Posted on 04/23/2007 11:18:16 AM PDT by Quix
Have prayed since Jr High to be able to love like Jesus. That's a pretty hazardous prayer. The training for answers to that prayer is a lot like the training for wisdom, humility and patience. Lots of long dark nights of the soul; refiner's fires; being ground to powder, blown to the 4 winds--recollected--dipped in vinegar and ran through the manure spreader backwards . . . can all be SOP--common events.
Here are some questions to get us started prayerfully considering these principles and truths:
1. What is the nature of God's Love?
2. Is there any difference in Christ's Love?
. . .
3. How do we reconcile, manage living out God's model of Fierce Love AND Fierce Severity?
. . .
Romans 11:22 (The Message) The Message (MSG)
Copyright © 1993, 1994, 1995, 1996, 2000, 2001, 2002 by Eugene H. Peterson
. . .
21-22If God didn't think twice about taking pruning shears to the natural branches, why would he hesitate over you? He wouldn't give it a second thought. Make sure you stay alert to these qualities of gentle kindness and ruthless severity that exist side by side in God—ruthless with the deadwood, gentle with the grafted shoot. But don't presume on this gentleness. The moment you become deadwood, you're out of there.
. . .
4. Is Christian Love 99% warm fuzzy and 1% severe or what?
5. How do we discern when to share the warm fuzzy aspects of Love and when the ruthless severity?
. . .
6. How do we keep an accurate, discerning check on our motives as well as our actions--doing what we can to insure that they conform to God's Christian Love?
7. How do we Love whole-heartedly as unto The Lord while still being human?
. . .
8. How responsible are we for the results of our efforts to Love?
9. How long do we wait to judge whether we were truly Loving, or not?
. . .
10. How do we deal with perceptions of receivers and others that we haven't been loving when our spirit indicates and God indicates that we have?
. . .
11. Is the Severity of God less loving than God's warm fuzzies?
12. How can we minimize errors in Loving?
Let us be iron sharpening iron to one another.
I would love for a wide diversity of perspectives on the above.
Examples of successes and failures of the above would also be most welcome.
END TIMES PING LIST AND OTHERS PING
Would appreciate your comments on the above. It’s one of my growing edges.
After that, please compose your own e-mail with the necessary links and message to start donating (mostly) stuffed animals and (some) laundry baskets to ALL schools around the country?
It would be nice to teach children to provide appropriate comfort immediately during lockdown drills and to be prepared in the case of a real event so that we can start healing the children before they grow up to hurt and hate so bad as to create another mass tragedy that affects us all?
God wants this time to be the end of hurt and the beginning of healing.
Please help.
Hugs,
Katherine
PS My daughter is only eight and her entire school will live with the horror of a "suicide by cop" that happened in Phoenix, AZ on Friday, 13 2007 just off of 27th Ave & Northern. Plus, every child nationwide that is still a student, no matter the age, will live with what happened in Columbine and what has now happened at VT.
We are all going to die, we don't know when. But we are here to help and love one another. Even if you know you are going to die, will you help anyway? I'd like to meet all of you in the afterlife.
1. What is the nature of God's Love
will it starts with the fact that we can't fully understand It but we can know it
Eph 3:19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fullness of God.
I would submit that God's love is as deep as his Justice. With God it either the full blissing of his love and mercy or the full wrath of his vengeance and justice.
Eze 18:20 The soul that sins, it shall die. A son shall not bear the iniquity of the father. And a father shall not bear the iniquity of the son. The righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be on him.
It's also Spirit-filled to blame the victim of your assaults or of those of your co-religionists for being hurt by your attempts to, uh, hurt him.
And finally the REAL sign of the Spirit is to claim some ineffable internal justification, neither perceptible empirically nor explicable by reason for expressions of hostility and contempt. The freedom provided by the Spirit in this case is inestimable, since you need not worry about accountability at all. "God told me to do it," excuses everything. No explanation is needed or indeed possible. And this also relieves one of the painful work of developing insight, repenting, and handing oneself over to God agqin and again.
This is not a personal comment on you, bremenboy. I don't know you. It is however a suggestion that a conversation, however grounded in texts from Scripture, may not be persuasive if it doesn't take into account the actual behavior of the participants in the dialogue.
