Theme Song: I Stand in Awe of You
Dear Father,
You are Sovereign over the hearts and minds of Your people. Please help us to understand that You have perfected our ignorance in every way. You have circumcised from our hearts those destructive things which we ought to be ignorant of. You have allowed the Word of Christ to be preached to Your elect that their minds may be enlightened to the Gospel. You have given them new hearts which have new eyes that see Your glory and Your Kingdom's work. Please save Your Bride from the false feelings of necessities for destructive knowledge which can never satisfy. Give her faith to believe in You though there is knowledge that we will only have on Your glorious Day when we see You face to face. Forgive my willful and hidden sin and grant me faithfulness in my inmost being through Jesus Christ.
In Jesus Christ's Name,
Amen
7 So, as the Holy Spirit says:
My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge.
“Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the Law of your God,
I also will ignore your children. Hos 4
The Father gives a great warning to those who cannot call themselves ignorant [in the mind] of the Words of Christ. To those who have been granted this Knowledge, there is a calling to receive and believe the Word, to take to heart everything in these Words, to cling to Them, and not depart from Them...
But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48
When the granted Word of God is rejected, God may choose to harden the hard hearts of the ones who have rejected the Truth.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles....28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. Rom 1
When we do not receive and believe, hold dear, the Word of God, we are giving the evil spirits free reign on our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies. For surely our bodies are hosts for the spirits. For us who have believed, our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit and no one can harm us. But for those who have been hardened in heart, the evil spirits are given power to accuse, condemn, give momentary deceptive pleasure, and other soul wrangling acts.
43 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” Matt 12
There is the most terrible outcome for the one who has shared in the heavenly Gift and tasted the power of the Spirit and still chooses to reject the Word of God: the committing of the unforgivable sin.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly Gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Heb 6
May our faithful Savior set a guard on our hearts that we may not become entangled in any corrupting slavery to sin. Only in Him are we granted the power that raised Christ from the dead. May we humbly accept the Word planted within us that saves us.
20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.21 It would have been better for them not to have known the Way of righteousness, than to have known It and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”2 Peter 2
Dispelled Ignorance of God
Indeed, by the abounding grace of God, the chosen ones are granted a removal or dispelling of the ignorance of mind and heart of the Words and Character of God the Father revealed through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the full representation of the Father's perfection. Our ignorance of mind is removed by the "heavens which portray the glory of God and the skies which proclaim the work of His Hands". It is removed as we hear and read the Words of God in our Holy Bible. In His grace we all have access to His Word through some means. Indeed, even the spirits in prison heard the Gospel from the very Spirit through which Jesus went and preached to them (I Peter 3).
To us who have received and believed His Words through the faith gifted to us by God, the Holy Spirit opens our hearts that we may no longer be ignorant of the Light of the glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ. We are given a new spirit and the new heart. The Holy Spirit reveals the character of Jesus Christ. The eternal blessings, the gifts of the Spirit, and the things prepared for those who love God are revealed to our hearts through the Spirit.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the Light of the Knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 2 Cor 4:6
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the Knowledge of God. Col 1
Faith that Sustains our Ignorance of the Perfect Glory of God
There is a day when we will behold the perfection of the Father and see our Savior Face to face. At that time our mortal and perishable bodies with be clothed with the Immortal and Imperishable. At this time, our Knowledge of God will be completed and perfected.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away...12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. I Cor 13
Our incomplete knowledge and understanding of the Father at the present time is satisfied by our faith and hope in the eternal glory that awaits us. Our faith will also allow us to have the Knowledge of God that we ought to have at the present time.
But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. Gal 5:5
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. I John 3
Dear Bride, may your knowledge of the Father in Jesus Christ grow more and more. In Him we find the Light of Life. Our hope will not disappoint us for surely the Father is pleased to call us His own and God poured His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Surely our Lord longs to be gracious to us and rises to show us compassion. Healing and comfort are under His wings. His storehouses are filled with righteousness and eternal pleasures are at His right Hand. May we hide ourselves under His glorious wings until the disasters of this world pass over us.
He is humbling many of us in the present days and continues to do so. We know that as we humble ourselves under His mighty Hand, He will lift us up in due time. May we cast our anxiety onto Him for He cares for us.
We proclaim that Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was born in the flesh, is our Lord, God, and Savior!
Love Forever in Christ,
Preethi
Mom's teaching notes from today's phone conference with Mom, Anand, Prasanna, and I
Dear Father,
You are Sovereign over the hearts and minds of Your people. Please help us to understand that You have perfected our ignorance in every way. You have circumcised from our hearts those destructive things which we ought to be ignorant of. You have allowed the Word of Christ to be preached to Your elect that their minds may be enlightened to the Gospel. You have given them new hearts which have new eyes that see Your glory and Your Kingdom's work. Please save Your Bride from the false feelings of necessities for destructive knowledge which can never satisfy. Give her faith to believe in You though there is knowledge that we will only have on Your glorious Day when we see You face to face. Forgive my willful and hidden sin and grant me faithfulness in my inmost being through Jesus Christ.
