It is a hard, if not impossible thing for any man to deconstruct to his own logic the ways of God. Hard in that it is the “hard way to go”, the very frustrating way to go, the way he goes till he touches all that is impossible to himself.
And even this, in saying, must seem unpleasant to the man who is yet caught up in his own logic and reasonings. For to him, as yet, the impossible seems the more unpleasant to receive and acknowledge.
And till then he must ask, will ask, will resist the notion in all, that the impossible to him could possibly hold any comfort or assurance. For to the hard thing he may feel challenged and summon all his reasonable strength, try harder, somehow convinced that by enuff application he may still have “chance” at winning, at gaining…perhaps even conquering. Do we think God does not know what is in man, and “how” he operates?
No man has ever won checkers or tic-tac-toe against God, much less (for allegory) chess. One cannot even begin to “see the board” unless given sight.
And we would be remiss to say (or think) “come let us reason together” is some past event, done and over “once I come to Christ”, for it is only to the believer, for the believer, in the believer (in Christ) that such is even first believed possible. No man can (or would or could) “do it” apart from first being gifted with the reality of God’s being, that mercy is real and amenable to and for “reasoning” with God, and that such end is not fruitless.
Already the wiser may see what appears paradox. “If all is impossible how or why even enter into such?” Yes, it seems so. But here is where such a thing as this is (for the man’s benefit) tested…exposed, made clear, even to be established to himself…even if entering with what may appear only the slightest of all persuasions “Jesus Christ is not fruitless”.
What a man can do…is able to do, actually is always “in doing” (as God knows) is in presentation of his own reason. Unbeliever and believer are alike in this…even if the believer readily acknowledges some informing of the extreme limits of his own (the unbeliever will think his own “exquisite”, precisely and only because…it is “his own”)
But once we have had our previous table overturned by Christ, we enter (even if it merely seem as only inkling at times) “nothing is as it first seems”. And God always knows what any and every man “knows” or thinks he does.
Therefore the believer enters, not with “I have some chance at my winning here in reasoning with God” (for if he does…this will be addressed) but simply “I lay out all my own understanding(s) to as much limit as I find able, (which every man does anyway) but with the hope that no man but the man in Christ has, that God will answer with what the man “does not know”.
Do you see how simple the impossible is, now? Even comforting? It is “impossible” for the man to NOT have his own understanding(s) (as every single man born has) and as likewise impossible for him to NOT be, who he is! He’s already bound in the impossible! Will he struggle there, endlessly, or find a rest promised? God knows.
This is why a believer told others, even continues to tell others, “cast not away your confidence…” in the face of all impossibility to yourself when encountered. You are already in it, and have been, with all regarding yourself and what one knows of one’s self. For that confidence can even “stretch” (as the apostle’s learned) to the most of all impossible for the man…(as who only knows himself) “before I was to myself, I am known”.
Therefore only the believer can say with any confidence, as even said by another (and not reserved to some “guru” like attainment)
But by the grace of God, I am what I am.
How could I have “been” before I even knew myself as myself? Yet, so it is…and there is the greatest of comforts found when and if that “impossible to me” (or man) is fully embraced. What or where “was I”…before I was? O! but I know this seems impossible to say, speak, or even consider…but all are ever before the “I am”. (Not as prior to, but before as in position before…the Maker of all things)
Jesus told some…”And Jesus answering said unto them, Do ye not therefore err, because ye know not the scriptures, neither the power of God?
The living are “before God” always, for He is not the God of the dead. And only the man in Christ (as even Jesus the Christ Himself knew and spoke) knows himself…alive. Not merely now…”in time”…but before it was, and certainly before the man “was” to even himself. In the beginning…God. (And no less “in” whatever any man may imagine as “end”) Alpha and Omega.
How blessed is the man to have found, even if it be only (at the first) one “applecart” overturned “I am not as I appear to myself, for I am not right, but a sinner in desperate need”…to follow this Lord who first (in great mercy) showed this!
