Edifying Post of the Month

[GraceSeeker]

One of the bits of wisdom that Paul shared with the church at Rome was that it was to our benefit to "make every effort to do what leads to peace and to mutual edification" (Romans 14:9).

If you are like me you really appreciate when someone else makes a post that either significantly advances the conversation, helps explain something you didn't understand, or lifts your soul. Therefore, I would like to propose something unique with this thread -- that it not be a discussion thread, but that it be an "edification" thread. A thread where we recognize posts that really blessed us to read them or you think was beneficial to the body of Christ as a whole or the WP in particular.

 

[GraceSeeker]

It will probably surprise no one that one of my first nominations (though this isn't a competition) is a post Cavell made. I always read his stuff, but rarely comment because he does such an excellent job in posting that his posts usually say all that needs to be said on a subject. This one, however, deserves an AMEN!!

"Paul thought it not good to take Mark with them, who departed from them from Pamphylia" - Acts15:38.

Paul rejected Mark. God had not rejected him. Fundamentally Paul was right, if wrong in his sharpness. And Mark was wrong. In Christ for all that, failure is not final.

The harsh appraisal of men, even of good men, is not always that of God. He does not quench the smoking flax. Mark failed because he was in the wrong place. Qualities, wrongly deployed become defects. Paul once likened the Church to a body complete with limbs and organs. Hand cannot function as foot, nor heart do the work of the lungs.

Tension invades the community of Christ when folks try incongruously to function in ways for which they have no aptitude or calling. In a healthy body each member performs harmoniously its alloted task. So with the body of Christ.

Each must do his proper work, or become a liability. Mark was impulsive, hasty, perhaps too vehement. Those very qualities were to make him successful in the real task which awaited him, the writing of his terse brief Gospel.
When Paul wrote of the body of Christ in chapter twelve of his first letter to Corinth, perhaps he thought of Mark. His hasty dismissal of one much like himself, and of the events which followed and which restored their fellowship.

 

[Maid Marie]

Is this for a post from WP or anyplace on CF?

 

[Redheadedstepchild]

I love Cavell's posts. Always edifying.

This is a great idea, GS.

 

[GraceSeeker]

Is this for a post from WP or anyplace on CF?

Marie, I was thinking specifically about the WP when I posted because I was thinking of the value of affirming one another.

But that just means I hadn't given thought to what you suggest. Now that you have done so, I can also see value in using this thread as a place to share with the WP a post from someplace outside the WP that you found significantly meaningful. That too would be another way to build up the body of Christ here in Wesley's Parish.

 

[GraceSeeker]

BTW, I don't think we have to be so literal about the title of "Edifying post of the Month" either. I just used that terminology because I saw that Mr Dave had been named "Mod of the Month" (Congratulations!!) and often there are "_______ of the Month" recognitions in our culture. Feel free to suggest edifying posts of the week, day, hour, even minute if anyone is so inclined.

 

[Maid Marie]

Marie, I was thinking specifically about the WP when I posted because I was thinking of the value of affirming one another.

But that just means I hadn't given thought to what you suggest. Now that you have done so, I can also see value in using this thread as a place to share with the WP a post from someplace outside the WP that you found significantly meaningful. That too would be another way to build up the body of Christ here in Wesley's Parish.

BTW, I don't think we have to be so literal about the title of "Edifying post of the Month" either. I just used that terminology because I saw that Mr Dave had been named "Mod of the Month" (Congratulations!!) and often there are "_______ of the Month" recognitions in our culture. Feel free to suggest edifying posts of the week, day, hour, even minute if anyone is so inclined.

I'll keep my eyes out for good posts whereever and whenever I find them.

 

[Mr Dave]

Great thread

If you want it stickied so it's always at the top and easy to get to so we can update the good threads/posts, let me know

 

[GraceSeeker]

No new nomınees yet ın November?

