January 6, 2024

January 30, 2025 Conditions clarifications

About No. 2 - Intersection

The About series is an optional website position statement. For a description of the About series, go to the end of the article.

Introduction

Listed below are some of the factors that have intersected spawning this website. Some factors are a condition or spiritual state, while others are an event.

Conditions

Recent Events

The Need

The published stories of highly successful Christians can be encouraging or a source of jealousy. If anyone is jealous, remember that success costs something; you may want to look for verses that teach that we serve a God of abundance. In addition to evidence of success, there are reported cases where a well-known Christian has dropped into obscurity, perhaps out of the faith. Whether a Christian is famous or not or earns a living from a ministry, we can all enter into faith challenges that stymie our Christian experience and diminish our support of the church. This website offers ideas that may help anyone undergoing challenges in the faith.

Personal Spiritual State

We all enter different phases of Christianity as time passes. The Christians associated with this website know this in our lives and each other. We can extend this concept to our sense of clear conscience before God. However, whether or not we have a clear conscience before God is a private matter between Him and us. This website advocates obtaining a clear conscience before God.

(Mat 12:33-34 GNB) To have good fruit you must have a healthy tree; if you have a poor tree, you will have bad fruit. A tree is known by the kind of fruit it bears. (34b) … For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.

Growth in Knowledge About God¹

(Rom 8:29 ESV) For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

Verse 29 states that we are changing over time to be in the image of Jesus (God’s only Son). Jesus is the first, our model, what we are being conformed to be similar to. This is growth that may exist in many ways. Some ways are through personal study, being exposed to Christian teaching, and also considering something else. We know how a tree grows, but how do we grow spiritually? This requires an entire article so for now let’s think of it as spiritual tuning, the tuning or our soul or spirit toward Jesus as our model. Our spiritual growth can give us a reason to celebrate the passion (love) Jesus has demonstrated for us.

(Rom 5:8 KJV) But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Growth, which requires change. Change can be quite uncomfortable. Nonetheless, we press on because spiritual growth is a sign of good spiritual health.

The Hole

We all know of jobs that are shifting toward technical work. Generally, technical work is objective and analytical, requiring logical, rational thinking. What a person spends time doing affects their thought process, and they start changing over time. So, we predict that some of the population is shifting toward rational thinking. This website leans toward a reasoning approach to how we talk about Christianity. There are several reasons for this, this being an uncommon approach to the Christian faith. This site fills a hole in the many preexisting ways Christianity is presented (while not seeking to replace them).

No matter how different you think you are, we need you. Each is shaped by nature (genetics) and nurture (environment). The growing Christian is also being transformed toward godliness.

(Isa 64:8 NKJV paraphrase) O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay, and You our potter; we are the work of Your hand.

Do What You Do Best

We all should find out what we do best. Then, we try to find a way to serve God in that area. For a different approach, look for God working, then with a knowledge of what you can do, see if there is a way to join that work. Do not be too concerned if your labor fails to produce results. The results may be available to someone else, not you. You may have more to learn. So try to learn what you don’t do well. To summarize, be aware of what you do well and what you do not. Concluding, regardless of your assessments, sincerely pray not my will, but your will be done.

(2Co 12:9 KJV) “And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

Paraphrase and expand: (2 Cor 12.9): God told me that I only need His favor. HE continues, I use your deficits, what you can’t naturally do as well as others, to show everyone that all things are possible when I am involved. [My fellow Christians, you might wonder how I feel about this.] I praise God. I do this because God shows He can use anyone, faults and all, to produce what everyone knows I cannot do on my own. I have problems, and God uses me just as I am.

Competing Christian Beliefs

All group members know something about the group, such as their purpose. Christians who contemplate how we describe the Christian faith study theology or doctrine. We define mainstream belief sets as those groupings containing the essentials to be Christian. One group is the Roman Catholic, another is Reformed, and so on. It is clear that God uses each of the mainstream belief sets. We are all unique and will thrive in some settings but not in others.

Intersection

The philosophy behind this website is itself an intersection of reason and the experience of God.

Many problems are associated with reason. These are often traced to faulty premises and defective interpretations of the nature of life, the world, and specific details about what humankind is like. All believers agree that God exists. HE is with us in Spirit. God generally exists in a way below or above our threshold of awareness. Many believers are recorded in the Bible as having an experience of God. Many believers today testify to having an experience of God. This is why we cannot resolve all problems by reasoning alone.

We depend on Him to reveal Himself to others because none of us controls God. We will testify to practices that have worked for many, but it will be up to God to work through them for any particular believer. The farmer plants seeds and waters. But it is God that causes the plant to grow, the miracle of life. To extend this further into the miraculous, God enables spiritual life and spiritual growth. This is of the utmost importance and why we bow to Him in our hearts.

