i think we fail the world miserably. which means we fail Him miserably.

(and by “we”, i mean “me”)

alece´s last blog post…30 hours

By living through God we come to better know God (if we, being imperfect in flesh, can learn to live in Spirit all the time and not part-time) Love is key to this – love of God Love of others and love of self in spirit not flesh.

If we improve and become ‘constant’ then our lives will influence others, not by what we say but by what we do/are, to seek God for themselves.

The words of Luke are His NOT MINE, quoting Jesus Christ, to hate your family (because they are of flesh and your desire for them will kill your spirit’s leading) while loving the Spirit that may or may not reside in them. Jesus was addressing the people whose families were following ‘another’ God, old traditions… unless someone could trun his back on them they could not follow Christ as a disciple of His, to learn how to walk in spirit.

Today – in the US particularly – more people are followers of His and have their families in similar mind, but we still need to understand the desire of the flesh – of family – can pull us away from following Him as a disciple. Should it come to a choice between doing what is right for Him and what is right for our wife, or our daughter, we need not to have any hesitation in doing the right thing of Spirit, of Christ, and not our own ‘flesh’.

Chris – when i said it was a good thing more of us don’t try to be His disciples i was of course speaking ‘tongue-in-cheek’ but the truth is if more read that they have to hate their family to be His disciple it is my belief a lot of people would get that so wrong and be the cause of more hate and less love – and that is so NOT what He had in mind when He said what He said (and i believe).

Have i cleared things up at all – even a little?

One of the reasons God has not been MORE successful in making His message clear is He leaves it up to all our individual understandings to make sense of it.

As seen here – we tend to mistake what is being said by someone else when we think something slightly differently.

Unless we love what is being told us and find reasons to understand it the way it is meant rather than how we THINK it is meant we won’t ever all find accord in Him.

Be of One spirit – One mind, One Heart. Follow His Love not our own.

<B

love´s last blog post…No more whining about YOUR job!

C, what do women have to do with it

I have also seen faith in Christ drive families apart. I experience it everyday. I grew up Catholic. Me walking away from the Catholic church to follow Christ is a huge divide between my Mom and I.

ckroboth´s last blog post…Men…How are you leading?

CK – undoubtedly not. But did you intend for that statement to be gender specific? Don’t women lead as well?

Love – I have to agree with Brent (and Brewster). That line about Christ coming between family members; I can envision scenarios where some family members have become angry and turned away from others because of their love, because they are more open, more tolerant and not as dogmatic as some would like. Heck, I’ve seen it. And no, it’s a shame that there aren’t more disciples. The church in general seems to put all its focus into conversion and then leave discipleship up to a select few.

Christian´s last blog post…Naked Faith

Maybe the men in this world aren’t leading the way they should…

Peace

ckroboth´s last blog post…Men…How are you leading?

Irony here is people want and need the same things and those are Grace, Hope, and Love. We dont have to be perfect, we dont have to have it all figured out, but we do need to be willing to hurt, grow, feel for people and help them. We can not tell people about it, we have to live it out with them.

As christians we fall into way to many traps. we judge, we exclude, we polarize. Now don’t get me wrong, we have to stand for what we believe but in standing our posture should be a posture of love.

Im ranting way to much, sorry to steal your space B.

brewster´s last blog post…There is no recession of people

I agree with you, to a point. God will shine through even in our failures. “In our weaknesses He is strong”. We have no reason to not start living an example to tohers, regardless of who we are or where we’ve come from. the reality is the worse off we;ve been makes more an example to others of the grace and forgiveness God has to offer.

But, here’s the deal. They will know Him by our love…love

Everyone can offer that.

I still contend that the Church needs to be aware of who it is in Christ and who it needs to be in action. They will know the real God, when we stand for justice, when we help in times of need and when we offer unsolicited grace and support to those around us. That sounds like the God I serve and I can live that way so that others know Him too.