Christianity: the real thing that the world knows in a deficient way

See Christianity from a different, perhaps new for you, angle. It is the grand gnostic plan (I'll use that loaded term, gnostic) that is found in non-Christian teachings and beliefs and speculations and so forth, yet it is the real thing. Created on high; fall; drawn back up to a higher level than originally created at. All the mechanics of it are what are described in the Word of God. The world gets it all wrong because the world demands that their vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will have a part in the proceedings.

Christianity is difficult because it is God's plan where man rises while at the same time has his vanity, worldly pride, and rebellious self-will (and hence illusion of liberty) mortified. The plan of God effects this, and is the only way for this to be effected. The goal is to have created beings that aren't mere robots. That have real consciousness, understanding, and will. That have the image of God while at the same time 'knowing the difference.' That have the full image of God after having eaten of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Only Federal Theology (which is three-covenant, Classical Covenant Theology systematized) gets all this right; i.e. holds to the teaching of the 'full counsel of God.' This is not to say that Federal theologians understand it because one needs development that the average theologian never acquires; but lowly, born again Christians who fear only God and hence are able to pursue wisdom are able to get this development. When you are willfully lodged in the Village of Morality, fearing and revering man more than God, you stay dumb. Increase of level of being increases capacity for understanding. To increase level of being you have to provoke your limits so as to then be able to make the efforts to extend your limits. You don't get these opportunities in the Village of Morality. You can't be afraid of any influence or the policing of man.

Scenario: seeing God

Example of how what you read in the Bible now may not be clear as to why it is valuable until you are in the afterlife.

A scenario: you die a believer, and you are in heaven, which is where God is. You notice most people have gone in one direction and are congregating together there, and few people go in another possible direction. In the first direction are people who are uneasy about seeing God directly just yet. They feel they may not be ready in terms of having their thoughts and valuation and so on in line for such a big thing. The people who go straight to see God do it based on...what? Confidence? Are they right to go directly to see God?

Imagine being in that position of making a decision to go one way or the other. If you have the Word of God in you from zealous engaging of the Word of God in your life then you, if you were wise, could draw on it for giving you guidance.

And the part of the Bible that would apply here would most likely be a part that when you read it during your life in the flesh you had no idea would apply to such a situation you now are in.

Exo 3:2 And the angel of the LORD appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
Exo 3:3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
Exo 3:4 And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.

And when the LORD saw that he turned aside to see...

There are many possible verses and passages in the Bible that would give guidance here. My inclination would be to see God, and I would be prepared. Like Moses..."Here am I."

Three influences

3 Influences:

1. The Holy Bible (AV1611)

2. Work knowledge and being

3. Higher music (classical music of all kinds and eras)

A Reformation era definition of 'fourth way'

How I got to it is complicated, but Sebastian Franck believed this:

At this time his standpoint was strictly Lutheran, and he attacked the Sacramentarians and Anabaptists. But in his Turkenchronik (1530) his radicalism began to find expression. Here he treats of "ten or eleven nations or sects of Christianity" of which none possesses the full truth, and at the close he intimates that beside the three faiths, the Lutheran, the Zwinglian and the Anabaptist, there would soon arise a fourth, an invisible spiritual Church which would be governed by the eternal invisible word of God without any external means such as ceremonies, sacraments and sermons. Thus Franck appears as the representative of a mystic spiritualism which placed him in strong contrast with ecclesiastical Protestantism.

Ha, ha.....yet...

Here's what's needed now

I started this, a false start, on one of my old websites, i.e. 'what is needed now' in the form of a rule of operation that draws in everything important and needed to be retained in memory and practiced in real time.

In a sense every Work list I've made has been in this category.

But something new is needed. Utilizing language of the Bible and the Work together, words like circumspect and prudence and glorifying God and so on.

You start with aim. Small aims and big aim.

Active reasoning in the moment to know what your aim is and how it is best to achieve it.

A rule as well to do things such as read the Bible daily, prayer, fasting, Work practices such as self-remembering and non-identifying to accumulate energy. Things you to daily in a ritual manner (though not mechanical, ideally).

