The doctrine of least resistance

[Episkopos]

We tend to go the path of least resistance...that is....unless we are convinced that it is necessary to take a harder road. But if given the choice....if all is equal...we will always choose the easier way.

The devil knows our nature...well the old nature anyway...very intimately. He is the author of it....the father of all lies and of the fallen nature. He feels sympathetic to us in a certain way.....but only as fellow rebels against God's will. He is the mother that seeks to console the flesh. His strategy is to make us avoid the difficult truth by giving us a plausible alternative that takes a short-cut around what is difficult for us. As in..."it doesn't have to be hard...just do this."

As long as the reasoning holds together...more people will accept the easy road than will hold out for what the natural man seeks to avoid.

Unless they know the truth, that is.

 

[Episkopos]

There is an easy deviation to every aspect of the Christian walk. Like forks in the road that take us nearer or farther from the presence of God. Some of us have accepted many of these deviations...and some of us a few. But all in all...we all have accepted these deviations at some time or other.

Part of the road to sanctification is to forsake these deviations in order to get back more fully onto the path of life.

The truth makes us agonize. This is difficult...and for some already this is too much. These will accept more deviations than others since they disconnect from the difficulties of the truth more readily.

Agonizomai is mentioned 8 times in the NT

1. to enter a contest: contend in the gymnastic games
2. to contend with adversaries, fight
3. metaph. to contend, struggle, with difficulties and dangers
4. to endeavour with strenuous zeal, strive: to obtain something

Col. 1:29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

1 Cor. 9:25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

1 Tim. 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

1 Tim. 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

 

[Windmillcharge]

To many preachers tell the ;ie that the Christian life is 'easy' and as they don't teach the believer how to stand on their own wo feet is it any wonder so many abandon Christianity when it becomes hard to follow.

 

[Episkopos]

To many preachers tell the ;ie that the Christian life is 'easy' and as they don't teach the believer how to stand on their own wo feet is it any wonder so many abandon Christianity when it becomes hard to follow.

Yes...prepared in advance to fail. The devil knows...once we have been spoiled with a higher inflated estimation of our place in the scheme of things....it is harder for that person, more so than for a new beginner, to go back and start again.

How many times have I seen a person who was once in a higher position...brought down to his humble beginnings only to hate doing the work he once did. And yet he enjoyed it before being advanced away from it. No one likes going back. No one likes being humiliated.

So then a very crafty way to get us to fail in the narrow road is to get us to enjoy the wide road but as a Christian. Get us to feel the freedom (false freedom) of being a sinner AND saved. Going back to the truth after that is possible...but unlikely. If God doesn't intervene in these cases then all is lost.

 

[CoreIssue]

There is an easy deviation to every aspect of the Christian walk. Some of us have accepted many of these deviations...and some of us a few. But all in all...we all have accepted these deviations at some time or other.

Part of the road to sanctification is to forsake these deviations in order to get back more fully onto the path of life.

The truth makes us agonize. This is difficult...and for some already this is too much. These will accept more deviations than others since they disconnect from the difficulties of the truth more readily.

Agonizomai is mentioned 8 times in the NT

1. to enter a contest: contend in the gymnastic games
2. to contend with adversaries, fight
3. metaph. to contend, struggle, with difficulties and dangers
4. to endeavour with strenuous zeal, strive: to obtain something

Col. 1:29 For this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me.

1 Cor. 9:25 Everyone who competes in the games exercises self-control in all things. They then do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable.

1 Tim. 4:10 For it is for this we labor and strive, because we have fixed our hope on the living God, who is the Savior of all men, especially of believers.

1 Tim. 6:12 Fight the good fight of faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called, and you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.

When born again we are instantly sanctified, meaning set apart for God.

But then we continue to grow in sanctification.

So it is not a road to sanctification, it is a road to deeper sanctification.

 

[marks]

But if given the choice....if all is equal...we will always choose the easier way.

I imagine you're right, if we choose according to the flesh.

