Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Submitted by theshovel
Send to friendDoes being called righteous through what Jesus Christ did for you on the cross have anything whatsoever to do with actually doing what is right? Now, I wouldn’t be so quick to answer, not even to support the truth of salvation by grace through faith apart from works. For I would imagine that most of you are quite familiar with other references, such as:
If you know that He is righteous, you know that everyone also who practices righteousness is born of Him. 1 John 2:29 NASB
Yeah, what about something like that? How should we view this whole aspect of righteousness, especially considering the overwhelming religious dogma that has resulted in so much guilt and shame from the inability to do what is required? Dominic and I discuss a wide spectrum on this issue, and what we come up with will hopefully encourage and strengthen your hearts and minds in Christ. Jim Minker & Dominic Adam Harte
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Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
-Mikey
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Mikey, I am excited to know that you actually look forward to these audios. Adam and I really enjoy making them. :)
Jim
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Mary
"Christ in You, the Hope"
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Thanks Mary! :)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Hello Dan! Good to hear from you again. :)
People often refer to the commands of Christ in scripture — as well as to all the other commands found elsewhere in the New Testament — whenever the reality of God's grace is brought to the forefront. The real question here is how did the true freedom from the Law get so enmeshed back into the same perception it had when bound to what had been openly agreed as not having been kept up to that time? The simple truth is that we have been raised to view the Bible as God's rule book, and so we see it that way. We've had a lifetime of ingraining into that perception, and it becomes difficult to see it any other way.
When you actually get into the scenes where Jesus supposedly created his new set of rules for Christians (which by the way, we're doing in our current audio series Men of Grace or Men of Law?), you can't help but notice a totally different reaction from those who heard his words. Oh, there's no doubt he threw some commands around, but if we're not questioning what was behind it (which can be seen in the context), we will come to our own conclusions that are based upon our own imaginations.
What about those who have professed Christ but have no evidence of a desire for Christ, you ask? Once again, you've got to consider the variables, not just a single possibility. There are many, just like in the early days of Christianity, where people jumped on the Jesus bandwagon. In other words, some are merely using Jesus as the icon of their religion. Then again, you have others who don't seem to measure up to someone else's expectation as to what it might mean to have a desire for Christ. Consider how many times in your own life someone else may have misjudged your lifestyle, or how many times you may have misjudged another's.
Jim :)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
So great to hear from you Dan.
Hey we have another great audio coming soon by the way. Look out for it, I think you might really be helped by it. I know I am being blessed by it.
Thanks Jim!
Adam
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
“However as you said He wants us to choose to trust Him and that is the only way we are really going to enter into this Life of Christ IN us! In the same way we received Christ for our new birth from above we have to continuously receive Christ as our source of living it out here on earth.
… it ought to be about learning how to enter into the life that we already possess in Christ!!” <~ Dan
hello dan ~ i appreciate so much you sharing your heart and thoughts here with us. our hearts and minds are with you and for you. we can relate with your concerns, as we know them well ourselves … personally and experiencially.
with that in mind, i hope you will not mind me tossing a thought or two in the mix. i am more specifically going to share what came to mind as i read what you shared above … in purple quotes.
i was reminded that truly, all who are in Christ DO trust HIM, wholly and fully. we have the Spirit of GOD and the heart and mind of Christ. it is part and parcel with the very Nature of GOD that we have been born into. :)
so what is the problem and where does the doubt and condemnation come from? as you have pointed out and expressed so very well, we have and continue to experience the day to day and sometimes even moment to moment pervasive bombardments of thoughts that are stirred within us, and are also quite enthusiastically accusing us from outside sources as well, that we are anything and everything other than who and what and how HE HIMself has made us in Him.
our temporal circumstances and situations here upon this beautifully created planet earth are more often than not viewed by others and sadly even by our own selves, from the mentality and perspective of death and darkness. whether it comes from a 'religious' perspective or not, the judgment and condemnation is all from the same source. it all calls into question our value and worth and reality.
but we are known by ANOTHER WHO has miraculously called us out of all that which is no longer ours to claim, to pay heed to, nor to concern ourselves with. HE has made us new … we are 'the New Creation'. we are HIS and HE is ours. it matters not what the outer may contradict. HE is our peace and comfort and all we need pertaining to GOD and GOD-liness. :)
i propose that we do not need to learn how to enter where we already are. :) what we need and desire is to be encouraged more and supported in all that which HE has made true of us. perhaps that is what you were meaning anyway and i just missed it.
