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Jun 29

Listen

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Moving On - Next Steps

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By John Immel

In general, Christians are miserable listeners. We are soooo sure we have all the right answers that it never really occurs to us to LISTEN.

Here is an anecdote for what I mean.

I run. There is a park just down the road from my fashionable pad in the thriving metropolis of suburbia USA. I often run down to the park to stretch and do sprints and whatnot. I am hanging on the monkey bars monkeying around when an older gentleman approaches me.

He says to me: “Do you know that God loves you?”

“Yes, I do,” I reply as I change my yoga position.  (BTW, Yoga stretching on the monkey bars is sooo fun.)

“Do you know that He sacrificed His Son on a cross?”

I move to Proud Warrior. “Yes, I do.”

“Do you know why?”

Yes, I do. “He died on the cross to give me access to the covenants of promise and the commonwealth of Israel so that God could end the hostility between Himself and man, so that we could all participate in the Anointing that liberates burdens and destroys yokes, eradicating the penalty of death from the earth.”

(Yes, I said all of that.)

He didn’t even take a breath.… Read the rest

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Jun 27

A Step Toward Spiritual Health

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Moving On - Next Steps

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Can I answer the question: What do I want?”

I ask this question of people often because I find the answers to be interesting and revealing. I am always fascinated by how few folks can successfully answer this question. And in my informal scientific survey, the more the person has been a member of an authoritarian group, the less they can successfully answer that question. The ability to answer this question is foundation to how I would define spiritual health. I won’t go into why I think that just yet, so for this post let’s just assume that my assertion is true. Let’s take our pulse and see if we can honestly effectively answer the question: what do I want?

For many of you, particularly those of you having come from Sovereign Grace Ministries, the sum of your identity is built around a corporate image with leadership as arbitrator and director.… Read the rest

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Jun 21

Divine Charades

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Moving On - Next Steps

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By John Immel

You’ve walked out of a spiritually oppressive experience, or are very close to taking that very action. Is it a fair guess that you are currently terrified? The fear of parting from your “spiritual covering” is directly proportional to your own personal confidence and the length of time it’s been since you last walked through the doors of the hallowed halls.

You are looking around at the events of your life playing an elaborate game of divine charades. Three Syllables, sounds like…. RUN, get out of dodge, amscray, vamoose. Leave the spiritual thugs in the dirt. But… it is like God stands in front of the room giving signals and gestures but the clock keeps ticking that meaning is vague leaving you to guess the point. When you move away something bad happens, the car breaks down, the air-conditioning gets too cold, there is a fight with the wife. See, if only you hadn’t left their covering.… Read the rest

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Jun 13

The Event of a Tyrannized Life

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Moving On - Next Steps

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The hardest part of talking about  any experience of social or spiritual oppression  is it is an EVENT that takes place around some of the most personal stuff. By EVENT I mean a longstanding progression of interaction. There is never a single moment, one deciding action where the victim can point and say: “Yup, right there. That is the bad thing I’m talking about.”

And very often, the victim does not know how much they are being taken advantage of. Or even more insidious: they are told the exploitation is God-intended and God-inspired.

The abuse and tyranny occur largely in private about things most folk would like to keep private. To get the conflict, you need the details—often embarrassing details. While most people find the details of their life interesting, everybody else finds them tedious or scandalous. So, how do you tell a story that has lots of UGLY, lots of NECESSARY, but oh so boring details?… Read the rest

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