On the one hand, it's really concerning that many linked materials are to strange or false doctrines. And although there is the reminder that we have to each test all things and seek God's guidance, by His Holy Spirit and Word, to discern whether teachings, spirits, or howsoever else are from God or from the spirit of man, or even from another sort spirit...
...although there's the reminder of the need for testing and discerning God's will, still it's concerning to me that there are linked materials which I now know--per a greater familiarity with His Word and ways, per a clearer sight of what defiance constitutes and what honoring a loved one entails...
...there are materials linked which I am entirely convicted are of demonic doctrines.
And that's concerning. Because it's no small matter to consider that others could in any way be led astray by my erstwhile meanderings (which the Lord so graciously recovered me from, despite me).
On the other hand, there's awareness that standing testimony of His power to deliver into truth is revealed in my prior ease of proclaiming such weirdness and deviance as to constitute "helps."
Which...even prior to the strangenesses linked, He delivered me from witchcraft. Which part of the deliverance was a slowly blossoming awareness of the wretchedness of these not-unrelated ideologies.
God, alone, knows why such deliverance was gradual and not all at once. He, alone, knows why. Large parts entailed my incredulity at being so self-deceived--surely the things I considered to be so beneficial to me and "to others" were just fine and redeemable: Had He not had mercy on me and let me see that the thoughts and ideologies and practices I'd continued engaging in weren't loving or honoring to Him (but were, in fact, destructive and defiling), I'd still be caught up in seeking to institute my own will and authority based on deluded assumption that calling such practices according to Scriptural names (like...regarding them as "merely" constituting a "different means" of practicing discernment, words of knowledge, prophecy, etc--different, specifically as generated per self-will and self-understood-intent) sufficed as unto their "redemption" as "godly practices."
Witchcraft is witchcraft, though, no matter what it uses to try to justify itself--just as "rebellion is as witchcraft," so is witchcraft a rebellion of will and pursuit of one's own intentions and understanding of what's right and good and acceptable, spiritually.
He has given me that the desire of my heart is to honor Him, now, through submission and waiting upon Him. Even though the desire needs a lot of refining, in my day to day walk--still, I rejoice to be aware of this need and also trust Him for its fulfillment. Because He's faithful. Whenever He's brought me to a point of even being aware of a need as to want it filled, it's been a condition of realizing myself thus empowered to possess the wherewithal to ask Him for forgiveness of whatever-thus-errant-condition is and ask for help as correction of that condition. Because I just can't do it.
Even leaving aside the fact that I can't undo the sins I'd committed which have condemned me to just judgment and wrath (apart from Christ), then even if I were to want to be able to "reform myself," sin has made such a shambles of my sensibilities that it's all I can do just to trust Him to lead me in paths of righteousness. Apart from Him doing so and revealing to me what righteousness is (per His Word and Spirit), I couldn't even recognize sufficient to undertake...and in desiring to undertake in my own strength, again and again, weird inclinations to glory in my own strength arise all the while (as unto self-righteousness) such that the efforts are contaminated along the way. Except that He continually give grace and redemption. Unto dependence upon Him for guidance in all things.
That kind of constitutes a major distinction between worldly religious practices and turning to God through Christ:
Every other religious pursuit builds people up in their estimation of abilities to be able to do righteousness through a process of learning why and how to think and act appropriately--through concerted exertion of effort and will. Thus power to accomplish righteousness ultimately remains and rests in the hands of the proselyte, and eventually the disciple may become a "master" through attaining to higher understanding of how to practically apply the ideologies espoused, and through pragmatic application.
Whereas, coming to know Christ more deeply is coming to more deeply realize one's need for constant direction. He makes us partakers of His nature, ever to bring us to a point of deeper yielding to His will, ever unto a greater reverence and trust for His guidance. The deeper the love for and reliance upon His Word, the deeper the yielding to His Spirit, the more pervasive the rest in His will, the more wholehearted the rejoicing in His ways. Unto whatever difficulties, therein submitting only more deeply to Him. Unto walking through the fire untouched by the flames (spiritually speaking).
