In Conformance with God's Laws

In the previous post, I hammered out the concept of social stability as clannish extended family household living. As always, physical DNA is far less important than spiritual DNA; the ritual symbolizes something above the human plane.
The Laws of God are based on a presumption you would prefer spiritual enlightenment in your human circle of associates, but dare not assume it happens that often. Thus, the point of having Laws is to offer a plausible path to social stability and peace on earth that includes everyone. Rituals are applied to everyone in the household in hopes at least some of them will sense the divine calling first to love the Laws of God as His revelation. Then, it is hoped that builds to a point where spiritual birth occurs. God alone controls the miracle of spiritual birth and never explains how He uses His Laws to bring it about. What He does explain is that He uses repentance under His Laws to breathe life into dead spirits. We are left focusing on how to abstract the Laws to our own context, because that’s how God has chosen to grow His Kingdom.
Our modern Christian mythology of “born again” does not reflect the original teaching. It is utterly and wholly impossible for a human to choose spiritual birth because the fallen mind cannot even want it. The entire action takes place in the Spirit Realm and nothing of fallen human resources touches it. Spiritual birth is entirely a decision of God and humans have no say in the matter whatsoever, at least so far as Scripture can explain it at all.
Therefore, in conforming ourselves to the extended family household for which God designed us — hard-wired — we build the covenant family. Even under Moses, being born of Israeli blood was simply an advantage of being the shortest path to becoming a Son of the Law. You still had to make that conscious commitment to embrace the Covenant individually. Tons of help and even some coercion, but you could opt out and surrender your status along with the obligations, becoming a Gentile in effect. Granted, most of Old Testament History is loaded with people failing to grasp this fundamental fact, but the Covenant did not apply to anyone who didn’t embrace it as a moral commitment. By the same token, anyone born outside the nation could go through the conversion process and become a member of the Covenant, and thus a Son of the Law with all the privileges of full citizenship.
This symbolizes becoming a Son of the Spirit. (Yes, I know we prefer the gender neutral stuff, but in Hebrew thought and in English grammar, the masculine is the inclusive gender. Get over it.) If you are a Child of God, you are included in the family. As elder of my spiritual clan, I may not be able to integrate you into our earthly operations — what we call “the church” — but I can’t pretend God isn’t using you for His glory. Your particular doctrine and practice is yours to work out with God; you still have to figure out whether it will fit in this or that church. However, the fundamental nature of “church” is a family unit operating more or less as an ancient Hebrew clan.
Again, it’s an alien concept to the West, including Western Christianity. American Christians are so completely bathed in the Western rationalist mode that we reflexively think churches should be organized like anything else we do in Western society. We make church like a business of sorts. That is completely wrong. Conforming to God’s Laws for the church means you toss that model in the trash, and you realize this is about “marrying into” the church clan. Given we have so very far to go, just getting started thinking about it is enough for now. However, insofar as humanly possible, your church should be residing in a single space like a village. You should be tripping over each other 24/7 — physically. You don’t “go to” church; you assemble where you live at the appointed day and time to worship. You’ve been at church all along. Chew on that while we leave undefined all the possible rules and regulations.
The point is this: That all-day-long involvement in each other’s lives is how we conform to God’s standards. Social cohesion and stability is built on embracing the expectations of the Laws as a whole, but if you aren’t breathing each other’s air, you can’t begin to conform. It’s not an aspect of your earthly existence, but defines it. This is the assumption; whether we can, and to what degree we can execute this in our current social and historical context is the big question each of you must work out for yourself. If you truly want what God says is His glory, you’ll work toward that goal. His power and mercy will enable those things He regards essential for you. No one says you aren’t supposed to get involved in the wider world so fundamentally hostile to all of this, but if you have no consciousness of the ideal, you can’t represent the Kingdom very well.
Holiness is defined as a desire for God’s ways in your life.