Things you do in solitude, things you do in the world, in battle.

You have to formulate a practical overall aim too. It can be personal (increasing level of being) and involving your neighbor (evangelizing the faith - in whatever ways - for instance).

Like, what's most important? You get to what is most necessary and practical. What you value, ultimately, will be found.

The metaphor of the Grail knight is complete in all the above sense (I'll reference Wolfram von Eschenbach's Parzival as my example). Three lines of Work. You see the personal in the solitary effort in the trackless forest. You see the traditional acts of a knight itself, the helping of others. And you see the striving to attain the ultimate and being of use to and glorifying God.

You also see the pattern of accumulating (self-remembering, non-identifying), containing (battle), and transforming (entering new realms). You can see where you are at any given time using this all-encompassing metaphor of the Grail knight. In this sense it is more useful than even the Homeric epics (the Homeric epics teach and give language to cultivate contact with higher centers, among other big things). I won't compare it to the Bible though because the Bible is not in the same category and is the material of understanding and being itself.

Wilhelmus à Brakel

[Archiving a comment I wrote to Paul...]

Psalm 141:3 is a good prayer for your effort.

I've been discovering even more clearly how Wilhelmus à Brakel's Christian's Reasonable Service is a unique work for a Work Christian. He doesn't get into Work ideas and practices, but he DOES get into practical matters of being on the Way. And it is all striking to a degree that I couldn't communicate fully here.

Look at the insight on contentment he has that I posted on my Fourth Way blog. That's one example, but it is a massive four volume work and a treasure of similar insight.

He speaks from understanding regarding being in conflict with the world. He has a chapter on prudence that speaks to much that we converse about regarding Work efforts yet from many different angles.

Worth looking into.

If you acquire it used, single volume by single volume, I would acquire volumes 3 and 4 first, speaking from a Work perspective (volume 4 having the most material on practical matters you don't find in systematic theologies, but volume 3 too, it's just that 3 is mostly taken up with a discourse on the ten commandments, but it then goes into the practical chapters like contentment). The first two volumes are worth having, but they cover what most good systematic theologies give you.

Prayer and Fasting vis-a-vis Self-Remembering and Non-Identifying

Here is a passage from Andrew Murray's With Christ in the School of Prayer:

And prayer needs fasting for its full growth… Prayer is the one hand with which we grasp the invisible; fasting, the other, with which we let loose and cast away the visible. […] Prayer is the reaching out after God and the unseen; fasting, the letting go of all that is of the seen and temporal.

It gets at the fact that both prayer and fasting in the Bible are practices that are not concretely defined (or, in the case of prayer, are defined as more than one thing).

I got the passage from this short article which is worth reading. The site itself also has other interesting articles like this list of 12 of the most important Christian books.

Address to Christian Warriors

ADDRESS TO CHRISTIAN WARRIORS.
SOLDIERS of Christ, be aware that you are highly
advanced in God's creation, that you occupy an
important station, that you have an arduous work
allotted to you, and that you have neither time nor
talent to throw away. For you are enlisted under the
banner of Christ, you have entered the armies of the
Most High, and have taken the oath of allegiance to
the King of Sion, and bound yourselves by an oath,
to fight the good fight of faith, against sin, Satan, the
world and the flesh. What formidable enemies are
these ! You have to encounter all the powers of hell,
and their name is Legion. Fight them you now must,
for you have put on the armour, and taken the field to
fight all the enemies of God and man. When you
survey the enemies' camp, and see their strength, their
number, their stratagems, and inveterate malice ; and
are then made to feel your own weakness and nothing-
ness, you tremble, and say, How shall I go against these
mighty hosts ! Yet I must conquer them all, or die
an eternal death. O soldiers of Christ! banish all
your guilty fears. There is, after all, far more for you
than against you. You are on the Lord's side, who
fighteth for you. He is your refuge and strength,
your sun and shield. He is with you_in the field, to
teach your hands to war, and to cover your head in
the day of battle, and hath promised you the victory.
If God be for you, who is he that can overcome you,
and put you to death, when you are hid in the Lord's
pavilion, and surrounded with the wall of salvation ? "
While in the heat of the battle, be filled with the
hope of victory, and feel assured, that you shall finally
obtain a complete and glorious conquest over all that
come against you ; for hath not the Captain of your
salvation engaged to subdue Satan and all his armies,
shortly under your feet ? Trust him, and take courage,
then, you cannot meet with disappointment, " for
faithful is he that promised, who also will do it."
With a view to strengthen your hope of victory, keep in
mind that you have not an enemy, difficulty, or danger
to encounter, but which has been already conquered
and subdued for you, by the great Captain of your
salvation. And the countless millions of his soldiers,
who are now arrived safe in glory, singing the song of
Moses and the Lamb, were once here below, wrestling
with all the enemies and difficulties which you now
have to encounter. Only war a good warfare, then,
and rest assured, that he who carried them safe through
the war, will carry you also to the triumphs of the
world to come. Not one of all his true soldiers was
ever left to perish on the field of battle. Put on
courage, ye Christian Warriors ! fight the good fight
of faith, be faithful unto death, and then, your Captain
will release you from the war, and give you the
crown of life, which you shall for ever wear, in
honour of your gracious Lord and Saviour. T. J.

