Saturday, March 7, 2009

When God draws us to Himself

Some of us continued our discussion of evangelism today. The premis of Heaven and or Hell as the primary reason to evangelize for the most part repulses me and I think is misguided. Jesus I believe came primarily to offer the ability to re-establish our relationship with God (Himself). I see the following format as the primary steps He used with me. How does this feel to your heart? Does the following sound like freedom, life and healing to you?

4 Steps To Becoming Like Jesus when God draws us to Himself

1. Initial Sanctification (get saved via crisis experience).
a. ACTION: request relationship with Jesus Christ as God.
b. RESULT: God relationship restored, Kingdom living begins.
2. Entire Sanctification: (also via crisis experience).
c. ACTION: depravity acknowledged, request inpartation of nature of Christ
("Holy Spirit", "Spirit of Truth", "The Councelor")
d. RESULT: Purged conscience, power to live from position of innocence,
ability to change as God reveals need, spiritual fruit.
3. Perfection:
a. Walking in spirit, knowing you are positional perfect but practically,
changes will be made as God reveals the need (our response is not one
of guilt but of Love)
4. Daily Consecration:
a. Determine to be set apart (only we can consecrate ourselves).

8 comments:

  1. I do not understand the reasoning behind using "crisis" as criteria in the steps. That appears to limit God's ability to move in any circumstance. I do not think he goes by our rules. I will give you, when one is in the state of despair (crisis), they are more vulnerable to anything that will help them, be it spiritual, chemical, or relational. However, i do believe it to be completely possible to meet Jesus in a valid relationship without being in a state of crisis. Seems that the requirement to opening one's heart to HIM , is more of an acknowledgement of needing HIM in your life. I think that is different from crisis. I wish more people did respond to HIM before "crisis". But I do agree that crisis is a powerful catapult. I think many , if not most, could relate to the "crisis" mindset, however I would hesitate to use it as a definite rule. Were the disciples in crisis when Jesus met them? We don't know...but no emphasis was placed on that if they were. And when Jesus says to them, (and to us), just follow me..........there is no correlation to a crisis experience. It is simple....wherever you are...(emotionally, spiritually, relationally) just simply follow Him. We all have our own experiences and can relate to those best....but it should not shut the door on others experiences (in this case, ones that had no crisis). Thought provoking though.

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  2. Monkey,
    I like the word crisis and think you should keep on using it. In the Quaqker tradition it means a point of decision that requires a conscious act or response. It is all about free will my good man (through Narrowminded would probably say its all about works, do, do do, works) :-)
    olllo

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  3. geppetto, I understand your thoughts. I would have to say that at this time, for me, the word crisis no longer is limited to meaning 'something bad'. In fact, when I look at the word in regards to my relationship with God, a closer meaning for me now is 'opportunity'. I look at 'crisis' as a moment of revelation, that in my circumstances, (be they emotional, physical, relational or wheteveral), I have an opportunity to choose to grant God access or not. I also think that in virtually all 'evangelical moments' it is that moment of decision that facilitates or usherss us into growth. Sure appreciate your thoughts, tahnks.

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  4. blog in your own eye, this is an opportunity! Choose Jesus and call me.

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  5. This is too hard for me.
    I can't do all these mental and emotional gymnastics.
    Is all this required in order to know Jesus… in order to have a relationship with Him?
    Can’t I just love Him, and won’t He just love me if I don’t fretting over all of this minutia?
    I am exhausted, my mind is too cluttered, and my heart is too full to deal with all of this.
    Should I be afraid if I don’t get this?
    If I get lost in these debates?
    If I feel inadequate to partake?
    If I just don’t care?

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  6. I agree with eye blog above....in the long run none of it matters, your experience is what you own and it is different for everyone. So lets all just go have a martini and clink to that! LOL!

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  7. Let me start by thanking anonymous for dragging me into this, appreciate it.

    The idea of "initial sanctification is an error. One is either sanctified or one is not. Salvation is not initial sanctification, it is the work of Christ "for" all humans that opens the doors of His Kingdom and grants us citizenship. The entire world is "saved", few are sanctified. To equate salvation and sanctification in any way diminishes both and, I believe, confuses the issue.
    Salvation is our mental and heart felt acceptance of our need for God and the exercise of our free will in choosing to believe He is who He says He is.

    Entire sanctification is the work of Jesus "in" us. It happens through crisis and only through crisis, those who disagree are simply hoping they don't have to go down that road. Silly people!:)
    Everyone who followed Jesus while He walked this earth was crushed. Study the life of Peter, "do you love me?"
    We must follow Jesus, not to try to act like Him but to spiritually do what He did.
    We must accept with joy the crises He enginneers knowing it as the "scourging" of Christ unto our bodies, then as Christ was asked by Pilate we must answer God as He asks, "Are you a king?". Are we the Lord of our life? Accepting Gods revelation to our hearts of who we really are and the horror of our true condition we then take up our cross, experiencing the humiliation of Christ as we crawl to our Golgotha, expending the very last of our own strength, we accept the death of self and become in reality, not just intellectually, indentified with His death. This is not a mental acceptance of a theological truth, it is a miracle of the Living God, it is the mystery of sanctification.
    From this sacrificing of our free will and death of the "old man" we are resurrected into a new life as new creations.
    As sanctified disciples of Christ we then offer ourselves as "living sacrifices" for the purpose of worshiping Jesus. Our service to Him is an act of worship, not for any other reason. Not to fulfill a need or save souls or whatever. The outcome of our consecrated life is inconsequential. Our service is an unconscious act of worship.
    The Life of the disciple is the will of God.

    There, you happy now!
    Carry on!

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