God is Absolute Reality, Truth: Vibrant Personality, not a mere collection of 'laws'. Pure Enjoyment, Because Pure Thought. Whatever He wills be, is; whatever He wills not be, is not; whatever He wills change, does; therefore, Total Thought Control, And All Thoughts Up And Running At Once. He didn't create Himself; He truly just lives. GOD LIVES! No beginning, no ending, no change, because Absolute. If Absolute, then Absolutely Satisfied, too. Only a Satisfied Absolute God need never change. And if relative life exists, then its mathematical opposite, Absolute Life, exists. If "0" exists, then Infinity does, too. Living, Intimate Infinity, the very opposite of dead zero, and just as Invisible. Other end of the Spectrum, The Top.
But not Alone, either: how satisfying would aloneness, be? To be alone or not to be alone, THAT is the Consummate Communion Question. Is it JUST for Abolute Perfect Being to be the ONLY Absolute Perfect Being, forever burdened with inferior 'hamlets' of mere finite creation? Would you like your life's companionship to be restricted to.. baby 'spouses'? Where would there be sufficient rapport? Where would there be compensation for the inferiority? How could Justice be Structurally Unimpeachable, unless Trinity? One to Judge, One to take on Humanity and via that Humanity Pay, and One to Empower that Humanity. So Each One is Free To Refuse Another. Or, Free to Love. Free to Judge. Free to Pay as a Gift. Free to Empower.
Therefore Any Creation Would Also Be Happy Only If Subordinating To Authority, as well. Bad authority, good authority, doesn't matter. Since The Authorities Choose This RELATIONSHIP to Each Other, therefore any creature failure to handle or subordinate to authority cannot impeach the essential happiness which is reflected by The Authorities Choosing Authority to Design And Govern All Relationships. Hence the only impediment to happiness, is insubordination to authority. Or, for the creature exercising authority, to misuse his God-given authority. Which failure, of course, the One Who Will Be Empowered to Pay, Funds. Absolutely. And Absolutely, to the One Who Judges and thus Ordains that creation, in the first place.
For, what happiness is it, to even be GOD, totally Smart, totally Gorgeous -- if there is no External Object on which to spend, Self? Not Good, that God should be alone, the Object of admiration, but with no one Himself to admire. Not Good, that God should be alone, the object of all thought, but with no one Himself on which He Himself can prostrate Himself in Worship: Ps138:2b (Hebrew). So what happiness is it, to be an independent Human, Perfect, never sinning -- but with no Object toward Whom to 'spend' that perfection? What, is life worth living, to preen in a mirror? What, isn't life worth living, to Exhaust Self on The One Worshipped? Yet with what Authority can self conclude, 'I will throw myself away'? Gotta have a Righteous and True and Just Reason to throw Self away. Ahhhh.
And no one is more amazed to BE God than God, either. For, He didn't make Himself Perfect! He is Perfectly Accounted For -- but DIDN'T make Himself that way, doesn't have to sustain Himself, so is Pure Profit By Nature. So what does God DO with Himself, Gorgeous as He is? All this Pure Profit Of Just Being -- oh, it's gotta be spent! (Cf. 1Cor8:6.) But how do you spend Pure Profit? Won't whatever you spend it on, just produce MORE profit?
Witness the Humility Paradox of Infinite Perfect Essence, which is the Originating Economic Law Of Spiritual And Secular Equlibrium: God didn't make Himself, so Sovereignty concludes honor/payment is due FROM Him as 'thanksgiving' for that fact. Righteousness, Justice, and above all Truth should be 'PAID' for their Uncreated Existence. Hence there must be COST. It's UnRighteous that Holy Sovereign God should pay anything, but rather, be paid TO; but it's Equally UnRighteous that Holy Sovereign God just IS that way, absent a cost He 'pays'. This payment cannot be a sham, for lies never compensate Truth. Moreover, Whatever Cost There Is Cannot Be Righteously Undergone Unless The Resultant Profit Is So High, Even GOD Is Graced Out, so to speak. Three Gods' worth. THREE Absolutely Perfect, Identical-Essence GODS. That, even before considering how even the smallest dot of cost, is of Infinite Value Times 3. For look Who must SEE it forever in Omniscience...
But wait! THREE Gods! So Each can Pay the OTHER Without Compromise, and AS GIFT.. because Equals, and Equally-Sovereign! So can EXERCISE that Sovereignty in Subordination.. again, because EQUALS! Ahhhh.
Gotta Freely Produce The Opposite Of God, then: and Turn Some Of That Opposite, into 'Sons', as many as, whosoever will at least once believe in The SON! For if Pure Profit, then Free Truth Includes Freedom To Fail; hence the closest thing to pure cost would be Freely Produced.. and then Turned To Pure Profit! Ergo, creation; the souled creation will necessarily be an unending cost, even when the relatively-few 'sons' are finally perfect. For anything less than Infinity is intolerably too low. But since Absolute God is Absolute Thought; since Thought Replicates Without Loss via Communication; then INFINITY CAN CYCLE INSIDE FINITY: so not merely tolerable, but Gloriously Free! For then, Real Sons by means of AGREED THOUGHT, exist! Freely! Not automatons, binged like pets from Omnipotence, ho hum! Not coerced! Even the flora and fauna for souled creation's enjoyment, shall be free to associate and reproduce...
So the Divine Broadcasting Corporation, a division of the Divine Trinity Corporation of 2Cor13:14, was Always Decreed. Chairman, Father; CEO, Son; COO, CIS, Spirit. One Godhead, incorporated due to LOVE, as reflected in Their 2Cor13:14, Isa53:10-12, 1Tim2:5, Rom5:8, Eph1 (and passim) Articles of Incorporation, the Decree of Eternity Past. Not an Egg. Not a shamrock. Not a hydra-headed monster. Not a bad definition in some Catholic or Protestant tome which can't think beyond the spatial idea of Oneness, forgetting that Echad, Heis, Unitedness is something Only Equals Can Choose: qal perfect-yet-imperfect, static present, gnomic present, effective present, and even aorist, tense. Hence Triune=Trinity= Voluntary Incorporation Among Infinite Equals Due to Love. Forever past, forever future, immutable, "in the beginning which was not a beginning, there always WAS" (first two Greek words of Jn1:1). [The quote is my pastor's translation of those two Greek words, arche and hen.]
