"Subordination..........................."

In beginning Romans, Chapter Eight, somehow or other our Wednesday evening class got into what the teacher noted as three ways that believers often take in living out their faith: (a) by a set of doctrinal rules; (b) by a series of formulas; and (c) by an experience. He proposed that, while all possessed some value for us, the first led to legalism, the second to “mechanical” rather than “Spiritual” structure”, and the third to becoming disappointed in the “ups and downs” that tend to follow all of us, even “in” Christ. It was the latter that gave me momentary pause, my own walk much constructed and, indeed, held together by those times of encounter, mileposts wherein the Gospel proved itself rooted and grounded in the truth of His resurrection. I understand his point; and I agree that it is possible for one to get side-tracked, expecting the manifestation to be exactly the same and then becoming disappointed when “faith” doesn’t find results. The error, though, lies in thinking that we can somehow dictate to Him how He is to act on our behalf. Having invited the Spirit into our state of affairs, we ignore His identity as the Third Person of the Godhead and tend to yet believe “authority” is a matter given unto us. We call the shots. We direct His involvement in our life… In the Old Testament, the Hebrew word for “glory” actually means “heaviness” or “weight”. Our knowing it in all its fullness would be like submerging into the depths of the ocean until the pressure is more than we can bear. When Moses asked to so see the Creator, he was granted such occasion only after being tucked safely away in the “cleft of the rock”. In the New Testament, however, the Greek root for the same term translates to “something channeled from another source”; and when I mentioned in class my recent discovery of this, one woman immediately received the idea of the Holy Ghost “in” me originating from somewhere “beyond” me; but whether or not she absorbed the truth of “that which is channeled having a mind of His own” was questionable. Always: He remains deity; and our role in this is “Just as I am, Lord”……