But if we follow God's choosing, not so much in my view. All who want to live godly will suffer persecution, for instance. We can desire to live godly, this is from the Spirit, in the new man. And it will result in people persecuting us. Like the seed that fell in the rocky soil, it withers and dies, if it's not true. But the true is proven in the affliction.

Desiring to live godly isn't the easier way in the eyes of the flesh, but we choose it, because it's our only way to live.

Of course, even the flesh doesn't always choose the easiest way, or so it seems to me. But I know what you are saying.

We can use this information, when our choices are what Scripture calls for, and when they are not, to sort out whether we are acting according to flesh or Spirit.

Much love!
Mark

 

[marks]

Get us to feel the freedom (false freedom) of being a sinner AND saved.

You are talking about freedom to sin?

It sounds like you are describing someone who sees God's grace as the freedom to sin willy-nilly, am I understanding correctly?

Much love!
mark

 

[Episkopos]

You are talking about freedom to sin?

It sounds like you are describing someone who sees God's grace as the freedom to sin willy-nilly, am I understanding correctly?

Much love!
mark

Actually it is the lack of seeing God's grace as the gift of relationship with Jesus so as to walk just as He walked. Any other definition is not grace from God. It could be a man-made or man-sanctioned grace. But God's grace is His strength empowering our weakness.

 

[marks]

Actually it is the lack of seeing God's grace as the gift of relationship with Jesus so as to walk just as He walked. Any other definition is not grace from God. It could be a man-made or man-sanctioned grace. But God's grace is His strength empowering our weakness.

Man made grace from God? Man sanctioned grace? Hm. I don't think man gets to sanction grace.

Much love!

 

[Episkopos]

Man made grace from God? Man sanctioned grace? Hm. I don't think man gets to sanction grace.

Much love!

I'm speaking of the delusions that are taught in modern churches. Man-made things can't come from God...that's why they are called man-made! Do you follow? What passes for grace these days is not God's grace. For more clarity re-read my previous post.

 

[marks]

Actually it is the lack of seeing God's grace as the gift of relationship with Jesus so as to walk just as He walked. Any other definition is not grace from God. It could be a man-made or man-sanctioned grace. But God's grace is His strength empowering our weakness.

I more see God's gift of grace giving us a new life that we can live with Him instead of separated from Him. And yes, this includes that we are free from sin, able to do whatever He leads us to do.

But I feel it is a mistake to let that stand as the most important thing.

I think grace is first that we can be, and then that we can do. First, we are reborn to be God's children. And being reborn to be His children, we can then go on to live as His children. Not that this is accomplished by conforming to a code of Law, but living in faith.

I don't see the primary purpose being to conform our behavior, though that is superbly important. I see the primary purpose in God giving His grace is to rescue us from condemnation and corruption, to be with Him in a face to face love relationship.

Definitions such as "grace is God giving us the ability to keep Law", for me, fall very short.

Much love!
mark

 

[Episkopos]

Now the religious men of old set down a standard of the law that was easy enough to follow...to not break commands overtly or outwardly. So a man could hate his brother but still be "lawful" by just not killing him outright. A man could lust after a woman...but if he could not get her....then he was still being lawful.

However, Jesus came to set the law straight again. The law is spiritual and addresses the thoughts and intents of the heart. After all the heart is deceitful and wicked in it's "natural" state.

Jesus made the standard more difficult. It required perfection or purity of the heart.

Now many will say that Jesus made it harder to prove it cannot be done...so that we can return to the Pharisaic way of doing the law....by not overtly breaking the commandments.

But that is illogical in the extreme. Why would Jesus condemn the Pharisees only to re-establish that same standard they had. Why correct them?

Unless...Jesus showed the difficulty in order to prepare us to receive the power to do the harder version of the law! What the bible calls "grace".

So which is the doctrine of least resistance?

1. To do as we always have done...but this time with a wink from God. Doing no better than the Pharisees before us but this time as saved?

2. Or seek the Lord for power from heaven to be holy as God is holy....to be pure as God is pure? To fulfill the righteous requirements of the law through the gift of a higher power of righteousness?

