Winning into Freedom
11/18/14
If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.
If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, “I can’t surrender,” or “I can’t be free.” But the spiritual part of our being never says “I can’t”; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin— we have to deliver ourselves from our individuality. This means offering our natural life to God and sacrificing it to Him, so He may transform it into spiritual life through our obedience.
God pays no attention to our natural individuality in the development of our spiritual life. His plan runs right through our natural life. We must see to it that we aid and assist God, and not stand against Him by saying, “I can’t do that.” God will not discipline us; we must discipline ourselves. God will not bring our “arguments…and every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5)— we have to do it. Don’t say, “Oh, Lord, I suffer from wandering thoughts.” Don’t suffer from wandering thoughts. Stop listening to the tyranny of your individual natural life and win freedom into the spiritual life.
“If the Son makes you free….” Do not substitute Savior for Son in this passage. The Savior has set us free from sin, but this is the freedom that comes from being set free from myself by the Son. It is what Paul meant in Galatians 2:20 when he said, “I have been crucified with Christ….” His individuality had been broken and his spirit had been united with his Lord; not just merged into Him, but made one with Him. “…you shall be free indeed”— free to the very core of your being; free from the inside to the outside. We tend to rely on our own energy, instead of being energized by the power that comes from identification with Jesus.
~ Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest
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Clarabella Pagliaccio-Severa said
ReplyDeleteHE SAID
>> the spiritual part of our being never says “I can’t”; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him.<<
I get the part about sin keeping us from being better people, but how is our mind different from our spirit? Doesn't it all come from our brain? I mean we couldn't do anything if we didn't have a brain, could we? Isn't that supposed to
be what makes us special, our brain, I mean?
The brain is temporal. The soul is eternal and knows no limit. The union of the two is one of finite with infinite
ReplyDeleteDeep...
ReplyDeletePlato, "Philebus" ;)
ReplyDeleteSOCRATES: Let us take some of our newly-found notions.
PROTARCHUS: Which of them?
SOCRATES: Were we not saying that God revealed a finite element of existence, and also an infinite?
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let us assume these two principles, and also a third, which is compounded out of them; but I fear that I am ridiculously clumsy at these processes of division and enumeration.
PROTARCHUS: What do you mean, my good friend?
SOCRATES: I say that a fourth class is still wanted.
PROTARCHUS: What will that be?
SOCRATES: Find the cause of the third or compound, and add this as a fourth class to the three others.
PROTARCHUS: And would you like to have a fifth class or cause of resolution as well as a cause of composition?
SOCRATES: Not, I think, at present; but if I want a fifth at some future time you shall allow me to have it.
PROTARCHUS: Certainly.
SOCRATES: Let us begin with the first three; and as we find two out of the three greatly divided and dispersed, let us endeavour to reunite them, and see how in each of them there is a one and many.
PROTARCHUS: If you would explain to me a little more about them, perhaps I might be able to follow you.
SOCRATES: Well, the two classes are the same which I mentioned before, one the finite, and the other the infinite; I will first show that the infinite is in a certain sense many, and the finite may be hereafter discussed.
PROTARCHUS: I agree.
SOCRATES: And now consider well; for the question to which I invite your attention is difficult and controverted. When you speak of hotter and colder, can you conceive any limit in those qualities? Does not the more and less, which dwells in their very nature, prevent their having any end? for if they had an end, the more and less would themselves have an end.
PROTARCHUS: That is most true.
SOCRATES: Ever, as we say, into the hotter and the colder there enters a more and a less.
PROTARCHUS: Yes.
SOCRATES: Then, says the argument, there is never any end of them, and being endless they must also be infinite.
PROTARCHUS: Yes, Socrates, that is exceedingly true.
SOCRATES: Yes, my dear Protarchus, and your answer reminds me that such an expression as 'exceedingly,' which you have just uttered, and also the term 'gently,' have the same significance as more or less; for whenever they occur they do not allow of the existence of quantity—they are always introducing degrees into actions, instituting a comparison of a more or a less excessive or a more or a less gentle, and at each creation of more or less, quantity disappears. For, as I was just now saying, if quantity and measure did not disappear, but were allowed to intrude in the sphere of more and less and the other comparatives, these last would be driven out of their own domain. When definite quantity is once admitted, there can be no longer a 'hotter' or a 'colder' (for these are always progressing, and are never in one stay); but definite quantity is at rest, and has ceased to progress. Which proves that comparatives, such as the hotter and the colder, are to be ranked in the class of the infinite.
AH, FT, to each his own, but I'll never understand how religion can be thought as somehow setting one free.
ReplyDeleteJMJ
Good question. Good answer. Thank you.
