It's about life

[jesusislord]

What does it means by it's about life? It's a kind of feeling?

this is a passage from lsm material

it's not a matter of asking whether something is right or wrong… [but] of checking with the life inside us whenever we do something.
What does the new life which God has given us tell us inwardly about this matter? What does our inner life say? If the life is strong and active within us, we can do this; if the life is cold and retreating within us, we should not. Our principle for living is inward instead of outward.
The standard of Christian living does not only deal with evil things but also with good and right things. Many matters are right according to human standards, but the divine standard pronounces them wrong because they lack the divine life…. Decisions should be made according to God’s life as it rises up or recedes within us…. Do we feel joyful inwardly about this matter? Do we have spiritual happiness and peace? These are the matters that decide our spiritual path. (Two Principles of Living (booklet), pp. 2-3, 6-9, 13-15)

in the bible paul's teaching is often direct, he's clear what is right and what is wrong. Like you shouldn't steal, shouldn't hurt others. Jesus's affirmation on the 10 commandments is also quite clear. but when it comes to lsm it is all about life. It gives me an impression that it's about feeling, a feeling from a group of people, it's superficial.

What if a brother sinned and he feels it's ok? doesn't it against the bible? lsm is one of the rare group that downplay what's obviously right and wrong and replace it with life. What's the root of this teaching?

[aron]

Originally Posted by jesusislord

What does it means by it's about life? It's a kind of feeling?

in the bible paul's teaching is often direct, he's clear what is right and what is wrong. Like you shouldn't steal, shouldn't hurt others. Jesus's affirmation on the 10 commandments is also quite clear. but when it comes to lsm it is all about life. It gives me an impression that it's about feeling, a feeling from a group of people, it's superficial.

I think the ministry mouthpiece also uses this expression. "The feeling in the Body is..." So they think one church leader can discern the feeling in the Body of Christ, because he gets 'life'. Whatever happened to the much discussion amongst the disciples in the Book of Acts?

It's about one person's subjective feeling, which they then can put on the mass, who have to accept it passively because that's 'life'. Reminds me of two prisoners in a holding cell. One came back from a sentencing hearing, the other asked what the judge said, and the first replied, "I got life".

That's the 'life' you get in the LC. Life in a gulag.

Here is a blurb from AffCrit in their critique of the True Jesus Church:

"Certainly there is joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom 14:17), but to link particular physical sensations and movements with the receiving of the Spirit is to incline the new believer toward the sensual and away from the preciousness of Christ's person."

A fairly large portion of AffCrit objections to TJC would fall also on themselves, but we all know the drill: "When we do it, it's okay, but if someone else does it, not okay."

The entire modus operandi of the LC is to "incline the new believer toward the sensual". All the repetition, shouting, hand waving, amen-amenning, fist pumping, heel rocking, neck rolling, sing-songy cadences, exhortations to "exercise your spirit!" etc etc etc... it's all about manufacturing sensation.

Step 1: get the 'new one' in cognitive dissociation via sensory overload.
Step 2: tell them, this is 'life' from the Throne of God.
Step 3: the reprogramming starts. Suddenly up is down, and "we don't care for right and wrong, only life"

[aron]

Where their life takes you, Part A:

In 2005 Benson Phillips also spoke on this “sisters‟ rebellion” saying I’d like to tell you a couple of stories in the recovery. In 1977 we had some sisters out on the West Coast. They started building up a kind of group around themselves. They were inviting sisters, and they were getting into the Word and were talking about doctrine, and they were getting clear on the church, getting clear on everything. Then it spread to Texas. I don’t know where else it spread to, but anyhow, some sisters in Texas got into the same flow. And because it had happened here in Anaheim and there in Texas, we brothers had to do something. And even Brother Lee, I remember, in a conference ... Brother Lee, he was so distraught and so grieved (I don’t know what word to use). In one meeting he said, “You three holy sisters, would you stand up?” (I think he asked them to stand up.) Well, I learned a lesson there that he did not mess around with factious people. And he said, “You three holy sisters,” and he asked them a question. Would you do that? Would you have the boldness to do that? Well, maybe one day you will have to do it. Then, in Texas, let me tell you this: They had their so-called, you know, party. It really was a party. They didn’t call it a party, but that’s what we’re talking about, a factious party, built up in the church. It may be sisters, it may be brothers, it may be young people, it may be co-workers, it may be anyone.

