This post is written for Brandon E, but it has broader application.
A previous post declared that the greatest truth revealed to humanity is that Jesus Christ is Lord, and the second greatest is that the Bible is the word of God. The two truths are obviously related for by the second we can know the first and by the first we have a focus for the second.
The most important activity for a human being is to trust and obey Jesus Christ as Lord. This does not mean giving mere lip service to the idea, but rather devoting one’s life to Christ in service. This will mean loving Him and then, because of that love for Him, loving all our neighbors and using our lives to serve them. This obviously involves a day-by-day devotion to Christ and not a mere one-time decision or transaction. It also obviously involves repentance as it is not natural to human beings to live selflessly as Jesus did.
Jesus is not just our Lord but He is our example. He lived the kind of life He wants us to live, and He did so for the purpose of providing us an example to follow. We cannot become a 1st-century itinerant Jewish preacher as He was, but we can adopt the attitude which motivated Him and thus have His spirit animate our modern lives. This is something that can only be done individually. Jesus was an individual and we must obey Him as individuals. Group membership does nothing to commend us to Him. He wants each and every individual heart devoted to Him just as He Himself is devoted to each and every individual heart.
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Mike, of course I agree that Jesus is Lord, and that we should personally trust Him, obey Him and live unto Him.
The problem is that you tout your conclusions about so many other topics in Scripture as being being no less certain to be true, even though you are the only one we are aware of who has arrived at them from their own reading of Scripture. Then you basically accuse others of not obeying or being faithful to God when they don’t agree with what you. So evidently you see a very strong link between trusting and obeying Christ and agreeing with Mike Gantt’s interpretations of Scripture.
I would also say that pitting personal or individual obedience to Christ against a communal expression of Christ, as if the two were mutually exclusive in God’s sovereignty, is a false dichotomy (1 Cor. 12:14-27; Eph. 4:1-16; 2:19-22; Rom. 12:4-5; Col. 2:2, 19; 1 Pet. 2:1-10; John 17:20-23).
That you would have it that when you pray about whether your interpretations of Scripture are right and feel that they are you can only be absolutely right, but if others pray and come to conclusions that you contradict they can only be doing it wrong, and this can only mean that you are trusting God and not men (as if there were no such thing as self-trust in spiritual matters) indicates an extreme individualism and spiritual isolation, like a finger cut off from the body.
Brandon, it’s clear that you think I am wrong. I can live with that. Why does it rankle you so that I think you are wrong?
“Rankle” is not the word I would use, and I’m pressing you because I believe you are being dismissive in your responses. I am asking you what good reasons you think you have to think that–since you are the only one we know of who has arrived at your combination of views–you are certainly right and everyone who disagrees with you is wrong, that it is not even possible that you are mistaken, and that the reason why a person (such as myself) would not agree with what you tell them is that they are fleshly-minded, not spiritually-minded, not repentant, not kingdom-seeking, not faithful to God and Scriptures, etc?
Have not persons who would appear to be at least as spiritual as you (deceased and alive) held these views that you contradict and antagonize, even after prayerfully considering them? I am still awaiting good reasons that would show why you’re not giving yourself special treatment by claiming all these things.
I’m not being dismissive of you. I’ve paid attention to every objection you’ve made. When I’ve understood them, they’ve been unpersuasive. I’ve merely reported that to you. If I were being dismissive of you I would have done none of that.
I think there have been, and still are, plenty of people more righteous than me. If I were God, I would have shared these truths with those other more worthy people first. Whether He did or didn’t, and whether they were receptive or not, I do not know. What I do know is that I will not be unfaithful to Him who has been so kind and forgiving to me.