{"id":16212,"date":"2017-11-30T09:31:32","date_gmt":"2017-11-30T14:31:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16212"},"modified":"2017-11-30T09:37:50","modified_gmt":"2017-11-30T14:37:50","slug":"returning-to-essentials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/?p=16212","title":{"rendered":"Returning to Essentials"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cac.org\/returning-to-essentials-2017-11-30\/\"><strong>Returning to Essentials<\/strong><\/a><br \/>\n<strong>Thursday, November 30, 2017<\/strong><br \/>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/InsifiZxVXU\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em>Hospitality is the practice that keeps the church from becoming a club, a members-only society. <\/em>\u2014Diana Butler Bass [1]<\/p>\n<p>Practical, practice-based Christianity has been avoided, denied, minimized, ignored, delayed, and sidelined for too many centuries, by too many Christians who were never told Christianity was anything more than a belonging or belief system. Now we know that there is no Methodist or Catholic way of loving. There is no Orthodox or Presbyterian way of living a simple and nonviolent life. There is no Lutheran or Evangelical way of showing mercy. There is no Baptist or Episcopalian way of visiting the imprisoned. If there is, we are invariably emphasizing the accidentals, which distract us from the very \u201cmarrow of the Gospel,\u201d as St. Francis called it. We have made this mistake for too long. We cannot keep avoiding what Jesus actually emphasized and mandated. In this most urgent time, \u201cit is the very love of Christ that now urges us\u201d (2 Corinthians 5:14).<\/p>\n<p>Quaker pastor Philip Gulley superbly summarizes how we must rebuild spirituality from the bottom up in his book, <em>If the Church Were Christian.<\/em> [2] Here I take the liberty of using my own words to restate his message, which offers a rather excellent description of Emerging Christianity:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Jesus is a model for living more than an object of worship.<\/li>\n<li>Affirming people\u2019s potential is more important than reminding them of their brokenness.<\/li>\n<li>The work of reconciliation should be valued over making judgments.<\/li>\n<li>Gracious behavior is more important than right belief.<\/li>\n<li>Inviting questions is more valuable than supplying answers.<\/li>\n<li>Encouraging the personal search is more important than group uniformity.<\/li>\n<li>Meeting actual needs is more important than maintaining institutions.<\/li>\n<li>Peacemaking is more important than power.<\/li>\n<li>We should care more about love and less about sex.<\/li>\n<li>Life in this world is more important than the afterlife (eternity is God\u2019s work anyway).<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>If this makes sense to you, you are already inside of Emerging Christianity.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Gateway to Silence:<br \/>\n<\/strong>Rooted and growing in Love<\/p>\n<p>________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n<p>By the Grace of God I Am What I Am\u201d<\/p>\n<h4>By <a href=\"https:\/\/utmost.org\/oswald-chambers-bio\">Oswald Chambers<\/a><\/h4>\n<p><strong><!-- \/.col-12 --> <!-- \/.row --><\/strong><\/p>\n<div class=\"clearfix\"><strong>By the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain\u2026 \u2014<a href=\"http:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?version=31&amp;search=1+Corinthians+15%3A10\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">1 Corinthians 15:10<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n<section class=\"entry-content\">\n<div class=\"post-content\">\n<p>The way we continually talk about our own inabilities is an insult to our Creator. To complain over our incompetence is to accuse God falsely of having overlooked us. Get into the habit of examining from God\u2019s perspective those things that sound so humble to men. You will be amazed at how unbelievably inappropriate and disrespectful they are to Him. We say things such as, \u201cOh, I shouldn\u2019t claim to be sanctified; I\u2019m not a saint.\u201d But to say that before God means, \u201cNo, Lord, it is impossible for You to save and sanctify me; there are opportunities I have not had and so many imperfections in my brain and body; no, Lord, it isn\u2019t possible.\u201d That may sound wonderfully humble to others, but before God it is an attitude of defiance.<\/p>\n<p>Conversely, the things that sound humble before God may sound exactly the opposite to people. To say, \u201cThank God, I know I am saved and sanctified,\u201d is in God\u2019s eyes the purest expression of humility. It means you have so completely surrendered yourself to God that you know He is true. Never worry about whether what you say sounds humble before others or not. But always be humble before God, and allow Him to be your all in all.<\/p>\n<p>There is only one relationship that really matters, and that is your personal relationship to your personal Redeemer and Lord. If you maintain that at all costs, letting everything else go, God will fulfill His purpose through your life. One individual life may be of priceless value to God\u2019s purposes, and yours may be that life.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n<p><!-- .entry-content --><\/p>\n<div class=\"bottom-rule\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Richard Rohr Returning to Essentials Thursday, November 30, 2017 Hospitality is the practice that keeps the church from becoming a club, a members-only society. \u2014Diana Butler Bass [1] Practical, practice-based Christianity has been avoided, denied, minimized, ignored, delayed, and sidelined for too many centuries, by too many Christians who were never told Christianity was anything [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16212"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16212"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16212\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16215,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16212\/revisions\/16215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16212"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/co2mannatoday.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}