Wow, Shylynne, what a wonderful article!

Justice without love is not justice; love without justice is not love.

In His love,

-Grace

Jim,
My prayers are with you and your dad, and your whole family. I cannot even begin to imagine what you are going through.
Re.

He confuses me sometimes, one day he will be thanking God for what he has, the next day he just wants it to be over with.

Try reading through Job.
Job 10:1, 18-22 "I loathe my life; I will give free utterance to my complaint; I will speak in the bitterness of my soul.
 "Why didst thou bring me forth from the womb? Would that I had died before any eye had seen me, and were as though I had not been, carried from the womb to the grave. Are not the days of my life few? Let me alone, that I may find a little comfort before I go whence I shall not return, to the land of gloom and deep darkness, the land of gloom and chaos, where light is as darkness."

And in Job 38, Job recieved not the answer, but the Answerer (Peter Kreeft, Making Sense of Suffering.

And it was Job, and not his friends who were upset that he was speaking such, who was counted as righteous by God:
Job 42:7-8 After the LORD had spoken these words to Job, the LORD said to Eli'phaz the Te'manite:"My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has."

I hope that this will be of some comfort,

In His love,

-Grace

Hello Liana,

First things first. If you are in an abusive situation, if you are in danger, you need to go somewhere safe. If there is a pastor you know and trust, they may be able to help you find a place; Reba's idea is good. Is there a women's shelter in your area? A Salvation Army? A crisis line that might have a database of resources?

Once you're safe, you need to find out if you are pregnant or not; if you are not, then we work from there. If you are, then that's where we go from. Either way, there is help out there, there is support out there. And know that no matter what fix you may have gotten yourself into, you are loved, infinitely and beyond the capacity for human understanding. That may or may not seem real to you right now, but even if it is not, hang onto the thought.

My prayers are with you,

-Grace

Hi Jim,

My prayers are with you too.

Re.

If I can keep focused I will prevail in God's plan for me.

Remember to do it not just for Him, but with Him! Day by day, moment by moment...

Bless you,

-Grace

Boy, Alice, does that sound familiar!!!

A page right out of the story of my life.

I have never seen your posts, and I don't know what your background is, but if it is anything like mine was:

I'd pretty much decided that this whole Christianity thing was a load of crap that just didn't make sense, too. Then one day, to my utter astonishment, a person I met said something about Christianity that made sense!   And Then something else...    And then something else...       I have since joined a Christian community and I once again call myself a Christian- and I never thought that would happen, let me tell you! I don't agree with and accept everything that all the various members of my community believe; I struggle with plenty of things still, and I think that any Christian who is the least bit thoughtful does too. I keep having these fights with the apostle Paul... But genuine Christianity is ANYTHING BUT a neat unambiguous formula, or a complete set of pat answers. My community has the grace and wisdom to allow me to struggle, and to love and support me as I struggle.

I had had a very legalistic idea of who God was. I have come to discover, ironically enough, that my turning away from God as I then understood Him was in fact very Godly! Please, see my testimony in the Fellowship section.

I've heard it said that nothing can come between Man and God quite like religion. Give up religion if you must, but please don't give up on God! They are not one and the same. Keep praying; you don't have to go to church or officially adhere to this or that doctrine to pray to God and Jesus.

Personally, I believe that He'll draw you back, in His good time and in yours.   There is much to be gained from sharing your live and faith with a grace-based faith community; it is God's intention, I believe, that we live this way.

In the meantime, please believe that there can be joy and freedom in the Christian faith, and that it is possible to live such a life without taking leave of reason.

In His love,

-Grace

Hello Symphony,

Re:

I don't recognize those quotes appearing anywhere here.  Perhaps they did and I missed them.

I did not find them on this forum!!!! And I didn't mean to imply that I had!!!

I didn't mean to mislead; sorry about that! I just typed "Christian" and "homosexual" into my search engine, and that is what popped up. If you look up Betty Bowers or Junto Society, you'll find where I got these from. I haven't searched through this forum with a fine-tooth comb for material such as that.

Both of those sources are of the radical fundamentalist type. But you see, they're the ones who get the air play   ;it is sensationalism that sells papers and ups ratings. Problem is, when we say something like:

Tho the whole point of all of the gay thing is exactly that--it is masquerading as "love". It is quite hideous.

