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Originally Posted by immuno_oncology
4. Tripartite man - I was taught that understanding the spirit is the key to everything. Do you guys still "turn to your spirits" and reject the self in order to express Christ, Christ and Christ only? As an example, I was frequently taught that human improvements don't matter because only Christ fulfills the highest standard of morality, so all we need to do is "call on the name of the Lord and turn to our spirits!" I was also told that before we were saved, the soul is our person and the spirit is an organ. But after we're saved, the spirit is our person and the soul is our organ, for the purpose of expressing the spirit (Christ).
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"Understanding the spirit is the key to everything". Well yes and no. It is the key to everything but I daresay Lee didn't give us the definitive word. So anyone who says they are teaching you the latest and greatest about the world of the spirit, either human or divine, is talking through their hat. I went out of the LCs with an attitude that I knew more than Pastor Bob and Reverend Joe, whom I now re-acquainted myself with in "Christianity". Turns out my knowledge was superficial, and partial. Years passed, and now that I have learned a little more, about the only thing I can say for sure is that I know almost nothing, and I'm suspicious (to put it mildly) of people who've reduced God and His realm to a series of axioms. "God in a box" doesn't interest me anymore.
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Originally Posted by immuno_oncology
5. How do you guys pray after leaving the LC? Do you pray to the Lord Jesus or the Father in Heaven? Do you amen after every phrase when someone else is praying?
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I have found that praying with other Christians means that they have their methodologies and I have mine. I don't see a unique and single formula. So be sensitive to hear and respond not only to them but to God through them.
When praying alone, I always imagine Jesus the High Priest standing at the right hand of the Father. I see Jesus as the unique and ultimate mediator between God and man. So if you pray to God the Father "in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ" or if you pray to Jesus the Son of David, Son of God, Savior of the World to intercede for you with the Father, or whatever your imagery, that is really how you feel led.
One final note about the Holy Spirit. I had the "call upon the name of the Lord" formula and still use it. Blind Bartimaeus used it by the side of the road, and Jesus stopped the crowd and allowed Bart an audience. Therefore loud, repeated, impertinent cries (however you word them) are probably not vain.
But, but, but... I have found that "the road to the Spirit" is not axiomatic or formulaic. I myself spend hours and hours in the word, quietly, turning it over and over and over. Obsessive, compulsive, fixated... At some point I may rush out on the street like the Samaritan woman, shouting and exclaiming that I have found the Christ, there in the Word. But really, who can tell? Am I now approved? Do I now have the latest and greatest formula? No: I don't control the Spirit. I can't summon the Spirit like some sorcerer. The spirit of the prophet is subject to the prophet, yes. But the Holy Spirit is subject to God alone. At the end, all we can do is wait upon the Lord. He promised His Holy Spirit. Trust God's promise, and let yourself be surprised by His visitation (Gk: "parousia"). God will resist your systematic theology. Don't try to understand, just try to submit. God will come; He'll come. "Amen; come Lord Jesus".