And I would like to tell you now quite personally: since I have learnt to read the Bible in this way - and this has not been for so very long - it becomes every day more wonderful to me. I read it in the morning and the evening, often during the day as well, and every day I consider a text which I have chosen for the whole week, and try to sink into it, so as really to hear what it is saying. I know that without this I could not live properly any longer."
"Do not try to make the Bible relevant. Its relevance is axiomatic.......Do not defend God's Word, but testify to it....Trust to the Word." Both quotes by Dietrich Bonhoeffer.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight." Proverbs 3:5
So many of us try to form God into what we think we need, what we want, what we'd like, and we even misquote and 'prettify' the parts of His Word which are sometimes difficult to understand and live by.....and we get away from Scripture or don't want to understand what it really says, so we don't have to remember that everything is not all about us, that His love surrounds us and protects us and informs us and soothes us when we listen......"Lean not on your own understanding.." It's a reminder I think we all need, right?
Have a wonderful Sunday.
z
55 comments:
Excellent words. This points up the problem with too many churches that dumb down Christianity or make it all sunshine and lollipops so that it is non-threatening. All wrong.
Jesus' teachings are not easy. Love our enemies? That's a hard one.
SF - especially for Conservatives
Good post and very difficult for me, the rational analytical mind, not to lean on my own understanding. I'm trying hard not to.
Thanks Sue for the useless comment on a Sunday Faith post which by the way shows exactly that you're having a hard loving your enemy as well. Otherwise you wouldn't even post.
SF..I find that one of the easier ones, myself, but you're absolutely right about teachings not being easy.
I've recently read some things which make it sound like there are men who feel if God's murdering people, He's making mistakes and isn't anyone to worship or honor, so when I ran across some of this information as I was reading, I wanted to post it.
Sue...NO, I don't think it's especially for Conservatives. But, it might look like it because we love in spite of the actions of people, in spite of sounding like we don't like the actions of another. There's a preciousness deep in all of us, God's preciousness we were born with, and that's what I, at least, try to keep my eye on (of others and myself) to remember that there's good in there....somewhere. This attitude I've adopted REALLY HELPS.
FB: Yes, it's so difficult not to lean on OUR understanding......
Nothing hurts me more than to read how people are reading Scripture and interpreting it to reflect THEIR take on the world, THEIR take on who God should be. It hurts me for them and for those who listen or read what they write.
I can't blame people....who wouldn't rather mold God to fit into the mold we WANT him to fit in, right?
amen girl..we sure have lost our way hun. Have an awesome Sunday my friend~! :-)
Such love from the LEFTIST.NOT!!
"Why couldn't, uh, why couldn't have (Rush Limbaugh) croaked from it instead of Heath Ledger?" -- Bill Maher
"I have zero doubt that if Dick Cheney was not in power, people wouldn't be dying needlessly tomorrow....I'm just saying if he did die, other people, more people would live. That's a fact." -- Bill Maher
"One of the reasons I have such trouble believing in God is that if he were real and the justice that pious believers speak of were genuine, guys like George Bush should be vaporized instantaneously one day just by opening his mouth. I'm still waiting." -- Daily Kos diarist, snafubar
"..And then there's Rumsfeld who said of Iraq 'We have our good days and our bad days.' We should put this S.O.B. up against a wall and say 'This is one of our bad days' and pull the trigger. Do you want to salvage our country? Be a savior of our country? Then vote for John Kerry and get rid of the whole Bush Bunch." -- From a fund raising ad put out by the St. Petersburg Democratic Club
"If I had my way, I would see Katherine Harris and Ken Blackwell strapped down to electric chairs and lit up like Christmas trees. The better to light the way for American Democracy and American Freedom!" -- Democratic Talk Radio's Stephen Crockett
(1) Keith Halloran, a New Hampshire Democratic candidate, said on a Facebook thread that he wished Palin had been aboard the Alaska plane that crashed, killing five including Sen. Ted Stevens; (2) Another New Hampshire Democrat, Timothy Horrigan resigned from the state legislature after writing this gem on Facebook: “Well a dead Palin wd be even more dangerous than a live one . . . she is all about her myth & if she was dead she cldn’t commit any more gaffes”; and (3) foul-mouthed comedian Sandra Bernhard warned Palin she would be “gang-raped by my big black brothers” if she tried coming to New York.
Don't you just feel the love oozing out from every pour of these leftist .
well there is the notion of tough love Sue.
anyway,nice one Z.
Don't you just feel the love oozing out from every pour of these leftist .
I feel it every day. They tell me I'm racist, homophobic, want old people to die, the air polluted, the water full of chemicals, the earth to explode due to CO2.
I'm feelin' the love.
Thanks Z, A lot of food for thought in your post. Love does require forgiveness, and sometimes that's very difficult.
