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I HAVE BEEN STRUCK

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buddyjc:

--- Quote from: gmik on October 14, 2006, 07:43:52 PM ---Thank God you have been "struck"!!

I haven't been to church at all in about 4 months and only spotty attendance since January. I still get mail for upcoming events.  Not ONCE have we been contacted by anyone to see where we have been or if we are ok. Nada Zilch....Surely they have noticed, but apparently not cared!  Seems like they would miss our tithe check! :D It seems funny to be hurt a little by a place that I don't even want to go to!

--- End quote ---


As some of you know, I work as a janitor at the church I was a member of for 38 years.  People are always coming up to me and telling me that they miss me so much.  I always tell them, 'I must've missed all those phone calls, and letters, and emails, and must not have been home when you came to visit me.'  If they truly do miss me that much, they would be calling me all the time but they don't.  Keep in mind, that I was a member for 38 years.  I grew up with most of these people.  When these people say they miss you, it is just their way of making themselves feel good, thinking they have done something good for God. 

Brian

Kat:
Well it is of some comfort to know I am not the only one,
who did not receive contacts from the church after I left.
Actually I was in a church 15 yrs., left it and was in another church 10 yrs.,
before I was called out.
Neither of these churches made any real effort to bring me back.
Tho I was not too surprised,
I had been there long enough to know how most of them really were.
I had began to think of church as a social club for Christians,
they wanted to enjoy the things of this world with others like themselves.
There was the clicks and the ever present gossip.
Years before I left, I stopped attending the many social functions.
I stayed there, because I knew the churches were pretty much all the same,
and I believed I was surposed to be in a church.
I can not express the joy I felt when I came to Bible truths,
and was released from attending, what felt like prison to me.
I've been out about 10 months now,
and the fellowship I have here at the forum is great.
I am preparing now to deal with the 'season' that is rapidly approaching.
That is another thing I am grateful to be release from.
Well that's the first time I've spoken of these things,
it felt good to acknowledge all this.

mercy, peace, and love
Kat

Patrick:
I did receive contact from the "church" I attended.
It came thru the conversation with a fellow member who then called a deacon and he called me.

A fellow member called me asking about the selling price of a motorcycle; after that conversation was over, she asked me why I was no longer coming to church. I informed her about being called out and not being a part of the "christian hell hoax" and she assured me there is a hell "have you not read Revelations?"
Then the conversation turned to "free will"; she could not understand my explanation.
Maybe 10 minutes later, the deacon called. After explaining myself again and giving him the 1 Tim 2:4 and 4:10 Scripture, he informed me that the salvation of all was most certaintly God's desire, but mankind won't allow that( God would fail because of man's free will). At that point, I informed him that we could not continue without him studing the material (Ray's teaching) I had been studying. He agreed to read the material, but asked if it was long.
I printed out some of Ray's teaching and Eby's teachings (I was reading his material also at that time). I received a call from this man about 2 months later asking if I was coming back to church, nothing was said about the material. That was July 05'.
About a month ago, I received a nice card from some of the women of the church stating how much they missed me and wanted me to come back; I also bumped into one of those ladies in the grocery store a couple of weeks ago. The same questions all over again. I have turned tail and gone down another isle in the grocery store to avoid other members of the church.

I think, deep down, most of us want someone to come running after us when we are called out; I did.
I thank God I no longer feel that way and I am not hiding in the produce section anymore!

Deborah-Leigh:
Hi everyone

This thred is really helping me.....no not the thred per se...JESUS CHRIST's SPIRIT in the thred!

I know what you mean Patrick....the Church members have to drive past my home every Sunday and I used to avoid bumping into them at the grocery store down the road from me....but now I think they dread seeing me more because for them I am the enemy to be crushed under their iron hooves.... I am still not there Gary...able to see them with pity not fear of their violence of spirit and their fierce war against Christ as they follow the way of their own understanding...I have a long, long, long way to go.  I really am grateful for the insight shared and  I can see the direction now is to learn the ways of Christ .... I pray and hope and trust for this. I know too it will bring on persecution, hate and assault...I so enjoy how Ray shows his Christ ability to answer with truth and sarcasm the barbs of untaught, untrained worldly wisdom ;D

James 5:16....Confess to one another therefore your faults, your slips, your false steps, your offenses, your sins, and pray also for one another that you may be healed and restored to a spritual tone of mind and heart.....

....I've done the first part....confessed what Christ showed me about my self!....UGH :P and I know that what Christ has started in me HE will finish as HE continues to train me first to see HIS ways, HIS mind and heart....and then to cause me through repentence to become HIS image....it hurts with a blessed hurt of privilage.....

Isn't it precious Kat that 1 Cor 10:13 (AMPL)...no temptation, not trial regarded as enticing to sin, no matter how it comes or where it leads, has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man.....am glad HE caused you to share...


Arcturus :)

Dean Peterman:
Thanks for sharing this Arcturus.  I know how this feels.

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