The Black Wall

Hey there,
I'm not sure when I wrote this story but I thought I would post it. It's a little lighter than all the other stuff I've been posting. Let me know waht you think!
Greg

The Black Wall
Shadows move in the darkness, wraiths that lust after my destruction. Indeed, they are the very essence of the gloom that so surrounds me, my light unable to penetrate the inky silence that has hemmed me in. I was given a charge, I am a chosen one. I stood there facing the wall, and like many others, wondered if I could really take this mission. I remember hearing His command, those words that still drive me on in relentless ambition, "I need you, you must go in. There are others who need to hear the truth, others who need to see daylight, they need our help. I'm not asking you to go alone, but I caution you, sometimes you will feel alone..." I feel alone now. I've been surrounded by this darkness for so long that even though I bear this light, I almost forget what it looks like myself. I'm shaken, I did not understand that I would face such an intense hate and bloodlust for my life; the wraiths want nothing more than to see me fall, to see my life extinguished and to see the ones I am here to rescue scorn the light I was commanded to bring them. Exhaustion overcame me and I stopped to take a rest. Sitting down, I remember what it was like to be consumed by the darkness, to be one of those who were lost in it's midst. It's not how it seems, I remember the deceptions the wraiths went to great lengths to maintain. I thought I was knowledgeable, I thought i could see. My life -although riddled with disappointments- had the appearance of being normal. It wasn't until I was rescued that I truly saw the darkness in which I lived; the scandalous duplicity that I lived to serve. Yet, my mind is drawn to the simplicity of those times. I had need to worry only about myself, it was up to me to decide how i wanted to live, what i wanted to do and all for the benefit of myself. Now I live to benefit others, to put others before myself. It is a massive undertaking and not one that can be done on my own strength. I accepted this mission with enthusiasm but now my thoughts are drifting. I didn't want to do this anymore, if people didn't want to see the light in the first place, why send us into this darkness? Why should I not be my only concern? What do I have to offer others? Why am I... I was startled in mid thought. I had heard something, a voice, and looking up I was alarmed; my light was very dim and the darkness was so close. Confused, I wondered how I had become so careless and like an early morning, realization dawned and I saw that I had let bitterness and selfish ambition take a hold of my heart. Bending my knee, I stopped to ask for forgiveness and He came to restore my strength... I was indeed not alone.

The Wisdom of God...?

So the other day I promised you to continue some more on the discussion about the sum of what I have learned. You see, something bothered me. I know on the one issue I am dead accurate, that our obedience to the law of God flows not from our own effort, but as we grow in relationship with Chirst, it some that is just natural; we obey by default because His Character is now our own. But when I concluded that this made knowing what is considered as being wrong by God's standards wasn't even necessary, I didn't quite like the thought because it seemed under developed. It was a natural conclusion i made myself and not something I really felt the Lord was telling me, so I was naturally hesitant. So in that, I began to search for the truth and in that search i came across one question that needs to be answered before anything else. That question is this: What is God's Wisdom? The Bible says that we should seek and press in for the Wisdom of God. What is His Wisdom? Is His Wisdom in knowing the difference between right and wrong? Or is that the wisdom we as man attribute to his character because we are limited in how we percieve Him? The answer to this question could very well lie in the answer of another, being, How does God view good and evil? What is His perception on the matter? Again, we can be certain that it is quite different than the perception we attribute to Him having and the answer may be simpler than we think. Reason with me. If God is Love, then we can also say that He is Good. When we are in relationship with Him, we exist inside that Goodness at all times. The Bible also says that He is the sustenance of our lives and the lives of all creation; without His hand and His Goodness in the world at all times, every creature would quickly enter a great spiral downward into oblivion. If He is the sustenance of our lives, and God is completely Good and Loving, His Goodness is what sustains us. Now to steal an idea from an e-mail I got a long time ago about a professor who was rebuked by a student when he suggested that God created death. You see, darkness is simply the absence of light, darkness doesn't exist, what exists is simply an absence of light which is interpreted by us as 'darkness'. In just the same way, death does not exist as it's own entity, death is simply the absence of life. So what then is evil? Evil, in all purposes of the term, does not exist. There is only Goodness and the absence of goodness, which is interpreted as 'evil'. So, as the Bible says, God is good, and in Him there can no evil be found; He is the definition of the term 'Goodness'. So what then is goodness? How do we define the term without running into our intrinsic limitations we have as humans? That is a tough question and I will leave it alone. What I wiil say is that the key lies in what I said earlier, God is the definition of Goodness; He is Goodness. When we are in Him we know goodness, and when we sperate ourselves from Him, we remove ourselvs from His goodness, and where goodness is lacking, evil is present. Some would say that evil does exist because satan is Evil. But if you remember, all creation finds Goodness in God, that includes angels, because they were also created like us. Satan removed himself from God's goodness and is in a complete and constat state of lacking goodness. This is where things now get hazy and I will end shortly. COuld God's wisdom be this? That He knows not the difference between good and evil, that is, being seperate entities, but He knows the difference of living in His goodness and trying to live apart from His Goodness. Essentially, God's wisdom is not a list of right and wrong things, not a list of "Thou shalt not" or "Thou shalt" but His wisdom is simply in understanding the difference between living in Goodness or living apart from Goodness; living in relationship with Him or living in independence from Him. How this fits in with understanding what is right and wrong is as of yet, a little unclear to me, but I'm still praying about it.
God Bless
Greg