Knitting Into One

We all know some of our imperfections and what areas they affect us. We all know something about what we do best and speculate about other areas that may be developed into strengths. This data all fits together to form a picture of how we can apply ourselves to improving the world in the name of Jesus.

The list of events and conditions forming the intersection that launched this website could be extended.

Priorities

Clearly stating the priorities may clarify what some readers would classify as deviating from orthodoxy, the incorrect beliefs. Articles addressing the core purpose of this website should qualify as supporting all the essentials to be considered Christian.

The top priority is salvation. That is the single fundamental requirement for eternity. Let us briefly comment on salvation.

Many verses state various conditions to be saved. These include water baptism, repentance, and belief in Jesus Christ. For our purposes, we will take the position that salvation is a matter of the heart. There will be a complete statement on this in an article coming soon.

Challenges

It is marvelous when a person discovers how a verse in one part of the Bible supports verses in a completely different part of scripture. If the reader is introduced to a new perspective on a verse, they may recall other verses that oppose the new perspective. So, there is the ongoing dilemma of which verses to interpret first.

To state differently, the Bible can be thought of as a fabric, but not of threads. It is a fabric of interwoven verses in one area interconnected with verses in others.

As discussed elsewhere, and as a side note, most interpretations will have supporting content. But the support will be partial. This way, people who do not like what they read should be able to produce a counterargument easily.

There is a continuous background challenge to avoid writing content that could be used to support error(s). More on this topic in About 4 - Error in Faith.

Summary

There have been people who have helped many who were struggling in the faith. They knew all the answers to our questions and helped us when needed. But they drifted away from a vibrant faith to a mediocre one. Some of them have dropped out of the faith altogether.

None of us have perfect knowledge. God alone has perfect knowledge. We may be sure that something we believe to be true is not, and something we believe not to be true is. Alternatively, we do not know everything. God knows this. Jesus lived among us. Jesus understands. Spiritual salvation was designed for imperfect people. Salvation does not rule out the possibility of disobeying God; God understands this.

There are many levels of drifting away from the faith. If a person could completely turn away from God, would that be better than switching from Calvinism to Catholicism? How about Catholicism to Wesleyan? Another way to ask the question, is it preferred for others to have no faith or be Eastern Orthodox?

The question becomes, do alternative mainstream systems of theology contain the essentials of Christianity? Yes, from the perspective of this website, they do. How a particular group in that perspective practices them may or may not be a good option for a specific Christian.

As previously stated, think of the suggestions here as ideas that some will experiment with and find helpful. From a perspective arrived at through experience, you decide how best to proceed as you practice a submissive attitude toward God.

How will this work? First and foremost, the intent is to direct all readers to God. The Bible is not a god; it directs people toward God. The church is not a god; it directs people to God. No pastor or layperson is God; we are all responsible for directing others to God.

Conclusion

More intersecting factors support the creation of this website at this time. Availability of reviewers, editors, and their understanding of what they do well. Availability of authors, spiritual health, and a new understanding of how our unique qualities work to prescribe what we do well – then it is up to us to use this as a context when obeying God.

This site supports the belief that all people may experience God, and He can make a difference in everyone’s lives. An alternate reality co-exists with the physical reality we experience. This mystical reality is invisible to scientific detection and measurement. Salvation and walking in the faith is a matter of the heart, not a set of steps or a ritual, except as what helps the person shift into a state of submission to God.

Christianity is authentic, and it works!

Additional Information

Friends, family, and published self-evaluations, as well as testing, exist to help us understand ourselves. These are all good but there is nothing better than receiving direction from the Lord.

                                                                                               

The “About” Article Series is Optional Content

Each church participant has a different role, so you must decide whether the About series interests you. Some challenges in the faith existing in one perspective do not exist in another, or there is a straightforward solution when viewed differently. The About series does not contain core content for which this website exists. Consider these articles as optional, providing context for this website.

The context is predominantly protestant with a hope to be compatible with Catholic perspectives.

About 1 - Strategy

This website exists to help Christians who are struggling in matters of faith or whose faith has become a mediocre experience. The article About 1 - Strategy, explains the website’s approach.

About 2 - Intersection

A Venn diagram has circles where parts overlap, defining the region of intersection of two or more parts. This website exists at the intersection of several conditions. These include the availability of help, the availability of the author or authors, and other time factors, along with insight into human strengths, frailties, weaknesses, and more.

About 3 - Analysis

This website approaches Christianity from the belief that Christianity is real, for today, and makes a difference in people’s lives. Therefore, most Christianity can be codified as a set of tenets (assertions) that pass some test of reason.

About 4 - Error

This is a brief statement on Christian cults, and Cult group social dynamics.

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