Connecting The dots

You can easily tell the person lacking Christian faith because he can't make heads or tails of even the simplest of matters spiritually.  The Bible is not a manual of what to do and what not to do.  If that were the case, then anyone could read it and have no problem with what they find in it.  But the man without Christ is constantly confounded by it; whether it be by the miracles described or the "hard teachings".  To try to press the matter, whether it be adultery or integrity, is the most futile of endeavors when it comes to the unregenerate mind.  John the Baptist lost his head trying to convince Herod that he was wrong to marry his brother's wife.  Elijah found himself running for his life after he did his best to show  Ahab and his wife Jezebel the wickedness of religious syncretism.  The Bible is thoroughly flawed and disoriented if you take the word of anyone with "common sense".  You can get away with just common sense if you only want to try to figure out the weather or who will win the next election but it is absolutely no use if you hope to know God.  He must reveal Himself if He is to be recognized and the Lord simply isn't willing to do that for those who will not have faith in Him.  There is nothing logical about the new birth; but it is actual.  It cannot be understood without the mind of Christ making sense of it which explains the disinterest in so many quarters for holiness and righteous living.  Try to get one unredeemed soul to see the connection between sexual immorality and looking at a woman with desire or the linking of calling someone a fool and murder.  It is irrational and ultimate nonsense to anyone not "born from above".  The Holy Spirit does not come upon us to take over things for us; He does so because God has decided mercifully to give us the very nature and character of Christ.  Unless you look through God's eyes, you cannot see the Kingdom of God, try as you may.  It is like a completely color blind man straining to differentiate red versus blue.  Stare all you want at the things of God and you will not see them if Christ is not living within you.   The goal for each Christian is not to get ahold of God but to let God get ahold of us.  This comes by faith in Christ and because of that faith giving space to God to work His way through each part of us.  Obedience, as it is seen in the person born again, is faith in action.  Doing what is directed as the Holy Spirit makes a matter known.  With each faith step, with each act done in the grip of Christ, a bit more light comes and the Ways of God develop perfect clarity.

I pray that...Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith and...that you...grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ…    Ephesians 3:16-18 NIV