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A note on forgiving


Nathan Friedly
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I wonder what it was like, when they took Jesus' hands and bound them? I wonder what it was like when they took a heavy hammer and began to pound steel spikes through his hands. Think of those metacarpal bones being smashed to smithereens as those huge nails went through his hands and into the wood of the cross. Think about how those huge steel spikes were driven through the top of the instep of his feet and into the wood of The Cross. Have you ever rolled your ankle and experienced a sprained ankle that swelled up like a soft ball? Yes, most of you have, including me, and we KNOW how much it hurts. And yet Jesus was NAILED like a common criminal to a tree! Steel through flesh and bone! AFTER he was whipped, beaten, ridiculed, spit upon, and accused of being a LIAR, which he was not. Yeah, they crucified him all right. Killed him. Murdered him. And yet he asked his Heavenly Father to forgive them before he died. NOw that is a HERO I can look up to and emulate. How about you?

Personally, I don't think Jesus Christ would have gone through all of that, unless he knew his God was big enough to make up for what those people did to him.

NONE of you have ever experienced the humiliation that our LORD went through, yet some of you choose to judge and ridicule your enemies. Well, I'd rather hang with the Big Guy, and try and follow His footsteps, and NOT yours...

The reason some people can't forgive others is because they don't have a God big enough to make up for the the offences and sins others committed against them.

P.S.

I notice that there is no comment on the "Amish forgiveness situation". No surprise, I guess....

Maybe some Amish people have a God that is actually bigger than what most Christians have?

Edited by What The Hey
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Yet he truly was innocent, and we are far from it. And I doubt any of us ever went through what he did for you and I. All of the sins of the world laid on his back, plus the agony of the torture? The total aloneness. No friends, Peter couldn't even stay awake with him while he prayed in The Garden for on hour? No, I don't think we anybody else has been in his league...

I dunno. What appears insignificant for one, may be devastating for another.

Imagine finding that your "loving" wife is being "boinked" by another man. Not too "big" a deal- "just get over it".. but the other "man" is supposed to be one who lives "the word" in a manner that his life is above reproach. The betrayal is more than two-fold.. he's also your employer.

you've been taught to suppress strong emotions, such as anger, revenge, etc. by this very "man"..

and you find yourself having a stream of emotions that you are in no way prepared to deal with..

in a flash, you realize that almost EVERYTHYING you've been told is just plain WRONG.. You're "done".. twenty years on the job, and you can't bring yourself go to work another morning, and be subservient to one who performed this act of betrayal..

so where do you go.. you have no savings, to speak of.. and the world is full of "devils" waiting to jump you when you walk off grounds.. you leave, and your wife stays behind. The "boss" makes sure of that..

you walk off the grounds, without the wife, without friends, no income, no trust in other human beings, and no God..

you tell me.

this guy lost his life over it..

I've had to look at darkness straight in the face.. maybe not to this degree.

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Yeah Ham, n what about that sweet girl that was thrown out of the corps...thrown out of the limb home afterwards....before her bro could arrive...after being severely injured WHILE participating in lead. She was damaged goods, not worthy to be in the corps. Not so significant for her either perhaps to lose friends, your calling, your spiritual standing.

She lost her life too.

Down playing the evil does not make it any less horrible to those whom endured the cruelty. Attempting to minimalise the resultant damage from these predators in no way diminishes the impact that these mens actions wrought.

It would be really cool to reach down in your heart, try for some compassion for those whom were despitefully used, those sheep whom the ravening wolves slaughtered.

It would be nice if you held the monsters accountable spiritually, morally and ethically for what they have done....

Go ahead, piously spout off your personal beliefs. Continue to beat your chest in self rightious indignation. Understand though..... that you learned this stuff at the feet of men of the flesh. Your teachers were not of the spirit, you information is not complete, not trustworthy. Failure to take into account all of the information in the scriptures, only show casing the ones that appear to support what you want to say is not beneficial to your argument nor those whom you wish to instruct.

The conclusions, in spite of your passion are incorrect.

WTH, what makes you believe that Amish are not Christian?

Edited by rascal
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Maybe if one has never had been knocked that far out of equilibrium, they just can't understand it..

when it happened to me it was surreal.. I had built up some logical reasoning before then. Found myself looking at myself saying.. oh, I know what brain chemicals those are..

