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June
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 105
| Posted 11/17/2002 7:30 PM (GMT -6) |   | Dr. Boyd,
i love what you are doing at woodland hills. your series on love has been absolutely amazing - i can feel the spirit moving! this stuff i can actually apply, my life is slowly but surely beginning to change. my attitude toward people is changing dramatically. my outlook on life is different. everyday i pray that i would be clothed with Christ and therefore clothed with love.
take all the time you need to preach on love! everything else in my book just got knocked down about 3 notches, it takes a back burner position until i can get this right (i'll never get it perfectly right for sure). nothing else is worth getting down until this aspect is gotten right? man keep preachin' it.
one of the best parts of the this sermon series is that it isn't something cosmic and totally abstract, although it is that, but it is something that i can apply every minute of every hour. it fully and totally effects absolutely every area of my life. it is something that i can do right here and right now. it is in my hands to determine my attitude of love towards others.
my only cause for concern is for those who don't have a strong biblical foundation. i am concerned that new christians, or those checking out christianity, will take the ideas of love and run with them in a direction not intended. there needs to still be discernment. it sort of parallels the early church christians expressing their "freedom in Christ" in totally inappropriate way, in which paul corrects them. i feel this topic has the potential to lends itself to the same type of thing. this topic is ambiguous enough that an idea could be formed that is not intended by the text or by the sermon. hopefully that makes a bit of sense....
keep preachin' it! (why don't all churches do this??)
"all you need is love..." (the beatles got it right :)
june
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Jake
Registered Member
Date Joined Dec 2001
Total Posts : 17
| Posted 11/19/2002 7:00 PM (GMT -6) | |
i agree - the sermon series on love at woodland has been amazing. i leave church feeling so convicted - yet willing to do something about it. i especially found the topic of obesity and the way dr. boyd presented it very interesting and very true in my mind.
i also agree that those not firmly founded could take the message and run in a direction unintended. but if the person gets this love thing down - then does everything else fall into place? this love is God's love - so if these ideas a taken, does that mean that no matter what direction a person goes it will be ok? anybody have thoughts on it?
jake
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graygirl
Registered Member
Date Joined Aug 2001
Total Posts : 78
| Posted 11/29/2002 11:09 AM (GMT -6) | | Hi June and Jake
I wanted to be a part of the discussion so i'm not writing because i have anything profound to say.....a couple thoughts
I think we would all agree that every other message has been preached by the church (at large) with great fervor and very little of the true spirit of Christ.
I think believers and unbelievers need to see the characteristics, the call to Love preached. I (my opinion) don't think it would be hard to listen to the sermons and know that the source and gateway to Love is Jesus. At many levels the simplicity of the messages have been unsettling (like they are missing something) because we are so accustomed to complex, spiritual gymnastics in our theology.
Think about this: 2 Corinthians 11:3 "But I am afraid that, as the serpent deceived Eve by his craftiness, your minds will be led astray from the simplicity and purity of devotion to Christ." The simplicity and purity.
God draws man to himself through unconditional Love. We need to LEARN that. Many of us can lay out the gospel, but many of us cannot Love as CHrist calls us to Love. I think as some level I still believe it's love with condition and at times I feel as though it's my job to lay out the conditions - when all i'm suppose to be doing is remaining devoted to Christ, worrying about my own walk.
One thing that God showed me a few years ago is that I am not other people's Holy Spirit. I am not called to police them. I can't stop anybody from taking the free message of love and "running with it." Who will monitor that? What will "running away with it" entail exactly?
I believe as we are faithful to study scripture (corporatley and individually) - God will use that (however simplictic or "incomplete" in our minds) to draw men unto himself. That's his job. He called us to be disciples and study his Word and be transformed so we can be used to further his will. I mean how much more powerful could it be to an unbeliever than to see Christians sitting down humbly asking the question "Lord, how can i love more", "Father, teach me to love others more freely and faithfully?".... I think that would surprise many unbelievers who think all Christians do is gather and find someone, something to pick on....
I think unbelievers are not coming to the Lord not because the gospel isn't being preached - but because the Love is not there and hasn't been in the church (at large) for years and years. We need to learn that, no better time than now:)
don't know if i made any sense, let me know what you guys think!
peace,
GG
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GregBoyd
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 1818
| Posted 11/29/2002 1:01 PM (GMT -6) | | Thanks for the feedback June, Jake and Greygirl. I hear June's concern. There is always need for balance. Yet the "balance" is not something that competes with love as being "above all." The balance is simply teaching WHAT LOVE LOOKS LIKE.
No doubt new comers who have no biblical foundation may take this (and every other teaching they hear for the first time) in an unbiblical way. I am not overly concerned, for three reasons. 1) As Greygirl pointed out, if their heart is genuinely open to the Lord, the Holy Spirit will be active in their life, convicting them, molding them, etc... just as he is in all of us. I loved GG's statement: "We are not each other's Holy Spirit" (though the Holy Spirit does USE each of us in our relationships with others). 2) Over time a balanced message is preached (at least that 's our intent) so they get a wholistic view of the gospel if they stick around. 3) As they develop relationships, perhaps get involved in small groups, they invite other believers to speak into their life. This also provides opportunities for God to work and instruct them.
For my part, I feel that the Church has a whole has been TREMENDOUSLY UNBALANCED in its message --- for the absolute centrality of outrageous love has not been consistently preached. And if THIS is not gotten down, ain't nothing worth getting down. So, perhaps I'm somewhat intentionally trying to correct the imbalance by hammering on the other side for several months (or years???).
I am, in truth, personally so revolutionized by this message I find everything else at this point to be a mere curiousity. I have found the art of collapsing all judgment -- to stop eating of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil -- to be the KEY that uncorks the bottomless spring of living water of God's love within me (Jn 7:38-39). EVERYTHING else that can and should be said about Christianity is a footnote to this.
Thanks for the feedback
In his love
Greg Boyd
"In Christ...the ONLY THING that matters is faith energized by love." Galatians 5:6 | | Back to Top | | |
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