The way to peace

GodStories	A story is being written every day. A story of love and relationship and danger and adventure. A story about romantic relationship at a time of epoch war. This is a story about God, the spiritual war He wages, and the millions and billions of people He loves...not anomously, but intimately!

GodStories

A story is being written every day. A story of love and relationship and danger and adventure. A story about romantic relationship at a time of epoch war. This is a story about God, the spiritual war He wages, and the millions and billions of people He loves...not anomously, but intimately!

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Posted by: god_stories Original: 7/4/2009 1:59 PM Views: 27 Comments: 7 eProps: 4 Read Comments Post a Comment Back to Your Xanga Site

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Saturday, July 04, 2009

In the 1946 movie 'The Razor's Edge' (based on the novel by W Somerset Maugham) the Shri Ganesha, an Indian spiritual leader, says "...there are three roads that lead God: good works performed for the love of God; Faith and worship; and a third path that leads through knowledge to wisdom...but the three paths are but one path. It is written that the wise man lives from within himself, which is from God...from within his own heart. This is the way to ... everlasting peace."

John 14 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. I am going there [my Father's house] to prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going."Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?" Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life."

Each of us either search for meaning and understanding in the string of moments that comprise a life or become certain in what can not be known with certainty...only by faith. In what am I certain...in what do I place my faith? ...and what do I seek?

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." Hebrews 11:1

Faith is not belief without proof, but trust without reservations. --Elton Trueblood

"You can only apprehend the Infinite by a faculty that is superior to reason." - Plotinus

It is not as a child that I believe and confess Jesus Christ. My hosanna is born of a furnace of doubt.-- Fyodor Dostoyevski

Doubt isn't the opposite of faith; it is an element of faith. --Paul Tillich

Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd. – Voltaire

Man is what he believes.—Anton Chekhov

Christianity is not a message which has to be believed, but an experience of faith that becomes a message. --Edward Schillebeeckx

The farther we go, the more the ultimate explanation recedes from us, and all we have left is faith. --Vaclav Hlavatz

Posted 7/4/2009 1:59 PM - 27 Views - 4 eProps - 7 comments

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7 Comments

I read a lot of stories by Somerset Maugham and his writings to me seamed to be about the fear of tragedy, not peace. That quote from Razor's edge then makes sense. If a person believes all differenct roads and religions lead to God, then that's a pretty shaky foundation, I'd fear the unknown also. But we can have faith in the sure word of God, this is the solid faoundation that stands the test of time and all kinds of stormy weather (Mat 7).

Posted 7/17/2009 7:12 AM by templestream - reply

@templestream -

Who can argue with that classic Christian doctrine..."...sure word of God...the solid foundation..." Of course, in a post Christian society there are many that do. I'm not one of them, but I do wonder how useful it is to use that point. I mean was it my faith in the Word that lead to my conversion (or even a deeper faith) or was it a 'tap on the shoulder' by a loving God? So what does 'lead us to God?' If it truly is the leading of the Spirit then isn't it true that any road CAN lead to God...not that all roads DO lead to God? Wouldn't a loving God honor our 'seeking' heart?

God is showing me that the Bible is merely a description of the way the world is. I can come across some fantastical idea in the Bible that so can't be true...if my experience of the world is true. I've gotten in the habit of not believing the Bible only because its in there, but have brought my doubts and questions directly to the living God. So far He has allowed me to EXPERIENCE deep truths...and that has made all the difference. This approach moves a concept I really do WANT to believe into a revelation of truth that IS true, ie I experience it as true!

I'm likely preaching to the choir here, but your comment sparked these thoughts...and I like talking about it. I'm a bit of a verbal processors

Praise the living God!

Posted 7/18/2009 11:02 PM by god_stories - reply

Your words are true: "any road CAN lead to God" But the guru's are not:

"...there are three roads that lead to God: good works performed for the love of God; Faith and worship; and a third path that leads through knowledge to wisdom...but the three paths are but one path."

The difference is all the difference in the world Matthew 7.14 - there is a narrow path that leads to life.

Posted 7/19/2009 12:58 AM by templestream - reply

@templestream -

Ah...just noticed you replied...sorry for delay. Yet again, why can not this(ese) road(s) ultimately lead to God? ...if its true any road CAN lead to God?

