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|  selah Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001 Total Posts : 1210 | Posted 10/18/2005 7:34 AM (GMT -6) |   | subjective experience of God's interaction with us individually (hearing God respond during prayer for example) IMPACTS us AND that has the potential to impact others in our lives. If we are impacted, God's future interactions with us are also impacted. We can bless the lord or grieve the holy spirit. If that is not a mutually influencing relationship, I don't know what is...
If all this meaninglessness were true, WHY would we be tranforming ourselves by the renewing of our minds? Why transform anything? Remember. According to meph's reasoning we are just supposed to sit at the bottom of the hill...we are to just BE, rather than to BECOME. I disagree.
Jesus wept (was impacted by his friend) We are supposed to avoid grieving (impacting negatively) the Holy Spirit of God, prayer avails (IMPACTS God)... come on. We all know this!!
Mephi wants to say we are anxious because we are meaningless/dust in the wind... I want to say we are anxious, yes, because we are human, but not because we are meaningless. God cares for us - that means we are meaningFUL to him.
1Pe 5:7 - Cast all your anxiety on him, because he cares for you.
(who does he care for?)
for you
(nah, I'm dust in the wind. Come on, WHO does he care for?)
for YOU.
(no way, I'm personally meaningless to him. Who DOES He care for?)
HE CARES FOR YOU!!!
-- When you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is talking to me, and about me." Soren Kierkegaard | | Back to Top | | |
  |  selah Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2001 Total Posts : 1210 | Posted 10/18/2005 9:31 AM (GMT -6) |   | THIS is very clear mephi. I get it. Two things though. 1) how the %&^$. does Greg, Hartshorne, my mom, you or anyone claim to know these things? 2) So far as I can see, Greg is not using the word 'meaningless' anywhere in these quotes. I am having the biggest problem with that word. Does Greg say we are without meaning to God somewhere and I'm just missing it? OR are you adding that word for rhetorical purposes/to create anxiety?
Regarding separating being from becoming... If you aren't separating them, please help me understand your analogy where we sit at the bottom of the hill. IF we are becoming WHAT are we becoming. Even more important, ,if we are becoming _____ in light of our meaninglessness, WHY are we becoming? What's the point?
oh, and I think you're right, I MUST be an INFP! ha. | | Back to Top | | |
 |  One Love Registered Member

Date Joined Jan 2003 Total Posts : 13888 | Posted 10/18/2005 9:42 AM (GMT -6) |   | Selah: Does Greg say we are without meaning to God somewhere and I'm just missing it? OR are you adding that word for rhetorical purposes/to create anxiety?
1) No, Greg doesn't say it. I talked about this on the other thread. 2) No. I'm adding that word because it's aptly descriptive of the situation.
********************* Selah: Regarding separating being from becoming... If you aren't separating them, please help me understand your analogy where we sit at the bottom of the hill. IF we are becoming WHAT are we becoming. Even more important, ,if we are becoming _____ in light of our meaninglessness, WHY are we becoming? What's the point?
1) Oh...NOW I remember. The "sitting at the bottom of the hill" analogy was representing our ORIENTATION to the Giver of all Grace. For the other readers, this would be the Spring analogy. The water comes from a spring on the top of a hill and WE are at the bottom of the hill collecting the life giving water. We CANNOT give water back to the spring. Why would we need to? It has plenty. All we can do (and should do) is humbly take the water for our own lives, take water to others, and take them back to the Spring where THEY can get water...and the process starts anew.
Wow. "God is most glorified in us as we are most satisfied in Him." Damn. Piper really was right.
2) Why are we becoming? What's the point? What was the point for Qoheleth? The sheer facticity that God is real and God deserved to be reverenced as our gracious Source and loving Creator. Ah! But NOW we've removed all of the carrot goads, cupcakes and stuff. Now serving God has to be an ACTIVE, COMMITTED CHOICE just based on God's actuality. Ooh. Now, things get hard. We can't use God parasitically for "meaning" anymore. GASP! How many people will serve God under such conditions? What shall the Church do? Perhaps only a few authentic souls that do so freely as they will the one thing of the Reign of God.
Yes, let's see.
Post Edited (MephEternal) : 10/18/2005 9:59:58 AM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
 |  Similitude Registered Member
 Date Joined Apr 2004 Total Posts : 4968 | Posted 10/18/2005 7:29 PM (GMT -6) |   | Meph: The sheer facticity that God is real and God deserved to be reverenced as our gracious Source and loving Creator. Ah! But NOW we've removed all of the carrot goads, cupcakes and stuff. Now serving God has to be an ACTIVE, COMMITTED CHOICE just based on God's actuality.
Jeff: Didn't Christ "for the JOY THAT WAS SET BEFORE HIM endure the shame of the cross?" If so, was he contemplating a joy FUTURE to his suffering (i.e., a seeming carrot) or a SIMULTANEOUS intra-trinitarian BLISS, which made his suffering seem utterly insignificant to him? This is the part that I'm still confused about.
If Christ truly contemplated a FUTURE joy, and if that contemplation augmented his endurance, why would WE be pathetic for doing the same? If, on the other hand, his suffering was INsignificant to him, SUBJECTIVELY, how does such INsignificant suffering in any way indicate a measure of the magnitude of his love? That's the dilemma that strains my brain.
Post Edited (jefscott) : 10/18/2005 8:19:13 PM (GMT-5) | | Back to Top | | |
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