The more you believe that, and identify with that, the more it will be so! We no longer live under the law, we have the law Maker within us, who has already conquered sin for us. Which will we identify with? Our carnal old self, or our newly created self in which there is never sin?

Learn to live from the new self, by knowing who that new self is. Everywhere in the Bible that says, "In Christ, In Him, in the beloved", etc. is who you now are. Meditate on that daily, and your flesh will be "crucified", and kept under subjection to Christ.

I would like to suggest a book that helps me do that, and I believe it will help you too:

"Who I Am In Christ" by Neil T. Anderson.

[beloved]

Learning to Live With God As Our Life Center

So, if our old man is crucified with Christ then why do we still think, feel, and act the same as we did before salvation?
The answer is that the only part of us that gets saved when we receive Jesus as our Savior is our spirit person. Our soul (mind, will, emotions), and our body remain unchanged. That will change one day when God choses but for now, we are stuck with the same old bodies that have the sin nature in them.

Lets look into how God's life helps us live free from the bondages of sin when we learn to "walk in the Spirit" or live from His life within us. To do this we will talk about sanctification. Our part in it, and God's part:

Often as believers, we take God's law and try to make it work in our lives. Although this is not a bad thing, as we all need guidelines in our lives, it can bring more harm to us than good if we do not understand that:

1. We are not under the law, or our performance- good works or bad- to get or stay in right standing with God. We do not gain anything by our works with Him, and we do not lose anything because of our works with Him. Everything we have as believers, and everything we will have come as a result of faith (trust) I Jesus and His finished work on the cross.

2. We cannot live up the law and God's holiness with our own self efforts.

3. The law was given to increase the transgression and show us our need for Savior; that we cannot live up to the standard, which is the glory of God. The law points us to a Messiah- Jesus Christ. He was the propitiation for our sins.

So, first we must understand that we are not undertaking sanctification with the objective of gaining, earning, working, or manipulating anything out of God. Sanctification is what we do as our, "reasonable sacrifice unto God", for what HE has done for us (lavishing His great love and mercy upon us).

We must also understand that the law is the perfect mirror of what love looks like. When we see it as a guide to live and love abundantly, it becomes life to us instead of a curse to us (a burden that we cannot bear).

So, sanctification is a willing setting aside of ourselves unto God, to live holy and acceptable lives. How do we do that?

Man's part is to trust, and God's part is to work; and it can be seen at a glance how these two parts contrast with each other, and yet are not necessarily contradictory. I mean this: there is a certain work to be accomplished. We are to be delivered from the power of sin, and are to be made perfect in every good work to do the will of God. "Beholding in a glass the glory of the Lord", we are to be actually "changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." We are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, that we may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God. A real work is to be wrought in us and upon us. Besetting sins to be conquered; evil habits are to be overcome; wrong dispositions and feelings are to be rooted out, and holy tempers and emotions are to to be begotten. A positive transformation is to take place.

Hannah Whitall Smith, "The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life"


This is what we have been told in the New Testament, that we are no longer under law, but under grace, but then at the same time we are to be transformed, crucified with Christ, changed from glory to glory, to be perfect like our heavenly Father is perfect. This all at first glance seems utterly contradictory. But, when you understand that you have a part to play and God has a part to play, then you can meet the two together and they don't contradict at all!

Now, somebody must do this [work]. Either we must do it for ourselves, or another must do it for us. We have most of us tried to do it for ourselves at first, and have grievously failed; then we discover, from the scriptures and from our own experience, that it is something we are unable to do, but that the Lord Jesus Christ has come on purpose to do it, and that the will do it for all who put themselves wholly into His hands and trust Him without reserve. Now, under these circumstances, what is the part of the believer, and what is the part of the Lord? Plainly the believer can do nothing but trust; while the Lord, in whom he trusts, actually does the work entrusted to Him.

Hannah Whitall Smith "Christians Secret of a Happy Life"

So, what are we trusting God to do, and are we sure He will do anything?

We are trusting in who God has made us Christ Jesus, by renewing our minds to who He declares we are in Him. We are entrusting ourselves to Him, because He promises in His Word to work in us, "both to will and to do of His good pleasure". "He the potter and we are the clay." God is the refiner that purifies us as finest gold. WE trust, HE does the working upon us. He has already done the work within us (in our spirit being) and has made us perfect there at the new birth. But he will work on our outward parts by trusting in Him to change us, and by finding who we are in His Holy Word and trusting that what He says is who we are.

Romans 6:11, by faith to reckon ourselves dead unto sin.

The Lord makes this a reality and puts us to death....

Now sanctification is both a step of faith, and a process of works. It is a step of surrender and trust on our part, and it is a process of development on God's part. By a step of faith we get into Christ; by a process we are made to "grow up into him in all things." By a step of faith we put ourselves into the hands of the Divine Potter; by a gradual process He makes us into a vessel unto His own honor, meet for His use, and prepared to every good work.

