The divided outlook

"If you seek Me you will find me, WHEN YOU SEEK ME WITH ALL YOUR HEART" / "The divided outlook"

The reason many professing christians never mature is because they cannot do the first statement above due to the fact they are living in the second statement. You cannot live in faith and fear simultaneously. Faith and fear, being opposites, exist simultaneously in humans. Lest it seem I have contradicted myself in the span of two sentences, let me explain. Faith/fear are two sides of "the same coin" so to speak. They both exist at the same time in humans, but one is manifested (or in operation), while the other is present, but hidden (not manifested).

In the unbelieving who live their lives in darkness, fear is their "seeing". To the professing christian, faith is SUPPOSED to be his "seeing". However it doesn't work that way in many, if not most, because they have a divided outlook. This is how the divided outlook works in most professing christians. They look to the past and future, but have no present. They believe in the historical man Jesus who God sent into the world for sin and His death, burial and resurrection. They also believe He is coming again and when they die they will go into heaven and will live in a big house beside streets paved with gold.

In between this belief in past and future, they live their daily lives in fear. I'm not speaking of nail biting fear, but the type of fear one is not even conscious of because to live otherwise they view it as not being "reasonable", "normal", or "wise". They continuously talk of how defeated they are. They are more conscious of sin then they are of Christ. The end result of what they believe is that Christ's work on the cross is of no benefit to them other than to "push the forgiveness button" when they need it. He's just a talisman to them-an object held to act as a charm to avert evil and bring good fortune. "Need forgiveness? Take Jesus!" The rest of the time He's on the back burner. They witness to others and tell them they need to get saved, but in their own life "being saved"hasn't produced any benefit because they still live by reason, emotion and fear. What they are actually doing is "continuing in sin so that grace may abound". They know not that true christianity exists in the replication of the pattern which Jesus showed by His life-IN THEIR OWN LIVES! In this they are no different than the jews of Jesus' day-they looked BACK to "Abraham is our father", and FORWARD to a coming messiah who would literally set on a fancy chair in Jerusalem and put down all other authority with His heavenly army.

Jesus didn't come the way the teachers and theologians and bible scholars of His day thought He would. The exact same thing is happening in this day. God always does the opposite of what the highminded ones think He is going to do.