 

[Maid Marie]

Haven't had much time this month to go looking

 

[GraceSeeker]

That's what makes me trip out because I feel like, just take a look at all the life that exists all around you/us. Life is the miracle. Sometimes I feel like reality is just too real and we can't all really be here and all these people before us and animals and life giving plants and trees, air, soil, and water. God can take the nutrients from the sun that is burning a 93 million miles away. Grow a plant with it. A plant which takes the vitamins and minerals from the planet Earth itself and the sun and converts it to energy our bodies can use for fuel. So in essence through plant conversion, we consume the sun and the Earth's minerals.

Talk about a miracle. Pick up some dirt, hold it up in the sun and try to eat it, won't work. What an amazing God we have!

I've thought similar thoughts as these many times. It's good to hear it expressed by another's voice.

There are miracles going on around us all the time if we would just take the time to look and see that what we so blithely take for granted is just one of the many miracles God does every day. It's almost as if with God, miracles are the order of each and every day.

 

[GraceSeeker]

I read this today and it really spoke to me (as did most of the conversation following it):

I enjoy much of the Orthodox views on Christ being a "healer" Christ healing our souls and healing our relationship with God while here on Earth. Our love healing the world. Really cool stuff. Less of the view of a Sovereign and more compassion caring concern

Robert, you're on a roll!


BTW, others are allowed to post here, this isn't my personal space, it belongs to all of us. Please feel free to add any other posts that you find especially edifying.

 

[Maid Marie]

BTW, others are allowed to post here, this isn't my personal space, it belongs to all of us. Please feel free to add any other posts that you find especially edifying.

I liked Robert's comment, too. I like Orthodoxy's Christus Victor view of the atonement. It speaks to me of love and grace.

I haven't posted much here in this tread because I haven't gone searching enough to find one.

 

[Maid Marie]

I have found one! It was found on the What's Your Denomination thread posted by Mark1 -

On a side note, our Anglican church has two priests. We also have two eucharistic ministers, both ordained ministers, one Baptist and one Reformed. The majority of our members were Catholic and about 1/4 Baptist. So, one can understand that denominational labels make little difference to most in my church.

This came at just the right time. I finished up a class recently. One of my classmates said something that I heard growing up and recently with my former pastor. I grew up hearing that Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, and some other "mainline" churches didn't preach salvation and thus, those adherents weren't "really saved." My former pastor emphasized contemporary music in a rock style in church was THE way to get people saved. Both sentiments drive me insane and are not correct. The classmate though believed both. I pointed out that people come to Christ not through changing the music into a rock concert but though loving them and through the Holy Spirit drawing them. And in my area, which is predominantly Roman Catholic, UMC and Lutheran, liturgical churches are growing [ex. two Catholic churches rival the protestant mega church in the area]. One Rector said that the higher she makes the Mass the more the attendance goes up. So, obviously there is a need here for something more than a rock concert. His response was that of those thousands and thousands of people who fill those liturgical churches, we can't really be sure that any of them are really saved so ... [couldn't finish reading his post]. This really annoyed me all weekend long. Have we not advanced enough in the CotN that there are still people who believe such stuff? But when I read that 1/4 of Mark's Episcopal Church are former Baptists, it gave me peace that yes, we in North American Christianity have made some advancement in shaking this prejudice.

 

[Lovely Lane]

And I'm not seeking to debate any saint issue with you, either.

But you have accused me of mocking Saint Basil. I say I have not and that if you understood my comments in that way that you have misunderstood them. However, you won't accept my word on this point, and continue to speak of me as having mocked him. Even now you say that I have rendered him an injustice. So, now I ask you where?

But you don't respond. You claim that I'm baiting you. Ha! You want to see baiting: I flat out claim that you are lying about my comments with regard to St. Basil.

If you are not going to put up, and instead simply shut up, then I take your unwillingness to post where I mocked St. Basil as actually declaration not just of unwillingness, but of unableness. You are unable to back up your claim because the truth is that I did not mock him. And your criticism of me is what is in fact the only partisan posting taking place.