I'm probably STILL nuts..

naw.. the lady in the white smock says I'm OK.

:biglaugh:

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The only difference between me and them:

I was partly prepared to deal with what was going on..

and I could still function somewhat normally in society at the time. Go to work, talk to friends, etc..

Probably scared the hell out of some of them..

I can see how these poor folks could just give up..

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I dunno. What appears insignificant for one, may be devastating for another.

Imagine finding that your "loving" wife is being "boinked" by another man. Not too "big" a deal- "just get over it".. but the other "man" is supposed to be one who lives "the word" in a manner that his life is above reproach. The betrayal is more than two-fold.. he's also your employer.

you've been taught to suppress strong emotions, such as anger, revenge, etc. by this very "man"..

and you find yourself having a stream of emotions that you are in no way prepared to deal with..

in a flash, you realize that almost EVERYTHYING you've been told is just plain WRONG.. You're "done".. twenty years on the job, and you can't bring yourself go to work another morning, and be subservient to one who performed this act of betrayal..

so where do you go.. you have no savings, to speak of.. and the world is full of "devils" waiting to jump you when you walk off grounds.. you leave, and your wife stays behind. The "boss" makes sure of that..

you walk off the grounds, without the wife, without friends, no income, no trust in other human beings, and no God..

you tell me.

this guy lost his life over it..

I've had to look at darkness straight in the face.. maybe not to this degree.

Mr. Ham I'm following your story up to the part about no God, I wonder how you made that leap from the frailties of man to God getting the "credit" for them . From your list it appears that the man's problems, are human, human's cheat, human's betray....I'll give you that it is lot to have on ones plate, but it seems to me rather than forgetting about the one who can help in the situation, someone with years of biblical learning would run the other direction to him not away. What you describe is a classic difference between those who were believers and those who assented to doctrines of the Way and rode along. I see those who believed doing things every day with God they are not bound by a ministry framework. Those who do/did, walk off grounds with God and start over. Those who never understood or believed that God was their constant in life chose other choices .

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DON'T BE TOO HARD ON THE MAN WHO FALLS, FOR IF WE HAD BEEN IN HIS SHOES????????

This is some of what I've percieved in my life in the last several years.

In my small splinter group that left me in a position to have a lot of compassion on the one that Ham speaks of I've seen a few bad things.

I've seen a man willing to take credit for everything good and portay everyone else as bad simply to mantain total and complete control.

I've seen people who were absolutely willing to set people up to trip over their own shortcomings when they might have helped them to stand instead.

I saw a ministry that was completely willng to strip everything of value away from a person and leave them broke, broken hearted, and completely alone. Then have the gall to claim that the reason that they were able to destroy the broken one is that they carry such enormous spiritual authority. IMO I see a sociopath willing to justify any evil as long as he ends up looking victorious.

Since my days with the splinter group I've had to endure the judgment of the more mainline Christians who seem to feel that my bad situation proves that the Lord is not with me. Or they are willing to count me as a heretic who holds to dangerous beliefs even though they provide me no remedy as far as correct doctrine goes.

It seems to me that if the Lord counts me as his brother then what he'll percieve is how they all treated His brother, how else would the Lord say so looking forward to that great day still coming. I feel for the scripture to be true then his brethren must sometimes endure hunger, thirst, false imprisonment, and other undeserved evils.

As of late, I'm keeping a very close watch on my situation, and it's not good.Much of that is my own weakness. I'm a 46 year old man who suffered years of ministerial abuse then was kicked to the curb alone, without friends or my family, and I'm usually feeling beaten, bloodied, and too weak to put up much of a fight anymore. And in my low estate I am a little afraid of what the future holds for me and my son.

Now some of you it would seem would be willing to say, I'm getting what my believing deserves. I'm telling you that God's people have often been treated worse than me. Sometimes it has brought them to suicide as several here know for a truth. I often wonder about will I even make it to the point of getting delivered before I give up on looking to God for deliverance. The past 25 years of my life seem to paint a pretty ugly picture.

TO THOSE OF YOU WHO THINK BADLY OF THE WOUNDED AND WEAK I WILL GIVE YOU ANOTHER SCENARIO TO CONSIDER.