Love. Freely given. To be or not to be, Love: Freedom. Freedom to have bad, freedom to have good, but to Love Freely in "all things", is BEING. And Truly: for if free, then truth is free to be bad, good, all things. Motive is thus Everything. Everything in the evaluation of cost and profit. Everything in the goal. Everything in life. For, motive colors ta panta, everything. Motive bad, whatever done is bad, however 'good' it would be on other accounting levels. For God is Infinite Power, so can do anything by mere will. So achievements are worth nothing; in fact, any creature achievement can only add to cost. Motive, by contrast, cannot be influenced, gerrymandered, coerced, and be true motive. Bad motive, bad. Good motive, good. But GOD MOTIVE Is Alone Profitable, and all else is but an addition to cost. GOD MOTIVE can only be asah'd by GOD. So God makes sons, at the sons' free choice. The Power and the result is all Divine, but the choice for God's doing the min-making, is freely made by the sons. By God, me ish, but me bene adam must be the terms. Choice by the sons of men, to become sons of God, by agency of the One Who Will be THE MAN, Beyond Human and yet born from the sons of men. Only then is profit produced, because God is Profit By Nature. All else, is but cost by nature. [Hebrew verb "asah" means to decree or make something out of something else. Hebrew preposition "min" has verbal and positional force, signifying birthed from but really beyond that source, therefore made at the point of SEPARATION from that source, outside that source, pattern of Gen2:7 in principle ("min adamah.."); stress is on the one outside the source doing the making, merely using source material as a dead tool. Stress is also on the NATURE of what's made being beyond-the-nature-of the source material. Soul is immaterial, so beyond the nature of mere biology. God is beyond the nature of human. Hence the preposition is frequently used in the OT, even thousands of times, and is always theologically significant; most often, it's a prefix to nouns and is frequently suffixed with pronouns, and when a prefix, is "m" "mi", or "me". Hebrew noun "bene" means "sons"; "ish" and "adam" mean "man" or "mankind", with "adam" also referencing the red earth out from which the first man's body was made, in Gen2:7.]
To be God and not to be God, that is the Infinite-Spectrum, Hypostatic Question. Hence the paradox, the Infinite Equilibrating Range Of Truth Fractals: make a universe apart from consent, Put Divine Thinking in a 'son' Apart From Consent, or Choose for Consent To Be Required, that is the question. For, Thought is the Ultimate Begetting, Creative, Power. For to be God, is Freedom. So, to be a 'son', must likewise be freedom. So Motive is Everything, and any souled finity must have inviolable free will: for, GOD WANTS it so. And what God wants, God gets. With or without consent. God wants to make things out from nothing, barah. God wants to make things out from something, asah. God wants to build things, banah. God wants to Sculpt Life From Death, yatser. God wants to then Purchase, Redeem, qanah, death itself. Starting with, a universe of souled beings who, apart from their consent, receive Divine Knowledge and abilities at creation, at the highest non-consent levels: angels (aka "sons of God" in OT Bible). All other additions are made solely based on creature consent. Failure is thus free to occur. Loss is thus free to occur. Lower souled creation (man) is thus free to occur.. and be made, Via Consent, even higher than angels (Heb1-2). For, that's how Sovereign God WANTS it to be, Isa 45:18, Isa53:10-12. And so it comes to pass...
For what God wants, IS Love. Love, not goodies. Love, not merely attraction, for attractions siphon unless balanced against all unattractions. "All things" means all balance, thus. So Love is really free. God's Beauty is not substituted for God Himself, as a love object. Creature ugliness is not substituted for the creature itself, as a love object. For, Righteousness is the First Object of love, and Truth is the First Object of Righteousness. But none have value, if no love. Being has no value, if too little love. So, love must be based on truth, and thus all love can exist. Freely. So It Was Always Decreed, So It Shall Always Come To Pass, Isa45:18, Isa52:13-55:11.
God thus elects hell for Himself and everyone else. Because, "Fairness" limits all relationships to a sterility which admits no love, and therefore no expressions of grace. So long as you are nice to me and I am nice to you, we 'relate' -- but then it's the niceness which our thoughts create as 'god', the niceness which is the real object of the relationship, not each other. Alternatively, 'god' is you, if you are nice; me, if I am nice. So the relationship itself, is always but a sham for ego. For, just because thought creates, doesn't mean what it creates, is independently true. So is that not hellish, too? Is it not hellish to create a sham by which to live, and then idolize it, Isa44? By contrast, if life together is God's idea of 'hellish', where you and I, both being free to fail, thus become subjected to some horror in association with the other, then 'fairness' is superceded by love. Or, by hatred. Granted, fairness issues are love's tools of competency -- but absent love, life itself is nothing (1Cor13), so what value, fairness? Especially since God is Infinite, 'hell' must be always and infinitely against His Gorgeous Perfection. Free to occur, never coerced. Free to be redeemed, then. By Love, through Grace, totally apart from merit, unfair though the redeemed ones may be to the Redeemer.
So LOVE is truly God's 'weakness'. True love puts one in a state of weakness. Even we humans know that fact, with respect to mere true human love: who can function properly, when the love is paramount in the mind? God's Total Love, thus, is the greatest weakness of all. Like 1Cor13 says, love is everything, and all strength is rendered outhen (fancy Greek drama word for nothing! in 1Cor13:2 or 3) without Love. Love Concludes The Love Object Of Total Worth, and self unworthy. No matter how worthy. So Love needs a 'husband' to give it strength: Truth. Righteousness and Justice are really attributes of Truth, since Truth would not 'hang together', unless also Righteous and Just. Hence Love's 'husband' gives Love integrity. So It Can Competently love.
Sin, then, is the rejection of both Love and Truth, which thought creates as a replacing fantasy. Passing as strength, because love is inherently weakness. Thus sin is true weakness, for it has no 'husband'. The greatest sin, then, is always some form of divorce. With sin comes resentment. For sin is born from resentment. So attractions will be 'loved', but the associated costs, resented. From resentment comes hate, and from hate, rebellion. From rebellion comes penitence, but guilt only fuels more rebellion later on. Reaction against self, reaction against others. In an unending chain, of itself. A chain which can only be broken by Love. So if the Love comes to pass, bearing sin (John 3:16, Rom5:8), then all things come to pass without compromise, despite sin. For LOVE ENDURES ALL THINGS (1Cor13), when husbanded by Truth. Lies, of course, husband arrogance. What one thinks is what one's reality becomes. Problem is, does that 'reality' independently exist?
Any initial overt sin of seeking to make self 'like the Most High' or eating some fruit for the same purpose, spawns a fractalic accounting all its own: fission. From fission, though, can come fusion, by means of That One on a Cross: He doesn't seek revenge for sin (Lev19:18, Jas2:8) against the One He loves. Hence fusion for all who believe in That One, John 3:16 and John 17. Hence Love Developed Through That One's THINKING TRUTH poured into a soul (Rom5:5, Eph3:15-21, Isa52:13, 53:10, etc.), shall FUSE ALL FISSION even as all sins were fused on the Cross. Gradually developed, in each life to the extent that life wants the development: before the Cross, via Cross-presaging systems; after the Cross, via Cross-bred systems. At all times, freely and without compromise, despite sin, a second 'chain reaction' shall be fused, from the breakage of the first.