A question that challenges

Before I go into this, to lessen the impact a bit let me ask this one question first "Why would Christ not want it for us?" The context of this question will become all too clear as you continue to read.
I have some more stuff to say concerning the post "The Sum of What I have learned" but I'll write that tomorrow. The following is something I've felt for a long time but it was kept on the backburner until the revelation that for mature Christians, obedience becomes a part of our nature and not something we attain to accomplish, came about. You must prepare yourselves, because the idea that I am about to present is considered (that i know of) as heresy by practically every denomination of christiandom today and I am scared to death in presenting it to the world. You see, the natural, -and albeit revolutionary, unorthodox and unconventional- conclusion the previous revelation brings me to is that Christians will not go on sinning until the day we die. Please, don't throw the stones yet, just hear me out.

You see, I believe if we continue to press into Him, we won't go on sinning until the day we meet Him. I can't remember his full name (stephen...?), but he was one of the first guys to ever question the Catholic church; He walked up to his church's door one day with a hammer and a whole list of qestions that totally went against common belief and nailed the list to the door. For me, I ask the question "Why? Why do we have to go on sinning until the day we meet God?" And not one person has ever been able to give me a credible answer. I'm not saying that by myself I will be able to stop sinning, I can't do this on my own stregnth at all! In fact, if I did say that I could attain this on my own, I would indeed be falling into the realm of heresy. All I'm saying is that with Christ in me, He can bring it about so that I couldn't boast. How could I boast if it's a work He does in me? If I pay you to do a drawing for me, the drawing becomes mine but I cannot boast over it because I did not draw it, it's the same in this case; I am not the one doing the working, Christ is, so I cannot boast or lord it over people. And why couldn't he? A better question is, why wouldn't He? If I really wanted Him to help me stop, Why would He deny me? I am reminded of the verse "And what father, when a child asks for something good, would turn that child down? So it is with the Father in Heaven, when you ask of Him, He will not turn you down." I can't remember where that is and I know Christ was saying it in regards to the Holy Spirit, but the concept here is the same. Why would God turn us down if we asked Him to help us stop sinning? WHY do we HAVE to go on sinning until the day we meet Him in heaven??????????? Right now, these are just questions that I am asking, but be warned, I've looked at every angle and I can't see any way of answering my first question at the top of the page in regards to this matter that doesn't go against even one single thing the Bible tells me of Christs character and until someone can, I will hold onto this belief. Like I said, not so that I can boast and say that I am perfect, because as my own entity I am not perfect! The only way I am made Holy, Blameless and perfect is through Christ and Christ alone; without His working in my life I can attain nothing. Indeed, I attain nothing anyways! Christ attains it for me.
That's my stance and unless you can come to me and explain why God, who hates all sin, wouldn't want to help us to put sin behind us forever IN THIS LIFE, then don't bother trying to convince me. No amount of Bible verses can convince me, I've heard them all on the subject and quite frankly, none are very clear on the matter at all! In my opinion, they've just been interpreted very poorly.
When I hear and see people living out this lie, that we will go on sinning until we meet Christ in Heaven, I see and hear people who (mostly unknowingly for all three) long for and desire to live in a constant state of mediocrity, people that don't want all that God has to offer them and don't truly want to let go of their sinfulness, and a people who don't believe that Christ came to abolish sinfulness in sinful man and make us full saints. That's my argument and I am sticking to it.
God Bless!
YFTCF
Gregory