Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquila
A legalist believes that SALVATION is attained or maintained by keeping the letter of the Law, portions of the Law, or strict adherence to church standards or ordinances. I used to be quite a legalist. But can you show me where I've been a legalist within, let's say, the past 5 years?
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Bro, keeping the letter of the law? Seriously? Know anyone who had been sacrificing sheep lately through a mediator priest? Sadly, you believe that anyone who wears a shirt and a bowtie is a legalist. Legalist is anyone who does something to LOOK "godly" while they hate every minute of the process. They are like Cain, who sacrifices the fruit of his labor religiously. While waiting to have God accept it so he can get on with his life. Looking at his brother performing the same process. All the while hating his brother's devotion to God.
No, bro, it was too easy for you to get dressed up. To "make" your spouse get dressed up. She hated wearing the covering, and you hated that she hated it. If you ever can break the chains which hold you and once and for all figure out that the clothes were the least of the problem. It was what was on the inside. Inside that was filled with rotting corpses, stench of decay, while you tried to polish the outside of your tomb. You drop standards, because you thought they were the problem. They weren't, it is what is inside you.
God doesn't look on the outside, that's where man observes. God looks with eyebrow raised high when you chant your mantra "you're more than a conqueror, and so am I?" But, you were true to your nature, you ended the sentence with "so ACT like it."
That's it Hoss, it's an ACT. Instead of Pentecostal Dress Up, you legally chant you "believe in the doctrine of grace." You believe that God loves me." All because you have to say those things. Because it is as required of you as your haircut was, and your white office shirt.
Rules, you saw it all as rules. You still see it all as rules, but instead of a starched shirt, it is Christian jargon. Words, words which must be spoken in order to be what you claim to be. Struggling with sin? imprisoned in a fleshly body that must commit sin, while its inner man is wanting to do God's will? That's gnosticism. Legalistic to the bone. "I'll pray for you" while all the while in your mind you know you won't. "I love you brother" but if I was to backslide into horrendous debauchery. You would be the first one to burn me at the stake, while all the while saying you knew I was always that way. That's legalism. Yet, while you can drop outside standards of dress, you can't drop the standard of Christian jargon,
Psalms 17:1
Standards are important, but what is much more important is what is in the darkest regions of the soul. Where no man can ever see. Where no man might ever find out the truth. Jimmy Swaggarts and Jim Bakkers of the world didn't have standards of attire. Their world didn't even notice how they dressed, they looked like anyone else. What brought them down was found on their inside.
The biggest devils I have ever met in my life, where people who supposedly confessed Christ. They mouthed all the right words, said all the right things at the right time. Made everyone believe that they were just a sinner saved by grace. But their "admitted imperfections" were what ended up planted deep into my back.
I have a friend who worked in a state prison. They were able to enlist the help of inmates to help with their work. So my fiend was interviewing an inmate. The inmate was a Bible student, led Bible studies for years. To talk with him he said all the right words. Quote the Bible from memory, would hold prayer meetings with his Bible group. Fasted, prayed, told stories on how he would seek God in prayer.
Come to find out that Mr Jail House Bible student, had some very deadly issues. One was that he and another inmate were cleaning the dentist's office, and somehow the female attendant was alone with these two pious students of the Word. At the end of the story, the girl ended up with a broken jaw, and a face that needed to be wired together.
All his "Churchism" was nothing more than legalism. Lip service, part of a Christian Hustle.
Horrific story, but I brought it up to show that you can sit and sing kumbaya. Build wells in the most dilapidated villages in the most destitute countries. Take pictures of you with all the ragged street children you can find, and it would be the same if you were dressed like Hazelwood MO 3.0. Just to fulfill some religious role void of God.
The devil fooled some of you. He got you to believe so much that standards was the Frankenstein monster. Because it was when you were playing Pentecostal Dress Up. It was like getting a custom paint job, brand new Michelins, the most expensive rims, on a car that has no motor, or transmission. You know what happens when you remove the paint, the tires, and rims? You still have no motor, no transmission. Only thing is, that car looks like every other car in the junkyard. So no body ever expects it to go anywhere.
A sinner saved by grace, isn't supposed to stay a sinner. Paul said God forbid it. Yet, being in the junkyard and staying in the junkyard is where Churchanity has finally wound up. You came into this discussion as a liberal, and I came into it as a conservative. If I point out your smoke and mirrors, you return the favor without flinching. SO, save the victim posturing.
Jesus told the woman caught in adultery to go and sin no more. He didn't say go and sin less, or go and through your own human discipline, sin no more.
Calvinism is of the devil, it has destroyed churches, and congregations to make them nothing more than professional Churchmen. Religious Puppets, Polly Parroting Christian jargon, while all inside is nothing more than an ecclesiastical serial killer. But when the Jim Jones pops out in us? We use the well lubed, nicely engineered excuses, your still trapped within your fleshly prison, wrapped in chains of DNA which is sinful.
The Holy Ghost is the only way out, the only one who can control, and lead if we allow it.
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