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People are flawed, VERY flawed. No, I'm saying someone has to stop treating people like crud.

Drinking and drugs help though. Think of it this way. Jesus said what we do to others, we do to Him. He loves us all. When we hurt someone, we're hurting Him. We're rejecting His teachings. Drinking and drugs ultimately hurts yourself...but if you've got an addiction and are trying to get over it, you're trying to follow Jesus. YOu're not acknowledging that "Okay, this hurts God, but I'll do it anyway," you say, "This hurts God, I'll try my hardest to stop." If you don't realize it's not hurting God, though, it's not rejecting Jesus and His teachings, it's just not knowing them to their fullest extent.

It's like...hmm. I was dating this guy, right, and he very much believes Jesus is Christ. BUT he treated people like such junk. I can't count how many times he made me feel like I should just kill myself so that he could be happier. He backstabbed, he cheated, he even stole. He cheated on me, which really, I didn't mind, because I pretty much know going into a relationship that if he's weird enough to be dating me, he must cheat on me at some point. He treated his family horribly, I can't begin to tell you the number of people he hurt. But he said he accepted Jesus as his savior. He never made ANY effort, though, to follow Jesus.

He's a good person underneath, somewhere. he knows that he's going directly against the bible, but he treats salvation as a "get out of jail free" card and takes it for granted that Jesus died to save us all. I would never call him a good Christian. I could never call someone who had such disregard for other people anything more than pathetic and in need of help.

If you had to be perfect to accept Jesus, He'd have died for nothing. There would be no chance for salvation. No human on this earth is perfect. If you do wrong and you repent, you're trying your darndest to follow Christ. If you knowingly sin, repeatedly, without trying to stop or ask God for forgiveness but say that Jesus is your savior, it's a bit hypocritical. How can you believe Jesus is Christ when you make no effort to listen to Him? I dunno. I guess I'm odd in that Jesus is someone I admire. I aspire to follow Him, not to be Him. In 8th grade we had to do projects on our heroes. Write up a paper, make a memorial, things like that. I tried to do Jesus as my hero, but I wasn't allowed to. He is the greatest human that ever walked upon this earth, human and divine, and I wasn't allowed to say He's my hero. He saved more people than anyone ever. and He's not a hero. Maybe I'm wrong in that you need to actually follow His teachings and love Him to accept Him as Christ, but I don't think so. He's already made the greatest sacrifice for us. Why put Him through more pain by hurting His children? How can you accept Him and His sacrifice if you can't love the part of Him that's still on earth now? We all sin . No one deserves heaven. He died to save us. The least we can do is treat His children right.

I'm inclined to partly agree with Xi, here ... and yeah, I know how long it's been since I was around.

Frankly -- and this is just one fellow's opinion -- I try to avoid thinking about whether someone's a Christian or not, regardless of what they claim. I leave their salvation for God to decide. If I can see fruits, that certainly helps my opinion of them ... but for the most part, salvation is for God to judge.

I'm gonna go with this stand too. You can look at something from the outside judging by what you see, but there might be a lot you don't see.. and, also, we aren't only judged by the here adn now... we are not judged by the future, and in the future is always hope.

i mean... yeah. you should live your life to please him.. and lyme, you are right to say when we hurt others we hurt him... but... look at paul.. who was saul to begin with.. and he persecuted the church.. he did awful things. he was a murderer.. however, Christ saw in Saul a man named Paul who would become THE greatest disciple ever... and one of the most effective ministers of the early church... not one of us has any right to pass judgement on another person because our vision is limited. How do you know hwat kind of plan is laid out for this person? and that they aren't already placed on a collission course? Am I saying it's right to continue in sin so that grace may abound as Paul wrote? of course not...

however, I'd like to point out.. that say you do in fact live for Christ absolutely perfectly without ever messing up.. which doesn't happen anyways.. but, point is.. no matter how good or well you live, NOTHING you do will make you worthy of him and his forgiveness and mercies toward us. To believe you are so worthy of him.. or more worthy than someone else, that is a dillusion. Jesus sat in a temple. Two men came in. We all know this story as the parable of teh pharisee and publican. The Pharisee was an upright man. He did everything as much as he could right down to the letter... but the publican was a wretched man... always entrapped with the toils nad snares of this life... but, Jesus also pointed out.. that the publican had humility and honesty.. he came before the Lord hiding nothing.. always desiring to be loved fo teh Lord Most high....
then the Pharisee seeing that man thanked he wasn't like that. when people want to pass judgement on someone; they need to stop for a minute and say.. who am I being in this situation? am i the pharisee or the publican? it's written that he resists the proud and gives grace to the lowly. So then, the issues of grace and mercy aren't for those who are whole and do everything right.. they are for those who are in fact wretched and for whatever reasons find the changes they need to make in their lives impossible to overcome.