, it is portrayed in the media and percieved by the general public as being rooted in the Betty Bower attitude. It has become almost impossible for a Christian to speak up without their words being attached to that hateful and unChristlike caricature; this is tragic, and it it is the Enemy's work.

If we want to bring Christ's true message, we are going to have to learn to choose our words very carefully; the most righteous of messages becomes the momentum of the Enemy if it can be sucked into the vortex of that caricature. We must speak unequivocally to our convictions, yet our words need to be surrounded with an honor guard of lovingness and Christspirit in order to keep on track and reach their mark. Anyone whose words are not so rooted and guarded is shooting themselves and everyone on their side of the issue in the foot.

In His love,

-Grace

What a beautiful and inspiring thread! Thank-you Sincereheart, and everyone else who has contributed!

And AMEN!

In His love,

-Grace

BEP, we may yet have to agree to disagree on some things, but we certainly don't disagree on everything! That

One doesn't help these suffering people by giving them more dope or alcohol or telling them what they are doing is OK.

I could not agree more; I certainly never meant to suggest telling them that what they're doing is OK!!!

I think back to my own experience: I didn't need anyone to tell me that something was wrong with my life; the pain, loneliness and shame that I felt made that abundantly clear. The first Christian message that ever really got through to me was not that I was a sinner and unworthy of God's love; it was that there was hope. Hope for the first time that my life didn't have to go on like it had been. Hope that perhaps Love existed that was stronger than what I believed myself to be.

The message that I was unworthy got in the way for me of accepting God's love. Long ago, I internalized the rule that it is wrong to accept something that you don't deserve. Even something freely given. I even had it in my head that God didn't deserve to have me in His presence and that I was doing Him a favor by never approaching Him. I harbored a sincere desire to, if the door of Heaven should open to me (which I didn't expect), walk away and give my place there to someone in hell, and take their place.
Even as my understanding of who God really is grew, I had a lot of trouble with my unworth getting in the way. I once imagined myself as the Prodigal Son, seeing my Father's house in the distance, but instead of approaching, hiding behind a tree. How could I face Him? He would be so disappointed in me! Maybe it would cause Him less grief and turmoil if I just turned around and walked away.
It was only the realization that He truly, truly loved me, and that He treasured me, that I was beautiful and precious in His eyes, that He wanted me, and that because of His love for me it would hurt Him even more and not less if I walked away,... - it was only this that stopped me from walking away.

In my flesh, there is no goodness, but God made me in His image, He saw that what He made was good, and He loved me. Though in my flesh there is no goodness, the flesh is but one part of my dual nature; there is also the spirit, the part of me that when freed from the flesh is the person that God originally created me to be, and intends for me to be. And the person that I can be only by His grace.

I am not saying ever that we should tell a person a lie, but that the truth of God's love is the part of the truth that we should begin with to witness most effectively. And that telling a terribly wounded person in particular the truth of their sinfulness may even prevent a person from recieving the rest of the truth, the crux of the matter. Because the truth if our sinfulness does not stand alone without the truth of God's love.

Had some well-meaning evangelist come to me behind that tree and begun to tell me how I fell terribly terribly short of the glory of God, I may have walked away from my Father's house and waiting, loving arms, and from the truth of the Gospel.

I have so much more that I want to write and share and say about this, but I need to try to get some sleep.

TO BE CONTINUED....

In His love,

-Grace

Maybe there's a gay conspiracy to take over the world, but frankly the arguments and evidence put forward seem disturbingly reminiscent to me of the case made by the Jewish-Conspiracy-to-Take-Over-the-World folks.

