True development in Christ is a process, not a collection of facts, even though knowledge is part of the process. Good knowledge makes sense when we are open, rather than only wanting our own way.
This approach advocates for building a stronger foundation in faith through the Holy Spirit, requiring humility, ongoing personal development, and an openness to God’s guidance. Sensitivity to guidance is born in the Spirit.
While there are differing interpretations within the Christian community upon matters, our development will not be at odds with the lessons of the Cross we bear, or with our conscience. As an example, literal interpretation of parts of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians can easily be taken advantage of, or fail to see the proper context and aims of Paul’s words. We know we have limitations when each time we read Ephesians we see parts of the letter completely different to prior readings.
For instance, did we grasp how incredibly, amazingly excited people were in Rome to have Paul presenting Christ, how they looked up to him with great enthusiasm and honour. There was a fervor in the air. This is the reality of Christ. They experienced it. The talk of the town, so much so that people were emboldened to preach Christ.
May we embrace the transformative work of the Holy Spirit. Without this, how can we start to sense out what a scripture may be further saying. If our views align with our personal growth, there will be various angles at which to see things are not in conflict with our ongoing development. When things do not align, we question what we thought. Jesus said we will learn to know Him, His voice. Is something a different sound? We are born again with a spirit of discernment so we should not continue to block that with our own hardened views.
As an example, a legalistic approach to Ephesians will certainly undermine women and be taken advantage of by those who want control and use authority, instilling fear and obedience. Jesus never used such tactics or psychological behaviours. There is a proper place for all of us in our work and interactions, not for abuse simply because we do not like something. There are however distinct principles, such as a man not being under a spirit of dominance. This is humiliation and non-recognition of what the man provides. So again, we have to be careful. The way we develop in our past Christian walk will determine what issues we have not overcome so far, that linger on, or which unfold more insight in accordance with prior development. If the development is merely sourcing facts to support our views, that is a problem.
If we become more aware of what is happening to us, we will see challenges and change all throughout our lives. The Lord does use day-to-day situations to cause issues to surface. If not dealt with, people deepen into bad behaviours. For instance, someone should be prayed for and blessed, but the person is angry so they say everyone else is wrong. Unresolved conflicts can go around and around in people’s heads and emotions. If we start to learn how to change, we have the “tools” for more capacity and capability to change.
As we tackle these kinds of things, we will be confronted with worldly situations and views that are no longer as black and white as we once thought. If we don’t develop in these things, our views are rigid and seen by others as simplistic and flawed. There may be an accumulative effect as more people follow suite. We are however allowed to view information over time, modifying our views as we obtain more information. This is reasonable. At some point there will be views that do not really impact other people, or which do. If they do impact, they can vary in extent. If we cannot see more content in our arguments than what we once narrowly held, the temptation is to reject those who do not agree.
It is simplistic, as an example, to say evil escalated, causing World War I because eventually people did not believe the earth was created in 6 days. That was the moral decline that precipitated war and it is our proof. This is a held view. But when describing evolution in these terms and communicating the idea to more people, there is no evidenced knowledge of the topic because simplistic beliefs are self-supporting only when they remain incredibly shallow. We are not saying for or against six days creation here, but saying the implications that must occur in seriously held beliefs that impact people, that can be dangerous, when the ideas are potentially untrue. We observe the behaviour.
Our minds readily follow narratives that make sense within the rules set by the narrative. If the narrative is childish, it means something has happened for people to accept it – because we do observe that certain people accept childish things.
Where does this lead for Christians? Obviously one needs to develop so that one’s life is not so simplistic as to be telling other people things that are really wrong. If there are counter arguments to supposed facts and accepted narrative, they need to be provided, but then the issue is, what happens next time? The Bible says, what is the point of sowing God’s great miracles if people will still not believe in God’s Son dying and taking our sins to himself. What is the point of explaining why seriously held wrong beliefs or ideas are wrong, if people cannot learn to develop a liking for truth and seeking it. People like to seek disaster rather than truth. When incorrect views are built upon, people do not want them knocked down, whereas the Christian view should be, great, excellent, please knock down the wrong things I thought as it is better for me.