Sue, "those who live in glass houses............"
Ticker, you quote "if he were real and the justice that pious believers speak of were genuine,"
That is exactly why I put together this post..EXACTLY.
Imagine a God whose justice is supposed to fit earthly justice, OUR idea of justice?
Would anybody really want to live in that world? But, you can't understand that concept until you've read Scripture with others who won't let you play 'cafeteria Christian' and choose what you want on the day you want it and won't let you skip over or negate all that's in there, too..
I think God's more interested in our being HOLY than our being HAPPY! HAPPY! HAPPY! all the time.
This is EXACTLY why I feel for people who don't understand, who haven't studied Scripture enough years to let it sink in but speak on and on about how God's good when He does what they want but not good when they do things they know He doesn't want, to finally realize that God doesn't write the rules so's to fit our agenda.
On the other subject some of you singled out......for anyone to even suggest that it's conservatives who don't love their enemies when Ticker's only scratched the surface of the HORRIBLE things leftwingers say about us (I'd love anybody to please find from the Right five things as vile as only the few he quoted, in ALL the internet short of outrageous militia type groups the left likes to call "rightwing" ..you won't find them...but MY GOD, the Left's hate is almost unbelievable.
Frog - What a shame that you found my comment useless - but at least you were civilized enough to thank me for my useless comment.
I totally concur with Bill Maher's statement.
Would that we could replace Rush with Heath.
Anyone that has read my post -
Dick Cheney's grandchildern - knows that I will never utter an
unkind word about him again.
On the other hand I will never utter a kind word about him either.
Pris - To you I say this:
I believe that you don't like me.
I have seen you hastily misinterpret my comments - and that is why I tend to overlook yours - for the most part.
" especially for Conservatives"
So sayeth a moonbeam who thinks bill nasty foul maher is a oracle of some sort.
Glass houses indeed.
Imagine a God whose justice is supposed to fit earthly justice, OUR idea of justice?
Actually it's a great point. I find that, for example, the secularist statists are always trying to impose some human morality over society through laws and regulations yet criticize anything that comes from a religion or church.
They spend their time destroying faith and christianity or judaism but want to decide what is moral and not moral. Unfortunately their morality is collectivist in nature unlike faith, which is something very individual.
Some people may respond to this that the Church in the medieval times was behaving the same collectivist way. And they'd be right b/c the Church was the State then.
"Some people may respond to this that the Church in the medieval times was behaving the same collectivist way. And they'd be right b/c the Church was the State then."
Frog, that wasn't the Church, that was the church(man's church,small c) following man made laws, not God's laws.
In the early Church, and I speak of the 1st Century and very early 2nd Century the Church was still pretty well free of man made laws. Paul and those who followed preached against allowing man made laws and so called theology slipping into the Church. It remained pure for the most part during this age. In 300AD(appx) The Armenian Kingdom declared Christianity it's state religion and from there it was and has been more or less down hill with some rather high peeks of returning to the true teachings of Christ but even then the denominations that lead such a peek insisted on inserting their "interpretation" of the Word which was a lot of man made doctrine. No church to this date has managed to return to the pure teaching's of the early Church.
Today we see more and more of a "falling away" as Paul called it and people running to and fro looking for as Silverfiddle put it sunshine and lollipops. I call it "fluff and stuff". The easy gospel, the prosperity gospel, the inclusion gospel etc.
There is coming a day when some will return to the teachings of the "early church" .
I was referring mostly to the church and monarchy collusion when the king of France for example was seen as the representant of God. And when the Church was very much in power with the King.
But you're right. Church lower c.
Ticker, believe it or not, the Armenian Church has been, through the years, one of the few churches which hasn't ever turned from the true teachings of Christ since they did announce their nation to be Christian.
Thaddeus and Bartholomew started the faith there and they never turned back.
I've always been extremely proud of that and you seem to sound like Christianity's faith has been in a downfall because of that :-)??
If it hadn't been for the Armenian Orthodoxy, a church which repeated the stories over and over during their services (and still does) before Scripture was written and widely shared, we'd have little of the gospel to share today....very proud of that too, here...Extremely.
That WAS "the Early Church".....we should be so lucky.
During Armenia's days of being overcome by Communism as the "Armenian SSR", it was the only country the Soviet Union allowed its faith; they knew they could never get Armenians to become like the Romanians, Hungarians, etc. because Christianity was so much a part of every Armenian's soul, with churches on corners as much as gas stations were here once.
FrogBurger, you and I've talked about this, remember?
I and your wife both agreed that it's the 'business' of the Catholic church which turns people away......the Vatican's rules, etc.
