(05/06/2013) Church Mandatory?

      The possible benefit from mandatory church attendance is considered, today. Also, there is more on whether experience is acceptable evidence for spiritual truth. A “Yahoo! Answers” writer using the ID “Looking in With Wonder” (Level 2 with 732 points, a member since March 25, 2013) posted the following:

School is mandatory, surely the church should be too. It would mean a lot more respect. thoughts?

THE BATTLE AXE: Experience Is Not Evidence? (05/05/2013)—(5.) Carnal, material and social experience do not serve as the highest evidence of divine truth (see Psalm 19: 1-14 and Romans 1: 16-32, KJV). GOD is a spirit, and must be known and understood as present through spiritual content, eternal purpose and sacred process. While the revelation of GOD to all created beings and living creatures continues to use human actors, awareness, and human events, the power of the sacred process does not depend upon the sum of ones knowledge, information, intelligence, memory, and reason. Belief is driven by the appearance and interaction of divine substance. Included are faith, forbearance, forgiveness, holiness, humility, joy, longsuffering, love, wisdom, and wrath against sin. See Psalm 119: 98-106, Matthew 15: 7-20, John 20: 19-31 and 2nd Corinthians 5: 7, KJV. (6.) GOD does not manipulate human affairs and natural events to supply mankind with “proof” to convince and persuade anyone that He is GOD. GOD is not obligated to argue or debate, and to remove disbelief. The proofs and signs granted to his servants are to acknowledge, affirm and reinforce the divine intent residing within the believer, to further their understanding, and to ignite zeal within believers (see Judges 6: 11-24 and 33-40 and 2nd Kings 13: 14-19, KJV). Spiritual gifts, resources, and tools are shared, however, this is to permit human awareness, recognition, and realization of divine presence as well as sacred operations, and eternal purpose. Spirit content is imparted through the holy writings along with understanding that reveals the divine nature and sacred purpose that frames and underlies all existence.

THE GOLDEN ARROW: Then I contended with the nobles of Judah, and said unto them, What evil thing is this that ye do, and profane the sabbath day? Did not your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this evil upon us, and upon this city? yet ye bring more wrath upon Israel by profaning the sabbath. And it came to pass, that when the gates of Jerusalem began to be dark before the sabbath, I commanded that the gates should be shut, and charged that they should not be opened till after the sabbath: and some of my servants set I at the gates, that there should no burden be brought in on the sabbath day. So the merchants and sellers of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or twice. Then I testified against them, and said unto them, Why lodge ye about the wall? if ye do so again, I will lay hands on you. From that time forth came they no more on the sabbath. (Nehemiah 13: 17-21, KJV)

THE DOUBLE DAGGER: GOD in Schools? (12/20/2012); Naaman the Leper (12/21/2012); Holiday Displays? (12/07/2012); An Attack Upon Creation? (12/08/2012); Parental Duty? (10/08/2012); The Gender of Angels? (10/09/2012); Mob Rule and Violence (09/27/2012); Suppose I Am Wrong? (09/28/2012); What Is Reality (a.k.a. Truth)? (09/29/2012); The Content Of Prayer (01/29/2012); Teen Believers? (10/07/2010); Foiled Again (10/08/2010)

      Many mature Christian believers would agree that the sacred benefit of church attendance, and participation within assemblies, congregations and communities centered in shared belief can not be provided to all simply by the demands from civil law, or from the “bully” pulpit. Here are some points to consider:

(1.) GOD is a spirit, and must be known and understood through spirit content, eternal process, and sacred operations. Included are atonement, birth, condemnation, death, forgiveness, rebirth, repentance, and salvation. GOD appears to created beings and living creatures by expressions of divine will such as holy law, incarnation, and wrath against sin. (See John 4: 23-24, KJV.)

(2.) The church is a community of elect persons, and is a material and social instrument to present the divine will. Neither all the angels of heaven nor all mankind in the earth are embraced as members of the divine priesthood established by Jesus Christ. Their rule and service as kings goes forward in the form of ministry, works of faith, and continuous worship of GOD.

(3.) As an idea and process within the law, “religious liberty” generally is described as a freedom, as ones choice to be accountable and acknowledge sacred duty as well as a person’s right to maintain and practice in accordance with their own “faith” (usually undefined). Most mature believers understand the church where Jesus Christ is Head is not a democracy or institution built upon human consensus and majority rule. Participation is no longer on the basis of self-will and volition. Membership and support of the church are imperative, and no longer optional once they have surrendered to Christ in baptism (i.e., death and rebirth). Saying this another way: In the same way breathing is what one must do to stay alive, Christ is what one must do to know eternal life.

      There is far more to be said, correctly applied, and spiritually apprehended. (For example, (4.) Social process for respect, sharing and trust often begins in our assuming there is agreement and equality in spite of diversity and individual differences as well as a commitment to ordered change, growth, and learning. For the sacred process of the church, the starting points may be doubts, questions and uncertainty that come under the operation of faith, and the endowments of divine person imparted to believers.) Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.

THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC

(10/31/2012) Saved in Childbearing?

      A reader at thoughts.com using the ID “Southern_Grace” made a comment that has challenged me to share as completely and plainly as I can my best, present understandings (see below) that answer the question, how is a woman saved in childbearing? To the extent I am not an evangelist or pastor overseeing a congregation of hundreds or thousands, I demand allegiance, obedience and financial support from no one. Even so, I trust these ideas have authority. I am only another anonymous and unknown Christian writer sharing ideas through the Internet, and what I say is binding upon no one. Nonetheless, where readers here will exercise discernment, they will not be offended in me, and may possess as their own all the divine content in what is written. Honor to GOD.

THE BATTLE AXE: The Fear of GOD (10/30/2012)—Many speak of fear as power, because fear appears capable of replacing logic and reason, and completely overwhelming human self-will. Just as parents must distance themselves from their children in order to correctly exercise authority over them, and properly discharge the many parental duties, GOD must also become known to mankind through their endurance of human experiences that include challenge, hardship, trials, and suffering. Far from being a work intended to destroy, enslave and intimidate mankind, through divine tests all created beings and living creatures are given opportunity to discover the fullness of GOD from within their own being. Many who lack understanding accuse and attack GOD expressing anger, bitterness, fear and hate. In their blindness and darkness of heart, they blaspheme and slander calling GOD a “super bully” because they do not yet rightly know GOD as surpassing all that is in beauty, compassion, goodness and grace. Fear of the Lord that is acquired through the imparted, indwelling Spirit is explained by the Gospel of Jesus Christ that proclaims the eternal love of GOD despite a consuming wrath against sin. Judgment is the final tool for revealing the righteousness of GOD; and even those who will be removed from Creation will first have seen “GOD in action” and in sacred process that displays their own lack of divine content and holy substance as a record of all that they preferred and chose for themselves in place of conformity, obedience, and submission.

THE GOLDEN ARROW: For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast. (Ephesians 2: 8-9, King James Version)

THE DOUBLE DAGGER: Begotten not Made (09/08/2012); About False Witness (09/09/2012); Birth Control and Sexism? (03/16/2012); Many Forms of GOD (03/17/2012); What is Worship? (10/18/2010); No Free Will (10/19/2010)

      In the authority of a teacher sent from GOD, one directed to speak as the Holy Spirit gives utterance, the Apostle Paul proclaimed

For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression. Notwithstanding she shall be saved in childbearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety. (1st Timothy 2: 13-15, King James Version)

      Childbearing comes into view as an extension of Creation. More than this, childbearing pertains to revelation (how, and that GOD is known) as well as salvation (the incarnate operation of GOD in the person of Jesus Christ to restore mankind to right relationship with the Creator). The establishment of existence and the material that is life is exclusively the operation of the same Holy Spirit identified in the generation of heaven and earth. The depth and profound fullness of Creation must be understood as consisting in more than Almighty GOD imposing divine order upon conditions, immaterial substance, and non-matter. There is also the acknowledgment of law; the production and separation of what is and what has never been from nothing that is, has ever been, or ever shall be again; and the diversification and multiplication of what is as various dimensions, elements, forms, and images.

      Childbearing restores a woman to her proper place within godly order through her effecting divine purpose, through her response to the earliest blessing from GOD, and through her sacrificial obedience to law that was proclaimed in the first commandments declared before mankind: Be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth (Genesis 1: 22 and 1: 28, KJV). Through their sexual union, man and woman were to increase their own kind to overspread the earth as were all other living creatures. During the development of a child within her womb a female must respond to operations by the Spirit of GOD, and acknowledge her lack of control over the processes of life. Typically, she experiences extreme, sudden, and otherwise unexplainable changes and shifts within her attitudes, body, feelings, mood, sense of wellbeing, her thoughts and sense of security.

      Many women do not accept that GOD should be present within, or operate through their bodies. Some resent being unable to pollute themselves as they see males do; and complain that GOD is biased, hateful toward women, and partial to men. However, her separation as special to GOD is granted every woman through water and blood, and are regularly signaled in menstruation and childbirth. For those in covenant with GOD, when a woman was in her uncleanness she was no longer fit for holy service, and was not to participate in communal worship without first re-dedicating and sanctifying herself through meditation, prayer and washing. As the vessel whereby sin was originally introduced to mankind, women have been given opportunity for almost constant practice of their heartfelt devotion, humility and reverence.
    
     There is far more to be said, correctly applied, and spiritually apprehended. (For example, salvation is not a one-time event, an achievement, or an outcome of purely human works such as childbearing, marriage and other human social behavior, and conduct. The Apostle’s declaration includes the important word “if”, and goes on to identify spiritual conditions, and divine spirit content that must appear within covenant with GOD, and other continuing relationships.) Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.

THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC