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My old brain is still muddled...
YHWH'S TORAH >Aaahhh....
I asked the question:
What do you understand by God's Grace?
Is it created for man?
You reply with Col 3:3
You life is hidden...
...
OK - So then my Theological question for you is this:unbelievable! over-awestruck! unimaginable !
Well, my new one was muddled as well...
new brain: 2 Focus your minds on the things above, not on things here on earth. 3 For you have died, and your life is hidden with the Messiah in God. 4 When the Messiah, who is our life, appears, then you too will appear with him in glory!
(Colossians 3 biblegateway.com CJB)
Well, my new one was muddled as well...
Understood. Not permitted to post very much about this (on this site).
Perhaps YHWH will provide a way over the next two years ...... somewhere .... somehow.....
I didn't mean to imply that we were at, or even near, the end of discussion. I was just stopping to pause and enjoy the view at this point on this mountain path...it is a pleasant but tiring walk...These are important things, and worthy of all thought...
Yet we are but at the verbal beginnings here...
The Holy Fathers were Neptic Hesychasts for a reason...
Closing the door of one's closet comes only at the end of the narrow and straited Way...
In afflictions...
Arsenios
An untrodden path is always a new labor...I didn't mean to imply that we were at, or even near, the end of discussion. I was just stopping to pause and enjoy the view at this point on this mountain path...it is a pleasant but tiring walk...
Well, (as I was trying to communicate in my earlier post), I seem to have been blessed with some good travel companions at present.An untrodden path is always a new labor...
I am amazed at your sticking with it...
Arsenios
Is God's Grace a creation of His, or is it a part of His nature, and a manifestation of His love?OK - So then my Theological question for you is this:
This Grace which is unbelievable and unimaginable...
Does God create it for us that we be saved?
Arsenios
Thank you for your participation. It's helped to narrow my own research to the down-payment of the inheritance as being participation with Christ in His work. Patterns are of particular interest of what I'm finding to avoid. Bowing out of further dialog as it seems to not be invited except to pray for that which is being set forth by Arsenios. Something that I don't agree with.@~Cassia~ , @yeshuaslavejeff , @Gracia Singh , and @Arsenios (and anyone else I might have missed)
I just want to thank you all for this thread. It is fascinating for me, and very informative. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that this has, in my short time on CF, been the most profitable thread in which I have been involved, and the level of courtesy and graciousness within it has been wonderful.
Weighty matters, and much to ponder.
Sad to hear that. I have valued your opinions, and am interested to see some of the contrast between yours and Arsenios' views (and always like those of others as well), as it makes the discussion richer in my opinion. I will miss your presence in this thread.Thank you for your participation. It's helped to narrow my own research to the down-payment of the inheritance as being participation with Christ in His work. Patterns are of particular interest of what I'm finding to avoid. Bowing out of further dialog as it seems to not be invited except to pray for that which is being set forth by Arsenios. Something that I don't agree with.
Is God's Grace a creation of His, or is it a part of His nature, and a manifestation of His love?
If I beseech your toes with my tears, would you please reconsider?Thank you for your participation. It's helped to narrow my own research to the down-payment of the inheritance as being participation with Christ in His work. Patterns are of particular interest of what I'm finding to avoid. Bowing out of further dialog as it seems to not be invited except to pray for that which is being set forth by Arsenios. Something that I don't agree with.
That is my understanding of it. I'm glad to see that on occasion I'm not a complete fool.You get the blue ribbon!
Saving Grace, as some like to call it, is UN-created, for it is God Himself...
You covered for your brother who skipped the querie!
Arsenios
That is my understanding of it.
Okay then...Well, the reason for it is not far to see - Lucifer is our enemy and wants us dead, and has great deceptive power over us, but not if God is conjoined with us and in us and us in His Body... In that configuration, you see, the forces of darkness have no power over us, unless we desire them to have it...
We have safety because we are conjoined with and in Christ's Body...
A late stage of discipleship...
Arsenios
In this fallen life upon earth in this fallen creation:
Where and how does discipleship begin?
And where does it end?
And how does it proceed?
The matter arises in Romans 8:29-30
For whom He did foreknow,
He also did foreordain
to be conformed to the image of His Son,
that He might be the firstborn among many brethren.
Rom 8:30 Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified.
Moreover whom he did foreordain,
them he also called:
and whom he called,
them he also justified:
and whom he justified,
them he also glorified.
This clearly shows the actions of God in the life of His disciples...
And it lists them sequentially...
So are they progressive stages of discipleship?
And if yes, what actions on the part of the disciple are appropriate for each?
And what are the features of each of them?
eg What do they look like?
