Hi there,
So I struggled a lot with this: what should my stance be, what should my religion be, am I bringing glory to Jesus or not? What I learned was, that God takes what He has already created and does something amazing with it. How? He takes what has already known love (as part of a family - we all have parents that loved us, in principle), and puts it in a new context - grafts it on to a new trunk, if you will - and allows that love to grow with new freedom.
It is not necessarily completely the same, nor completely foreign; what we are grafted on to is an expression of God's praise for us. With the new context, our old love is able to flourish the more greatly, so that like the mustard seed, others are able to come and nest in its branches. The branches He continues to prune, but the more they are pruned, the more the old love finds its bond in the new stem.
There should therefore be, specific things that we attempt to grow, new appreciations, sentiments, desires, understandings, powers, principalities, graces, spirits and on and on. None of this needs to be a completely separate theology, for it is grounded on the love that was here from the beginning: Christ's love. In doing this we take up the old ways, and learn from ancient wisdom, what is right and what is wrong - but the relationship comes first (and makes us fit, for the change that is going to take place). The point is, we are grounded on the old love, the old theology, the old message.
I pray you are able to take this to heart, and consider for a moment "what is the oldest thing I have heard?" "when did the love I knew from of old begin?" "how can I glorify God, in that old way?" These things ought to provoke the spirit, to develop a stronger bond with the love that was here, which has always been for us - wavering in nothing! The more the new love looks like the old love, the more pleased the Lord will be...
God Bless, You.
So I struggled a lot with this: what should my stance be, what should my religion be, am I bringing glory to Jesus or not? What I learned was, that God takes what He has already created and does something amazing with it. How? He takes what has already known love (as part of a family - we all have parents that loved us, in principle), and puts it in a new context - grafts it on to a new trunk, if you will - and allows that love to grow with new freedom.
It is not necessarily completely the same, nor completely foreign; what we are grafted on to is an expression of God's praise for us. With the new context, our old love is able to flourish the more greatly, so that like the mustard seed, others are able to come and nest in its branches. The branches He continues to prune, but the more they are pruned, the more the old love finds its bond in the new stem.
There should therefore be, specific things that we attempt to grow, new appreciations, sentiments, desires, understandings, powers, principalities, graces, spirits and on and on. None of this needs to be a completely separate theology, for it is grounded on the love that was here from the beginning: Christ's love. In doing this we take up the old ways, and learn from ancient wisdom, what is right and what is wrong - but the relationship comes first (and makes us fit, for the change that is going to take place). The point is, we are grounded on the old love, the old theology, the old message.
I pray you are able to take this to heart, and consider for a moment "what is the oldest thing I have heard?" "when did the love I knew from of old begin?" "how can I glorify God, in that old way?" These things ought to provoke the spirit, to develop a stronger bond with the love that was here, which has always been for us - wavering in nothing! The more the new love looks like the old love, the more pleased the Lord will be...
God Bless, You.