Jesus, Himself, said that He did nothing of Himself. He did as the Father has done, speaking as was given Him to speak. He was obedient, not striving for some sort of independent mastery. And everything He did was predicated upon His entering creation--He divested Himself, in humility, and did not exalt Himself as God, did not demand obeisance of all and sundry, while walking amongst us. Rather, He castigated those who sought recognition and sought to exert authority per their own understanding, thus distinguished as being apart from and actively in opposition to submission to God.
Of these two particular constructs...
Who gets the honor, in each situation? Who is the one which will be esteemed, exalted, and/or glorified?
Who is really being served?
There are so many warnings to beware of false teachers, false prophets, false doctrines, false spirits. Again and again, consideration has come back round to concern over who is being exalted per focus of thoughts and patterns of pursuit. Is pursuit of knowledge of God--not to imitate, but to submit to and thus be led by Him--at the heart of matters?...such that He will be glorified rather than the one who attains imitation. And is Jesus, Himself, glorified as God and Lord of all?...such that He receives all honor, esteem, and praise, rather than His such honor being minimized as would exalt the idea of discipleship.
Thing is...If we don't accept Him for who He is, we don't accept Him. And an unfortunate matter I've wandered across is that wanting to be like Him seems often too near a desire to be Him, in His stead. That was a specific temptation which I dealt with for quite some time: wanting to have power, wanting to exercise His authority, wanting to be exalted alongside Him...all while refusing to consider submitting to Him. And all the while of much of that temptation, I was simultaneously deluding myself to believe I had love and respect for Christ, Himself--despite despising His Godhood and preeminence in all things as essentially rejecting His manifest sovereignty over me.
Problem was I wanted to reign with Him, not be subject to Him. He's been gracious to let the truth come to light.
The problem was--submitting to anyone rankles, when we would rather be exalted, glorified, worshipped...or even just honored, accepted, and respected.
But it's evil to likewise despise Christ's authority. He is our Creator. We are His to do with as He wills. We can't make ourselves His equal. And it's only by submitting to Him and humbling ourselves before Him that He may exalt us. And that in due time--not in our time.
If that's offensive, there's need to seek His help in submitting to truth: I've had to ask help on that account too many times to count. Every time pride seeks to take a stand, again. Which it often does when circumstances become personally trying or even the least bit "unfair."
It's along these lines of reasoning that concern centers regarding materials linked elsewhere--many contain a lot of stuff that presumes to teach how to come to a deeper, higher experience of God and authority, according to attaining a particular type of understanding of Him. But there's no formula for getting Him to exalt us in due time. There's just God's work, His Word, His Spirit: We seek Him. As we seek Him, we find Him. As we draw near to Him, He draws near to us. But even all that is predicated on Him. We defiantly haven't the sense to seek Him, except that He incite the effort. No man comes to the Son except it he be drawn to do so by the Father, Jesus said.
So, effectively--we're the ones who complicate matters, ever wanting to bring everything into subjection to our own understanding. On which count--He's so gracious that He has given us a whole Bible full of Himself-revelatory information. So many things therein, including a character study of both God and of man, so as to have some amount of reasonable understanding of His ways and clarification of our own (if openly, honestly assessed and pursued with sincere desire to simply know truth).
His Word is enough for us, ever per His Spirit's leading. And yet, He's still been even more gracious to also give us one another in the Body--by His Spirit and Word, to build one another up in truth, to testify to one another of His faithfulness each to each, to exhort, edify, commend, reprove, and encourage in truth...with love. And so many things. We just have to test all things, for none of us is without error: If anyone claims to be without sin, he's a liar and doesn't know God. Or, at least that's what John wrote.
So many things to read and peruse and wonder at, in so many places--some of which is incontrovertibly defiant of God, some of which is controvertibly so (perhaps the most dangerous, many having shreds of truth intermixed unto somewhat palatability), and some of which legitimately and primarily glorifies Him. I'm going to continue to pray about what to do, and for the time and energy to do so.