 

[Episkopos]

Doctrines of least resistance take on two intensities...like the sins that lead to death or not to death.

There's the exagerrated or overvalued belief....in an opinion or religious dogma. And then there is the delusion.

"An overvalued idea is a false or exaggerated and sustained belief that is maintained with much less than delusional intensity (i.e., the individual is able to acknowledge the possibility that the ideas may not be true)"

Delusions lead to iniquity. They are deadly. They depart from the road of life unto fables. The lie is woven into part of the truth with enough poison in it to kill. And we are to depart from iniquity if we name the name of the Lord. We are not to take the name of the Lord in vain.

 

[brakelite]

I see the primary purpose in God giving His grace is to rescue us from condemnation and corruption, to be with Him in a face to face love relationship.

There are instances of prophets even, including John in Revelation, who fell down in a dead faint when in the presence of angels. You say God desires we talk with Him face to face one day...I agree. But without the conformity you speak disparagingly of, who among us will stand before God without disintegrating if we can't do it before an angel? Have you wondered why it is that so many will prefer to hide under an avalanche rather than face the face of Jesus when He comes?

 

[Episkopos]

A true Christian isn't someone with their heads packed full of knowledge and facts, but is rather "a person whose heart has been opened, occupied, and interactive with God and the divine mysteries."

 

[Nancy]

We tend to go the path of least resistance...that is....unless we are convinced that it is necessary to take a harder road. But if given the choice....if all is equal...we will always choose the easier way.

The devil knows our nature...well the old nature anyway...very intimately. He is the author of it....the father of all lies and of the fallen nature. He feels sympathetic to us in a certain way.....but only as fellow rebels against God's will. He is the mother that seeks to console the flesh. His strategy is to make us avoid the difficult truth by giving us a plausible alternative that takes a short-cut around what is difficult for us. As in..."it doesn't have to be hard...just do this."

As long as the reasoning holds together...more people will accept the easy road than will hold out for what the natural man seeks to avoid.

Unless they know the truth, that is.

I suppose that is why most will take the wide road

 

[marks]

There are instances of prophets even, including John in Revelation, who fell down in a dead faint when in the presence of angels. You say God desires we talk with Him face to face one day...I agree. But without the conformity you speak disparagingly of, who among us will stand before God without disintegrating if we can't do it before an angel? Have you wondered why it is that so many will prefer to hide under an avalanche rather than face the face of Jesus when He comes?

I'm sorry, brakelite, if I've given you the impression that I disparage being conformed to Christ. This is the greatest thing that can happen to us, must happen, and will happen.

But I believe God desires that we speak and love face to face, as it were, today, and that we do this standing in the grace brought by Christ. And it's in that context that our lives become pleasing to Him, being conformed to the image of His Son.

Much love!
Mark

 

[marks]

A true Christian isn't someone with their heads packed full of knowledge and facts, but is rather "a person whose heart has been opened, occupied, and interactive with God and the divine mysteries."

I'd say a true Christian is a person who has been born again. That makes us occupied and interactive with God. How open? I guess that's up to each of us. A true Christian is one in whom Christ lives.

Much love!
Mark

 

[Episkopos]

I suppose that is why most will take the wide road

My way of seeing is that we all take the easy road in some way or other. It's like the parable of the sower. Most people will say they are the good ground. But people don't know themselves. I say we are a bit of every one of those options. Maybe we have a higher percentage in one or another. But it is far more truthful to see ourselves as we are instead of some theoretical ideal.

We can only progress in the truth if we are willing to acknowledge the truth. And there are no shortcuts around the truth.

 

[Episkopos]

I'd say a true Christian is a person who has been born again. That makes us occupied and interactive with God. How open? I guess that's up to each of us. A true Christian is one in whom Christ lives.

Much love!
Mark

Actually that is only a half-truth. The real Christian goes the extra mile to enter INTO Christ.

The true sabbath is to rest from the dead works of our own thoughts and ideas ...and opinions. We are to draw life from above....not from our own humanity. THAT is a true follower of Christ who can say...I ONLY do what I see my Father doing.