Growth and Sanctification

Well, I managed to survive the first weekend in my new place. :) It's very humbling to think that God has entrusted this place to my stewardship. I pray that I'll stay thankful and not take it for granted.

Thanks for all the comments on that last post. I do have a few remarks regarding things people have posted.Mark: I love the thought you expressed about the interaction of our will and God's will and how they can be simultaneously worked out. I also really appreciated your reminder that it's not about what Calvin/Luther/Fruelich/any human said, it's about what God's Word says. Compare teachings to the Word. Take the accurate, leave the inaccurate.

Anonymous: I really appreciate you expressing your thoughts here. I completely agree with your statement "...there are some things we were never meant to understand about God." I don't want to give the impression that I think I can achieve complete and total understanding of God and all His ways. We are told in the Scriptures that we will never understand all things. However, I do want to understand as much as I can about the inspired Word. The entire Bible was given to us for instruction in righteousness. In order to learn from that instruction and be able to apply it to our lives, we must study it. We must understand what the instructions are. As Christians, the burning desire in our hearts should be to understand how God wants us to live, and there is no other place to learn that than the Word of God.

The reason I brought up the specific question in the last post was because it impacts how we view overcoming our failures. Do you grit your teeth and try to overcome by exercising your will, or do you fall on your knees, repent of the sin, turn your focus to Christ, and pray that He will fill you with His goodness? Maybe others don't struggle with this as much as I do, but personally, my nature is to try and overcome by my own power. I feel it's important for me to get an accurate Biblical viewpoint on God's sovereignty vs my will so that I ask for God pleasing things in my prayers. An example of this would be: I used to pray "God, give me the strength to overcome this temptation..." Well, maybe a more Biblically accurate prayer would be "Lord I am as dust, fill me with thy power to live a life pleasing to thee."

You may read those two prayers and think there's not much of a difference, but the mind set they exhibit varies a lot.

I hope that makes some sense. I don't mean to raise questions that we're not meant to ever know, but I do mean to raise questions that help us grow in our understanding of Christ and how we're supposed to live out our lives here upon earth. I believe the key to studying the scriptures is in your motives. If you're studying them strictly to gain knowledge and to impress people, then you need to re-evaluate. If you're studying scriptures so that you may become more Christ-like in your walk, then you'll be blessed. Scripture also supports the notion that not all Christians are gifted with the same ability to study and teach the Word. I don't think that gives some people a license to never study, but I think the degree's vary based on the person.