Our position is to focus on the things of God, not on endless distractions and searches for black and white truth that will not be found. No regular person, for example, will know the ins and outs of certain wars taking place. If we ask questions amongst each other, we may be polarised. Our response should be for prayer, not to polarise, and to seek guidance as needed. When we seek and ask with good motive and sense, the attitude is not betrayal. There needs to be arguments for and against, without hostility, so that we can find better positions. One-sided arguments typically have offered smaller benefits than more mature discussions. The same applies at higher levels such as organisations. Despite this, few go in this direction.
At times, when we “flip” our thinking, we are developing more breadth and internal ability. For example, as inflation and pricing goes up, we decide to save on specific things, such as hot water. So, we try to have shorter showers in the morning. We are thinking of how we are saving. This actually does not help ongoing. It is a “flip” to think instead, what water I did not use today, rather than what water I saved today. What money did I not use up today, that I could have, is a quantifiable amount, rather than how much money I am saving today. One way of thinking is constantly in competition, while the other is in terms of reward and satisfaction. If we are not developing beyond our basics, we don’t see these things. Those who do, actually show it. So, none of the ideas I have given here are in a sense mine, as they are shared and known, and stated by others. It is good to know our development is supported by others who also learn these things.
Positioning our lives on facts or process (or both)
This is a difficult discussion to have and a number of folks may find the content hard to work through, or think there is some agenda when there is not, or use the content to self-justify other thoughts. Please take some self-care while reading and see if there is anything of help. The emphasis is on our development in Christ, how there is a need for process and life, not a collection of facts. One approach is based on process, provided there is foundation, while the other is based on information or “facts”, some facts being true, and some being some one’s interpretation. Foundations hold up.
Those who harm others, will argue endlessly in order to hold up their own foundations. A solid building does not need such a great struggle as the foundations are good to begin. How much work we put into foundations is not a topic I have ever heard anyone talk about. Why not put the majority of our time into those foundations with great desire before we attempt to build? I only hear of crisis that helps people to differentiate, alas because that is our nature. And if we do that, all we want to say is that we were doing our jobs. I don’t know of great saints who “got there” in a simplistic way as that is counteractive to our human nature. There may be a few exceptions to this, but I’d tend to believe it is rare indeed, but not impossible. So for us ordinary people, we can share what we are observing.
There are a number of amazing people whose in-depth life journey has provided us challenges and insights if we wish to receive the potential for such gifting from them. I cannot overstate the struggle, pain and suffering, commitment and trials from such histories.
People who are arrogant, who seek power, may say they are great, but they have no proof in the absence of the constant struggle to develop, change, and grow in their own life, and the fruits that must show if such a journey is true. And if they did, they would be humble.
Perhaps some prideful, arrogant people who do not have real empathy and love may invent what they think about themselves in their own mind, saying they are humble – a manufactured delusion, but the roots of which have to come from somewhere.
How can we not but benefit from those on real journeys? I love these people and their contributions to me.
The “but” in this case is that I want to say, without the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, being born again into the Kingdom of God, where man cannot go after the fall of Adam without being reborn back into that Kingdom, is that their insights are absent of this potential for revelation and then teaching from a basis of this truth. Real truth is living and imparts in an ageless fashion.
Philosophers and psychologists may present interpretations of the Christian’s view on the Holy Spirit, so there is not much value in argument here. Faith invites God’s gift to mankind, good thinking helps in diverse other ways, where men interpret what they think faith is.
If a man, for instance, follows Freemasonry, but then says he is a Christian leader, he will never have the focus or ability to dwell on and impart to others various things of the Holy Spirit he otherwise would have been able. It is a very sad and upsetting reality.
Similarly, if a man dwells on the flesh, same outcome. We all make decisions based on some obvious factors, such as our upbringing, decisions we make, and come under those controls and their own forms of captivity until at some point Christ sets us free.
People will have their own views on this freedom. We only have a limited time frame on which to work on ourselves. If a man does not overcome Freemasonry by the time he is in his eighties, he has lost that battle. If a man still lusts very strongly after a foxy lady that passes him by when he is in his nineties, I am sure the Lord understands, but he has lost that particular victory by degree.