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For THE MAN will, by His Mastery of Truth, by Such Thinking, pay for mankind's shortfall (Isa53:11's Heb or Greek inspired texts + Phili2:5-10, "heart" and "blood of Christ" verses, Prov23:5 as Bible's def of "heart", in Heb/Greek): the 'opportunity cost' of what Father Should Have Gotten In Thinking Pleasure From the Thinking of All Souled Creation. Thus, All Accounts Are Reconciled, the debt is aphiemi, cancelled, forgiven, for mankind is apolutrosin, redeemed. Of course, that same mankind Must Consent for The Payment To Be Applied to him, since coercion is never profitable; upon which Freely-Obtained Consent, sotereia: Rescue, Deliverance, Salvation. Thus all Divine Justice Books Balance, no matter how few or many of mankind, consent. Thus, the payment applied Shall Produce Profit by the selfsame means as that profit was paid to Father in the first place: Associative Truth Thinking with sins on the Cross was Paid for By The One Thinking Such Truth in His Humanity; as a consequence of which He Who is and was The Truth in Both Natures, shall have His Thinking codified in Writing, a) fulfilling Jer31:31-34, Heb8:8-10:17, which b) shall be poured into the hearts (Rom5:5) for a sweet savor to Father (KJV sweet savor verses). Thus shall Infinity cycle in finity. [Hebrew and Greek of Isaiah 53 is emphatic about how Thinking is the Spiritual Life, due to Him. See Isa53trans.htm for a corrected translation of that whole chapter, or Isa53.htm's last screen for a corrected translation of Isa53:10-12, including God's Provably-Inspired text missing from all commercially-published translations.] A segment of this finity is to be called BODY OF CHRIST and CHURCH (Eph1), to answer the prayer of THE MAN in John 17, to inaugurate the then-future Building Purpose on the PETRA, the Rock of the Old Testament, as He stated about Himself in Matt16:18. Just as in Gen15:6, this segment shall be formed out of individuals who once solely obey John 3:16's tenet, as described therein and in its parallel clauses of THE WORD; however, the Holy Spirit shall make that individual's nonmeritorious faith into a Permanent Royal Salvation, since THE MAN is forever King of Kings. Thus Shall All Creation, Both Before And After The Completion of Body/Church, Be Additionally Blessed Forever. Consequently, the following is DECREED:
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So proper "GAAP" Accounting/Auditing Reconciliation only means God-to-God. All else is corollary. So, if finity exists, it exists FOR GOD. Dative case. [Dative case in non-English languages means what in English is normally referred to as the "indirect" object, the one BENEFITTING from an action. In Bible's inspired languages, "dative" (donative) has a lot more meaning than in English.] Benefitting GOD. Hence, is Justifiable To Be Fully Funded. Because, for GOD. Doesn't matter, that the finity is short, sinning.. whatever. If "for God", then any condition is good. Even, if bad. Hence, Nail Away All 'Bad', In Order To Make Fully Funded. So that 'bad' leverages good. Best investment, then, highest yield. Because, for GOD. So all accounting, auditing is based on one criterion: What Does For GOD? Love is based on Integrity, and Integrity is Uncaused. For GOD is uncaused. So, everything should be GRACE (i.e., Heb13:9), since the biggest Grace, is to be Uncaused Perfection. In a word, GOD.
Eph1 is the flagship chapter on how Creation was Decreed solely Because Of Cross, And Fully Funded To Benefit The Christ Who Paid For It: as God, HE created from nothing (Gen1, etc). As Human, He PAID the 'opportunity cost'. Opportunity Cost is a fundamental juridical, economics, and financial term: the value of a thing is ideally the value at the MOST Profitable Employment of a thing. So, the value of your loss in a lawsuit is ideally calculated based on what would have been the highest monetary value, had the loss not occurred. So, the value of farmland is ideally calculated based on the highest-value crops it can grow. So, the value of your labor is ideally calculated based on the highest-value stuff you can do. So, what would have been the most profit God (Father) could have gotten from creation, got paid at the Cross.
In cost accounting, you have "direct" costs, and "indirect" costs. The "direct" cost of a computer monitor, for example, is the cost of the material to make the actual product, some portion of the factory equipment and labor, etc. The "indirect" cost of the monitor is the cost of management, accounting, taxes, and other stuff assessed against the entire corporation, not specifically related to the monitor. So, the Indirect Cost of mankind (i.e., making a universe) had to be paid as well as the Direct Cost of our sins, on the Cross: or we couldn't be here. As you know, a cost can reimburse, or be paid in advance. If reimbursing, and there is a time lag, the time-loss of not being paid immediately is an additional 'opportunity cost' to be added, for the reimbursement to be valid. So, for the OT people, Christ reimbursed all opportunity costs (including time-loss) up to that point; beyond that, it was paid in ADVANCE. So now, draws 'interest', so to speak.
But the Trinity Corporation formed due to LOVE, as we saw earlier. So Gal3 notes that HE is "the Seed", a term meaning the BENEFICIARY of the Eph1 Eternity-Past Funding, expressed in the OT as "the inheritance", the promise. Israel, and now (separately) Church, are the indirect beneficiaries Under CHRIST: two sets of 'walls', as it were (Eph2), joined at the Cornerstone (moniker for Christ).
So, obviously Endowered, is Church: that's what Eph1 says. That's what Christ prayed for, in John 17. For Christ, which is Father's Will. So, "fully funded", meaning that All Benefits Were Provided before creation even existed, Isa45:18. Can't lose them, therefore, except by rejecting them. Just as, you can reject a Testator's will (Heb4:9, 7:12,18,22,28; 8:6-7,12; 9:15, 10:9, "new wineskins" in Gospels). So also, you can reject benefits ON DEPOSIT for you. "You" is anyone in the human race. Salvation deposits, post-salvation deposits. Fully funded. Which you can only lose by rejecting them. You reject the Salvation deposit, if you never in your lifetime even once believe Christ paid for your sins. You reject the POST-salvation deposit, if you reject getting get filled up in His Thinking (Rom8, Eph3:15-21). You are free to accept or reject, because all the funding was done in eternity past. Like Christ, here in time you are Free to Reject.. or, get the Father's Will for your life. Your option.
