To those interested;

There's a reason why those reared in an [exclusive] religious society find it cumbersome and difficult to plug into another religious system. The Lord Jesus deals with those of sincere hearts toward Him in this frame, in gracious ways.

The conditioning of the mind deals altogether differently with these than does the risen and living Christ! The conditioning sends or draws one back into the fellowship where the two masters once again compete for their soul. Many times men and women go back to this type fellowship without a clear testimony of relationship with the risen Christ!

Closed and exclusive societies such as the Pharisees are hard to actually leave behind. Indeed these tend to rob the believer of the mastery of Christ Jesus in their lives. Number two, the thing appears to be positive on the surface because of the help one gets to perform in righteous ways.

Is true Christianity about performance or do we perform because of a divine relationship with Christ? Is our performance contrived or is it rather spontaneous? True Christianity is about relationship with one Master, never two! A church organization can never be Christ Jesus to anyone. A relationship with an organization will never be a relationship with Christ!

Jesus said to those leaving Judaism for relationship with Him; no one can serve two masters. It's amazing that He said that. There was a need for it.

Those with two masters in their lives find it hard or even impossible to submit to the absolute Mastery of Christ and therefore these for most part simply trudge along in their doubts and incompletness. I've been there. A great man of God once said this; religious organizations produce many [good people] but few if any [great men and women of God] are produced there!

Certain things and certain attitudes follow those who have been reared in closed and exclusive societies for a while even after the Lord Jesus has done His work in their heart. The risen Christ says; just follow me! This occurred in Saul's life [later called Paul]. He had come from a closed and exclusive society called the Pharisees. Paul did not join a church organization, he was added to God's church by Spiritual Baptism of which he later wrote in 1Cor.12:13. Water baptism simply cannot perform this, try as we would. That idea is of man. Saul had been added to God's church by Spiritual baptism but the other believers at the time were slow to receive Saul because of the terror he had waged among them. They knew that they had not Spiritually baptized him, but if God actually had baptized him then we will eventually accept him.

Miracles do occur but without this it is hard to leave behind one's second master even once Living Faith comes. The secondary master to great degree has mastered this person. The secondary master is a tangible type master and it is extremely tough to get rid of at the level of the mind. Christ Jesus the Spiritual Master, with great diligence on our part finally supercedes all other masteries!

Christ Jesus desires that those who follow him have [one] master in their consciousness and heart! Closed and exclusive religious societies, though they may struggle against it, find that they have two masters in their lives. It is very difficult for these to have a clear and ringing testimony of the risen Jesus! The testimony is diffused.

The organization or second master many times actually competes with Christ Jesus for mastery of the people!

The early church was organized sufficiantly to pray, exhort, and fellowship one another. And yes someone very likely called their meeting times to order with a prayer or a song. There was no legal type of membership. Without the legal type membership there was no legal type of explusions. And without those things there was no legal type of shunning and discarding. That was an old covenant thing that was left behind.

It's natural for Spiritual people to embrace the erring and yet it is not natural to closely fellowship those of bad spirit or bad temperment. Sometimes we of Spirit need encouragement to be natural about this thing.

The early church was being cleansed by a single activity and power source: It was by the washing of water by the Word of God that this was freely occurring! Eph. ch. five. There is a Spirit or Water of the Word [out beyond the printed page] that cleanses those on whom it decends! When there is little or no Living Word from beyond the printed page manifesting in a group of believers it is now that men revert to the lower kingdom or to legal measures to cleanse a group.

We can be single minded with a single eye! He is glorious!

doug,

Talk to me. If God alone can cause us to become members one of another by Spiritual baptism according to 1Cor.12:13 then why would men go through the motions of denying this membership to someone? Is it about forcing an issue at some level? Is it about control at other levels? Is it about a show of authority at yet other levels? Is it about religious pride in the non-fact that men can give or deny membership to Christ's church? It seems these are probing questions for every believer.

Is publically marking a maveric brother or sister who's walking disorderily in a public way, have a legitimate strength? Sure.

In a natural way to avoid the close fellowship of a maveric brother or sister who is openly arguing as a heritic have a legitimate strength? Sure. [In a natural way] means that it is natural for the pure-hearted believer to avoid intensely close fellowship of those who have a dark, mean, foul, or evil spirit of falseness about them.

Is denying the fruit of the vine or the unleavened bread [the scriments of our memory of Him] to one in open sin have a legitimate strength. "Know not to eat or drink with them." Does this excommunication have a legitimate strength? Certainly; the strength in this excommunication is simply for the sake of the one in open sin lest he or she eat and drink of even more death.

Does treating any of these like the scribes and pharisees treated the publicans and sinners have a legitimate strength? Think about it. Or does treating any of these as Jesus treated the publicans and sinners as He embraced and fellowshiped them the best He could, have the legitimate strength? What spirit do we entertain, that of the pharisee or that of Christ Jesus? Some probing questions here to settle in our hearts.

Does the encouragement of another believer to repent of his or her sin have a legitimate strength? Certainly; provided we are not of the type who cry [repent] as a forewarning of an alienation from home, family, and friends. The ideas of the pharisees are hard-core legal ones. They are maneuverings which the spirit of the pharisees were right fond of.