Factual truths may offer crucial insights and be deemed to be alive, but still have the fundamental problem of non-direct contact with the Holy Spirit. The way around this is to say that in its own way, their views on truth is in contact with what they call the Spirit, God or the Universe. These may be interesting discussions, but there is a flaw according to experience and witness.
Therein is an oddity as the Holy Spirit is not controlled by man, and why should there not be truth imparted or reflected back to mankind by God.
I would caution people in their search for truth to look at what some (not all) churches protest about in detail. The awareness and thinking in some protests is so childish as to be too obvious to counter-argue. Yet, we have whole groups of people saying what they say. If we take as a logical argument that there are highly immature and ignorant actions by some congregations of people who are Christian, we ask what genuinely led to that, then have to look at this reality and be aware of it. If we say it does not exist, we have not gone further than where we can go, in God’s Grace. But what it does mean, is that something is going on because we saw it and it surprised us.
I am not belittling in this example. I am not stating knowledge of the congregation or how Jesus is working with His church in this case. I am talking about reality of the protest. How is it that a Church can protest over things that are simply futile and unbelievable at any level of experience or thought? And, that there are groups of Christians who would not become part of that activity by contrast.
We understand in our world, there are denominations and within those, differences of view. Generally, a denomination upholds a statement of belief, a document. That document can be helpful, or in a rarer circumstance, born in great ill. It can be used with wisdom or with rigidity even to the extent of policing. I’ve witnessed policing and my abhorrence to it.
We are not a mono society of beliefs, and being mankind, there will be different ends of the scale. But even within commonly seen respectable denominations, there are now differences within the same parish or local suburb. For one church, it is not allowed for women to teach or hold positions, while down the road, there is no issue about that.
We know very well of people who demand others to follow exactly what the scriptures say according to their own interpretation when they do not know Greek or Hebrew, and have no desire to research and understand, let alone the historical culture of which we have limited knowledge of anyway. The implication is control and self-worship. Or, people who say what the organisation has determined, which gives an agreed cohesion within that system of belief. A closed system always presents problems. I am not talking about rejection of Gospel fundamentals. A church that accepts all the world’s faiths has abandoned the Gospel in a terrible way. Such an environment cannot develop proper Christian fellowship, even if it is within an established denomination.
At the end of the day, I am still disturbed by such things and I cannot ignore that response. I think there is something terribly wrong going on here, but I have not worked it through to a resolution for now. The difference may be justified on the basis that God has approved this according to the elders of each Church. If so, why am I still cringing? However, if something is outside the scope of the statement of belief, it means separation from the rules and benefits of the over-arching organisation – funding, insurance, events and so on.
I sometimes feel I am walking into a different universe. In one church women do all the cooking and serving of food. This may be fine, but if it morphs into being an expected service because women are women, it troubles me and causes me some level of guilt to be associated with it. Such indication is when the men who receive this service bate the women into their submission to the men, and a mature Christian woman will say she does not have that relationship with her husband, rather it is co-operative, which negates the supposed root principle the Church claims to have – meanwhile the rude man continues to try to cover his stupid statements and make the woman agree with him. This stuff goes on, some of which is trivial, but some of which alludes to a deeper problem.
Why is this happening? I feel more than before, there are areas of truth God cannot talk to mankind about further than is allowed by man himself. If views and opinions are all controlled by a primary directive of what man considers fact, then he is outside a more fundamental if not primary driver of process. Man offers endless arguments. One cannot stop Niagara falls. So that approach has limited utility. The Lord may wait until man looks for another approach.
If God one day comes upon man, in personage, he may fundamentally change on various things. Nothing in man can counter-argue God in the real. Some have understood this in true revival. There have been various revivals that are not of the same caliber. Argue as much as you want, but this is the case. So if man’s direction is changing (in God) we have an ability to present more truth. That is my current position. And to do otherwise may be dangerous. How many people have been thrown over the cliff? There is such a thing as the restraint of the Holy Spirit.