we are completely rested in HIM. there is no other rest for us. HE HIMself IS our rest. we may get distracted by the deceptions and illusions in the temporal, but .. the labor of law has been done away with for us. we may try to re-engage ourselves in that bondage, but it is futile … like banging our heads against the wall and getting nowhere. so unnecessary and painful. yet, maybe necessary in the revelation and reminding of what HE has done for us, to us, with us, etc.
i think there is something to that saying, 'let the dead bury the dead'? for we are ALIVE to GOD in Christ Jesus. HE is our reality. :) we died already to that which killed us. we don't have to re-die (as if we even could) and bury over and over again. :) it's done and finished. do we really even know what that means sometimes?
thank you for the indirect stirrings of encouragement within me this morning!! :) :)
be at rest in your heart and mind, my miracle siblings, for that is where we ARE in Him. :) i thnk that rest is a place and we are there in Him! :)
i know this all raises even more questions, but … questions are good! they help the process of elimination by revealing more and more of what is NOT HIM and us, leaving us with more clarity as to WHO HE really is and all that HE has made us in Him. :) this is a marvelous thing!! it also reveals more and more the reality of the faith and trust that we have had all along, as it is part and parcel with that Nature we have in HIM. that Nature that can only be True to HIM. :) it is what is left when all else is burnt up. it is a revelation of much comfort and assurance. :)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Greetings,
Your heart's issue is not with the outward behavior called gambling, it is with the perceptions of it. Similarly, the issue is not with the memories of the divorce, but with the perception of them. That mindset attempts to lead us to believe that in order to get rid of the nagging perceptions of condemnation we must walk our body or our attention away from the real things those perceptions are making a deceiving reference to. For in fact, you yourself never even had a wife or family , your body did; and you yourself never walked into a casino, your body did. In fact you yourself have no relation to the body itself or the world to which it provides access to.
As the unavoidable sense of incompatibility that you have with these perceptions reveals to you, you are not them and you inherently recognize them as foreign. It is therefore obvious that you have no dealings with them at all, seeing that you are dead to them. So then seeing apart from the perceptions, you can now deal with the real things. There may be no real profit, only imaginary one, in staying somewhere or in giving attention to something, but it is in fact impossible to even see this if the perception is assumed to somehow represent the reality.
Conscience is not the flesh-based perception of regulation, it is the heart that discerns the deathly from the life giving. So that it's not conscience or Christ (they being one and the same for us) condemning us, it is in fact conscience that discerns for us the fleshly mind that wants to condemn as being foreign and detestable to us.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
For in fact, you yourself never even had a wife or family , your body did; and you yourself never walked into a casino, your body did. In fact you yourself have no relation to the body itself or the world to which it provides access to.
Awesome Georgi!!! Simply amazing.
The problem is that people think there is such thing as “good flesh” vs “bad flesh” but that paradigm is no longer relevant to those in Christ.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Hey, my friend, believe me I also know the awful daily experience of the confusion common to us all, which results from taking upon myself perceptions that I do not belong to, - those that have their origin in the outward man. Being too tired during the day, I get snapped out of this imaginary trap right when I lay my head to sleep and have some time to consider what is obvious. Then I am relieved to understand that I don't belong to a bunch of walking flesh, whether they be 'relatives' or others; and that I don't belong to my own flesh and its annoying and weak desires. I care for the bodies of those around me only because it became obvious to me that my body has an intimate connection to the rest of creation and fleshly humanity, especially to the flesh of those who gave birth to my flesh. To cause them unnecessary turmoil would be to cause unnecessary suffering to my own fleshly life, which is already a terribly exhausting groaning for death and for something better.