[From the forward material of an edition of The Christian Warrior by Issac Ambrose.]

Though not intentional this quote captures some of the teaching on Recurrence

"The past does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."

- Mark Twain

On Christian contentment, from Wilhelmus a Brakel

This is a strikingly insightful passage from Wilhelmus a Brakel's Christian's Reasonable Service:

"Contentment is a Christian virtue consisting in a correspondence between the desire of God's children and their present condition... The unconverted are to all good works reprobate and are not acquainted with the nature of this virtue. When they perceive it in God's children, they despise it as a low level of intelligence, day-dreaming, stoic insensitivity, and deem them unfit for loftier matters..."

He also notes that in this state:

"...they rest with delight [in God's will and sovereign determination], in quiet confidence, joyfully, and with gratitude, trusting that the Lord will cause the present and the future to turn out to their advantage. This causes them to utilize their present conditions to the advancement of their spiritual life and to the glory of God." Chp. 64 of Vol. 3 - The Christian's Reasonable Service, Wilhelmus a Brakel

Yes, I've received the insinuation of "low level of intelligence" and also "day-dreaming" and probably also something akin to "stoic insensitivity." I know I look strange to the world. Kind of like a living suicide. And there is really no way to explain it without sounding more strange to them. It's actually decisions I've made to not go in the direction of what I deeemed to be a living death. But the world hardly is looking for understanding anyway, it wants to tempt you or to kill you or imprison you at least. You have protection if you walk the high road, so the stand-off exists...

Triad

Be awake (self-remembering)

Fear, reverence only God (non-identifying)

And walk the King's Highway (become a fused, conscious center-of-gravity)


I like the metaphor (reality) of the King's Highway because of its elevated nature. You get on it, stay on it, and the world around you is at a lower level. Like when you rise above the level of the law of accident. And because the King's Highway is a straight line, above the chaotic sleepwalking lines of the world. (And, of course, the King's Highway has an aim: the promised land.)

The moon and the departed

This echoes some things (I should say that the character speaking this is referring to his despised wife who is no longer alive and he and Tom Jones have been talking about the moon and love and so on):

"However, heaven be praised, she's gone, and if I believed she was in the moon, according to a book I once read, which teaches that to be the receptacle of departed spirits, I would never look at it for fear of seeing her..." - spoken by Partridge in Tom Jones, Bk. 8, Chp. 9

Suffering

In God's Plan suffering precedes glory.

Real suffering though. Not fake suffering. Not poor baby me suffering but loving your enemies suffering.

Human idols

I recoil from attention because I recoil from being made an idol.

Knowing the difference

A major aspect of consciousness and understanding is "Knowing the difference." I.e. to really know glorification you have to know the fallen state and thus know the difference. You have to know the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Being comsos/aura phenomena

Common language describes cosmos-aura phenomena. 'Hold your ground.' 'Get a hold of yourself.' 'She's very self-possessed.' 'Get yourself together.' 'Keep it together.' Etc...