Some of God's people rest in their needs being met today, and judge the hungry and tired as weak and somehow deserving of their fate. God looks at this situation and see's that those who actually have the means to give would rather take vacations in the south-seas or somewhere than help their breteren who've had a real rough time of it. At the very least, don't those of you have plenty today understand that you will be judged by how you treat the neady? Don't you see that if you condemn the neady, the Lord will condemn you? THIS IS NOT A HARD TOPIC TO SEE IN THE SCRIPTURE, IT'S A HARD THING TO FIND COMPASSION IN A SO-CALLED BROTHER SOMETIMES THOUGH.

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DON'T BE TOO HARD ON THE MAN WHO FALLS, FOR IF WE HAD BEEN IN HIS SHOES????????

(Sorry about the double post,I'm going to edit in some more sharing here now.)

I hope it's clear to all of you that I have no desire to slam TWI because my years with TWI were good to me. I've seen much uglier things lately, and they fit very neatly with the things that are being shared here as having happened to them with TWI. I cannot ignore that the real events in my little splinter group are very nearly the same as many of you share about with TWI.

I am soooooo sick and tired of some people being hard on people whose lives were devestated and/or destroyed as a result of their time in TWI. If you only could see me face to face you would understand that the anger that I feel is not a joking matter.

Simply saying "forgive" doesn't even come close to dealing with how I feel when I see people who have suffered so badly. It often feels overly simplistic and frankly very unrealistic to simply say forgive them in the face of such unrepentant and unrelenting effort to destroy peoples lives.

Those of you who ask people to forgive them are simply serving to silence the neccessary telling of the truth of the matter.

Please people, choose compassion.

Please people, choose to be quiet instead of mocking some of God's people who have been hurt to the core.

I'M TELLING YOU, IF YOU HAD ANY CLUE HOW IT FEELS TO PRESSED WAY BEYOND WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD BEAR, YOU WOULD HAVE SYMPATHY FOR THOSE WHO WERE DRIVEN AS FAR AS SUICIDE. And you would understand how I feel about your pithy, cold hearted, judgments that are all too easy since things happened to come out a little better for you.

Edited by JeffSjo
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DON'T BE TOO HARD ON THE MAN WHO FALLS, FOR IF WE HAD BEEN IN HIS SHOES????????

(Sorry about the double post,I'm going to edit in some more sharing here now.)

I hope it's clear to all of you that I have no desire to slam TWI because my years with TWI were good to me. I've seen much uglier things lately, and they fit very neatly with the things that are being shared here as having happened to them with TWI. I cannot ignore that the real events in my little splinter group are very nearly the same as many of you share about with TWI.

I am soooooo sick and tired of some people being hard on people whose lives were devestated and/or destroyed as a result of their time in TWI. If you only could see me face to face you would understand that the anger that I feel is not a joking matter.

Simply saying "forgive" doesn't even come close to dealing with how I feel when I see people who have suffered so badly. It often feels overly simplistic and frankly very unrealistic to simply say forgive them in the face of such unrepentant and unrelenting effort to destroy peoples lives.

Those of you who ask people to forgive them are simply serving to silence the neccessary telling of the truth of the matter.

Please people, choose compassion.

Please people, choose to be quiet instead of mocking some of God's people who have been hurt to the core.

I'M TELLING YOU, IF YOU HAD ANY CLUE HOW IT FEELS TO PRESSED WAY BEYOND WHAT YOU THOUGHT YOU COULD BEAR, YOU WOULD HAVE SYMPATHY FOR THOSE WHO WERE DRIVEN AS FAR AS SUICIDE. And you would understand how I feel about your pithy, cold hearted, judgments that are all too easy since things happened to come out a little better for you.

:eusa_clap: Those still swilling in TWI think identify with the bullies, not the victims. They see the bullies as being unfairly tried in the GSC threads.

The victims--it was far worse, spiritually, in TWI doctrine to be a victim than to be a bully. A bully was strong--sinful, yes, but strong. A victim was also sinful, And WEAK. The weak were to be despised--their weakness could affect you, bring you down, the weakest link and all that.

Funny, I'm not a Christian, but even III can see that attitude has no basis in love.

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you've been taught to suppress strong emotions, such as anger, revenge, etc. by this very "man"..

