Friday, June 09, 2006
Necessary Ingredient
“The joy of the Lord is our strength.” ~Nehemiah 8:10
Not good works (legalism) but the Way we come to God (Jesus made THE CLAIM in clear terms) has always been the “necessary ingredient”. (p 110, Christianity Is Jewish)
The Old Testament prophets had never heard Jesus speak yet they had an understanding of close relationship with their Maker. In the process, there was a heart thing going on—not sacrifice of bulls so much as humility and sincere meltdown of a person’s own will. Belief in the truth; complete trust that what God made clear in His spoken or written Word was true truth!
Jesus IS the Way; our necessary ingredient is the kind of trust a child places in their loving parent because of a certain awareness of their own fragile, dependent weakness. They are weak, but He is strong. Since before Christ, from the very beginning, faith has not been some elusive, ungraspable “fog”. Mrs. Schaeffer reminds us with Scripture:
“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing cometh by the word of God.” She elaborates, “You have to hear something you can think about in your mind and conclude to be true, in order to believe it.” But to hear it, I would add, the condition of the heart is of consequence.
Faith, commitment, and personal growth in my journey have all turned around since my decision to take God at His Word. This came about largely because of the book, this blog’s namesake, by Edith Schaeffer. An in-depth study of the Westminster Confession, the footnoted doctrine, which involved Bible searches by chapter and verse (as found in David Quine’s World Views of the Western World, a curriculum guide) was how “faith came by hearing”.
Which finally brings us to Jonah. God sent His Word to be heard in Nineveh, which can be seen as a sure indication that this gentile city had some sincere, God-seeking hearts living there. God keeps His promises, and He said, “If with all your heart you truly seek Me, you shall surely find Me.”
These seekers must have held no reservations like, “Well, we’ll see what God has to say and if we like it…” or “What kind of god would do such a thing!” No, somehow God knew (duh, He’s God!) they were ready to hear His Truth! Are you? Oh, and for the record, they were NOT behaving themselves! So, God WAS looking at the heart. Maybe, deep down, they were sick of the mayhem.
Hearts do have to be prepared, after all. Call it softened, broken, opened, child-like…Satan uses the insanely myth-like stories to blur our perception unless we are ready to hear. Mrs. Schaeffer is so right! We half-heartedly read Creation, won’t even let it back in the schools, when it’s central truth as to the human condition is essential to the rest of our hearing God’s story! No fall? Then no redemption!
And again, we are thrown from our sensibilities by this man swallowed by a whale, whole…alive. Um. This is hard! Let’s face it. Satan, of course, takes full advantage of our prideful condescension toward a child-like story requiring an innocence of faith. So swallow that man-sized pride! We’re gonna be learning about Jonah, next.
Not good works (legalism) but the Way we come to God (Jesus made THE CLAIM in clear terms) has always been the “necessary ingredient”. (p 110, Christianity Is Jewish)
The Old Testament prophets had never heard Jesus speak yet they had an understanding of close relationship with their Maker. In the process, there was a heart thing going on—not sacrifice of bulls so much as humility and sincere meltdown of a person’s own will. Belief in the truth; complete trust that what God made clear in His spoken or written Word was true truth!
Jesus IS the Way; our necessary ingredient is the kind of trust a child places in their loving parent because of a certain awareness of their own fragile, dependent weakness. They are weak, but He is strong. Since before Christ, from the very beginning, faith has not been some elusive, ungraspable “fog”. Mrs. Schaeffer reminds us with Scripture:
“Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing cometh by the word of God.” She elaborates, “You have to hear something you can think about in your mind and conclude to be true, in order to believe it.” But to hear it, I would add, the condition of the heart is of consequence.
Faith, commitment, and personal growth in my journey have all turned around since my decision to take God at His Word. This came about largely because of the book, this blog’s namesake, by Edith Schaeffer. An in-depth study of the Westminster Confession, the footnoted doctrine, which involved Bible searches by chapter and verse (as found in David Quine’s World Views of the Western World, a curriculum guide) was how “faith came by hearing”.
Which finally brings us to Jonah. God sent His Word to be heard in Nineveh, which can be seen as a sure indication that this gentile city had some sincere, God-seeking hearts living there. God keeps His promises, and He said, “If with all your heart you truly seek Me, you shall surely find Me.”
These seekers must have held no reservations like, “Well, we’ll see what God has to say and if we like it…” or “What kind of god would do such a thing!” No, somehow God knew (duh, He’s God!) they were ready to hear His Truth! Are you? Oh, and for the record, they were NOT behaving themselves! So, God WAS looking at the heart. Maybe, deep down, they were sick of the mayhem.
Hearts do have to be prepared, after all. Call it softened, broken, opened, child-like…Satan uses the insanely myth-like stories to blur our perception unless we are ready to hear. Mrs. Schaeffer is so right! We half-heartedly read Creation, won’t even let it back in the schools, when it’s central truth as to the human condition is essential to the rest of our hearing God’s story! No fall? Then no redemption!
And again, we are thrown from our sensibilities by this man swallowed by a whale, whole…alive. Um. This is hard! Let’s face it. Satan, of course, takes full advantage of our prideful condescension toward a child-like story requiring an innocence of faith. So swallow that man-sized pride! We’re gonna be learning about Jonah, next.
Comments:
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Everyone has the right to "blog". That is why these sites are so popular. However, your assertion that Christianity is "Jewish" is absurd. Please get educated. You are making your religious group appear ignorant.
# posted by 
: 3:46 PM
: 3:46 PM
Rename your blog to
"Religious Inventions"
G_d wrote in his "OLD" and only testament M A N Y times that
his alliance with the jewish people is ETAERNAL ...
Do you have different views ???
State them as such, don't bulshit us with your "truths"
Get a good education .
EC
Post a Comment
"Religious Inventions"
G_d wrote in his "OLD" and only testament M A N Y times that
his alliance with the jewish people is ETAERNAL ...
Do you have different views ???
State them as such, don't bulshit us with your "truths"
Get a good education .
EC
# posted by : 10:23 AM
: 10:23 AM << Home