Unfortunately, at least some of the violence (and I'm talking both physical and verbal) against "anti-Gays" is a response to violence done to Gays. As sad as it is to say, I'm afraid we Christians may have started it (or at least, some who were walking under a Christian banner started it). And regardless of whether we did or not, the fact remains that it is being used against us. We claim to abhor violence and to hold love as our highest tenet. We speak of Jesus, who ate with lepers and tax collectors. And then:

Thanks to Betty Bowers, homosexuals' sneaky little secrets are now revealed to the godly:
THE HOMOSEXUAL AGENDA!
As every Christian knows, there is only one enemy that threatens our entire civilization. And I am, of course, not talking about Satan. I'm talking about those damned homosexuals!

and

One wonders what is behind contemporary popularity of male homosexual behavior. Perhaps it is, in practical terms, the inconvenience of impregnating a female on the one hand, and (absent the threat of AIDS) the relative inconsequentiality of anal or oral copulation with another male on the other hand, that seduces them. That line of reasoning has a certain perverted logic which appeals primarily to less mature, more naive, the self-deluded or even vicious, evil perverts. [Junto Society]

And especially, I’ve heard too many times about homosexuals being beaten up, even killed, for being gay.

When we get riled up and speak out of our own repulsion instead of in Jesus’ voice, we unintentionally incite more of this hatred and violence. And by our own participation, whether direct or indirect, we become the hypocrites they accuse us of being! And the hatred and violence come back on us from those who can claim of themselves, “at least we’re not being hypocrites!”
I’m not trying to justify homosexuality. I'm not excusing violence against "anti-Gays". I’m trying to say that we are going about this wrongly, and in a un-grace-filled, unproductive and downright destructive way.
The Enemy loves it when we borrow his tools! And perhaps we're beginning to experience the consequences of doing so.

In His love,

-Grace

Crusader, you never did get back to me!   Remember, Debate- Romans Road?

In His love,

-Grace

RATS!!!

Posted this on the wrong thread!

Please disregard... I guess that's what I get for replying while dead tired...

Moving it to the right thread...

-Grace

Acts 15: 5-10  But some believers who belonged to the party of the Pharisees rose up, and said, "It is necessary to circumcise them, and to charge them to keep the law of Moses." 6 The apostles and the elders were gathered together to consider this matter. 7 And after there had been much debate, Peter rose and said to them, "Brethren, you know that in the early days God made choice among you, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 And God who knows the heart bore witness to them, giving them the Holy Spirit just as he did to us; 9 and he made no distinction between us and them, but cleansed their hearts by faith. 10 Now therefore why do you make trial of God by putting a yoke upon the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear? 11 But we believe that we shall be saved through the grace of the Lord Jesus, just as they will."

Kasey, Psalm119, Charlielad, why do you try to put “a yoke upon the necks of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we have been able to bear?”

I looked at the Hebrews passage you mentioned, and I’m not convinced that only the Animal Sacrificial Laws of the Levitical Priesthood System were fulfilled through Christ’s blood. Those two chapters alone may not prove that the Law of God as expressed from Exodus to Deuteronomy was included, but it certainly doesn’t prove that it wasn’t.  And there’s just too much else, like I Cor 10, that suggests to me that it was. Nope, I’m not convinced. And, looks like, neither were Peter, the apostles and the elders.

If I follow the Law that is written on my heart, I will not rape, pillage, cast spells, sacrifice people, take a sum of money for the life of a murderer, take bribes, etc.

Re.

Land laws. inheritance laws. Relationship to God laws. Relationship to others. law and justice, family law and relationship laws. animal regulations, government and civil officers,feasts and observances,capital laws and offences, foreign relations, etiquette and moral laws labour and work,food and health laws, General welfare, enconomic and monetary laws, Churches and ministers, servants and employees. warfare and military laws. and many more

:
In a wounded world these laws are needed for us to live semi-civilly with each other. They and their enforcement keep the peace to a great extent; we’d be nuts to eliminate them, and I know none but a few overzealous anarchists who think otherwise. They are there for our good, and we do well to follow them. However, these secular laws encounter the same problem as the shadow of God’s Law did: Legalism. Secular legalism. We try to legislate morality, fairness and decency, but there’s always a loophole. The secular Pharisees of today still can act abhorrently without, technically, breaking a letter of the law; another reason why we, in our wounded world, need God.

And besides, is there no distinction between keeping the peace (by keeping secular laws) and receiving salvation (by keeping God's Law, you claim)?

In His love,

-Grace

Paul2 pointed out:

Matthew 10:28 "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

"Immortal" means cannot die, right?

And He is able to destroy both body and soul in hell.

