Stop asking God for help.

[brinny]

Hmmm...Well, I don't think I can be any clearer than what I already wrote in the OP:

"What am I talking about? The Holy Spirit, of course. In him you have all that you need to "live godly in Christ Jesus."

"So, every believer has all they need in the Holy Spirit to live like God commands."

"Self wants its finger in the pie of the Spirit's transforming work. And so, many Christians don't really live fully surrendered to God, dependent upon His Spirit always for all things. In an effort of Self they try to do what only God can do. Of course, the results are not good. And this leads to Christians pleading with God for help in being who He has called them to be."

"But God's not really interested in just helping us. He's not playing a supporting role in our becoming like Christ. He's not there to catch us when we fall and prop us up when we grow weak. Not at all. He's aiming to be our very life. Because He is."

"All of our living, physical and spiritual, emanates from God. He is our life. Strangely, many believers don't live like it. They think of God mainly as an assistant, a divine aid to right living, not as the very life they possess as "new creatures in Christ." But this is what it means to be "in Christ." No more striving and straining to be like Jesus. Instead, we are to simply abide in the Vine as a branch and let the life-giving "sap" of the Vine (the power of the Holy Spirit) flow into us and transform us and bring forth the "peaceable fruit of righteousness" from us. Do you see a branch straining and struggling to be a branch, to remain attached to the trunk of its tree? Do branches quiver with the effort of gripping the trunk? Is it all on the branch to be a branch? No, of course not. The life of the branch is in the tree; it is just an extension of the tree, not an independent entity trying to suck the life out of the tree. But so many believers act as though they must work, they must try, to be a branch, to produce by their own effort the life of the Vine. And when they do so and fail, and fail, and fail, they begin to plead with God for help. And God says in response to their pleas, "You must die and Christ must live. He is your life, dwelling in you in the Person of my Spirit. Stop trying and just abide in me."

Philippians 2:13
13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."

Don't see a lack of clarity in what I wrote...

to produce by their own effort

Exactly what i have been posting about.

This includes not relying on God, but ourselves, when we surmise that it is un-necessary to pray.

It's a very very subtle form of the very thing that that ol' enemy strove to be, and that is to be "as God". We struggle with the very same thing.

After all, what do we need God for? We can (or should be able to do this) "on our own".

So we need to;

Stop asking God for help.

After all, shouldn't we "outgrow" this "dependence" on God for every little thing?

After all, we don't want to "suck the life out of Him".

Right?

 

[Truthfrees]

MOD HAT

moving to spiritual formation and discipline forum as per the sop's

 

[aiki]

Exactly what i have been posting about.

This includes not relying on God, but ourselves, when we surmise that it is un-necessary to pray.

It's a very very subtle form of the very thing that that ol' enemy strove to be, and that is to be "as God". We struggle with the very same thing.

After all, what do we need God for? We can (or should be able to do this) "on our own".

So we need to;

Stop asking God for help.

After all, shouldn't we "outgrow" this "dependence" on God for every little thing?

After all, we don't want to "suck the life out of Him".

Right?

It seems the more we talk about my OP, the less you understand it. And I get the sense (possibly more imagined than real) that you find my responses annoying and adversarial. Can I assure you that I am not trying to argue with you or confuse things? I'm really not.

It's too bad that you've decided to argue with, rather than understand, my remarks. Once again I say that my post was not about urging people to cease to pray but about encouraging them to pray differently in accord with the truth of the Spirit's presence in their life.

As the several quotations I offered from my OP state very clearly, we can't outgrow our need for God. He is, whether or not we realize it, the Source of our life physically and spiritually (Phil. 1:21; Col. 3:4; Ac. 17:28). We need God for everything. I've said this now many times. No where do I suggest that we don't need God or that we can do the Christian life on our own. Instead, I've said repeatedly exactly the opposite! I'm really wondering why after clarifying this so much you continue to twist my meaning out of shape.

 

[brinny]

It seems the more we talk about my OP, the less you understand it. And I get the sense (possibly more imagined than real) that you find my responses annoying and adversarial. Can I assure you that I am not trying to argue with you or confuse things? I'm really not.

It's too bad that you've decided to argue with, rather than understand, my remarks. Once again I say that my post was not about urging people to cease to pray but about encouraging them to pray differently in accord with the truth of the Spirit's presence in their life.

