Ganeida's Knots

Before Christ sent the church into the world, He sent the Spirit into the church.  The same order must be observed today,  John Stott.

I'm easily confused.  Give me two contradictory statements & I will fall between the two, maintaining that both can be equally true yet unable to explain why it is so.  I will grasp difficult concepts intuitively but the simple will elude my understanding & so...

For years (& years) Christians have bemused me ~ myself not least of all.  If we are a new creation in Christ then how in the Dickens is it that so many Christians, like Paul, are caught exactly here: for the good which I would do, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I practise.  How on earth, I muddled, was it that the divorce rate in the churches was as high & sometimes higher, than in the world?  What possessed spirit filled, born again believers to carouse harder than the unsaved while sprooking such platitudes as : Forgiven, not perfect?  What strange quirk in the psyche grasped hold of grace while failing to recognise repentance?  And you can not write it off as the Devil made me do it.  We are made righteous in Christ.  We are redeemed & co~heirs.  More to the point God's Holy Spirit is indwelling in us & thus we have access to the very power of God ~ That is what dunamis is:

Strength, power, ability; power for performing miricals; moral power & excellence of soul ~ or so the N.T Greek Lexicon informs me. Dunamis is the word used for the power of the Holy Spirit, the word from which we derive our English dynamite & it is active.  Active, not passive.

Over the years I have speculated that it is poor teaching ~ & in a sense that is probably true, only not in the way I thought.  I proposed that people simply failed to apply biblical teachings ~ when I know full well the flesh is far too weak to achieve anything on its own.  I surmised that people hadn't really been saved in the first place ~ only where did that leave me?  It niggled & niggled at me because I had firmly in mind that power & the Holy Spirit came together.  If you had one then you had the other ~ only where was the power?

Leaving aside the vexed question of the charismatic gifts there is still moral excellence ~ a quality seldom found, more seldomly displayed, amongst Christians of any calibre, & meanwhile the world looked on with contempt & the word hypocrite became the word most associated with Christianity.  How sad.

To add to my dismay there were Christians running round loudly quoting bible passages & adding their condemnation to the heady elixer.  It sounded like it sould be right & yet it did not sit well with me.  While loudly decrying legalism they were arguing for works as proof of salvation.

It has taken me a long time but I think I have finally untangled the knotty threads of this particular quanandrum.  The answer is in the very first commandment:  Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soult, with all thy strength & with all thy mind...

Now look at what Hebrews 4:12 says...

People are not made of a *whole cloth*.  The Spirit will seperate from the flesh at death.  The mind operates independently of the spirit & the body.  We are told to subdue our flesh, to renew our minds but God has redeemed our spirits so that we can walk according to His Spirit.  The Spirit enables us to will & to do the Father's will.  The problem is far too many of us don't understand what it means to walk in the Spirit ~ & even when we get that bit sorted we are far to lazy to crucify our flesh & renew our minds.

This Christianity business is hard work. I think I need a nap now....