Also, to be in direct contact is dependent on what that means, and surely pride is not supposed to be part of that experience. Prideful Christian leaders may say they know the truth, but the pride, boasting and arrogance says otherwise. But then we have the question, well how do you know you are right in saying this? Why can it not be bombastic and prideful? This is where we will differ as we cannot prove via normal methodologies. We are not God. But, if we have the Spirit of God indwelling, as contrasted to out dwelling where various insights are to be had, (the Holy Spirit does His work according to His attributes and work – the bible says searching the hearts of men around the world) there appears to be general and consistent characteristics of that work shared by others who live a life that proceeds in the direction of the Holy Spirit.
This is where we get similar or same consensus of how the Holy Spirit works within us – a very long discussion to do. If we do not see the same in other leaders or those of influence who profess to have this, it is not only the attributes of a man that are in dissension, but the impact that results. If the eyes of others are in some other direction, a man can be dangerous yet applauded for being righteous. This seems to be a continual problem.
This is why many agree to have a simpler view of life, taking the scriptures as laws and facts in righteousness, to avoid these differences. The problem here is that as one person put it, facts are dead. In a way they are. This is key. This is central to our development. Our spiritual growth is a process, not a set of facts. Living beings cannot work by static, non-dynamic facts.
If we do take simpler views on life, there will be reasons people do this. However, it is a limited journey, and means limited love and contribution to others. The moment we avoid potential, we become like a statue, unable to offer life. If we knew that, we would be deeply ashamed at our lack. If we know it, we would see it more likely to be immoral to treat our views of righteousness in such a simplistic manner.
It certainly negates both commandments to love (and how do you do that unless you change by divine help rather than self-derived assumptions or assertions) and how we understand God wants us to live – through living co-operation with Him by his Holy Spirit with us. If we perceive our lack, we then have a way forward, which is the reward, rather than perpetual sorrow over lack. Refusing to see loss, lack, sorrow, a condition of the human being, is to build self-righteousness, in the name of God, in the name of Jesus, or anyone else. I refuse to be part of your car wreck.
When two people present completely different views, each saying they are spiritual, we see the logical argument of why a large number of people say they will only follow scripture. This is, as presented above, (as limited as my discussion is) ignoring life versus “facts”. It also ignores reality. The impact of which can be harmful, and thus immoral towards others, and towards oneself.
The definitions of morality are perhaps confused with definitions of sin. It is not simple. A positioning may be deemed immoral because it cannot conform to a rigid definition of sin. So, once acted upon it is convenient to label as sin. Where is the line drawn without hypocrisy? Jesus refers us back to the heart. If you are in a state of desire to have another man’s wife, you have committed adultery. If you hate another brother, you have committed murder. Harm is easily and readily handed out to others as we only have ourselves to be accountable to or worse, to ignore. Facts cannot produce morality and cannot define morality if they are not backed up by reality. We have to have a process of engagement with God’s life as the central point here. I am convinced men have incorrect definitions of both morality and righteousness, immorality and sin, adding elements to either that are iron and clay, or absent of elements that are silver or gold, so-to-speak. I see it too much to ignore otherwise.
I am not presenting highly developed arguments here, or trying to be intellectual enough to tackle the arguments the world may have towards what I am saying, but alerting to the possibility that we may be too narrow in things that become a finality and thereby limit our future, and for those around us. This means not only loss to one’s self, but to others. And I think that is true. I think we cause loss to others. The greater the harm, the more the loss of course. But there is loss that is not known due to limitation, what was never able to be achieved.
If we follow a certain path, we tune into others who do the same, and like the content they present related to that type of person. How often do we hear of people saying how wonderful a sermon is when the content was not helpful or spiritual in its basis, but rather a presentation of what came across as facts. Dead sermons excite many people. The person who delivers these messages is seen as most praiseworthy. Why?
If a person is taken by outward appearances, this reflects something going on within them. This is where psychology can help reveal the dynamic. So, a person comments how good a speaker was, based on the perception they have over the wonderful clothing they were wearing. I understand, but it is not where we ultimately can be. If we have a lack in our lives, we have to fill it up with something. I do understand that, but to remain that way our entire lives is too sad to say.
