[Cal]

Originally Posted by Olvin

You then would also have to say the Jesus was taking it too far. He referred to Himself as bread 12 times in John, HE said, "unless we eat and drink Him we have no life", HE said, "all who thirst come to Him and drink", HE breathed the Holy Spirit into the disciples, HE said, "He would be a well in us springing up..." I think its not taken far enough, and I think Jesus did that more often than not.

Not necessarily, because you don't have to conclude that Jesus' statements mean we should commoditize Him the way Lee did. Jesus certainly used these pictures to point out how we could experience him. I'm not saying he didn't say these things, I'm just saying that the way the LC chose to think about them is not healthy. They depersonalize our relationship with the Lord so much that it becomes no more about relating to him as a Person, but imbibing stuff. And that's not what God intended, in my opinion.

Yes, Jesus in scripture says that: "you search (and research) the scripture for in them- you think- you have eternal life". They testify of Him. "Yet refuse to come to me that you may have life". How do you come to Him? He says: come eat the bread life, and come drink the water of life. This is by no means "bypassing and intimate relationship" but pursuing and developing one based on the way the One who loves us has spoken to us. I'd rather learn His love language than yours.

Again nothing wrong with eating and drinking. But if that's all you have, if you are not actually get to know him, then you don't really know life, because eternal life is knowing him. Are you getting to know him, is the question.

You contradict yourself, first you categorize "even life as a metaphor, a characteristic of God", then you say, "if you know life you know God and vice versa". So all those who take the Lord at HIS word to eat, drink, and breath Him for life, according to you have His person also? So to me it boils down to your way (whatever that is) or His. I think I'll go with His.

When I say even life is a metaphor, I mean that all things divine, even life, are expressions of God's Person. Our life and nature are different, more basic, than our person. But his life and nature are just his person. It all begins and ends with his conscious personality, his mind, emotion and will. You can't get his life or nature without getting his person. And if you get his person, you are getting his life and nature. In my experience the LC had this thought that you could get his life without getting his person. No, you can't.

I think my way is his, properly interpreted. I don't think the LC really wanted people to develop their own relationships with God. I think they wanted a kind of mindless experience by which they could exercise group control. I'm not saying your experience is mindless. I'm saying what I was taught in the LC was pretty mindless.

God NEVER tells us to act; He tell us to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow Him. Replace the word "act" with deny yourself and I fully agree. Thats the way God works!

Sorry, I believe that is imbalanced. There are all kinds of commandments, Old and New, which require action. Repenting is action. When I say act I don't mean being pretentious, but I do mean sometimes we have to step out and try to do things that we don't think we can do, and in fact it does often start out with a little "pretending." A simple example is just being nice to someone we can't stand. That requires an initial act of faith. Sure we need grace too, but we don't wait around for grace to fall on us before we are nice. We just obey God's commandment to be kind and tender, even when we don't feel like it. Sometimes it requires, initially at least, acting. That's just our experience.

You blame a grown man's selfish behavior on Bro.Lee? When all is said and done we all will give account. Strange how that works. God gave us all the Bible and the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us into all reality. Yet somehow you seem to have laid this responsibility for the saints in the LCs on one man. Some saints never mature no matter how old they are or what type of position they hold, elder or otherwise.

I'm saying that your prescription that we never need to act ultimately leads to these kinds of experiences. Either you are completely transformed, or you sometimes need to "act" to fulfill God's commandments. This brother thought he shouldn't do that, and the result was he offended his wife. Let's be clear: the brother didn't leave his wife with the dishes because he hated her. He left her because he thought by doing so he might be more spiritual. And that idea came straight from Lee's teaching. Now, when I act in faith and fellowship with God, my experience is God's grace rushes in to empower me to fulfill his commandments in a life-filled way. But if I just waited around for grace to fall on me to do what I should I wouldn't even get out of bed to go to work half the time.

Well, WL surely made some very serious mistakes, but where all his errors spring from were not all errors. He labored with the talent given to him by the Lord. I am not ashamed to say that my book shelves are lined with the fruit of his labor.

I don't mind if you appreciate Lee. But if you think he is at the front rank of those ministering the truth I think that is a big mistake. This goes back to your original assertion, which was basically that your view of the purpose of life culminated in Lee's characteristic synopsis. My point is that "express God by being filled with his life and nature" has a big, big hole in it. And the hole is that it doesn't mention knowing God's person, and it doesn't mention obedience to the personal conscious leading of a Person. Lee's life-and-nature model leaves too much to spontaneity and unconsciousness. I.e. we eat and transformation happens. In my experience, eating leads to being more aware of God's presence, which causes me to be more aware of his personal leading, which (hopefully) leads to CONSCIOUS obedience, and it's in that obedience that transformation really happens.

I don't think transformation is about getting your "nature" magically changed. Nowhere does the Bible actually say that. There may be something like that going on, but the Bible doesn't tell us to focus on that. Transformation, in my experience, is about God teaching you, through his personal leading to think, feel and act in a completely different way. Transformation happens with the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2), that is learning to think differently. Now it is a learning that we could not get without the Spirit teaching us, but it is still a conscious learning. It's not just an unconscious changing of our "nature."

Brother, let me say from experience you never know what a man will do other than sin, even "godly" men.

Fair enough.

Let me say after much reflection, it is you ALSO Igzy, who are actually in serious danger of being a hindrance. There are many many saints who are seeking encouragement, comfort and direction because of the pain they experienced leaving the LCs. Even children of abusive parents need to be able to salvage childhood joys. Abusive parents my have taken there children on wonderful vacations, celebrated all the special days of the year, the home movies may not show one hint of the abuse. Parents who punch, and slap their children may also have read them bed time stories and taught them to ride a bike or swim. No counselor would ever suggest that the children reject or try to forget all those normal, pleasant, childhood memories because of the horrific ones. Even the counselor knows that is something for the child to reconcile within themselves. Brother what I see you doing in this forum causing saints to question the faithfulness of God in their lives. Do you believe that all things work together for good? Do you believe that his word will no return void. Do you believe that we have an anointing and no need to be taught. But the anointing that is in us is true and is no lie...?
My point is Igzy: You only have YOUR perspective, you still presume to see mine. I was abused, but in my LC family as well as many who post here, there were many wonderful times had with brothers and sisters. I can separate the good from the bad, the ugly from the glorious.

I can appreciate that, and I can take that word. I don't want people to lose faith in their genuine experiences of God. I want them to have the freedom to question any teacher. And LCers are taught to feel guilty about questioning Lee. And that, Olvin is a doctrine of demons. There is just no other way to put it.

We've come full circle. My initial objection was that you said we could not know the meaning of life without "the ministry" and the best definition of that meaning was Lee's version. This showed me that you were still influenced to think you had to revere Lee. There is a seed in what he put in us that causes us to feel distress when we consider doubting him. That is of the devil.

Please read and pray over 1 Corinthians 3. My thought is that the whole chapter is about one main point: Don't revere and lift up leaders. The "standards of this age," the "foolishness" Paul is talking about is the practice of believing you have to identify yourself with the best human leader and then wear that identification like a badge of honor.

Everyone has their job. Teachers teach. Our job is not to revere them, our job is to decide whether or not they are worth listening to. Good teachers just echo what God is already saying to us. All things are ours. It's all for us. And we are all us, even the teachers.