Self absorbed or God absorbed

Being self-absorbed is empty and void of true life -- it is temporary, erratic, and insufficient.

Being God ¹absorbed is life -- He is the all-sufficient, permanent, and never-failing source of love, life, and all things.

Since God is life, is it any wonder He is constantly calling us to be obsessed with Him; to love Him with all that we have and are and to always bring Him glory? He's calling us to nothing less than being obsessed with life itself because He is life and fullness of life is in Him alone and nothing else. He calls us to Himself because he loves us that much.  

"And this is eternal life (i.e. permanent life. Life without interruption), that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent." - Jesus  Joh 17:3

"Jesus said to him, 'I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.' " - Jesus' response to Phillip. John 14:6

"Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it." - Jesus speaking to the 12 disciples.  Mat 10:39
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¹If this grates on us, it only indicates how bent we are towards being our own god. Who hasn't heard or even made the comment, "a little bit of God is OK but let's not go overboard!" 

However, when you see those fortunate enough to have great success in this life, still have prolonged periods of loneliness and depression; even ending their lives in the midst of such great "success," this should be a clue we were made for more, far more. We were made for infinite love. 

Some have argued we can be so heavenly minded we are no earthly good when it is the other way around. We can not be of any true earthy value until we are totally plugged into the heavenly bliss and glory shared between the Father, Son, and Spirit. Or as Jesus says, "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." - Mar 12:30-31. We can only carry out the latter part of this commandment as we plug into the former.

His life is our life

When are we most alive? When we are participating in the life of God. The more we participate, the more alive we become.  

And what is the life of God? It is the joy God has always had and now experiences in the union and communion between the Father and the Son as they gaze upon the beauty (the infinite glory/worth/value) of the other in the Spirit of love and adoration.

We will experience that life to the degree that we turn away from trying to secure life by our own efforts and let him fill us with his life/Spirit.

Jesus said:

And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.

And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed. 

"I have manifested your name to the people whom you gave me out of the world. *Yours they were, and you *gave them to me, and they have kept your word. Now they know that everything that you have given me is from you.

For I have given them the words that you gave me, and they have received them and have come to know in truth that I came from you; and they have believed that you sent me.

I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours.

All mine are yours, and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them.

And I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name, which you have given me, that they may be one, even as we are one." - Jesus - Joh 17:3-11 

*This language depicts the value of that which is theirs i.e. us. We are valuable to both the Father and Son. So much so that the Father sent to Son of his eternal affections and the Son agreed to come and restore us back to them. 

#EternalLife #ThotsAboutGod #ThoughtsAboutGod

Overview of Jonathan Edwards theology

The below excerpt is from Kyle Strobel's book Jonathan Edwards Theology: a reinterpretation. Pg 4-5

Underscored, embolden, or italicized words and (parenthetical comments) are my own:

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First, Edwards theology begins with God, and in his eternal life as Trinity, as the ontological (nature of being or existence) principle which grounds his systematic task. 

Second, Edwards begins 'from eternity' and then 'descends' to address God's work in time, i.e. God's economic movement to create (begin something) and sustain (continue) it.

Third, this work in time is the work of redemption, directing the revolutions in the world and guiding it toward resurrection, judgment, and consummation. 

Fourth and finally, Edwards's theology is a theology of redemptive history, grounded in and formed by the God who is redeeming, or more specifically, the God who redeems in, through, and as Christ.

Further elaboration of the above points:

First, Jonathan Edwards's theology is fundamentally Trinitarian. Edwards's account of the trinity is the anchor, or in his words, the fountain of all that is. Edwards's theology traces the contours of the trinity so that the ordering, emphasis, and teleology (final /designed/ planned aim) of his thought find its home in his Trinitarian analysis. 

Several key concepts come into focus as a result of this ordering. 

First, Edwards emphasizes personhood. This emphasis grounds his depiction of the Trinity and organizes his discussions concerning God's attributes and his work of redemption. The formal demarcations (what differentiates and distinguishes persons) of the processions (i.e.The Son and Spirit) are not addressed through origin (e.g. begotteness) but through *personhood (i.e. individual understanding and will. God as a person has his own understanding [his own comprehension of objective truth] and will). 

