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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2007 6:12:41 GMT -5
quote - "In my view "works" is the product of the spirit of God in our lives. eg, showing the love of God to others, whether (they are) in Christ or not. But this leads to the dilemma : what of people who are kind to others, but hate God?
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Post by ANDREW M on Sept 1, 2007 6:26:26 GMT -5
"Works" is the product of the spirit of God in our lives."
No dilemma. No love for God - No product of the Spirit.
I can't recollect the exact verses but the spirit of God is about going the extra mile (or is it twain ?).
Jesus told us even thieves and Pharisees are good to their own.
The sermon on the mount tells us how to be "perfect" as God in Heaven is perfect. God's love is for all. We must love our enemies as ourselves.
I could go on about this but I know you will see my point by now.
There are some circumstances where it is only possible to show the love of God to others "through" the love of God.
By the way, I think "works" is a fairly all embracing term, from worship to good deeds carried out in the right spirit. However, from the two main commandments that Jesus gave us along with the accompanying example of the Samaitan which shows us how we love God, I see the outreach aspect of "works" as being especially important. It is an important form of ministry (i.e. if you can put one form of ministry above another ?).
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Post by Deleted on Sept 1, 2007 6:28:25 GMT -5
Then I suppose we agree on important things then
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Post by ANDREW M on Sept 1, 2007 6:33:15 GMT -5
These are encouraging words Bert. Thanks !
Further to my posts immediately above, I am reminded that the sole purpose of man is to "glorify anf please God by our lives." That is why we were created in the first place. So "all" that we do which glorifies God can really be called "our works."
However, we know from Jesus himself there is an important outreach aspect to our service which is ably covered by the two main commandments of Jesus with the example of the Samaritan and sermon on the mount, etc.
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Post by Scotty on Sept 1, 2007 16:04:31 GMT -5
Andrew
I did misread your post. I failed to see the time disconnect between your current question and the listening to a worker. Sorry.
My understanding of "works" is: any action, thought, word, etc. This includes the action of "accepting" Gods Grace.
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Post by ANDREW M on Sept 1, 2007 17:36:52 GMT -5
No problem Scotty, apology accepted with the full articles of forgiveness.
I agree with your description of works, basically anything we do which glorifies the name of God. I'm glad you mentioned the acceptance of grace for there are many things that we cannot do without his grace, especially things like loving our enemies, going the extra mile and many other things that have the outreach potential that helps to perfect us.
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Post by to andrew on Sept 2, 2007 6:33:58 GMT -5
andrew we have to say thank you for bringing up this subject. A couple of Sundays back a visiting worker spoke in our little meeting of this same thing. He told us how important it was to have works in our lives but yet did not tell us what these were supposed to be. Maybe he just thought we would know ?
Anyhow there are only five of us who regularly meet together. We are very close and have a bit over 200 professing years amongst us. The other night we had a get together and we got talking about works, sort of following on from the Sunday am meeting. None of us in all our years could recall any worker explaining works to us at any time. Nor could we ever recall hearing it explained in a gospel meeting, ever. No kidding, we've learnt more from this thread than in all these years, although we kind of had our own ideas figured out which weren't far of the mark.
Anyway it is good to have teaching along with preaching. None of us now believe this way is the only way. As a group we sometimes go along to one of the local churches like the Baptist church, usually at Thanksgiving or Christmas time and we really enjoy what we hear.
If it weren't for the fact a couple in our little group have a son in the work, we might well shift over. That said we do like our little meeting.
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Post by ANDREW M on Sept 2, 2007 13:13:28 GMT -5
(to Andrew) Thank you for your kind remarks.
It's heartening to hear you have a small meaningful fellowship group. Unless you particularly wanted to change to a more traditional church, I think you should just continue to meet and enjoy things as they are.
My only other comment which is fashioned from some really tough experiences is to not trust man and to look to Jesus only as the author and finisher of your faith. This does not mean that you should ignore or disregard others, its just that they can even with the best of intentions misguide you. You can love others without them controlling your life.
I like to remember that the first obvious casualty when things are not right is "love." When you see a lack of Christian love from preachers and fellowship members (whatever the group) you know the focus has shifted from Jesus. It's good to know we have this direct individual relationship with God through Jesus (and no other !) that can strengthen and guide us, when those around us seem to be far from his spirit.
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