PIC: Sculpting Old CardboardBoxes
– Sue.Beatrice & Andy Gertler on facebook
Establishing our faith parameters
Who are you, really? Are you that self-made free spirit, an independent, a liberal, a conservative? How would you label yourself?
Any such label defines you by any number of a person’s definitions of those terms. So I dislike labels.
But, ya gotta be somethin’, right? So – what you gonna be? How about… “biblical”?
Self Determination
I see a lot of confusion these days amongst Christians. We are fighting the good fight, always warring with the three enemies of our soul. But there is a lot of conforming to the world instead of conforming to God’s think.
These enemies come at us full bore, and some things in our insides can get bent and twisted. They can malform bits and pieces of who we are.
What have you become over time? What are your thoughts today? Are they based on The Good Book?
It’s easy to evolve into a bent form of what we really wanted to become. That’s what happened to this cow! 
Just as… good ways of thinking and acting can “get in our head” for good (Romans 12:6-21; Ephesians 4:24-32), there’s bad and ornery already inside our insides working for evil (2 Corinthians 12:20-21; Galatians 5:19-21). I’m workin’ to conform to the good ones (Romans 12:2; 1 Peter 1:14).
– Source: What’s living rent-free inside your head?
Learning about bias 1
Interesting, learning about bias from a news outlet. I spotted this byline which Israel365News promotes:
“Israel365News offers a fresh and Biblical perspective on the latest news from Israel and the Middle East. Our bias is not liberal nor conservative – just Biblical.“
Always Biblical from our soul
Maybe we all, us Christians, should always offer “a fresh and Biblical perspective on the latest”… anything. You think? Being “liberal” or “conservative” can distort our real aim. Christians are not either! I want to be labeled: Biblical.
Always be Biblical from my soul.
What’s happening in the cavern of your mind? Our outlook, our “personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment (prejudice)”: Is it Biblical, or just personal? Got some legitimate irritability or some other such nonsense going on?
1 Peter 4:1-3
“Therefore, since Christ has [a]suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because the one who has [b]suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human lusts, but for the will of God. 3 For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles….”
“For the will of God”
I really want to be Biblical in all that I do. To repurpose a common term, “Live life in Biblical proportions”. I refuse to accept merely personal choice, my own biases. For instance, here are two Biblical parameters to guide our opinions and perspectives:
1 Corinthians 16:14
All that you do
must be done in love.
1 Corinthians 10:31
So then,
whether you eat or drink
or whatever you do,
do all to the glory of
[our great] God.
Jesus’ Perspectives on everything
All my perspectives should be backed-up by what is Biblical. Sometimes we tend to think like what Jesus scolded here:
Luke 13:4
Or do you think that those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them were worse offenders than all the other people who live in Jerusalem?
Jesus knew the common “think” about those killed. But He corrected them with His perspective. Do I have Jesus’ perspective today? Jesus went on to teach (in Luke 13:8-9) that God is patient with us. He will “work our soil”, enrich our soul, in order to produce good fruit. So I need to be more patient with myself!
As Followers
As with Jesus, who subjected Himself to Father God, so with His followers. As a “Follower of Jesus”, within the very term “to follow”, I will aim to subject myself to God the Trinity (“three in one”).
So, I can be conforming, or I can be Biblical. As I form “my opinions”, “my way of life”, “my personhood”, “my worldview” — I must be Biblical to be more like Jesus.
FOR MORE:
Who are you, really? Are you that self-made free spirit, an independent, a liberal, a conservative? How would you label yourself? How about finding a more biblical label?
______________
Excerpt: Why were we, each one of us, created? (Psalm 139:1-18; Psalm 139:13) In Acts 17:27 we find an answer: “…that they would seek God“.
The soul that is rightly related to God, is favored by God (Psalm 1) and will have peace and joy (Luke 2:10; Luke 6:21; Luke 6:22) flowing from deep inside their insides. He wants us to prosper in all we do (Psalm 1:3).
But, if we do not have God intimately involved inside our soul, there will be a constant restlessness, a constant lack of contentedness. You living without God in the center of your life? How’s that working out for you?
This is natural for us so put it on
Be full of joy – because of this… Romans 8:1,37-39
My best day here – it’s not even on the graph of heaven’s pleasure chart.
Footnotes
- merriam-webster | bias 1 of 4
a: an inclination of temperament or outlook
especially : a personal and sometimes unreasoned judgment : prejudice
b: an instance of such prejudice
c: bent, tendency
d(1): deviation of the expected value of a statistical estimate from the quantity it estimates
(2): systematic error introduced into sampling or testing by selecting or encouraging one outcome or answer over otherstransitive verb 1: to give a settled and often prejudiced outlook to
his background biases him against foreigners.
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