Quote:
Originally Posted by BoredOutOfMyMind
Larry,
The problem is the way you are looking at all these things. The pandemic you speak of is happenning to youth all over the fellowship.
At somepoint what you believe is not a rule, but a devotion. I wear a seat belt because I am fearful of a $90 ticket. I drive 65 on the highway for I feel unsafe at 70 MPH. At 14, God dealt with my heart. The things I hold true and precious became what I believed for myself. Other family members dissed the preachers and they are shipwrecked.
this was not meant to be harsh, friend.
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But that's my point...
I've said it before, I'm all for personal convictions. God bless you for them, brother...
But your personal convictions end with you... You can't extend them to me.
I know the pandemic is happening all over the fellowship. Most of it is because the youth just know the rules and they don't have the heart for it, but you can't tell whether they have the heart for it or not because its so easy to follow the rules when mom and dad and Youth Pastor are looking that you can't tell whose really hurting most of the time (and when you can the wounds are so deep that we don't know how to fix them)...
I don't like the whole "pray a sinner's prayer" thing that mainline Christianity does... But I have to say thier focus on a relationship with Christ is so much better than our focus on dunking people and getting them to speak in tongues... Baptism and spirit infilling are important, yes, but we seem to stop there and forget everything else...
1 book in the New Testament deals with new believers being converted... 4 have to do with documenting Christ's death... and 21 have to do with living the life of a Christian...
But we spend 1/2 of our time on converting new believers... and the other 1/2 telling people what the list of dos and don'ts that we made says....
and they never really get a relationship with God to get to the point where they have personal convictions...
PLUS, even if they do get personal convictions, thier convictions are rejected as not good enough if they aren't convicted against all the same things that those in leadership are...
and I didn't take it as harsh at all. Frankly I thank God that you have convictions, because it is a sign that you have a real relationship with God... The only thing I think that people in our movement need to realize is that personal convictions are personal things and they cannot be applied across the board... We need to thank God for the personal convictions everyone has and do our best to respect the convictions of others (both the more strict ones and the less strict ones) and fellowship in harmony loving Christ... Because heaven isn't gonna be split with the standard folks and the not standard folks... we're all gonna be together, and we should start working on that togetherness here on this earth...
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