If this sounds angry, it's because I'm angry. An opinion about so-called charismatics that I've resisted for years just was, regrettably, confirmed.
My experience has been that there are people who do a lot of “God-talk”. And I learned that the more that these kind of people talked, the more “I” and “me” there was and the less of God there actually was.
By contrast, some of the people who are not so prone to talk “God-talk” and “I and me” talk were the same ones who have given me good examples of being “children of the light”, whose demeanor and attitudes and speech and manners were the best examples I could see and understand.
I agree with you, MD, that these people who influenced my life so much didn’t use “painful” or “contemptuous” language. That’s why their influence was positive. That’s why I believe you to be right when you say: “conversation, however grounded in texts from Scripture, may not be persuasive if it doesn’t take into account the actual behavior of the participants in the dialogue.”
Many feel virtually identically about RC’s.
I don’t happen to be one of them.
Who is/are the "so-called charismatics" that just made you angry, Mad Dawg?
I am not sure what you are trying to say but the Spirit that Guides us teaches
Jud 1:21 keep yourselves in the love of God, eagerly awaiting the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to everlasting life. Jud 1:22 And pity some, making a distinction. Jud 1:23 But save others with fear, snatching them out of the fire, hating even the garment being stained from the flesh.
sometimes we need to be gentel
.2Ti 2:24 But a slave of the Lord ought not to quarrel, but to be gentle towards all, apt to teach, forbearing, 2Ti 2:25 in meekness teaching those who have opposed, if perhaps God may give them repentance for a full knowledge of the truth, other times not so gentle.
Matt 23: 13-29
You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
Mk. 9:50 “....Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with each other.”
Jn. 13:14 “Now that I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet.”
Jn. 13:34 “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.”
Jn. 15:12 “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.”
Jn. 15:17 “This is my command: Love each other.”
Rom. 12:10 Be devoted to one another with mutual affection. Honor one another above yourselves.
Rom. 12:16 Live in harmony with one another.
Rom. 13:8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law.
Rom. 14:13 Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another....
Rom. 15:7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.
Rom. 16:16 Greet one another with a holy kiss....
1 Cor. 1:10 I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.
1 Cor. 11:33 So then, my brothers and sisters, when you come together to eat, wait for each other.
1 Cor. 12:24-25 ....But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other.
1 Cor. 16:20 ....Greet one another with a holy kiss.
2 Cor. 13:12 Greet one another with a holy kiss.
Gal. 5:13 ....But do not use your freedom to indulge the sinful nature; rather, serve one another in love. Gal. 5:26 Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.
Gal. 6:2 Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.<> Eph. 4:2 Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Eph.4:32 Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.
Eph. 5:19 Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs....
Eph. 5:21 Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Col. 3:9 Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices
Col. 3:13 Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another....
Col. 3:16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God.
1 Thes. 4:9 Now about your mutual love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other.
1 Thes. 4:18 Therefore encourage each other with these words.
51 Thes. :11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
1 Thes. 5:13 ....Live in peace with each other.
1 Thes. 5:15 Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always try to be kind to each other and to everyone else.
Heb. 3:13 But encourage one another daily, as long as it is called Today, so that none of you may be hardened by sin’s deceitfulness.
Heb. 10:24-25 And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds. Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
Heb. 13:1 Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters.
Jam. 4:11 Brothers and sisters, do not slander one another....
Jam. 5:9 Don’t grumble against each other, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged....
Jam. 5:16 Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed....
1 Jn. 3:11 This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.
1 Jn. 3:23 And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
1Jn. 4:7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God....
1 Jn. 4:11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
2 Jn. 1:5 ....I ask that we love one another.
1 Pet. 1:22 Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere mutual affection, love one another deeply, from the heart.
1 Pet. 3:8 Finally, all of you, live in harmony with one another; be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble.
1 Pet. 4:8 Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.
1 Pet. 4:9 Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.
1 Pet. 5:5 ....All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”
1 Pet. 5:14 Greet one another with a kiss of love....
From my own personal observation concerning charismatics and their attitude. I have found that they are for the most part ignorant of God's word but think that they know it and can do no wrong. Why is that? They have what they think is the Holy Spirit guiding them. The Holy Spirit can't be wrong so they can't be wrong. While it is true the Holy Spirit can't be wrong. what is also true is they don't have the Holy Spirit. But they think they do and their Pride and their Ignorance will be too their folly.
