As for opening yourself up to external influences, I don't cotton to the idea of "let Jesus into your heart" either. Isn't he supposed to be in there already? If so, who did you let in there?"

Mark,

Let's put it this way: man is alleged to be in God's "image". If so this means external shape & appeareance only. Because we neglect the other two steps of our development: letting God implant his nature in us ("fertilization", followed by "gestation" or spiritual development) and grow us into supernatural entities like Himself--on his plane of existence.(He won't inflict eternal life on the unwilling, or allow it to fall into the ahnds of the corrupt.)

That's the real meaning of Jesus' little confab with ol' Nicodemus--not "put your hands on the TV set and accept JE-sus(-uh) into your heart, friend sinner". The Greek philosophical/Egypto-Babylonian mysteries idea of the immortal soul corrupts this process, leaving man in a position before God comparable to that of say, Mickey Mouse before man: "like" its creator enough to be amusing in contrast with its basic animal nature, but not quite part of the family/species. With religionists of all stripes serving as the Vet or Caretaker: "Daddy, let me keep him, I'll fed him and walk him and clean up his poop and..." You get the idea.

It's just that we swing between perverse humility and anthropocentric arrogance too wildly and often to realize that our true significance in the universe IS our insignificance: that's how God glorifies himself, by making power out of powerlessness, the Oak out of the acorn, and whatever other schmaltzy metaphor you can conjure up that fits the concept.

F4