Where's Aaron??? That's supposed to read Go not God!  LOL!

While leaving church the other day, I was feeling "warm and fuzzy" from the message. Now I'm wondering, shouldn't I be a little more motivated than I am? Maybe it's just me.

Hi waterfall,

Not all of us certainly.

Repentence is (personally speaking) part of how my love flows to those I love.

Repentence and love are not mutually exclusive.

Sure. On a big picture level they were right.  Love is all we need.

The detail is what we do with that love or maybe better, what that love does with us.

If love means never having to say your sorry what do we understand by that?

Do we understand love to be permission to do whatever we please and damn any and all consequences?  Or, do we understand that any sorrow we feel must always be deeper than any words we might use to justify our failures or short-comings?

I don't read the text as an affirmation that people who love other people suddenly become perfect.  I read the text as an affirmation that before one acts one considers the welfare of those they love and whether or not some action will adversely affect them.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Revjohn thanks, but sometimes I wonder if we've lost part of the message for the cross  Yes great love, but also great sacrifice. Something seems to be missing, can't put my finger on it.

Hi waterfall,

Sacrifice is scandalous.

The Cross is scandalous.

We like to watch other people involved in scandals even while we fear finding ourselves in the midst of one.

The Cross without scandal is an attempt to have one's cake and eat it too.

Grace and peace to you.

John

Never thought of the cross as scandalous......interesting......

I sooooooooooooooooooooo agree

the human nature is so quick and easy to tear down others in there times of troubles, but find it so very difficult to build them up and give them hope and assurance.

tearing down others is really about building up themsleves in the mist of others missfortunes 

I remember some of Jesus words - that the kingdom of God has come near, the kingdom is at hand, the kingdom is within.  I try to follow the way of Jesus, to treat others as my family, to live my life in the kingdom of God in the here and now.  I don't worry about 'going to heaven'.   Rather I try to experience heaven in my life.  Yes, I repent the times that I have fallen short of the mark, turned aside, forgotten my way - and I've sought the way again and followed Jesus. 

And yet, whether one sees the cross as a literal reality or a metaphor, it's a very disturbing image of brutality that was endured by Christ......why? Why not just tell us to seek heaven within us without the ghastly imagery?

Would the world have believe simple words?, no I think not, after His ministry He allowed the evils of the world do it thing to pure Goodness. Jesus on the cross exposed the evil powers of this world. 

Or is there a third commandment? Follow me? And loving someone doesn't always make us feel good?

first comes , take up your cross 

If one picks upon the cross and really becomes familiar do you become aquainted with systems like expressed in Ecclesiastes 1:18?

If you wish to be happy here ... don't be wise don't even think ... leads to Morrison's tune on the Village Idiot ... sometimes the idiot savante knows something thinkers don't ... is there a hidden lesson that doesn't do much for human improvement in the lazimans way out ... Lazarous ... o' crap in the light he was returned to the scene ... and thus the chit hits the eternal fan ...

Is a wise God indeed very sad? In Roman Christianity that's crazy ... like psyche ... that must be eliminated ...

Some say there is that flash of insight at the moment of death ... some people appear to be out of phase with this and thus somewhat weird or mystical ...

I don't know I've been told by many theoligians I'm an idiot for wishing to learn ... some Christian types can't believe I was told such a thing.

Gues it depends on where you were at the time as to what you'de believe a mire mortal would say ... without knowing the imp-Lye-cations of licentiousness ... a character we all wear as what floats around down here splatters like eggshell and othe numbing impulses ... creates numbiness/numinous examples of how not to do IÐ ...  but then IÐ's po'lye understood in multidimension myths ... like minds there are more tiers to them than onions ... simulating ononisms ... the seeding of scattered loves with thoughts?

That unmentionable god is a humourus alien ... almost satire like a two-cheeked metaphor ... some beauty in eM when seen going. I had a case one day listening to two women talking about men's buttes/booties and one said she wouldn't be caught looking ... while the other said it didn't hurt to look and imagine ... lifted the dullness at hommoe is my guess ...

Well, I am in heaven, and I want to die—with or without God.

I've been meditating and reading more on this and considering why we as humans seem to demand and prefer a less "scandalous" imagery of the cross. Our modern minds seem to be collectively demanding a more "cleaned up" intellectual version rather than find ourselves sitting at the foot of the cross. As Paul said it seems to be a huge stumbling block to be able to overcome our intellectual barriers that proclaims it as nonsense as we search for a more acceptable way to interpret the meaning within the cross. We want to clean it up, tone it down and make it seem less absurd.

So this "scandel" that you speak of is actually our stumbling block to get to the cross? Is that what you are referring to? Why do you suppose we want a more toned down version that doesn't conflict with our "sensibilites"? Why is it so hard to believe the simplicity of the message? Why do you think the message had to be portrayed in such a brutal and bloody way, because today I think this doesn't make alot of sense to alot of people? I often question this aspect myself, why is this great love portrayed in such a way that offends us?

We like to hide the fact that the Noble, natural "man" is brutal ... and the thinking man is destructive to the brutality ...

What comes first when the institution is threatened with change? Lets get on with it ... that future vision that thinks before they beat on and eliminate the neighbour through shunning or what ever strikes  eM as an emotional out!

Like ARM say I'm dying to escape the present dilemma ... then one has to deal with stoics, pious and all that ... they don't like paradoxes, parables, satire or anything with depth tue eM! Like a Tuit/twit that's not or just intuit as incarnated as intuition?

That's a thought derived from impossible dimension to those that excluded psyche ... improbable you'll suffer impulse from that impact if you avoid the psyche and any mire thinking ... that's dirty of like a Dark Mirror! Silver blackening the rear side ... like a Silver Back Ape ... well aged speciman of creation's monkeying around ... the boon of the Ba in inversion a baboon thnking collectively, some behaviourists say as integral they're smarter that chimps ... humans went too far with the icon ... they still know nut'n ... something to make of ...