Of course you agree with anything Bill stands for. I bet you drolled when he allowed this BS on his show:
Bill Maher,The oh so non violent, kind hearted, loveable (to hear the leftist loonies describe him) shows his true colors as he condones and agrees with calls for the Death of Republicans and allows the guest to say he would even Rape some of them. Now ain't that sweet thinking and sweet talking on his part
Go take another pill Sue and calm down. And NO no one read your flake piece on Chaney or his grandkids . Who would want too when all we hear are leftist loonies spouting BS with no facts all day long.
Next: sue hanes said...
Pris - To you I say this:
I believe that you don't like me.
BWAAAAA!!!
And now folks you know why Sue is not welcome on my blog.
Ticker, Mr. Turn the Other Cheek, why not post a review of your words on Muslims, homosexuals, leftists, immigrants and any one else that doesn't have a place in your fundamentalist mind set.
Z..thanks for a thought provoking post. I understood, precisely, what you were saying.
There are two commenters, in particular, which always bring this scripture to mind:
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.
Acts 7:51
How very sad.
Ticker, Bill Maher allowed guests to say that michelle Bachmann's husband should F*** her harder..and worse.
tough stuff, but it's we Republicans and our "fundamentalism" which is so egregious :-) ha!!
Imp: I think "filth monger" is a little extreme...!?
We just don't agree much with her on people like Maher...
It is difficult to think much of people who admire people we find so awful, but...to each his own, I guess; unless you're a Republican and then you haven't a shred of goodness in you for admiring people they don't like, right? :-)
WE have to be tolerant, they can side with and revel with people who partied over Tony Snow's young and painful demise.
Jan, you got it; this is a totally Holy SPirit thing and unless one's studied and been 'hit' by 'Him' in that way, it's nothing we can really talk about here, sadly.
But, yes...that's exactly it.
At another blog, I'd read some posts that were so far from Truth and given with such assuredness and silliness that it got me thinking; it wasn't even so much as interpretation (we all know there are interpretations to Scripture though I have my own opinions on that, too), it was a blanket condemnation of God for anything that person found difficult to understand..."so that can't be MY GOD!" :-)
'nuff said on that, for sure.
thanks.
Come on, Jan.
We're like family here - so quit beating around the bush and say who the two commenters are you are talking about.
Wait a minute - I can't be one of them since I've never been circumcised.
Z - Please, give it a rest about Bill Maher and the 'f***ing Michelle Bachman harder' thing.
Or I'll start in on the Mochelle thing again.
Ticker - It's Cheney - with an 'e.'augies
Ticker, Mr. Turn the Other Cheek, why not post a review of your words on Muslims, homosexuals, leftists, immigrants and any one else that doesn't have a place in your fundamentalist mind set.
Since you seem to know so much about my so called words toward Muslims, homosexuals etc why don't you offer proof where i have ever made any kind of remarks such as the left has made. Come on duckass, I am waiting . Of course you won't find any except in your fairy tale imagination.
Whoops
Thanks, Z - about the 'filth
monger' thing.
I missed that somehow.
~~~
If you dare - everyone here is invited over to my blog for a little 'true confessions' about my relationship with Bill Maher.
with
Sorry - It's not my fault - it's just that I'm not good on a
l*ptop.
Imp - I'm I then 'moonbeam?'
If not - who is and what does it stand for.
jus' askin'
Sue, please...mind your manners.
This is not Jan's blog, or sue the impossible dream's blog, but Z's blog...so, please drop it.
Thanks.
Sue, you're telling ME to "give it a rest?" Are you kidding me? I have never ever gone to someone's blog and said anything close to the things you've said to me and, honestly, are you serious?
Please, we're all adults here and we have to be able to take as good as we give and I don't need hypersensitivity from people who don't do as well when people react to their comments, okay?
I don't mean to be unkind to you but please don't expect sweetness and light when you you come here, throw in the gauntlet with THE most amazing comment right from the start of the thread "especially for Conservatives" and somehow expect us to smile and accept that amazingly unkind and unthinking statement as if that's true
Imp doesn't enjoy your comments, Sue, what more do you need to prove that to you? Let me tell you a little truth you can't know: He was kind enough to delete a response to you the other night because I emailed him after seeing it and said I'd have to delete it if he didn't...I told him that he mentioned some more personal things which I knew would hurt you. He's such a good guy that after I explained via email, he deleted his own comment. Please show the same respect.
You complain and take everything he says so hard then you come here now and goad him...if you're so sensitive, why not just protect yourself and be QUIET? Because you'll be complaining about him the minute he takes your bait..WHY?
Oh, then you'll blame my blog :-)
By the way, Moochelle Obama? YOu equate that with F*** MICHELLE BACHMANN, SUe, REALLY? Are you kidding me?
good luck with your Maher article; you know we all disdain him for a character so bad most of us have trouble being on the same planet with him and you invite us over to read about your obsession? wow
Jan, thanks. Blogging's always something new, isn't it :-) gad
Here are some things that can be included in the Maher article but I bet they won't be. LOL.
