Grace

[stunnedbygrace]

just as lightning flashes from east to west...
if they can't put it in their own words prolly not, huh. But that's how kids learn i guess too, that's how i'm learning right now iow, etc

and i guess if you get a "no" after you put it in your own words, well then you have a clear sign of where you are, at?

"heart poked" lol, guess if he keeps arguing with women and don't learn that's gonna be = to a Love Tap here pretty soon huh lol

I mean, I get what you're saying, that children learn from repetition? That's what you meant? But you can keep repeating e=mc2 over and over and that's NEVER going to make you understand it. If you don't understand something, but keep acting like you do, its saying you see when you don't. Not good.

 

[Episkopos]

'And the angel came in unto her, and said,
"Hail, thou that art highly favoured,
the Lord is with thee:
blessed art thou among women."
(Luke 1:28)

Hello @Episkopos,

The word translated, 'highly favoured', in the verse above, is G5487 - Gr. 'charitoo', meaning 'to make accepted', or, 'to be highly favoured': it is found again only in Ephesians 1:6, in relation to those who have been saved by grace, and made - 'accepted' - in the Beloved:-

'To the praise of the glory of His grace,
wherein He hath made us accepted in the beloved.'
​

* How precious this is!

* So in regard to the application of the word GRACE, in relation to Mary (Luke 1:28), or to the believer in the Lord Jesus Christ (Ephesians 1:26), it does not have the meaning that you have ascribed to it.

* To me, to be 'accepted in the Beloved' is the most wonderful gift to have been given: and I consider myself to be indeed 'highly favoured' or 'much graced', to have been so blessed.

Praise God! - Praise His Holy Name!

In Christ Jesus
Chris

The Greek G5487 charitoo which means accepted, or highly favoured.....is not the same as G5485 charis which means grace.

When you change letters around in Greek...the meaning of the word changes just as in any other language.

It's like we have the words dog and dug. Now a dog digs holes....but we shouldn't confuse a dog...who does the digging....with the action of digging itself. Even though these words to a non-English speaker would appear to be very close in meaning.

Grace (charis)...is actually much closer in meaning to the spiritual empowerment of the gifts of the Spirit which are charisma. (G5486) These are GIFTS of GRACE. The gifts that empower the Body of Christ to be a light in this world.

 

[bbyrd009]

I'm thinking that we just might be allowed to SEE and VISIT heaven at least once when we "come back" with Jesus on white horses - and that is biblical...do think it is not literal maybe? I could def have the wrong interp. there. I do believe in an afterlife for Christians to be on the New Earth. Dunno for sure but, it is where time has lead my thoughts and beliefs.

Ah well we have diff defs of "belief" of course, so I dunno if i have a pertinent reply lol; my beliefs are centered on today now, but i used to entertain beliefs about the past or future...guess i still have some, of a sort anyway, dunno.

Anyway i wonder if it is not more important that our beliefs eveolve over time than what they actually are at the moment? I regularly...religiously, at the end of the month--even wrote an algo for it, which i guess that word scares ppl or something but you use them every day, "ok when i am in mode B and little Johnny does A then i can do C, Bc I tried A and B already and they don't work, or don't work anymore," etc--anyway, kinda hard when you have been banned from a forum lol, AFF ones are coming up now and i had to like sneak back in, don't ask, but anyway i read my old posts from usually like a year ago, and five years ago, and this has turned into a great way to reflect on my progress, even if it is painful lol, at first anyway, but now i've come to see that the pain involved in hearing your past self talk is a sign of growth.

Guess i could put that better, but i might make it worse too so i'll just leave it lol. Any beliefs you hold about the past or the future are just that imo, your beliefs, and no one knows anyway right

 

[bbyrd009]

I mean, I get what you're saying, that children learn from repetition? That's what you meant? But you can keep repeating e=mc2 over and over and that's NEVER going to make you understand it. If you don't understand something, but keep acting like you do, its saying you see when you don't. Not good.

yeh, claiming knowledge is a funny thing, a slippery slope imo, maybe the slippery slope? Hard to be eating what is it? andclaiming you know too i guess. As to "not good" well...so you say, but i suggest that it is also great lol, and is even to your advantage when you get how to accept it?

