Almost persuadest thou me to believe, King Agrippa said to the apostle Paul. It's about evidence we can trust finally.

I was a serious agnostic for years and years. I did not think that I could be intellegent and believe. I was candid when I said that I did not think that I could be honest and believe.

My early upbringing was the emphasizing of the secondary things as the original force. For example; I clearly remember my Dad saying that the shaft of light from a distant galaxy was created the exact moment as was the galaxy and that this shaft or rather the ring of light did not have to travel for millions of years before getting to the earth. I remember arguing with him at young ages and saying this; if that is so Dad then God is a God of deception; there was nothing in me that could begin to process that. I agnostificated. Hey, what else could I do other than to give up my honesty and subscribe to lies.

The secondary thing in my childhood was the law or letter issue worshipped as god. The original Force was pretty much avoided and the secondary issues were worshipped as god. You talk about the avoidence. The church organization itself was one of these secondary issues worshipped as god. There must have been a viable reason that Dad would say to me, Son you're weak on the church.

I had been sold short early on and later was slow to see any kind of evidence as serious evidence. I know what it is to be sold down river into the slavery of things that are not real to me.

A few years ago my older sister told me that she did not think she believed in God anymore. She as well had been suffering from the solar-plex invasion. I asked her; which god do you not believe in? Is it the god of law? I told her that I was an atheist as well concerning that god and yet my belief in the God of grace, mercy, justice, and forgiveness was quite intact! The original Force has my attention!

First through reduction and then through faith, she now believes in life-changing ways; she inspires me! Her internal honesty is intact! She believes in the original Force now, as God!

A religious worship of secondary things by focusing hard upon these things as though they're the primary Force, denies us of our intellectual honesty. For we look not upon things that can be seen but on things that cannot be seen for the things that can be seen are temporal but the things that cannot be seen, they are eternal!

Religion at the level of worshipping the secondary things as god is actually the father of internal dishonesty or the father of lies. It violates mankind at the solar-plex level. You are of your father the devil Jesus told the pharisees who saw the secondary things of law as being God himself. They made great effort to violate Jesus and make Him into their mold! This type worship is what finally curcified Jesus!

The type enslavement mentioned here runs rough-shod over one's internal honesty while it crucifies the Lord of Glory in the name of it's god! The pharisees would finally avoid this Jesus after taking him outside the city walls and hanging him up to die. This is precisely the same avoidence that pretty much avoids the primary Force and then accepts the secondary things as one's god. This is the worship of the created thing rather than the Creator!

So Doug; when one comes to faith it changes his/her life. Then believers start to put their trust into this change to righteous living... and it becomes the secondary force ?

I do not think you are saying that righteous living is wrong, even when it pushes its way to the forefront ??

How should this be balanced with faith ?

WHich gets God's positive (blessed) attention more; righteous living as a honored secondary force? or ( unseen) faith accompanied by questionable life-style ?

Hank;

Yes, the secondary issue is now revealed, but it is not a Force. There is a Force in true Righteousness spoken of and it's the Christ-factor himself within us!

There is a third issue to look at here.

When the primary Force actually becomes God to us at heart level, the righteousness that follows is spontaneous in nature for we have believed unto Righteousness! "For we [await] the Righteousness that comes to us by Faith" So without the law or letter we are made Righteous. This is His Righteousness, ours is an awful replacement.

[True Righteousness] never comes to the believer by the self-application mode. The self-application idea of the seconday thing is a righteousness of the letter or of the law. How else would we know to self-apply a thing? This is where our worship begins to pervert itself and we give way to an internal dishonesty. False religion is birthed.. True religion is spontaneous or from the heart.

Honesty is living our lives out of something that we actually are, rather than living our lives from something we are trying to become.

"That I might be found in Him having no righteousness of my own which is of the law, (i.e. of the secondary thing). parenthesis mine.

God makes no effort to be God. Jesus did not try to be Jesus! We do not have to try to be christians if we really are Christians! We are a new creation, old things are passed away and [all] things are become new! The message of His gospel excites me!

We are not a law-less group of people but we are free from the law.

<<< I do not think you are saying that righteous living is wrong, even when it pushes its way to the forefront ?? >>>

I cannot believe you wrote that.....

Paul rebuked the Galations, "you are fallen from grace!". The push of righteous living to the forefront is precisely the fall to fascism, i.e., to love doctrine more than humanity, or more aptly in its mature form, to love doctrine immensely, and to love humanity not at all. Of course, this lack of love is NEVER admitted, and is over compensated for with a "loving way", loving things, a loving manner, etc. etc.

Don't ever believe for one second that groups like the holdies love...they don't...they can't. There are various reasons for this, but this is one reason. To love others, you first must love yourself, and to love yourself, you must accept yourself, and how do you accept yourself when you are sold to a system whose primary energy to move people is guilt, fear, shame. How can you love yourself when you believe you are almost going to hell because your devotions are cold, or your mind is worldly, or your ambitions have some "flesh", etc. etc. In holdi land, you are not secure until you are other-worldly, and hence you are never secure. The types can only muster a loving way, but never genuine self-acceptance, and acceptance of others.

