What about the Death to Self message ?

[Hidden In Him]

By telling me I'm faithless?

Yes. By pointing out that the position you take (which I have heard many, many times) tends to focus on faith, but often as it concerns salvation alone. It is often coupled with a skepticism towards the continuation of the supernatural gifts such as prophecy, tongues, modern visions, dreams, things like that. Towards those things there is often a faithlessness. Or am I mistaken and you do believe in those things? I was under the impression you were largely a Cessationist, but I would be overjoyed to hear I was wrong and you are not.

 

[farouk]

Yes. By pointing out that the position you take (which I have heard many, many times) tends to focus on faith, but often as it concerns salvation alone. It is often coupled with a skepticism towards the continuation of the supernatural gifts such as prophecy, tongues, modern visions, dreams, things like that. Towards those things there is often a faithlessness. Or am I mistaken and you do believe in those things? I was under the impression you were largely a Cessationist, but I would be overjoyed to hear I was wrong and you are not.

FYI, I myself would be a cessationist because the Scriptures are now complete, whereas the context of the sign gifts in Apostolic times was that the Scriptures were not yet complete.

 

[marks]

Marks, you've been accusing me for three pages now of "not going by what the Bible says" and I hadn't said a word about it out complaining that you were getting "personal."

Where did I do that? I've just reread the past several pages. Have I said you ignore Scripture? That you must be young in the faith? Faithless? Unorthodox? Anything like that?

Can we put the personal stuff to rest?

and I hadn't said a word about it out complaining that you were getting "personal." You were being honest about what you felt. The minute I risk being honest with you about how I feel when I see this argument presented, suddenly we have an issue...

I find people often make things personal as an alternative to addressing the points. I'm not saying you are doing this, but I do think it's a needless distraction to the conversation.

Much love!

 

[marks]

If Peter understood all this then why did he declare, "Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean"? Why did he need a vision to teach him? Why was he and everyone with him astonished that the Spirit was poured out upon Gentiles?

Were there not many things the disciples didn't understand?

They didn't understand that Jesus was going to die before reigning.
They didn't understand that Jesus was going to rise from the dead.
They didn't understand that the Gospel would include the Gentiles.
Peter didn't understand that Jesus had declared all foods clean, or he was forgetting.

Why did the council make their changes regarding the Gentiles only after this event?

I'm going to save this for another time. Enough on my plate at the moment!



Much love!

 

[marks]

This easily explains WHY many who are Christians for 30-50 years, aren't anymore knowledgable in the Spirit, than when they first began. Their growth was stunted due to misinformation, and/or just plain ignorance and neglect.

Hi Earburner,

I think this is very true, and I'd like to add another reason why it is, I think, that so many fail to mature. I think there is a distinct lack of knowledge about what the Bible actually says. The more we can know the contents of the Bible the more we will grow, I think.

Much love!

 

[marks]

By pointing out that the position you take

May I ask, what position is that?

Much love!

 

[Hidden In Him]

Where did I do that? I've just reread the past several pages. Have I said you ignore Scripture? That you must be young in the faith? Faithless? Unorthodox? Anything like that?

Can we put the personal stuff to rest?

LoL. Maybe you don't realize it, but when you continually say "I go by what the Bible says," what you are indirectly insinuating is that your opponent does not.

But no harm. I wasn't that upset by it.

Btw, "unorthodox" isn't an ugly word in my book. It's actually often a more positive word for me, depending on context.

What I'm trying to say is, the word itself shouldn't be excluded from conversation altogether just because it might be taken as an insult or something. I wouldn't be phased if someone called my teachings "unorthodox," or even referred to me personally as such. I'd actually take it as a compliment, LoL.

Things just got a little too touchy in general, so maybe time to back off on the exchanges a hair. Like I said, none of that was meant as an insult.

I find people often make things personal as an alternative to addressing the points. I'm not saying you are doing this, but I do think it's a needless distraction to the conversation.

I agree.

May I ask, what position is that?

Much love!

Time to give it a rest, LoL.

 

[marks]

Time to give it a rest, LoL.

OK. That's what it often comes down to. Question are unanswered, comments become personal, and then it ends.

It's too bad!

Should you even care, you may peruse the past few pages to see that I never actually wrote the things you ascribe to me.

but when you continually say "I go by what the Bible says,"

Btw, "unorthodox" isn't an ugly word in my book. It's actually often a more positive word for me, depending on context.

So . . . what was the context?

Wow... so you teach that water baptism has been done away with, marks?

I'm not against "unorthodox" interpretations of scripture, but that's really getting out there a ways. How many people share that belief with you? Is it a Reformed doctrine I don't know about or something?

Seems clear to me what you intended to communicate.

I've been enjoying our exchanges but for these things. If you wish to continue we may.

Much love!

 

[CharismaticLady]

I was looking at the topics in one of my watched forums and saw this one again, and thought about it in a completely new way than I originally posted. Sometimes our "identity" is all wrapped up in our careers. Before I left Los Angeles, I always had jobs in the entertainment business where all the clients were famous. That was my identity. I had a girlfriend there in the same rut. She was never a "secretary," she would correct you and say, no, I'm an Executive Administrative Assistant. And even though she is a Christian, when I talk to her now, it is all about her business.

Others are all about being a mother, and when their children grow up and she becomes an "empty nester" she is lost. Many child stars who aren't as "cute" as when they were kids, turn to drugs, and even suicide.

I believe this is where dying to self is so important. Christ said He would never leave us or forsake us. Is our identity still trapped on the earth, or already in heaven with Christ?

At 55, after my husband, who I wasn't suppose to marry if I had just picked up the warnings that the Spirit was giving me all throughout the relationship, left me for the wife of his best friend and married her, making her wife number five; I left Arizona where we lived and moved back to Tennessee where my first sister-in-law lived. (My husband had been an actor and a Nashville recording artist, and a cheater and pathological liar.) But now I needed a job, but even with all my experience, I couldn't find a job in an office to save my life. Even legal secretaries were not even a $1 over minimum wage! I went to a temp agency and started working that day in a factory. It became fun. My high nose identity was dropping off and I was a tomboy again, driving every kind of forklift and cherry picker there was. God was working in me. My identity was not a Theatrical Project Administrator in a studio, or now a factory worker; it was as the wife of God. I was in total submission to Him, and He and His Word were all I thought about, and it still is.