Ha so i know that makes no sense maybe, so you might try and even say to yourself next time you are confronted with that "this is great!" even though you don't believe it, and just wait for your mind to work out how and spit it up to you maybe. Even go "this is great, because" or "why is this great?" and see if you get a, um, reply, like later maybe, after you have "forgotten" about it i mean

 

[bbyrd009]

The Greek G5487 charitoo which means accepted, or highly favoured.....is not the same as G5485 charis which means grace.

When you change letters around in Greek...the meaning of the word changes just as in any other language.

It's like we have the words dog and dug. Now a dog digs holes....but we shouldn't confuse a dog...who does the digging....with the action of digging itself. Even though these words to a non-English speaker would appear to be very close in meaning.

Grace (charis)...is actually much closer in meaning to the spiritual empowerment of the gifts of the Spirit which are charisma. (G5486) These are GIFTS of GRACE. The gifts that empower the Body of Christ to be a light in this world.

Wow a search of "Get grace" which i can't import on this kajigger reveals some...interesting...conflicts lol, apparently as poorly understood, or at least variously defined anyway, as Gospel i guess. The first example i scanned might help to make your point?
25 Best Grace Bible Verses – Encouraging Scripture
which you might note that after the opening, the example of Esther is given, which literally contradicts the opening? Esther was "given" Bc she already had, right? Iow she got a "free gift" so to speak, but it was Bc of what she already had, or we could even say had already accomplished, worked, done?

So maybe like a He who has will be given more thing maybe

 

[Episkopos]

Let's let God Himself describe grace for us. And hopefully people here won't throw stones at what are clearly the words from God. (I'm hoping that we will show some respect for God)

2 Corinthians 12:9
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

We all know this verse I think. But how many understand it? How many realize that this is a key verse where God Himself is putting any doubts to rest about the true nature of grace?????

God says...My GRACE....then He explains further that this is "MY strength"...which makes His statement very clear. Not in OUR strength but in our weakness.

Paul then responds to WHAT that strength is to us...it is the POWER of Christ.

Many times Paul speaks of grace but without using the word grace. And people miss it.

For ex..."the exceeding greatness of His power us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power" Eph. 1:19

What is the exceeding power of God us-ward? It is grace. His strength in us and on us.

By grace through faith.

 

[amadeus]

the illustration of Esau literally inheriting and Jacob returning as supplicant to him, and then only being destroyed later for not allowing Jacob to pass through, made no sense to me anyway for the longest time, but now it is starting to clarify i think. It's a problem i guess if we let it be a problem, but there's um gold in them thar hills too i guess right. When a believer uses "cult" like that you pretty much know right away right.

Some people use the word "cult" in different [better/worse?] ways, if that were possible, than others. If they like some of the things I say they may back off a little when they know I am around so as not to offend me, but I see in other conversations they will continue in their old ways. Am I offended? No, but sometimes there is a disappointment. For me this is not so good if I am lifting myself up high instead of learning to leave it as much as possible it God's hands. If I am disappointed but I turn out also to in error, where does that leave me?

Then again some people who use that word, "cult" too loosely should be avoided altogether but sometimes that is not possible and sometimes it is not the best thing to do.

So, many will be deceived but at the same time if we didn't have Mithraism in Christianity i doubt i would even be here! What did you go out into the wilderness to see? plays into that i guess. What first led (you) to attend a cong iow?

When I was 6 years old I was baptized in a Catholic Church in California and I saw [not as with my two natural eyes] for the first time, God. Even though neither my mother nor my stepfather ever attended with any congregation any time while I was with them from that point on I had to... even though when my older brother stopped attending I had to continue alone. Why was I the only one drawn even then by God? I cannot answer that question. After all these years of attending Catholic and then Pentecostal then something else 8 months ago I was stopped. I have visited periodically a few different assemblies but I cannot see myself being a part again... but I've been wrong before.

Why Catholicism? Because that is all that I knew. Later when I visited with my father in Oklahoma I was really exposed to some very different ways of serving God but it was many years before I came out of the place that I was and many more years before I began to understand any of the 'whys'.

Wilderness? Oh yes, even yet quite often it is a maze that I cannot fathom, But I don't hesitate much anymore to go back into it.

