Awareness
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I think it's more than ironic that the end of being transformed into the image of Christ in the local churches produces people that go to meetings, conferences, and training's all the time ... with some "Oh Lord Jesuses" in between. Some image that is, to be transformed into. What a joke!
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What's normal about the local church? If you're feeling abnormal it's cuz ya got local churchism in ya.
You sound like a man with a lot of bitterness that you need to let go of. In my opinion.
MacDuff
Movingon
What Igzy said is something to be taken into consideration. That he didn’t like it when I said the same thing on another thread, doesn’t take away from the benefit of what he says here. Pray, have a real relationship with God and his Son through the Spirit. Stop condemning yourself when God and Jesus do not condemn you. Read your Bible at the feet of Jesus so you will know the difference. This is all key. What’s more, it’s very basic. Everything will fall into place if this is followed. It should be true of Christian communities as well as individually. When it is not, that’s when human rulers are required in the community. And that so many Christian communities require human rulers says a great deal about Christianity, in my opinion.
You have to ask yourself,
“What is it that I want to do and what do I like to do? With whom do I like to do it, me or more than just me? When I ask God about these things, what does he say about them? When Jesus teaches me from Scripture, what is he teaching? Do I interpret that teaching to fit my own likes and dislikes or the likes and dislikes of others? Or do I follow his teaching without interpretive embellishment?
How balanced am I? Do I always condemn myself for certain things that I do? Who do I follow in condemning myself: myself, some other person, or God?
What is Spirituality? Is it something I do, or is it something that is from the Spirit that influences what I think and what I do?
What is the World? What does the word mean in the Biblical text? (Take into consideration there are more than one Greek word with different meanings in the New Testament that are translated as world in the English translations.)"
From what I’ve read by former Recoveryites, they were following a man more than God. That’s what made them Recoveryites, instead of followers of Jesus Christ. They called “Oh Lord Jesus”, but they were following Witness Lee. And in their mind at the time, that was the same as following Jesus Christ. And reality for them became what it was to Witness Lee. Their life became the life of a man, Witness Lee. And now they’re having to deal with that indiscretion. Just as you are. Men are good at laying down issues that lead to a guilt trip to the unwary. Sometimes they’re right in the issue. More often than not they are only right for themselves alone, if for anyone at all. Not for everyone.
Is being a gay Christian wrong? It is to me and probably most on this forum. But is it wrong to them? It’s their thing. If it’s not wrong to them, why should we waste time trying to bash them over the head with Bible verses they understand differently than we do? Just like those on this forum, they need to deal with their own demons, if they are actually demons, before God.
God will deal with each one who has a real desire to follow him in his own time, in his own way. Following men, in my opinion, and I think in the opinion of the Bible, is not what we are supposed to do. It’s why I came out in opposition to following “Christian” leaders. Little understood on this forum unfortunately. It makes what we are doing no different than anyone else who follows men. In Ireland, following the ideas of men caused them to try to physically kill one another. Professed Christians no less. Catholics against Protestants. The same thing happens among Christians elsewhere. They don’t usually try to kill one another physically in the current era. But they do try to kill one another verbally as they bash one another over the head with their doctrines derived through interpretation, while using Bible verses they think backs their interpretations to cut and slice.
I’ve had a couple of people try to kill me on this forum. They didn’t succeed because my life comes from God. That life is eternal life. I worry more about the one who can kill the soul as well as the body. And these people are NOT that one. No matter how hard they try to be so. The point is, don’t listen to people, including yourself, when they are a distraction to what God and his Son are trying to tell you. It will be Jesus you will stand before in the end, not people trying to be spokesmen for God, like the Pope of Rome and Witness Lee. Nor anyone trying to be such, giving them the benefit of the doubt, without their own knowledge.
If you really want freedom from the problem you speak of, you will have to turn to the Father, and to the teaching that Jesus Christ gives you, and to them alone. And if you can find others who are legitimately trying to turn in this same way, then you have the community you need to overcome anything. For it is Christ in us who overcomes in us through the Spirit who indwells us. We can’t be overcomers by ourselves. For some reason, at least it has been so in my experience, there is more power in community, than alone. Ask any Alcoholic. Power against our own flesh, and power against Satan. It’s as if when a community resists Satan, he runs away faster, then he would from an individual. When we try to resist alone, sometimes Satan will stick around, try to argue with us. There is no argument when a community resists. So also the flesh. Why, I haven’t a clue.
But I know the Bible is a book of community, not of individualism. Catholics realize that better than Protestants. Witness Lee tried to emphasize it to the detriment of the community that calls itself the Recovery (not the Local Church Movement, btw; we should have at least enough respect to call them by their rightful name that they have chosen for themselves).
Witness Lee’s greatest mistake was not following what was happening under his very nose in the Recovery in the 70’s. Where a whole lot of people were gathering together, not just on Sundays or a couple of other days in an official capacity, but gathered together in small groups spontaneously, yes spontaneously. I actually witnessed it happen. We would be doing something else altogether and suddenly, without any apparent outward rhyme or reason, a gathering would occur. I didn’t see that in the current manifestation of the Recovery. In the 70’s, prayreading was in relation to the Bible alone. Not to Witness Lee’s writings, or some composite of Bible and Lee’s writings as if Bible and Lee’s writings are both Scripture, as it is today. It’s the same thing that has been the reality in Catholicism at least a half Millennium prior to the existence of Protestantism. They believe the Bible alone is Scripture, just like Lee as a Protestant did. Just like Protestantism. But Catholicism doesn’t limit the word of God to the Bible. All of their approved writings, like the encyclicals of the Pope, are also the word of God. The Recovery has done the same thing. The Bible and Lee’s writings have become the word of God to them. Just like in most of Christianity, the hymnal is considered the word of God, but don’t expect Protestants to own up to that fact.
The Bible alone is Scripture. That is agreed upon by the vast majority of Christians. It is Scripture that Jesus uses to teach all who are in him. No other writings of men. But not in the sense of Sola Scriptura as is the Protestant banner. The idea of Sola Scriptura has shown itself to include the interpretations of Scripture by men. Ergo you have Lutherans following the ideas of the writings of Luther, The Reformed and Presbyterians following primarily the ideas of the writings of John Calvin. The Churches of Christ following the ideas of the writings of Alexander Campbell. This is a great mistake that is the source of denominationalism, in my opinion.
And I should say here, that in my opinion, denominationalism is just the logical conclusion of the divisions that Paul spoke of in 1Corinthians. If the divisions that Paul spoke of are wrong, and he certainly seemed to think so, how much more denominationalism that we see today in Christianity that far transcends any notion of division that Paul dealt with.
MacDuff