Hmmm. Rachel, how do you reconcile your original post and this one?
How wonderful that you've been able to come to a post assembly resolution that you are comfortable with, however, the attitude of your original post reeks of your past.
Blessings,
Gay
Good questions Gay!
Rachel from Ottawa doesn't really seem interested in having a conversation about her statements, however, and I'm beginning to wonder if she isn't just trying to yank our chain.
In comparing some of her posts they seem to be coming from two different persons or one with multiple personalities
.
I am glad that she is feeling good about her new resurgence of commitment to God, but I hope it is not based on her own ability to "allow nothing to come between her and the Lord," or she may be setting herself up for a big disappointment again.
Her history of being up and down could be due to basing her faith on her own efforts to "take responsibility" for her life with God, vs. simple trust in God's grace for her own weakness and humble acceptance that she is a needy human.
There is always the danger that we can adopt a kind of "Sunshine" Mr.-bluebird-on-my-shoulder form of escapism that takes out of context Paul's statement of "forgetting those things that are past, and pressing on. etc."
Yes, we should not get hung up on our past failures, but this did not stop Paul from giving testimony to his own failed past often. He did so to point out the dangers of false and bad religion (like the Assembly) to warn fellow believers to learn to identify obstacles that could stumble their lives with God.
To "get over it" will never be by means of trying to run away from facing the false teaching and practices that controlled and made our souls for many years. Paul faced the facts of his Phariseeism, and used that past to make clear distinctions re. the differences between a grace based relationship with God vs. one that is centered in self improvement.
The distinctions between the two ways above are very subtle, but lead to very different places. The "evidence" re. whose "perceptions" are correct in regard to "true" religion are always to be found in the honest, humble, and right attitudes/behaviors of those making their affirmations of faith.
Those that make large claims for their great devotion to God (does GG come to mind?) and yet whose behavior is very unloving, unkind, self centered, boastful, etc. offer conclusive proof that they are on that wrong track.
True "repentance" can only come from a Pauline styled confession that admits, "I was the chief of sinners and am not worthy, etc." and a dedication to see Assembly like toxic systems outed and rejected--- this takes honest reflection of our past and the learning of a whole new way to understand God and our life with Him.
God Bless, Mark C.