Think in context of your being cosmos/aura. The Work practices change your aura and get responses and challenges from people and the world around you. Be aware of this. They want you to come apart. Stand your ground.

Nostalgia

Nostalgia - the illusion of good times - brings us back (recurrence). Kill nostalgia.

Machiavelli noted in his Discourses that people will even be nostalgic for the most tyrannous times a human being can endure through because once the danger and violence and chaos and torment and evil is passed and no longer around to threaten they then look back and only see what they knew (or imagine) to have been good. In our times notice how Russians who lived through the tyranny of the Stalinist regime will now look back at that with nostalgia and idealize it. The devil can't beat humans up enough in his kingdom that those same humans won't be nostalgic for it all when they are looking back on it.

Nostalgia - the illusion of good times - brings us back (recurrence). Kill nostalgia.

Let God use you

Let God use you. By degree show yourself able to accomplish deeds for God so He can use you for ever bigger, more important deeds. Do this by being trustworthy in faith and in glorifying God and making oneself able to be in communication with Him by effort to be in 3rd and 4th states of consciousness.

Microcosmoses

Humans as cosmoses experience - and are able to experience - nature and life differently. A higher degree cosmos will experience times of day and environment (and seasons) more physically, acutely, and suffused with more time as in history, personal memory and more general history or even world history. More pleasure and joy as well. Environments and weather and place are relative. Sterile and dead for one person, suffused with meaning and sensation and joy for another person. Things like feelings of safety and calm and feelings of danger and chaos can be relative to the same place and environment too, as a general example.

The Wicket Gate Magazine

This is an interesting magazine. The pieces are short. This is the only page I see to get at each of the pdf editions.

Here's the front page of the main website.

It says: Magazine of the Reformed Baptist Church, Inverness Scotland.

The Bible is like unto a magnificent palace

The Bible

The Bible is like unto a magnificent palace constructed of precious oriental stone, comprising 66 stately chambers. Each one of these chambers is different from its fellows, and is perfect in its individual beauty, while together they form an edifice incomparably majestic, glorious, and sublime.

In the book of Genesis we enter the grand vestibule where we are immediately introduced to the records of the mighty work of God in creation. This vestibule gives access to the Law Courts, passing through which we come to the Picture Gallery of the historical books. Here we find hung upon the walls scenes of battles, heroic deeds, and portraits of valiant men of God. Beyond the Picture Gallery we find the Philosopher's Chamber - the book of Job - passing through which we enter the Music Room - the book of Psalms - and here we linger, thrilled by the grandest harmonies that ever fell on human ears.

Then we come to the Business Office - the book of Proverbs - in the very centre of which stands the motto "Righteousness exalteth a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people". Leaving the Business Office we pass into the Research Department - Ecclesiastes - and thence into the Conservatory - the Song of Solomon - where greet us the fragrant aroma of choicest fruits and flowers, and the sweet singing of birds. We then reach the Observatory, where the prophets with their powerful telescopes are looking for the appearing of the "Bright and Morning Star", prior to the dawning of the "Sun of Righteousness".

Crossing the courtyard, we come to the Audience Chamber of the King - the Gospels - where we find four life-like portraits of the King Himself, revealing the perfections of His infinite beauty. Next we enter the Workroom of the Holy Spirit - the Acts of the Apostles - and beyond that the Correspondence Room - the Epistles - where we see Paul and Peter, James, John and Jude, busy at their tables under the personal direction of the Spirit of Truth.

Finally we enter the Throne Room - the book of Revelation - where we are enrapt by the mighty volume of adoration and praise which is ever addressed to the enthroned King, and which fills the vast Chamber; while in the adjacent Galleries and Judgment Hall there are portrayed solemn scenes of judgment and wondrous scenes of glory associated with the coming manifestation of the Son of God as King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

Six Short Rules for Young Christians - By Brownlow North

Six Short Rules for Young Christians
(By Brownlow North)

1. Never neglect daily private prayer; and when you pray, remember that God is present, and that He hears your prayers. (Heb. 11:6).