I recall someone who lived their young adult life in chasing up the best cheese cakes the shops had to offer. I remember how important it once was to me to have a good DVD collection. It really was important. Now it is meaningless, thankfully.
When “we” were children, we saw this amazing thing called a TEAC reel-to-reel tape recorder with the timber cabinet framing. This desire was silly, because it offered nothing practical, and by later standards was pointless. The feeling, the desire, the want, was always there. It was only a short while ago the Holy Spirit brought this memory back. After praying for it to no longer have any hold over me, the desire for it, based on what triggered the desire as a child, was completely gone. There is a total absence of desire now for a TEAC reel-to-reel recorder. But there you have it.
There is such a thing as “absence” – not substitution for something else, but absence. In that absence we have spare ground to find new things. But perhaps the point here is that we can hold onto ways of responding for our whole lives when we could respond differently, if we only knew how. In a sense of humour, would I want to one day leave planet earth and go to heaven as the TEAC man? No thank you.
On the other side are those who support evil and malevolence. While a general comment has been that anyone could be on this darker side of experience, that no one is immune from it, this is not quite true. Life has more fluidity than that. It may be, but it is not a universal truth.
All men according to Christ’s words, are condemned, and who the condemned are is on a diverse but predictable scale, historically. Those who turn to God for salvation are no longer in that realm of condemnation, but still have such influences behind them, and choices.
Sometimes there are exacting and definitive moments in time where God gives choice, the man responds, or is honest enough to understand he is not able to make the choice in its manifestation, as sin is sin, and sin is powerful. God intervenes. To break the sins of the past is a life long experience in most cases I have seen, regardless of how young one is when one becomes a Christian.
I would like to think there are more beautiful people than who I think I was, but wanting to be good or beautiful is not power of itself. We all have to help each other, all of us. This is not being supported or taught, just as from a healing perspective, fellowship is not being built, or healing being ministered in the Church according to scripture.
When we make stances or positions, are we aware of why we do so. There may be an argument based on an emotional response if we have moved in the direction of basing our lives on emotion. There may be a response based on facts, without emotion or controlled emotion. The list goes on. This is an area of struggle.
I cannot ignore reality, empathy, facts, and emotion, but who am I, where are my positions coming from, why would I see them as valid? Tough questions. But if I do not see but only respond, I have no clue as to why I do what I do. And when I do what I do, I may be totally unaware of something that would have been of more benefit. When we are sick, our minds are taken up by our sickness, so in that confusion we may forget to do things we would otherwise do in a right frame of mind.
These are the sorts of complexities we deal with. As we move in and out of situations, we will make decisions that are understandable, but some decisions are based on wrongness. That is what we want to be careful about, each one of us individually.
When we read the four Gospel accounts of Jesus’ resurrection, we have major differences, although not about the resurrection as a true event. This highlights some of our assumptions. It is not disturbing to theologians though. So…
Was there one angel like lightning, was there one young man dressed in white, were there two angels dressed brilliantly, and on it goes. We get the impression Mary and Mary were the only two who visited the tomb at first, but there is no way two women would have done so by themselves. When we read the secular account from Pontius Pilate, (not in the bible) we see Matthew has an idea that may be in line with this account – the soil in the ground became like another substance (not like soil and ground) whereby others were able to be resurrected from within solid matter. This description is not referencing the earthquake, but the condition of the soil. These two accounts have some striking similarities, but the Gospel description is only about one sentence.
If we take a simple view, we have to take that view as law. But law is used to judge others – we know Paul emphasises this. It is quite disturbing in my view to go down this path. The Gospel accounts hold great truths, but are evident over and over with simplistic and differing descriptions. John even says Jesus did too much that could not even be written into all the books of the world.
Perhaps the content of the bible is “thinner” than we will allow ourselves to ask – in a carefully considered way. This would be seen as damnation and heresy by some, but I remind you I love the scripture, I have revelation from it unceasingly.
