Kit Sober

My favorite turn to #7, Every moment is a gift from God, that's why we call it the present.

I am so thankful to the people who "were there" who tell what went on regarding things that good little followers such as I would never know for sure, but the sin and filth made for a situation that just didn't fit with the believer babble we were fed. The Greasespot Cafe has been a forum for people who have been so very instrumental in helping me know the truth and it has helped my soul become so much more free. Thankfully, very thankfully,

Bolshevik, IMHO it's more important to match our thoughts and deeds with the Lord's. :) :) :) :) :)

Amen and amen to those who say it's a fruitless endeavor, with the added waste of your own years added into the waste that has gone before you. My mom used to tell me, "If you lie down with dogs you wake up with fleas." This is true with lying down with the dogs in twi. The filth of that place will be on anyone who sleeps in that place, and can take years to wash off. And there is the added risk that one might find themselves/yourself enjoying the filth [for a season] and turn their/your heart away from the Lord you right now so want to serve. (I personally feel this may be the case with lcm.) There are some good places to go to study and learn with men and women who are godly and who live godly lives. There are other options to pursue a life with the Lord. I recommend investigating the options before committing oneself: Looking at other disciples from the different programs, the fruit in their lives, and deciding what kind of a personality development one wants to encourage in one's life. Any field of endeavor requires choices made: a person in sports decides to pursue a healthy life-style with integrity, or use drugs to achieve an "easier" result, with consequences of long-lasting physical and possible judicial consequences. So a person who pursues a life with the Lord must make choices of integrity, or expedience, and those choices will have consequences into eternity. A sports figure may use drugs and dishonesty and fool the officials and the fans, but teammates will know, and so will he/she. A person who pursues a life with the Lord cannot hide from Him, and the judgment of our lives will be Just and Right altogether. Hoping for a good time at the judgment seat of Christ,

I was reading in Matthew a couple of days ago and was amazed that chapters 5-7, which includes the severe warnings against hypocrisy, was written to Jesus' disciples that came to the mountain to hear him. "Not everyone that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. . .Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name cast out devils? and in thy name hath done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. . . " Too bad twi doesn't read the Gospels more. Some great stuff in there. (I remember a guy I admired so much back in '72 who set with me somewhere on twi HQ grounds and told me to read the Gospels and showed me his Bible with the gospels all marked up like my Ephesians was. He was kicked out and I have read on Greasespot Cafe some great troubles he still has with that place.) Hoping I am not one of those of Matthew 7:23, and so very thankful for those who showed me The Way, from God's perspective,

Catcup and others, Thank you so much for your forthright honesty here (as at other times on Greasespot Cafe as well :) ). Again, you have filled in so many empty holes in my understanding of things. Thank you very much,

Come to think of it, there was never any real from-the-stage stand against any sin that the Bible calls sin (putting things ahead of God, lying, stealing, fornication, hard-heartedness, lack of compassion). The only behaviors as I think of it that were not tolerated were those against twi's cult mind-set -- the things things such as failure to be yes-people to the latest twi-edicts.

there's the story of this mean old drunk who died, and there was a traveling preacher who was doing the funeral, and he was going on and on about how great the guy was, how his wife and children would miss him, and he was gone to heaven to be with the Lord. "Henry," the man's wife told her son, "Go take a peek and see if it's pa in that coffin." For some people the only tears shed are alligator tears.

Baloney. This is another sin-whitewashing vp curse to people who want to walk with the Lord. With the Holy Spirit -- or even with just plain common sense, you can do the right thing. There is no excuse for the kind of behavior spoken of on this thread. No excuse. I am thankful that the Lord is just and righteous, and things will be all balanced out in His righteous scales of justice. And I hope the people who were so bitterly and cruelly treated see this sometime and get some blessing of healing in seeing the truth (which, after all, is what sets people free). I have been reading about (and Holy Spirit has been with me on this one in a massive way) fear of the Lord. People do (or don't do) what is right, what the Lord says, they lose the vision of what He taught them, people forget the blessings He gave, and the kindness with which we should live because of the presence or absence of the fear of the Lord. And people will be judged for what they did or did not do that they should have. There is no blaming others at the judgment seat of Christ. Carolyn Rawlins, like vp and everyone else who has used and abused their position to hurt God's precious people will get a true judgment at that time.

Dot, A dear wonderful friend, B* S**ley (led me into sit back in '72), diabetic, tossed out his insulin after a healing ceremony at the roa, and went blind. Still is as far as I know. Dear guy. Just another "casualty" of believing vp and the "believing" hype, which is tripe without the power of the Holy Spirit.

I mean look at James Kim memorial And even if you look at the Salt Lake Tribune obituaries (lots of Latter Day Saints there) here, there is not a glory to the Mormon Church, but a remembrance of the person.

Papa's Potato Problem An old man lived alone in the country. He wanted to dig his potato garden, but it was very tough work as the ground was hard. His only son, who used to help him with the garden, was in prison for insider trading and stock fraud. The old man wrote a letter to his son and described his predicament. Dear Son: I am feeling pretty bad because it looks like I won't be able to plant my potato garden this year. I'm just getting too old to be digging up a garden plot. If you weren't in prison, all my troubles would be over. I know you would dig the plot for me. Love, Papa A few days later the old man received a letter from his son. For heaven's sake, Dad, don't dig up that garden because that's were I buried all the money and stocks. Love, your son. At 4 am the next morning team of FBI agents and local police arrived at the old man's house and dug up the entire garden area without finding any money or stocks. They apologized to the old man and left. That same day the old man received another letter from his son. Dear Papa, I'm sure by now the FBI has been there and dug up your garden. Go ahead and plant the potatoes. That's the best I could do under the circumstances. Love, your son. From the Catholic Digest

Dear Wanderer, . . . and I hope you never stop being thankful you are out of that place. At least from outside we can deal with the half-truths and other having-the-form-of-godliness-but-without-the-power-thereof (for example, saying "bless you" and not giving the Holy Spirit power of a "bless you"). When reading so much of Greasespot Cafe stuff, notes and musings, prayer requests, heartfelt release, just all kinds of stuff, I am constantly reminded of how we may have a hole to crawl out of (some of us were in that twi place 20 years and longer) but at least we are on our way up and out, and we have a cyber place to come to commiserate and comfort, encourage, laugh, moan and wail about our various tales!

