Grace etc

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Indeed. You are free to believe what you believe, old bean.

I am sure that if there is a hell, it is to do with a lack of grace on our behalf, rather than Gods.

 

[WasBlind]

Grace is a free gift from God.

 

[Rick Otto]

Is your last "ButNowCanSee"?

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

I once was blind, then i walked off a building and now im concussed and heomorraged. That's pretty much my church testimony!

 

[WHODINI]

How D'you Like Them Apples?

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Slightly rippled with a flat underside.

So welcome my pasty white bruddah.

 

[Machachachi]

Christ was the lamb slain before the foundation of the world, whatever "change" was worked in God, was worked in eternity before this world was even created. God's desire for a righteous and set aside people is just as strong today as it was during the time of Israel. We are Abraham's children, our belief is reckoned to us as righteousness and we are not bound by the law.

What I'm trying to say is, God didn't need to change, while the approach of God may have seemed to change, it is not because God had changed but because the world itself was ready for it. Time has no meaning to God. Blah I still lack the ability to just say it.

Anyway, maybe you understand me, if not PM me I'll try to explain better.

Love yall.

 

[Athene]

Well we are all different. My top tip is to not avoid suffering, at all.

You know when we sometimes give people advice or avoid something because the alternative would be too painfull for either us to endure, or for them, or too difficult for us to support someone through or for us to seek support. Well I say "bring it on". I've been hiding from the obvious suffering of myslef and my friends and strangers for too, too long now. So now I draw a line. I become transparent. Like a Samurai I consider myself as dead. This allows me to invite the dead people around me, on an equal basis, to also become transparent.

I may be talking in riddles, but it's as clear as I can make it. When we are gracious to ourselves and others, God is revealled. When we openly confess and confront and invite suffering, we unlock a new instinct, that which drives us towards grace, that which shows us a narrow road that winds through our humanity, a holy detour, if you like.

As I pour out and share my grace and suffering, I experience more and more grace, and share in the suffering of others. Holiness is unlocked for all.

That's a really interesting POV and completely goes against the grain of the british stiff upper lip-ness

I think I understand, using me as an example, my lack of willingness to allow others to see my pain has made me . . less recepetive to seeing grace in others, and to extending grace towards others.

This is something I need to think about . .maybe not at 1:50 in the morning though. How do you become more transparent, how do you get over the fear that if you are you're just going to be brushed off - or is it like swimming - one day you've got to take your feet of the bottom of the pool otherwise you'll never learn to swim. I suppose it's learning to trust, and to trust again and again if you are brushed off - it's too late to be thinking of this, or too early

 

[Multi-Elis]

I just wanted to ask Flandidlyanders if he's ajusting, or if it's gotten more difficult, or both.

 

[irenemcg]

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Rev 22:13 I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End, the First and the Last."
God is unchanging!

Yesterday, today, and forever the same.

Grace is the unmerited favour of God poured out for us.

Rom 5:15 But the free gift is not like the offense. For if by the one man's offense many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.

Eph 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God,

Salvation is by grace alone.

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Bless you all.

Multi, Athen, for more info on my changing, I suggest PMing a girl called "tryingtobeagain" - it'll freak her out and maybe bless her!

Anyway,

Transparency is about being resolved. About choosing to simply talk to people. To push through that "should I/shouldnt I" or "what if" and simply lay your body down in their path. Sounds a bit Samurai, doesnt it?

In the last weeks I have grown and grown. I have had to forgive yet more intollerable trash, and grow to a place where I can truly forget also.

I have no magic answers, I cannot generate any of this, which is so frustrating. I just know that as I push myself forward, with my friends around me, grieving and laughing with me, God pours and pours Grace in all directions.

Yoyo Machy, I appreciate that God may not have changed, but I express the unexpressable - so do gimme some slack

That being said, God made Godself so vulnerable in becoing human. It is no less for us to be huma also. To empathise, live alongside people. Grace is something that can only be kept if given away. In all thigs, in all ways, in every day.

Day after day I live for each day, each moment.
Sorry guys and girls, this is becoming a rant!

Yes, in answer to some questions, I am growing and loving and living more; but sometimes the pain of deep human contact is too much.

