I might write a song called "Backslid and Loving It!" if I believed I were really backslid! I am sure glad I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore! BUt, it was a long road to really understanding I could have a tree and be okay.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
I might write a song called "Backslid and Loving It!" if I believed I were really backslid! I am sure glad I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore! BUt, it was a long road to really understanding I could have a tree and be okay.
I used to celebrate christmas and I don't believe that I was lost back then. I loved God then as I do now.
As for myself... this is not something I do feeling it is necessary for my salvation. This has become my conviction and belief that I love and hold dear and I practice it for that very reason.
I used to celebrate christmas and I don't believe that I was lost back then. I loved God then as I do now.
As for myself... this is nothing I do feeling it is necessary for my salvation. This has become my conviction and belief that I love and hold dear and I practice it for that very reason.
I knew this before you posted this today. and it is one of the things that I deeply appreciate about you my Brother.
__________________ If I do something stupid blame the Lortab!
I knew this before you posted this today. and it is one of the things that I deeply appreciate about you my Brother.
I appreciate your kind words Ferd.
This "doctrine" that I love so much has much harm done to it by the spirit of some who share it.
As with all that we know and love in our walk with the Lord much could be accomplished if we held our convictions in a spirit equal to (as much as lieth within us) that exhibited by our Lord, Christ and example.... Jesus
I used to celebrate christmas and I don't believe that I was lost back then. I loved God then as I do now.
As for myself... this is nothing I do feeling it is necessary for my salvation. This has become my conviction and belief that I love and hold dear and I practice it for that very reason.
I think that's fine. I have nothing against personal convictions or conservative beliefs unless a person does it because they feel they have to (or be lost) or if they feel superior to another.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
I think that's fine. I have nothing against personal convictions or conservative beliefs unless a person does it because they feel they have to (or be lost) or if they feel superior to another.
The most interesting point in your post ILG is this..
If I...
Felt that this was some work that I must fulfill to be saved.
Felt that this made me superior to another.
Then on both points... I would be in sin. What a cruel irony huh?
Even in doing right we must be careful of our spirit lest we do right in the wrong spirit.
More than all I strive to do or not do... Lord help my purpose & the spirit in which i live my convictions be as pleasing as any of the actions.
The most interesting point in your post ILG is this..
If I...
Felt that this was some work that I must fulfill to be saved.
Felt that this made me superior to another.
Then on both points... I would be in sin. What a cruel irony huh?
Even in doing right we must be careful of our spirit lest we do right in the wrong spirit.
More than all I strive to do or not do... Lord help my purpose & the spirit in which i live my convictions be as pleasing as any of the actions.
Right. That is a cruel irony. The reasons that I left off doing these things is that I started doing them for the right reasons....that I was doing it to please God because it seemed like a better way. Not the only way. What happened over the course of the first 16 years in the UPC for me
was that I became utterly confused about this. NO ONE would call a spade a spade and say some were doing these things out of legalism or in order to be or stay saved. This really messed me up. And when I finally figured out the truth....that these things would save no one and made no one superior to another, it was such a RELIEF and also such a SHOCK that those who were teaching me supposedly in the ways of righteousness led me down a wrong path, I realized that the politics of the UPC as a pastor's wife would also require me to not call a spade a spade because even though some do these things out of living a better way much UPC teaching is legalism and/ or salvation based on standards that I realized I did not want to participate in such.
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Those who say it cannot be done should not interrupt the people doing it. ~Chinese Proverb
When I was young and clever, I wanted to change the world. Now that I am older and wiser, I strive to change myself. ~
I used to celebrate christmas and I don't believe that I was lost back then. I loved God then as I do now.
As for myself... this is not something I do feeling it is necessary for my salvation. This has become my conviction and belief that I love and hold dear and I practice it for that very reason.
Again, good words.
__________________ "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
~Declaration of Independence
I used to celebrate christmas and I don't believe that I was lost back then. I loved God then as I do now.
As for myself... this is not something I do feeling it is necessary for my salvation. This has become my conviction and belief that I love and hold dear and I practice it for that very reason.
This I can understand and appreciate.
It's the "you're going to hell if you do that/I feel so sorry for your little lost soul" faction that I take issue with.
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"God, send me anywhere, only go with me. Lay any burden on me, only sustain me. And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours."
--David Livingstone
"To see no being, not God’s or any, but you also go thither,
To see no possession but you may possess it—enjoying all without labor or purchase—
abstracting the feast, yet not abstracting one particle of it;…."
--Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass, Song of the Open Road
I might write a song called "Backslid and Loving It!" if I believed I were really backslid! I am sure glad I don't have to worry about this stuff anymore! BUt, it was a long road to really understanding I could have a tree and be okay.
This is not about forcing anyone to do anything, it's about just admitting it's not of Christian origin.
You do as you very well please.
We are saying that xmas was a made up holiday that had nothing to do with Christ, until the Catholics came along and stole it from the Cebels, Druids, Celts, and Germani.
__________________ "all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed."
~Declaration of Independence
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