I offer this post of Grace Seeker to be the most edifying post of the month for me.
1)Edifying in the sense of providing moral or intellectual instruction. Indirectly Grace Seeker's post has caused me pause, in that I examined my writings so as not to flame another.
2)Edified in the sense that Grace Seeker's post instructed and encouraged me in moral, intellectual, and spiritual improvement. I hope to take the criticism of the post, learn from it, and make future post of mine more direct, concise and clear.
3) Edification in the sense To "build up"; the purpose of fellowship and the gifts of the Spirit. To encourage "dying to self" as a means to gain resurrection life through the Gospel; and especially to speak words of faith to the new-life in believers to endure all things for the joy set before us. Grace Seeker's fellowship the use of harsh words and calling me a liar at first was shocking. But as I prayed and reviewed my conversation with him, I have come to consider being called a liar is the shock that I needed in 'dying in self' and to 'build up' from that point in making a stronger self foundation that enables me to endure all things in joyfulness.

God bless you Grace Seeker today and many days to come.







https://www.google.com/search?q=def....,cf.osb&fp=a76f04b08dc68692&biw=1440&bih=765

 

[jacks]

I have found one! It was found on the What's Your Denomination thread posted by Mark1 -
This came at just the right time. I finished up a class recently. One of my classmates said something that I heard growing up and recently with my former pastor. I grew up hearing that Roman Catholics, Lutherans, and Episcopalians, and some other "mainline" churches didn't preach salvation and thus, those adherents weren't "really saved." My former pastor emphasized contemporary music in a rock style in church was THE way to get people saved. Both sentiments drive me insane and are not correct. The classmate though believed both. I pointed out that people come to Christ not through changing the music into a rock concert but though loving them and through the Holy Spirit drawing them. And in my area, which is predominantly Roman Catholic, UMC and Lutheran, liturgical churches are growing [ex. two Catholic churches rival the protestant mega church in the area]. One Rector said that the higher she makes the Mass the more the attendance goes up. So, obviously there is a need here for something more than a rock concert. His response was that of those thousands and thousands of people who fill those liturgical churches, we can't really be sure that any of them are really saved so ... [couldn't finish reading his post]. This really annoyed me all weekend long. Have we not advanced enough in the CotN that there are still people who believe such stuff? But when I read that 1/4 of Mark's Episcopal Church are former Baptists, it gave me peace that yes, we in North American Christianity have made some advancement in shaking this prejudice.

Amen! Division does nothing to edify God. We are all God's children and we have been told over and over not to judge and love one another. This is a hard but worthy goal. I'm glad to see some progress is being made.

 

[GraceSeeker]

I've been neglectful in lifting up some of the more edifying posts to be retained here. Surely this is one:

Cultivate a cheerful disposition; endeavor, as much as lieth in you, always to bear a smile about with you; recollect that this is as much a command of God as that one which says, "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart." Let us take the pure gold of thankfulness and the jewels of praise and make them into another crown for the head of Jesus. When it is the Lord's work in which we rejoice, we need not be afraid of being too glad. Cheerfulness is most becoming in Christian men. Contentment is the crown jewel of a happy life.

--C.H. Spurgeon

 

[Maid Marie]

From Lovely Lane - For years ago, I found what my soul was seeking, unity with the Holy Spirit. And when I'm in lockstep, in rhythm, in sync of soul and Holy Spirit in each heartbeat, with each pulse I feel at peace, energized, willing and able to do labor in the field spreading Good News for a bountiful harvest. (prayerfully so)
1 John 4:16
16 And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.

 

[Lee52]

This, by MM certainly deserves consideration here.......

http://www.christianforums.com/t7647758/

 

[Maid Marie]

This, by MM certainly deserves consideration here.......

http://www.christianforums.com/t7647758/

Thanks. Although which post are you refering to? It just links to the thread not the post itself.