In Jesus Christ's Name,
Amen
17 I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know Him better. 18 I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which He has called you, the riches of His glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and His incomparably great power for us who believe. Eph 1
The message of God for us is that He is perfecting our ignorance. He is not only removing our ignorance of His Spiritual Being, His workings, and His Word. He is also restoring and maintaining our ignorance of earthly knowledge which we were not meant to have. He has called us to be "innocent of what is evil and knowledgeable of what is good". In the very beginning the first man and woman had eaten from that tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and thereafter, mankind has become ignorant of the purity of heart and mind, that result in great peace and satisfaction, deep fellowship in the Father's love, and His eternal pleasures. There is also a removed ignorance concerning those destructive slaveries of the mind and heart which proceed the consequences of sin.
For from the beginning we know that the consequences of sin involve not only the curse of the toil of work and bearing the pains of physical life, but also the ever-present fear of death...ultimately separation of our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls from union with God. Our minds fall into the seas of torment, despair, and confusion. Our hearts were cast upon beds of sorrow and fear, hatred and anger. We become very knowledgeable of these sorrows and the darkness that overcomes the man of lawlessness.
For from the beginning we know that the consequences of sin involve not only the curse of the toil of work and bearing the pains of physical life, but also the ever-present fear of death...ultimately separation of our hearts, minds, bodies, and souls from union with God. Our minds fall into the seas of torment, despair, and confusion. Our hearts were cast upon beds of sorrow and fear, hatred and anger. We become very knowledgeable of these sorrows and the darkness that overcomes the man of lawlessness.
29 They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; 31 they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Rom 1
We could not escape this new found knowledge. It was ever present with us, intermingled with the sin that corrupted our being, hardening our hearts and minds so that in that state we could not even receive the True Light that came into the world . For it was only the restoration of the true Knowledge of God that would give us any hope of receiving the Light. Yes, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the True Light who has come into the world.
9 The true Light that gives Light to every man was coming into the world.
10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through Him, the world did not recognize Him. 11 He came to that which was His own, but His own did not receive Him. John 1
Needed Ignorance
The present world can be compared to a conference with many tables. The theme of this conference is knowledge. Each table presents a particular subset of worldly knowledge. A set of promises are made with regard to the knowledge of interest. Men and women of all kinds stand to maintain each table. They stand as representatives of the portrayed worth of the knowledge presented at the table. The types of knowledge range many topics involving money, materials, earthly success, natural disaster, environment, health, mental issues, religion... Before each table stands lines and crowds of eager men and women who have not heard the Knowledge of God and/or who have rejected It. Some are desperate and seeking to survive and to escape the hell that dwells within their souls. Others are seeking to fuel the streams of earthly pleasure that enable their flesh to thrive and that destroy the soul while deceiving the mind and the heart. All these people are discussing with each other the knowledge and the promises which they have heard with one another. They are running to and fro the tables. There are some individuals wavering between deep sorrow and elated glee. Deep inside nothing has satisfied them yet.
But you, Daniel, close up and seal the Words of the scroll until the time of the end. Many will go here and there to increase knowledge.” Dan 12:4
But our heavenly Father has known the one Thing which we ought to know: the love of the Father shown through Jesus Christ. It is His will that the eyes of our hearts comprehend how high and deep is the love of Christ.
And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, 18 may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. Eph 3
It is His will for us to abide in the True Vine of Christ and to let His Words dwell richly in us. From the world's perspective all things are permissible [for us to know], yet our Father knows that certainly we are called to be ignorant, that is, we are called to not know, many and most of all these worldly presentations of their knowledge. He calls us to let the Mind of Christ be in us.
Everyone has heard about your obedience, so I am full of joy over you; but I want you to be wise about what is good, and innocent about what is evil. Rom 16:19
And yet, He calls us to be aware of the devils schemes. He calls us to use worldly wealth to gain friends for ourselves that we may be welcomed into our heavenly dwellings. He calls us to be all things to all people that we may save some and thus to know the people we are called to love. He calls us to use His Spirit's gift of discernment and we are commanded to be the saints who may judge the things of the world with the Word of God in Hand.
16 I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. Matt 10
Ignorance of the Mind
There is a state into which we were all born into: the mind that is ignorant of the Word of God. We did not know the Words of Christ. We were not learned in the discourses of Spiritual men. We did not understand the dialect of the Law of God. We were as sheep without a Shepherd. We did not have faith because we were ignorant of the Words of Christ which the Spirit uses to inspire faith within the elect.
God has shown His patience and mercy to those who did not have the Knowledge of God throughout the millennia.
In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now He commands all people everywhere to repent. Acts 17:30
Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. I Tim 1:13
In the present day, for you and me, the Gospel has been presented to us in His Word and through the Word of the testimonies of the saints among us. The Words of Life are poured out to us in the Word of Life contained in the Bibles we carry and peruse. He commands us to not let our heart be hardened, but that we ought to let His Sword pierce our hearts that we may be circumcised from the world and the evil within us.
“Today, if you hear His voice,
8 do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
8 do not harden your hearts
as you did in the rebellion,
during the time of testing in the desert, Heb 3
But for those who have been taught the Words of God and still reject them, there is another condition that pervades the steering center of the soul: the ignorance of the heart that accompanies the hardening of heart.