Ephesians 4:31

Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

I was taught by the Bible to put away those emotions, not "this very man". Furthermore, those emotions are to be put away with all malice.

Look, it's not about giving The Way "a pass" as some of you here insist I am trying to do. It is not about "making excuses" for those who may have hurt you in the past. It is not about "condemning victims". It is not about "being too hard on the man who falls". What it is about is what is best for our heads and what to do with it when we have been hurt. And God supplies a wonderful avenue for healing through our Lord Jesus Christ.

When we look unto He who endured all, despising the shame, yet forgiving his tormentors, we can have victory in Jesus, our Savior for ever. Like a lamb he was led to the slaughter, yet he opened not his mouth. When those burly soldiers put a sack on his head and punched him saying "prophesy if you are the son of God! Which one of us hit you?!", how do you think he felt, being the only Innocent One? We can attain victory in our tribulations because he did it for us! He led the way! Because our Big Brother handled these extreme indignations, tortures, mockeries, humiliations, and outright excruciating pain with dignity, so can we! And to think that he could have called upon 12 legions of angels (72,000) to come and rescue him from that horrible scene. But he didn't. He hung in there for you and for me. For EVERYBODY in this whole wide world. And at the very end, or very close to it, he asked our Heavenly Father to "forgive them for they know not what they do".

Now, you may not be a Christian, and so these words won't mean anything. But for those of you who are Christian, the acts and love of our Lord Jesus Christ can be very very healing indeed, specifically in getting over any hurt any other human or organization of humans has put you through. To forgive is good. To not forgive is not good, not healthy...

Edited by Jonny Lingo
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I was taught by the Bible to put away those emotions

were you?

I wasn't.

Someone USING the bible taught me how to IGNORE those emotions, how to disregard them, can them up, or "rein them in".

How to suck it in, and take one more punch for "the lord"..

Put off? No.

"Grieve with them that grieve, mourn with them that mourn" must be innappropriate. Just put em off..

Israel MOURNED for what was it.. sixty days for the death of Moses..

mustve been some pretty rotten "believers"..

only the priest could not mourn, for father, for mother..

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Look, it's not about giving The Way "a pass" as some of you here insist I am trying to do. It is not about "making excuses" for those who may have hurt you in the past. It is not about "condemning victims". It is not about "being too hard on the man who falls". What it is about is what is best for our heads and what to do with it when we have been hurt. And God supplies a wonderful avenue for healing through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Jonny,

You might not intend on giving them 'a pass', 'making excuses', 'condemning victims', and the like, ... but with the kind of 'forgiveness' (<-- notice the quotes) you're talking about throughout all these kinds of threads, invariably that is how it comes out.

Interesting (as in ironic) too, as many times, over in the Politics n' Tacks area, you often come down quite hard on liberal, 'Dhimmycrat', tree-hugging politicians and activists, ..... and almost as hard (if not harder) than TWI critics come down on Weirwille and Martindale.

Where's the love there, Jonny? Where's the forgiveness?

Hmmm? <_<

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Didn't Jesus weep? Get angry? Experience dark emotions?

Did he shut up and/or only speak happy thoughts?

Seems to me that is a handy doctrine for abusers to preach. That way they don't have to be bothered by the pain they cause. See, I wasn't so bad in how I treated Mary Sue, Mary Sue is sooo blessed, I helped her grow spiritually.

How many people in TWI lived isolated, pain filled lives because they were ashamed they hadn't received 'deliverance'-- and were unable to honestly speak about it and brand themselves as a poor believer.

Yes, let's all put on our believer face and perform!

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*Lockbox mentality(lest the one true ministry be blamed)

*No greivance procedures

*Special truths for those spiritual enough to handle it

*Heirachy of importance

*Never speak a negative

TWI was a predator's playground. All they had to do was pay attention during the classes, learn the 'speak' be bold(a leader!), and look what they could get? They could fit right in, sound just right, make merchandise of God's people I think it is called in the Bible. That is why they are called WOLVES IN SHEEP CLOTHING.

It is one thing to be positive and want to think well of others. Irt is another thing to acceot a lifestyle that allows predators into your safe haven.

And some still want people to hush about about it to prove that God healed them--seems to be enabling the predators, so gosh, those fellas can sleep soundly at night, it is all forgotten...

Edited by Bramble
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