Now that's a title that's bound to get some interest! Jim's lost the plot and headed for the fires of hell, yet again.
Well, I'm not broaching the subject of other religions, I'll save that for some time down the line... But I am talking about doctrines, denominations, theology, paradigms, blah, blah.
I had a run in with someone about "sound doctrine" and if you don't have it you're headed for damnation and need to repent immediately! It was their job to publicly determine who was "sound" and who was a heretic. It doesn't take much to imagine what my response would have been, but I was nice about it!
Sooo, let's take a couple of the most currently contentious doctrines floating around, say, "all are in Christ" and maybe "Universal Reconciliation", "Inclusionists" perhaps, subjective vs objective reconciliation, all that sort of stuff. Its a huge battle as people throw scriptures around trying to prove their points. Books and countless articles, videos and posts about it all. Now you probably know my personal views on some of this stuff, but that's not really the issue.
The point is we need to encourage each other to go for it! Yes, that's right, support and help each other in our quest for truth!
We can trust God in us to guide us, its really that simple. All we need is the integrity and honesty about our journey and the humility to be wrong and the willingness to be stretched. He has given us intelligence, reason, common sense, curiosity, passion and a desire for truth. We need to use these faculties to their fullest. And the best part is He's right there with us in that journey.
Now I can hear some of you saying, "well that's fine as long as its based in scripture, otherwise we'll just drift off into spiritual anarchy and deception". Well, I kinda think God's a little bigger than that. If we are truly living in the integrity I described above, then we can totally trust God to guide us.
The thing is, His grace leads us to intimacy with Him - that's the whole purpose of it. In that place, doctrines become a non-issue, its all about Jesus and us, living loved and all that entails. And from that place we have the permission and the ability to freely pursue all that we put our minds to. His universe (physical and spiritual) is so enormously huge that even the bible is quite a limited document.
That's got a few of you going too, I would guess, but I've covered that in a few previous blogs. Suffice it to say, the bible is awesome and definitely something He left for us to cross reference our life in the Holy Spirit with, but its also been the fuel for the worst atrocities in history.
We are made in His image and we are in union with Him. We are free to use all our God given capabilities and character to pursue His truth, in complete trust that He will guide us. Jesus WILL lead us into all truth.
So my original point? All these doctrines aren't either/or, they are expression of God's heart through us, and we have nothing to fear by pursuing these ideas. Lets help each other in this exciting journey into the enormity of Daddy's heart!!
your line "We can trust God in us to guide us" is very TRUE but I also believe we can trust God in us all to guide all of us. Can't we? And, if we can, who are we arguing with then? Maybe its our perspective, maybe we only see a small part of a much bigger picture and when we one day finally see the bigger picture all our small parts will come together to make the whole.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely Angie, Thats my thought behind trusting the Holy Spirit in each other, not just christians either!
ReplyDeleteWe all need each other to piece together the picture. Each of our journeys are so unique that we have to give complete freedom for Holy Spirit to work it out in each other. If we can learn something from each others journey, all the better. In the end its all about relationship - with God and each other.