N
Ninotori
Guest
There are some things that I have come to realise chase me out of church more than anything else.
I have no doubt that there will be plenty of freaking out that I don't attend church, though I do attend a weekly student fellowship meeting to be sure (basically just night church on thursdays), but I am often left in a poor weak places at the end of it. I believe I have pinpointed the cause to a few things. I have trouble understanding the eloquent language and applying it to my very non-eloquent and modern life. But mostly, its because it is such a different message than what I feel being screamed at me from all directions.
Even when I do understand the practical use of God's word I am so confused by what I read in the bible versus what everyone else seems to be doing! So many people talk about the things we need to be participating in, the people we need to avoid, the things we must protect ourselves against, sins we must abolish from our lives--- but, why then does it in the bible tell us so much to be caring for each other? Why are we busying ourselves with that when more than a thousand or so verses tell us to give to the poor? Why was Jesus sitting with tax collectors and prostitutes? Why did he tell us that the 612 commandments of Moses boiled down to ''Love your neighbor like yourself''? And why did he tell us that we need to be giving to others before beginnign with ourselves?
I dont hate anyone, I dont mean to cast any kind of negative light on anyone, I'm merely a very young christian, a barely begun child of God desperate for a different kind of walk that makes sense to what I feel filling my heart from the holy spirit and speaking to me in bold shouts from God and Jesus out of the pages of my bible.
God is Living love. Everything he does and says is in love and of love and for love. We don't murder or steal or covet or leer onto our neighbors things because we love our neighbors and we love ourselves enough to not hurt ourselves by doing it. We follow God's laws because we love him. We came to Jesus in the first place because we needed love and we loved him! The point I'm making is this:
Hateful acts and speech, satan and sin mongering, and this 'deciding' we make upon others and how they behave as to whether or not they are saved is a waste of our time on earth, our precious precious God given time.
Think of all the time the Westboro Baptist church spends planning, traveling, and protesting. Can you imagine if they took all they do and turned it into loving things instead? Can you imagine if they took that time to volunteer, to feed the hungry, to work to donate money, to assist organizations that help our fellow man? Can you imagine?
Can you imagine if all of us took every minute we spend picking apart our lives into piles of sin and no sin, needlestabbing the tiny freckles on the skin of every other christian in there denomination for different practices and beliefs, and worry warting over Satan and how he is attacking us today, and turned them all into time we spend loving and acting on that love?
Can you imagine if we took all the time we waste forcing ourselves into organizations, bible studies, church functions, and every event we go to thinking that it improves us spiritually instead of going for real want of it?
Can you imagine if we stopped trying to 'save ourselves' through empty sacrificing, preaching on street corners to deaf ears, and showed the world God and Christ by LIVING it? Really LIVING it?
Can you imagine if we loved each other enough to donate the ten percent that God asked for? Can you imagine if everyone on earth gave just TEN percent of their lives to everyone elses well being? Just ten percent?
Can you imagine if we did what Jesus really asked us for?
Can you imagine?
I have no doubt that there will be plenty of freaking out that I don't attend church, though I do attend a weekly student fellowship meeting to be sure (basically just night church on thursdays), but I am often left in a poor weak places at the end of it. I believe I have pinpointed the cause to a few things. I have trouble understanding the eloquent language and applying it to my very non-eloquent and modern life. But mostly, its because it is such a different message than what I feel being screamed at me from all directions.
Even when I do understand the practical use of God's word I am so confused by what I read in the bible versus what everyone else seems to be doing! So many people talk about the things we need to be participating in, the people we need to avoid, the things we must protect ourselves against, sins we must abolish from our lives--- but, why then does it in the bible tell us so much to be caring for each other? Why are we busying ourselves with that when more than a thousand or so verses tell us to give to the poor? Why was Jesus sitting with tax collectors and prostitutes? Why did he tell us that the 612 commandments of Moses boiled down to ''Love your neighbor like yourself''? And why did he tell us that we need to be giving to others before beginnign with ourselves?
I dont hate anyone, I dont mean to cast any kind of negative light on anyone, I'm merely a very young christian, a barely begun child of God desperate for a different kind of walk that makes sense to what I feel filling my heart from the holy spirit and speaking to me in bold shouts from God and Jesus out of the pages of my bible.
God is Living love. Everything he does and says is in love and of love and for love. We don't murder or steal or covet or leer onto our neighbors things because we love our neighbors and we love ourselves enough to not hurt ourselves by doing it. We follow God's laws because we love him. We came to Jesus in the first place because we needed love and we loved him! The point I'm making is this:
Hateful acts and speech, satan and sin mongering, and this 'deciding' we make upon others and how they behave as to whether or not they are saved is a waste of our time on earth, our precious precious God given time.
Think of all the time the Westboro Baptist church spends planning, traveling, and protesting. Can you imagine if they took all they do and turned it into loving things instead? Can you imagine if they took that time to volunteer, to feed the hungry, to work to donate money, to assist organizations that help our fellow man? Can you imagine?
Can you imagine if all of us took every minute we spend picking apart our lives into piles of sin and no sin, needlestabbing the tiny freckles on the skin of every other christian in there denomination for different practices and beliefs, and worry warting over Satan and how he is attacking us today, and turned them all into time we spend loving and acting on that love?
Can you imagine if we took all the time we waste forcing ourselves into organizations, bible studies, church functions, and every event we go to thinking that it improves us spiritually instead of going for real want of it?
Can you imagine if we stopped trying to 'save ourselves' through empty sacrificing, preaching on street corners to deaf ears, and showed the world God and Christ by LIVING it? Really LIVING it?
Can you imagine if we loved each other enough to donate the ten percent that God asked for? Can you imagine if everyone on earth gave just TEN percent of their lives to everyone elses well being? Just ten percent?
Can you imagine if we did what Jesus really asked us for?
Can you imagine?
.
Good post. And yes, I can imagine it.