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Ambition
Dave in Tenn:
--- Quote ---Now I have to ask, are you (or was Christ) saying/suggesting that the kingdom of God was/is within the Pharisees?? And not within the disciples?
Is the kingdom of God within His chosen now?
--- End quote ---
The Kingdom of the Heavens includes the heavens of the Pharisees. The Good News of the Kingdom of the heavens is that many are called, but few chosen.
Mainly I just wanted to carry it forward. I don't like for the narrative to end with a statement to the Pharisees. There are some (and I'm not suggesting you are one of them) that deny a future for the Kingdom. I just didn't want those two statements left hanging out there until Jesus is more finished with His promises.
lareli:
--- Quote from: octoberose on September 06, 2017, 09:30:10 PM ---What would keep you from a clear conscience? No need to answer here- you know the answer.
--- End quote ---
Not seizing the opportunities that are available to me in this life. Not investing the talents but burying them and sitting on them until the master returns.
Not investing my time or exercising self discipline the way I feel I should. I think I may be masking a fear of the unknown as a lack of ambition. I think it's just cowardly fear and not necessarily a lack of ambition.
I dunno. I'm trying to think these thoughts out for a little while before typing a response but they're fluid thoughts non the less.
lareli:
--- Quote from: indianabob on September 07, 2017, 02:15:03 PM ---
--- Quote from: largeli on September 05, 2017, 12:00:26 PM ---I want a clear conscience.
--- End quote ---
Friend Largeli,
In my personal experience, the best way one may have a clear conscience is to request forgiveness each day. So if one retires for the evening after praying for forgiveness in a sincere manner and knowing in faith that forgiveness has been granted, then your night's rest is clear of all sin...until the next day when you wake to another day of challenges and temptations.
It is a continuing, never ending in this age process, until God finishes His work in us and we are granted "life" of the age to come and immortality and see the Lord Jesus as he is, because we will then be like him.
Indiana Bob
--- End quote ---
I've thought about this. I just don't know if scripture supports the idea that I can be forgiven just by requesting forgiveness.. even with a sincere heart.
The 'church' definitely believes and teaches that we can have forgiveness for everything.. past, present, and future sins are all forgiven once we decide to believe in Jesus and accept His free gift of forgiveness. I was brought up to believe this in the church. But Christ Himself said that if you don't forgive others than God will not forgive you. The church never taught that. The church taught that all you do is ask and then you get.
In my own situation, I can ask for forgiveness every night and with a sincere heart too.. but if I continue to shrink back when I am called forth by my conscience, than that to me is proof that there's no repentance. Repentance in this case being that I change course or turn back or stop continuing to shrink back.
Can there be forgiveness without repentance?
John from Kentucky:
Forgiveness comes first before repentance or anything else.
Ray has already discussed this in depth in his talk about repentance at the 2005 conference in Nashville.
The transcript of his talk is located in more of his teachings on this website.
I wonder why his teachings are here if people do not exercise enough initiative (ambition) to locate and read and study what he wrote. Instead, they are like spiritual babies who want to be bottle fed by others.
Dave in Tenn:
Jesus teaches his disciples how to pray:
Mat 6:12 And remit to us our debts, as we also remit those of our debtors.
Then he adds at the end of the little lesson, this:
Mat 6:14 "For if you should be forgiving men their offenses, your heavenly Father also will be forgiving you.
Mat 6:15 Yet if you should not be forgiving men their offenses, neither will your Father be forgiving your offenses.
Debts are real. They must be paid by the debtor, be "forgiven", or paid by another.
Offense=(KJV) Trespasses=Lapses, mistakes, unintentional slights.
All this in the context of "comparing" His disciples to the Scribes and Pharisees (for many are called, but few chosen).
(The very next verses continue this "comparison"...
Mat 6:16 "Now whenever you may be fasting, become not, as the hypocrites, of a sad countenance, for they disguise their faces so that they may appear to men to be fasting. Verily, I am saying to you: They are collecting their wages.
Mat 6:17 Now you, when fasting, rub your head with oil and wash your face,
Mat 6:18 so that you may not appear to men to be fasting, but to your Father Who is in hiding, and your Father, Who is observing in hiding, will be paying you.)
So what's the comparison in the previous "verses"?
Mat 6:14 "For if you should be forgiving men their offenses, your heavenly Father also will be forgiving you.
Mat 6:15 Yet if you should not be forgiving men their offenses (like the hypocrites who tithe mint and cumin but leave out the weightier matters), neither will your Father be forgiving your offenses.
Just to add, to the extent and at the same time we forgive men their slips, lapses, mistakes God is forgiving us ours likewise. Does that sound familiar in your own life, regardless of any "theological" understanding you may have? Or are you going through life like a prosecutor/over-zealous cop/pharisee or scribe?
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