The Ignorance and Hardening of the Heart
They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the Life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. Eph 4:18
Without the knowledge of the Words of God (that is, the ignorance of the mind) the ignorance of the heart pervades. Thus, the people who lack the Knowledge of God are not able to direct their hearts into the presence of God and would be destroyed unless the Redeemer intervenes.
“Because you have rejected knowledge,
I also reject you as my priests;
because you have ignored the Law of your God,
I also will ignore your children. Hos 4
The Father gives a great warning to those who cannot call themselves ignorant [in the mind] of the Words of Christ. To those who have been granted this Knowledge, there is a calling to receive and believe the Word, to take to heart everything in these Words, to cling to Them, and not depart from Them...
But the one who does not know and does things deserving punishment will be beaten with few blows. From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked. Luke 12:48
When the granted Word of God is rejected, God may choose to harden the hard hearts of the ones who have rejected the Truth.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles....28 Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, He gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. Rom 1
When we do not receive and believe, hold dear, the Word of God, we are giving the evil spirits free reign on our hearts, minds, souls, and bodies. For surely our bodies are hosts for the spirits. For us who have believed, our bodies are the Temple of the Holy Spirit and no one can harm us. But for those who have been hardened in heart, the evil spirits are given power to accuse, condemn, give momentary deceptive pleasure, and other soul wrangling acts.
43 “When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. 44 Then it says, ‘I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. 45 Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first. That is how it will be with this wicked generation.” Matt 12
There is the most terrible outcome for the one who has shared in the heavenly Gift and tasted the power of the Spirit and still chooses to reject the Word of God: the committing of the unforgivable sin.
4 It is impossible for those who have once been enlightened, who have tasted the heavenly Gift, who have shared in the Holy Spirit, 5 who have tasted the goodness of the Word of God and the powers of the coming age, 6 if they fall away, to be brought back to repentance, because to their loss they are crucifying the Son of God all over again and subjecting him to public disgrace. Heb 6
May our faithful Savior set a guard on our hearts that we may not become entangled in any corrupting slavery to sin. Only in Him are we granted the power that raised Christ from the dead. May we humbly accept the Word planted within us that saves us.
20 If they have escaped the corruption of the world by knowing our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and are again entangled in it and overcome, they are worse off at the end than they were at the beginning.21 It would have been better for them not to have known the Way of righteousness, than to have known It and then to turn their backs on the sacred command that was passed on to them.22 Of them the proverbs are true: “A dog returns to its vomit,”and, “A sow that is washed goes back to her wallowing in the mud.”2 Peter 2
Dispelled Ignorance of God
Indeed, by the abounding grace of God, the chosen ones are granted a removal or dispelling of the ignorance of mind and heart of the Words and Character of God the Father revealed through Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the full representation of the Father's perfection. Our ignorance of mind is removed by the "heavens which portray the glory of God and the skies which proclaim the work of His Hands". It is removed as we hear and read the Words of God in our Holy Bible. In His grace we all have access to His Word through some means. Indeed, even the spirits in prison heard the Gospel from the very Spirit through which Jesus went and preached to them (I Peter 3).
To us who have received and believed His Words through the faith gifted to us by God, the Holy Spirit opens our hearts that we may no longer be ignorant of the Light of the glory of God in the Face of Jesus Christ. We are given a new spirit and the new heart. The Holy Spirit reveals the character of Jesus Christ. The eternal blessings, the gifts of the Spirit, and the things prepared for those who love God are revealed to our hearts through the Spirit.
For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” made His light shine in our hearts to give us the Light of the Knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ. 2 Cor 4:6
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of His will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please Him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the Knowledge of God. Col 1
Faith that Sustains our Ignorance of the Perfect Glory of God
There is a day when we will behold the perfection of the Father and see our Savior Face to face. At that time our mortal and perishable bodies with be clothed with the Immortal and Imperishable. At this time, our Knowledge of God will be completed and perfected.
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away...12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. I Cor 13
Our incomplete knowledge and understanding of the Father at the present time is satisfied by our faith and hope in the eternal glory that awaits us. Our faith will also allow us to have the Knowledge of God that we ought to have at the present time.
But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope. Gal 5:5
Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. 3Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure. I John 3
Dear Bride, may your knowledge of the Father in Jesus Christ grow more and more. In Him we find the Light of Life. Our hope will not disappoint us for surely the Father is pleased to call us His own and God poured His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. Surely our Lord longs to be gracious to us and rises to show us compassion. Healing and comfort are under His wings. His storehouses are filled with righteousness and eternal pleasures are at His right Hand. May we hide ourselves under His glorious wings until the disasters of this world pass over us.
He is humbling many of us in the present days and continues to do so. We know that as we humble ourselves under His mighty Hand, He will lift us up in due time. May we cast our anxiety onto Him for He cares for us.
We proclaim that Jesus Christ, the Son of God who was born in the flesh, is our Lord, God, and Savior!
Love Forever in Christ,
Preethi
Mom's teaching notes from today's phone conference with Mom, Anand, Prasanna, and I
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