If your positioning is that the bible is fully understood and is infallible, and you have adopted rigid views in various matters such as a literal six days of creation for the entire Universe and its geographical and biological content, I cannot enter into discussions with you as you have blocked me out. The positioning is predictable based on your primary decision. I will find definitive content that counters your position, but you won’t budge. My experience is that under do or die consequences of this behaviour, this causes the opposite of Christ’s love upon others, be it subtle or downright obvious. People kill others in the name of love. Look what Calvinism did! The selfish part of the human condition is to remain rigid in being “right”, and the more people it can gather to think the same, the more it proves the position.
The way people deal with enforcement is to threaten, saying what God says. I don’t disrespect God and where I do I pray God helps me change as I have ignorance like anyone else. Anyone who says they do not is, as John says, a liar. I believe we have to expand our minds in a healthier way not for the purpose of heresy of course, but to reasonably break down narrowness and constraint, primarily based on fear. The Truth is not fearful. If we cannot walk where we have not walked before, we never will. It is not saying to walk where angels fear to tread, or to develop false doctrine etc., but to develop as God’s intended creation. My experience is that God loves us to develop.
The amount of thin content in the Bible must be recognised, not in a way that puts it down, or to suit justifications for self and sin, but for what it really is, and some scholars who love Christ, have done so – but not many as I can see today. To do so is to potentially become fodder for any viscous response men love to hammer out and indulge in. Concepts and ideas are readily and constantly misconstrued to serve self. Look what people did to Jesus!
We have various sources and ways for developing in truth. We have accountability to others. We have fellowship – real fellowship, not pretend fellowship. We have the Holy Spirit. We have conscience. We have witness within. We have Church. We have hard lessons of life. We have awareness. We have growing direction in how we understand God. We have scripture. We have development in how the Lord lets us see himself. We have spiritual people who have written books on their life and Jesus down through the ages. We have classic writers from the 1800’s to 1900’s. There is much.
If we love something we have not grown out of, we have plenty of sources available to us today from social media through to shallow Christian writers. Or worse, we have people who latch onto one idea as the new fundamental, which I more than suggest is incredibly dangerous, but there you have it.
We can couple this with deeply felt lessons from others who are professional in their fields, Christian or not, provided we understand our own faith.
Those who are not Christian, struggle for understanding the truth. Truth is to be found in many ways, even if only a reflection of what God has given men to see. People have been healed of diseases by God even before being born of the Spirit. People who ARE Christians who have experienced healing, may struggle with the whys and wherefores of healing.
We assume when something happens, that it is how God always works. God is infinite and all-knowing as one of the attributes as mortals we assign to Him. What happens then when things do not go our way? We find this very hard to deal with. It does not negate God’s goodness to us, but we struggle – things were not what we thought in the way we did. We scratch our heads and struggle more.
When people in history have assumed God relates to man in nature, there have been some terrible consequences. This lesson has not been learnt. There are lessons of course, but the assumptions and narrowness of what then become facts have given ample evidence of the problem of this approach.
This all comes back to how a person may be developing with life, rather than static positioning or working to a finite and limited capability of facts. Facts are dependent on what people say are facts. The Gospels show we have no idea of much of what went on, even though their words are of perhaps the most valuable help to all humanity. We operate readily in fear. Truth can shake a person. Paul says to be careful towards our brethren, so that if a truth is too much to bear, it is better to protect the brethren.
We know factually that scholars have information about what the bible is saying in various passages that the general public and congregations are not given. Perhaps some of this goes back to the notion of the historical church that governs – a strong hierarchy with us as the plebs, now more politely called laymen and congregation.
If we determine to present truth based on “facts”, while this is common, we do not develop the awareness for the need to develop in Life as a process. I hope folks reading this do not try to go outside the boundaries of what I am presenting, as I don’t believe I have been doing so.
We have to develop process in order to grasp greater things, greater challenges. If we do not, we will commit immoral acts upon others, have limited capability for others, and harm our own selves. To what degree and what consequence, I cannot quantify, of course. But mankind is subject to this.
This gives us a lot of freedom to gain new territory in things like discernment, validation, hope, faithfulness, love, righteousness, identity, meaning, value and more. If we do not wish to, we won’t have the right garments to approach the vaster fields before us in our journey. It is therefore not a discouragement, but an opportunity.