This morning I was up at about 1:30AM unable to sleep and the whole mess of my own experiences as a carnal man hit me like a landslide. I pulled out my Bibles and read and talked to God for perhaps 1½ hours until He eased the whole thing in me. Did I then understand better? Not really although maybe a little, but I began to see again even if still through that darkened glass. Very simply then... Give God the glory!

ah, ha. I guess it comes off as an affectation sometimes, and sometimes it comes out wrong, like with fhii the other day, but despite the fact that i actually can write complete, legible English sentences, this works better as a rule for some weird reason.

It actually takes longer and requires more review though, it's a pain sometimes tbh, ok all the time, but then it also works as a kind of buffer, if the other is not fam with some pertinent snip that i am using see i would usually just as soon not engage with them anyway, meaning that they would prolly just as soon not engage with me anyway i guess, and i get to find out if they have eaten what is it? yet by their initial response usually?

I can understand the why of it for you as you explain it. I wish I had been able to speak/write that way in the past few days on those other threads where I have been engaged in seemingly fruitless [wasted?] word exchanges. [I would not call them discussions]. I don't enjoy such seemingly useless exchanges but sometimes I know it is necessary for the sake of others who may read those threads. Casting pearls before swine is really to be avoided but sometimes someone watching may be edified. I do hope so. So for me no sometimes hard to understand "shorthand" is often, if ever, allowed.

 

[amadeus]

I will tell you what people come looking for; what our souls crave.
Walk out your front door and leave town broke, trusting Abba for everything
The ultimate drug

Jesus sent them out that way and they simply went not really questioning... at least aloud. Would they have done it on their own? Did they ever do that later when they were on own... at least without human companionship on their journey?

Have I ever done it? Not really in the physical part of walking out the front door, but...? I'm thinking about it. Being alone I might really try it, but being married these 47 years I would never even seriously consider it. At this point it reminds me of what Paul wrote about marriage. For me it is a good thing and also, I believe, for my wife, but it makes some things difficult if not impossible.

 

[bbyrd009]

Why was I the only one drawn even then by God?

I cannot answer that question. After all these years of attending Catholic and then Pentecostal then something else 8 months ago I was stopped. I have visited periodically a few different assemblies but I cannot see myself being a part again... but I've been wrong before.

hmm well imo quote two might be a response to Quote one, which ipad insists on capitalizing for me now lol, so helpful, anyway what I'm hearing is that you eventually came to the same point vis congs that they had then? And imo you make a good illustration about perspectives in the process, moreso than a commentary on congs even maybe?

But i will also say that you can't know who you were silently ministering to at the congregation, either, that is now the worse for your absence? You could always go back for a visit just to audit maybe, to see how you are um like received, generally speaking? "Meh" would maybe be worst, "Oh God you're back" somewhat better, "oh yay you're back" maybe even better than that? Maybe worse too though lol. Imo too much of either of the last two is a sign, i seek a mix of them now tbh lol

Why Catholicism? Because that is all that I knew

Ha imo there is only one way; but the vehicle is more or less irrelevant?

Wilderness?

a point there is to take the Q literally, and answer it if you can, for yourself i mean

I can understand the why of it for you as you explain it. I wish I had been able to speak/write that way in the past few days on those other threads where I have been engaged in seemingly fruitless [wasted?] word exchanges. [I would not call them discussions]

yeh, after a couple years of doing that i just needed a better way, and i guess it was actually at one end of month session that i realized i was the white guy who didn't want to hear the truth? lol. Telling ppl "the truth" is...almost always a bad idea i guess

I don't enjoy such seemingly useless exchanges but sometimes I know it is necessary for the sake of others who may read those threads. Casting pearls before swine is really to be avoided but sometimes someone watching may be edified. I do hope so

yeh, you have to get used to functioning on that hope, i guess, and not be looking for others for encouragement to carry on, ppl being ppl. Forums are a lesson in pride and grace, seems to me :)

Jesus sent them out that way and they simply went not really questioning... at least aloud. Would they have done it on their own? Did they ever do that later when they were on own... at least without human companionship on their journey?

we rather curiously get very little on the rest of that story, huh? But imo what there is is gold. Bc when your experience does not match theirs, then i guess basically you know that you did not do it right, and you have violated one of the instructions.

I violated them all, in various iterations lol, none of them could be deemed a like a "success" by our standards, which i am only slowly coming to see is maybe the point. They are just now starting to manifest as what i think are "successful" so tomspeak, but then my standards have changed drastically from my first foray, and if i were to describe my current situation anyone else would surely and justifiably think i was nuts i guess.

