Is there a way prayer can slow us down? Can prayer cause us to stop and think, discern or change our perspectives? It seems we spend a whole lot of time in prayer hoping God will do the many things we ask Him to do instead of asking Him to do one thing - change us and we all know change rarely happens in a fast paced world.
With that Scripture in mind I hope to generate some discussion on the final question I posed this past Sunday:
* With the glaring evidence of the powerlessness in the church, why do we still avoid matters like prayer, fasting and repentance?
So what would be your answer? Maybe you have been in a church that hasn't neglected those things and you would share your experience of what that was like.
One thing is for sure - prayer can be a discouragement for all of us. My only cure for my discouragement is to go again to the gospel of grace and remember that Jesus died for my failures. Rest in His great love and great grace.
This seems like a problem of people who know a lot of things but not about the soul. I and many other are naturally inclined to want to believe my reasoning and the systems I create with it, are enough. Unfortunately, the problems of not pursuing prayer are usually when the natural state of one's soul is still dominant and apt to sway oneself into not needing it. Intellectually grasping the function of the soul is the key to being able to understand the logistics of our world on a certain level. Not praying, fasting, or repenting are just specific ways of not dying to self. That's a common RE-occurrence for not truly understanding the value of the soul.
ReplyDeleteWhere others come in is probably in the area of making personal judgements. The kind of people mentioned above typically know what kind of behaviour a "believer" shows externally. And, unfortunately, I know you're just like me, Pastor, in that you're constantly trying to find the soulful meaning of external decisions (appearance, deliberate voice tone, pattern of language, etc). These are the two major roles in congregations. And it's the perfect formula for us playing our role poorly.
You've obviously made plans around this issue, but, next time you come back to it, a sermon on the SELF-satisfaction of a soul change might be the thing some of the fake people in our congregation need to take one step further.
Understanding the value of a soul-> easier for one to allow the soul change-> easier to get oneself to die to self.
Ben, by the phrase "natural state of ones soul" do you mean unredeemed - natural instead of spiritually born again (John 3)?
ReplyDeleteI'm not viewing it necessarily in terms of being born again, but the point at which you've officially overcome your natural inclinations. But, yes.
ReplyDeleteBen, I’m interested in the sources and standards you have utilized to create the system in which you determine the condition of your soul. Do you feel you’ve been successful in overcoming the natural, human inclinations we’ve all been born with? If so, how did you determine the point in time when you officially overcame this natural state of your soul? If not, what will be the indicator you will use to determine that change?
ReplyDeleteI’m also curious as to how much you rely on external appearances, actions, etc. to determine the state of other people’s souls. Do these external facades effect your relationship with your God, either negatively or positively?
Thanks for your insight. I look forward to your thoughts.
Correction: that would be an affect, not an effect on your relationship....too many years of pre-school has 'affected' my brain.
ReplyDelete(Hopefully this is still relevant)
ReplyDeleteMy system for learning and understanding is, basically, intuition > inference > applying it to reason > conclude, and repeat until my intuition stops going off when I consider my conclusion.
I'm not sure if I've been too successful in overcoming my inclinations. I've overcome my basic ones, but seem to have different ones pop up in a sort of trade-off. I think I'm better, overall, as most of what I do isn't for any bodily/ idle pleasure. But I don't know where I would stand in a hierarchy(not that I worry about it), as I presume people, like me, keep their strongest issues to themselves.
The time I felt I had overcome it was when I had exhausted both intuition(which is as much of a "sense" as the other five) and reasoning on the issue. I believe intuition is specifically implemented in God's design to help us figure out the less concrete details, along with our other senses for more concrete details.
I use external things as the initial premise. I have some sub-conscious understanding of what particular choices of appearance/ behavior revert back to. In order to find out things more specifically, I simply wait to learn more about them and compare behavioral/ appearance patterns and see how few areas I can trace them back to.
If I see a female who shows levels of conceitedness that would only be produced by a mind/ spirit focused on worldly-success, I would assume her soul is still lost. From my experience, anyone with a strong soul can possess a certain amount of any detrimental qualities, or strongly in few areas. But if the specific area quickly becomes incompatible with a strong soul, I assume the worst as much as I see the qualities in that person. All of these things can be found in appearance/ behavioral patterns, given opportunity, patience, and honesty. I know this because I've realized that people are desperate for soulmates(in any form), know what appeals to their type, and use these external things as their way of marketing where they are, soul-wise.
I'm not sure what you mean, though, when you ask if these things affect my relationship with God.