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Comment List
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Again Mel you seem to be saying what I have been saying/thinking for years!!! We all to often talk of a loving God without thinking about the obverse of the coin? With Jesus we are too often thinking about the baby in the manger, we forget at our peril the Christ who says "If your hand offends you cut it off" "If your eye offends you gouge it out".
These things are said in tension & to balance the thought & actions of us believers, they are not said in anger or even malice. I think that when we think about these things, we too should be taking responsibility for our actions & the consequences too.
Yes our God has a semse of humour he, we are not to be like previous genertions of Calvinists & Presbyterians, but joyful & graceful & loving people.
It is not our task to judge our fellow man but it is our task to seek out & test the spirits of those people who would offend us!!
By their fruits ye shall know them & we are to be separate from the worldliness of mankind.
For too many years we threatened people with the fires of hell & now we are treating them with love without substance!!! The pendulum is swinging back towards the middle as we are led by the Holy Spirit & not by what I call the extreme liberal wing?
Remindinds me of the hippies of the sixties & "Jesuslovesyou man!!" syndrome. Praise God that men & woman are Spirit led & recognising that there is no substitute for Knowlede of God through experience & scriptural learning.
Hope this makes sense to you as I feel strongly about my faith & what it means to others.
Awesome is our God, the promises he made to me are still being fulfilled in my life as I seek to do his will. We work in our own little corner of the vineyard all to God's mutual purose building up the Church which has Christ as the cornerstone. Halelujah
Love in His Name Stuart
2006-07-19 03:11:20 Posted by Stuart (stuart@sadrankin.com)
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YEAH!! I wish that the body would wake up and be the violent force that is needed. Problem is, there doesn't seem to be any amount of shaking that can cause it to rise out of slumber. For way too long, as Stuart said, we have been passive, complacent, and idle.
In His Service,
2006-07-19 05:59:32 Posted by Teri ()
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Excellent observations, Mel (and Stuart and Teri). I can remember telling a coworker of another denomination one time that I loved how Jesus showed his sense of humor in the verses about Peter's confession of Jesus as the Messiah. When I explained the pun involved with the used of two different Greek words for Peter's name and the "rock" of his confession, upon which the Church would stand and against which the gates of hell would not prevail, my coworker got extremely offended. To this day, I'm not sure if he was offended at the idea that Jesus would make a pun or at the idea that those verses did not mean that Peter himself was the rock upon which the Church would stand.
Another thought in the same vein: How many times do we see Jesus feeling exasperated by the thick-headedness of his disciples? How many times did he say something to the effect of, "O ye of little faith! How long must I be with you?" I've always heard a bit of frustration in these words, and I've even paraphrased it in lessons as Jesus saying, "How much longer do I have to put up with this denseness and lack of faith before you guys GET it???"
Jesus was there when the universe was created; John 1 tells us that through Jesus all things were created, and without him, nothing that was created could have been created. If that's the case, how could such a vast, multidimensional universe full of so much variety have come from a flat, unidimensional God? I don't think so!
All that to say this: Amen, Mel! Preach it, bro!
2006-07-19 08:50:37 Posted by Traci ()
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Just excellent Mel!
The final thing that I confessed in our little experiment in college group was that churches somehow seem to be able sometimes to make GOD seem boring. He should never be that.
2006-07-19 09:34:09 Posted by Jon ()
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Amen! Mel, great Message..Preach it!!!!
Wonderful comments from from Stuart,Teri,Traci and Jon, they have said it well....Bless You!
God Bless you Mel as you work in HIS vineyard.Have a great and joyful day....
With God's Love......
2006-07-19 11:46:53 Posted by Lois ()
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