I've found that an unequivocal presentation of 'truth' is a pretty sure way to end conversation...when talking with a cynic or post-modern secularist. In Jn 16 Jesus says that He is Truth...what does that mean? He doesn't say that He speaks truth or knows truth, but that He IS truth. Seems that truth perhaps is relational. So I wonder if I can trust God to lead the seeking heart within the Guru (or my secular friends) into deeper relationship with Him. And perhaps God would choose to use me to share with my friends (who share the Guru's belief) my understanding of truth, while I openly receive their's. Honestly I've discovered deeper relationship with God in that way. I don't compromise (but hold lightly) my belief in (or about) a living God, and encourage my friends to hold lightly their beliefs while seeking deeper intimacy with the living God. I find it a joyful and rich experience...the alternative seems a heavy burden (taking responsibility for another's salvation or faith).

btw - I love Matt 7. I wonder what is meant by 'enter by the narrow gate' here? Should we keep our behavior, beliefs, faith, hope in line to experience life? My sense is that its not behavior (trying to be a good boy I've found isn't life giving) and not beliefs (b/c I find my beliefs are not static, but become deeper over time)...I wonder if its hope. It seems to better fit the context of the entire chapter...and is life giving.

Praise the living God!

Posted 7/27/2009 9:47 PM by god_stories - reply

"Seems that truth perhaps is relational. So I wonder if I can trust God to lead the seeking heart within the Guru (or my secular friends) into deeper relationship with Him." - I agree truth is relational, but not just in a casual sense, in all aspects. In relating to Jesus on the level He requires, He must be Savior and Lord, Only in this aspect does He become "the door" for you. Jesus Himself warned of backdoor spirituality:

Joh 10:1 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber.

Joh 10:7 Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep.

Joh 10:8 All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.

Joh 10:9 I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.

Joh 10:10 The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

Notice Jesus calls those spiritual leaders who came before him, who said they "had the truth," "thieves and robbers" (John 10.8). He doesn't really have good things to say about figures like Buddha. Look and what the Krishna website says: "In the Bhagavad-gita (“The Song of God”), Lord Krishna—a real person—tells us that He is God and reveals many things about Himself." - Who is Krishna? | Krishna.com - Many people are led AWAY from the truth, not TO the truth, because of these false teachings. The overall effect is negative not positive.

Posted 7/28/2009 12:32 AM by templestream - reply

@templestream -

Thanks...enjoying this. I agree with what I interpret to be your main points. Jesus is the door...and God hates idols. Jesus mentions as most important commandments (matt 22): Love God and love your neighbor.

I'm discovering that life is a journey. So if we believe in Jesus (jn 3:16) that is only the start of the journey. I wonder what Jesus 'requires' ('He must be Savior...only in this aspect does He become 'the door.) When He walked the earth He seemed to do lots of inviting and relational stuff. The ones that 'required' stuff of the people were the pharisees, the religious leaders of the day.

I met a lady a few years ago who had changed her name to Guru. She experienced really cool spiritual stuff through the Yogi tradition. Her experience from her childhood was that Christians were dumb and angry. It seems that Christians in her life told her who God was...and she didn't experience that as true and there wasn't a safe space for her to process the disonance between what she experienced and what she was told. Later in life she experienced relationship with God through the Yogi tradition...and that felt true. Now when I as a follower of Jesus met her many years later when she was elderly, what would Jesus have me do. Explain to her the 'Truth' (objective/absolute or otherwise)? She already had that forced upon her before. What I did was love her. I and others prayed for her and she experienced powerful answer to prayers from Jesus. She realized that it was Jesus who had been leading her.

So I hear your heart to see people 'saved.' I wonder if Jesus is as black and white as what I'm hearing you present. Not that the truth isn't true...you and I probably mostly agree on the basics of Christian faith, but more along the lines of how does God being a mystery affect our interpretation of His word?

Posted 7/28/2009 10:50 AM by god_stories - reply

This is an awesome post...I loved Of Human Bondage when I was young...

catzndogz9

Posted 8/9/2009 10:40 PM by catzndogz9

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