Posts Tagged ‘Dependency’
DailyTheocentrism: The Divine Will of God and the providential will of God
August 20, 2012 | 
Author It must be said that there is an attribute, both eternal and uniquely divine, about God’s will so as to say that it is immovable, immutable and the only reality there will ever be. (Job 42:2)
This is coupled with the fact that He provides some freedom to those who have been reborn and can thus be alive and make choices. It CANNOT be said that man ever has freewill, as a “free-will” would be able to do anything it wants to do anytime it wants to do it – only God can do that. Rather, we live within the realm of responsibility and Divine Sovereignty, as D.A. Carson writes. Yet, how if God’s WILL is sovereign over all can we ever make a choice. Well . . . we can and we cannot.
This is where the principle of complexity needs to replace ideas of contradiction. Two items may only seem to contradict, unless they are elementally opposed – then they contradict. Otherwise, they may be two corollary attributes of a thoroughly complex system. Here that applies to the reality that the tension between say, the imperatives (commands) in Scripture and the fact that God has no thing outside of His WILL, is no tension at all – it only seems to be. This applies to sin and the Sovereignty of God as well. His Will is complex enough to contain His will (providence with man) and it is neither a contradiction, nor a diluting of the integrity of God.
See the illustration below:
God’s providential will (the filial application of God’s Sovereign WILL to His relationship with mankind) lies always within His Sovereign will, namely because it is born out of it – as all things are. Yet, it is within the complexity of His will a real realm of [limited] choice – namely to please or not to please Father. These two categories are essential to even begin a dialog on the Will/will of God. For truly, no thing can ever thwart the WILL of God.
Posted in Cary Christian School, DailyTheocentrisms | 
Tags: Accountability, Dependency, God, Grace, Humility, Sovereignty, Systematic Theology, Truth | 
2 Comments »
A small/BIG reminder for us men – For Steve and Me and all my brothers
I have often told soon-to-be-new parents that they needed to prepare for the event of when the doctor hands them their newborn baby. For when he, or she, hands them the baby, he, or she, will take convenience away from them from that point on. The fact is, I haven’t slept well in 7 years.
The truth is, though – it’s worth it. The rich life and truths and pictures in parenting so far outweigh any so-called independence that the benefits could be described as transcendent.
Andrew Peterson (song) here provides a helpful perspective. Take time to watch it after the bath, and the story and the prayers and the hugs’n kisses. You’ll be tired, but for the right reasons.
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/1428169?pg=embed&sec=1428169[/vimeo]
Posted in Lyrical Theology | Tags: Accountability, Dependency, Humility, Life, Loyalty, Parenting, Symbol | 2 Comments »
DailyTheocentrism: What man cannot do-What is crooked cannot be straightened and what is lacking cannot be counted.Ecc 1:15
I think too of Luke 3:5 and Acts 13:10 . . .
We are “crooked souls tryin’ to stay up straight” and it’s like chasing the wind.
May we depend . . .
May we bend . . .
May we end our striving and know that He is God.
Posted in DailyTheocentrisms | Tags: Dependency, Ecclesiastes, Humility, Old Testament, Rest, salvation, Weakness | No Comments »
DailyTheocentrism: It takes One to know One . . .
Ever wondered why your unbelieving family just cannot get it? Or why when you “think, think, think” as Pooh-Bear recommends, that you just cannot figure some truths about God out? Take a look here for help:
Now we do speak wisdom among the mature, but not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are perishing. Instead we speak the wisdom of God, hidden in a mystery, that God determined before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood it. If they had known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But just as it is written, “Things that no eye has seen, or ear heard,or mind imagined, are the things God has prepared for those who love him.” God has revealed these to us by the Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the things of a man except the man’s spirit within him? So too, no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things that are freely given to us by God. And we speak about these things, not with words taught us by human wisdom, but with those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people. The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. And he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is understood by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, so as to advise him? But we have the mind of Christ.
-NET Bible 1 Cor. 2:6-16
Time to submit . . .
DailyTheocentrism: Dependency reaches from the integrity of molecules to the trappings of men (John 15:5)
It is true. (John 15:5)
There were great ironies on the cross that D.A. Carson talks about here.
In line with that, it is true that while men were mocking the Lord on the Cross, He was, by the exercise of His will holding their molecules together; making the air respirate in their lungs that bore the blashphemous sounds to their tongues; maintaining the gravity that stayed them fast to the ground that His blood dripped upon; holding the planet on which they reside in its orbit around the sun; maintaining the integity of the universe in which IT resides. (Col. 1:17; Acts 17:28)
Even at the Cross of Calvary, it was through Him that all things are accomplished. (John 10:18)
Posted in DailyTheocentrisms | Tags: Accountability, Dependency, God, Jesus, New Testament, Sovereignty | 1 Comment »