May He guide us each into a greater love for Him and others and greater desire to know Him and His ways. May He give us each a great and uncompromising (firm, yet gracious and gentle) love of truth...before Himself and in the midst of the world.
Edit: Didn't take as long as I'd been making it out to be.
And that's concerning. Because it's no small matter to consider that others could in any way be led astray by my erstwhile meanderings (which the Lord so graciously recovered me from, despite me).
On the other hand, there's awareness that standing testimony of His power to deliver into truth is revealed in my prior ease of proclaiming such weirdness and deviance as to constitute "helps."
Which...even prior to the strangenesses linked, He delivered me from witchcraft. Which part of the deliverance was a slowly blossoming awareness of the wretchedness of these not-unrelated ideologies.
God, alone, knows why such deliverance was gradual and not all at once. He, alone, knows why. Large parts entailed my incredulity at being so self-deceived--surely the things I considered to be so beneficial to me and "to others" were just fine and redeemable: Had He not had mercy on me and let me see that the thoughts and ideologies and practices I'd continued engaging in weren't loving or honoring to Him (but were, in fact, destructive and defiling), I'd still be caught up in seeking to institute my own will and authority based on deluded assumption that calling such practices according to Scriptural names (like...regarding them as "merely" constituting a "different means" of practicing discernment, words of knowledge, prophecy, etc--different, specifically as generated per self-will and self-understood-intent) sufficed as unto their "redemption" as "godly practices."
Witchcraft is witchcraft, though, no matter what it uses to try to justify itself--just as "rebellion is as witchcraft," so is witchcraft a rebellion of will and pursuit of one's own intentions and understanding of what's right and good and acceptable, spiritually.
He has given me that the desire of my heart is to honor Him, now, through submission and waiting upon Him. Even though the desire needs a lot of refining, in my day to day walk--still, I rejoice to be aware of this need and also trust Him for its fulfillment. Because He's faithful. Whenever He's brought me to a point of even being aware of a need as to want it filled, it's been a condition of realizing myself thus empowered to possess the wherewithal to ask Him for forgiveness of whatever-thus-errant-condition is and ask for help as correction of that condition. Because I just can't do it.
Even leaving aside the fact that I can't undo the sins I'd committed which have condemned me to just judgment and wrath (apart from Christ), then even if I were to want to be able to "reform myself," sin has made such a shambles of my sensibilities that it's all I can do just to trust Him to lead me in paths of righteousness. Apart from Him doing so and revealing to me what righteousness is (per His Word and Spirit), I couldn't even recognize sufficient to undertake...and in desiring to undertake in my own strength, again and again, weird inclinations to glory in my own strength arise all the while (as unto self-righteousness) such that the efforts are contaminated along the way. Except that He continually give grace and redemption. Unto dependence upon Him for guidance in all things.
That kind of constitutes a major distinction between worldly religious practices and turning to God through Christ:
Every other religious pursuit builds people up in their estimation of abilities to be able to do righteousness through a process of learning why and how to think and act appropriately--through concerted exertion of effort and will. Thus power to accomplish righteousness ultimately remains and rests in the hands of the proselyte, and eventually the disciple may become a "master" through attaining to higher understanding of how to practically apply the ideologies espoused, and through pragmatic application.
Whereas, coming to know Christ more deeply is coming to more deeply realize one's need for constant direction. He makes us partakers of His nature, ever to bring us to a point of deeper yielding to His will, ever unto a greater reverence and trust for His guidance. The deeper the love for and reliance upon His Word, the deeper the yielding to His Spirit, the more pervasive the rest in His will, the more wholehearted the rejoicing in His ways. Unto whatever difficulties, therein submitting only more deeply to Him. Unto walking through the fire untouched by the flames (spiritually speaking).