As the several quotations I offered from my OP state very clearly, we can't outgrow our need for God. He is, whether or not we realize it, the Source of our life physically and spiritually (Phil. 1:21; Col. 3:4; Ac. 17:28). We need God for everything. I've said this now many times. No where do I suggest that we don't need God or that we can do the Christian life on our own. Instead, I've said repeatedly exactly the opposite! I'm really wondering why after clarifying this so much you continue to twist my meaning out of shape.

I'm merely reflecting back to you what you have posted.

Thank you kindly.

 

[aiki]

I'm merely reflecting back to you what you have posted.

Thank you kindly.

No, I don't think you are. It seems to me your responses are more a reflection of you, of your biases, and understanding, and various life-experience filters, than of anything I've written. The more we discuss my OP, the more I see confusion, not in what I wrote, but in how you're processing my words.

I think, though, that you're getting a bit bent out of shape by our back-and-forth. I don't want your rising annoyance with me to become a distraction from the content of my OP. So, please just ignore this thread. I regret it has not been as helpful to you as it has to others.

God's blessings upon you!

 

[brinny]

Stop asking God for help.

The title to this thread alone will generate questions. A lack of clarity will generate even more.

Nevertheless, i will agree to disagree with not only the title of this thread, but every post that supported the premise of the title to this thread.

Thank you kindly.

 

[aiki]

Stop asking God for help.

The title to this thread alone will generate questions. A lack of clarity will generate even more.

Nevertheless, i will agree to disagree with not only the title of this thread, but every post that supported the premise of the title to this thread.

Thank you kindly.

The title was intended to provoke questions, to generate interest. But it was carefully qualified and clarified by my OP and many explanatory follow-up posts. Others who have talked to me privately about this thread understand perfectly well what I was getting at.

As far as I can tell, you have nothing at all to disagree with. Not even the title, if you understand it in light of the OP. It appears to me that you've just decided to be intractably disagreeable with me. That's okay. It happens.

You're welcome, kindly.

 

[Halbhh]

Just the one important error, of (even inadvertently?) suggesting any of Christ's Words are put aside, or superseded. They cannot be.

He said -- "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."

See? They cannot any of them become obsolete. He is speaking to all time.

There is much more to support this, but I don't want to write a book. The gospels are better than any exposition, always, just to read fully through, knowing we are listening to Christ, our Lord Himself. That helps us have the listening we need to hear. While I've read through all the New Testament, most books 4 and 5 times now, the one place you can reliably find riches and jewels on every visit is His Words in the 4 gospels. They are deeper than they seem until we listen.

 

[brinny]

The title was intended to provoke questions, to generate interest. But it was carefully qualified and clarified by my OP and many explanatory follow-up posts. Others who have talked to me privately about this thread understand perfectly well what I was getting at.

As far as I can tell, you have nothing at all to disagree with. Not even the title, if you understand it in light of the OP. It appears to me that you've just decided to be intractably disagreeable with me. That's okay. It happens.

You're welcome, kindly.

As stated above, i will agree to disagree.

I leave you to your thread.

Thank you kindly.

 

[aiki]

Just the one important error, of (even inadvertently?) suggesting any of Christ's Words are put aside, or superseded. They cannot be.

I already explained why you are mistaken in this view. Jesus was, in the Gospels, always moving toward the cross and the atoning work he would do there. He was aimed at a sacrificial act that would forever and profoundly change how human beings related with their Maker. Christ was fulfilling the law and in so doing putting it away and through his atonement on the cross instituting a New Covenant open to all who would enter into it through faith in himself as their Saviour and Lord. In essence, Christ's fulfillment of his predicted sacrifice at Calvary supersedes his prediction of that sacrifice. A doctor who says to his patient, "I will heal you," and then proceeds to do so has fulfilled his prediction. In doing so, the prediction of healing is set aside by its fulfillment. So, too, with many of the things Christ said. It is not reasonable to say, then, that all of Christ's words remain as they were given.

He said -- "Heaven and Earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away."

See? They cannot any of them become obsolete. He is speaking to all time.