It's tiresome to deal with the childish mind of the fleshly, because in their erroneous mind they still assume we are flesh and that we are somehow indebted to them. And so our daily life oftentimes consists of freely choosing to play the childish games of adjusting our outward appearance so as not to offend the weak conscience of those who expect a certain conduct. But there are times when circumstances call for doing away with the silly games, and we inevitably come in conflict with those childish-minded people the expectations of whom we do not justify with our behavior.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
At first, Georgi, I have to admit your recent post initially struck me as very grim, as I've never really heard the flesh of mankind described in such vivid detail, until I began to “hear” what you were really talking about, a message of FREEDOM.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
I agree, It is a vile thing. It bleeds, it sweats, it smells, it groans, it's weak, it wants, it tears, it gets sick, it decays and eventually worms overcome it. It does not lead to any profit at all, because it only wants and consumes. It doesn't produce anything of value, being utterly incapable to muster something that lasts. It's simply unreliable and doesn't deserve to be trusted or praised. Thank God for that real lasting hope that sufficiently provides for the strength that sustains us daily to bear this corpse and the world of its caprices. We are not its prey anymore, it has become our opportunity for knowing real power. So, it's not wise at all to seek to avoid the body like the insane religious mind does. Our hope keeps us pure and allows for us to live in peace even in view of the restlessness of this flesh. I only wish for the outward to be finally in agreement with the inward. Not to cease from having a body, but to have one that doesn't rebel against me all the time.
The day realized I have never had parents, relatives, friends, and that I was not at all related to any flesh the first thing I thought was 'Who are these people, then? And why do they think we have something in common?' It dawned upon me that I have never known them, nor they me, having been living in a mind of hypocrisy which relates to things in view of an appearance-based understanding. We never were in a relationship that is founded upon true love, but upon blindness and the shame of constantly enforcing expectations upon each other. 'You ought to do this, because you are..a son, a father, a mother, a friend'. It doesn't matter, it's a murderous, religious, fleshly identity that seeks to enslave by enforcing a mind of prescriptions for a certain conduct. Now there is no longer a flesh I would see mother or a father in, though I can recognize and do honor the reality of having received my body from another. My real father and mother is the reality within me that moves my being, nurtures me in living understanding, clothes me in comforting knowledge, cares for my true life, enriches me eternally with the glories of hope, justifies me in view of death and delivers me from a mindset of murderous perceptions that would otherwise consume me.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Yes, and I can assure you my good brother that this will not be acceptable wisdom to those who call themselves your neighbor. In fact, it may even be too much for certain “grace” folks as well.
Excellent word bro.,
Adam
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
I admit I was shaken up by the things he said at first, although not in disagreement at all. What he was talking about underneath everything was the freedom he's gained through this wisdom. I was like “man, to see other people as walking dead like zombies is a bit too much for me,” until I realized that's it's true: I have NO TIES whatsoEVER to the flesh at all! Like I wrote on the ShovelShack, the factor is ZERO; no more are we obligated to the flesh of man and all its treachery. We are united with God; we have absolutely no factor in this world at all! We are what the world has been groaning for since its creation: living embodiments of the Lord on earth!
I pray to God and trust He will can open my eyes to see the wonderful things Georgi has seen, so that I can be unburdened by the world around me and see Christ more and more.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Justin my brother, I have NO doubt that you are not one of those “grace folks” that have such a hard time with these things. In fact much of what Georgi has expressed has most certainly come through much pain and trial. Same for me and Jim and…etc.[Oh yeah ..Jesus!]
In Him there isn't any fear involved nor any self examination when it comes to this stuff. He just reveals stuff from time to time and as we walk through life we come to know these things. No formula as you know.
Hey we get “shaken up” I think mostly because things as they appear outwardly simply don't match up from the perspective, the knowledge of the Truth. We often find ourselves spun around by it all. Doesn't change us, who we are to God, to ourselves and others. God still sees us the same way. Its an amazing thing.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
I don't know. I might be one of those grace folks, one of the “others.” Us vs. them mentality like in the church. I just spent the last 2 hours in bed doubting my salvation because I don't have spiritual discernment. This reminds me of when I was in Christianity, and they were speaking about tongues. Saying “If you're a believer, you know how to do tounges” and then just me standing there TRYING to make something happen.again, maybe I'm not saved and just like that magician that cast out demons in Christ's name, I'm one of those “not against us then he's for us” types. :( I don't know.
Although I could've sworn I'm one with Him: I could've sworn his life was in me, teaching me through everything. I don't need no godd@mn gift, or the ability to go around judging people as in Christ or without; Jesus Christ in me is way more than enough. And I'm NOT pretending to sound spiritual.
