The evergreen Mr D Merritt is just finishing a loving walk through James. http://lifereference.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/james-misconceptions-and-insights/
Seems there is some confusion about Love. Mr M is trying to straighten it out. For the family’s sake. For the love of god.
I love Don as a brother. I love my family. Mostly.
(and as I have not popped any words up today – think the lord was waiting for this surreal moment)
I would like to ask my family what this “Love (faith) v Love (works)” malarkey is all about?
Love v Love
Love v Love
LOVE v LOVE v LOVE v LOVE …
Because my family has the arrogance to talk about the “lost world”
Except the lost world knows “my family” has completely lost the plot
And the lost world knows to steer clear of my family
I am with the lost world
Can someone tell my family
Please?
LOVE = LOVE = LOVE
I am happy to be called simple…
Why would anyone want to argue about Love?
Just me being curious 
OK Paul, this is a fun post! Love v Love almost sounds like a divorce case.
Hold on… maybe it is in a way.
Your post sent me back to re-read my posts for today. Maybe one more visit to my soapbox is in order… not sure.
Great.
🙂
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🙂
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Don – Rebekah has just added something (below) that has stopped me in my tracks – just in case the soapbox is still brewing at your end.
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I’m just thinking out loud here…God is love. Some have said that God is dead. Why would people say that? For we know that God is NOT dead, but He is risen, He is alive.
Perhaps they say this because the love of man has grown cold. Particularly, the men (and women) who are called to be salt and light to the lost world.
Love is the greatest commandment, and the commandment we are greatest at breaking.
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“Love is the greatest commandment, and the commandment we are greatest at breaking.”
Which means that keeping any other “rules” is pretty much a waste of time. No matter how “righteous” causes anyone to feel. Rebekah, I have never heard that thought put so plainly and simply – and powerfully.
One of us has to make a post out of that sad truth. Any thoughts?
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Yes!! Any other rules are for sure a waste of time. What a great tie back to that first word “waste”.
Paul, after I wrote those words I thought the same thing about it being put so plainly and powerfully. MIght have even patted myself on the back and been a tad proud of it. But here’s the thing, the more and more I am part of this community, reading your words and the words of others, the more God’s Word is at work within us. I didn’t say that. That was the Spirit talking. So, with that said, those words were for you.
I can’t wait to read the post you will write!!!!
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” I didn’t say that. That was the Spirit talking. So, with that said, those words were for you.”
Grounded. Beautifully grounded again. Wow! (sorry to repeat myself) And thank you. In so many different ways.
>>> Would you mind me using the comments you make in whatever happens?
“But here’s the thing, the more and more I am part of this community, reading your words and the words of others, the more God’s Word is at work within us.” is calling to me – without any knowing why yet.
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Just realized I when I mentioned the waste that I was referencing one of your previous posts, not this one. All these words are like an ongoing running commentary as far as I’m concerned. 🙂
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Just saw your reply….no, I do not mind at all if you use the comments. Let the Spirit blow where He may. We are along for the ride.
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You have just made my heart sing! Running commentary – more and more it seems like that from all directions – because I had to look around a few times for that word as well!
Thanks Rebekah 🙂
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Paul im from a works background. I have been re educated however. Allone needs to do is crack open a book called The Bible and faith with works comes spilling out all over the place. They go hand in hNd as the illustrious Mr. Merritt has shown us time and time again. Who would want to be so completely filled with faith and love and not do something glorious for others with it? Indeed.
Anyone would do so out of LOVE!!
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“I have been re-educated” – what a sad and beautiful phrase.
I come from a lost world background. And wonder which world the followers of the way inhabit sometimes.
I was lost. Now I am found. And am so saved – in so many ways – so many days – and at not cost to me – I just am! Just gotta go share this wonder. Gotta be someone different than I was!
Always comes back to Love
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Yes it does Paul. Always love. Amen!!
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“Who would want to be so completely filled with faith and love and not do something glorious for others with it?”
I saw this comment as an email update on my phone. And thought it was on the back of your post/our comment: “pub church” and my “scary comfort zone” comment.
Gotta tell you: I was a tad miffed! And then as I prepped tonight’s dinner, mulling why I was miffed – I got a picture of you with these words, and the lord standing at your shoulder. Both of you going “comfort zone … comfort zone …?” and Him looking a bit miffed and muttering “always the comfort zones get in the way of what I can do – what you can do.” And I burst out laughing!!
I call that another nudge! Thank you!! 🙂
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Loving the Father (love) is so easy especially because of all He does for us. Loving our brothers and sisters when they appear so unlovable often because of all they do TO us (or so we feel) is hard. Unselfish thoughts and works for others requires sacrifice. We are always eager to receive the sacrifice (love and grace of Jesus Christ) but usually reluctant to become/work a sacrifice for others.
Don’s comment above Love vs Love as a divorce case…very interesting. We often separate ourselves from our brethren instead of coming together in love as commanded. But when we do this, don’t we unintentionally pull ourselves away from God who we profess to love by rejecting that of Him present in other people? Hmmmm….
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Sometimes feel like a child between two (or many) warring parents: Stop – please stop!! I love you both – why have you stopped loving me, why have you stopped loving each other, why …..?
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I’m at a loss for words after reading post and all comments. My heart is stirred – stirred to love more. Stirred to love all the ones who do not agree with me or I don not agree with. I just keep picturing Jesus hanging with the unloved (yes, in a bar or pub) and He is just loving on them. Loving them where they are. Loving me where I am…… good, yet hard tears.
