Order of Worship...

I open my heart to God and the Holy spirit leads me to speak. I do not know what I am going to say ahead of time. How this occurs I cannot say because I am of no particular talent. That it occurs is based on the testimony of christians I have spoken to, claiming a new found appreciation for their own spiritual walk. For my own part the lesson of the Holy spirit that the progenitor of sin is mans judgment, gave me the key to help me sin no more.
The opposite of sin is forgiveness. The measure you give is the measure you get. As you behold your brother he is totally in your care. As you decide for him, you dictate what kind of world emerges for yourself. Is the world full of bastard evil, or do you see the world that God created, because how you see it determines how you treat it.

Love with all strength and might, mind and spirit. This is not a theoretical love. It is the only love you have, the love God gave you. Where your treasure lies there lay your heart also.
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Then let the mind be in you that is in Christ Jesus and you will behold your brother as Christ beholds him and you will see that judgment is in error.
As for who is a christian, You decide to keep the sayings of Jesus or not.

 

Actually lots of things can harm you. But then you think you are just a figment of Adam's dream.

then why do you keep saying it?

If it's the truth it doesn't but you keep trying to past off falsehood as the truth and thus your difficultly in proving it to be true.

Funny.

Actually what you were doing is called paraphrasing in an attempt to make a point that the Bible does not make.

Interesting but the demons expelled in the Bible were not personal fear or anxiety: a fear or anxiety that torments somebody.

So you say but what you believe does not show it.

I did but you would not accept it because it did not fit what you wanted to hear.

Try it some time.

 

Ukr-Cdn, I just realized how far off the thread subject we had gone and I wish to apologize for allowing thedope to hijack this simple interesting thread. If I had not participated, it would have ended with his first off the thread post. I will not continue and will go back to posting about the thread subject and will try not to let thedope divert me again.

 

Is public prayer prescribed in the bible?

 

Just wondering what they said?

 

Years ago I used to attend the Pentecostal services. I enjoyed the music and the dancing. Great fun to have to wear a sports bra to church. Don't remember much more about it other than I think our wallet was out about 4 times during each service...big on tithing.
I avoid all churches now.

 

I've heard it said if you want to dance you have to pay the piper but that sounds like over doing it.

 

They told me the reason why they use grape juice instead of wine was because some members of the congregation are recovering alcoholics or are children so they do that out of respect for them. Another reason they told me was because grape juice was closer to what Jesus used at the last supper than fermented grape juice.

 

Thanks and I can understand the first part but the second part, seeing as there was no way at the time to keep grape juice without it fermenting, is just not true.

 

It doesn't matter the reason. I don't see how it would alter the result of ritual practice unless it be the absence of some intoxicating effect. Whether or not a particular like grape juice being more like the original sacrament is factually true or not has no bearing on "order of worship."

 

The difference between using Matzah bread or a Doritos chip in worship would change the multi-layered meaning of the ritual of remembrance. For example, Matzah bread was meant to taste bitter which only adds to the sensory and meaning of the event, so I disagree with you that it has no bearing on the order of worship. The order of worship is important in order to replicate the desired experience that God designed for his future servants.

 

As I pointed out, unless it be the absence of some intoxicating effect
. Bitterness in this instance is just such an effect. If ingesting something more like the original substance is considered by you to be meaningful, then it would benefit you to determine what exactly that substance was. I wonder how you are going to determine this? I can tell you the answer will only be one that satisfies you.

 

Do you contend then that the kingdom of heaven is not at hand. Do you view this world as some sort of acolyte training ground? I am called to establish the conditions of heaven here on earth, Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. The desired experience for Gods children is joy.

 

I was taught that the reason grape juice and unleavened waffers were used is to keep ones mind on the works of Jesus The Christ. Instead of thinking about the taste of even salt on a saltine cracker or wondering what the cup may contain, could cause a person to lose their consentration on the reason for such a sacrament.