2. Never neglect daily private Bible reading; and when you read remember that God is speaking to you, and that you are to believe and act upon what He says. I believe all backsliding begins with the neglect of these two rules. (John 5:39).

3. Never let a day pass without trying to do something for Jesus. Every night reflect on what Jesus has done for you, and then ask yourself, "What am I doing for Him"? (Matt. 5: 13-16)

4. If you are in doubt as to a thing being right or wrong, go to your room and kneel down and ask God's blessing on it. (Col. 3:17). If you cannot do this, it is wrong. (Roms. 16:23).

5. Never take your Christianity from Christians, or argue that because such and such people do so and so, therefore, you may. (2 Cor. 10:12). You are to ask yourself, "How would Christ act in my place"? And strive to follow Him (John 10:27).

6. Never believe what you feel, if it contradicts God's Word. Ask yourself, "Can what I feel be true if God's Word is true"? And if BOTH cannot be true, believe God and make your own heart the liar. (Roms. 3:4. 1 John 5:10-11).


NOTE:
Brownlow North was a man greatly used of God in the great 1859 Revival that swept the North of Ireland. His grandfather was the Bishop of Winchester, who was the son of Lord North, and once Prime Minister of England. Brownlow North, then, was an aristocrat; but, as we well know, position has no bearing on a man's spiritual quality, and Brownlow North spent his days in godless living. "For forty-four years of my life," he tells us, "my object was to pass time pleasantly; so long as the day was spent agreeably I was satisfied". In 1854, God laid him low with a severe illness and raised him to life eternal to work the works of God. Two books give us an insight into the life and work of Brownlow North. "Wilt thou go with this man?" The story of his life; and "The Rich Man and Lazarus", which is a collection of the sermons which he preached during that great awakening in 1859.

Speaking of ways to read the Bible...

Speaking of ways to read the Bible (Paul discussing it on his blog, and me talking about it here and there recently) I just re-read this post from my '+' blog.

It has the virtues of being concrete, doable, and thorough. Not to mention historic.

One could substitute another doctrinal work for the Decades, if need be. Even Berkhof's Manual of Christian Doctrine would work. There's something about the older, massive, historic work that seems to fit the project better though. Calvin's Institutes of the Christian Religion would work too.

Non-Identifying and fearing only God

I've experienced that non-identifying is the hardest Work practice - or reality - to describe. Though it's not really since the main Work sources do a pretty good job of it, but you just have to see it in real time. But having said that I want to repeat an insight that there is a real, strong, correlation between non-identifying and fearing God only. Because what happens when you are in a state of identification with your environment and people? You are fearing man more than God. You are allowing yourself to be cowed by the General Law, by man's opinion of you, by people's mechanical demands of you; by also people's confronting of you because you are not 'in the stream' of the 'world' (when you are present in real time, or just merely a regenerated believer in the Lord, King, and Saviour Jesus Christ and you fear God more than you fear man). The world will attack you for this and you will inevitably succumb to the 360 degree unrelenting attack and become identified and obsequious to the great mocking joy of the devil's slaves; so to come out of that (to practice non-identifying) is much like realizing you are engaging in the fear of man and thus you forcefully leave that and fear God only, like a king and a warriour.

I'll add that when you are in a state of fascination with the illusions and distractions of the devil's kingdom and thus in a state of identification with your environment in that sense you are also not fearing God alone. Because you are showing lust and fear and so on with the devil's kingdom rather than God's Kingdom. Coming out of identification with all that illusion and distraction, especially when you are drugged by it (all the influences and also actual drugs such as alcohol or substances or flesh or sport or what have you) is difficult because it's the most difficult to see. It's like the air you breathe. It's the medium you are operating in, like water to a fish. But...you just have to discern influences and levels of influences. Discern your environment and the worth of the various phenomena going on around you and in you.

If you're a born again (regenerated by the Word and the Spirit) Christian on the Way when you are a stranger in this world, and by default a spiritual warriour. You need to be awake and to have and use the full armour of God.