As long as we live with selfish motives we will never understand the gospel nor the ways of God. God is selfless and only properly understood through the same kind of selflessness. Otherwise we tend to get things exactly backwards.
Now a man who doesn't stand up to, say, a bear attacking his family, is not a man. A man is to sacrifice himself for his family. Otherwise he is a coward and worse than an infidel. A real man will die rather than see his loved ones harmed in any way.
God uses that characteristic in a man...even a rough and coarse man...to call him to the higher calling of laying down his life so that God might bring salvation to this world... ...through him. A living sacrifice for a just cause. That appeals to the real men.
But the cost is a life for a life.
A carnal man uses his own strength to fulfill his obligations.
But a spiritual man fulfills his obligations by getting out of the way in order to let Christ shine through him. He becomes a living sacrifice for the benefit of others in this way. Not for himself. Not for his own salvation...but to serve others.
So the gospel is a call to the selflessness in a man... even in the unruly man...and not to the baser selfishness so prevalent in they that are not truly walking in a manly way. And this in spite of the fact that today the gospel is being marketed in a selfish way...as a benefit for the selfish tendencies of the flesh. This is both wrong and a great evil.
We are not to seek to "get saved"...but rather to give ourselves to Christ so that He can then be a light through us and into the darkness of this world. We are to let ourselves go in order that the world might "get saved"...not thinking about ourselves, but rather trusting that God knows what He is doing.
The gospel is not for us who claim to be Christians. It is for the whole world. God is looking for a sacrificial people (priesthood) who He can live through to bring salvation and light to a lost world in darkness.
Now a man who doesn't stand up to, say, a bear attacking his family, is not a man. A man is to sacrifice himself for his family. Otherwise he is a coward and worse than an infidel. A real man will die rather than see his loved ones harmed in any way.
God uses that characteristic in a man...even a rough and coarse man...to call him to the higher calling of laying down his life so that God might bring salvation to this world... ...through him. A living sacrifice for a just cause. That appeals to the real men.
But the cost is a life for a life.
A carnal man uses his own strength to fulfill his obligations.
But a spiritual man fulfills his obligations by getting out of the way in order to let Christ shine through him. He becomes a living sacrifice for the benefit of others in this way. Not for himself. Not for his own salvation...but to serve others.
So the gospel is a call to the selflessness in a man... even in the unruly man...and not to the baser selfishness so prevalent in they that are not truly walking in a manly way. And this in spite of the fact that today the gospel is being marketed in a selfish way...as a benefit for the selfish tendencies of the flesh. This is both wrong and a great evil.
We are not to seek to "get saved"...but rather to give ourselves to Christ so that He can then be a light through us and into the darkness of this world. We are to let ourselves go in order that the world might "get saved"...not thinking about ourselves, but rather trusting that God knows what He is doing.
The gospel is not for us who claim to be Christians. It is for the whole world. God is looking for a sacrificial people (priesthood) who He can live through to bring salvation and light to a lost world in darkness.
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