Quote:
Originally Posted by Coonskinner
The Church is the body of Christ.
As far as I know, you, Michelle, still believe that the New Birth ( John 3:5, Acts 2:38) is the entrance into the Body of Christ.
If you do, then I would say that you believe other things the Scripture says about the Body of Christ.
As for the qualification of ministers, when a man's ministry is acknowledged and recognized by the Body, it does give some basis for credibility.
Are there mistakes? Of course, because humanity is involved.
But there is a cumulative wisdom in Christ's Body, and over time, the charlatans and fakes generally get found out and expelled. There is a process that takes place.
The Church is the Body of Christ in the earth.
If a person rejects the ministry and wisdom and fellowship of Christ's Body, in effect they are rejecting Him, because He has so ordered and set in motion this means for the propagation of the Gospel and the perfecting of the saints.
Michelle, I just have a question for you, not intended to be insulting or to pry...but how has your prayer life been lately?
This I ask out of sincere concern.
How has your prayer life been lately? |
Bro. C ~
I understand why you are concerned, I really do. To most of the people here, this most likely seems like this is out of the blue, and I can almost here you all saying out loud to your computer screens “What in the world has come over Michelle???”
I have posted little bits and pieces here and there, but there are lots of posts, and I know there is no way for one person to see all of them. So please read this post first :
http://www.apostolicfriendsforum.com...&postcount=141
The truth is that right now, I am like a new convert, or actually even before that, I am like someone who is just trying to learn about Jesus, just trying to figure out if he is someone worth knowing. Right now, though I banter back and forth about these issues, looking outside of the box, and ruffling feathers, to be honest, the answers to these questions are not a prime concern to me right now.
Does it matter if I obey a Pastor, if I don’t love Jesus? Does it matter how good my church attendance is, if I don’t know who Jesus is anymore? I spent so many years following the “rules” of a God that I didn’t trust and didn’t even like for that matter. And it wasn’t until that episode on New Year’s day that I really understood that I was concentrating on all the wrong things. It’s like I was telling our good home-schooling friend (who is also concerned about me) last night, I am trying to rebuild my foundation, until that happens, I don’t need to be picking out shutters, you know?
Now beyond that, and getting to your actual question; it has only been in the past few weeks that I have once again began to feel some sort of hope. That maybe Jesus is a good God, that maybe he can be trusted, that maybe he even loves me regardless of all my flaws and my complete inability to perfectly follow all the “rules”, even with my doubts and fears and even my stubbornness. I have only begun to understand that maybe he can actually be a friend, not a vengeful dictator who is just waiting for me to “show my true colors” so that he can smite me.
So in all actuality, for the first time in years, my prayer life has been more about intimacy and relationship with God, and less about “Please Jesus, I’ve tried to be perfect, I have tried to ignore the doubts, I really don’t want to go to hell, please make me different, please make me like them, please don’t punish me, I’m doing the best I can….”
And in this past week, I have had 2 awesome encounters, in my prayer time, both involving major revelations about love. Loving God and loving others. This is amazing when you realize that I spent the past how many years not loving a God I believed could never love me.
I guess the bottom line is, that I know there are things I will have to address eventually. Someday it will come to a point, where I fully love God, and I am fully convinced of his love for me, and I will need to address other things. But right now, I am not ready, I am too fragile. Like someone posted on the other thread….its like being born again, again. And for the first time, I feel happy, no not happy, full of joy, full of peace. I haven’t felt this way since the moment I got the Holy Ghost.
As a funny side note, I dreamed of the forum last night, and I actually woke up praying for one of the posters, it was actually tbpew, which is ironic, because I have never really had any interaction with that poster, and know little of them, and because I was in that realm of half asleep, half awake, I don’t even remember what I was praying about.
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