“A lot of good has come from drugs. I think 'Penny Lane' is worth 10 dead kids. Dark Side of the Moon is worth 100 dead kids. Because a lot of kids wouldn't even be born if it weren't for that album, so it evens out.”
Bill Maher quote
“Let's face it; God has a big ego problem. Why do we always have to worship him?”
Bill Maher quote
“. . . remember, guns don't kill people -- unless you practice real hard.”
Bill Maher quote <
We are a nation that is unenlightened because of religion. I do believe that. I think religion stops people from thinking. I think it justified crazies.”
Bill Maher quote
Religion to me is a bureaucracy between man and God that I don't need.”
Bill Maher quote
We have been the cowards lobbing cruise missiles from 2,000 miles away. That's cowardly. Staying in the airplane when it hits the building, say what you want about it, it's not cowardly.”
Bill Maher quote
Ticker; it all makes my teeth grind together, doesn't it you?
Maher is so sad....I have friends who see him frequently at the Playboy mansion (they were there last night for the Halloween Party) and he's a very unhappy man.
The Conservative editor of Loyola Marymount college in L.A. told me she always had Republicans and Democrats come to their school to speak and Maher came frequently at her invitation and hit on the college girls and asked many to come to his hotel room after he spoke.. very sad.
By the way, since she graduated and they got a liberal editor, she is told they haven't had a conservative speaker invited again.
VERY sad, indeed. THIS is how we're 'teaching' our kids.
Well - I know this is going to break everyone's heart here at geeez - but I am at the crossroads of my life - alone in a hotel room - in between a home that I loved and a college town that I don't - and I have no idea what is happening in my life.
And what do I get - nothing here.
Just mean, harsh feelings from you people.
I know what you are thinking - boo hoo for Sue.
Who gives a d*mn if I'm crying myself to sleep.
It will only be the second time today.
Z - You know what really makes me furious. That you have the nerve to say that you stopped Imp from saying things that would hurt me.
I've got news for you, Z.
You have no idea about what would hurt me. And I want to know everything that anyone would say about me.
Because you can't even begin to hurt me.
I've been hurt so much - in ways you could never know that I can take whatever you think you are 'protecting' me from.
So have at it - just try and hurt me.
Sue..I really shouldn't do this on Z's blog, but I feel that what I have to say is something that you should think about.
For instance, did you not know that to have a friend, you must be a friend, also? If you want people to like you, you must present yourself as a likable person. You can't just cop an attitude, right off the bat, and expect people to like you, or even to agree with you. We all have our bad sides, but we don't take pride in them, and try our best to overcome them...especially where our friends are concerned.
We all have things happen to us that are not the most pleasant, or desirable, but that is life. If I told you all of the bad things that have happened to me, in my life, you would be shocked...but there is a point here, Sue, and that is that what happens to us should make us better, and not bitter.
I'm sorry that you feel that you have been so disrespected, and even abused, here, but honestly, you have to admit that Z has been nothing but patient with you, and this is, after all, her blog.
If you want us to like you, then please be more considerate of the feelings of others on here, and especially of Z. We are conservative in our views, here...it is a CONSERVATIVE blog... so when you come here and say offensive, and insulting things to us, it is just plain rude, and disrespectful of our feelings...and that does not make us have a good, positive, opinion of you.
The kindest thing that we can do for you, Sue, is to pray for you...and I'm sure there's not a single one of us here that wouldn't be willing to do that.
God bless you, according to His perfect will, and plan for your life.
Jan - Thank you so much.
I would never refuse prayer from anyone.
I will sleep better tonight - after I have a good cry - knowing that you, Imp, Ticker, Ducky?
Silverfiddle, Frogburger, EB - and even Pris are prayin' me through.
And to think I ever thought you Conservatives had your h**d
*p y**r *ss.
God bless you
and
God Bless The United States of America.
And could some of you kind Conservatives here on Z's blog say a little prayer for Bill Maher?
would that be asking too much
Sighhhhh...I rest my case.
Bonhoeffer - a true Hero of the FAITH--
Stood up to evil-even with the threat of death-
Thanks for the post - Z-
Carol-CS
"And could some of you kind Conservatives here on Z's blog say a little prayer for Bill Maher?"
Now, there's an idea.
Z, thanks for your thoughtful post. I always enjoy your Sunday Faith Blogs.
I'm very sorry when my blog turns into this kind of conversation from time to time....not often, thank God, especially on my Faith Blog...particularly sad.
We need to pray for all those here, among all our own prayers for ourselves (because none of us really knows the troubles we all keep privately to ourselves), our friends and family...
particularly for the lost, the seeking, the sick, the needy......
God bless you all.
and god bless us everyone
and particularly -
bill maher
yes, he seems to need it far more than anyone I know, poor man.
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