 

I think this may apply as regards order of worship.
I have had a handful of what you would call ecstatic mystical experiences. One of these was in regards specifically to communion.
My wife was a pagan who's heart was full of love and she awakened love in the people around her. It was not her pagan practice that caused these things to occur, but that the love that inspired her was shared.
She wanted to share her pagan space with me so that I could see what it was all about. I attended and attempted to participate in many of her covens rituals. I was welcomed with genuine good will. However, try as I might, these rituals were the most boring dead thing to me. Mostly guided meditation with props. It looked like any christian congregational gathering in content although the outward form was different. All of this ritual, whether christian or pagan appears to me a superfluous interloper standing in the way of direct experience. I could not shake this feeling and I felt that there was some distance between my wife and I that needed to be bridged. I am a regular practitioner of meditative prayer and while praying in secret the following occurred:

I entered a state of profound reverie and I found myself in a gathering. Straight out, it was the last supper. I cannot describe faces or bodies only that I was in the presence of some master. I was told teach her this.
Set her down and wash her feet with the greatest care, explain to her, you are the Holy child of God. You are clean all over but your feet are not clean. You walk this earth a hallowed ground, this is a Holy encounter. Then we turned to the sacrament. There is not one thing in this world that you do not do for the body, bread for the body. As often as you reach for bread for the body, in all your work, in all your play, in all your councils, remember me.
The chalice of the heart is the sepulcher of all that is valuable, with all your love and your longing and desire, remember me. This is Holy communion.
After this, all of my wife's ritual practice just fell away. She got it, and she knew me and saw the teaching of Christ like never before. We were remembered as children of God.

 

As I come from a native american background,I can understand this as a form of an inipi ceremony.I also can understand that you say that a teacher instructed your spirit in a vision.I don't know what your heritage is but this sounds more shamanistic in nature.If this is on the realm of shamanism you will be hard pressed to combine this understanding with the Christian Bible.

If you are feeling that this is a christian experience and want to use scripture to back up your encounter then this is the formula that I was taught.Search the scriptures in an effort to prove your view to be wrong and if you can not prove your view to be wrong then continue on your path. Most all people use the Bible to prove their view to be right ,which is using the scriptures for ones on self-serving views. If you can prove that the encounter is opposing scripture,it would be advisable to abandon your feelings of an encounter.At least as a christian experience,it would serve to confuse you.

Further,in the spiritual realm(according to working shamans) is one continuance,or not divided by sects of different beliefs. Which is to say that things may occur or appear to relate to one form yet actually belong to the whole of the realm.

 

Once again I am a disciple of Christ. I find no disparity whatsoever between what I am saying and what is written in the bible. I am not hard pressed for understanding. I am just skimming the surface so far in the face of a particular redundancy from one individual. Like I say I have been to many churches and many different bible studies and face to face, I have been received with appreciation.
Now that you've said what you think my experience is like, what do you think of the information on Holy communion?

This is the very method I use for every postulate that arises, can I prove it not so. I always check my work for accuracy.
Parent and child is a relationship everybody understands. Spirit is spirit. Why should anyone prove anything to anybody? I do not wish to be deceived and I have not lost my saltiness. Jesus taught how to develop a personal relationship with our creator. How to bring forth and recognize God's sign.

If Spirit is one continuance, content is the same regardless of form. It makes no difference whether you call the one God, god or Fred. I appreciate your comments on shamanism.

 

Perhaps I don't really understand what you are asking or seeking.I have no opinion on Holy communion,Jesus established it and so he is the one that would need to approve any variation of it. If you are seeking to be a christian leader then you are going to have to follow the avenues established by the doctrines of the christian church for the last 2000 years. There has been many, many people that have decided they are the choosen one in that time and as of yet the christian church is intact. I can only answer the things which I can understand, and the things you describe are foreign to all that I have learned.

 

I do not seek to be a christian leader, I am asked to share what I have, what value that represents is not for me to say. I asked if you comprehended what I was saying, if there was any flavor that you recognized. You have answered that you do not recognize it. Let me ask you how new information would appear to you?
Why, in the ritual recreation of Holy communion, is not the washing of feet practiced. Why does the leader not sit down with each one on an intimate level and wash everyones' feet? There was a marked exchange involving this very issue, if you do not let me do this you are no part of me.

 

If I were to answer the question,"how new information would appear to me?"I would need to qualify this by saying, as a christian we are taught that the Bible is a complete work, thus the only new information would be between members of the christian church and recieved as measured by the reed of the doctrine already established through the cannon.With the resurrection of Jesus, death was defeated and the victory complete,and then the completion of the cannonical scripture, what would be the need of new information?The story is complete.

As for the ritual of foot washing the book of ACTS never narrates the early church practicing such a ritual as it does baptism and communion.However there are some dinominations the continue the practice the Freewill Baptist and several other forms of baptist as well as the church of God in some areas.