Thanks friends- 😀
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Beautiful Cate – simply beautiful!
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My religious background used the beautiful Scriptures in John–the ones where Jesus says if we love Him we will keep His commands–to say that to follow God we must follow a list of commands, and this group majored on their favorite ones, doctrinal distinctives that differed from other church’s doctrine, setting them apart and giving them (us) the “right” to judge those not following that list of commands. But hallelujah a closer look at Jesus’ last conversation with His disciplines (John 14 through His crucifixion) reveals that the command, singular, Jesus is referring to in this passage is to “love one another as I have loved you.” Full, sacrificial love. Love guided by the Spirit, no co-dependent, dysfunctional, or unwise love. But love right where someone is, love before it is earned. Love that sees the person through the eyes of their Creator, not through their list of successes and failures . . .
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Paula, a HUGE apology from me. Just browsing some “back copies” and comments, and I arrived here to see a large gap under your words. Please forgive me!
Because your comment is yet another sadness. Another example of God being distanced from those He loves by those who say they are qualified to know how He loves. How we must love. So that He might love us. Love v Love.
“Doctrinal distinctives” sounds like being tied up with barbed wire. Ugly and hurtful. The rules of “my club”. Follow the rules. Be judged how well you keep them. Because that way you will be better than the rest. That way God might deign to notice you. Because “we say”.
The Lord is whispering something I don’t want to hear. Wrapped in all these recent blogs with fear, rules, love v love, faith v works, making the bible fit (whatever doctrinal distinctives they must fit) … All of that and more.
You spoke of backlash. We spoke of much more. And I find myself once again hearing his whisper and responding with “not me, not this, not now” – personal testimony is what he is whispering. A personal bugbear when I hear one proclaimed with the standard “hallelujahs” and palms raised upwards. Always the question in my mind: who looks good here? You and you and all,of you – or God? Always the cringe effect of seeing a full blown “I have been saved” with the unspoken “aren’t we just the best – us saved ones”. Mutual back-slapping in this club of Love.
I hear him whispering “stand up”. And my bum is rooted firmly on my chair!!! Do you ever get that dread? Knowing you will stand up. Yet hoping something will come along and the moment will be lost? I hope I am not the only one.
Watch this space. He is tapping his foot as I type this.
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Pingback: Why would people say that? | Just me being curious
Such profundities expressed in your post and subsequent comments! I am digesting every word like a five-course meal prepared in a Michelin star-rated restaurant.
“Church” stopped for me at the age of 12 when my parents decided to leave the legalistic home church they had attended since youth. The church’s rules consisted of man-made regulations: women can’t cut their hair or wear make-up or jewelry, women must wear skirts and dresses, no TVs or movies, no communicating with “outsiders” unless guiding them to the “fold”, etc. My parents were feeling pressure from the leadership to stop living lukewarm lives. Lukewarm because, as a family, we watched TV and deigned to break “God’s rules” and wear pants. So my parents chose to stop “church” altogether. “Organized religion” was out of the question for them since they didn’t (and still don’t) believe in the whole church-in-a-building/business transactions idea of being “organized”.
Seeing that as an impressionable youth and believing that love (works) meant following a series of man-made rules plunged me into the depths of confusion and seeming dismay at this thing called “religion”. I wrestled with the definitions of church and Christianity and wondered if that tiny home-church I attended for 12 years in childhood was as good as it got. I wondered why my parents would opt out of a life with Christ and a relationship with Him because of some ridiculously repressive rules. I was angry for many years. I searched in many wrong places before Jesus called me back to Him in my mid-30s.
At the core of everything is Love. I see Him so clearly now. I see how all that nonsense (legalism, organization, man-as-barbed-wire-fence religion) is merely Satan’s way of getting in the way. So those love versus love people need to see that it’s Love AND love. Faith AND works. They are extensions of our Savior. They blend harmoniously into the perfect bite, each ingredient indistinguishable from the other. Love requires action, movement, a doing.
The ultimate love-action was performed for us on a cross over 2000 years ago. That’s Love AND Love. Praise Him.
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Heather – the more I see comments like your, the more righteously indignant I become. Insidious, that tree, earning, transaction, , , , all the “stuff” Jesus got a tad hot-under-the-tunic about. How and why – I have no idea!
One “good thing” to come of all these desertions over here is that church numbers are falling to the point where different denominations are now actively doing things together. Not all the time. But slowly and slowly more and more.
I read mostly US comments and feel like I inhabit a different plant a lot of the time. And then he connects me with people like you, and I see a community – a church of the way – forming here. And I question whether we have been guided to something very very special. Right now a haven and a “greenhouse” of germination. In the future???
For myself he is drawing me to something and the shape and size is starting to become less foggy. Something local. And yet so connected to here. More connected and more connected.
I bumped into a comment similar to your own: new Christians in the church. This ongoing culture of maturity in Christ. I asked a question and hope to get an answer. if not, my pebble is dropped and He owns the ripples (which I found a tricky theory when it comes to “practical” as today.
After yesterday’s piece it kind of left me empty of words. No call to write today. No pressure to either! And my apologies – I seem to have a flurry of adding posts over the past week or so!
>>> the best about this church forming here? No seniority. No length of service. No having to do anything much except enjoy being connected!!
You rock my world. And I found Denine rocks my world. Along with so many others!!
🙂
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