You can stand in a garage, but that doesn't make you a car.
You can be raised in a church school, got to services and even serve as a site administrator on a Christian forum. That does not make you a Christian. You can have all the head knowledge and secular insight into Scripture that is humanly possible and still be as lost as Ishmael. That's what Charles Stanley would call being "18 inches from salvation."
If you truly understood the Scriptures at a spiritual level, you wouldn't be who you think you are.
I just discovered the lie hidden within all that "mystery"
I saw it demonstrated repeatedly - in the church - in the lives of those who "embrace" christianity - and to an even higher degree here.
and was made ill by it - the lack of compassion, love, caring, empathy all wrapped in a cloak of scripture and doctrine.
Your Christ states to love your neighbor - and most of what is shown to others is a velvet sheathed knife usually planted in someone's back.
I see congregations "kill" their clergy, stab at each other with gossip and malice, condone domestic violence counseling women to go home and "be a better wife", way too many men attempting to "lead" when they haven't gotten themselves in order (inappropriate content, drinking, drugs, whatever)
You reach a point where the "not perfect but forgiven" rings trite - and becomes the excuse to stop trying to be better - the lack of accountability, personal responsibility (after all - original sin isn't yours is it? You're just the victim of mother Eve).
I fully admit I'm not perfect- but I own my mistakes - and don't for one second truly believe that pap of
"if you truly had a heart knowledge of Christ and the Scriptures instead of head knowledge you wouldn't be who you think you are today"
I can tell you - that heart knowledge was there - I was the silver put repeatedly into the fire for purification, I was the Dorcas who fed and clothed the poor and served her community, I was the living sacrifice ... until I realized that sacrifice was worth more.
I stood up, walked off that altar, looked at the Patriarchal nightmare that was perpetuated by Rome and survives in protestantism and realized that most christians aren't christians - they worship like saints on Sundays and live like the devil the rest of the week - they sit in judgement and wrap it up in what is supposed to be a pretty bow of "counseling and Truth" but their hearts are cruel, and they judge more often than not based on their own false "discernment" which in truth is assumption on their part.
I am done with that discernment, usually based on gossip and lies, and the destructive nature it has on the helpless victims of the congregation. And I mean helpless - as it usually arrives in the form of a Deacon, Deacon's wife, the Pastor or his wife, or some other figure that is looked up to, respected, regarded as a "good christian" when in fact they are poison incarnate.
I've returned to my Witchy roots - they make sense, they don't demean women to a status of chattel, nor do they require a man to rule over me, especially when he has no knowledge - heart, head, moral or otherwise, to do so.
Charles Stanley has some amazing teachings and insights - I believe him to be a true man of God - too bad most who quote him have little insight or understanding of what he's actually trying to communicate. Another who's insight always struck me as ringing true - Charles Spurgeon unfortunately many miss the point of his teachings as well...
And on that note - be well... and watch what you assume to be discernment...it's most assuredly fallible.