And that's all I care about - Him in Me, one with God. Keep your gifts.
Jim, I don't want to leave the shovel forums, but it's time I take a break for a while. I may have just pissed everyone off with this post.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
No way, you haven't pissed anyone off here Justin.
In fact your reminding me of my very similar experiences with the church. I too had an evangelical background. I too had people peddling natural wisdom to me. I too suffered with severe doubts and anxieties.
I think we ALL go through these times were we see things outwardly, judge ourselves outwardly and we assume we are doubting when it is simply more outward estimation that we are being influenced by.
I was simply describing various interactions with “grace” people in my journey[experience] who try very hard to be “nice”[thinking it was the 'grace thing”] to those who would be described in Georgi's post when in fact they may have needed a rebuke quite frankly. We so often are up against the religious mind and get convinced that we simply just need to try to be “nice” when sometimes Christ in us is gracefully desiring to stand up. The religious mind wants NO part of the life that flows from within us, even if we turn a blind eye to it at times. Sometimes that confrontation of flesh and spirit collides and we are convinced that we need to just be “nice” to the fleshly mind. That's not always the case.
Listen, I am not saying that we need to try be nasty to those who are of the religious,legal persuasion, only that our very beings will grade against them until something finally comes to a head. We can not integrate life and death, at least not for long.
Please, please know that I do not think that YOU are one of those folks! Stand firm in Him Justin, He holds us in Christ.
Love,
Adam
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Hey, doubt is a good thing to us because it is caused by a real persuasion that would not otherwise be made known, for it is entirely different from those perceptions that can be lost or fail, since it is a reality that lives forever. The power of the assurance of the eternal life that consume finality is only revealed in the midst of those bodily perceptions that fall apart. Embrace this experience, because after the light and temporary disturbance only the real will remain and the rest will fade away.
It is these experiences that testify to and define what real discernment is. The being disagrees with the outward-based perceptions that seek to bind us. In this case it is a disagreement with an outward understanding of what judgment or discernment is. So that it isn't you yourself that lack the understanding and the discernment, seeing that an inherent recognition causes you to distinguish the fleshly mind as false. Nothing of Christ and therefore nothing of you can be understood in the outward perceptions. The perception that circulates in the world as to what judgment is has nothing to do with the reality of assessment that is ours, and you are in midst of this recognition right now. It is in doubt that our true identity and inherent ability is made known. After the shaking only the understanding of the unshakable things remains and it does so forever.
So, you have hurt no one with what you say. You have only enriched us. It is an experience of life. Not just for you, but for us. Because whenever one of us is strengthened in life through doubt or affliction we all benefit, because the same power circulates in us.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Thank you Georgi and Luvin. I apologize for my rant, it was most likely the ambien mixed with feelings of despair over my mother's suicide a few years back - I could've sworn she loved me unconditionally, and I her, but at the end of her life, everything fell apart and I feel as though she didn't love me anymore cuz I called the police on her when she one time verbally threatened suicide. She lost custody of my siblings and she was distant to me from then on. So perjhaps it's true that this “unconditional love” she had WAS based upon performance.
Even with other family members, I've seen their sheer hatred, anger, & disregard when I did something “wrong,” and yet they all claim they love me regardless. It's so much like religion.
I'm just happy Georgi and Luvin, that you've re-encouraged me that doubt and the disturbing feelings that come with it, is not a thing to avoid, but to embrace.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Hey, Justin.
Memories can be very painful. But we are not in those memories anymore, if we ever were, since they are always made up of images referring to outward events.These memories of past events in the world of the body can enforce the shame of supposedly 'wrong' choices of action vs the illusion of having done good. But there is neither a good behavior or a bad one, although surely one may be of less unpleasant consequences than another. Either way, no behavior can ever deliver from death.
I can relate to this very intimately. I myself have done the same to others. Behind the words about love often stands the attempt to justify oneself against the shame of perceiving to have transgressed an outward code of rightness, usually one erected upon 'good' feelings or actions.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Excellent dialog you two. So much of what Jim and I speak on is this cloudy concept of “right and wrong” and what happens to us and God when something in this realm has been transgressed.
