It’s in the life of Christ we are invited to seek rest, receive power, and join in on the redemptive plan for human existence. It's in the crucified Christ we find reconciliation and forgiveness, and it's in the resurrection we find the evidence of the indestructible life.

And that is the Good News of the Lord Jesus, that in the Kingdom of God all of this is found, and that is what is available to every human being no matter the current condition.

"Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen." Eph 3:20,21

may you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi,

terry

So again I will be adding a quote from the amazing book I am reading, Spirit of the Disciplines.



"The conflict between flesh and spirit is the experience of all who begin the spiritual life by the influx of God's life giving word. Somethimes the conflict is long, sometimes short. This is where the spiritual disciplines come in. The disciplines for the spiritual life, rightly understood, are the time tested activities consciously undertaken by us as new men and women to allow our spirit ever-increasing sway over our embodied selves. They help by assisiting the ways of God's kingdom to take the place of the habits of sin embedded in our bodies."



Wow, amazing quote! Just to add a little to that quote, as if I can do anything to help Dallas Willard. To rightly understand what he is saying, we have to understand sin as a condition, not singular acts of "bad behavior." Sin as a literally embedded in the midst of our bodies, as a virus that affects all aspects of our life, the good and the bad. We've read Romans 7, indwelling sin "in my members" (body parts), the will to do good but the inablity to do it, and even the good that we do is selfish, so in the end evil. With that in mind, sin as condition, the only way sin can be rooted out is by grace, which comes from God, who we expose ourselves to practicing the disciplines. "Sowing to the spirit," or the activity that Jesus calls "seeking the kingdom" that's the activity of the disciplines, as the farmer sows the seeds in the field "and goes to sleep and gets up and they grow, but he doesn't know how," so does the soul (life) become restored as we sow the seed of discipline in our lives, and God by His Spirit, causes the seed to grow, and the entire life, seen and unseen, to become renovated.


May you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi,

terry

I've been reading a book called Spirit of the Disciplines, which by the way is one of the greatest books ever, and the chapter Spiritual Life: The Body's Fulfillment prompted me to write this little paragraph:

"The totality of human existence is only present when man is connected to God. When God is energizing, directing, and inspiring human actions, only then is a human fully alive. Humans are "dead in trespasses and sins" when their actions and thoughts are all of unaided efforts, or in another word flesh. As animals we eat, sleep, and pro-create, but as humans (free and alive in Christ) we are creative, we love, and we are spiritual. Spiritual in the full meaning of being in an interactive relationship with God and His present kingdom. In this full life, life abundant, we are connected to God (and empowered by) to work in the physical (striving in good works), so that our entire lives (seen and unseen) are interacting with God, as the image and the likeness of our Creator."

May you be covered in the dust of your Rabbi,

terry