Scott; I believe righteous living is never wrong. We may become "wrong" because we put our trust in it. Such trust is wrong and a stench to God. And when such is engaged in it is recognized by others. Such is to love doctrine more then humanity, as you say.

(Pardon my phrasing; I was asking the question "even if it pushes its way to the forefront?" )

However, we must not throw the baby out with the bath water. To teach "righteous living" is in place.

Scott:

Your 10:49 post was excellent!

The legalist is a fruit inspecter. How else would we know what is good and what is evil except by the law of it. If we inspect fruit to decide whether a man or a woman is born of God's Spirit we are a legalist and are judging by what we see. "God looks on the heart, men look on the outside". The human condition left to itself, is left to itself.

A Spiritual man or woman who loves unconditionally descerns the heart of a person, this man or woman is not a fruit-inspecter. Fruit inspecters will criminalize sin in a minute, that's what comes next.

The man or woman who is able to overlook fault, can actually Love! God has overlooked our fault and has fully and unequivicolly accepted us! We call it his forgiveness. When oh when will we accept Him in this same strength?

The person that has fully accepted Him has seen the mind of God and therefore accepts his own humanity and fraility as does God. God loves and accepts us just like we are but loves us too much to leave us as we are at any point!

God does not criminalize our sin and short-falls! Neither do I condemn you but just keep coming up higher. It's about ascending! That's what Jesus is all about! Intimately knowing this one we can finally love and accept ourselves! We can unconditionally Love others now as well! Ain't He neat?

God looks past the fault and sees the need. God does not criminalize sin as do men and women. Men and women do this and they do a whole lot of it. May these men and women seek the face of God to know Him!

I know that this type of converstation can open up a whole can of worms.

To teach that we can be given over to the Christ within us by relationship, is fine and greatly to be encouraged! "Let all who have the Spirit make every diligence to walk after the Spirit". Righteous living is the [result] of this.

Righteous living is not to the front of us, rather righteous living follows us! It's very important to make this distinction. To teach righteous living can only be done by way of the letter or law of it! We do not criminalize the activity of teaching righteousness to others, we only deem it as something that the Spirit of Grace does not do through us! The Spirit of Grace himself is our righteousness, substance, and essence. "In whom we move and live and have our being".

We do not follow after signs and wonders but the Jesus-stuff does follow those who [believe] unto Righteousness!

Amazing, I actually read a Scott post that I totally agree with. LOL
I have to tell you that 10:49 post is quite well put.

I think that what you said there has a lot to do with that description that someone gave a day or 2 ago about the H appearing confused at times. I think you hit the nail on the head. When we are always trying to reach some standard of perfection that is unrealistic, unhuman, unattainable, living in a state of constant questioning of whether we are meeting the standard to be met and it keeps changing on us all the time, it is impossible to have any semblance of stability in one's life.

Doug - thanks for sharing your journey - I'm thoroughly enjoying this thread. Your sister's journey is inspiring as well.

I have a brother who, I think, has struggled with much of the same - and is still very agnostic and in fact angry. Your sharing renews my faith that GOD can reach him even when no 'one' can reach him - nor can any hole be explained away. Thank you!

Sophia;

Ask your brother which god is it that you do not believe in? Which god do you doubt? It sounds like he is suffering from many disappointments and disillusions.

My Mother, the wife of a Holdeman preacher, not that long before she died said to me; Doug I don't know if there's anything to any of this stuff about God/church. What she was addressing I think was the issue of the god she had been taught about. I do believe that her heart was right with the God who lives when she passed away!

My sister who is the wife of a Holdeman preacher has severe doubts at times. My other sisters have the doubts as well but I don't know how severe. The first sister I mentioned blames the devil for this but I believe that she too doubts the existance of a god of letter and law, that ole churchy god you know. I asked her, do you doubt that you have a relationship with your husband? She said, why no! There you have it! Her husband was real to her, her god is not really real to her. I would have to doubt as well and I did for many years. My sister fights the doubts, my tendency was to qualify them. I can say this; I have not had a doubt now for 37 years. I believe!

I do not think that anyone can really believe in the god of law and I am absolutely sure that no one can love that god. I do believe that there are people that are scared [not to believe] in the god of law.

Even when God gave the ten Life-giving commands He was the God of Love and Grace! It was mankind who reduced these Life-giving commands to precepts of law that now work death. What was meant for Life immediately worked death. Consult Romans chapter seven.

It says because of the weakness of human flesh the commands did not work in bringing forth Life, therefore He sent His Son! Reduced to precepts of law the commands immediately began to work death.

Did God know this before hand? We like to believe He did, at least that is our view of God. I can tell us this; the commands certainly [revealed us] and I personally believe that that is a large part of the whole thing. The even larger part is that He would finally be revealed to us and formed in us! The apostle once said; I pray that Christ would be formed in all believers, everywhere.