Since all this Funding is FOR GOD, it doesn't matter who a person is or where. No sex, race, culture, religion even matter a whit. Because, GOD SEES ALL. So any breathing human is the object of Benefit, since God SEES that person, so God Only Benefits By Benefitting That Person; since Only Uncaused Integrity Can Beautify A Person (Eze16). So: no one has a greater interest in RESCUING a human being, than God Himself. Romans 5:8, John 3:16. It's not a human-to-human issue (i.e., white versus black, Arab versus Jew, my-god-versus-your-dog). It's God To Creation, meaning.. you. Whoever you are, God Wants A Relationship with You. For your benefit, because that's HIS Benefit. By His Choice. God-to-God.
Since the God-to-God relationship is Uncaused (since God is Uncaused), so also the relationship to you is uncaused.. meaning, No Works On Your Part. You are not caused, for God made you. God's MERIT is Uncaused, for He didn't make Himself. So no merit on your part is even possible (for you can't cause what is uncausable), nor desirable: for God-to-God means you receive, not provide. Top-down, not bottom-up. So the relationship with God CANNOT be demeaning. So religion is out. For, religion seeks to demean at all times, to lure adherents. Religion is a claim of unfunded liability. But All was Funded before creation was Ordained, Isa45:18. By God, FOR God. So He is not ashamed to call believing mankind "brothers" (Heb2). Brothers, not bankrupts. Brothers, not banktellers. Brothers, not browbeaters. Brothers, not babies. Brothers, not bondslaves. Brothers, not bimbos. Brothers, not brainouts.
Principle: only what's Good Enough For God, Is Good Enough. So you will get way more than what's 'good enough' for just you! So you should seek more than what's 'good enough' for just you!
Therefore God elected the "gap" between Infinity and finity, and elected it be pleromized, Filled Up And Forever-Reproducing Rapport. Freely, and pure profit, despite any and all costs: i.e., due to creature rebellion. So God elected souled creation, beginning with angels. Since their freedom would be used to rebel, God elected a "gap" in time, between Gen1:1 and 1:2, so Spirit could Restore The Earth Son Made (but the rebelling angels trashed), for man's occupancy. Ergo another 'gap', that you and I exist, to be Witnesses in the Trial of the Rebellers. But God is not a 'user': His Deeper Purpose is always love; to PUT that Same Love in us, Solely To The Extent We Consent (1Jn4). No matter who we are, no matter what we are, because His Election, Like His Nature, Is Absolute.
God Elected These Gaps, To Fill Out/ Fill Up/ Max-Out The Permutations Of Love Expressions Within The Godhead, Reconciling/Sewing All Up In Christ (Isa53's raphah). This is the central theme of the Bible, especially the New Testament. Because, Infinity is not infinity unless All-Inclusive. Perfectly Accounting for Everything, negative or positive. Obviously: "Son" is an Election To Subordinate To "Father". "Spirit" is an Election To Rehabilitate to "Father". Whether rehabilitating the Earth for the creation of humans (Gen1:2ff), or rehabilitating the human who believes in His Son (Titus3:5 due to John 3:16). Each Member of Trinity tells us His Election by His Self-Chosen Title in 2Cor13:14. [Much more on this issue is in "Due Disclosure" link at Home page top.]
So when creation was made initially, there were angels, not humans. The objective for them is the same as for us: Sharing In Rapport. However, the chief angel, then titled Haylel ben Shachar ("MorningStar", roughly) eventually decided that God's Agenda of shared rapport was a lie, because that claim made him feel he was superior (Isa14:12ff). [Well, the story is more complicated than that: "Thinking" series link at Home pagetop spends a good 700 pages on the facets, and how they affect us.] More fundamentally, as he even shows in the Koran (Iblis verses), Haylel realized that God elected hell for Himself and everyone else. This just had to be unfair! What, throw all of self AWAY? Trash the self in the name of this 'love' thing? Must be an ulterior motive, to ENSLAVE creation, including the yet-to-be-made human Savior! As a result, he rebelled against the Agenda, in favor of self-merit; one-third of the angels rebelled with him. This rebellion took maybe millions or billions of years to play out, we don't know how long -- but at the end of it, there was a trial, with the sentence of separation, in a universe which was the OPPOSITE of God (Matt25:41).
Then this chief angel, now titled "Satan" ("opposing attorney") lodged an Appeal; which, when you add up all the Scripture on the Trial, goes roughly like this: how can a LOVING God, cast His Creatures away? So mankind was created to play out the appeal, AND KNEW that fact. The question in the appeal is essentially, Is God Good? Is God's Election Just? Or, is the claim by Satan&Co. just?
Hence there must be a Free Choice Between God's Provision, And Satan's. Hence that Tree in the Garden, which was Satan's claim that God was a tyrant (Gen3): for Knowledge of Self-Good, like Evil, is prohibited by God to 'eat' (believe, want, etc). [Knowledge, like thought, is immaterial by nature. So clearly one acquired that knowledge not through some magical property within the fruit itself. (The fact that the woman distorted the meaning in Gen3:3 (compare to Gen2:16-17) is a key principle to understanding how we ALL fall into temptation.) The act of eating was an act of rebellion, so the knowledge went with the rebellion, not the fruit itself. When someone commits an act of any kind, a certain 'knowledge' goes with the act; more importantly, a propensity to commit the same act again is set up in the soul, for volition blessed the act, so to speak.] The same claim has been successfully played on Adam's progeny, ever since: religion. Oh, you'll beat God, be like the Most High/ be as good as God/ Good enough ON YOUR OWN for God/ if you do magic jump kneel: just like Matt4. Because, all religion is but a claim that God's Tyrannizing us, his sweating slaves. See also the beginning of two chapters in the oldest book in the Bible, Job 1 and 2.
So we are all Freely Voting, every second, on God: for Him, or for Satan&Co. Will has enormous power granted to it, depending upon the 'vote': will against God gets Satan&Co.'s power in reply; will for God gets God's Power in reply. Our first positive 'vote', thus, is to believe Christ paid for our sins: God makes that vote RESCUE us, because it was a vote FOR life WITH God, and on His Terms, Freedom (Gal5:1). Clearly a God Who birthed a completed universe in a nanosecond (per verb tense in original inspired languages of Gen1:1), needs nothing from you... After that, Every Vote Counts. Doesn't matter how good you are: if God needed to make you good, He could merely BING! you, just as He Binged! the entire universe, in Gen1:1. So it's not about being good, it's about Being With GOD. Principle: only those who lack power, need or seek something from others. God is not in that category. As a believer, neither are you in that category -- though you don't yet realize the fact. As you'll see, if you keep reading this Due Diligence table on God's Accounting.
