'We want to be good but are ready to do evil, and we come prepared with lengthy justifications.' (p.130)
'It is the inner life of the soul that we must aim to transform, and then the behavior will naturally and easily follow.' (p.144)
How can we strive for this 'true inner goodness' when our default is do evil?
Example: I can say to myself, 'now when I get in the car, I am not going to get mad at the other drivers', but as soon as someone pulls out in front of me or cuts me off, I immediately get angry and want to run them off the road.
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today i have a great dissonace in my soul. if only i had not read this chapter -- then i would not have such oppugnant feelings. but be encouraged my friends, the hostility is directed at myself. the more i read
today [sorry i was late], the more that i realized i am that contemptous person that our virtous mountaintop spokesperson was referring to on page 152. i think the reason this realization struck me with such force is that my contemptousness is the antithesis of true community. i have been a hollow sounding gong as i have paid lip service to community and communicated "anti-community" through my speech and attitude.
So...brothers, friends -- i must ask for your forgiveness. i have not acted as a fellow mountaineer. i have spoken in contempt of fellow brothers in the Lord in your presence and for that i am truly humbled and repentant. To my Daddy/God i ask this -- i need your forgiveness and your power. i want to overcome. please don't let the disease be buried too deeply in my soul.
my question - how do we rid our individual communities of this disease?
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In my frustrations with what has become of evangelicalism and its manifestations all around me, how do I avoid becoming angry and bitter? How do I, as my heart still desires, work within it seeking to learn and educate without building up a ready supply of anger? Page 149 is scary. Does discontent breed anger? Or can one allow a healthy level of discontent to maintain a burden for what needs attention? I can see how my desire to learn to be what is described in the talk could in fact cause me to become contrary to it. Is that what the Pharisees did?
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i have not murdered anyone today, but has my heart? i have not committed adultery but have my eyes? indeed. my questions is: how then do we measure kingdom growth in an individual or community? or is the idea measurement a pharasaical concept? if so, what's an alternative?
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Time waits for no man, huh? I was pretty sleepy while reading this lengthy chapter today (some people I know made me stay up too late), but I still took great encouragement from it. Just as I was all ready to move this conversation towards more concrete, everyday application, the Dr. effectively persuades me (again) that trying with all our might to obey the Mountainous Homily dangerously misses the point! Still, I believe there are practical ramifications - just not the ones I first considered. In the effort to make this feel more like chit-chat and less like pseudo-philosophy, here she floats:
1. How can one become the kind of person that increasingly fits Jesus' descriptions in The Talk?
2. How can the people of God become the kind of community that produces people that increasingly fit Jesus' descriptions in The Talk?
(this is really one question, so get off my back!)
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I have never looked at this Beatitudes this way before.
"A list of people humanly regarded as lost causes, but who yet, at the hand of Jesus, come to know the blessing of the Kingdom of heaven." (p.120)
I have always interpreted it to mean that the humble in spirit, the ones that mourn over their sins, the ones not prideful, the ones who hunger and thirst for rightesouness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, the ones who are persecuted - will be blessed. I thought these were characteristics of a follower of Jesus. That as Christians we strive to be this way so that we might please God and in return He might bless us.
To be able to hear Jesus say to the multitude, you over there, the poor in Spirit; the Kingdom is available to you. Excuse me sir, you are hunger and thirst, the Kingdom has come to you today.
"You are really walking in the good news of the Kingdom if you can go with confidence to any of the hopeless people around you and effortlessly convey assurance that they can now enter a blessed life with God." (p.122)
I am asking myself this question: Am I really walking in the good news of the Kingdom?
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