Take for example the common action of pursuing choices. Choices of everyday life. Well what does the world, religion and the total unbelief of Christ's sacrifice point out for us when we make one?[a choice] It points to how wrong we are, how dirty we must be, how vile our choice is, how unloving we are, how guilty we are, how condemned we should feel. Don't we hear the perfecting of ones flesh in all of this? If I COULD do all that was :right”, all that was “acceptable”..all that was “riteous” according to the rules set up in the law, in our families and in our world, would I even really need a Christ?
I think we get drug away[in mind] from our[actual] reliance on Him every time we are tempted to fall back into the mind of condemnation. For even in the midst of all sorts of “good” and “bad” choices we STILL live unto God. I am sure we get allot of our guilt from the well known passage in 1John : “Little children, let no man deceive you: he that does righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. He that commits sin is of the devil; for the devil sins from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
Could it mean something totally different than what it seems though?
Love,
Adam
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
I can't yet tell who has life or not cuz on the surface, no one seems to. I have a friend however who believes in Christ, and seems to enjoy when we talk together about God. But ultimately, it's not up to me to mentally discern who is alive. I realize that if I do start thinking that someone is dead in their sins, that someone will soon say something filled with life and freedom. So I believe it's not up to me to judge because God will flip it around on me.
I don't trust ANY of my perceptions, not even so-called “godly” ones because of the simple fact that no answer will ever fulfill me. Sometimes I struggle with believing in God Himself, until I realize it's not UP to me to “maintain faith.” There's an article here that really spoke to me, because it said something to the effect of “Jesus was telling his disciples they had TOO MUCH FAITH.” It's all about Christ's work. I depend on Him solely for everything, and I don't mean that in any religious/spiritual way. Everything in the world, every little “fact” can be refuted, so I've learned not to trust even my own personal beliefs.
I don't need these beliefs verified because no verification will satisfy the whirlpool that is my mind. I believe in Christ and why? Because every time I venture out into the world and “abandon” my beliefs in Him, I'm SLAMMED with bondage and I yearn for a way OUT. And freedom always points to resting in Him.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Hey, Justin, I understand very well where you're coming from. But it will become obvious that the absence of judgment, or assessment, is an impossibility. We judge between what is living and dead ALL the time, even at this very moment judgment is in effect. It is the living being that inherently understands the things that are contrary to it and in virtue of the unavoidable collision of two hostile things judgment is passed. Judgment only testifies to the recognition of what is hateful or harmonious to one's own being. Assessment is not something that we control, it is something that we are and are being controlled by. To believe in Christ is to possess that new life that assess in righteousness, being inherently able to discern between the death-dealing and the life-giving. There is no longer a separation between the life of God and the life of man; there is no longer a separation between the judgment of God and the judgment of man. It is his life that assesses rightly in us. The inherent ability to judge in equity we received from his own being, for he is the judge, not only of all the earth, but also of the hearts of men. The conflicts we experience with the things in our mind testify to this reality all the time.
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Incredible. I thank God that I am able to tell the difference between life and bondage for it is truly Him showing me this!
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
I just have to reiterate that this post is just so rich my brother. The testimony of Christ rings through it and in it and in YOU.
Keep it coming,
Adam
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
I just have to reiterate that this post is just so rich my brother. The testimony of Christ rings through it and in it and in YOU.
Keep it coming,
Adam
PS: Bye the ay I might ad that Justin, I have seen you exercising this judgment I do believe in many of your writings!
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
Hi Justin,
You know, I hear ya here. The fact is God can indeed show a believer if there is life in another but, to what end does He do that? Would it be just for the sake of being able to stand above another? Or would it maybe be more for the purpose of showing the religious mind at work in those who do not obey God and yet pretty much act as if they do? Revealing the truth about THAT is helpful but, nonetheless God's thing.
Most of the witch hunts Christians have gotten on probably have more to do with trying to make that revelation happen. Still God reveals things in His own time and in His own way and we just get to experience it. We keep trying to get ahead of it all to save ourselves some pain or trial or what have you. But God is going to be with us in everything.
Adam
Re: Doing What is Right (Fear and Standards)
I absolutely LOVE what you're saying btw!
I've come to realize too that my only true family is God Himself.
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