Letter to the Romans - More Thoughts

I read Grace is Not God's Backup Plan, A Paraphase of the Book of Romans though once.  I am now reading it again.  His paraphrase sometimes is very different than what the verses says.  But, I do like it better.  Most of the time the essence of what Paul is saying, if I read it carefully, is exactly what Miller is getting at.  KJV Romans is so wordy that I miss the meaning of the long drawn out thought that Paul is trying to get across.  It looks like Miller has synthesized the long ideas into a more concise format.  He then upgrades the ancient issues into modern issues. 

One take away I get from Paul and his letter is that he left for 14 years after being reprimanded by the Lord on the road to Damascus.  Paul took a lot of time to think things through.  How does Christ's grace change everything?  He then went to Paul and then to James the brother of Jesus.  Paul understood how grace affects the Law.  He understood all the pitfalls of living the law in combination with the new Gospel Law.  He also could see errors that would be made by those that come into the gospel without the law.

I am trying to apply these new found ideas into how we do things in the Church.  It is a little different today.  We are not under the law of Moses.  But, we do have statutory church laws and many fence laws (rules that we make to keep us from breaking a commandment).  Of course, one obvious take away from reading Romans is to be careful that my obedience to fence laws and statutory law doesn't cause me to miss the mark of grace.  Obedience to rules doesn't, in themselves make me righteous.  In fact, obeying all the rules without a foundation of faith in Christ and his grace makes me either frustrated or proud.

The other take away that has come to me is that there are higher laws (gospel laws).  These are embedded in the covenants we make.  Obeying these higher laws is always good.  These laws always point to becoming {something different}.  They are stated and taught over and over again in the Book of Mormon.  When we look to Christ and His sacrifice, we are always instructed to repent.  Repent of what?  Whatever we are doing that isn't patient, longsuffering, and kind,  We are to be watchful unto prayer, giving thanksgiving daily for His many mercies.  We are humble and meek.  We bear all manner of afflictions and never revile against our enemies.  Whatever we are doing that isn't this, we repent of.  This is the Gospel Law.

Lower laws seem to be easily measurable while higher laws are not as measurable.  It is hard to be prideful when striving to live the higher law.  When you do, you quit living it.  It is easy to become prideful living the lower laws.  Living the higher law is the antithesis of pride.

I just the book, Grace is not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans. It is an amazing book. I have never understood – and I have tried – Romans. What did Paul have in mind? It’s hard for me to translate while I am reading it. Adam Miller, the author, does a good job rewriting Romans. The law brings misery if grace isn’t there to save us. Since you can never keep the whole law (commandments), we become miserable people - trying and trying. Or, we become prideful people if we think we have it down. Neither (frustration or pridefulness) were the reason why the law was put in place. The law is simple all the commandments and covenants that we are to keep.  Because we love Jesus, we strive to keep his commandments.  We love Jesus because He has offered us His Grace. We are under grace.  Our sins are remitted.  His grace motivates us to do better.  To improve. Why do we want to improve? Because we are so grateful that grace (mercy) has satisfied the demands of justice. Since the process of improvement is continual and on-going, we must be justified (perfect in Christ) during the journey. Perfect in Christ or justification means that our sins are overlooked as we continue to exercise faith unto repentance.  And that is what grace does as long as we are humble, walking meekly.

If it is all about Grace then Pride is the grace killer. President Benson was right when he said pride is the universal sin, the great vice. Meekness is strength under control. It is also being merciful, especially when treated poorly, persecuted, etc.. It is knowing that people are coming from their natural man (egoic states of object identification) and permitting yourself to be buffeted.  This is called suffering.  That is power or strength under control. Diminish the natural man (ego) and power and light increase. Meekness is walking in grace. Since, under grace, you have to willing to let everything go, the more things you have, the harder it can be to let it go. You can have things but as soon as materialism and pride sneak in, you fall from grace. Or, you at least have struggle to find grace again.

Meekness- Strength Under Control

I have been trying to find a good working definition for the word "Meek" for years.  I finally found one!  Strength under control.  The meek man  is in himself, nothing; in God, everything.  The meek man is a man that has learned to control his passions making himself long suffering and patient towards others.  Yet he knows that he has the strength of Lord anytime he needs it.  In fact, he has true power.  Through the development of Christ-like attributes it isn't in his nature to act according to or react from the natural man.  It is power because the natural impulses no longer govern his thinking, emotions or behavior.  He has overcome these natural impulses by faith unto repentance, thereby receiving the grace or power from God to overcome.  He has heard the will of the Lord and submitted to it.

http://scottnelsonunrefined.blogspot.com/

References:

http://www.christianlibrary.org/authors/Grady_Scott/matt5-5.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meekness

Evidenced Based Faith

I am currently into evidence based faith. All faith is based on evidence. Satan tells all religions and thus, all faith based believers that faith has no evidence. Only science has evidence. This is a Satanic lie. One of the biggest out there. If one believes in the Satan spawned definition of faith, your faith is really based on the tradition of the church you grew up in and the words of minister that you listen to. True faith starts with listening to the Word or reading the Word. If the Word is true and you desire to believe, you receive your first evidence from God. The Spirit testifies to you. The Word swells in your heart. If the word is false you will not receive any evidence of its validity from God. But, you may receive false evidences. You may be told of miracles (false) that collaborate your new found belief. True faith is always based on true principles, followed by witnesses from God.

