Loveless Living Church of God is lecturing church members on how to love. It is a never-ending cycle.
The Most Important Quality:
Most of God’s people understand the importance of keeping the commandments, the Sabbath and the health laws. They also understand the importance of God’s government, tithing, faith, and watching for the fulfillment of Bible prophecy. Yet, sometimes in our zeal to obey the laws of God, we can overlook something else that is even more important—the need to develop and exercise Godly Love. We are told in the Scriptures that without Godly Love, all these other things will amount to nothing (1 Corinthians 13:1–3). Here the biblical word for love (agape) refers to an unselfish, outgoing concern for others. In 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul states that Godly Love is patient and kind, it does not envy, and is not proud or rude. Godly Love does not seek its own way; it is calm and not easily provoked, nor does it jump to conclusions, or assign motives, or sit in judgment of others. Instead, Godly Love is gracious and forgiving. It is positive and focuses on what is right and true. It never fails or falters. Godly Love is the most important fruit of God’s Holy Spirit that we must nourish and cultivate if we hope to become like our Father and our Elder Brother Jesus Christ. God is love (1 John 4:8, 16), and we have been created and called to become like Him (1 John 3:1–3). Let’s make that our goal. Let’s ask God to help us learn to love Him and learn to love others as He does, so we can develop this most important quality—of Godly Love.
Have a profitable Sabbath,
Douglas S. Winnail
Winnail re-runs that piece every year or two, so I guess this means that LCG members are slow learners or just don't like this "love" business that he keeps promoting.
ReplyDeleteThis type of writing always failed to move me as a COG member into any action that the writer would desire. To start off the paragraph detailing as important what we probably are already doing but just in case we are not, here is the list. So the importance of keeping the commandments and the Sabbath and the health laws and God's government and tithing and faith and watching for prophetic fulfillment is put forth first and foremost. Then something (love) is introduced as being "more important". The writer then wants the reader to know that without this Godly love, all the other "things" amount to nothing.
ReplyDeleteThe writer even encourages the reader to understand that Godly love needs to be developed and exercised. So when a situation arises on a Sabbath or Holy Day, is there any avenue to "exercise" this Godly love in a COG that places such an importance on assembling?
If a neighbor would have an emergency on a Sabbath that would require time, labor and possibly money and ask for help from the member, what would the response be by the minister if the member would call first to ask "permission"? I think most know what the answer would be and that then brings the member right back to what they have been doing all along and validates what really is the "most" important understanding and application in most the COGs.
If Doug Winnail was serious about encouraging the membership to exercise Godly love, he would encourage his membership to practice the weightier matters of the law; judgement, mercy and faith. Concerning the neighbor in need on the Sabbath, the member would exercise judgement and mercy by seeing the immediate need and feel for the predicament that had befallen his neighbor and go help him. The member would understand that he truly did lay his life down for his neighbor by "breaking the Sabbath" but would certainly have faith that he/she would be forgiven in this act of love.
So what actually and truly is the most important act(s) for a member to do in the LCG?
So what actually and truly is the most important act(s) for a member to do in the LCG?
ReplyDeleteTo tithe and give generous offerings?
What he SHOULD have said is, from the very beginning:
ReplyDeleteLet’s talk about love, and then listed all the scriptures on love, including the love chapter, and left it at that. He should NOT have said anything about all that other stuff. Sheesh.
Read Doug's message carefully. In Doug's world, if you believe that a minister is treating you badly, you are selfish and don't have Godly Love. This goes nicely with Weston's recent article in which he said he might be 2% at fault in his interpersonal conflicts, and he reminded LCG members to feel empathy for the poor put-upon ministers who are always being abused by the brethren.
ReplyDeleteSeems to me Winnail's rhetoric is fine. He's using climactic order, which can be very effective. He ends the piece with the most important phrase denoting his message: "Godly love." This is not a blockbuster essay or anything, but quite appropriate to the topic.
ReplyDeleteHere’s what I personally think of all the active ministers in the Armstrong movement, particularly the leaders: Fuck ‘em, They are totally clueless and useless as spiritual guides.
ReplyDeleteBB
None of the splinter groups will never understand Godly love because they are programmed against godly love or out going concern. Each member of WCG or any splinter member has been programmed to think they are called to a higher calling than anyone in “THE WORLD”. They are special!!! They are being prepared to rule over the ungodly people still in the world. All the churches of this world are deceived. Each splinter group thinks they are God’s special group because they KEEP the sabbath, holy days, don’t eat pork and tithe. Never mind that a member can be self-righteous, judge mental, back stabbing, full of guile and hypocritical as long as they keep the law they are justified to feel “special”
ReplyDeleteHow can you feel love for someone who is not Special”? How could you buy a meal for a homeless person? They deserve the state they are in because they are being punished by God. They probably eat pork and don’t keep the sabbath. How can you feel sorry for someone who’s home was destroyed by fire, or water. They are being punished.