I pray that we all experience this, because it's time the church truly learned to be Grace. Pick one person and be transparent, that's my aim for today.

I challenge you to do the same.
What more can I ask?

And yes, Irene, salvation is by Grace alone. I wonder if any of us can recieve Grace enough to recieve salvation through Jesus in the World, through the "least of these", through the most unlikely and "UnGodly" of people?

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

So on the "etc" note, I posted this elsewhere on the web, may help clarify....

My church is an unchurched church. i guess you might call it a relational church. we are a disparate bunch of christians and non-christians who interelate and interdepend in varied forms and for varied reasons. a lot of us live in one area, some are just "fringers" from london or wherever who, for me, are as intimately part of my life as anyone else. the issue here is support, connectedness and honesty.

i persoanlly seek transparency. my theory is if we each are transparent with one other person, we will change the world. the church must get smaller and smaller till it takes over the world (i think shane claiborne said that).

so how do we reach the unchurched? we dont at all. we live alongside them. as we share our mess, they share theirs. the trouble with church is that we have lost our grace. it is grace that allows us to share our mess - to even recognise it in the first place! - and it is grace that allows us to accept others and their own mess.

as we grasp aspects of grace that lead us thru the winding narrow path implicit in our world, we start to learn the truth about the gospel. it needs to change us far more than any "non-christian" or "pagan" or "outsider". when we learn and recognise our own true needs, we realise that we can only satisfy those needs by seeking out Jesus in others - whoever they may be.

 

[tryingtobeagain]

Beautifully put. Need I say more?

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Welcome to church, girl. Talk later. Hope the snow doesnt block you in.

 

[Rick Otto]

Here all this time I was thinkin' you're a black man, on account'a puttin' too much stock in your CF character.
Great lookin' crew you've assembled there, cap'n.
An "Away Team" fit for beaming down to any planet, I'd reckon. I see good things looming on your horizon of events.
Live long & prosper.

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Cheers Rick. I'll try not to be rude to you this time and get the thread closed...

I was taling about you the other day, infact it was to the guy who posted here, WhoDini. I'll get him to PM you - he lives a while away fro me, so I'll have to remember to text him!

Lets juss say you may have some common-ground in yer heads!!!!!!!

Bless you, Rick. And God SAVE America.

 

[JoeNah]

I think you have a great way of expressing your thoughts. I like what you have to say about grace. However, God doesn't change, and has never changed: Malachi 3:6 "I am the LORD; I change not..."

I love you much.

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Dude again I'll say it, what I am expressing is from a very human vantage point. Gods vantage point is completely broader. Tomayto, tomahto.

I am not implying God changed, I am stating emotionally what I percieve. Sometimes truth needs to be told in an opposite way to previous expressions in order for those previous ideas to be truly challenged.

Get me?

 

[hairettic]

# 52 --You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to FLANDIDLYANDERS again.

well said.
Churches want perfect christians sitting in perfect little rows of their perfect little buildings. A very far cry from Jesus' actions of meeting the unapproachable people of his day and literally bringing them a fresh glass of living water. Grace abounds for every step! May His Spirit lead you and guide you today, Flan. Have a good one!

 

[FLANDIDLYANDERS]

Same to you, Hairygirl.

Well, well, well, we seem to be having some what of a Social Club going on here don't we? Not that I'm complaining, but should we all get some smoking jackets and hang some antlers up somewhere around here? Maybe some good Port and a pool table?

Or would that be copying the current model of Church too closely? Although to be a Social Club, Church would need to be sociable... I know, I know, where the Grace, Flan? I hear you say. Well, one thing is for sure, I've been part of the established church machine - hey even led it - for many, many years. And as soon as I started walking the streets on a Sunday Morning and Wednesday Evening, instead of sitting in a warm building, I started to experience the Grace of Jesus; being gracious to the "unloveable" (which is essentially all of us, especially Rick ) and recieving Grace from them.

So maybe I wont erect our Club Motto juss yet, yer know something like, "Grace in yer face!", and just drag the pool table out into the alleyway. Wasn't it the Beverly Hillbillies that used it as their "fancy eatin' table"???!!!