It is very hard to teach them the Truth because unless you Have the Holy Spirit you can't Know the truth. What they fail to understand is the Spirit Guided the apostles into all truth they wrote it down and we have it to read and learn.
What have I written to be ashamed of?
Quix, I'm going to jump in here because I can see you're undergoing an 'examination of conscience.' That's always a good thing.
I don't think true humility refuses confrontation, but I do think true humility prompts us to use language carefully. The long-standing misunderstanding or hard feelings between RCs and Protestants is something that's made immediately manifest when we can write while zealous and post while we haven't given time to proper reflection. I've done that myself, many times. Sometimes enflaming a person's conscience is worthy, sometimes you can do that with very humble words, but when that happens you don't usually feel the need to think much of it afterwards because the language you used was so obviously non-confrontational.
I'm not here to defend RCism. There are plenty here who can do that more ably than I can. Besides being the mongrel Christian that I am, I'm just beginning to learn my own way through doctrine and doctrinal mine fields, etc.
I wish you could read my '52 Baltimore Cathechism. It beats the latest version, by far, at least the parts of it that I've read. The reason that I wish you could read it, is that while there would be much you would disagree with, there would be much there that you would genuinely admire.
Sometimes when you really allow yourself to experience another's point of view, with some sympathy, that is, when you come to the defense of your own views, that are in opposition to that other point of view, your defense can become rock solid.
For the record, I do see you as a loving person, this post is very good example of that. If you've done something to hurt somebody, intentional or not, and that other person doesn't want to forgive and forget, just let it go.
I don't mean to be preachy, so forgive me if I come across that way.
If a person has every reason to know that his behaviior is unnecessary, unjust, and painful -- and will not accomplish what he seems to want to accomplish but will accomplish rabble rousing, anti-intellectualism and hatred -- and persists in it, but claims to be guided by the Holy Spirit, well, I know all I need to know.
And Michael is one of my Patrons.
You have an apology in your mailbox.
You should all be ashamed of yourselves.
I spoke peace. I DID peace. I reached out. I went out of my way. I went above and beyond.
And what I reaped from the Charismatic and many of the Protestants or Non/anti-Catholic gang was lies, condescension, contempt, slander, sadism, and hatred. SWURE they deny it. Their entire "spirituality" (for which read: pathology)is based on the need to deny responsibility or even accountability.
I turned all the cheeks I had and then some. I treated people like brothers and for my response I got mockery and derision. They don't want to be brothers, but they want to claim the immunities of family members?
I am going to war. I spoke peace, but they sharpened their knives.
Saint Michael, Archangel, defend us in battle. Be our defense against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray. And you, Prince of the heavenly host, by the power of God, thrust into Hell Satan and the other evil spirits who prowl the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen.
If I accuse my brother of committing a sin in his heart, and he denies it, and I continue to insist that he does (thereby insisting that I can see into his heart, and calling his testimony of what is in his heart a lie), am I acting in a way that "rejoices not over wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth"?
So you are declaring jihad?
Yes, there are those who hide behind their spirituality while making sometimes baseless and most always unwarranted attacks, I see it too, we all see it, some just choose to ignore it because they are on "our side."
Retaliation will not stop anything. It only drags you down to their level. And the next thing you know Satan has taken hold of the entire FReligion forum and there is no glory for God to be found here.
That is a tough question
hear is what I know
Heb 2:17 Wherefore in all things it behooved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. Heb 2:18 For in that he himself hath suffered being tempted, he is able to succor them that are tempted.
Heb 4:15 For we have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
I would say that The love is equal but their maybe a difference concerning compassion. However the love for the father is paramount and when he returns he will execute judgment to those who receive Justice.
More Defensive than retaliatory. Those I love were mocked and slandered repeatedly. Those doing the mocking clam to be doing so at the instigation of God Himself.
And the lies go on and on and on. Shall we have a nice chat about the Love of God while nearby someone is lying about a late Pope?
And where were the voices crying, "Peace, Peace," when my Church was called a sacred Cow and Pius a Nazi collaborator? Is it only we victims who are at fault?
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