Reading the obit for Dr Rawlins I almost wanted to gag. She was a good woman and a good doctor, but there was something so syrupy about the way her obit was worded that seemed too gooey and more like a propoganda for twi's ugly as sin "household of der veg." And I guess it comes from having the blessing of being around so many honest heartfelt memories shared in the Greasespot Cafe in Memorium threads. Even reading the memorial threads over where Dr Rawlins' obit is placed, there are other "normal" obits whichare in such contrast to Dr Rawlins' -- honest, heartfelt, grieving, compassionate, memories of people. Whereas, behind the syrupy goop of Dr Rawlins' obit was that hypocritical (and heartless) stuff with a smiley cloying face. Ugh! Another reason I am so glad to be out of that twi place. (Did I ever say that lcm kicked me out, and I owe him a debt of thanks for that.) There but for the grace of God is myobit, written by twi staff. I sure hope to be remembered with some real heart -- hate me or like me, I am so thankful no one will write (I hope), "Kit Sober remained a faithful member of the twi household." Hallelujah! (Please don't even think of it.)

That's it. The Departed.

RG, It's much easier to forgive others than to forgive yourself. When faced with accepting Christ's work and forgiveness for myself I have to just bite the bullet and accept Christ's love and forgiveness or else live in misery. It's a choice. Some people elect to keep sinning in various ways and to not accept forgiveness for your sins is a sin -- it's saying that your sin is bigger than Christ's living sacrifice, which is just not so. Again, I hate writing/saying these things because stuff just popped up in my mind that I have the question your friend is having, and no excuse.

Lost first picture. the vaseline jar is a (most embarrasing) error message. Please ignore. And cannot edit the post. 3rd picture is not the person but something striking about him. Last picture is bottom of Freud's mind map. Current movie. Acadamy Award winner.

It's a winner!

Agreed. I wasn't expecting too much ($100,000 movie done by a Church in Georgia in response to the Pastor's challenge to reach the world from Sherwood Church in Albany Georgia.), but I was really impressed and inspired. Especially the "special features" which show that the movie stars are by and large the church members, and the kids are students at the Sherwood Christian Acadamy that is part of the church. The "bad guy coach" is executive pastor of the church, and other Church members are the directors and producers of the movie. For me there was the bittersweet case of the "if onlies" because I thought twi had some of the greatest actors and musicians, staff and workers in the world, and I always thought we could have done this kind of stuff. Note: I did think The Invinceable was a neat example of what a good Walt Disney movie. Again, I was grateful for the "special features" which showed some of the heart and life of Vince Papele and his family and friends.

Left Behind

I do not "know" about Job, but my opinion is that he was not driven by faith but by fear in his offerings for his sons and daughters. (There is no indication that his children went to "church" with him.) Faith is what we have when we fear the Lord. (Friendship with the Lord is reserved for those who fear Him -- Psalm 25:14.) I think it's a variation on Bob Dylan's them, "you got to serve somebody," and that everyone is going to fear something, and the best thing to fear above all is God because then, bottom line, you won't cross him. If you are afraid of getting your dog poisoned with raisins, you won't feed him raisins, which is a good thing. Watch out for raisins for your dog

(Note: I hate answering on forgiveness because I know I need to live up to what I say, and the challenge is right in my face.) Forgiveness is what we do, it's the way we trust the situation to the Lord. Forgiveness gives us strength to uproot the root of bitterness and other unsavory weeds from the garden of our soul. Unforgiveness is a chief way satan takes advantage of us. The context of that pfle retemory verse, "Lest Satan should get advantage of us for we are not ignorant of his devices," is Forgiveness: (I Cor 2:7-11) "7So that contrariwise ye ought rather to forgive him, and comfort him, lest perhaps such a one should be swallowed up with overmuch sorrow. 8Wherefore I beseech you that ye would confirm your love toward him. 9For to this end also did I write, that I might know the proof of you, whether ye be obedient in all things. 10To whom ye forgive any thing, I forgive also: for if I forgave any thing, to whom I forgave it, for your sakes forgave I it in the person of Christ; 11Lest Satan should get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devices." One cannot draw near to God and retain unforgiveness. (God is not like that. It's what Jesus did suffer and die for.) There will be plenty of horror for those who do not repent -- the suffering they cause is nothing compared to what they will reap if they don't repent, but when we forgive, we at least will be free of Satan's charge, "you helped send him to Hell." Such charge we do not want laid at our feet. Unforgiveness and helping someone get to hell is a terrible charge of which to be found guilty before the Lord. (It's akin to kicking a man when he's down, which is not a good thing to do, even if you think it would feel good. Chickens do it, but Christians should not do so.) Hoping for strength to forgive,

Linda, Nice. Thank you very much.

for me it's rarely an issue. I was non-twi-fitting when I was in that place, and even more so, now (Catholic, trinity, non-judgmental of others, trying to keep my own self on a walk that is somewhat Christ-like is my "cause celebre".) The ones who are in don't want to have anything to do with me, regardless of any life-long friendship they may have once offered. Oh well. One of the reasons I use my own name is so anyone who wants to contact me, can do so, pretty effortlessly.