The pharisees criminalized sin; God does not. Jesus says; neither do I condemn you but go and sin no more! The Spirit of Jesus speaks to the idea that sin causes death in us and therefore sin is against both us and God since His plan for us is restoration to the fullness of Life!

Jesus said; "I come that you may have Life and have that more abundantly." "I come not into the world to condemn the world but that the world through me might be restored or saved". Jesus said; I came to restore what had been lost". "For we are [not] of those who believe unto perdition or death but unto the restoring or saving of the soul!"

Doug, this is truly one of the most insightful pieces I have read on this forum. Thanks for your efforts! I'm going to copy this into a document so I can read it over several times. This very thing has been a profound mystery and frustration to me since we left the H church almost 20 years ago. It seems like the ex-H have a tendency to either totally reject Christianity, or to just move over to another church that is similar to the H in legalism, control, and practice. And I feel this tendency in myself all the time. It's been a challenge to find a balance between the ultra-liberal and the ultra-conservative when it comes to integrating with a community of believers. With the conditioning that we received, it is easy to find something wrong with anything and everything, and then just give up on it. A better approach is to grow in faith, grace, tolerance, and respect for others. Your article is definitely right on target!

Enjoyed the read, Doug. Grace is such a scandalous thing. But people want a scandal-LESS grace. So we create religion and exclusive societies where this sort of "grace" can be practiced. It's all so wearisome to contemplate.

Not quite sure how to put this all together. But had a conversation in somewhat of the lines of this discussion today. The term given to describe the situation somewhat, was enmeshment. It was referenced in this manner, we because of the relationships we have in the H church, family, church, spiritual...... We become intertwined relationally, emotionally, spiritually. It is a defining aspect of our life, not only ours but that of our family, friends, relatives. When we find ourselves removed from it, put out without our consent, or by our own choice, it affects all the relationships we have in our life. Not only ours but that of all of our immediate family members. while we are shunned and put aside, our family is cast into deep despair of our loss to them as parent, child, brother, sister, grandparent, whatever the case may be. So some of the reactions we are getting are truly based on their fear of the unknown.
They want to know that we are not leaving God, we are not leaving them, that they still have a mother, father, sister, brother, grandparent...............

Had a conversation that went along this line last week.
Me "Norma reminds me of a combination of my great aunts. You know, kinda determined, with that grandma hair style, you know the one, cut kinda short with it colored and a wave permanent."

DD " How do people really dress where you are going?"

Me "Well they dress fairly modest for the most part, but in store bought clothes. Hardly anyone makes their own anymore. the older ladies wear a lot of suits, skirts and jackets. there are at least 15 different head coverings along with short hair, long hair and no headcoverings."
DD "well how do they decide who teaches SS School? Do they just allow any one to do that"

Me " not really, anyone that teaches does not have to be a member but they have to sign a statement of faith and belief."

DD " That sounds like a bunch of contention to me"

ME " Well maybe I am not in the right circle or something. but there is sure a lot less contention than where we came from. I haven't seen anything that I would call contention."

DD "But where is the unity?"


I have had a real struggle with this whole thing all week, thus the conversation today with my counselor. But it came to me this way. While we were teaching our children to be more accepting and less judgemental of others, we were also teaching them to tow the line and follow the status quo. "Don't do that, you know that is not what the church believes." " If that is where you want to be, you cannot act that way because you know that is not allowed.".................
When I watch the different reactions of each of us on here to various discussions, I am sometimes very fascinated. The Enmeshment description makes total sense to me and also the way that Doug has described some of the thinking pattern here. No matter what we do or where we go, we simply cannot escape the fact that having been H is a part of who we are, where we will go, what direction we will take in life, how we react to given situations. We cannot make dogs out of horses. Christ can and will, give us new hearts full of love. But that will not change our basic character, except to make it better. If we try to run as far from it as we can, I wonder if we are doing ourselves somewhat of a disservice because we are not accepting who we are either. I am not saying we need to be with H all the time, I am just saying we need to accept that part of who we are and have been and the part God had it play in our life. I somehow don't think we will be able to reconcile our hearts or recover from our hurts unless we do. I may be wrong here, but somehow I don't think so.

Love and prayers, Locklady

L.L.

Interesting post.

Many years of denial rather than learning to cope by a living and vibraint relationship with the risen Christ may well serve to nudge us toward going back to our roots in our very old ages.

Greg Dyck not so long ago told a friend of mine that most do go back to their roots finally. Nothing to do with this but Greg may be coming to see us soon, he said he wanted to. He's been geographically close here in North C. and has unfinished business he would say, so he is coming back. The last family reunion Greg singled me out and said to me, I want you to know that I appreciate our love-bond to which I answered, it is there and I appreciate you appreciating it.

I believe that things of Faith and law must actually be resolved in very real terms or going back to one's roots finally may occur.

I certainly believe that a living Faith must supercede any and all forms of law, letter, or standards for righteousness in order to be completely free of the lower law. By being alive to Christ Jesus we are made dead to the law! There is a law of liberty that can be experienced and embraced which altogether supercedes the lower law. Greg is well aware of where I am positioned and he is alright with it so long as I am not seeking realignment with or acceptance by those with a faith in precepts and ordinances for righteousness.