God's words not passing away does not mean those words always still apply, or apply in the way they did when first uttered. The people to whom Christ spoke in Matthew 6 did not have the Spirit of Christ living within them, empowering and transforming them as all true believers after Pentecost do; they weren't "crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth they should not serve sin" (Ro. 6:6); they couldn't yet come "boldly unto the throne of grace" (He. 4:16) as divinely-adopted joint-heirs with Christ (Ro. 8:17). And how Christ instructed them to pray in Matthew 6:9 - 13 reflected this difference. But you aren't one of those pre-Calvary, pre-Pentecost people to whom Christ was speaking. You are a born-again, spiritually-regenerated, co-crucified, Spirit-indwelt child of God and so the words of Christ in Matthew 6 don't apply to you as they did to those to whom Jesus was speaking. The way you pray should reflect this fact.

There is much more to support this, but I don't want to write a book. The gospels are better than any exposition, always, just to read fully through, knowing we are listening to Christ, our Lord Himself. That helps us have the listening we need to hear.

God inspired all of the words of the New Testament. The words Paul, James, and Peter wrote are just as much the words of God as what Jesus said in the Gospels. In fact, since Jesus is God and God inspired all of the New Testament, the words of the other books of the Bible are Jesus's words, too. So, then, the entire New Testament bears careful reading and study as the precious words of Jesus.

 

[Halbhh]

Well.... Just love me as a brother in Christ.

He said to you: A new command I give you, that you love one another. Not reversed or undone or canceled by the cross.

He told us to forgive over and over. That's not canceled by the cross.

He told us to take up our cross and follow Him. That's not undone by His cross.

All we say isn't the thing, but rather His truths, even to this level --

8 “But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. 9 And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. 10 Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah."

He alone is the teacher, and others are only correct in that what they say aligns fully with any and everything He said.

There isn't anything I've found in repeated reading of Paul that cancels or contradicts anything (in any chapter) that Christ said, but it is true that to understand correctly a person does have to read full books entirely. Paul will often stretch a thought over even entire chapters, so that to hear the full picture, you need the entire epistle, and never just a piece.

With a truly learning/listening humbleness, we read fully, entire books, not doing the talking, but doing the listening. When we read more, we encounter for instance the powerful and wonderful epistles of John, and of course of Peter. We hear them all, Paul, James, John, Peter, repeating and elaborating on His commands to us.

They are repeating and elaborating His own commands to us in the epistles, commands from before the crucifixion.

 

[Faith Alone 1 Cor 15:1-4]

If you are christian that means you want to be like Christ , how did he pray? He asked his Father to take away from him that cup of wrath , but if not then his will be done and not mine right .

Ask God to help you go through bad times rather than to take you away from them , christians will have persecution for Jesus's name sake , we grow fruits this way .

 

[aiki]

Well.... Just love me as a brother in Christ.

It is because I do that I am hashing things out with you.

He said to you: A new command I give you, that you love one another. Not reversed or undone or canceled by the cross.

He told us to forgive over and over. That's not canceled by the cross.

He told us to take up our cross and follow Him. That's not undone by His cross.

Amen! But some things are undone and/or canceled by the cross. The Old Covenant that God had established solely with Israel, for instance. The need for sacrifices in the temple, and a priestly class to stand as intermediaries between God and Man, and the constant shedding of blood for forgiveness of sins, too. Because of the cross, the veil was torn in half in the temple, signifying a profound change in how humanity would relate with God.

With a truly learning/listening humbleness, we read fully, entire books, not doing the talking, but doing the listening. When we read more, we encounter for instance the powerful and wonderful epistles of John, and of course of Peter. We hear them all, Paul, James, John, Peter, repeating and elaborating on His commands to us.

Quite right.

They are repeating and elaborating His own commands to us in the epistles, commands from before the crucifixion.

Some of them, yes.

 

[aiki]

Ask God to help you go through bad times rather than to take you away from them

The whole course of this thread is about why you don't have to ask God to help you this way. Certainly, there are some things for which you should ask God's help. But you have in the Person of His Spirit who lives within you all you need to live a godly, enduring, faithful life. Instead of asking God to help you be more spiritually strong, thank Him that He has already given you in the Holy Spirit all you need to live as He has asked you to. Surrender to the Holy Spirit's will and way in your life each and every day and by faith stand on God's promise to transform you and make you like Jesus. Wait patiently for God's Spirit to do so and as he changes your heart, mind and desires, move deeper into your life in Christ.

 

[Pilgrim]

If you are christian that means you want to be like Christ , how did he pray? He asked his Father to take away from him that cup of wrath , but if not then his will be done and not mine right .

Ask God to help you go through bad times rather than to take you away from them , christians will have persecution for Jesus's name sake , we grow fruits this way .

