I was born into the LC in the Cleveland area. Now 22

[aron]

Originally Posted by Trapped

Finding God - so difficult to do when you have "known" for decades in the church that God doesn't care about you specifically.

Originally Posted by Ohio

So it's no wonder that many LC members find it so difficult to seamlessly transfer to other evangelical churches. Our minds have been polluted with garbage about them. Rotting prejudices fill our brain cells where agape love should have been cultivated to grow.

Finding God is a challenge at best, and the world would be a better place if it were easier. But it's not.

The answer for me today is that Jesus Christ found the Father. Adam lost the Father and Jesus (the second Adam) found Him. Jesus is the way home. Not "masticating the processed and consummated Triune God" or "meeting on the local ground" or "being in the central lane of the divine economy" or what ever swill the merchandisers are selling today. Notice how they get you to look at yourself. Don't waste your time. It's a mirage, a chimera.

Really, for me, "we see Jesus" a la Hebrews chapter 2 sums it up. When you see Jesus you see the way home. We see Jesus there in scripture. We have multiple confirming accounts, with 4 gospels plus the gospel narratives in Acts (Peter and Paul) plus Paul's epistles.

But one has to let go of a lot, to be able to begin to grasp the simplicity and the purity of the gospel.

Let go of thinking you have found the way. Those who are blind think thus.

Let go of despising others. How you treat others is how God will treat you.

Let go of thinking you have an inside track on the truth. I put the story of the "Judeans" there because it shows how little I really know.

Let go of thinking that you have to find God somewhere out there in the vasty void of eternal space and time. Just see the man Jesus, an essentially homeless, penniless, largely despised and pretty much completely misunderstood man. Full of love, reaching out constantly to those who lacked. How can we not gaze at him?

I mean, what else is there?

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

Finding God is a challenge at best, and the world would be a better place if it were easier. But it's not.

I respectfully disagree with this, aron. That is if it's true that you are saying that God made a mistake by making finding him too hard of a challenge, and thereby made the world a worse place than it ought to be.

Either way, I don't believe FINDING God is that hard of a challenge. I believe TRUSTING him is a hard challenge. When we call, God is there, always. What challenges us is the (false) sense that, though he is there, he is not doing anything to help us. I.e. WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!

He hasn't forsaken anyone. He is always there, always findable. He just doesn't always do what we want when we want it. Fortunately, we are in good company. Even Jesus asked God why he had forsaken him. God hadn't. Jesus just, at that moment, felt like he had. That's how we feel too sometimes, and THAT is the challenge.

[aron]

Originally Posted by Igzy

I don't believe FINDING God is that hard of a challenge. I believe TRUSTING him is a hard challenge. When we call, God is there, always. What challenges us is the (false) sense that, though he is there, he is not doing anything to help us. I.e. WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!

He hasn't forsaken anyone. He is always there, always findable. He just doesn't always do what we want when we want it. Fortunately, we are in good company. Even Jesus asked God why he had forsaken him. God hadn't. Jesus just, at that moment, felt like he had. That's how we feel too sometimes, and THAT is the challenge.

Jesus knew exactly where he was. He wasn't lost. We are the ones who went astray.

Jesus prayed what he did so that scripture might be fulfilled. "It is written".

But it really doesn't matter. My premise here is that I largely don't know what I am doing. So I don't contend for some "truth".

Look at the LC line - what is the focus. "Eat God" - you are the actor, God the object. "Meet on the proper ground" - ditto. "Take the way of recovery" - the same. "Make it" or "be an overcomer" - it is you who struggle to line yourself up with God.

But Jesus already did it. He overcame. Why focus on yourself?

The important thing here is to imagine that you are born into this system of mind control, of hyper-self-focus. "Wow! I'm a God-man! I'm becoming God in life and nature!" Incessantly going to meetings, slavishly imitating the ministry, focusing on the feeling as you shout slogans and pump your fist. Imagine doing this from infancy.

[Cal]

Originally Posted by aron

Jesus knew exactly where he was. He wasn't lost. We are the ones who went astray.

Jesus prayed what he did so that scripture might be fulfilled. "It is written".

So Jesus was pretending to be in despair? I don't buy that. No, he was really in despair. He was not acting on the cross.

Originally Posted by aron

But it really doesn't matter.

Yeah, let's not quibble.

Originally Posted by aron

The important thing here is to imagine that you are born into this system of mind control, of hyper-self-focus. "Wow! I'm a God-man! I'm becoming God in life and nature!" Incessantly going to meetings, slavishly imitating the ministry, focusing on the feeling as you shout slogans and pump your fist. Imagine doing this from infancy.

I will agree that it is hard to "find God" when you been so confused by lies about God that you don't know which end is up. Yeah, I get that. I just didn't want our readers to think that God does not come when we call. He does, and the word says over and over that he will. But the noise in our heads can almost, not quite, drown out our realization of his presence. We just have to keep calling and praying and sincerely pleading, "Where are you?!" And he will come through. Everyone can count on that.

[aron]

I may be too much in my own mind (always a danger). But I've come to believe that a chief peril of the modern religious sentiment is to make people believe that subjective experience is a stand-in for objective reality, which makes them prey for manipulation and abuse. Witness Lee asked the Shanghai elders, "How did you feel" when they expelled Watchman Nee for gross sin. Even basic issues of human conduct got subsumed by, "How do you feel".

Now, imagine being born into a system that traffics in manufactured feelings. Eventually Leader A quits Leader B because it doesn't feel good any more to follow that one. Then mummy and daddy split because they can't agree on which leader to follow, again feelings lead them deeper into the quagmire. Now imagine you're a child or a young teen. All your life you've been told that reality itself is to meet on the proper ground under the proper leadership and call on the Lord in the proper way, and pray-read the right verses from this week's HWMR, and suddenly it all dissolves. All along your feelings were conditioned by your handlers, and suddenly your handlers are in turmoil. Whither reality, at this point?

Which is why I keep pointing to the experiences of Jesus in the Bible. They have been validated. "No one can do the works you do, unless God is with him." This goes up to the cross, and beyond. "He rescued me, because he delighted in me". The Father delighted in the Obedient Son, and raised him from death. This transcends our daily experiences and ultimately can imbue them with meaning, if we don't allow ourselves to be distracted by ephemera and clutter.