But i'm not here for me anyway, and don't mind begging the Q "aren't you even serving your own best interests?" lol. Serving my own best interests got me on the front page of the Reno Gazette-Journal!
lol

Have I ever done it? Not really in the physical part of walking out the front door, but...? I'm thinking about it. Being alone I might really try it, but being married these 47 years I would never even seriously consider it. At this point it reminds me of what Paul wrote about marriage. For me it is a good thing and also, I believe, for my wife, but it makes some things difficult if not impossible.

um, not sure from this if you are alone now, or no? Anyway even married imo it can be done for a limited time, three days or whatever...and if i were married, i would wanna include her in a trip or two too

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Let's let God Himself describe grace for us. And hopefully people here won't throw stones at what are clearly the words from God. (I'm hoping that we will show some respect for God)

2 Corinthians 12:9
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

We all know this verse I think. But how many understand it? How many realize that this is a key verse where God Himself is putting any doubts to rest about the true nature of grace?????

God says...My GRACE....then He explains further that this is "MY strength"...which makes His statement very clear. Not in OUR strength but in our weakness.

Paul then responds to WHAT that strength is to us...it is the POWER of Christ.

Many times Paul speaks of grace but without using the word grace. And people miss it.

For ex..."the exceeding greatness of His power us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power" Eph. 1:19

What is the exceeding power of God us-ward? It is grace. His strength in us and on us.

By grace through faith.

That is most excellent!

 

[complete]

The Greek G5487 charitoo which means accepted, or highly favoured.....is not the same as G5485 charis which means grace.

When you change letters around in Greek...the meaning of the word changes just as in any other language.

It's like we have the words dog and dug. Now a dog digs holes....but we shouldn't confuse a dog...who does the digging....with the action of digging itself. Even though these words to a non-English speaker would appear to be very close in meaning.

Grace (charis)...is actually much closer in meaning to the spiritual empowerment of the gifts of the Spirit which are charisma. (G5486) These are GIFTS of GRACE. The gifts that empower the Body of Christ to be a light in this world.

Hi @Episkopos,

How important it is to look at the Greek words used by the Holy Spirit, and their shades of meaning, within the context in which they come. For it is so easy to generalise, isn't it. No the word charitoo, translated 'highly favoured' and 'accepted in the beloved' will differ from charis, I agree,

Yet the church called out in this dispensation is not empowered by the GIFTS of the Spirit, but are energised by the resurrection power of God in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1:1-20; 3:7,20; 6:10; Philippians 3:20)

Thank you.
In Christ Jesus
Chris

 

[amadeus]

hmm well imo quote two might be a response to Quote one, which ipad insists on capitalizing for me now lol, so helpful, anyway what I'm hearing is that you eventually came to the same point vis congs that they had then? And imo you make a good illustration about perspectives in the process, moreso than a commentary on congs even maybe?

In each one of the places where I was, I believed initially that it was the right place. Later I may have changed my mind, but then by now I may have changed it back again. This does not mean I would go back now to Catholicism for example but rather that I understand that me being there when I was, was a part of the process of God getting me closer to where He wants me.

But i will also say that you can't know who you were silently ministering to at the congregation, either, that is now the worse for your absence? You could always go back for a visit just to audit maybe, to see how you are um like received, generally speaking? "Meh" would maybe be worst, "Oh God you're back" somewhat better, "oh yay you're back" maybe even better than that? Maybe worse too though lol. Imo too much of either of the last two is a sign, i seek a mix of them now tbh lol

On this last one leaving was really forced on me by circumstances. It amounted to bad politics on the part of people who were supposed to be putting God first. My wife had been gone [no attendance] for more than a year because she understood what was happening. She understood why I could not leave with her even though I saw all that she did.

There were and would be people that would gladly accept me back, but God let me see that my sacrifice to stay with them was finished for the moment. It would take a miracle for me to return. I know a God who works miracles but His miracles have a purpose according to His plan. The ones who played politics would smile and say carefully picked good words, but unless I changed they would not be glad for me to be back to stay. Even a visit now is unlikely.