The first two, God's fore-knowledge, and His fore-ordaining, are perhaps more theological than practical, for they have to do with God's inner workings, and not with anything of which we can know...
But the last three are the impact of the first two on those to whom the Call of God falls, and then after that call, the Justification by God, and then finally, the Glorification of the disciple by God...
And perhaps we can then add the sending forth by God of those who have been Glorified by God to disciple nations... eg The "Apostle-izing" of the Disciples...
I remember Paul's near lament for "Those Called to be Apostles..."
1 Corinthians 4:9-16
Since Paul commands all his followers to become as he is and describes in this passage, can we find stages of discipleship here as well?
eg Is this evidence of attainment or is its practice a means of attainment in discipleship?
Is this what discipleship looks like?
Arsenios
If these are the stages of discipleship, and you have stated that being conjoined with Christ is a later stage of discipleship, then which of this that you mentioned are we talking about? Glorification? And to quote you, what actions on the part of the disciple are appropriate here, given that grace is a part of God's nature? Isn't it dependent on Him, especially at this point?
Wow...lots more to think about and in a slightly new manner.They are one way of looking at discipleship as a matter of the progressive development of the human soul
from its spiritual beginnings where God is the active agent, and they are known and caused by God:
From the very beginning:
"Whom God did foreknow..."
To its conclusion:
"These also He did Glorify."
Now I have a confession to make - Because I was trying, in my approach to Christianity, to simply make sense out of the myriad of writings I found there - And I was not doing very well, until I ran into Metropolitan Hierotheos Vlachos of Nafpakta in Greece, and he laid it our for me over and oveer and over...
So perhaps we can jump for awhile to his understanding of the threre stages of discipleship across all the Church Fathers, and they are these:
1: Purification of the Heart...
2: Illumination of the Nous...
3: Union with God (Theosis)
Hence everything begins with repentance, and at some point this repentance comes to Illumination by God of the Noetic Eye of the repentant heart of the believer... At this point, repentance becomes more intent and focused on the narrow and straited Way of Christ, and at some point determined by God alone, God conjoines Himself with us and we walk as Paul described,
"We are holding the Mystery of the Faith in a pure (eg purged) conscience..."
"Not I, but Christ IN me..."
"For we have the Nous of Christ..."
This last is an extraordinary statement, and reflects the fact that in a God-bearing Elder, his own will has been so crucified, and his calling on the Name of the Lord has been so engrained, that he only knows God's will, for he or she is One in Christ... He or she can no longer differentiate between their will and God's will, for they are One and the same will...
This condition is the perfection of the Faith in a person - It is maturity in the Faith... All that is less is working toward it, and there aren't a whole lot of folks at the grocery store or hereabouts that actually ARE mature in the Faith... Truth be known, there are not a lot of them in monasteries either... They are extremely rare to find... They do exist... They are the Holy Fathers and the Holy Mothers of the Christian Faith, and Grace pours forth from them...
So what does it look like?
Afflictions... Look at Paul - So much Grace in visions and visitations - And God permitted Satan to place a "thorn" in his flesh, and would not remove it even when thrice asked by Paul... So the person in this condition becomes weak... And not only weak but afflicted... And occuppied resisting the affliction...
And what does Christ SAY to Paul: "My Grace is sufficient unto you..." And: "My Strength if perfected in weakness..."
And it is for this reason that Paul glories in his infirmities, because he knows, and bears witness in this epistle, that it is his infirmities that herald the perfecting of God's Strength in him...
We already know, from 1Cor 4:9-16 , what this high calling looks like - The Apostolic Calling - A calling that involves ALL the Gifts of the Spirit... The worldly life of such a one as these is blessed worldly misery and affliction... As appointed to death...
And remember, the Way, if undertaken, should not be abandoned:
2Pe 2:20
For if after they have escaped the pollutions of the world
through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
they are again entangled therein, and overcome,
the latter end is worse with them than the beginning.
2Pe 2:21
For it had been better for them not to have known the Way of Righteousness,
than,
after they have known it,
to turn from the Holy Commandment delivered unto them.
And here we must ask: "What IS this Holy commandment, from which, if we turn away from it, our latter end will be worse than if we had not known it?" It is the Gospel Commandment: "Be ye repenting, because the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand!" It is here and now... It is not then and there... Christ Himself is the Kingdom of Heaven, and a kingdom consists in the rulership of the King, and this rulership is manifested in the obedience of the ruled to the ruler, and the Commanement of our King is to be repenting from evil and embracing the Good...
Enough for now - I don't think I answered your question...
I kinda went off again...
Old age, you know...
Perambulational digressions, I say!
I am just giving Cassia more reasons to pray for me!
Arsenios
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