I think the road filled with heretics, rejects and broken-hearts is the safest road to travel. In church history you wont find many people who were welcomed and embraced (while they were alive) who spoke the Truth of the gospel uncompromisingly. But today (especially in this grace camp and its offshoots) weve turned it around. We think that unless youre surrounded by praise and applause, you must be doing or saying something wrong. We judge Truth by who receives it, rather than who it is. And indeed, those who live for praise and applause will usually be the first ones to tell you that you lack love and grace because your words arent filled with flattery and kisses like theirs. Forget what Jesus said... What sorrow awaits you who are praised by the crowds, for their ancestors also praised false prophets. - Luke 6:26 Or Solomon... Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses. - Proverbs 27:6 We have successfully fulfilled the prophecy, A time is coming when people will no longer listen to sound and wholesome teaching. They will follow their own desires and will look for teachers who will tell them whatever their itching ears want to hear. But of course, no Christian who quotes that verse ever thinks its about them. Its always about that OTHER group. Maybe Ill be the first Christian in history to say thats about me. And its about many of the people in this grace movement that started out so honest and pure. But our lack of accountability has made us as corrupt and religious as the damaging teachings we spent so much time destroying. Now weve just replaced the old with the new. And the new is more destructive than the old because it masquerades as something infinitely sweeter. But instead of facing our errors and trying to fix them, we just surround ourselves with more and more yes men who will say Amen! to anything we put out. You roll your eyes at any post or person who confronts the serious issues, but praise the one who spews the gibberish that causes those issues in the first place. If it rolls off the tongue with eloquence and grace, that must be what it is. Were so far from the Truth, but we cant even see it because our lies are covered in flattery and compliments, two things we love to try and pass off as love and grace. Im 27 years old. So far Ive given the best years of my life to calling the church back to Jesus. But right there someone will catch me in my words and say, Thats not your job! Thats Jesus job! Oh! I totally forgot. So let me just rip out the part that says, I no longer live, Christ lives in me. Because if theres still a separation between my job and His, that verse is an outright lie. But thats probably not too hard to accept since we convinced ourselves that the Bible isnt really good for anything but reading ancient opinions about a bearded Jewish hippie who only exists to give us emotional highs so we can more easily ignore the glaring issues around us. So much of this grace movement has become as twisted and religious as the institution it tried to escape. And do you know why? Because whenever anyone has tried to call things back to order and keep people accountable to what they say, they get ganged up on and bullied by grace preachers until they are emotionally beaten into silence. They get excluded by the very people who so emphatically scream inclusion! But like any other fundamentalist, we have all of our little cop outs and sayings ready to justify our judgments and blind us to our own hypocrisy. Its not us. vs. them! we scream! Really? Then its strange how quickly people are treated like a them whenever they challenge one of those precious little grace doctrines. What makes us think were any different than the hell-fire preachers on street corners? If anything were forced to be even more superficial than they are because we have a more vivid image of grace to protect in public. And while it used to be our power, now the only difference between us and them is our updated theology based on a new covenant... and we think that makes us immune to being religious. Weve still just become another group of arrogant talkers like the rest of the church. And anyone fed up with it enough to say something about it gets a bunch of character flaws attached to them so they can be more easily written off. And if you made it this far, Im sure youre reading this in a tone of anger and frustration. Daniel, why are you so bitter! You dont have to be so hurt! And thats just another one of those religious cop outs that lets you write me off. Instead of reading WHAT Im saying, you read HOW (you think) Im saying it. Because then if you dont like HOW Im saying something, you can justify ignoring WHAT Im saying, even if its true. Im not even going to tell you what tone Im writing this in. Come to any conclusion you want. Because if you only receive Truth when it comes wrapped in a bouquet of roses, youre already deceived. Ill take the advice and let Jesus do his job of calling the church back to order. If theres problems in the church and the grace movement, He can deal with them Himself. And if things become more broken and corrupt than they already are, I guess well know who to blame for not speaking up. bit.ly/1pln7Rd All that to say that from now on my religious posts will be strictly on my website: saintsnotsinners.org. This community of Facebook grace preachers is anything but a community anymore. The only 2 options seem to be agree without questioning the established teachers teachings, or get indirectly insulted by condescending bullies. (Gee, those options looks familiar, dont they?). If youre the bully, Im sure Ive given you plenty of ammunition for insults, so fire at will! I absolutely refuse to live for your opinions. I would rather face off against the religious firing squad than continue being silent in fear of the misinterpretations and misunderstandings that come with being honest. Ive been written off and slandered by enough close friends, and have done the same thing myself enough to know how this works. So do what you need to do. Sincerely, the Incredible Hulk of grace preachers, D. R. Silva
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 02:03:08 +0000
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