Satan's right about the hell thing. Hatred has enormous power in its thinking. Love has GREATER power in His Thinking. So the difference is, LOVE concludes going through hell for the One Loved, the greatest of blessings: Heb5:8-9, Heb12:2, Matt4. Hatred of course concludes everything hell anyway. Our vote, then, is a continuous one, each second a for- or against-, each one an election of which kind of hell we'll go through, not whether we'll go through. Because, it's not about being good, it's about being with God. In hell, out of hell, which hell, any hell.. is heaven with Him. Hell in any event, is really only divorce. Of course, divorce is the issue on which we must decide, each second: daleth, the door of decision. To be with God or not to be with God, that is the question. To be with God, believe in Christ. To Remain With God, after that (big Bible Keyword, menw), learn His Son. For only His Power ENABLES remaining with Him and simultaneously in the many 'hells' of life down here, after that. Therefore this epic drama of our toothbrushing lives, couldn't be bigger...
When temptation hits, it always alleges some kind of justification. Which, if you want it, you grab it. It's never the temptation which is to blame, but your wanting it. So, temptations are just excuses to do what you want anyhow, kinda like the woman in the Garden prowled around the tree in Gen3 rationalizing a justification for violating the Divine Prohibition. For, if will wants, it can always justify what it wants. Same is true for wanting God. Difference is, the Full Truth (as opposed to the shaved truth which always empowers temptation) truly justifies a true choice. Lies therefore make one weaker with each lie grabbed. Truth makes one stronger. For, one's strength is never innate to self, but always dependent upon how much External Truth is accepted. Which truth, only God can PUT in you...
So you are REDEEMED from the corruptible, empty manner of life, with all its many stucknesses and worries-about-self-esteem; with all its lies about how you have to be good. Instead, you are now FREE: Devoted to Father (1Pet1:18). [The idea matrix in Bible concerning "Devoted" is one of the greatest thesauretical treasures in Scripture. Too many Bible keywords to comment on, here. It's sooo delicious! Feast by doing your own search! And read Euripedes' play, "Ion", which Ephesians uses to tell the Real Begetting...] Given over to Father by Son's Humanity, Who happily paid for your humanity -- for ALL humanity. You are Rescued from having to live low, even while low, lol -- because Devoted To Heirship! Because, that's what "Devoted to Father" means, says Eph1, in the inspired original Greek. God doesn't want babies for companionship, but EQUALS, say Heb2, Eph4:13b, and many other passages: that's why He Fully Funded Everything Beforehand.
Only God can make you higher than you are. God is not ashamed of us (Heb2). Like Adam at the fall, WE are the ones who suddenly insist on being ashamed. But God in ADVANCE provided for Adam, even knowing Adam would later fail: didn't bother God, but rather He RELISHED such fantastic provision, so as to painstakingly provide that multimillion-square-mile park (which apparently was in the stretch of land between what today would be Ethiopia and the Caucasus): Eden (lit., "Aden", see Hebrew of Gen 2:4-16). Cross becomes our Tree of Lives (lit.), bringing many sons to glory (Heb2).
So too, for you: whatever you get down here, is for your own "good pleasure". Trick is, how to use it? We humans have a big ego problem we inherited from Adam's Fall (Rom5:12, 1Cor15:22), so whatever we do with what we have or are, we make misery from it: always trying to buy worthiness. But that doesn't do for God (Rom4:1), and doesn't make a person worthy even among men: you are not worthy if something ELSE 'makes' you admired. Then it's the goodies, not you. Hence, one big benefit of Him fully funding everything BEFOREHAND is that you know He Doesn't Want Or Need what you of yourself can do, to love you.
Ahhh, what freedom. Voting is the issue, not your self-worth. Every Vote you make pro-God, is used to make more wealth out of you than you can imagine (Eph3:15-21). For, You Got GOD'S Worth The First Second You Believed In Christ: 2Cor5:21, Rom5:1. God isn't kidding, in the Bible. It's time we really took Him seriously: Heb10:9 (and all "second" verses in that book). Our inheritance is His Righteousness, and it is real, immediate, and totally apart from anything we humans do: GRATIS. Privilege of privileges, stated as a duty only because That's The Strongest Language Of Promise. You don't give a person a Rich Duty if he's poor. YOU ARE UNBELIEVABLY WEALTHY. Satan would have you think otherwise: whatever is least true, is most promoted; whatever is most true, is most denied.
For which riches, you need to be trained to handle. For, These Riches are Internal, so lack the glitches of external wealth. Internal riches are integrity, His Thinking: this is what makes for happiness. Externals can't make for happiness, for anything less than GOD, is too fragile. So, all throughout time, nothing man does, 'does' for God. Only God does for God. We humans get the Privilege of Learning Him, which makes us superior, alright -- but For Our Benefit. Dative case. So, we get to play with that Learning in our lives, 24/7: being online with the Spirit via 1Jn1:9, learning Scripture from our right pastors. Kinda like Adam got to play with naming the animals in the Garden.
For the Last Adam won against Satan in the Trial, and is now Seated, waiting for His Official Inauguration Date (Heb1-2). Now, we are just going through a final trial phase, which the Bible calls "Footstool". Since Christ is Seated And Ruling Church (Heb1, 12:2's Archegos, Col1-2(!), 1Cor12:31's Greek wordplay), there's nothing left to do but play with Our Head's Thinking (Eph4:11-16, Col2:19, 1Cor12:31-end chap 13+Eph3:15-21). Betrothed preparing for her wedding, actually. One great big SABBATH (Heb4) of learning Him (Heb4:11ff), is His Legacy to us ("second" verses in Hebrews, Heb8:8-10:17). All those do's in the Bible are for Spiritual Children to Train with, pending their growing up enough on the milk of the Word, to graduate to meat (Heb5:11-6:6, etc). As a spiritual adult, you don't do the do's because they are commandments, you do them because their doctrinal meaning is ENJOYABLE. A way of celebrating the Integrity Whom You Have Come To Intimately Know.
So as for the externals, like David You CANNOT Lack For Anything (Ps23:1, caps are corrected translation). All externals, pleasant or unpleasant, are GIFTS to give you Something to Play With In Your Learning. Because, you are to be in training to Co-Rule with Christ: because, that's how He is, He thinks, and co-rulership means you would be Like-Minded, at that point. So, you need to be trained in His Thinking. Which training, you can temporarily or permanently accept or reject at anytime: but you cannot lose your salvation, since it's Structurally Unimpeachable. What God accomplished, no one else can impeach.