ReplyDeletePeople often feel nervous or annoyed with talk of God or Jesus, Soul, Spirit, Body, Immortality, etc., but that's because Christian Education in every sect or denomination has done such a poor job of teaching what is meant by the inadequate terms of convenience used for thousands of years too frequently without thought or explanation. This has happened so often the terms have ceased to have meaning for most.
Quoting Scripture, Doctrine or Religious Laws or Tenets without constantly paraphrasing, defining, and redefining what you are talking about falls under the heading of the "vain repetition" scorned by the Scriptures, themselves.
Being "religious" or having "faith" is not a mere matter of blindly following rules, and never questioning the meaning of Holy Writ or authority figures in the Church.
However, QUESTIONING should stem from an earnest desire to find ways to AFFIRM -- not DENY -- faith in an Ultimate Source of Unlimited Creativity and Boundless Good.
The modern attempts to treat God and His Son, Jesus Christ, as DEFENDANTS in a TRIAL for FRAUD is most regrettable, because mockery, and hostility feed on themselves, grow fat, sassy and DOMINEERING, as we see every day here in the blogosphere. So before you know it "The Still Small Voice" that is God within us (some may want to define it as "Conscience") becomes virtually inaudible in the welter of mockery, acrimony and mutual accusation that closely resembles the vicious destructive force of a mob scene.
And so we CRUCIFY Him -- and deny ourselves "Salvation" -- over and over again, every time we descend to such abysmal depths. [i.e "The Pits" in modern parlance]
And where does that do to us?
The question us rhetorical, and doesn't demand an answer, because the answer is too painfully obvious.
rather new to this forums....and a little confused. How does this post reveal consistency with the reply you posted on 'Who's Your Daddy'?
ReplyDeleteOCHRISTOCHITOPISSOSUCKOFUCKOSCREWOCUNTOTITOFARTOBITCHOBASTARDGODDAMNBASSIERE!
Wondering if this is a forum worth it's content?
please inform.
Mark
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ReplyDeleteI'll never understand how religion can be thought as somehow setting one free.
ReplyDeleteAs the "cause" of all events, they also get all the "blame". Pretty simple, if you asked me.
Maybe Athena just wasn't on my side today...
erratum - "Gods," ...as the cause... above.
ReplyDeleteLord's prayer...
ReplyDeleteThy Will be done on earth, as it is in heaven...
...
For Thine is the Power and the Glory, Forever!
Insha'Allah!
ReplyDeleteToday, I may have failed... but there is always TOMORROW!
ReplyDeleteMark, I don't know what you're talking about, but I'm sure you might benefit from a prolonged consultation with Matthew, Luke and John.
ReplyDeleteThe editor of this blog has made it very clear he expects visitors to avoid digression, and talk specifically about the topics posted.
Hildegarde von Bingen
PS: It's often been said, "Consistency is the refuge of small minds." If you think about that for a minute or two, it might help answer your question. - HVB
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteFreeThinke will show the way.
ReplyDeleteNot all, but FreeThinke WILL go HIS way.
ReplyDeleteJoin me if you like, or move as far away as you could hope to get, but please don't try to harass, bully, insult or intimidate me -- or other visitors, -- because I won't have it.
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ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteOCHRISTOCHITOPISSOSUCKOFUCKOSCREWOCUNTOTITOFARTOBITCHOBASTARDGODDAMNBASSIERE!
ReplyDeleteFT
I won't have it.
FT
Bobby: I'd like an omelet, plain, and a chicken salad sandwich on wheat toast, no mayonnaise, no butter, no lettuce. And a cup of coffee.
Waitress: A #2, chicken salad sand. Hold the butter, the lettuce, the mayonnaise, and a cup of coffee. Anything else?
Bobby: Yeah, now all you have to do is hold the chicken, bring me the toast, give me a check for the chicken salad sandwich, and you haven't broken any rules.
Waitress: You want me to hold the chicken, huh?
Bobby: I want you to hold it between your knees.
....Hold it between your knees, FT
~Chief Broom
The Jack Nicholson reference from Five Easy Pieces as no place here. The movie is a disgusting piece of trash, and so is its star. Both are detestable. Ingrid Bergman's Defection from Decency with that revolting degenerate Roberto Rossellini, the intelligentsia's fatal flirtation in the 50's with depressing foreign films, Elia Kazan and the arrival of Marlon Brando's despicably loutish lowbrow presence, ushered in the kind of movie making of which Five Easy Pieces is an example. All of that along with the obscene popularity of Rock 'n Roll and Protest Songs constituted a disastrous wrong turn for us American -- the complete takeover and transformation of a once vibrant culture into the monstrously crude, vulgar monstrosity we live with today.
ReplyDeleteLet's hear it for Cultural Marxism.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
ad infinitum