"TO THE PURE ALL THINGS ARE PURE" - Jim would this include knowledge,wisdom,teaching,......thinking even? Are we unharmed by ALL THINGS? Is Christ THAT deep? Can any of that truly harm us if all things are pure? What is the phycology on that? Does beleiving this cause us to relax and trust in the promises of God that all things are pure and therfore-we can think on everything without fear of sin?

Hello, my friend!!

You have been a great encouragement to me as well, and I thank you so much for keeping up with me like this!! :)

Though we go through hell on earth he keeps us untouched by evil and by the evil one. Our confidence in Christ is that sure. And yes, we can test all things in this confidence. It is through this reality that we are able to stand in the first place ... to stand without fear to truly live. Living in this confidence marks the difference between living as those truly made alive versus living as those put into a program.

To know that I will be unharmed, untouched by evil because of Christ in me causes my choices and decisions to be those of one truly set free, and not one bound by constant technicalities and loopholes.

I remember the insanity of living as one bound by laws and rules and principles ... I see it in the world all around me everyday where freedom means getting away with breaking the rules and bondage means getting caught. In this, living as free means I can even submit to their demands without being touched by evil. I am so free from sin that my real life is not entrapped ... else I would become a legalist every time I obeyed something as simple as a speed limit sign. haha! But I know that rules and principles have been made for those who break them, not for those who don't need them.

Regarding knowledge, wisdom, teaching and thinking ... these are all incorporated into the very demands of this world, whether religious or not. The only guard needed is the very reality by which we are unharmed, which is Christ himself. His life in us IS the fortification by which we examine all things without fear. The only reason we will fear in such examination is when we look to anything else to become that safety guard other than he who is already there and already protecting us. Because of this, one's ignorance of the proper Christian protocol for each and every situation becomes a blessing! hahaha! How many so-called "dangerous" situations have all of us breezed through simply because we were too stupid to know we were supposed to be "in danger" - that is, according to the collected wisdom of those put forth as spiritually superior to ourselves?

In the mind that sees itself always in danger of being harmed there is fear. This is the framework by which we learned all the reasons why we should be scared and fearful. It is often said that if you can keep your head while all those around you are losing theirs that you just don't understand the situation!

Perhaps the "understanding of the situation" is the very thing we need to distrust, because it is the embodiment of fear. While those around us may walk as if always on a tight-rope - screaming in unision that this is what is in front of us and under us - we can walk on in assurance knowing that what appears to be is not what truly is. In truth, nothing else reveals the absurdity of such panic-driven lives as one who walks alongside in total oblivion to the panic around him. While all others may shake in fear while the robot screams "Danger Will Robinson! Danger Will Robinson!" the confidence of those who hear the screams without scurrying in fear and panic makes a mockery of those who put up their guards to ward of the evil that seems always upon them.

Total lack of fear regarding all things can only be found in the assurance that we will remain unharmed by that which we examine. Every time I consider the way the religious mind throws out the NT warnings from the apostles I am amazed that what they warned against is so quickly mistaken for the fear-based teachings that come out of those words. The warnings actually all revolve around the need to distrust the words of those who would drag us back into fear-based living with all their clever little adages and lifted scriptures to support those fears.

The only thing to avoid is the demand of the empty world, the thing John described as being nothing but empty desires (the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the boastful pride of life). This is what is in the world around us. And no, it is not the joy in what God has made - for in this we find no fear - but instead it is the futility of that which fears as it consumes what it supposes might finally satisfy it.

I often think on the picture of the little shack that was "bigger on the inside than it was on the outside" created by C.S. Lewis in last of his Narnia Series, The Last Battle. The dwarves were a picture of those who were of the earth who stood among those who saw beyond the seeing of the inside of that little hut. According to the dwarves it was a confined prison filled with darkness and musty hay and foul smells (that's the only way it could be viewed from the outside as they had been locked inside it awaiting their deaths). The others began to see a different reality growing before their very eyes of a banquet table filled with food spread out before them. As these ate from the feast the dwarves were going nuts claiming they had all lost their senses, for even when one of their friends offered them some of the food they recoiled with disgust saying they had been given a piece of manure to eat. It was the same stuff, but to the one it was all pure and good ... to the other it was all bad.

When I started to reply I thought I had nothing to write! Thanks so much for asking the question.

Love, Jim