But to form a group around yourself is factious and sectarian because it keeps others out, and you become special. That is factious. Well, this one sister that we had to deal with, she was the leader. That was over 30 years ago by now. You know what she just came out with? A book against the recovery! Was she the right kind of person? Did we do the right thing? Absolutely, we did the right thing! If she can write a book against the recovery today, that seed was in her even then. Isn’t this something? Brothers, these kind of people, the factious people, those who form parties within the church, they have to be dealt with. Why? Because they are destroyers of God’s building. (2005 Anaheim Winter Training: Crystallization-Study of The Building of God, #11)

http://www.ourneedtoexamineourselves...eRebellion.pdf

So Witness Lee didn't get 'life' because the sisters were rebelling. And what was the enumerated crime? They were meeting together and studying the Bible! Horrors! Of course Benson and WL couldn't say that one of the sisters heard an elder confess of marital sin, and another of the sisters' husband confronted WL about his son's behaviours in the LSM Office. So they are said to be "forming a party" because they met together to study the Bible.

Which WL did as well. He also drew people after himself, formed a party, the LC. But when he did it, it's okay, because he got 'life'. If anyone else does it, he doesn't get 'life'. So they aren't allowed to, either.

Where their life takes you, Part B

From Jo and Greg Casteel open letter

I was in a constant cycle of fear, guilt, and anxiety. For example, a leading brother in our locality “prophesied” one day in the Lord’s Day meeting and told us that God did not need our love. That God needs our service and our time, but not our love. Everyone around was giving this leading one loud “amens” and nodding their heads in affirmation but I had a massive different feeling in my being that said, “God is love! Our whole relationship with God should be based on love!” I could not say amen to what he was saying.

As I talked with my husband about it after the meeting I was terrified by the fact I was going against God’s deputy authority. I would confess to the Lord my sin of being critical and negative and feel that I was an evil person for having those thoughts about my brother. I would then think the thoughts again about God being love and realize I was criticizing and not “thinking the same thing” again and the cycle of guilt and repentance would repeat itself.

And not only was I afraid of losing my relationship with God over my thoughts, I was eaten up with fear of God’s judgment on me over having these thoughts. I constantly worried about God bringing me to naught and causing me to lose everything for not “keeping the oneness.”

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1...SOtSGH1DE/edit

Again, someone's parasitical concept of 'life' (personal benefit, enjoyment, comfort, safety) has been successfully transposed onto others such that they can't function without pleasing the the parasite (and this position of constant abject fealty doesn't always work - I was there & saw it).

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by jesusislord

What does it means by it's about life? It's a kind of feeling?

this is a passage from lsm material

it's not a matter of asking whether something is right or wrong… [but] of checking with the life inside us whenever we do something.
What does the new life which God has given us tell us inwardly about this matter? What does our inner life say? If the life is strong and active within us, we can do this; if the life is cold and retreating within us, we should not. Our principle for living is inward instead of outward.
The standard of Christian living does not only deal with evil things but also with good and right things. Many matters are right according to human standards, but the divine standard pronounces them wrong because they lack the divine life…. Decisions should be made according to God’s life as it rises up or recedes within us…. Do we feel joyful inwardly about this matter? Do we have spiritual happiness and peace? These are the matters that decide our spiritual path. (Two Principles of Living (booklet), pp. 2-3, 6-9, 13-15)

in the bible paul's teaching is often direct, he's clear what is right and what is wrong. Like you shouldn't steal, shouldn't hurt others. Jesus's affirmation on the 10 commandments is also quite clear. but when it comes to lsm it is all about life. It gives me an impression that it's about feeling, a feeling from a group of people, it's superficial.

What if a brother sinned and he feels it's ok? doesn't it against the bible? lsm is one of the rare group that downplay what's obviously right and wrong and replace it with life. What's the root of this teaching?

I don't see anything so wrong with the passage you quoted (but perhaps I'm missing something?). The sense of life and peace is something that is an indicator within us, that the Anointing conveys. The Lord said "I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live." (Duet 30:19) He has given us life in Christ (the Way, Truth & Life). Before we were regenerated unto a living hope, we only knew death, and death doesn't really even know it's dead! Jesus said clearly, "I came that they might have life . . ."

I know when I start to do or think a certain thing that's not so good, all of a sudden there is just a deadening affect. And when I listen to and obey the Anointing, there is a sense of life. Is it a feeling? Well, a feeling is usually provided with it, in that life makes me feel better than death. My mind also has more light, whereas death provides me with a sort of heaviness and my thinking is often clouded or unclear. Many times condemnation also comes with that and I "feel" further from the Lord (not actually true) and not so inclined to follow Him and/or maybe not so inclined to fellowship with other believers.

So again, no so much just a feeling, but there certainly is some sensation you might call feelings. (BTW - only someone alive has feelings - the dead don't feel much)

Does any of that make sense?

[Trapped]

I think a few things....

"the sense of life and peace" is not something we follow. We follow the Spirit. And the mind governed by the Spirit IS life and peace. How is it IS? No idea. But Romans says it.