I mean... if you wanna get down to the brass tax of things... being condescending to anyone isn't exactly loving them either... what we need to get back to doing is praying for people.. and wanting to find the good in them.. and just keep praying...

Oh my goodness, you guys, like hi

>>;;

Too..much..sugar.. gonk

It was alright. Kinda sluggish, but not too bad.

Kinda glad to be back in classes.

ok. first you need to understand i was no berating her. me and lyme have had our fair share of disagreements in the past. and once i was a little mean to her, but I apologized and made it right... ok? i'm not attacking her. what i said was more for everyone.

but, what i am saying about that. is that how can you really know in all situations that person isn't trying to get away from it? I mean.. you can effort in every area, but you have one that just is like feeling next to impossible to get past. especially if people have addictions to thigns.. now i know how typical people like to be about how we can do all things through Christ. That is true, but it is also true that for people who struggle with addictions and things they haven't grown to hate yet... well, those people are torn.. and oppose themselves... they do love Christ.. but at the same time... they can't pull themselves away from something. i mean.. at the end of the day, we are all just human filthy wrecks anyways. and if anyone feels they are so strong to overcoem everything on their own.. they are awful puffed up and need to see that if any of us are able to overcome anything at all. that is to the glory of the power of Jesus Christ at work in our lives. and for some, that takes a while to actually happen. for some people, they overcome all of a sudden. Some overcome gradually over time. I just think people should not be too quick to judge. I can assure you in every situation there are things the Lord sees that we are unable to.

maybe you guys haven't been put into a trial where you are the one in the wrong.. where you are that person that people pass judgement on... because living that teaches you to know better. I've lived that position more times than i can count on two hands... the only comfort to me was that for how they judged me; the Lord would judge them also. Because I know that despite the crappy mess ups i do. He knows in my heart that I do love him... sure, when you love someone, you shouldn't do things to hurt them. But, we are human and terribly flawed. and how many of you know someone who loves you who never did anything to hurt you? and tho it's the Lord, we can't help much to not do it to him either. but... he forgives us even when we are doing it... seeing in us what we need to do to be pulled out of that miry clay... and he does it gently... loving us all the way.

galatians 6:1 reads brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

what i feel this means is that if you're being too proud and judgemental towards the person overtaken in their fault... he will allow you to have to live it out.. and test you to see if you live up to your own criticism. I think this is what i means because it happened to me. -__-;; I used to have this great friend at church. He was called to preach. He told me and I knew it was true. The holy spirit within me bore witness. I could feel his anointing. Then he started dating this one girl... and i felt from the get go that she was put in his path to be a deterant and distraction.. man. i was soo mad at her for a long long time. well, he stopped going to churhc... then disregarded his calling... and they left the church. and... I had sooo much to say about it. I just was soo like passing judgement on them. and a year later. i was put into a similar trial... and it was sooo messy. and what i saw going on was not what was going on. cuz the guy i was entangled with was spreading lies to everyong.. and noone would talk to me.. to find out the truth. just all believe him right away even tho he was only there a few months where i had been there for a few years.. rolleyes

and one day near the end of it when everything had hit the fan and my embrassment was before everyone at the entire church. -__-;;; i had a talk with one of the deacons. and he told me, in the past when my friends had been in this point of their trials. they left the church... fleeing and making everyone right. or, would i be willing to bear my reproach? Would I be willing to be strong and endure? i did stay.... however, when i recovered spiritually from it.. and the anointing was given to me in overwhelming proportions.. those same people weren't happy for me. they were the big brother in the prodigal parable. they persecuted me every service for the next nine months.. always pulling me out of service to yell at me for something stupid.. i guess they felt the way i worshipped the lord made them feel hot and wanted me to change my worship style.. then they wanted to say i had changed because of being around my african american friend. rolleyes geez.. but having lived through so many of those things in church. I did learn.. that maybe sometimes people from the outside can't see all what's going on. and then again, the person in it can't always see right either if there are other people around. the problem isn't that they are willingly and knowingly hurting the Lord. They simply can't see what they are doing for what it is.. and they are lost in a sinking pit of miry clay.

as teh body of christ.. it's our job to come and help pull them out.. but even more than that.. it should have been our job to have given them support that they didn't fall so far in to begin with....

Yet sometimes we do know when someone isn't putting out the effort to change, or people choose to do wrong, even though they know it goes against the Word of God.