There are other places I have visited and I might increase my frequency in some of them but slowly I am walking now listening closely to God. If I were young and my wife was healthy [me too] I would probably pick up and move to another place, but that also is no answer and given circumstances it probably will never happen.

One man put out feelers toward a friendship and fellowship that I really need on a face to face basis, but he dropped the ball. Maybe he'll pick up again?

Ha imo there is only one way; but the vehicle is more or less irrelevant?

Yes, but I was thinking I had to find the right place and choose my own vehicle. I eventually learned I was wrong.

a point there is to take the Q literally, and answer it if you can, for yourself i mean
yeh, after a couple years of doing that i just needed a better way, and i guess it was actually at one end of month session that i realized i was the white guy who didn't want to hear the truth? lol. Telling ppl "the truth" is...almost always a bad idea i guess
yeh, you have to get used to functioning on that hope, i guess, and not be looking for others for encouragement to carry on, ppl being ppl. Forums are a lesson in pride and grace, seems to me :)

I learned some lessons in the moves from one physical church setting to another... and in similar fashion but still in different ways I learned some lessons also from Internet forums. I even accepted a position as a moderator on one. That lasted only a few months before I had to quit and I don't like to quit. Doing my job correctly as a moderator without going against my own beliefs or convictions I soon realized made it an impossible thing. The owner was a Catholic and I was the one non-Catholic chosen to balance the moderators if you understand my meaning. Strangely the moderator I got along probably best with was a Greek Orthodox Catholic priest in Florida. He said if I ever get to Florida to be sure and come by and he would take me out for breakfast.

we rather curiously get very little on the rest of that story, huh? But imo what there is is gold. Bc when your experience does not match theirs, then i guess basically you know that you did not do it right, and you have violated one of the instructions.

Eventually God may help us understand what we should do, but doing it requires more than understanding.

I violated them all, in various iterations lol, none of them could be deemed a like a "success" by our standards, which i am only slowly coming to see is maybe the point. They are just now starting to manifest as what i think are "successful" so tomspeak, but then my standards have changed drastically from my first foray, and if i were to describe my current situation anyone else would surely and justifiably think i was nuts i guess.

But i'm not here for me anyway, and don't mind begging the Q "aren't you even serving your own best interests?" lol. Serving my own best interests got me on the front page of the Reno Gazette-Journal!
lol

I would guess that all of us still work to serve our own best interests in some measure even though we may have progressed some away from that toward the selflessness of Jesus. This is one of those places I learned not to quit. I am doing so well and then fall back to the bottom. In early years I really just wanted to quit and sometimes I made an effort to do so. Now, I have learned that one secret is not the quit. We cannot win, not alone we can't, but God really will fill in any necessary gaps if we keep on trying try one more time. No quitting on God no matter how disappointed we may be. Who is it we are to trust anyway? I already knew long ago that I could not.

um, not sure from this if you are alone now, or no? Anyway even married imo it can be done for a limited time, three days or whatever...and if i were married, i would wanna include her in a trip or two too

No, I am not alone. I have been married continuously since 6-25-1972. [In a couple of days anniversary 47.] My wife suffers from several lung problems [asthma, emphysema, COPC, pulmonary fibrosis, broncheotasis] which make getting out at all difficult. She may soon have to be on oxygen regularly, but not yet. She is allergic to almost everything. When she has better times and my sciatic nerve [left side] allows it we try to travel a bit, but the times are few these days when we are both up to it. I try to get her to join me on some of my church visits when she feels better but it is seldom we manage it. More often than not I attend alone, which in itself can be problematic for finding regular fellowship or Bible discussion outside the Internet. [I have never been good at "small talk" and without my wife I am quite slow to advance among strangers.] Mostly we manage only a meal together at a local restaurant once in a while. At home she is the cook although in worst case scenarios I can come up with something. I clean up the messes and keep us in laundry.

 

[bbyrd009]

The ones who played politics would smile and say carefully picked good words, but unless I changed they would not be glad for me to be back to stay.

so what, they are irrelevant to your reason for going anyway, aren't they?

