August 15, 2021

....I awake this morning with thoughts from our conversation about God and goodness. I want to just jot down a few for you to reinforce what we talked about and perhaps as a foundation for a larger article.

Man is separated from the life of God being confined under the knowledge of good and evil. Every question beginning with the premise "How / Why does a good God allow...[fill in the blank]?" or this premise, "If God is so good, then why...[fill in the blank]?" reveals that separation. All human unbelief and offense over God is based in the experiential violation of that knowledge.

To come to know God in Whom is eternal life by faith, one must overcome the skandalon [offense] of the violation of his natural human knowledge of good. There is no other way to enter into eternal life. God may meet us at the level of our knowledge of good to reach us with His life,  but He will never allow Himself to be defined by or conformed to our unbelief based in it. Whatever goodness He avails of to experientially meet us where we are is for the purpose of leading us to repentance for our unbelief through our worship of the knowledge of good. And if that does not succeed, then the only other avenue left to reach us is experiential evil.

The problem with most "faith" and "faith teaching" in a land where experiential good tends to prevail (ie, "the good life") is that God's people do the very thing God will not, which is to appease the knowledge of good in order to explain God and win men to "faith." Most believers "faith" is actually defined by their own knowledge of good, and they do not really know God very well. if at all.

The reason for the great falling away or apostasy to come is because God will fail to accommodate the church's worship of their knowledge of good any longer in His name. Experiential goodness will be removed and replaced by experiential tribulation on a level the church would never accept. The church has subtly converted the mantra "God is good" into the belief that "Good is god." Your pansy Christian friends who are steeped in this are going to all fall away from the faith unless they repent of their worship of the experiential goodness of God as their god.

This has been the test and the skandalon for all of us. There is an experiential spiritual knowing of God that remains beyond the veil of our knowing of experiential goodness. Every one of us must perpetually cross that veil to meet our knowing of God in eternal life according to where He is and not according to where we want Him to be with us. This is the proof of true surrender, love and discipleship. Anyone who cannot finally submit to entering into the knowing of God through the violation of his veil of the knowledge of God's goodness will fail at that point. Jesus perpetually prays for all of us that our "faith will not fail."

I encourage you to find time to listen to the audio series on my website called Skandalon by Ray McCollum. I still listen to it these 30 years later. It is a must for every true believer.  

Thanks again Pam for your steadfast faithfulness to us as friends even under trial. We have passed through several skandalons together and are still friends. That is true covenant and community. I also encourage you to listen to the message by Larry Lea on that same webpage further down called Restoring Friendship.

Blessings and love in the overcoming faith, hope to be back soon


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Chris Anderson
New Meadow Neck, Rhode Island

First Love Ministry
- a ministry of Anglemar Fellowship
http://www.firstloveministry.org

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