It’s hard to love someone who you have been taught to despise.
Continued
Jim-AZ
Cont by Jim
ReplyDeleteI got stuck in a snow storm several years ago in Wyoming. I was about an hour out of Douglas and it was snowing hard and the road became impassible. I turned around and headed back to Douglas. Soon I came up on a car in the ditch. There was an old cowboy type in a 4x4 pickup hooking a chain up to the car. I got out and helped him attach the chain, We had to shovel snow out from the front of the car. After about 20 minutes we got the car out of the ditch. I got back in my vehicle and followed the “cowboy” back toward Douglas. About a mile down the road another car in the ditch. So he stopped again. 10 to 15 minutes later we got the second car out of the ditch. This happened one or two more times. Now it is after midnight. After we got the last car out, I was kinda pooped. Before I left I stopped to talk to him. He was rough looking, handle bar mustache stained from tobacco. I think he cussed every car he pulled out. I asked him where he lived. He said oh about a mile down the road, I was kinda puzzled, what brings you out here? He said, I have to pull these dumb sobs out or they would freeze overnight. The snow plows can’t plow till morning so every time the road gets impassable I come out and pull these blank bank idiots out. Then he reached behind his seat and pulled out a bottle of whiskey. He took a swig right from the bottle then handed it to me. So I took a swig and handed it back. Kinda tasted like tobacco juice...
The moral of my story! First of all I was honored that he offered to share a drink with me. He was in need of some clean clothes and a bath. Kind of an unsavory fellow. I didn’t mind his cussing, it did not offend me, I was still in the WCG and a minister. What I witnessed that night was the kind of love I wished I had. He taught me a lesson that night. Love is often doing something you don’t really feel like doing but someone need to do. I wanted to get to a motel and go to bed. It was almost 2:00 am before I got back to Douglas.
Jim-AZ
Jim cont
ReplyDeleteThis story is not about me. It’s about that rancher out there pulling cars out of the ditch because those dumb sobs would have frozen had he not left a warm house to get out in freezing weather to help those people. I have thought out that experience many times. I don’t think I have gotten to that level of love yet. I hope that before I die I will have as much outgoing concern as that old tobacco chewing cussing cowboy I met out in Wyoming.
Jim-AZ
Jim cont
ReplyDeleteThis story is not about me. It’s about that rancher out there pulling cars out of the ditch because those dumb sobs would have frozen had he not left a warm house to get out in freezing weather to help those people. I have thought out that experience many times. I don’t think I have gotten to that level of love yet. I hope that before I die I will have as much outgoing concern as that old tobacco chewing cussing cowboy I met out in Wyoming.
Jim-AZ
Love for me is the parable of the Good Samaritan not unlike Jim’s “old tobacco chewing cussing cowboy” and I too can only hope and pray to encompass that higher Love whenever I face the poor, needy, widows, strangers, defenceless or innocent to go out of my way and comfort zone to help them even save their life if called to at the risk of losing my own as Maria instructs and models to her son—“even if it’s the last thing we do”
ReplyDeleteThere are occasional cussing opportunities, if we think about them, for all of us in being of service to others. In my case, there is a certain percentage of customers with ancient obsolete equipment that’s absolutely filthy, and some parts unavailable. So, I get to turn myself into a chick magnet laying around on their shop floors, sliming around in the grease of the equipment, wrestling with stripped out nuts and bolts, and improvising because that’s the only equipment some folks can afford and their jobs have to continue to go out if they are to stay in business. It’s a departure from the squeaky clean Xerox type environments in which I usually work, but it’s all part of the job, and as Bob Dylan sang during his Christian period, “You’ve got to serve somebody!”
ReplyDeleteBB
All the splinters conspire together by constantly parroting that love is "genuine, unselfish outgoing concern," and they are all lying through their teeth. There is deliberate vagueness in that expression, so it cannot be point blank denied. The cowboy above, or the good Samaritans can be used to justify the expression. However in these churches, the expression is basically a code word. It's the game of the unjust steward, or the equivalent of progressive taxation. As a matter of observation, there's always the same people doing the concerning, and another same group collecting all the concern. It's Marxism with religious window dressing.
ReplyDeleteIf these people were honest, they would call their church The Comrade church of Karl Marx.
If love is "genuine outgoing unselfish concern," why do they have to keep super repeating it? That is, they know that it conflicts with reality, so brainwashing needs to be employed.
more than a decade ago i used to hammer them on their lack of a robust message regarding the very Godly Way of love, but their response ranged from lukewarmness to outright hostility (they even banned me from posting on they fb page)...
ReplyDeletenevertheless, God will continue to remind them, and He Speaks through people like winnail...
c f ben yochanan
please stop censoring me...
Well, think that the Cog people at least most of them do not have an outgoing concern.
ReplyDelete