Christ In You means No Degrees to Spirituality

Written by Aleck Cartwright


Continued from page 1

This fourth dimension is not dependant on anything we do and nothing can change it, similar in fact torepparttar fact that I amrepparttar 127003 son of Clifford and Isabelle Cartwright! I may well do terrible things andrepparttar 127004 family may disown me, but many brithright is not something that can ever be taken away from me. The same is true in Christ, He is your birthright.

There are no standards of spirituality, because our only standard of righteousness and holiness is Christ, not anything we do or don't do, nor how long we spend doing or not doing it! Christ has become our only life torepparttar 127005 Father, by sharing in God's one and only son, we become partakers of Jesus' birthright and one with God in our spirit.

Every believer in Christ is on an even standing with every other believer. If I have been a Christian for twenty years and there is another believer who has just become a Christian, there is no difference between us to God. I am a firm believer that religion has divided us along denominational grounds as well as spiritual standing erroneously. A new believer needs his mind renewed just as much as an older believer and would benefit from reading and having a revelation from God of who He has become in Christ. No man can give that to Him, only God, though He does it through many means.

When we become Christians, we readrepparttar 127006 Bible and take it at face value, reading Ephesians 1 we are captivated by who we have become in Christ and believe every word as a child, hearing forrepparttar 127007 first timerepparttar 127008 story of his birth fromrepparttar 127009 lips of his father. Sadly as we grow up many of us lose our first excitement because we are told from all sides many reasons to disregard whatrepparttar 127010 Bible says about us.

So we become indoctrinated as early believers and lose touch with what God says we are over who our denomination or church says we are. We begin to judge others by standards other than Christ in us and Christ in other believers. We judge by how useful or gifted others are, how they look, how they speak, how long they pray and how much they study.

Obviously, these are not always indicative of where people are with God of course, because one learns to perform ultimately, bragging of how much they pray, how long, how many days of fasting. When these standards are lifted up above Christ, they look hypocritcal because we are, by design, never supposed to save ourselves or becoming anything in and of oursleves.

But when we instead lift up Christ above all else as our fulfilment, He will draw all men unto Himself. Can we dare to believe what we read in Ephesians 1 and other portions ofrepparttar 127011 Bible and take them at face value trusting that God will correct any ideas of God that are erroneous?

Taking hold of Christ in us isrepparttar 127012 polar opposite of suicide, butrepparttar 127013 way to both poles is through despair for life. When we realise that we are atrepparttar 127014 edge and end of ourselves, that is where Christ can begin for us. Ultimately there will be no middle ground. We choose one road orrepparttar 127015 other,repparttar 127016 road to suicide is wide and straight. The Road to life is hard and treacherous. But we are all travellers,repparttar 127017 journey is worked out through our identity and what we place it in. I choose to place mine in Christ, because He has deemed me worthy to place His identity in me. We work out our salvation with fear and trembling.

log ontorepparttar 127018 site at www.god-life.com to read more articles!

Christ in you expressed as you, www.God-life.com, a site to cellebrate Chritianity's Best Kept Secret, that God lives in the believing human being.


The Openness of God - Predestination or Free Will?

Written by Aleck Cartwright


Continued from page 1

Isaiah 46:9-10 "Rememberrepparttar former things long past, for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me, declaringrepparttar 127002 end fromrepparttar 127003 beginning, and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, "My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure."

Nowrepparttar 127004 argument could be made that God knows His purposes but does not knowrepparttar 127005 purposes of man or demons. But this assumes that there are two classes of future events, those that God predestines and foreknows and those that He cannot know are coming, those that arise from human and demonic choice. But if this were true then why does Isaiah not separate what God is planning to do and what man or demon will choose to do.Virtually all of God's judgements and deliverance's involve choices that humans would make as instruments of God's plan, seerepparttar 127006 examples above regarding Peter and Judas.

This is also whererepparttar 127007 first chapter of Matthew comes into play. The genealogy of Christ is proof that God has foreordainedrepparttar 127008 birth of Christ and is directly involved in every aspect of it throughout allrepparttar 127009 world and every generation. One wrong choice in any of these generations and Jesus could never have fulfilledrepparttar 127010 prophecies ofrepparttar 127011 Old Testament. Evenrepparttar 127012 prophecies ofrepparttar 127013 Old Testament show God's knowledge and foresight to be conclusive.

