Possession vs. Obsession
In this distinction we see the basic difference between the new and old covenant.
Under law we can none but obsess;
Under grace we can none but possess.
And yet, under law the world grinds on. Waiting long for some appointed rest...
But will it come?
OBSESSION
Ah, rest from the law! To rest from the obsession for life in its fullness; harmony with animals, plants, spouses and waistlines, bosses, the weather, retirement, death.
We each obsess to no longer obsess. We each attempt to outrun our own sinful momentum leading to death and hell.
"But will my will exist in darkness?
Is my calm toward death a guilty bribe, inviting any judge by passive grit to quit, acquit, or right resist my just desserts?
And out of time with all my feeble frame,
the task is burned in two, refusing song in lover's tune. Instead of grasping after soon, the brute offended lands by crime the hasty throe."
POSSESSION
(Thread, define!)
I feel a definition of the term possession would be a helpful discussion to have. The gospel is the "good news" of a new order and even a new creation! Sure, "possession" can be disregarded and defined thinly and found in the dictionary, and I will not argue with anyone there. But for something to be "news" it means it has to have already happened!
I simply thought this assignment an interesting (perhaps a bit to poetic...) way of looking at the nature the message of the new covenant! In the new covenant, we are given possession of "all the promises" and that is a very great claim! I wonder, if the world were to actually know the depth and vastness of that claim what would ensue... even, if just the concept were really understood! I long to define this term for myself, and welcome anyone to speak to that idea...
What is possession, if we thought of it's opposite as our state of obsession and lacking (caused by a world fallen from the presence of God)?
Possession of what? (and further) possession for what end?
Is there any religion or philosophy (or even fairytale!) with a claim like this? That in the here and now, because of the self sacrifice of the author of all life, we might be restored to fellowship with him, though we rejected him at the start? Friends, I invite a response! If this is what is meant by possession, what a day awaits the broken, the hungry, victims of injustice, the outcast, the orphan, the sick, the widow, the angry, the selfish, the poor and needy!
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