Faith Alone 1 Cor 15:1-4,

Welcome to Christian Forums. I agree that Christians want to (and should want to) model their lives after the teachings of Jesus and God's Holy Word—it's a journey. Some Christians are new in their faith and still as babes on milk in their spiritual journey. Other Christians are mature disciples in Christ. We are called to love God first, and love our neighbors as our self. That is how other's will recognize and know we are Christians.

Thank you for your contribution and I look forward to reading many more. Amen to your verse selection (1 Corinthians 15:1-4)

Always Seek God through Prayer Without Ceasing

God is always there for us and His Holy Spirit will teach us and help us to pray. God knows our needs even before we know our needs, and He delights in hearing all our prayers.

God loves it when we pray for others:

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints; —Ephesians 6:18
​

Nothing is too big or too small to bring to God in prayer:

Casting all your care upon him; for he careth for you. —1 Peter 5:7

And Jesus answering saith unto them, Have faith in God. For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith. Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. —Mark 11:22-24​

Prayer is aligning our desires with God’s desires. Jesus taught us to pray:

Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven. —Matthew 6:10
​

In prayer, we’re not trying to convince God to do something he doesn’t want to do. Instead, we want to know his will and pray accordingly.

And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us: And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. —1 John 5:14-15​

Jesus modeled this attitude in prayer when he prayed on the night he was betrayed:

And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt. —Matthew 26:39​

He went away again the second time, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done. —Matthew 26:42​

Going through bad times, Paul tells us:

There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it. —1 Corinthians 10:13​

The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. —1 Corinthians 2:10-12​

Lord Jesus, only you know where my path will lead, but I trust that, even if I do not know either the way or the destination, you are with me and before me, and I follow you with joy. Amen!

 

[Arsenios]

Yet we don't always wish to "heed" the promptings of the Holy Spirit, do we?

I am a master of ignoring them completely!

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

aiki, would you care to elaborate on what prayer "is", exactly?

Prayer is "asking for..."

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Then there's Hannah who kept pleading with God. And the example of the poor widow who kept going before the wicked king again and again and again. And then there's Jacob who actually wrestled with God (wouldn't let Him go) because he was soooo very desperate. Prayer, in many ways, is a "holding on" to God with all our might out of sheer desperation.

We are admonished to be like the poor widow, who kept going again and again to the wicked king.

Was she wrong? Was it a bad example?

Taking this a bit further, should we NOT need God?

Great post!

In the historic Church, the consequence of this understanding was the discipling of the faithful to always be praying without ceasing some small prayer repeatedly throughout the day, and the night when awake, such as:

"O Lord be Gracious unto me and have Mercy on me!"
Or
"O Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have Mercy on me the sinner."

Or shorter versions of these: "Lord be Gracious unto me..." or "Lord have Mercy on me" or Lord have Mercy" or, as we are bursting through the windshield in the head-on collision: "LORD!"

To be praying without ceasing is our ontological confession that we ALWAYS need God...

"Except the Lord build, in vain do ye build..."

Arsenios

 

[garee]

No, I don't think you are. It seems to me your responses are more a reflection of you, of your biases, and understanding, and various life-experience filters, than of anything I've written. The more we discuss my OP, the more I see confusion, not in what I wrote, but in how you're processing my words.

I think, though, that you're getting a bit bent out of shape by our back-and-forth. I don't want your rising annoyance with me to become a distraction from the content of my OP. So, please just ignore this thread. I regret it has not been as helpful to you as it has to others.

God's blessings upon you!

It seems you are hoping someone might put their faith in your bias. We all have our own private interpretation. Do we need a man to teach us or can rely upon what the Holy Spirit informs us of and seek His approval according to His request??

 

[brinny]

Great post!

In the historic Church, the consequence of this understanding was the discipling of the faithful to always be praying without ceasing some small prayer repeatedly throughout the day, and the night when awake, such as:

"O Lord be Gracious unto me and have Mercy on me!"
Or
"O Lord Jesus Christ Son of God have Mercy on me the sinner."

Or shorter versions of these: "Lord be Gracious unto me..." or "Lord have Mercy on me" or Lord have Mercy" or, as we are bursting through the windshield in the head-on collision: "LORD!"

To be praying without ceasing is our ontological confession that we ALWAYS need God...

"Except the Lord build, in vain do ye build..."

Arsenios

Thank you. I agree that we ALWAYS need God.

I know i do.

God bless you.