Doesn't sound like immortality to me.

And perhaps it hints at the true purpose of hell (Gehenna here, if I guess correctly; still bereft of concordance) too: To destroy utterly, rather than to torment unendingly.

I haven't had the chance to go thru your post in detail yet, Kasey, but I will soon.

In His love,

-Grace

I don't have a concordance handy (to look up the meaning of the original Greek word used in the untranslated text), but I'm guessing you'll find that it is the same as the one that is often translated as hell in the Old Testament, "Sheol"; this refers a place of death, a sort of waiting place where all go before the time of judgement. So with this meaning, "go to hell" simply means "drop dead"!

There are some far more troublesome passages than this to deal with, but right now, I'm late and I GOTTA RUN!!!

In His love,

-Grace

Crusader, you do a lovely exposition of the Romans Road, but you don't address my points.

Here's my own exposition, where I begin:
We all have a pretty solid idea that, in the real world, love is not enough. Yeah, sure, “Love conquers all”, “All you need is love”, “Love makes the world go ‘round” and all that nice kind of stuff is all very nice, and it’s nice to think in these terms, but let’s get real here. As nice as love is, it doesn’t really change everything and fix everything. We can’t trust it to answer all our problems. We need practical solutions.
   But what if it could? What if, somehow, it was a practical solution? Humor me here for a minute. What would that kind of love look like? It couldn’t be on the same magnitude as the love in most of our relationships, or even be of the same type; many of them seem to cause far more heartbreak and trouble than they help.
   Those loves are imperfect; it would have to be a perfect love that could change the world, and us. And with all the crap that’s in the world and in us, it would have to be unconditional, or it would never permit itself to reach us. It would have to be like the love that a parent has for their child, except infinitely deeper and infinitely more perfect and true and consistent.
   Can such a love exist as more than a nice abstraction? I’ve been learning things, looking at some things in a different way, and actually even having experiences that are leading me to believe that it just might.  I can’t prove to you that is exists, any more than you can prove to me that it doesn’t. But I can share what experiences I’ve had, if it would help.
   God as I understood Him growing up was always either no help (too distant and uninvolved), or made me feel worse (guilt and shame for my inadequacies). That God loved me was a nice abstraction, but was of little comfort and certainly wasn’t life-changing. That He would and could love with a love that was perfect and unconditional and personal did not even cross my mind.
   I’ve only just begun to know God as the giver of perfect, unconditional love, and my life has already changed so much, and every bit for the better. I used to loathe myself, and now for the first time in a very long time, I feel as though I am a worthwhile human being, and a good person, and a loveable person. The constant weight of never-good-enough has been replaced with a happiness I never dreamed I could ever have. Rather than doing what’s right out of a sense of obligation and guilt, I’m finding myself doing it out of joy, as if it is the most natural thing in the world. I’m also no longer doing things to try to prove my worth, or to not be a complete waste of oxygen, like I was before, but simply out of love. And my performance hasn’t deteriorated; I’m far more able to be the person I want to be than before. Far from perfect; I have a long way to go. But my heavy heart gets lighter and lighter the more God’s love works on my heart. And it has been a practical solution for me, far more effective than anything ever before.
   Maybe love doesn’t cut the mustard in coping with reality, but my experience has been that nothing else but love does. Who knows; you may find the same.

How many people reject the message

Everyone is a sinner and deserves death

? The first part is easy, it is the "deserves death" bit that, unless a person feels truly convicted before you even say it, is going to inspire them to walk away. Even if they're not thinking of themselves, they will be thinking of people in my life. "Are you telling me that my beloved mother, who is so kind and gentle and caring and generous and who never hurt a person in her life, deserves death? That Mother Theresa of Calcutta deserves death?"

Of course, that is what you are trying to tell them, but will they stick around long enough to figure out how that "outrageous" statement makes sense, and fits with the rest of the story? Not if the rest of the story is not yet becoming real to them, probably not.

In using these scriptures, many converters seek to create the need, and then fill it. But it is God's job to convict people, not ours (let's face it; we are bad at convicting others grace-fully), and it is God's job to convert people, not ours. It is ours to proclaim the Gospel, but, I repeat, not to convert.

In His love,

-Grace