One man put out feelers toward a friendship and fellowship that I really need on a face to face basis, but he dropped the ball. Maybe he'll pick up again?

and maybe that ball is on your court ;)
Tho i cert don't know of course

Eventually God may help us understand what we should do, but doing it requires more than understanding.

hmm

 

[stunnedbygrace]

Amadeus, I love you brother. I learn so much from you. You have given me so much for awhile now and I have given you nothing. And you give so much wisdom and good example to us, and you do it even amid your own hardships. As far as I'm concerned, there are only two men on this whole forum (and possibly a third one in the making) who are capable to teach me and you're one of them. I'm so sad that I give you nothing in return. I love you brother.

 

[bbyrd009]

I would guess that all of us still work to serve our own best interests in some measure even though we may have progressed some away from that toward the selflessness of Jesus. This is one of those places I learned not to quit. I am doing so well and then fall back to the bottom. In early years I really just wanted to quit and sometimes I made an effort to do so. Now, I have learned that one secret is not the quit. We cannot win, not alone we can't, but God really will fill in any necessary gaps if we keep on trying try one more time. No quitting on God no matter how disappointed we may be.

Imo a better grasp of the concept of Codependency might go a ways toward understanding more There. Ipad . Anyway, in the developed world we are mostly all trained to be Coda, and imo a lot of "good deeds" are undertaken by Codas who then don't want to quit until they see/get a "payoff" so to speak, not realizing the effect that the Codependency is having on their reasoning?

As far as the um winning goes...ya, winning is a hard concept to let go of huh. Run the race so as to win it contains a little joke, i guess, that living sacrifice maybe reveals, clarifies a bit more?

 

[amadeus]

so what, they are irrelevant to your reason for going anyway, aren't they?

I left in support of the old pastor who will be 94 next month. It was primarily because of him that I began attending here in 2007 with a 50 mile one way commuting distance. I finally moved here in 2012 to help him more when his wife died and to cut that long commute out of our schedule. They removed him as pastor because they could as they were already taking hold the power they wanted without the title. They also wanted the title [pastor] for all that that is worth and now they have it.

When he dies [presuming he will do so before me] a lot of pressure will be off me... I am his primary encouragement among men here in our little burg. I know that but it is also part of a test that God is putting me through. I know that I cannot give up [remember no quitting] but sometimes I grow weary. That also brings me back perforce to my morning sessions with God

and maybe that ball is on your court ;)
Tho i cert don't know of course
hmm

No, I won't push that one as I scarcely know the man. I am only hopeful of finding a friend who loves to talk about God. When I visit again I will speak to him about getting together, but until I get used our suddenly summer type weather I am moving slowly and not visiting many churches. As if the sciatic nerve wasn't already slowing me down... Not that I am complaining...but who likes pain, LOL

 

[amadeus]

Imo a better grasp of the concept of Codependency might go a ways toward understanding more There. Ipad . Anyway, in the developed world we are mostly all trained to be Coda, and imo a lot of "good deeds" are undertaken by Codas who then don't want to quit until they see/get a "payoff" so to speak, not realizing the effect that the Codependency is having on their reasoning?

As far as the um winning goes...ya, winning is a hard concept to let go of huh. Run the race so as to win it contains a little joke, i guess, that living sacrifice maybe reveals, clarifies a bit more?

Codependency a word I learned from you. I look it up each time you mention to try to get it to stick. Maybe it applies but I am nonetheless stuck where I am while my pastor lives. He knows pain but I will not be needlessly a cause of additional pain. I will do what I can for as long as I can. I loved my secular job because I could help people but I did not know when to quit. My wife helped me with that along the way... but it the end of it, it was me that decided it was time to take early retirement before it really did physically kill me.

The living sacrifice is the key but winning is so much misunderstood. The winning with God is the completion rather than the being the first one to arrive at the goal although the concept of time nearly always causes a problem if we try to figure it out. Paul warned against comparing ourselves with others, but the tendency learned or otherwise to do so anyway does not so easily go away.
The living sacrifice is attained I would guess when we have attained the selflessness which should be our goal: The impossible!

 

[bbyrd009]

Codependency a word I learned from you. I look it up each time you mention to try to get it to stick.

Ah. I think the book is...ha, free now...
Codependent No More by Melody Beattie - Read Online
um but i cracked scribd too, so dunno if you'll be able to DL to app without starting your free 30 days? But your libary has one too, prolly even an e-book you can dl or whatever. Codependency for Dummies might be another goody, those are usually pretty good, might even speak to you more. I have darkweb sources, torrents and whatnot, but prolly not for you i guess

I loved my secular job because I could help people but I did not know when to quit. My wife helped me with that along the way... but it the end of it, it was me that decided it was time to take early retirement before it really did physically kill me.

