Beginning With God- Ch 12. Up next for scrutiny are the articles of faith, the character of whichis outlined here. Testimony is a retrospective phenomenon culled from experience. Experience is from the past. Faith is futuristic, sometimes reinforced by testimony but basically Gods overdraft on you. “Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” To believe then is very often to combine both. That conflict neccesitating resolution is an after-effect of the fall. It wasnt always so. Man had no need of faith in the beginning. He had no opinion that was different from Gods because he pre-existed & co-existed with God. He neither did anything nor desired away from God. The lump of clay from which God formed Man was exactly that, a lump of clay. The life in it was not any other than what God had called up from the deep when He parted the waters. But the Man that became a living soul upon receiving the breath of life- impartation again, remember?- was God Himself apportioning quintessence to indifferent material. I repeat, that Man that became a living soul had no need of faith; he had knowledge, sure knowledge. The first person His being encountered by breath, sight, physical contact of being held up to Gods nostrils was God the Father. That is the Holy Spirits office today, the circulation of that breath pretty much like oxygen. Faith is a product of the distance between God & Man that came into play at the eviction from Eden, the loss of everyday multifarious contact with God in an environment created by Him. I can wonder where I misplaced my wallet but I am sure it is not in the cab because I paid the cabbie off from it. It is not on the pavement because I tipped the hotel doorman as I entered the hotel. Surely I entered the room with it because I paid room service from it, thats the receipt on the tray signed “paid”. From that point on Im “believing” very firmly & with good reason that it is in the room, not the elevator. But Im believing because I cannot see it to take with me now that I am going out again. My eyes have suddenly become inadequate for my hands & mind. But God is looking at me & laughing. Its beside your bible, you put it there with the envelope after removing your tithe. Dont worry, Im not worried. If you do go on to church as youre fidgeting to do, you,ll pick up your bible to do so &..voila! Saved by the bell. Give me that smile of relief.” Now that Ive found the wallet by the bible - I no longer operate faith, I operate thanksgiving & sure knowledge of having that wallet in my hand. That is the truth about life. It is operated with a treasury that Man lost at the fall & regained instantly concurrently with the pronouncement of consequence. Only, time was no longer what it was before the fall, it had become extended in the distension that environment change brought with it. From that point on, the soul would need reminding to be stable toward God & the mind would need protection, like the angels on guard at Edens gates, from the assault of eyes that would be seeing double, radarless mind & rudderless body until Josephs stakes- God,s intervention, Jesus Christ,- are planted before these sheep- “& I, if I be lifted up, shall draw all men unto me”- to differentiate them from Labans.. I did say that looking unto Jesus is not an idle phrase.
Posted on: Sat, 16 Aug 2014 07:19:30 +0000
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