go to hell.....I dont care

[Richard_oti]

Read the joke.
Pretty funny!

Yes. I do think it's sad. I think we should be a better example to the world. Folks around here respect the JW's for how they dress and live and raise their children.

Shouldn't we be the same??

Imagine how folks in this day would receive John the Baptist. <chuckle> I just had an image of JtB walking into a JW church. Heck, for that matter, we could extend that to almost any modern day church.

 

[GodsGrace]

Imagine how folks in this day would receive John the Baptist. <chuckle> I just had an image of JtB walking into a JW church. Heck, for that matter, we could extend that to almost any modern day church.

Well they say you can't judge a book by its cover.
But it's the first thing you see.
I've learned that it's really true and don't judge anyone.
You can't, however, help but get ideas in your head.
Some persons look really intelligent, some look really poor.
At the end, the intelligent one might be a jerk and the poor one might be rich !
Poor JtB. He'd need a few showers, some cologne, a haircut, new clothes and shoes. And we STILL wouldn't listen to him!!
Preparing the way for the Lord???
Huh?

 

[GodsGrace]

Yes agree.
Where "works" are concerned, been there done that, as they say.
Done the door to door evangelism, done year of Pub and Bar evangelism...done hospital visitation...opened our home to deprived children...done soup-kitchens..
Done open air preaching and street corners.

And the thing is...none of it was very fruitful...and none of it cause us to be more holy...no makeup, no bright clothes, no perfume, no jewelry...did not make me more holy....but it did cause me believe (for a short while) that it made me righteous!!!

We even left England, came to Canada ..sold everything, arrived here with a suit case each..that was 'real holy'....we moved up north to the wilds of Canada....100miles up the Alaskan highway and into the bush...where we lived with 75 other 'holy' Christians who were turning our backs on the world and the Beast System.
That, no electric, no phones, using an outhouse...It did not changed one thing inside us.... Just like the Children of Israel...'they' came out of Egypt...but Egypt did not come out of them! They still lusted the leeks and garlics of Egypt .

We can take the man out of the world, but never the world out of man...until God does true 'heart surgery' on us by His Spirit.

Yes, just a wee glimpse of why I do tend to shy away from the 'works' message.

BTW, nearly all our friends back then (70's) that we went to the wilderness with...are still very close friends.
We were truly bonded together. Living together in close quarters does tend to work on all our rough edges. LOL One reason I am on Facebook...it's good for just a liner now and again...for keeping in touch with old friends.
We have no regrets...God will use any experience to work His true life in our beings...and show us what is not His life!!
This world is not our home, we are just passing though

This is pretty ironic.
You did a lot of WORKS, but not the ones God told you to do.
You were following a church or something else.
But you did what seemed right at the time and that's the best we could do. Who knows that some of those that you witnessed to didn't hear just the words they needed to hear to come to believe...
Some plant, some water...

How I view works is that everything we do is for God after we come to believe in Him. I do all the same things, but for Him. I smile more at persons, I try to be more helpful, I'll volunteer for something or other - not so much anymore. I do the best I can for my family.

If we say works are not necessary or obedience is not necessary, I feel it's a very poor witness for new Christians who don't really understand yet. Some say we don't have to do anything and we're still saved.
How could this be when all Jesus talked about is how we're to behave and act in the Kingdom of God here on earth?

Anyway, I'm glad you've found freedom in Christ. He didn't come to condemn but to make us free.
John 8:36

 

[GodsGrace]

My experiences were not precisely like yours, but at times remarkably close. It was part of the learning process God put my wife and me through... We have traveled some since then but we are still on the road. She never wore much make up and stopped when we entered the UPC. She had seldom worn dresses or skirts when I met her, but changed her way on this because she knew I liked her in skirts. On both of those things after all of these years she remains without make up and wears only skirts and dresses. Not my pressure, but her own decision.

On me, I stopped wearing short pants and short sleeves many years ago out of conviction and nothing has changed that for me even though I have been a lot of places since then. When we attend a church service to worship the Lord we always wear the best clothes we own. For me that means suit and tie with nicely polished shoes. Old fashioned? So some people would say and perhaps do, but it is where we are.

On the holidays, we went where you went, a bit overboard, but over the years we pulled back on the really severe condemnation that hurt others unnecessarily.

Funny how you and I were Catholic and have such a different experience.

I always loved Jesus and Mary and felt that they loved me.
I never did any of these "work" things.
All I did was say my rosary every day but because I wanted to because I thought I was freeing a soul in purgatory. And I went to Mass, even by myself when my parents didn't go. When I was about 10 or 11 or so.

Maybe the fact that I never felt enslaved doesn't cause me to be afraid of the word "works"?

 

[amadeus]

Funny how you and I were Catholic and have such a different experience.

I always loved Jesus and Mary and felt that they loved me.
I never did any of these "work" things.
All I did was say my rosary every day but because I wanted to because I thought I was freeing a soul in purgatory. And I went to Mass, even by myself when my parents didn't go. When I was about 10 or 11 or so.

Maybe the fact that I never felt enslaved doesn't cause me to be afraid of the word "works"?

I was as perfect a Catholic as I could be from age 6 until I graduated from high school. I never felt enslaved when I was there. I never missed mass on Sundays and attended mass all holidays and many other days. I served as an altar boy at every opportunity. These were my "works" then, I guess, although if someone had called them "works" in this sense at that time, I most definitely would not have known what they were talking about.

When I met and married my wife, we were both effectively backslid Catholics, if there is such a thing. Neither of us had attended a mass in years.

 

[Richard_oti]

Well they say you can't judge a book by its cover.
But it's the first thing you see.
I've learned that it's really true and don't judge anyone.
You can't, however, help but get ideas in your head.
Some persons look really intelligent, some look really poor.
At the end, the intelligent one might be a jerk and the poor one might be rich !

I know more than a few who are just as you describe.

Poor JtB. He'd need a few showers, some cologne, a haircut, new clothes and shoes. And we STILL wouldn't listen to him!!

Sad commentary.

Isa 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

<snip>

 

[GodsGrace]

I was as perfect a Catholic as I could be from age 6 until I graduated from high school. I never felt enslaved when I was there. I never missed mass on Sundays and attended mass all holidays and many other days. I served as an altar boy at every opportunity. These were my "works" then, I guess, although if someone had called them "works" in this sense at that time, I most definitely would not have known what they were talking about.

When I met and married my wife, we were both effectively backslid Catholics, if there is such a thing. Neither of us had attended a mass in years.

OK.
But attending Mass isn't everything.
Now we understand this better.
However, if you were doing these things of your own free will and not because some priest made you feel guilty, then they are works, but works of the Holy Spirit -- which are the ones that we should seek to do.

A nun told me one time when I was still a little girl that if I went to Mass unhappily, it was the same as not going.

She was explaining believing with the heart and doing with the heart.
I understood it too...

 

[amadeus]

OK.
But attending Mass isn't everything.
Now we understand this better.
However, if you were doing these things of your own free will and not because some priest made you feel guilty, then they are works, but works of the Holy Spirit -- which are the ones that we should seek to do.

A nun told me one time when I was still a little girl that if I went to Mass unhappily, it was the same as not going.

She was explaining believing with the heart and doing with the heart.
I understood it too...

Oh yes, you are very correct. I remember catching myself after perfecting my effort to say Hail Mary's and Our Father's super fast to accomplish the letter of what the priest gave me for penance after confession with minimal of what I thought was my time. Once I caught it, my efforts at penance improved greatly. It was God who was letting me know that what I had been doing was not right.