Jesus, Himself, said that He did nothing of Himself. He did as the Father has done, speaking as was given Him to speak. He was obedient, not striving for some sort of independent mastery. And everything He did was predicated upon His entering creation--He divested Himself, in humility, and did not exalt Himself as God, did not demand obeisance of all and sundry, while walking amongst us. Rather, He castigated those who sought recognition and sought to exert authority per their own understanding, thus distinguished as being apart from and actively in opposition to submission to God.
Of these two particular constructs...
Who gets the honor, in each situation? Who is the one which will be esteemed, exalted, and/or glorified?
Who is really being served?
There are so many warnings to beware of false teachers, false prophets, false doctrines, false spirits. Again and again, consideration has come back round to concern over who is being exalted per focus of thoughts and patterns of pursuit. Is pursuit of knowledge of God--not to imitate, but to submit to and thus be led by Him--at the heart of matters?...such that He will be glorified rather than the one who attains imitation. And is Jesus, Himself, glorified as God and Lord of all?...such that He receives all honor, esteem, and praise, rather than His such honor being minimized as would exalt the idea of discipleship.
Thing is...If we don't accept Him for who He is, we don't accept Him. And an unfortunate matter I've wandered across is that wanting to be like Him seems often too near a desire to be Him, in His stead. That was a specific temptation which I dealt with for quite some time: wanting to have power, wanting to exercise His authority, wanting to be exalted alongside Him...all while refusing to consider submitting to Him. And all the while of much of that temptation, I was simultaneously deluding myself to believe I had love and respect for Christ, Himself--despite despising His Godhood and preeminence in all things as essentially rejecting His manifest sovereignty over me.
Problem was I wanted to reign with Him, not be subject to Him. He's been gracious to let the truth come to light.
The problem was--submitting to anyone rankles, when we would rather be exalted, glorified, worshipped...or even just honored, accepted, and respected.
But it's evil to likewise despise Christ's authority. He is our Creator. We are His to do with as He wills. We can't make ourselves His equal. And it's only by submitting to Him and humbling ourselves before Him that He may exalt us. And that in due time--not in our time.
If that's offensive, there's need to seek His help in submitting to truth: I've had to ask help on that account too many times to count. Every time pride seeks to take a stand, again. Which it often does when circumstances become personally trying or even the least bit "unfair."
It's along these lines of reasoning that concern centers regarding materials linked elsewhere--many contain a lot of stuff that presumes to teach how to come to a deeper, higher experience of God and authority, according to attaining a particular type of understanding of Him. But there's no formula for getting Him to exalt us in due time. There's just God's work, His Word, His Spirit: We seek Him. As we seek Him, we find Him. As we draw near to Him, He draws near to us. But even all that is predicated on Him. We defiantly haven't the sense to seek Him, except that He incite the effort. No man comes to the Son except it he be drawn to do so by the Father, Jesus said.
So, effectively--we're the ones who complicate matters, ever wanting to bring everything into subjection to our own understanding. On which count--He's so gracious that He has given us a whole Bible full of Himself-revelatory information. So many things therein, including a character study of both God and of man, so as to have some amount of reasonable understanding of His ways and clarification of our own (if openly, honestly assessed and pursued with sincere desire to simply know truth).
His Word is enough for us, ever per His Spirit's leading. And yet, He's still been even more gracious to also give us one another in the Body--by His Spirit and Word, to build one another up in truth, to testify to one another of His faithfulness each to each, to exhort, edify, commend, reprove, and encourage in truth...with love. And so many things. We just have to test all things, for none of us is without error: If anyone claims to be without sin, he's a liar and doesn't know God. Or, at least that's what John wrote.
So many things to read and peruse and wonder at, in so many places--some of which is incontrovertibly defiant of God, some of which is controvertibly so (perhaps the most dangerous, many having shreds of truth intermixed unto somewhat palatability), and some of which legitimately and primarily glorifies Him. I'm going to continue to pray about what to do, and for the time and energy to do so.
May He guide us each into a greater love for Him and others and greater desire to know Him and His ways. May He give us each a great and uncompromising (firm, yet gracious and gentle) love of truth...before Himself and in the midst of the world.
Edit: Didn't take as long as I'd been making it out to be.
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