So in that sense, it's kind of like so many other things that have happened in the LC. Rather than abiding in order to bear fruit, they chase after the fruit (new one on college campuses) and forget about the abiding. And here we aren't following the Spirit, but following the thing that is supposed to be produced when we rightly follow the Spirit. We're chasing after the wrong thing that seems right. It's subtle.

Deut. 30:19, if I remember correctly, is not talking about a "sense" of life versus death, but actual good prosperous life versus death and destruction, right?

Yes, we each have a choice of eternal life or the second death, but the Bible never tells us to "follow a sense of life". It tells us to keep His commandments. Again, subtle.

The issue is, the LC doesn't "care about right and wrong". Well, if you don't care about right and wrong, then that throws objective standards (like commandments) out the window. And we are all each left to do with "feels like life" inside, which is subjective and brings our own morality within each of us, rather than rooted in God.

I think we follow the Spirit (or the Lord's speaking) and our conscience. I don't think there is a "sense of life" that we follow. The Bible certainly never says to "check with life". Would any of us ever say, "let me check with my wife's life before I buy this golf set?" No. You'd say, "let me check with my wife." This, to me, is just another subtle teaching that sounds good but isn't in the Bible and depersonalizes God.

And is then used to control people by hitting them over the head with "your opinions are not of life!!!"

I dunno.

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by Trapped

And is then used to control people by hitting them over the head with "your opinions are not of life!!!"

I dunno.

Sure, it can and was abused. But that's not a reason, yet again, to throw the whole thing out because someone abused the idea.

[UntoHim]

Sure it is, especially if it was a really bad idea since the beginning...and I think that's part of Trapped's whole point.
-

[Sons to Glory!]

Originally Posted by UntoHim

Sure it is, especially if it was a really bad idea since the beginning...and I think that's part of Trapped's whole point.
-

Did Jesus say He came that we might have life?

[Curious]

Originally Posted by Sons to Glory!

Sure, it can and was abused. But that's not a reason, yet again, to throw the whole thing out because someone abused the idea.

Any deception to be effective, needs to come alongside and parallel a truth then take that truth into an opposite direction. That is how deception works, it has to be clever or it wouldn't work on anyone.

Being sensitive to our God-given conscience, which may check us in some areas, (and can be seared in others), can be a subjective inkling that steers us in the right direction. That is my belief anyway. I think when the sense of life is directing you towards the things that are in line with the word of God then that is your conscience and the Holy Spirit within you.

I sometimes have an instant bad feeling when I start to speak of someone in a way that is not honouring to that person. So I've learned to stop at that point. In my mind I've rationalised it as fine, so I'm in flow, but the check comes subjectivity and I've increased my personal integrity through that caution that I feel rather than think. The more times I notice it and respond in obedience, the stronger it gets.

I hope this helps. When both the subjective and the objective reflect truth, back it, and harmonise with it then we are good. Somewhere in the NT is says something like the Holy Spirit is not subject to the law.... Because by His very nature, God harmonises with the law, they can ever be in contradiction to one another. The test of our subjective feelings is do they line up, and we can test each one seperately.

I hope that helps.

[Nell]

Originally Posted by Curious

...Being sensitive to our God-given conscience, which may check us in some areas, (and can be seared in others), can be a subjective inkling that steers us in the right direction. That is my belief anyway. I think when the sense of life is directing you towards the things that are in line with the word of God then that is your conscience and the Holy Spirit within you.

I sometimes have an instant bad feeling when I start to speak of someone in a way that is not honouring to that person. So I've learned to stop at that point. In my mind I've rationalised it as fine, so I'm in flow, but the check comes subjectivity and I've increased my personal integrity through that caution that I feel rather than think. The more times I notice it and respond in obedience, the stronger it gets. ...

Curious,

I think we can safely say that the functioning of our conscience which, with normal Christian values, speaks to right and wrong, often "on the spot". I don't believe this healthy function of the Spirit approaches the Local Church "we only care for life" teaching. The function of a healthy conscience is personal and individual. It convicts us, individually, often with a "check" on our thoughts and actions.

"We only care for life" is "Lee speak" or "LC speak" for the benefit of the group, or others who may question the teaching...like us. This works because their version of the word "life" is loosely defined, and often depends on the situation. "We only care for life" has built-in avoidance of being held accountable for questionable behavior. Since it's not really defined, they can't really be held accountable. It sounds good. Right? Lee's "life" morphs to fit the situation. Lee's "life" is defined by whatever the audience needs to hear to end the questions ("reasonings").

Here, the word "life" is used differently as Lee was prone to do. I've heard it described as a "non-scriptural 'spiritual' teaching". I think that fits, and Lee was full of such teachings.

Again, this is not about the functioning of our conscience which is healthy, personal, individual and normal as we learn from being taught by the living Holy Spirit. It's about the "we only care for life" teaching being errant.

Nell