GRACE UNFOLDING
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE?
As we recall the story of Mary when an angel of the Lord appeared to her. Ask this question "how is it possible?" Then there's Joseph story when an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. All of the prophet said was fulfilled of what the Lord said. How many times we have to witness the power of God when God said so. I've never seen such great power, fear and might! Beyond anyone can begin to utter such words. You cannot denied or reject itself.
God cannot be reached by logic or captured by thought. Instead, one can only approach by love steeped in humble expectation of God's grace. Is beyond imaginable, beyond the entire human being to comprehend. It is all powerful. Mighty! Majestic!
It is transformed and transforming by the power of the Holy Spirit. The transformation is an ongoing process, an unfolding of the soul. Not accomplished in a single step, one continues in humbly seeking the Kingdom of Heaven. God decides more than can anyone fathom. God can change the course of directions for whatever reason that it is. But surely He gets to decided.
How is it possible?
One best to describe ... is one of an all-consuming. A passionate love affair between human beings and God. It speaks of the yearning, a burning desire for the contemplation and presence of the divine.
This yearning is a candle by the fire of divine love itself, which moves, search, live and leads. It is often a period of time between the beginning to a new ones that partake along the journey, from discovering to proclamation in all-encompassing love of God for humankind.
Through Christ-likeness is where can be achieved only by dying to self—not by self-effort at emulating anyone—and that spiritual truth is discerned through the intellect as guided by the indwelling Holy Spirit, who lives in all believers.
"The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment: 'For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him?' But we have the mind of Christ"
Consciousness of God is part of the common definition of the experience, but the only valid experience of this nature for the Christian is that which is allowed according to Scripture. "The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children"
The closest into account that is in the encountered moments in the lives of Apostle Paul's on the road to Damascus when Paul experienced the Lord Himself, Jesus Christ. ---Acts 22:1-21
He described in 2 Corinthians:
"I know a man in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven. Whether it was in the body or out of the body I do not know—God knows. And I know that this man—whether in the body or apart from the body I do not know, but God knows—was caught up to paradise. He heard inexpressible things, things that man is not permitted to tell" ---2 Corinthians 12:2-4
Most of the time particularly Paul makes it clear God would not allow him to give the details of that experience. Thus, it would hardly be reasonable for us to believe that God would be willing to divulge spiritual truth by the manner in which God wants to flaunt the experiences. It is His will to declare spiritual truth through the apostles of the Church by the vehicle of the Holy Scriptures.
Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" --- John 17:17
God said, “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge” ---Hosea 4:6, not from lack of a experience.
"But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord" ---2 Corinthians 3:18
This is part of a passage that teaches that we are changed into the image of Christ not by following rules and laws, but by following the leading of the Spirit by faith. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life" ---Titus 3:3-7
Paul continue reminded us of our before-and-after life. We have responded to the "kindness and love of God" shown to us by the death of Christ for our sins, repented of our sins, and now respond to the Spirit’s continual prompting and empowerment to live differently as God's children. As a result, we have been transformed by the "rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit" By this, then, is true spiritual formation—the reforming of our spirits by His Spirit into the image of Christ. God change the human heart and the course of direction as he pleases him to do so beyond anyone can do.
--- For thy will be done.
"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message" John 17:20
“For Jesus is the one referred to in the Scriptures, where it says, 'The stone that you builders rejected has now become the cornerstone.' There is salvation in no one else! God has given no other name under heaven by which we must be saved."
Acts 4: 11-12 NLT
