My thoughts are so flighty and disorganized. I wonder if they sound heretical, or at least theologically inconsistent. I'm a very naive person. I don't have a whole lot of trouble believing preposterous stories, which is not always good. Yet I think this very flexible mindset helps me to improvise with music and with life. I would choose personally to be easily taken in than not. It's a strange choice, I know--not that I don't want discernment; rather I want to be able to accept what's beyond our understanding.
I am not highly logical. I will immediately lose out in a theological debate. So sometimes it scares me that perhaps my thoughts aren't logic-proof. I'm so bad at logic I'm sure I drive some people nuts. I can never foresee the loopholes. But at the same time, I consciously go for the concepts--the overall. Even if I can't foolproof my logic, I like to try to foolproof my overarching concepts. And one of those concepts is that human logic is fallible and limited by the constraints of this world. Why can't it be defied? God has time and again. In fact, the existence of God, and thus our own existence, is beyond human logic.
I want to think bigger, greater, to outthink myself and overtake my own thoughts. I'm sure that even then I cannot keep up with God's greatness. Acknowledging it is but a bare glimpse. Oh, just look at the stars tonight!
Monday, April 2, 2007
On [the controversial issues] legalism and free will (or pride, the ultimate sin)
A lofty title and a long post! You decide if it lives up to its name. :) Here is a collection of loosely linked notes and ideas from here and there...somehow they all connected in my mind today. But be warned--they are rather confusing.
A thought-provoking quote
"It was to prevent us from ever being in that state of despair and bondage...that those who created this nation chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in all the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices--taking advantage of our freedom of speech--who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot read. And their faith has been justified--the faith of those people who wrote and voted for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We still are free. And that's what this fight is all about. Are we going to stay free?"
~ pp. 148, The Day They Came to Arrest the Book, by Nat Hentoff
It hit me as I read this paragraph, which comes from a novel about book censorship in the States in the 1970s, that this is the plight we face as Christians with legalism. Interestingly enough, there seems to be a connection between legalism and free will.
Legalism...and free will?
Some sermon notes from church on March 25:
"Legalism is a huge barrier to people seeing God--because it comes from man...from man taking principles (that are an extension of Biblical commands) that have had good results and exalting them as universal rules. The thing we don't realize is that those "good results" from "the rules" came from relying on God...people can choose not to sin when they're walking in the Spirit."
The Law was given to show our sinfulness. Jesus Christ came to free us from both the Law and our sinfulness. If we make up new rules for ourselves, we go back to focusing on sin...rather than focusing on the greatest commandment: love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
...and pride?
Now about pride, the ultimate sin (some reflections on the sermon on April 01). The sermon was about Palm Sunday, and how Jesus entered the city on a donkey rather than a horse:
"Wow. Jesus--God--came to us on a donkey.
It was His test. He conquered pride (even as humans gave in to it). He became not like God but like man on this earth. For humanity free will resulted in pride (and sin). It cost God a lot to give us the power of free will.
As the second Adam, Jesus truly reversed the curse. Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Jesus rode the donkey. We eat the fruit and die. Jesus rides the donkey and conquers all."
So how does all this connect?
A counselor once told me, regarding legalism, "Why do we make up these rules? Are we afraid that we won't be strong enough? Could it be we fear we're too weak? In God's power we are strong! Yet such rules keep us from relying on God; we rely on our vastly insufficient selves."
I didn't quite get it at the time. But now I do. How many times have I made up personal rules for myself and broken them even as I knew I was breaking them?
God thinks we are strong enough to choose to rely on Him; He invests His trust in us! That is what Jesus has freed us from, so we don't need the rules anymore. This is what Romans is about! We live holy lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Could the crux of the thing be free will? Jesus died so we could be set free--so we could have a choice. Both freedom to initially choose, and continuing freedom in our lives.
Pride. Free will. Legalism. Is that more pride? Do we think we can rely on our own rules to help us? Did we not want to accept God's gift of free will? Of freedom that Christ died to give us? Do we want to once again put ourselves under human laws that might even deafen our ears to God's leading?
Maybe we are robots. If we don't have the initial choice to choose to follow God and turn our hearts to Him, then we don't have the freedom to choose later either! But what greater power can be given a created being than the ability to choose? And what a great Being actually has the power to give His created beings the ability to choose! That's an idea to toy with.
God's full sovereignty and our full freedom--no less than the real thing; greater perhaps than what we in fact think them to be--can coexist. What a great paradox (and Christianity is the religion of paradoxes: three in one, born of a virgin, God became man, dying to live, the first shall be last--all suggest that there are more dimensions than we allow for on this earth). It makes God all the greater to allow for Him to be able to do that. And us--yes, how weak we are. How we abuse that ability to choose. But it is in our weakness that we are strong in God.
That brings us back to the initial paragraph I quoted. It's intriguing to think of in light of all this. If the founders of America wanted to bestow their country with the ability to choose--to really choose, in their experiment--then what of God in His creation, could He not?
