Turn from Man Return to the Father

I’ve met an Ohio couple here in Newberry County. They lived not far from where my grandparents lived. Us yanks got to stick together. They are actually the first people I got to meet when I got here. They’ve invited me to church multiple times, after explaining my hesitation they were instantly more gentle and understanding in their invitations. Not all Christians have been. My favorite is, “God didn’t do that…” Yup, I know now. I’m blessed to have made it out of the darkness to have learned that. See,  others hurt by the church may not have that understanding yet, and that’s why I’m here.


Last week they invited me to their Church Christmas Party. I felt able and more than willing. The people were amazing. Laughter, games, and good food/fellowship. I got to briefly speak with the minister and his wife, former missionaries in Africa. I look forward to sitting down with them when they return from their Christmas travels. I believe their experience with other cultures give them a different understanding (a needed one) the needs of the world a little differently. 

With the support of a local friend, Barb, I’ve been able to meet with a few minsters of the area. Each minister received a Broken Pieces Kit, a testimony and plea for understanding. My friend, also has her own fears of the church, but she was able to over come them to help me, and I was able to get over my fears, to help her, and we both got over our fears, because we KNOW the urgency of the hour. Her being a local helped show the churches we’ve visited how and why people remain outside of the church. I believe the testimony I’ve been given was able to in-part understanding to them as well. 

I just pray, in time, those who see us reaching out to institutions that caused us spiritual discord would realize, we are here to help them understand what He Himself has taught us, what we’ve come out of, that the church its self put on us. That wasn’t off God. We know that… and that is why we are still here. Still trying to get the church to understand. The one common thing I see within the church is the self proclaimed righteousness and unwillingness to hear and process anyone from the outside of the church, says. When really… the ones on the outside plainly see the pride, hypocrisy, self proclaimed righteousness on the inside, temples made my man’s hands. All sins. What makes that less than the sins of those on the outside? Maybe that churches point of impact helped them on the trajectory their on. Especially when it’s another believer causing another believer to fall (Luke 17:2). It’s faulty. It's susceptible in just as much as the outside. My story is proof of that. Your temple is not a safe place. It should be, yes, but it is made up of carnal human beings. It isn’t some sacrament that can’t be infiltrated. I’m here to tell you it has been and Christians needs to turn from man and return to their Father. 

Acts 17:24
Luke 17:2
What does it mean to you Matthew 10:37-39 mean to you? 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Aren't You Supposed To Go After Lost Sheep?

Image
Major thank you to Matter News, especially Andy Downing, who took great care and conducted thorough research. Thank you so very much for helping me share part of my journey.  Lost Sheep " Decades after Elizabeth LaPorte Thompson said she was molested as a child by a fellow parishioner more than two decades her senior at Faith Memorial Church in Lancaster, Ohio, she has finally started to make her way back toward the light.  In March 2019, Elizabeth LaPorte Thompson drove nearly 650 miles from Savannah, Georgia, to Lancaster, Ohio, and Faith Memorial Church – a place she frequented throughout childhood but hadn’t set foot inside for decades. The years leading up to that moment had been fraught for Thompson, 42. As a teenager, she dropped out of Circleville Bible College amid struggles with drug and alcohol addiction and an associated eating disorder that she said at one point left her weighing just 82 pounds. She also self-harmed, managing to keep the habit hidden from her fami...
Read more

The Cloak of Christianity

Image
“It is like trying to save a drowning man…” So let’s say this Cloak represents and represents every denomination, every religious leader, every religious act and the expectations and religious laws therein. Imagine with me… A drowning man. The man fully dressed. Boots, jeans, his shirt and this Cloak of Christianity. He knows how to swim. He knows how to tread water, but the waters are too rough and he’s been exhausted from trying to stay afloat. Perhaps in this scenario there is an undertow starting to pull him down by the length and weight of the drenched Cloak. The very thing he was awarded when he gave his life to Christ. The very thing he was given by the church to keep him safe from the elements of the world. That man was taught and believes that this cloak is to keep him safe - and should never be taken off, but if he does not take it off the garments weighing him down, he will surely drown. It will pull him down, take his last breath, and he won’t be able to rise back up. This ...
Read more

All In The Name Of Religion

Image
I was 19 and in Haiti on a mission trip. I was getting ready to move there for two years with the mission org. Lifeline, which would never happen. I came back completely broken, but not in the ways one would think. The compound we were staying at required that the parents of the children who attended school convert to Christianity. If they were not Christian, the kids could not receive an education in that remote village. One father of two beautiful children happened to be the son of a very well-known warlock. The father converted to Christianity just so that his kids had a chance to better themselves one day. When his warlock father found out about his conversion, he took his two grandchildren and threw them into a large fire. Other natives went in and snatched the kids from the flames and brought them to the compound, where me and two team members were in charge of the children. I know they were in so much pain, but the shock was so intense, perhaps in a trance put on them by their...
Read more