The always up lifting Friday love-bomb from Doug Winnail:
COMMENTS
A Key to Spiritual Growth and Success: Many believe the key to success depends on who you know. However, God’s instructions are quite different. Jesus stressed the importance of humility and teachability when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” and “Blessed are the meek” because they will inherit the Kingdom of God and reign on this earth (Matthew 5:3–5). God was able to use Moses because he was humble and teachable (Numbers 12:3). Jesus was exalted by God because He humbled Himself and followed God’s instructions (Philippians 2:8–11). Solomon understood that “before honor is humility” (Proverbs 15:33). The Apostle James records, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6–10). Peter records that God will exalt those who are humble and can submit to one another (1 Peter 5:5–6). The prophet Isaiah offers a summary of what God is looking for in those He will reward: “But on this one will I look: on him who is poor [humble] and of a contrite spirit [willing to change], and who trembles at My word [a person who is teachable by God]” (Isaiah 66:2). These scriptures provide us with the real key to spiritual growth and ultimate success.
Have a profitable Sabbath, Douglas S. Winnail
13 comments:
Another "Do as I say, not aa I do" message??
Another "don't think for yourself, but have trust the ministry" message... humility is the ultimate virtue in LCG, which everyone knows is listening and doing what the ministry want you to do.
Have a profitable sabbath, so we can have 10% of your profits.
Is that aa alcoholics anonymous Tonts.
A favorite expression of bullies is that "people need to be humbled." That is, other people need to be beaten down so that they can be pushed around and exploited. God forbid if people say no, and stand up for themselves.
Btw, Doug did not mention that the word meek has reversed meaning over the centuries. In the 1600s, the world meant strong and self disciplined.
There is a problem with this statement from this Splinter group. I am just going to breeze through part of it for lack of time to discuss the issue. You will notice there is only one mention of grace in the post. It is in the statement from the Epistle of James: "“God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble”. If you examine the verse in context, you will find James using this same pattern to cite a list of similar behaviors.
Here is the pattern: You do something good and righteous and God then rewards you. There is no mention of Gods act of grace to initiate your Christianity. There is not discussion of Christ living within you. Like Paul says first grace then faith then salvation. James does not follow that pattern in this particular context. His model of Christian practice always seemed to me to be truncated at the top. Little mention of God and Jesus and grace. And a focus on what you must do to get something from God.
But this truncation goes away if you understand that James knew Paul and had an extensive discussion with Paul in Jerusalem (Assuming the writer of the Epistle of James is the brother of Jesus and the leader of the Jerusalem church. This conclusion is not entirely certain.) James nowhere left an epistle that renounces Paul. It seem likely (my opinion) that one cannot understand James without understanding Paul first. James does not deny faith in favor of the law but seeks to add works as an indicator of valid faith. So one needs to understands Paul's treatise on faith to properly place James' addendum in context.
So there really is no truncation, rather James wrote an addendum to Paul's writing. Which means that if you consult the addendum alone, you will not understand the Christian context for James.
It is interesting that this post only cites grace in one of the "truncated" of statements of James. And the statement in "truncated" form sounds like one must first perform in order to receive grace when it is clear from Paul that it all starts with grace. James alone sounds like this: if you are humble by your own human efforts then God will give you grace. Adding Paul you would have this: God grants you conversion by grace through Christ and this will lead you to humility which will then lead you to more grace. James cites only the last piece.
The problem with the post is that it dwells on what lay members should do without any reference to grace in Christ. Even the citation from James that includes grace would like be read as a "truncation."
This may not be clear but the post is focused on what is called graceless "Performance Christianity." This is a big topic and I will leave it at that.
******* Click on my icon for Disclaimer
The difference between Christianity and all other religions, including Armstrongism, is all other religions, including Winnail's version of Armstrongism, say "Do! Do! DO!" while Christianity is all about "DONE!" That is, what Jesus has done for us, and in our place.
In my last week's advice to Winnail, I wrote "please consider that a minister of Jesus Christ usually starts a message with Jesus, ends a message with Jesus, and sprinkles a little bit of Jesus throughout." I humbly believe that Doug read that advice.
Winnail did start this piece with Jesus and snuck a reference to Jesus in the middle; but, tragically, Winnail concluded with acknowledging that he does not consider Jesus to be the key to Spiritual Growth and Success.
Winnail's last sentence betrays Jesus by stating: "These scriptures provide us with the real key to spiritual growth and ultimate success." Winnail's message is all about what the people must do, rather than what Jesus has done, so that they can truly grow in all graces, such as humility.
Telling people to be humble seems good. However, for the most part, being humble is like being right-handed; you either are or you are not. Some devotees may mentally torment themselves to become what the COGs say they should be, only to be horrifically crushed when they can't live up to that ideal by their own works.
While the people of the LCG are weary and heavily burdened, they pay Winnail a far from humble salary - in return, Winnail leads them away from Jesus, the Sabbath Rest.
The people need better than Winnail's weekly whippings. Therefore, below I have re-fashioned his piece to be more biblically “big picture”, and more encouraging to those in need.
________________________________________________________________________________
Jesus invites you, who are weary and burdened, to come to him in Matthew 11:28. In verse 29 Jesus promises that he is gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, when you come to him.
The Second chapter of Philippians instructs us on imitating the humility of Jesus we see in Matthew 11. In the greatest act of humility, Philippians 2:8 tells us Jesus, though he was God, humbled himself unto death on the cross for our sake. Philippians 2:1-3 tells us we are united with Jesus and share the same Spirit of tenderness and compassion, valuing others above our selves.
Romans 5:10-13 instructs that Jesus has reconciled us to God and made us holy by the disgrace he suffered on our behalf. Praise Jesus for his humility (Ephesians 1:3} and for offering us the same fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23).
In closing, rejoice in 2 Corinthians 13:14: may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Have a profitable Sabbath (by embracing Jesus as the Sabbath Rest},
(Note to Doug: feel free to insert your name and publish this to bless your people. Furthermore, please consider that a minister of Jesus Christ usually starts a message with Jesus, ends a message with Jesus, and liberally sprinkles Jesus throughout. Don't fail to preach Jesus to the people who are looking to you for help.}
Nice job NEO - I completely agree!
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is certainly there, but Christ also called those who buried their talents "wicked."
^^^^ If the was ever a minister sounding comment. This. ^^^^
Hey Anonymous of April 10, 2021 at 12:50 PM: As Jesus is the Christian’s biggest treasure, you are correct, it is wicked to bury all adoring of him and Holy Scripture about him, as seen in the complete historic record of all COG preaching and writing. However, I am unsure of whether I want to label Winnail as wicked. By identifying Winnail as wicked, are you assuming that Winnail is aware of and purposeful in the wickedness he is imposing on the LCG?
Mathew 25 is all about the COGS. The COG foolish virgins don't store up the oil that lights the way to Jesus and then Jesus says he never knew them. The worthless COG servants bury the most precious treasure, Jesus, because they prefer an obsolete covenant of death.
1 Corinthians 1:18
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
1 Corinthians 1:23
Christians preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Doug Winnail and foolishness to LCG.
1 Corinthians 1:24
To Christians, Jesus is the power of God and the wisdom of God.
8.52 AM
When people are young, they are often ignorant and deceived. But things change as people mature. So I do not believe that the elderly leaders and ministers of the ACOGs are ignorant of the moral compromises within their groups. I believe that they are fully aware that they are downplaying Christ, and that lording it over their members is un-biblical.
I could tell by the way that some of my former ministers pronounced the word 'church,' (ie, in reverential tones) that they were worshipping the physical church rather than God.
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