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Wednesday, April 18, 2018

The Way to God


There is nothing that we can pass on to but that which we have glimpsed of Reality in our pilgrimage.
It seems to take far too long for the fog of this world to clear and for its noise to subside, but when a glimpse is given of Reality what a certainty is there; a foundation unshakable.

How hard it is to let go of what one thinks one knows. 
How easy it is to look for answers in the words of others who think they know.
What a loss, and what a poverty is theirs whose "fear toward me is taught by the precept of men." Is. 29.13
The enemy always tries to blind our hearts and minds to the certainties of God.

Two things come to mind as things in which the enemy has brought fear, confusion and defeat to churches and lives.

     The fear of Legalism: any word, any commandment, which is inflexible causes us terror.

     The fear of Mysticism: any inspiration of the Spirit of God which calls for us to surrender our control holds us fast in fear.

The traditional fundamentalist church fears the way of the Spirit.
And the charismatic church fears the absoluteness of God's law.
Fundamentalists cling to the way of the law alone. 
Charismatics seek only the "untethered" flow of the Spirit.

People are terrified to open themselves to more than they have been taught.

Sometimes we seem to be more occupied fighting certain aspects of God's truth than we are in fighting sin.
We either use the Law to fight the way of the  Spirit, or we look to the Spirit to annul the demands of the law.

For those who look to the Spirit free us from the law:
We must know that the laws and principles of God are eternally fixed -the Word will judge us and we cannot by any fancy "interpretation" change this. 

For those who look to the law to be the only guide to the spiritual life:
We must know that the Law without the Spirit is dead, and without the Spirit's constant quickening we are also dead. 

The bottom line is that the enemy succeeds in making us afraid to believe God...
     We are afraid that God's law will bind us and take away our liberty.
     We are afraid that the Spirit of God would carry us to an uncontrolled    extremism.

Let us embrace what some fear.
Let us hold fast the words God has spoken.
Let us open ourselves to the Spirit of God.
This is the Way ...

Let us rest in this: it is the law and the enduement of the Spirit of God that brings Life into focus, 
It is this which enables us to walk, to advance in that Life, and "grow in grace and in the knowledge of our...Lord and Savior." 2 Peter 3.18





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