"We can have a direct experience of what the tradition calls the Holy Spirit".

In the heart, not from the head.

A blog from Bruce Sanguin, a minister from Vancouver, who talks about Evoluntionary Christianity. The highlighted part is what I was trying to explain the other day, about coming from the heart:


http://brucesanguin.com/?utm_source=If+Darwin+Prayed&utm_campaign=1288141cf2-template1_21_2011&utm_medium=email

Church needs to take incarnation more seriously. In all the talk around church transformation, orienting from the body (one’s own and Earth’s body) is rarely part of the conversation. Yet it may be the most radical step we can take toward a renewed integrity, relevance, and ecological mode of presence.

Historically, we have limited incarnation (Spirit becoming flesh) to a single person in Jesus. Paul’s theology expanded this to help the early church imagine itself as the body of Christ in the world. But what if Spirit actually manifests in, through, and as, bodies, human, animal, vegetative, and geological? What if Isaiah got it exactly right that “the whole Earth is full of G_d’s glory”, and that this includes bodies? Our seminaries still teach, as far as I know, that there are three primary sources of revelation—scripture, tradition, and reason. Conspicuously absent from this teaching is our own experience—which is mediated by our bodies. When reason is dissociated from the wisdom of the body, it gets abstract and academic pretty quick. Imagine teaching our children that their bodies were a kind of scripture that they could learn how to read in order to know G_d?

What’s been missing is a truly positive view (let alone experience) of the body— that is, gaining a deep respect the inherent intelligence and evolutionary elegance of the flesh. We don’t have practices in Christianity that help us to tune into the body’s wisdom as a way of orienting to Spirit. Traditionally, the body has been the problem that Christ “came” to solve. Essentially, this meant transcending the bodily impulses (read sex and an assumed insatiable narcissism/greed) in order to live the good (moral) life. Being moral came down to exercising sufficient willpower to adhere to an external set of rules and codes of conduct—in other words obeying laws handed down from on high. The “good” Christian (in the worst sense of the word as Mark Twain put it) has a deep, unconscious distrust of the body and its desire.

And yet, the prophet Jeremiah imagined a time when all the laws would be “written upon our hearts”(Jeremiah 31:33). He foresaw a time when there would be no need for teachers of the law because we would have access to the wisdom of the heart (and the lungs, liver, kidneys, skin cells, etc.). Jesus essential message was that we had become overly dependent upon a set of external conventions (the law), when what we needed to do was to find a new, interior guidance system—Jeremiah’s “heart”, which is the compass of the senses, the movement of emotions, and intuitions that guide us in the ways of Spirit, moment by moment.

It’s not that moral teachings or external codes of conduct are wrong. They served and to a degree, still serve, in our early stages of development as a way to moderate our evolutionary impulses for survival, sex, and security. But ever since St. Augustine expressed his deep fear of his own sexuality and invoked Christ to help him transcend his own nature, we have been left with the rather blunt instrument of willpower and the threat of shame to control ourselves and others. Before Christianity, Hinduism understood that these early, natural impulses were not wrong, but rather entry level portals into deeper yearnings of the body/mind, body/soul, and body/spirt for communion with Source.

Even if most of us have intellectually moved beyond associating our wants and needs (our nature) with shame, functionally we distrust them. Yet it is my experience that every time I have tracked and trusted where my body wants to lead me, I am led into restoration and healing—into and through shame and into my birthright of joy and deep connection. It is also true that most of the suffering I’ve experienced, and caused others, originates in my willful over-riding of my deepest wants and needs. This over-riding is the result of shame in my own nature, my lack self-acceptance.

Our spiritual practices have been focused primarily on transcendence. But today we need practices of incendence, that help us to deeply inhabit our bodies. Transcendence represents the vertical dimension of the spiritual path, receiving from above and beyond. But perhaps more important at this point in our history is the horizontal dimension, constituted by deep relationality with the community of life. This is the shamanic path.

The shaman deepens relationship by taking the initiate inward and downward, through body, into Earth, into connection with ancestry, human and other-than-human, and the whole living universe from which we have been disconnected, even dissociated. My friend and Anglican priest, Chris Dierkes, has been reclaiming Jesus as shaman, and I think he’s on the right track. The way forward is the way back to our own nature and deeper into Earth’s intelligence, there to grieve what we’ve lost, and to reclaim the inheritance we squandered.

This will involve a metanoia of our sacred rituals. We’ll need to allow our bodies to move, be moved, and to move us. Our bodies will lead us into prayer and ecstatic celebration, as we allow ourselves to feel the rhythms of Earth and universe, radiant with the glory of G_d.

First tradition does not call it the Holy Spirit, but the Word of God. I will not go into this much right now, it is late here, but the conclusion he draws from the highlighted section is not in keeping with either the actual meaning of the Hebrew word, or with the whole of Scripture. As a for example, the first commandment, which is found in Deut 6 and quoted in whole, or in part, many times including by Jesus himself.

You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. (Dt 6:5)

It is clear that this can not be speaking of a organ that pumps blood. Nor is that how it was meant. The people of that time understood the heart to be the seat of will, appetites, emotions, passion, intellect, or our inner man. Indeed that is so engraved into our minds and language that even today we speak of someone who has changed their mind as "having a change of heart." It also does not fit with the rest of Deut 6:5. The word used in the Hebrew in Jeremiah while slightly different is just a variation in form of the word used in Deut. Their meanings are the same. God was not speaking of our cells when He spoke through Jeremiah, but of our inner man, that which makes us who we are.