  *For a further discussion on "personhood" click here. 

Second, Edwards develops his formal analysis of the processions in terms of the beatific vision. The Father gazes upon the Son and the Son upon the Father, not in a detached fashion, but with delight (the Spirits spiration). In other words, the happiness of the Father and Son is the Spirit, and the vision of God shared by Father and Son, is, in Edwards' phrase, 'happifying'. (makes one happy)  

Last, as an account of mutual beholding in the Godhead leading to affections, Edwards' depiction of the Trinity serves as the archetype (he is the source and model; we are like him) for creaturely knowledge of God, i.e. knowing God requires apprehension that happifies.

Second, God descends to create the world and sustains it (GOD is the first cause and initiator who comes to us. We do not go up to him). Edwards refers to this as God's emanation. God is diffusive (outward flowing); he is communicative *(shares and passes along things about himself by words and actions) in both his imminent (within the Trinity) and economic (outward exchange/ interaction) existence. God is a God who reveals himself in the world for the purpose of affectionate knowledge (of others) which is an image of his own inner Trinitarian self-knowing. (God is happy in what he sees and knows about himself and seeks to bring others into this happiness),

*and we are like him in this way. As we receive love from him we desire to pass it along to others. He is the source of that love, for himself first and then to and for us and out to others through us. We are conduits.

This grounds the third point, that God sustains creation for the purpose of perfecting this affectionate knowledge as well as perfecting the union believers have with Christ. God is guiding creation to resurrection, judgment, and consummation, which, for the elect, entails the full beatific vision of God (we shall be like him when we see him as he is), or true participation in God's self-knowing and self-loving. The parallel of God's emanation is thus, in Edwards's terminology, *remanation, the glory of God received and communicated back to its divine source.

*This is at the heart of our value. We are valuable because we can experience and enjoy God who is most valuable, expressing our value of him back to him and out to others by pointing others to him.

The Trinity, as the fountain, gives shape to all theology so that the beautification thread formed in his doctrine of the Trinity is woven throughout the whole until it finds its perfection in consummation (i.e. eternal glory). Edward's theology, in this sense, it's cyclical. Everything moves from God, and everything returns to him in judgment. The elect continue on this trajectory (past judgment) to God, while the reprobate does not. 

Rom 11:36  For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Along with being cyclical, Edwards thought, is teleological. The elect do not disappear into God, but commune with God eternally, because this eternal union is *asymptotic – always (throughout eternity) growing closer without collapsing into a singular entity. 

* asymptotic - adjective Mathematics.

1. of or pertaining to an asymptote (a straight line approached by a given curve as one variable in the equation of the curve approaches infinity).
2. (of a function) approaching a given value as an expression containing a variable tends to infinity. 
3. (of two functions) so defined that their ratio approaches unity as the independent variable approaches a limit or infinity. 
4. (of a formula) becoming increasingly exact as a variable approaches a limit, usually infinity. 
5. coming into consideration as a variable approaches a limit, usually infinity: asymptotic property; asymptotic behavior.

Fourth, Christ as the image of God, is the locus (central focal point or location) of revelation to the creature and as God- man, is the point of mediation between God and man. Affectionate knowledge of God, as noted above, entails beholding God. Christ reveals God in his excellencies, calling the elect to behold and see his goodness and beauty. Redemption, through Christ work, is the central thread that shapes Edwards entire theological project. Redemption is what the world was created for and redemption entails God's revealing himself in Christ with affectionate creaturely response.

End of book excerpt
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If redemption is what the world was created for and the rebellion of man proceeds and necessitates redemption then the fall was part of God's plan from the beginning.

1Pet 1:18  knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. 20  He was foreknown before the foundation of the world (i.e. before anything was created, which of course includes mankind) but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you

In order for Christ to be foreknown as the redeemer, it also had to be known (by God) why or who he was redeeming i.e. that redemption was even necessary. There is no redemption if there is nothing that needs to be paid for i.e. bought back. 

Redeem defined.