Comments for Community of Adsideo

Comment on How to Receive Happiness by frank pacosa

frank pacosa — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:18:42 +0000

Jesus often spoke seemingly out of context. Matt 19:16+; John 4:1+; etc.
But His plan was to break us of strangling desperate grasp to keep control within ourselves.
Is it any wonder that even 2,000 years later man still doesn’t get Jesus’ message. Is it any wonder that man has co opted His message to fit man’s self serving needs? And so the weeds and thorn bushes has strangled the good news. Even emptiness is misconstrued.
We don’t have to empty ourselves until we retreat to a monastery in solitude to find God’s good news. Look at Jeremy Lin, empty to self, full of God, and living at the center of material world. “Slowly, God revealed more to me. I started learning how to trust in Him, not to focus so much on whether I win or lose but to have faith that God has a perfect plan” 2010 interview http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Faith-and-Fate-of-Jeremy-Lin.html?print=1

Comment on All The Acitivity? by wsmather

wsmather — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 17:54:04 +0000

Prone to wander, Lord I feel it. Prone to leave the God I love.

Comment on What’s Your Cultural Reflex? by wsmather

wsmather — Tue, 01 Nov 2011 05:38:11 +0000

Our cultural reflex is knee-jerk. Knock our ego, and we’ll knock you flat. Tickle our fancy and we’ll tackle the next new “thing”. Leverage our lust and we’ll buy anything. It’s all brain stem. Limbic reaction. Which can be countered only if we take time to reflect, take stock, consider, meditate, read the Word, seek the counsel of the body, and pray.

Then there’s cultural reflux, the acid indigestion that follows our swallowing what culture feeds us. It’s hard to sleep with cultural reflux. What gets swallowed whole tends to come back up, and it burns. We need to push away from the cultural table, turn and douse the fire with some Bicarbonate of Repentance and when our stomach has settled, to dine on morsels of Philippians 4:8 instead.

Comment on The Power of the Powerless by wsmather

wsmather — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 01:52:48 +0000

We have to go back to Jesus of Nazareth and ask: How does he go on humanizing this imperial world?

Most fundamentally he challenges us to give priority to mercy; without it, nothing else has any meaning. His honesty toward reality, his will to truth, his judgment on the situation of the oppressed majorities and the oppressive minorities, his call to be the voice of the voiceless against those who have too much voice. His reaction to that reality: defending the weak, denouncing and unmasking the oppressors.

His faithfulness in upholding honor and justice to the very end, in the face of internal crises and external persecutions. His freedom to bless and curse, to go to the synagogue on the Sabbath but also to place human beings ahead of the Sabbath; in short, his freedom to let nothing stop him from doing good.

His vision of an end to the misfortunes of the poor and happiness (therefore, blessedness) for his followers. His embrace of sinners and the marginalized, his sitting at the table and celebrating with them, his joy over God’s self-revelation to them. His signs–only modest signs of the kingdom–and his utopian horizon that took in the whole society, the world and history. And finally, his trust in a good God, close by, whom he called Father, while at the same time he remained attentive to the Father who is God, the unmanageable mystery.

These are marks of the anti-imperial spirit. They hold up to us the ecce homo, “behold the man,” and invite us to go beyond the imperial arrogance of civis romanus sum, “I am a citizen of the empire.”

Sorbino – from “Where is God”

Comment on The Power of the Powerless by Liesl Stuhr

Liesl Stuhr — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 20:00:37 +0000

“Salvation arose from the weak and the small, from the powerless.” I agree with Amanda in that the weakness was the power. Often throughout scripture God uses the small and apparently weak to stop those who were in power. Think of David against Goliath and Daniel in the lions in the den. Neither one should have survived but God used his faithful and willing servants to do great works through them. When it came to salvation for all people, God chose those where were the weakest in the worlds eyes, the Israelites, who had been under someone else’s control for generations and placed within them his Son. He took on the role of suffering servant, becoming weak and powerless to do the will of His Father. One of the biggest contradictions of the Christian faith is the image of Christ on the cross. To the world it is a image of weakness, failure and death. But for the Body, it is the image of great strength, great love, great devotion and a battle that was fought and won for all who wish to partake in it.

Comment on The Power of the Powerless by amandapax

amandapax — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 21:55:02 +0000

I wonder if it is fair also to say that Jesus’ sacrificial death on the cross was the “appropriate use of power” needed to begin the liberation into the new covenant. The weakness was the power; the strength was exuded over death. Since the initial upheaval has been done for us now, God uses us in our weakness to accomplish what He has set forth. He never asked us to join Him in the conquering, that battle was always His. We can, however, share in His victory by following in His footsteps. He extends the spoils to us, and we are liberated by His work.

Comment on The Power of the Powerless by Arlen Bynum

Arlen Bynum — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 21:55:30 +0000

The first thing that came to my mind when reading this is the beatitudes. I think it is a good reminder that it is the voiceless whom Jesus gives voice, the blind whom he gives sight, the meek who will inherit the earth…

It also makes me think of Bonhoeffer. He saw and did all he could to counter the folly of the church’s endorsement of the National Socialist Party and the “salvation” the party promised for the German people through its use of earthly power.

P.S. For those like me who had to Google his name, it is Jon Sobrino, not Joe. :)

Comment on The Power of the Powerless by alantay

alantay — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 00:59:21 +0000

I,m not sure I get it but finaly got on here , what empire are we trying to get liberated from?

Comment on Yesterday… by Scott Mather

Scott Mather — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 23:08:45 +0000

Is this the thief talking?

Comment on Praying for Our Enemies by Roxanne Rohan

Roxanne Rohan — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 17:39:42 +0000

This is so loving and such an expression of Christ in us! What a way to grow the Kingdom with new brothers and sisters who come to know Your Love through us! Lord, help us to be more like You! Help us to turn away from our pride, ego, and woundedness, and turn towards You in prayer for those we feel have wronged us, or our loved ones, in any way!