After you have received the first evidence that what you have heard is true, one continues to believe. One believes in principles like “not easily provoked” and overcomes impatience and anger. One believes in “kindness and easiness to be entreated” and, through God’s grace, backbiting and gossiping disappear. And as you do this, you receive one wonder after another further evidencing or witnessing to your soul that God is pleased. He inspires you. He comforts you. He guides you. These evidences make your faith unshakable to the point that you truly believe you can do all things (Jacob 4:6, 1 Nephi 17:50).

Non-evidenced faith is stagnant. It doesn’t grow or grows very slowly. If signs, wonders and miracles are not occurring in our lives, something is wrong. If an atheist were to ask me to proof to him that there is a God, I would say, that I have received evidence after evidence that there is a God. In fact, all things proof that there is a God (DNA, the planets, the goodness of people, etc.).  I would then ask the atheist to show me his proofs that there isn’t any God. He would then turn it back on me and say, your spiritual evidences are false and they are just figments of my imagination. I would then say, that I know the wonders and miracles that have happened to me and testify that they are true. But, what about you? What are you evidences? And we would end. He would get all upset and start calling me names or just walk away.

Talking to an atheist with evidenced based testimony should be the easiest thing to do – not the most fearsome. Just recount all the evidences you have had in your life. If that doesn’t work bear your testimony (that God is real based on all the evidences you have received). If he asks for a sign, do what Alma did and make him dumb for the rest of his life (just kidding).

Evidence based faith makes sense to me. I hope it does to you as well.

Scott

Dense Food vs. Non-dense Food

After pondering what Doug Russell said about it being impossible to each too many vegetables I now think he is right.  It is too easy to eat high density foods filled with energy.  They come in small, compact units like meat, processed bars, milk, soda, oils, and juices.  If Doug is right one could eat as many herbs and fruits (see baring parts of the plant) and probably lose a lot of weight and maintain one’s weight.

The Lamanites ate meat and blood (high energy).  The Nephites ate grains.   The Lord said to eat meat sparingly.  This might mean that He meant that we eat all energy dense foods sparingly.  The Lord said to eat vegetables, fruits, herbs and grains.  These are non-energy dense foods.  Eat a lot of those.

We also would be contributing to the mass killing of animals by eating energy dense foods non-sparingly or we would be contributing to killing less animals by eating low energy dense foods in abundance.

What are your thoughts?

If it is According to the Spirit of God

This morning I read Alma 11.  In verse 22 Amulek says that he will only answer Zeezrom's questions if it is according to the Spirit of the Lord, which is in him.  That he would say nothing which is contrary to the Spirit of the Lord.

I thought to myself, could this be a principle that I could apply in my daily living?  It reminded me of President Eyring counseling us to say only uplifting things to others.  I wonder if one could practice only saying things that are according to the Spirit of the Lord?  We could remain silent if what we had to say wasn't in the right spirit, wasn't uplifting.  I wonder if we did this that we might please God and bring about more miracles in our lives and the lives of others.

For example, as Amulek answered Zeezrom's questions it gets to a point where Amulek declares that to Zeezrom that he has lied.  But Zeezrom persist in weaving his web.  Amulek responds with a wonderful synopsis of how Christ is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.  At this point, the miracle begins to occur.  The people began to be astonished and Zeezrom begins to tremble. Zeezrom is silenced.

Amulek, with the help of the Spirit of the Lord has "caught him in his lying and deceiving to destroy him".  Later (v.7 of chapter 12) Mormon states that Alma and Amulek "know the thoughts and intents of Zeezrom's heart" and that this power was given them according to the spirit of prophecy.

What does all this mean? If we have the Spirit of the Lord with us we can turn the tables when those with malicious intent are trying to deceive us.  Because of our faith, we remain calm, and perhaps silent until the Spirit - which we believe will come - comes upon us.  We then know what to say and do.  We don't take things into our own hands.  We patiently wait upon the Lord.

Miracle of Forgiveness - Putting it into Context

The Miracle of Forgiveness, - I have never been able to read that book.  It was very discouraging to me.  I like what President Kimball told Elder Monson to do in the excerpt below.  It shows that President Kimball  might have accidentally over-targeting his audience.  It looks to me that President Kimball's primary target in writing his book was to reach a group of people that needed the fear of God put into their hearts. I say this because many people's 'take away' from his book was that receiving forgiveness may never happen to them.  But, President Kimball's response to Elder Monson was very enlightening: to immediately forgive them.