Quote:
Originally Posted by byHismercy
My contact with the Local Church began on my college campus in Orange Co., California. I was newly saved by Christ, still living a very worldly life, but very lonely, and longing for Christian fellowship and friends, I was searching for connection and a church, and the awesome sweetness of others who knew the Lord Jesus. I didn't have any of that when the full time trainees approached me that day. I remember I was so alone in my new faith and new life in Christ, that I actually cried when they left me that day. I had family, kind and thoughtful friends and roommates, just absolutely no one who saw Jesus, or loved Him, or knew He was alive! He was on the throne! And He loved us!
The full timers came and visited me on campus and really reached out to me, caring for me, bringing me food, fellowship, and of course, the Lee ministry. They were love bombing me. This was effective as I came from a home where I did not feel loved....
The love and devotion they pour into lonely college kids is intense. I was invited into every Christian family home in that area for dinners, accepted at the families' tables as one of their own. The sweetness of the saints was touching and enticing. I never knew they could and would turn their love on or off as a tool to manipulate young believers. I know that now. And because I see this now, I feel ok before the Lord Jesus in saying that their love was just that, a tool, or a weapon, or a farce. It is not the Lords' love. They deceive the young into thinking that they have the love of Jesus. At least, that is what I used to believe. That I had stumbled into a group who had the real thing. The real Jesus. The real love of Christ. And by the way, that love-bombing is CULT 101. Every cult does that....
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God can use these experiences to help us, and through us to help others. We didn't pass through the fire for nothing (Psa 66:12). We're measured, or known, or realised, through our ability to love. And we're effaced, or negated, or shut down, or lost, or limited, by our inability to love, by our lack of love.
My turning point in the LC was when I got into a public argument in the meeting with the FTTA 'trainer'. He said, "Don't waste your time" with those not deemed as "good building material", i.e. college students. The LSM wanted a return on investment, and they didn't see it coming from the old, the sick, the weak, and the poor. I argued that the Lord said when you give a feast, invite those who can't repay you.
I stayed for a while, but eventually left, tired of sitting in the same circle with the same few folks, congratulating ourselves on "arriving at the oneness" while those outside languished. True love, I felt, is poured out, dissipated, even (especially!!) on those who don't love you back. In the LC you only love ('love-bomb') those who can love back. It creates a cloistered, self-reinforcing system, where everyone's paranoid that they'll be deemed 'negative' or 'ambitious' or 'divisive' and the spigot of love will get turned off. Love then becomes a weapon, not a gift - it's a means of control. Cults do this all the time, as do controlling people in dysfunctional and abusive relationships. "If you love me, you'll do this for me". People fake-love others to open them and establish fear-based relations where they control, they take and not give... it's really the opposite of love. This pseudo-love comes from unresolved fear and shame, and opens the door for transfer, for fear-based, shame-based control and manipulation.
And so, we have an option. To love those who don't love us back. To tell the LC members what love actually is, by showing them what love is.... show them because we show one another (we bear with one another, encourage one another, console one another, listen to one another, pray for one another etc). Show the LC because we show everyone what love is. We forgive, we bear one another's burdens. Even if it's not reciprocated, we love, including those in the LC (as much as possible - also stay safe. cf Luke 14:31,32).
My point is that we show love because that's what Jesus did. He died there on the cross alone. His disciples had deserted him, his own people mocked him. Yet he loved. Why should we not try to follow?