How much more…do I “not know”? Why…I now see…it is impossible for me to know! Ahhh how the impossible for us becomes a great comfort! It is impossible for me to know “what I do not know”…all I can do is “dump” before God all I think I do know (as every man does anyway…always dumping what he thinks he knows). But the believer has this irrefutably inside “I am always before God when I do”. (Some laughed at Donald Rumsfeld’s once exposition of certain matters, but there was a “knowing” there being made clear of the “unknown unknowns”…for we don’t know of what we do not know)
This was started in some hope of addressing a thing of all seeming impossibility. But it has strayed…for “I did not know”. How that God, as beyond watchmaker has to each fashioned a “life”…or even (if you will) “a reality” to each and every man of such gears interacting, in relationship interlocking from first man Adam to all others who have ever been with such precision and relatedness that none can escape of themselves. A precision beyond grasp in both magnitude and effects, all simultaneous and perfectly designed impacts and effects. So that each has “their” reality…what they believe they know…even as independent to themselves…or “their own”.
Would any say no? Might some say “I am not affected by anything other…especially “my” knowing…my knowing is pristine, pure, uninfluenced…and ‘exquisite’. I am the clearest and cleanest of slates ever written upon by only pure intellect, experience, and reason”
Or, even if taken to some place of concession…”OK, I’ll admit hunger or wounds (like having one’s leg traumatically amputated in a motorcycle accident) does ‘somewhat’ affect my thinking (or winning the lottery), but as for other men, and especially the dead…they affect me not at all”. I am what is full only of self generated, independent, and immune in all, to other’s reason.” Even what might be called “their reason” for being.
I am…sound. (Which has its own interesting applications if considered)
Says the man denying the effects Aristotle, Jefferson, the Caesars, or “The Jeffersons” TV show, or Bob his neighbor down the road (who always leaves his trash cans out “too long” after pick up) upon himself…much less Jack the farrier who lived and died obscurely (at least to himself) in 1604. Every ripple by every stone ever cast into the earth…or rising up from it…a man is in “owing to” and obligation to, and “interlocked” till released. Even that first rat (and microbe) carrying plague. And even all the “unknown” plagues that never were.
Of course you could tell such a one (and would or might) Jesus is the unlocking from Adam and each and every motion as ordained in hope by another. To perfect frustration. Freedom has only one meaning in the Lord’s mouth. Total. Free indeed…is not short of that.
But do not be surprised (nor shocked) if told you are presenting the impossible. Or mocked for it.
The believer must laugh if he senses allowance. Not only at the imagined estate (as no doubt once he even held, recognizing a man he once knew) but also in great joy for what he now knows is made His through Christ…”Come, let us reason together”. A God not only approachable…but waiting.
The thing is that even in such laughter (if it be allowed) if he remains in his earth, as in his tent (longing to be clothed) he cannot but likewise concede to all his “unknown unknowns”. What is known “may be” actually known by the man, but what he does not know he does not even know is also, and no less; and if he does not concede to “it” he must also then consider his knowing exquisite.
But, (and and) God has a way. To make Himself known…as knower. Of what man does not.
Someone said it this way:
Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.
It is not necessarily an evil thing of itself to say “I know the knower” if able to likewise embrace:
O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!
For who hath known the mind of the Lord? or who hath been his counseller?
It does appear…impossible. To embrace all a man does not know…he does even know he does not know.
But for one single man…who…despite his “seeming” being as well known remains in a great obscurity in, (and the how of His ability do this)…it is not done.
One man wrote:
But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.
Every man (and all creation) is absolutely pinioned by the word of God. Only one man came to free what resists it in all rebellion and all display of denial. To even reveal joy and such liberty as is made freely given in submission and surrender.
Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand?
Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
Sue for terms of peace. They are surely surprising…always.
Come, let us reason together.
Says the one it is impossible to conquer, or escape.
israelx7wordpresscom 