Hi waterfall,

It might be.  I think that while there is generally one stumbling block we approach it from different directions and so what person A might find useful in dealing with the stumbling block may not be of much use to person B.

The toned down represents very little threat.

I suspect it is because many sense that believing is opening the door to something heavier like duty, responsibility,obliigation and calling.  Sensing that there is something heavier than believing ahead we shy away.

It isn't the brutality and the blood which gets in the way.  The world is only marginally less bloody though I suspect the brutality is far more refined.  The most obvious answer is that the blood and brutality were the currency of the time.  Scripture, in a certain way, is framed by the culture in which the events and testimony occur.

Much of the framework is the responsibility of the time and politics in which these events played out.  There is also the tendency to focus on detail and ignore the big picture.  It would be like critiquing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel because we didn't like some of Michelangelo's colour choices.

So since we actually don't get to pick and choose how we would have done things we are forced to deal with others reporting how things were done and make an opinion of our own.  Unless we simply want to buy some tour guides' notes, commit them to memory and then barf them out by rote when pressed.  That is an option some have chosen.

Grace and peace to you.

John

John that's a good one on a shallow dog's breakfast! When predigested there isn't much to chew over unless there's a good bone to fight over ... peacefully now my little puppies that don't know much but biting ... that goes on below the surface as you note much nonesense bothers some people in that part of them that really isn't (soul?)! It's questionable ... talk to ID ... I'm told my neuroscients it arrives very uneducated and emotionsal ... much like a gonad! They are sometimes known as donkey parts as they don't do anything until called upon ...mysteriously by scenes unseen it appears ... real social screwups would deny this however!

Did you know that John is an aberrition of an earlier form of Johan, Joanne, Yahn, Yah, and Jah as a common hand in everything ... thus some people believe it is common to have your hand in everything as a bit of god-matter ... into the neighbours Jared area ... sort of like a hand in disturbing theire thoughts solidly instead of starlike ...

This possibly led to the concept of something separate from a common and integral god to those that would like to be isolated and thus the word mahaineim or the isolated man as screwed about by deep womb's effects (spatial) from his past culturing in a dark place ... like becoming uncorked ... from his female intuition passed on my matriarchal linage by a fluke or fine method of phtttzzz, or Felix ... James Joyce played on this lack of abstract (a fin' double negative ... like the silent "ï" that is well cranked up in the 23 book of the sacred tome called Isaiah as 65:24 on double talk with an imaginary character) ... being the "ï" is silent and dark just to spook the unthinking minds into movement ... into I'z aura'n ... that's when you look about yah ... a sight for Zoar I'Z it is ...

Then there is the conflicting interpretation over 1 Thessalonians 5:11 ... Ge's don't hit us with that too! Reminds me when I was employed troubleshooting problems that the administration of corporate concerns didn't wish to hear (possibly because the senior management was responsible for errors and shortfalls when junior engineers). Then in a string of meme space (mem'aurá?) did Rob Ford like to hear his shortfalls re-iterated? Human beliefs and fallacies all shot to 'elle ... like you say a dogs  breakfast when you look into it you might see a Maas 've fecundity of genertic material ... even in the bones ...!

Sort of like a maasy skeleton to build on ... that Red Skeleton fellow did fine with such satire on flighty burds ... post setting or is that a Seder, a feast of RIPP'r to disturb the still waters of an inactive mind?

Did you know that once water was a fine icon of the medium of mind ... thoughts could cool the emotions ... if you stopped to wash in NOS ... we've lost such fine icons, Semites, signs ... what ever you wish to call those varient redactions ... so that common people wouldn't appear to be thinking ... it is banned by many religious activities and polity where one has to stay back from the line but toe it ... this is very abrassive (corrosive) to responsible freedoms such as press, word, speech, religion, etc. (aeropagite in short, with vast implications that are not for the small un stretched or tensored mind/stressed)

How else would we bury our thoughts than in san ... without in some old traditions to confuse Lover's that don't like to think ... thus pulp fiction as a dog story or a woulff chewing up Pan Connections (Pan Tyes) and the deception of Poteferrious as great irony on mythical sects ... just doen't happen does ID! Someone even coughed up one on Egyptian Evenings or maybe Ancient Eve Nings. One has to be familiar with Nins, Nings and myths and the phonetical form thereof ... pas synthesis of soma ... there's an interesting little used word that fringes on useless if not used ! Sort of referenced by a neural cell ... things in the brain and many people believe there's nothing there of any value ... just ghost of the past ---E. Scrooge ... a real screwy myth that few really understand the depth and darkness thereof ... a literary Classic allowing avarice to break free ... into real compassion for the tiny 1? Such Luce solidarity means little to stoics ... that like the position they're in ... however sad it looks with wisdom Ecclesiastes 1:18 or was that proverbs ... existing in a dippy place ... one forgets easily ... all the things of pas Tae learning ...

You did know that avarice relates to a strange sense of greed ... to possess ideas that belonged to other people when you can create and share your own in different form ... so you can privatize them from others and they won't bully you and crucify you about your own mental workings .. as religion demands you toe a line ... regardless of how fuzzy a sheep it is about what IT really knows in the expanive hard spot that has become almost ethereal over 10-20 B years ... if you look at it differently ... it may be further stretched bi God ... lies are in vogue ... if you haven't noticed the milieu ... an environment of words to be tested ... they just can't "just be" or they'll fade like old CDs lying about on the way ... feint images of past thoughts ... not much wisdom toem any more ... if you've observed!