Today I set aside the normal forays on social media and chatting with friends and I purposed to seek more of God. It was hard ...I felt like saying, "What do I do now?" I finished up a book by Tozer that I had been reading (The Deeper Life) and was perusing my Kindle library to decide what came next and a book by Francois Fenelon caught my eye. It is called "The Inner Man." The writings of Fenelon have also intrigued me and this book is no exception.
I have wanted to dig deeper- to meditate on God and to deepen my love for him, and both of these books enlightened those purposes. Fenelon said that God is in us and it is his sustaining power that keeps us in existence -- should God loosen his grip on us, we would be no more. And he talked about how, in order to worship and commune with God, we need to go within ourselves which is where God dwells.
As the Kutless song implies (based on Isa. 6 which is where the reference to the hot coal from the altar being used to cleanse his sinful lips comes from) we are unworthy to be in God's Presence---Let alone, carry him in our sinful selves. But it is the blood of the Lamb that makes us an acceptable place for God to dwell in his Spirit. Our hearts are God's altar. And our righteousness which alone, would be shamefully deficient, comes from the Lamb who purchased our righteousness with his blood. And yet, I do not believe that we are to be lax about our treatment of God's Holy place inside us.
Wanting to avoid the whole Calvinism/Armenian debate, I would boil it down to this:
Is God's choosing of us and buying us with the blood of Christ sufficient for our salvation? My reply? "Yes!"----and: are we responsible to live in such a way as to bring him glory and live a life modeled after Jesus in order to have our salvation ratified? My answer: Yes! Confused? Yes, well it's a confusing issue with much Scriptural support for either side. I believe that God is bigger than the debate.
Anyway, my whole point is that it is God's Grace alone which empowers him to live within such poor specimens of righteousness as we. And it is up to us to approach the altar in our hearts with respect and with confession and repentance for our sinful deviations from God's perfect holiness which he told us to emulate.
I do not want to lose the message behind this whole rigamarole -- It is a most worthy goal to desire to have more of God. And he (the Word) is close, (Deut. 30:12-14) - as close as our heartbeat or next breath. I know he is here in me..and I know he speaks to me. And I know that it is him who convicts me of my sin and has provided a way for me to be rid of it. Now for the remaining time in my day of Quiet--I will pray and I will listen.
I have wanted to dig deeper- to meditate on God and to deepen my love for him, and both of these books enlightened those purposes. Fenelon said that God is in us and it is his sustaining power that keeps us in existence -- should God loosen his grip on us, we would be no more. And he talked about how, in order to worship and commune with God, we need to go within ourselves which is where God dwells.
"Don’t
you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives
in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself," 1 Cor. 6:19
And I had to admit....no, I do not know the way into my depths to find God. But I want to. And I believe that that desire honors God and that he will therefore empower me to do that. I recalled the song by Kutless from many years ago which says "Take me in to the Holy of Holies, Take me in by the blood of the Lamb. Take me in to the Holy of Holies - Take the coal, touch my lips, here I am.""Do they even know what it is to enter within themselves? Have they ever endeavored to find the way? Can they even form the most distant conception of the nature of that interior sanctuary, that impenetrable depth of the soul where Thou desirest to be worshipped in spirit and in truth?" (F.Fenelon, The Inner Man
As the Kutless song implies (based on Isa. 6 which is where the reference to the hot coal from the altar being used to cleanse his sinful lips comes from) we are unworthy to be in God's Presence---Let alone, carry him in our sinful selves. But it is the blood of the Lamb that makes us an acceptable place for God to dwell in his Spirit. Our hearts are God's altar. And our righteousness which alone, would be shamefully deficient, comes from the Lamb who purchased our righteousness with his blood. And yet, I do not believe that we are to be lax about our treatment of God's Holy place inside us.
Wanting to avoid the whole Calvinism/Armenian debate, I would boil it down to this:
Is God's choosing of us and buying us with the blood of Christ sufficient for our salvation? My reply? "Yes!"----and: are we responsible to live in such a way as to bring him glory and live a life modeled after Jesus in order to have our salvation ratified? My answer: Yes! Confused? Yes, well it's a confusing issue with much Scriptural support for either side. I believe that God is bigger than the debate.
Anyway, my whole point is that it is God's Grace alone which empowers him to live within such poor specimens of righteousness as we. And it is up to us to approach the altar in our hearts with respect and with confession and repentance for our sinful deviations from God's perfect holiness which he told us to emulate.
I do not want to lose the message behind this whole rigamarole -- It is a most worthy goal to desire to have more of God. And he (the Word) is close, (Deut. 30:12-14) - as close as our heartbeat or next breath. I know he is here in me..and I know he speaks to me. And I know that it is him who convicts me of my sin and has provided a way for me to be rid of it. Now for the remaining time in my day of Quiet--I will pray and I will listen.
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