A fab description of a facet of Coda btw

The impossible!

the completely possible imo, you will do even greater things right. Why don't we Read that art literally, i wonder? You will do greater things than Jesus, Whom you may currently be worshipping, and thus may feel uncomfortable with that Scripture that must be true, or the rest of the Bible is pointless. Imo say it like that :)

 

[Nancy]

Ah well we have diff defs of "belief" of course, so I dunno if i have a pertinent reply lol; my beliefs are centered on today now, but i used to entertain beliefs about the past or future...guess i still have some, of a sort anyway, dunno.

Anyway i wonder if it is not more important that our beliefs eveolve over time than what they actually are at the moment? I regularly...religiously, at the end of the month--even wrote an algo for it, which i guess that word scares ppl or something but you use them every day, "ok when i am in mode B and little Johnny does A then i can do C, Bc I tried A and B already and they don't work, or don't work anymore," etc--anyway, kinda hard when you have been banned from a forum lol, AFF ones are coming up now and i had to like sneak back in, don't ask, but anyway i read my old posts from usually like a year ago, and five years ago, and this has turned into a great way to reflect on my progress, even if it is painful lol, at first anyway, but now i've come to see that the pain involved in hearing your past self talk is a sign of growth.

Guess i could put that better, but i might make it worse too so i'll just leave it lol. Any beliefs you hold about the past or the future are just that imo, your beliefs, and no one knows anyway right

Hi Markey! Ahaha...were you called that as a kid...I call my brother Matty and he hates it
Anyhow AFA having different defs. of "belief", okay I'm pretty good with faith or trust too :)
"my beliefs are centered on today now..."
Now, here you and I DEF. differ as, I tend to separate "time" and "eternity" for some reason and, I cannot site scripture for this either. I know that humans are NOT eternal beings yet, I live with the End of time, kind of thinking? Like...we are NOT from eternity PAST yet, we ARE told we will live with Jesus ""And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son" (1 John 5:11).
John 3:16 ???! lol " For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." I know you know the many others and, am pretty sure yer gonna say that we have to have a different def. of "eternal"?
"Anyway i wonder if it is not more important that our beliefs evolve over time than what they actually are at the moment? "
Ha! Talk about evolving belief! Mine is pretty fluid, lol. Not on some major doctrines but, on other, still important issues. I used to think I had it all set in stone finally! - only to have it become un-set over and over again over the years. Lol.
"I regularly...religiously, at the end of the month--even wrote an algo for it, which i guess that word scares ppl or something"
Hahaha...I take it you mean "algorithms"? And you go back to your old posts, and save them to see your progress, genius! How long have you been doing this and has it encouraged you?
"...but now i've come to see that the pain involved in hearing your past self talk is a sign of growth." Oh gosh yes, and I suppose that is why we are told to watch the words that spew from our mouths...can come back to bite ya Can be quite humbling as well ♥

 

[Nancy]

Let's let God Himself describe grace for us. And hopefully people here won't throw stones at what are clearly the words from God. (I'm hoping that we will show some respect for God)

2 Corinthians 12:9
9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.

We all know this verse I think. But how many understand it? How many realize that this is a key verse where God Himself is putting any doubts to rest about the true nature of grace?????

God says...My GRACE....then He explains further that this is "MY strength"...which makes His statement very clear. Not in OUR strength but in our weakness.

Paul then responds to WHAT that strength is to us...it is the POWER of Christ.

Many times Paul speaks of grace but without using the word grace. And people miss it.

For ex..."the exceeding greatness of His power us-ward who believe, according to the working of His mighty power" Eph. 1:19

What is the exceeding power of God us-ward? It is grace. His strength in us and on us.

By grace through faith.

[/QUOTE/
2 Corinthians 12:9 <----HUGE meaning for me.
Okay, had to stop reading right here to comment on this: "We all know this verse I think. But how many understand it? How many realize that this is a key verse where God Himself is putting any doubts to rest about the true nature of grace?????"
God sure did put my doubts to rest through this verse/His grace being sufficient for ANYTHING and EVERYTHING, AMEN!
Kay then, gonna go read the rest of your post, lol. :)