Charmed into Righteousness

“Charmed into Righteousness: The Truest Friend”

www.newperceptions.tv

Reinhold Niebuhr: "On the whole, people do not achieve great moral heights out of a sense of duty. You may be able to compel them to maintain certain minimum standards by stressing duty, but the highest moral and spiritual achievements depend not upon a push but upon a pull. People must be charmed into righteousness.” (Leaves from the Notebook of a Tamed Cynic 75)

Ellen White: "You cannot but be charmed with the matchless attractions of the Son of God." (Christian Education 76)

• Romans 5:6-8, 10
• The Timeline of the Good News
  • God loved us and Christ died for us:
    • “While we were still .” (v 6)
    • “While we were still .” (v 8)
    • “While we were still ” (v 10)
  • Three timelines, one truth: God us we were lovable.
  • Walt Mueller: “. . . for digital natives living out their lives in the online world, the identity options from which to choose are virtually limitless. Kids [and adults] are able to perform through a growing multitude of social media sites by choosing the words they post (true and false), and by posing and photo-shopping themselves into images that don’t come close to who they really are. As media critic Quentin Schultze has observed, ‘The digital world suffocates virtue by allowing us unbridled freedom to be all things to all people . . . to give ourselves over to the highest bidder or to the most persuasive master’” (YouthWorker Journal Jan/Feb 2015 pp 16-17).
  • Michael Horton: Psychiatrist Keith Ablow warns of “‘the toxic psychological impact of media and technology on children, adolescents and young adults [and not so young adults], particularly as it regards turning them into faux [false] celebrities—the equivalent of lead actors in their own fictionalized life stories. . . . On Facebook, young [and not so young] people can fool themselves into thinking they have hundreds or thousands of “friends.” They can delete unflattering comments. They can block anyone who disagrees with them or pokes holes in their inflated self-esteem. . . . Using Twitter, young [and not so young] people can pretend they are worth “following,” as though they have real-life fans, when all that is really happening is the mutual fanning of false love and false fame’” (or-di-nar-y: Sustainable faith in a radical, restless world 60).
  • The Father loved us and Christ died for us we could spiritually photoshop ourselves into an acceptable, attractive state.
    • Ezekiel 16:4-10, 15, 22
    • Romans 3:10-18
• The Truth of the Good News
  • Desmond Ford: “With the gospel, it’s the opposite. It must be true because it’s so good! The word ‘God’ is just a contraction of the word ‘good.’ The word ‘devil’ is just an expansion of the word ‘evil.’ God is good, ‘gooder’ than we could ever think, just as we are ‘worser’ than we ever thought. You have to keep the two at equipoise. God is better than we ever considered. We’re worse than we ever suspected.” (Right With God Right Now 83)
  • John Peckham: “Scripture presents God as affectionate and loving, devotedly interested and intimately concerned about humans, affected by the world in feeling joy and delight in goodness, yet sorrow, passion and intense anger at evil, alongside profound compassion and the desire to redeem humans. While none can overpower God, he is affected by worldly events because he has willingly opened himself up to reciprocal love relationship with creatures. . . . God enjoys and is deeply affected by reciprocal (though asymmetrical) relationship with humans” (The Love of God: A Canonical Model 189).
  • Romans 5:10 TEV: “We were God’s enemies, but he made us his through the death of his Son. Now that we are God’s , how much more will we be saved by Christ’s life!”
  • John 15:13, 14—“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s . You are my if you do what I command.
  • Steps to Christ 100: “The relations between God and each soul are as distinct and full as though there were not another soul upon the earth to share His watchcare, not another soul for whom He gave His beloved Son.”
    • p 74—[Jesus is our] “  and Saviour still.”
    • p 78—“. . . what a friend [we have] found in Jesus . . .”
    • p 93—“Prayer is the opening of the heart to God as to a .”
    • p 103—“He [God the Father] is [our] friend.”
    • p 122—“Jesus is our .”
  • May 24, 1905 letter: “My dear child Mabel—O that we all realized that true happiness is found in taking Christ as our and   friend. . . . He loves you and will be your .” (Letter 147 1905)
  • Adventist Home 204—“[Jesus] knows the burdens of every mother’s heart and is her friend. . . . He is woman’s friend today and is ready to aid her in all the relations of life.”
  • Mind, Character and Personality 2:491 (in a letter to an aged Christian)—“Just rest in [Jesus’] arms and know He is your Savior and your Friend, and He will never leave you or forsake you.”
  • How to grow this friendship through prayer: https://www.pmchurch.tv/newwaytopray

“Best Friends Forever and Ever”

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