Friday: Further Thought – Gospel and Church
Further Thought: “The Spirit of God keeps evil under the control of conscience. When man exalts himself above the influence of the Spirit, he reaps a harvest of iniquity. Over such a man the Spirit has less and less influence to restrain him from sowing seeds of disobedience.
Image © Stan Myers from GoodSalt.com
Warnings have less and less power over him. He gradually loses his fear of God. He sows to the flesh; he will reap corruption. The harvest of the seed that he himself has sown, is ripening. He has a contempt for God’s holy commandments. His heart of flesh becomes a heart of stone. Resistance to truth confirms him in iniquity. It is because men sowed seeds of evil, that lawlessness, crime, and violence prevailed in the antediluvian world.
“All should be intelligent in regard to the agency by which the soul is destroyed. It is not because of any decree that God has sent out against man. He does not make man spiritually blind. God gives sufficient light and evidence to enable man to distinguish truth from error. But He does not force man to receive truth. He leaves him free to choose the good or to choose the evil. If man resists evidence that is sufficient to guide his judgment in the right direction, and chooses evil once, he will do this more readily the second time. The third time he will still more eagerly withdraw himself from God and choose to stand on the side of Satan. And in this course he will continue until he is confirmed in evil, and believes the lie he has cherished as truth. His resistance has produced its harvest (MS 126, 1901).” — Ellen G. White Comments, The SDA Bible Commentary, vol. 6, p. 1112.
Discussion Questions:
|
Summary: The indication of God’s presence among His people is in the Christlike spirit manifest within the church. It can be seen in the way forgiveness and restoration are extended to those who err, in how they help one another in trials, and in intentional acts of kindness shared not only among themselves but also with unbelievers.
(20)
Notice what the first two paragraphs described?
Natural law on exactly how God designed us. He designed us for adaptation. We actually are built incredibly, amazingly wonderful that based on the choices you make the behaviors that you engage in, the beliefs that you hold, the thoughts that you think, you will change yourself, your brain will re-wire, your neural circuits will change. The genes that are turned on and turned off will change expression. We are designed to change and adapt based on the free will choices that we make in governance of ourselves, that’s what’s being described here. We either by our choices by either co-operating with God’s agencies for healing and restoration or we are hardening ourselves against his agencies
Notice what the first two lines of the last paragraph states?
“All should be intelligent in regard to the agency by which the soul is destroyed. (Notice we should be intelligent) It is not because of any decree that God has sent out against man. (What??? God doesn’t sit in judgement and give a decree to destroy us? Wow that would be unintelligent to think that)
How about us that are leaving comments here regarding the Sabbath School Quarterly lesson?
Are we intelligent regarding the agency by which the soul is destroyed, because some in our church would teach us that it is God who destroys the soul, according to Mrs White however, that would be unintelligent.
The way out from sin has been shown us since we chose to die (Adam and Eve)... It is a matter of choice! In physical therapy what we do with the members reflect on the brain... choosing to do good is also a way of sowing good seeds for others and for yourself... although it is necessary to balance the feeling that we cannot be saved by what we do, because this is for free!
But, by choosing to be with Jesus we do the best choice we can in life!
To restore a believer, is to lovingly talk to them confidentially about their problem. Let them know you have fogiven and Christ has forgiven. Then let the Holy Spirit do His work in the believers soul. You must still be there for your kind, loving, long suffering support. If you don't feel comfortable, step outside your comfort zone and do it anyway. Practice makes perfect as well as makes comfortable doing Gods work. Like Christ we must be about our Fathers business. Luke 2:49.
Restore means to fix.
Humans need their characters fixed/healed
Is forgiveness enough?
Is the death/blood of Jesus enough to fix or save?
"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him.
For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Rom 5:9-10
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;" Tit 3:5
Notice Paul writes..."you who are spiritual" in Gal 6:1
Since Sunday, I am not receiving the daily sabbath school lessons. What is the problem?
We just now got notified that our email feed is broken. We are working to fix it. In the meantime, you can access daily lessons at https://ssnet.org/daily-lessons/