My worldview is constantly shifting and changing. Almost everyday something changes. Pieces filled in, pieces knocked out. Hopefully it's becoming more and more whole. I cannot believe where I am compared to where I was...years ago. The picture is so much fuller, and so much more confusing! And the more more my worldview forms, the more I see how even seemingly unconnected elements may be connected!
A thought-provoking quote
"It was to prevent us from ever being in that state of despair and bondage...that those who created this nation chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in all the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices--taking advantage of our freedom of speech--who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot read. And their faith has been justified--the faith of those people who wrote and voted for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We still are free. And that's what this fight is all about. Are we going to stay free?"
~ pp. 148, The Day They Came to Arrest the Book, by Nat Hentoff
It hit me as I read this paragraph, which comes from a novel about book censorship in the States in the 1970s, that this is the plight we face as Christians with legalism. Interestingly enough, there seems to be a connection between legalism and free will.
Legalism...and free will?
Some sermon notes from church on March 25:
"Legalism is a huge barrier to people seeing God--because it comes from man...from man taking principles (that are an extension of Biblical commands) that have had good results and exalting them as universal rules. The thing we don't realize is that those "good results" from "the rules" came from relying on God...people can choose not to sin when they're walking in the Spirit."
The Law was given to show our sinfulness. Jesus Christ came to free us from both the Law and our sinfulness. If we make up new rules for ourselves, we go back to focusing on sin...rather than focusing on the greatest commandment: love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and love your neighbor as yourself.
...and pride?
Now about pride, the ultimate sin (some reflections on the sermon on April 01). The sermon was about Palm Sunday, and how Jesus entered the city on a donkey rather than a horse:
"Wow. Jesus--God--came to us on a donkey.
It was His test. He conquered pride (even as humans gave in to it). He became not like God but like man on this earth. For humanity free will resulted in pride (and sin). It cost God a lot to give us the power of free will.
As the second Adam, Jesus truly reversed the curse. Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Jesus rode the donkey. We eat the fruit and die. Jesus rides the donkey and conquers all."
So how does all this connect?
A counselor once told me, regarding legalism, "Why do we make up these rules? Are we afraid that we won't be strong enough? Could it be we fear we're too weak? In God's power we are strong! Yet such rules keep us from relying on God; we rely on our vastly insufficient selves."
I didn't quite get it at the time. But now I do. How many times have I made up personal rules for myself and broken them even as I knew I was breaking them?
God thinks we are strong enough to choose to rely on Him; He invests His trust in us! That is what Jesus has freed us from, so we don't need the rules anymore. This is what Romans is about! We live holy lives by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Could the crux of the thing be free will? Jesus died so we could be set free--so we could have a choice. Both freedom to initially choose, and continuing freedom in our lives.
Pride. Free will. Legalism. Is that more pride? Do we think we can rely on our own rules to help us? Did we not want to accept God's gift of free will? Of freedom that Christ died to give us? Do we want to once again put ourselves under human laws that might even deafen our ears to God's leading?
Maybe we are robots. If we don't have the initial choice to choose to follow God and turn our hearts to Him, then we don't have the freedom to choose later either! But what greater power can be given a created being than the ability to choose? And what a great Being actually has the power to give His created beings the ability to choose! That's an idea to toy with.
God's full sovereignty and our full freedom--no less than the real thing; greater perhaps than what we in fact think them to be--can coexist. What a great paradox (and Christianity is the religion of paradoxes: three in one, born of a virgin, God became man, dying to live, the first shall be last--all suggest that there are more dimensions than we allow for on this earth). It makes God all the greater to allow for Him to be able to do that. And us--yes, how weak we are. How we abuse that ability to choose. But it is in our weakness that we are strong in God.
That brings us back to the initial paragraph I quoted. It's intriguing to think of in light of all this. If the founders of America wanted to bestow their country with the ability to choose--to really choose, in their experiment--then what of God in His creation, could He not?
My worldview is constantly shifting and changing. Almost everyday something changes. Pieces filled in, pieces knocked out. Hopefully it's becoming more and more whole. I cannot believe where I am compared to where I was...years ago. The picture is so much fuller, and so much more confusing! And the more more my worldview forms, the more I see how even seemingly unconnected elements may be connected!
Sunday, April 1, 2007
God's Promises
We needn't worry that God won't keep His promises. He can't not keep His promises because then He wouldn't be God anymore. If that happened, we wouldn't even be here anymore--as it is in Him that we live and move and find our being (Acts 17:24 I think that is; have to check). Probably that's flawed logic (I'm horrible at logic) but maybe you get what I mean.
Why do we worry that God won't come through? If He didn't, we might as well not exist; the world might as well not exist. :) That puts things in perspective!
So then...how dishonoring it is to God when we worry about things big and small. How dishonoring it is when we allow a furrow of worry to crease our brow and mar our countenance. In God we can smile at the days to come.
Why do we worry that God won't come through? If He didn't, we might as well not exist; the world might as well not exist. :) That puts things in perspective!
So then...how dishonoring it is to God when we worry about things big and small. How dishonoring it is when we allow a furrow of worry to crease our brow and mar our countenance. In God we can smile at the days to come.
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