You can still have a direct experience of the Holy Spirit, and there are many scriptures that will back that up, including Romans 6, 1 Cor 3, and Eph 2. just to name a few quickly. It is very clear that if you are a Disciple of Jesus and have accepted Him as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit, and indeed a case can be made that the fullness of God dwells in every believer. It's there for us all, we just need to ask and receive.

Well I do have to get up in the morning, so I will end it here.

(Smiling) I knew you were going to say something. To me, love the LORD with all your heart means, all of it, not just the spirit of the heart, but the heart pump also; it means love the LORD incarnate. This is why He gave us a physical body, so we could experience the Holy Spirit, the Whole Spirit, even Spirit Incarnate. If we didn't have this body we couldn't do that. My church has always taught we are the hands, and feet, and heart of Christ, the Word Incarnate, in flesh and blood.

Your beliefs are right also. I won't argue about that.

:eastercross:

In a certain sense they are correct. Christ is the Word incarnate, not us. Were we to become God incarnate, that would imply that God sins, since we obviously still do. Take for example Paul, who referred to himself as "chief among sinners," and states that nothing good dwells in his flesh along with many other similar statements.

However we are to be His hands and feet, and we are to reflect His love, for we are his representatives in this world. Walking according to the Holy Spirit, following Jesus and imitating Him. That is why we are told in 1 Cor 1 to "Imitate me even as I imitate Christ." That is what it means to be a disciple. We are called Kings and Priests, heirs and joint heirs, sons and daughters, seated with Him (Jesus) in heavenly places, even that as He is, so are we in this present age, but I have found nothing that states we are God incarnate.

When you read the article above carefully Bruce has replaced the wisdom, power and authority of God with obedience to our base carnal impulses mixed in with a smattering to transcendentalism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and a lot of fancy words. Yes it sounds good, but it is not truth. As I read it I am reminded of the words of Thomas Jefferson, who spent many years studying the great philosophers through the ages. He stated that their teachings were all nonsense in light of the moral teachings of Jesus which he considered to be the most sublime, perfect moral system ever taught.

We were created for fellowship with God. That is clearly set forth in Genesis and elsewhere. Adam (and Eve) sinned, and had to be cast from that fellowship as sin can not abide in the presence of God. God sent His only Son, Jesus to restore us to that place of fellowship, to restore us to the place from which we had fallen and to redeem us from sin and death. He took on and paid the price for that, dying the most horrible death you can imagine. Yet He did not remain dead but arose on the third day in Victory, leading captivity captive. He is the Great High Priest who poured His Blood upon the heavenly mercy seat as a once and for all, eternal atonement for the sins of all who choose to follow Him and accept Him as Lord and Savior. When He cried out on the cross it is finished that was a proclamation for all time. It was a cry not of defeat, but of victory as He took the writ of condemnation that hung over us and marked it "paid in full," written large in His own Blood. I will stand upon that rock, now and for all eternity, and I will declare His truths and His story to all who have an ear to hear for all eternity. I will also resist and stand against anything or anyone who tries to distort or diminish the wonderful truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

As I said before there is a plumb line against which all must be measured and in that there must be no compromise.

God is alive and His word is indeed living and might I add sharper than any two edged sword. However anytime a person comes with a revelation that is contrary to the Gospel, we need to be very careful. First, we must study to be sure it really is contrary to the Bible, and if it is not to accept it. Paul commended the Bereans of not just rejecting or accepting what was said, but for checking it against the Scriptures to see if it was true. Remember always the enemy of our souls is a liar and master of lies. Much of what he does will look good, even make sense when seen with the natural mind. This is why Jesus warned us that false christs and false prophets would come to try and deceive us if possible. Peter, Paul, and John also warn us time and time again against those who would try and twist the Word of God and deceive believers.

Jesus said of Himself "I am the Resurrection and the Light," in that you are correct, however nowhere in the scriptures will you find that terminology used of anyone else. He went on to say that "He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live."(Jn 11:25) The key is and will always be believing in Him.

You are right in saying God is infinite. He is all you said in the last sentence of that paragraph and far more. However at the same time He is unchanging in that he will never do anything that would contradict what He has said or done or that is contrary to His nature. The plumb line is His plumb line, His Words, His divine Scripture. Anything that is contrary to that is, by nature, not of God. For instance, He implies that Jesus is a shaman. A shaman is by definition a practitioner of the occult, one who uses magic and acts as a medium. This is contrary to God's law as set forth throughout the Bible. Much of the error set forth in the article is somewhat subtle, but when read in the light of Scripture, it becomes clear.

Please do not misunderstand, I am not rejecting the supernatural. It is very real, both the good and the evil. I believe in the gifts of the Holy Spirit as set forth in the Bible, and I believe that they are available to believers today. I have prayed for people and seen them healed, I have seen true and accurate prophetic words given, and I have seen false prophecy given as well. I pray every day with my wife for guidance and revelation and rely on God to grant me discernment in what I see and hear. If something is found in Scripture I want it, even if it is not found there I welcome it as John said at the end of his Gospel that if everything Jesus did were written down all the books in the world could not contain it, so as long as it is not contrary to the Bible I will accept it, and as the Holy Spirit leads, even welcome it. I say as the Holy Spirit leads, because I depend upon Him to guide me in those things. If it is contrary, I reject it.

If it does not point to Jesus, if it does not glorify God, if it does not point to salvation through Jesus alone, if it lifts up any other being be it man or spirit, beware my friend, for it is not of God.

Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things. (Php 4:8)

"I say as the Holy Spirit leads, because I depend upon Him to guide me in those things."

Yes, yes, that is my point!! You got it!! I respect you so much, Kevin!!