Hence as Body of Christ, we have an abstract Ruler Spiritual Lifestyle, not the paint-by-numbers OT child/footman version. Hence 2Cor5 is indeed quite literal and doable. See also Romans 5-8, which is a primer on the topic. Like Christ, your own nature is kitted out for maximum intimacy as a King-Priest FOR FATHER. It's part of our inheritance IN Him which 2Cor5 and (all of) Ephesians and Hebrews explain. Of course, you can't know that yet, and being human you will have opposite interests: but as you learn Scripture over some years you'll come to prefer living for Father, as a better benefit to your own soul. It's not sacrifice, it's Sacramental! Because, God is Gorgeous, and it's frankly a Much Bigger Enjoyment to live for Him, than to live for any other reason. Everything 'bad' literally flips into enjoyment, if it's For Father. Not overnight, of course. But it happens: Heb12:2. Since it took Him 33 years to get to total FOR-FATHER Enjoyment, it will take us some years, too. Click on the "Spiritual Royalty" box at Home pagetop if you want a preview. "Thinking" series (box at Home pagetop, far right) is a major monograph on this topic (about 700 pages). "Due Disclosure" link at Home pagetop has a shorter (30+ page) summary.
Whoa: God is impossible! Yet Exists, and not only One Person, but THREE! Conundrum of the centuries, lol! Voluntary Corporation of Three Impossibles! So, what could possibly satisfy an Impossible Person, but an unending series of Impossibles?
So of course, everything else has to be impossible, too. Child will always be smaller than and reflect its parent, no matter how it mutates, first law of math. Ahh, but Transmutation is Impossible, then. Hmmm: well, then there's HUPOSTASIS. Joining of Opposites. So Christ was the First (Most) Impossible Finity, because: shouldn't it be impossible for Infinity To UNITE With Finity? Of course! That's why it happened. Next, Christ is in His Humanity an impossible finity-of-purpose, a purpose even God 'cannot' do (because to do so compromises the Justice that God should not pay for sins against Himself): the Cross, aka the "stone too heavy to lift": Isa53:5's dakah, verb for a weight so heavy that when you lift it, it crushes YOU.
So we Church have an Impossible Divine Agenda, one stretching the soul BEYOND its 'outer limits' By Design; it has zippo to do with works: Eph2:10's Greek (English is wrong), He Does All The Work In Us (ties to Phili2:12-13). So we as Church are yet another impossible: how is it that sinners can have the Perfect Mind Of Christ (1Cor2:16) cycling in them (e.g., per Phili2:5)? And complete as a Corporate Body (Eph3:15-21, individual process, Eph4:11-16 intwining of individual and aggregate process) ?
So the Body of Christ is made an adjunctive nexus of history like Her Head. Who From the Beginning was Head, so Heads up the finishing of what He began, for Father (running subtheme in Paul's and John's epistles). For Church is to learn the total Bible thought control, to learn to think toward Father 24/7 as our 'living sacrifice'; to learn the new golden rule of doing unto others as God did to us (2Cor5:14-21) -- only prolonged, repeated, sustained 1Jn1:9 usage so to keep on having the Holy Spirit's Power, thus to 24/7 learn and use Christ's Thinking -- all this is Impossible, BEYOND any human accounting. As a lamb before his shearers is dumb. Yet God's System makes for equilibrium. Even in a sinner's body: Eph3:15-21 leads to Eph4:11-16's completion. Royally impossible. So, Funded from Eternity past, as noted above. For Church, it's Only the thought that counts: God is pure thought, and that's how sins were paid for on the Cross.
For the Christian who grows in His Thinking gradually discovers that the true tyranny of life is all this lateral junk: selfness, people, things -- they're all too weak and needy. Hence, tyrannical: so the 'rightness' ends, when tyranny begins, and need is always yelling its rights! Love can only flourish absent need: all enjoyment stems from Having Integrity, which Integrity REPLACES 'need'. So, all laterals are eventually disappointing. Lots of upfront glitter, but sour in the belly. Once you start to know God via Scripture, you'll really change your tastes, because HE TASTES BETTER.
It's not 'holiness', it's Happiness. Because, God is Absolute, hence Total Integrity, and you have Him, because you have come to know Him (repeated theme of 1Jn) through His Word. Thus the true tyranny of the laterals is automatically worse: because, learning Him in the original languages of Scripture under your right pastor is so fabulously wonderful a life, you won't want to do anything else. Everything else becomes anticlimactic. Even all the wealth on the planet. However, if you can use what you've got, painful or pleasant, to celebrate, then even the worst or best thing down here, finally has a Fulfilling Meaning.
As a result you are Increasingly Satisfied With Him. So, you gradually stop needing all the lateral junk; which also becomes more satisfying, because your need of it has lessened; so your expectations of it, change. So people no longer need 'be' a certain way, for you to be content with them; so you don't have to 'be' a certain way to be content with yourself. All the outer junk we humans strive for is really so much tinsel, and because we need it, we imbue it with mythical happinesses it never actually has. Thus the inevitable disappointment. Which, if you are learning Scripture, flips into delight, for you gradually become free of the lateral tyrannies. Even while in them. It feels like hell, of course, because that's what the lateral stuff is: a prototype HELL. What God Rejected. Which we know is true, since Christ went to the Cross, rather than give into Satan's Third Temptation (take over the kingdoms of the world, Matt4). [2nd half of 2nd Peter and end Revelation show how the current universe(s) is burnt up at the end of time to create the permanent hell, aka "Lake of Fire", a separate universe devoid of God. Planet Earth is Ground Zero, the trigger for the explosion. When the solar system was created (or recreated?) in Gen1:14ff to serve as the light/weather balancer for earth, maybe at that time the relationship between Earth and the rest of the solar system was created to act as a fusion bomb. It would be a fascinating astronomical study to test the relative effects of such an idea. Don't know if you can use what we think are planetary ages as a detecting variable in this quest, since God can speed up (intensify) time like you speed up a taperecorder, viz., all mankind's sins were paid for in but three hours on the Cross; more mundanely, cancer is a speedup growth process, so there's some common biological parallel, even, to conclude that aging data might not be helpful here.]
Love versus morality is about Freedom versus tyranny. Remember, Satan's the one who's ruling this earth, and he's the tyrant. So too, our inner natures, since we inherited Adam's genetics. [Sin nature is genetic; LordvSatan2.htm's "In the beginning..Man" section explains this origin at great length.] One inheritance, Adam, bought us tyranny; the other inheritance, Christ, buys us freedom (last half Rom5, 1Cor15, Gal5). So people are predisposed to be blind, blaming, bewildered: these are all gut reactions, just as genetically-based as a need to pee. So when people think of God, they think of owing, pain, suffering, morality-as-tyranny. So to beat people up with the Gospel, or works, is worse than if you did and said nothing. For, they already are inclined to believe God is a tyrant, ever since Genesis 3.
