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One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 4/16/2009 12:10 PM (GMT -6)

As I see it...

Fearlessness is based on healthy, non-attached (dispassionate*) internalization of non-existence's inevitability, non-existence being a ground of one's created being before the Uncreated God. For the Christian, this would be "walking in the shadow of death" while "fearing no evil" because God is always "with us." Christians truly believe that God Himself has "overcome the world."

Counterphobia is based upon unhealthy, attached (passionate), self-referential avoidant denial of the reality of one's created nature that expresses itself as extreme "life-affirming/death-denying" behavior like the typical "American Dream" portrays human existence. This would be people who "worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?'" because of "the lust of their eyes and their boasting about what they possess and do."

Both may do things that LOOK like the exact same activity. But the only way true fearlessness is possible is by one's solid knowledge of being grounded in something BEYOND the Void of Nothingness: Love (who is God).

This is why Paul says what he does...

For the Spirit God gave us does not make us timid, but gives us power, love and self-discipline.

Just my morning thought. Feedback welcome...

*American Buddhist monk Bhikkhu Bodhi wrote:

The real meaning of upekkha is equanimity, not indifference in the sense of unconcern for others. As a spiritual virtue, upekkha means equanimity in the face of the fluctuations of worldly fortune. It is evenness of mind, unshakeable freedom of mind, a state of inner equipoise that cannot be upset by gain and loss, honor and dishonor, praise and blame, pleasure and pain. Upekkha is freedom from all points of self-reference; it is indifference only to the demands of the ego-self with its craving for pleasure and position, not to the well-being of one's fellow human beings. True equanimity is the pinnacle of the four social attitudes that the Buddhist texts call the 'divine abodes': boundless loving-kindness, compassion, altruistic joy, and equanimity. The last does not override and negate the preceding three, but perfects and consummates them.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

"God in Christ by His Spirit empowers, enables, energizes and enacts all Christian behavior and ministry as the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ. Christianity is Christ. Christian living is the life and character of Jesus Christ lived out through the Christian." -James Fowler

Post Edited (One Love) : 4/17/2009 10:39:59 AM (GMT-5)

Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 4/17/2009 6:18 AM (GMT -6)

Yeah. Good distinction. There are lots of activities that can look similar superficially and be motivated very differently. This is why Christ coul say the Pharisees were white-walled sepulchres, and Paul could say there would be many with a mere "form" of godliness, denying the power thereof.

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 4/17/2009 10:00 AM (GMT -6)

Similtude:
There are lots of activities that can look similar superficially and be motivated very differently. This is why Christ coul say the Pharisees were white-walled sepulchres, and Paul could say there would be many with a mere "form" of godliness, denying the power thereof.

Yessir, Jeff. That's why teaching people to be better religious moralists doesn't help the problem. Without the deep intention of love, it's all still nothingness.* And abiding in God's love is what energizeds us to actually do the Great Commandments...and gives our "filthy rags" righteousness the gleam of genuine righteousness, the righteousness of Christ.

*If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to all manner of hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 4/17/2009 10:03 AM (GMT -6)

I guess I've been thinking about all this because I was talking to my brothers and homies the other day...and we were talking about what marks a truly free Christian.

And we came up with the idea: fearlessness.

If someone really believes in God's eternal love, then fear should be removed. Fear of the Void (and all its manifestations)

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. "

"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

"You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world."

Fear of the Void doesn't exist in what is eternal, that is, Love (who is God).

Make sense?

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

Post Edited (One Love) : 4/17/2009 10:39:14 AM (GMT-5)

Tom
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Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 10353

Posted 4/17/2009 1:53 PM (GMT -6)

Basically, there's only been one person who manifested absolute fearlessness--Jesus. Some others got there eventually. But what an AMAZING potential to impact the world belongs to people who are truly fearless.

An interesting question would be how this attitude might be manifested by evil persons, say, INSANE persons who SHOULD fear but who do not (Hitler, for example). They bring as great a detrimental potential to impact the world.

Tom

Similitude
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Date Joined Apr 2004
Total Posts : 4968

Posted 4/17/2009 9:54 PM (GMT -6)

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. "

That verse is so profound! We start off, while yet unperfected in love, with the fear of the Lord being the BEGINNING of knowledge and wisdom. And we end up, when perfected in love, having no fear, for we are then motivated JUST like God.

One Love
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Date Joined Jan 2003
Total Posts : 13888

Posted 4/19/2009 12:08 AM (GMT -6)

Pilgrims from Paradise

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Posted April 02, 2009 View Podcast Page

Matthew examines the necessity of loving Christ above all.

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"...freedom from all points of self-reference."

God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

"I love, therefore I am in I Am. God is my life."

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