Covenant, faith, grace, divine law, and mercy are topics, today. Also, there is more on an eternity of worship. A “Yahoo! Answers” writer using the ID “craig” (Level 1 with 115 points, a member since July 07, 2014) posted the following:
Whats up with these so called Christians who preach against the ten commandments and jewish law in favor of grace?
THE BATTLE AXE: An Eternity of Worshipping? (07/22/2014)—(5.) Believers are confidant that their commitment to Christ will bear fruit as contentment, happiness, and satisfaction, because they are granted a foretaste of the life to come. The believer’s faith is built up on the basis of actual experience, not by fantasy, imagination, make believe, and speculation. Ones eternal life begins now, before their physical death and resurrection, through fellowship within the church, through awareness of the details in the holy writings that document miracles and sacred events, and through their own daily, human experiences of spirit growth, triumph, and victory.
(6.) All worship by believers is an expression of their spirit content; and many simple activities and behaviors may be used in the course of worship (e.g., bowing, breathing, folding ones hands). Only behavior directed toward acknowledgment of divinity qualifies as worship. While worship for an assembly or congregation of believers is usually achieved by using fixed patterns and set programs of activity (we say, customs, liturgy, rites, rituals), the acknowledgement of GOD that is worship also goes forward as commitment to unselfish service, personal devotion, and the whole-hearted offering of oneself as an individual. Corporate worship (i.e., as a body, as a group) requires agreement, collective understanding, and shared vision. Thus, symbolic acts and pre-set routines are relied upon that provide the beauty of holiness—we say, balance, diversity, symmetry, clarity, concentration, continuity, energy, focus, and richness along with purity and simplicity. Individual worship tends to emphasize humility, self-denial, and submission. Many believers practice asceticism; shun material comforts; prefer private (we say, secret, and unspoken) prayers; pursue intense studies of the holy writings; and avoid social gatherings as features of their worship. There are also believers who seek extra-biblical experiences of spirit knowledge and power as mystics. See 1st Chronicles 16: 28-30, Matthew 6: 5-6, 2nd Corinthians 5: 5-10 and 17, Romans 8: 22-25, Hebrews 11: 1, KJV.
THE GOLDEN ARROW: And when they were come to Jerusalem, they were received of the church, and of the apostles and elders, and they declared all things that God had done with them. But there rose up certain of the sect of the Pharisees which believed, saying, That it was needful to circumcise them, and to command them to keep the law of Moses. And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they. (Acts 15: 4-11, KJV)
THE DOUBLE DAGGER: GOD Does The Divine Part (01/05/2014); Sin in Mind not Deed? (01/06/2014); The Benefit of Law? (11/15/2013); Are Holidays Bad? (11/16/2013); Law in Christian Belief? (09/03/2013); A Need to Know? (09/04/2013); The Benefit of Grace (03/19/2013); Magical Resurrection? (03/20/2013); By Grace (09/04/2012); Yet If I Judge (09/05/2012)
“craig”, here are a few points that should help build your understanding of Christian belief:
(1.) Divine grace does not cancel or negate divine law (the expressed will of GOD)—or divine utterance such as commandment, proclamation, promise, and prophecy. Grace is to be seen as one of the aspects of divinity whereby covenant relationship, once established through law to be eternal and permanent, yet, may be altered, clarified, and otherwise maintained.
(2.) The Pharisees and Sadducees of Jesus’ day repeatedly attacked the Savior’s teachings as being in defiance of time-tested customs and traditions that have been provided by GOD through the covenant of Moses. (As is often the case among clergy today, their actual focus was continuing and justifying their own authority.) Jesus demonstrated that, in fact, his behavior and the doctrine were in agreement with, and carried out, the eternal purposes and workings of the law. Believers all are to discern and respond to the spirit content and substance of the law that has always existed, yet, has continuously been ignored, improperly taught, misapplied, and neglected.
(3.) Grace pertains to the sovereign will of GOD, and may be understood as a divine aspect within the full makeup of the Almighty. Where the law may be regarded as a tool used for relationship with GOD that is external, formal and impersonal, grace should be understood as intimate, organic, and privileged. Therefore, believers often say, grace is “divine prerogative.” Grace interacts in balance and proportion with other inseparable aspects of divinity such as awareness, faith, holiness, longsuffering, love, righteousness, truthfulness, wisdom, and wrath against sin.
There is far more to be said, correctly understood, and spiritually apprehended. (For example, (4.) Through grace, created beings and living creatures obtain comfort from GOD that, in humility, many label as “unmerited favor.” However, grace is an imperative within the GODhead, and may not be appealed to, exploited as a weakness, influenced, or manipulated. Grace is an ever present aspect of the active presence of GOD, like mercy within the process of divine judgment. Mercy does not cancel or negate the demands of the law; mercy ensures that judgment will be balanced, thorough, righteous and unbiased.) Even so, I trust this fragment will be useful. Be it unto you according to your faith.
THE BLACK PHOENIX
Washington, DC
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