Within God's plan there is still free-will and moral accountability. Jesus' absolute knowledge that Peter would deny Him, how often he would do it, where he would do it and that he would repent never removes Peter's moral responsibility inrepparttar 127014 least, which is made plain byrepparttar 127015 fact that Peter weeps bitterly WHEN he remembersrepparttar 127016 words of Jesus' prediction. Peter didn't say,"Well you predicted this sin, so it had to take place, and so it can't have been an act of my free will, so I am not responsible for it!!" Instead he wept bitterly. He was guilty and he knew it. Jesus was glorious inrepparttar 127017 prediction, and Peter was guilty. This is why Jesus said before in John 13:19, "I am telling you before it comes to pass, so that when it does occur, you may believe that I am." This was His glory, and therefore a denial of Christ's foreknowledge would also be a denial of His deity.

The other belief held inrepparttar 127018 openness of God is that God did not foreknowrepparttar 127019 fall of man, or of angels and so could not knowrepparttar 127020 great things which would coincide as a result of these events, such as His sending His son to die forrepparttar 127021 sins ofrepparttar 127022 world. Neither did God know that Jesus' incarnation, life, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ, nevermindrepparttar 127023 meticulous four thousand years before Christ came in whichrepparttar 127024 world's stage was arranged in preparation for His coming. Neither would God foreknow Christ's second coming andrepparttar 127025 end ofrepparttar 127026 age to be able to allow John to write downrepparttar 127027 Revelation for God's chosen people.

This cannot be chance, God knew it all along. God must have foreknownrepparttar 127028 fall of Adam and it's terrible moral effect on mankind. Paul says,"[God] has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity." When you add this torepparttar 127029 teaching of Paul in Ephesians 1:4-6, we can see that God's glory is linked to His foreknowledge and His deity. "[God] chose us in [Christ] beforerepparttar 127030 foundation ofrepparttar 127031 world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according torepparttar 127032 kind intention of His will, torepparttar 127033 praise ofrepparttar 127034 glory of His grace."

It is of course ironic thatrepparttar 127035 desire of openness theology is to have a God who can relate to us in time and space and haverepparttar 127036 same limitations as we do. Indeed, if all we knew about God was what he had revealed of himself to Moses andrepparttar 127037 prophets, we would be astonished byrepparttar 127038 very suggestion thatrepparttar 127039 transcendent God that could not be looked upon had somehow taken human form and begun to live among us. According torepparttar 127040 traditional Christian understanding of God, it is precisely inrepparttar 127041 person of Christ thatrepparttar 127042 impassible, immutable, eternal God becomes passable, mutable, and temporal. We do not need to invent an 'open' conception ofrepparttar 127043 divine nature in order to marvel atrepparttar 127044 "folly" of a risk taking, passible God; all we need to do is to contemplate Christ crucified.

So if God does not know our future, or our present (for that is where we actively bring our unknown choices from conceptualisation intorepparttar 127045 past) or what decisions we or demons make, He is actually very limited indeed. He is in effect confined torepparttar 127046 past, His own plans and musings and calculation ofrepparttar 127047 probability of future events. This leaves God in a somewhat dire state. I would almost feel sorry for a God like that. Would He inspire awe and entice me to worship Him? I doubt it.

So how much does that leave to God? What percentage ofrepparttar 127048 world andrepparttar 127049 future does God really know. If we were to talk of percentages, how much does that leave to God, 30%? This isrepparttar 127050 problem for any person who believes that God is limited to time. Sorepparttar 127051 problem, then, is that God is cut out ofrepparttar 127052 future entirely and only has what is old to work with, as one man said, all He has is fossils. It would be as foolish as us studying dinosaur bones to try and discoverrepparttar 127053 future of our world. So He is confined to possibilities and probabilities, but He doesn't know actualities nor future certainties.

I do not think that that is a God I would like to love and serve.To do that would be to love only 30% of Him!.

"Prayer does not change God, but changes him who prays." Kierkegaard

Tp read more interesting articles go to www.god-life.com

Aleck is a missionary and Christian, find out more about his work and ministry at www.god-life.com


    <Back to Page 1
 
ImproveHomeLife.com © 2005
Terms of Use