To illustrate this, suppose I were to describe to a person who was entirely ignorant of the subject the way in which a lump of clay is made into a beautiful vessel. I tell him first the part of the clay in the matter; and all I can say about this is that the clay is put into the potter's hands, and then lies passive there, submitting itself to all the turnings and over turnings of the potter's hands upon it. There is really nothing else to be said about the clays part. But could my hearer argue from this that nothing else is done because I say that tis is all the clay can do? If he is an intelligent hearer he will not dream of doing so, but will say, "I understand; this is what the clay must do. But what must the potter do?" "Ah," I answer, "now we come to the important part. The otter takes the clay thus abandoned to his working, and begins to mold and fashion it according to his own will. He kneads and works it; he tears it apart and presses it together again; he wets it and then suffers it to dry. Sometimes he works at it for hours together; sometimes he lays it aside for day, and does not touch it. And then, when by all these processes he has made it perfectly ;pliable in his hands, he proceeds to make it up int the vessel he has proposed. He turns it upon the wheel, planes it and smooths it, and dries it in the sun, bakes it in the oven, and finally turns it our of his workshop a vessel to his honor and fit for his use."

Hannah Whitall Smith, "The Christians secret of a Happy Life"

How does God do this work upon us? He uses His Word to mold and make us from without what He has already made us from within. When the two meet, spirit and soul by fusing them together with God's Word on who we are in Christ, then that is who we become. "As a man believes in his heart, so is he."

He also, at times changes us by His Spirit in a supernatural way. I think we all know someone who has been an alcoholic, or drug addict. Sometimes those addicts have a supernatural experience with God that sets them immediately free from all bondage to these addictions/sinful strongholds. Then there are others who become free through finding out who they are in Christ, learning the truths in God's word that makes them free. There are also those who from both find their freedom.

So sanctification is an entire trusting upon God to finish the work he has begun in us from the inside out. If we spend time in His presence, and in His word learning who we are and what He has given us in Christ, we will (as my pastor says) "Live more holy on accident, than we ever have on purpose."

God bless,
beloved

[beloved]

God Centerd or Self Centered

When God created the world, He created animals before mankind. When he created Adam and Eve, He gave them dominion over the earth, the animals, and everything in it. The only thing that God held back from them was the "Knowledge of Good and Evil". But, He made mankind with a free will to choose, to make their own decisions for their lives. He told Adam and Eve that there was a tree in the garden that He called the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil", and He explained to them that if they ate from it, they would die. Here is where my beliefs vary somewhat from what I've heard taught on the subject. I believe that God with held the "knowledge of good and evil" from them because he knew that if mankind had that knowledge, and being incapable of being perfect beings, (I don't believe they were perfect or they would not have fallen) they would choose to judge what was good and evil for themselves, outside of God's judgment, and thus sin and die. For example, in humanism, the individual person judges what is right and wrong for them; what is "good and evil". But what mankind judges as "good and evil" is not the same as what God judges to be "good and evil". They know because of the eating of the tree of the fall what is "good and evil", but they try to change those truths and make it relative to their desires; to what they believe will bring them the good life. There become no absolutes when mankind judges for themselves. In doing so they set themselves above God as judge of "good and evil"; rejecting His life and dying.

So, although it is true that we have a fallen nature, we did not lose our free will to choose. We are not animals who live by instincts to gain sources of pleasure, survival, etc. We are a higher, superior creation, made in the image of God. Animals have a body and soul (mind, will, emotions) only; while humans have a spirit (our immortal self, a soul (mind, will, and emotions), and a body. Animals live by their instincts. They don't reason things out, humans do. Animals are mortal beings so when they die they totally cease to exist. Human beings are immortal spirits that inhabit their physical being until their bodies give out and die; their spirits, however, live on eternally. Animals have no relationship with God. They are incapable of relationships because they cannot reason. They are only capable of affection toward us if tame, but not relationships. Humans can have a relationship with God. He is Spirit and so are we, so we can commune with Him in our inmost selves. That is where we hear the voice of God. Animals are amoral, humans actions are based upon their morals (values). I believe humans use to be amoral, because they did not know right from wrong; "good from evil". But since the fall we know, and we purposefully chooes to walk against it, from our own free will. And I believe that human beings are incapable of being perfect, and therefore God felt it was better if they didn't know "good and evil", or they would judge for themselves what is good and evil, going against the truth and therefore sinning. And sin must be punished for there to be justice. But God is love so he made a way of escape from eternal punishment.

In essence, God was our life source center, when Adam and Eve fell, they in essence chose to be their own life source center separating themselves from God. God is love, so they separated themselves from love and began to live (sometimes in love), but sometimes in self centeredness which is the result of their own judgments, (which is sin because it is the opposite of love). Without His life, we die spiritually, and later physically.......

But from the beginning God gave us a free will. We are not driven by anything outside ourselves or anything inside ourselves, but by our own free will, made out of our own judgments of "good and evil". But if they aren't God's judgments of "good and evil", then they are not good for anyone.

Mankind is always trying to find life in sin. It's impossible. Life comes from love, and the very Being of Love Himself; God. His judgments of "good and evil" come from the love that He is and wants us to share with each other. Anything other than that is destructive; it is death.

I believe when we recognize God's judgments of "good and evil" as not only correct, but love itself, and life itself, then sin loses its appeal. Truth makes us free. Love makes us free. If you are a slave to sin, it is because you have yet to believe the truth and keep trying to gain life from a lie. "I know I shouldn't do this, BUT I will get (whatever) from it." So you continue until you finally realize, "I will NEVER get out of this what I want." Some people learn that before they ever start a particular sin and therefore don't do it. Others have to learn the hard way. Some are quick learners and some are slow.

I choose life. What will you choose? Life, or deceit that sin will bring you the good life?