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Posts: 738
Sun, 16-Mar-08 21:22:20
LAGoff,
Can you elaborate on this "dying to self" you mentioned?
Simply put, it's setting aside a life that involves sin and death and taking up a new Life in Christ. So it's not to be confused with keeping our old life and simply putting forth effort to clean it up and live as righteously as we can. Because the problem isn't really what I do or the things I do or think I can do, so much as who or what I am. Paul basically writes in 1Cor 15, I am either of Adam, flesh and blood, that will die and return to the dust of the earth or I am of Christ and of heaven and bear the image of my Father. We don't keep this life. We die to it. We bury it. We are raised up to Life that does not depend on anything we do. We now trust God to do in us what we are unable to do.
That's my understanding or view of it. Not all Christians understand it this way. Some may basically consider it as renewing our efforts to be good and try to live the teachings of Jesus.
Either one is difficult though. The second one is impossible to succeed at. It will result in failure. So although my personal understanding still involves a desire to walk in the will of God it can not end up in failure as the second interpretation can.
As for mystics, Christian mystics tend to look at this in the same terms that most mystics do, (regardless of religion), which is about identification with our true Self (purely spiritual) apart from the flesh. I'm not sure describing what they do as 'merging with God'. From my studies with a mystic there is no change or becoming or merging going on. It's more about coming into the realization of what you've always been all along.
I haven't studied Kabbalah, but I've read some of the Jewish mystics as I have Sufis and Christians, and Buddhist mystics and I see the same things in all of them.
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