Quote:
Originally Posted by OBW
This is somewhat the core of the "it's true for you but not for me" mentality. You may have seen something that establishes truth for you. But if I have not seen it, I have no basis to accept it a true for myself. You need to show it to me.
So churches full of propositional teaching about the nature of Christ and salvation, and so on, just don't get through. You want to claim that Jesus changes lives? Then show me some changed lives. (And exuberant, joyful people in meetings is irrelevant when they still act like heathen in so many other ways.) You say that righteousness, peace, and joy are in the Holy Spirit, then I need to see righteousness rather than unrighteousness coming from your people.
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I like this part very much because it speaks so much of my experiences over the last couple of years. As roughly outlined above, I slowly and fitfully began to "see Jesus", a la Heb 2:9, in the text of scriptures as never before. I was enthralled, and then indignant when Lee effectively said, "Run along, nothing to see here".
But... just because the Psalmist (ch 3) wrote that "I laid me down and slept/I awaked/ for JHWH was with me", and I can 'see' Jesus saying "I have the power to lay my life down, and the power to raise it up again", or just because Psalm 18 said, "He rescued me because He delighted in me" and I subsequently 'see' the Father saying "This is my beloved Son, in whom I delight; hear Him", just because I see these things and feel as though I were 'falling in love all over again for the first time', the rub lies not in some supposed insight nor the momentary excitement that it may engender. No, the rub lies in whether this word endures within me such that others can 'see' this reality lived out.
Our assessment of what is Christ in the Word is subjective. And the assessment, by others, of what in us is Christ, is also subjective. This, I believe, is the narrow path. I dare not characterize my journey other than to say I've been delighted to have had an opportunity to travel it, and am truly grateful to God. May He be blessed forever, amen. As to the Son - I am sure that He is there before me, shining, in the word; I am just a bit dull to perceive, is all. But if I struggle in the word the Spirit comes; of this I testify. Beyond that, though I could say(write) a lot, and sometimes do, truly I can hardly say I know, or see, anything at all. The knowing, and seeing, is in the living.
"But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, and deceiving yourselves."