Morality is most promoted, in religion. Especially, Christian religion, that ultimate oxymoron, Rev17. For, "religion" is Satan's invention in Gen3. Adam and the woman didn't need morality. In fact, they were prohibited from 'eating' it, since morality is "good", and is part of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, which is entirely the knowledge of sinful man. God's true morality rules were not given Adam and the woman, but to sinful mankind. Because, man can't even use morality properly. When he is moral, he arrogates to himself a claim of worth before God which is totally blasphemous (Romans 4). So morality is evil, and adamantly proves itself evil today in Christian activism, especially in the evil self-righteousness of the tyrannical American Christian 'right' (another oxymoron). But, we are sinners, and must be moral, to get along with each other. But, as Rom4:1 puts it (ties to Eph2:8-9), not before God. So morality is a necessary evil in an evil world. Which above all sells the idea that God is a pain in the neck. No love, there...
Love doesn't do something to be 'moral'. Love does what it does because it Loves Giving. Righteousness is the object of Love, just because. Not because GETTING something, but in the interest of being competent at GIVING. But 'Morality' is predicated on getting something, not giving. Because, morality is not done from a basis of Love. That's why, as Scripture so often says in many ways, "against LOVE, there is no law." Morality is about law, and law is about hatred. Supposed to be about love, but ends up only being about hatred. In the name of right, of course! No one who promotes right is interested in love, but in power over -- a type of getting something. Total hypocrisy. Hatred of God could never be more evident, than in moral crusading. If you LOVE, you don't ever want to coerce someone else or crusade. It's actually immoral to do so. Rightness ends where tyranny begins.
Because Scripture is a Thought Pattern, we're not talking about Trivial Pursuit, but Principles. It's more like learning math, medicine or physics: you learn the BASIS, and Then Live On What You Learn, 24/7. For, knowing facts isn't the same as being able to use the facts you know. Facts help you discern How To Use Principles. So, it's totally not about whether you wear a hat to church (no, you don't, but if you do, it's not important, either). It totally IS about What Is Truth Itself: from there, you learn on what you apply that truth. That's why there are so many case histories, for example in OT and Acts, where so many goofy believers are illustrated (i.e., Paul getting all goofy over a Nazirite vow from Acts 18ff). You take the truth, you take the facts given, you discern how to use the truth in your like circumstances. Not, to decide to wear a hat, especially since 1Cor11:14-15 proves that old church chestnut never was even about hats; but, to decide whether to avoid obstructing someone else's life (which is why you'd choose not to wear a hat in church). [Kinda hard to see the pastor teach with a bunch of hats in front of you. Kinda hard to hear someone else talk if you are talking also. Etc.]
Moreover, there are Priorities. So: while all Bible Truths are Truths, they are not all equally-pertinent. Just as, if you have to pay a bill and study Bible, there's a right time for the one, and a right time for the other, but studying Scripture is always the more important. So too, with the do's in the Bible. They have assigned meanings, and a place: but Studying Him is always the more important. In fact, only by the Word In You will any of the other stuff even work: Bible stresses that fact in nearly every verse. So don't make the mistake millions of Christians make, running around and doing stuff, using Bible out-of-context, never growing up (2Tim3:5-7). Put the emphasis in the right place: Word First. That's the First Commandment (Deut6:5 in context, 1Jn2:5, etc).
While we are children, what we perceive as truth is concrete and self-centered. As we age, we see more of the Truth and thus more accurately value life; the Meaning Matters More, the feeling matters less; the rapport matters more and the self matters less. In fact, selfness is realized in love, which only an adult can do, since one must grow out of self-centeredness, in order to love. So, when spiritual children, we will misread Bible's First Commandment as something you 'do', with self (not God) as the focus (i-am-a-good-girl-Daddy). As spiritual adults, the First Commandment will be Thinking Of Him. Even while hurting. No matter what's doing. Because by then, only meaning matters: and HE, is Meaning. Love Never Demands, But Yearns To Give.
See, when you are a child, you don't know love. You only know do's. Later, you hopefully grow up and realize that Motive is Meaning, and action is largely hypocritical, if not childlike. So You Value The Motive More Than The Action; so you know God Values The Motive More Than The Action. So you don't feel bad about putting into the church coffer a measly penny. So you don't feel arrogant about putting into the church coffer a million bucks. What you feel with either amount, is grateful. In privacy, in your own heart: and you would be very happy if no one knew about it. For you weren't doing it except to express desire.. to Him. Privately. Not to get something back for your 'tithing' (which in Bible was Income Tax for Israel, never temple/church giving); not to be praised by others: only children do dumb things like that, to express their insecurity. Which other, less-innocent children take advantage of, i.e., distorting Bible verses like Satan did in the 2nd Temptation, so to separate you and your money in the name of God...
For Motive is Everything. If someone asks for money in God's Name but ignores Mark12's emphasis on Voluntary Motive, will God honor your gift to that person, since you clearly didn't read your Bible, either? If a husband gives his wife a fancy car to SPITE her, and she knows it, will she enjoy that car? If you give God something to GET something, should the God Who blinked an entire completed universe into existence with a mere thought -- should GOD enjoy your gift? Remember the parable of the publican and the Pharisee (Luke18)? Motive is Everything, to Maximally-Mature God. Making An Ugly Thing Beautiful, or a beautiful thing, ugly. So too, for man. What child doesn't painfully remember a time he realized an adult was hypocritical? What adult doesn't groan when manipulated by the sin appeal of guilt? Religion thrives on guilt; God calls guilt, sin: Matt9, the psychomatic paralytic, due to guilt.
So God's Agenda For Your Life, if you are willing to have it, is to
For, Pleroma/Telos "Fullness" is a term for Christ in the New Testament, and a term for the believer who "finished the course" as Paul puts it in 2Tim4:7. The racecourse. The same racecourse, as Christ's (Heb12:1-2). This answers Satan in the Trial so Fully, he has no arguments left. When the last believer of Church has "finished the course", the Rapture occurs. So no one can predict when that will be. ["Thinking" series at Home pagetop is all about the Trial and how our spiritual lives play in it. Part IV is about the tie-in of the Rapture. But if you didn't read the prior Parts, IV may be rather confusing, even though interesting.]
So, in God's Audit Of Church, we are to live our spiritual lives by Thinking Bible, not ritual or stuff we can sense physically; we have Filling of Spirit via 1Jn1:9 usage (see Caveat#3), not Spirit-enhanced human power of the OT. (God-breathed Greek OT is called "LXX". Its keyverb pimplemi, usu. mistranslated "filled" in Bible, shows the OT method of Spirit-enhancing physicals. NT doesn't use the same word, but translations translate with the same word. NT Greek keyword for Filling Of Spirit is pleroo, is a Spiritual Thing with NO human power in it. Contrast Greek of Luke 1:15 with Eph5:18. Due to the mistranslation, these very unequal 'fillings' got called "enduement", in theology.)
AS you "learn the Book" you will come to understand in detail God's will for your life, be it whether you should brush your teeth.. or build a multimillion dollar business, marry, or other decisions mankind pants after. The Biggest Goal of God for your life is to Train You In His Son's Thinking, Which Is Scripture; so all other decisions are absolutely inconsequential, by comparison. Eternity is..eternal, and this life is a drop in the bucket of unending TIME. Remember to value this life in terms of where you are GOING, not where you are. For, Everything Is Now Flipped, And All THIS Life Is But Training For The Eternal One.
So use whatever Scripture you know, to make secular decisions. Doesn't matter if you get the answers right -- DOES matter if you keep learning Him. For you only take your learning-of-Him with you: all else gets burned up (1Cor3, last half 2nd Peter). So make 'judgement calls' about what is right, aiming to "get it right" -- but don't fret over what you get wrong. God Has Big Plans, not small ones. So it takes time to Learn Him, and so you will make a whole lot of mistakes along the way: that's what 1Jn1:9 is FOR -- recovering from the millions of mistakes ahead of you. So what? Eternity is way longer. So lose the battles but Win The War By Plugging: breathing 1Jn1:9 and Word Study under your right pastor. Nothing else matters.
After sufficient time plugging, your will about your own life will metamorphize. You will come to value the stuff down here way less, and the WORD, way more. What once was important, will become insignificant. FOR-FATHER will eventually become the driving purpose of your life, because that's how Christ Himself Thinks. At that point, you will be in the final stage of spiritual growth, and all growth after that will coalesce and strengthen your own will of living FOR FATHER. At that point you have to force yourself to stop studying Scripture so much, since you have lateral responsibilities, too. Balance, always balance. We start out being imbalanced in that we have No Word in us. But the balance problem SHIFTS to having Word not balanced-by-use, in us. Word learning has to be in front, so your motive has something to hang onto: but there will come a time when DOING with the Word You Well Know, is paramount. God will guide you as you grow, and will alert you to the imbalances in your life. Keep on Thinking Toward Him, being AWARE: that's the #1 key to spiritual growth.
So, now you know a preview of how you will choose to change, if you keep on plugging in learning Christ (another Bible moniker for Scripture, since it's His Thinking), our CopyBook (hupogrammos, term of Peter's). "My Food is to do the Will of Him Who sent me." "Christ in you, the Confidence of Glory" (corr. trans of clause in Col1:27) begins at salvation, because Christ, like all the Trinity, Indwell you. By the time you are in the last phase of your spiritual growth, "Christ" is also His Thinking FULLY in you (Bible keyword, Pleroma, another moniker for Christ in Bible). So FOR-FATHER will be your whole Voluntary Desire for Living. Which Thus Frees you to be Loving, so the world better benefits from your presence on it. More than all the wealth on it.
For change like this is more valuable to God. He could make you 'good' instantly. But doesn't. Because, you are here to learn LOVE, not slavery. So, there is a vital role for suffering in a life. Primarily, suffering deepens a person, unless the person reacts with bitterness. Which of course, we all eventually do. Trick is, to recover from the bitterness. Which of course, we can't do, apart from a Reason: Him. See, God is bigger than we are. To get Rapport, We Have To Get Bigger Inside. That's what all those Truth deposits DO to a believer's soul. Just as, they did to Christ. At which point, the believer Wants A Deeper Relationship. The "depth" in Eph3:15ff., and Heb6:11ff. To go low (taipeino, Phili2:7,3:8ff). Which is why Abram didn't get a son for 99 years. Which is why Abraham sacrificed Isaac. Which is why Christ went to the Cross. The deepest expression of love is suffering, not because God is a sadist, but because the innate quality of True Love is Foregoing-ness.
But it takes time to grow to that spiritual level, and when AT that level, the foregoing is voluntary, never forced. Competent, not silly. You don't ask a baby to fight on a battlefield, do you? Moreover, when you are new at a job or hobby, it's upsetting to not get a thing right the first time, if you love the job or hobby. Well, if you love God, you want to express it -- but, being human, can't be competent absent a lot of in-Spirit repetition against the thing you are not good at (i.e., some habitual sin, desire which you'd like to get rid of, etc). For, Righteousness is Something To ENJOY, not to bludgeon. Rightness ends, when tyranny begins.
You can't just learn Scripture and then be magically competent. You have to use Scripture over and over again, billions of times in your thinking. You can't learn or use it at any time absent breathing 1Jn1:9, for It Requires Divine Power To Learn And Use The Divine Word. Merit is God's only, but He can build HIS Merit in you. (Click on the "Paradox of Merit" link at Home pagetop for details.) So, when HE has built you to the final phase of spiritual growth, you don't want any desire to be of competing importance. What you want: "My Food is to do the Will of Him Who Sent me." So, going against all else, is what you long for, so that all other desires can't compete. Hence, a Desire to Suffer: it is regarded as a Gain, not a loss (Phili1:21, 3:8). For which suffering, you eventually become grateful, not prideful. Because, LOVE is like that: it is satisfied by exhausting itself. Just because. Of course, only Divine Love can do this: which Divine Love, you get from those millions of Doctrinal Deposits 'poured' like water into you via the Spirit (Jn4:23-24, Rom5:5, Rom8, Eph3:15-21).
Secondly, what you see down here is also What God Rejected. He Elected You Exist, He Elected You Be Rescued/"Saved", and He Rejected What Would Have Been Your Fate. People think God imposes hell. No. Hell Must Be Elected, But God REJECTS It, So He Only Furnishes What Is Voted For. You got saved, because you voted for it. Your vote is powerless, just as it is in human affairs. The Object Voted For Has The Power, which is WHY you vote as you do: you vote for Who Shall Have Power. So, those Voting For Rejecting God must get their votes counted, also. Which, only God can empower. But just because He empowers a thing, doesn't mean He Himself ELECTS it for Himself. Freedom means choice must justly have its free effect. God is Just, so Justice is effected.
Thus His Holiness, built solely from the Word being built in Him by the Spirit, is His Holy Legacy to us: the spiritual life, eusebeia, the new "use" of life! Old things, passing away as you watch!
Behold, 2Cor5:17 (Greek), The New Spiritual Life Has Arrived! Not the angsty, huff-and-puff lie religion sells, but a Glorious learning of Him, Phili3:8, 1Pet2:9, 1Pet1:3, Eph3:16-21, Eph4:11-16 (Greek)!