Would it be bad to be "obsessed" with God?  I mean really.  If people become "God-intoxicated" to the point where all their relationality is premeated by conscious attention to God all the time in all things?

 

So...I thought and thought...and came up with this.  Just a brain toot...

 

 

Basically, we are talking about being in a totally engrossing, all-consuming love relationship with Creator Jesus and His World. (This one.)  Just like Jesus was obsessively fixated on the Father by the Spirit, only living in the Father's World, working as he saw his Father working, so are we obsessively fixated on the Son, only living in Christ's World by the Spirit, doing the same things...with the Trinity empowering us from within.

 

Living anything less than this is "missing the mark", missing the "high calling" for humanity.  It is sin.

 

Why do I say this?  In part, three things:

 

1) Christians are to love the Lord your God with our whole being. All of our psychological, spiritual and emotional energies are to be expended with loving the Lord with single-eye.  And Christ is Lord and God.

 

2) Whatever is not of faith is sin.  Loving fixation upon Christ is the "target" of faith. 

Last, but not least...

 

3) Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us. Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinful men, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.

 

That "fix our eyes" thing?   Yeah.  The word is aphorao.  And, as I'm looking at come stuff, it seems to represent the action of taking one's focus and attention away from other things to intentionally "fix" them steadfastly on a certain thing, to the exlusion of the other things.  The Christian is to "fixate" on the Personal Presence of Christ through his Spirit.

 

Make sense?

 

Perfect Song for this.

 

Why R U

Amerie

 

 

 

 

 

 

So...

 

Speak up, yo.  Is unreserved obsession with the Creator (Jesus) a bad thing?

PS: Just had a thought.  I wonder if Jesus' loving fixation with his Father and the Father's Will is why his own FAMILY said that he was "out of his mind".  Yeah.  I think so.

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Post Edited (One Love) : 7/18/2009 1:50:06 PM (GMT-5)

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

 

 

The Chapter:

 

The whole chapter is there. I know that's a lot of reading, but it's worth it, I think.  For those who want more of a shortcut, there's a easily readable "Conclusion" on Page 106.

Tom,
This is my current process, man.  On Everything, for real.  The progression of what the Jesus Prayer and eucharistic/epicletic life starts.  Right here. Which is no different than the process of any Spirit-bearing Christian: becoming "living pray-er" in epicletic life in the Trinity.

 

It's reality.  It's really real, man. 

PS: Something I find interesting.  From the time I was a baby, I was primarily raised in Greater Mount Olive Baptist Church in Waco, Texas, my maternal grandparents' home church.  So, from babyhood up to going off to college, I was affiliated in some way with that church.  Usual church drama, but good people, you know?  Anyways, that church has always had a baptismal at the back of the church, behind the choir.  It's actually the one I first got baptized.  Anyways, for about 17 years of my life, there was a sentence that loomed over the large baptismal.  As I recall it now, it was like a big semicircle of Old English lettering that spanned the choir seating...and the total wall.  I saw that lettering so much of my life, that I would actually remember dreaming about it sometimes.  Even though I wasn't fond of church that much as a child (who is, after all?), somehow that Old English-lettered sentence stayed in my mind always.  I remember when, I was a freshman in college, the new pastor decided to put wood finishing in the sanctuary, including the back wall.  I came back home during the summer to see the Old English letters gone...and honestly, I felt a kind of sadness. As much as I'd hated church (for various reasons), I believed somehow deep inside that those words were relevant to my life.  Honestly, that bold, black, large-looming Old English lettered-sentence is one of the most enduring and meaningful memories I have about my church history.

What was the sentence?

"Turn Your Eyes Upon The Lord."

I still see the sentence in my mind's eye right now.  Freaky.

So, when I read and re-read this chapter and think about the whole remembering God thing spelled  out in the chapter...and think about life now as opposed to about 3 years ago...I can't help but to feel blessed.  Just seriously blessed...without even knowing it.  Almost became an atheist.  Almost left the ministry.  All that.

And now...well...by God's Grace, go I...

Train up a child in the way they should go, and when he is older he will not depart from it.

Dang.  God is faithful to his people.  

Thanks for the prayers, peeps.  Know I'm praying for y'all too...

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Post Edited (One Love) : 7/19/2009 5:37:04 PM (GMT-5)