This Week's Encounters with Legalism

[Sam]

Originally Posted by CC1

Do you think maybe she was waiting for her pastor or someone from her church to pray for her? If she does not approve of where you are at religiously my experience with a lot of people in old time Pentecost is they think that means you are not a "real" Christian so your prayers for healing would not be valid.

Bottom line is that it may not be she does not believe in prayer. Just not yours.

yes, remember, "God heareth not sinners"

[KeptByTheWord]

TV1a - seems like Jesus had the same problem here on earth. He had no problem with the sinners, and those who knew they needed Him. The real problem Jesus encountered were the Pharisees, the legalists if you will.... the legalist Pharisees were the very ones who CRUCIFIED Jesus.

Don't feel alone. You are walking a road the Saviour himself has already walked before...

[acerrak]

Originally Posted by tv1a

I'm fine if no one responds. I need to get my thoughts down about what happened this week.

The background:

The relationship between my mother and I deteriorated since my father passed away in 2008. Without going into details, she has mad some poor decisions with any rational reasons for doing so. As a result, I limited the contact I have with her. My mother is the classic legalist. She knows her standards better than she knows her Bible.

My mom lives 1/2 hour away. But in order to find out there's a family problem, my sister who lives 6 hours away calls me to fill me in about what is happening. My sister calls me Tuesday evening and says mom was in the emergency room with chest pains. The next morning as I was getting ready for work, my wife got a text mom was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia. I didn't have any intentions of going to the hospital to check on mom. The Holy Spirit prompted me to visit mom. I called my wife and told her I was going to check on mom and that I may be late for church.

I had every intention of building my mother's faith with healings I witnessed the past few years. I told her about praying for someone who doctors said needed dialysis until a kidney donor could be found. I told my mom how this lady testified she felt a warmth flow through her body as if someone was hugging her from behind. She said Troy, I knew it wasn't you because you were holding my hands. The lady testified she went back to the doctor and the doctor said her kidneys were doing great, she wasn't going to need dialysis or a kidney transplant.

I told my mom about a lady diagnosed with falling arches. She developed back problems and was in constant pain. She was at our house. I prayed, rebuked the pain, and with a couple minutes she was healed. She was jumping on that leg.

My mom had to interject a story about God doing miracles. Her story was about someone donating $10,000 to pave a church parking lot. I'm sitting there dumbfounded. I'm thinking God is healing people and the best story she has is about a paved parking lot? I wanted to say something really bad, but I held my tongue and changed the subject.

My mother was sharing the hospital room with a lady who was in for various medical issues. She heard the stories of miraculous healings. A few minutes after I told my mom the stories, her roommate started screaming in pain. I asked if I could pray for her pain. She agreed. She told me doctors diagnosed her with restless leg syndrome. She said the pain was seven out of ten. I began to talk to God for a couple minutes. I asked the lady how she felt, she said the pain was at a five. I continued praying for complete healing asking God to fill the lady's body with His love. The lady said she started to feel a warm sensation in her leg and the pain was gone. A few minutes later, a nurse shows up because someone pushed the emergency button for assistance. The lady said I pushed the button to see if you could bring me a pain pill, but I don't need the pill now.

Ironically I asked my mom if she wanted prayer for healing. She said she would be fine. Again, I'm flabbergasted. A lady with a methodist background is healed. A one God, tongue talking apostolic accepts the illness in her body. Needless to say, I walked out without praying for my mom. She had no desire to be healed. Meanwhile the methodist lady had an encounter with God she will never forget.

the methodist are the original holy rollers, they have holy ghost filled meetings as well, but your right she wont forget it and it will increase her faith.

Sorry about your mom, sounds like a pride issue. Its a difficult situation for you, you love her cause she is your mom but the other half of her pushes you away. She may not realize it, maybe try a heart to heart talk?

[Falla39]

Originally Posted by acerrak

the methodist are the original holy rollers, they have holy ghost filled meetings as well, but your right she wont forget it and it will increase her faith.
Sorry about your mom, sounds like a pride issue. Its a difficult situation for you, you love her cause she is your mom but the other half of her pushes you away. She may not realize it, maybe try a heart to heart talk?

My Methodist grandmother (who's mother was a 48 year charter member of the Methodist church) heard an old white-haired preacher on the corner of their tiny town, in 1933. At first she got mad and sat out to prove that Pentecostal preacher wrong. She was a Bible reading, praying, Methodist lady, walking in all the truth she knew. She THOUGHT she knew all there was to know about the Word. But her preacher had never preached this message.
How can they hear without a preacher and how can he preach unless he be sent. Her preacher couldn't preach something he had never seen or received himself.

However, God wanted her to go further than she had ever gone before. God had already raised her from her death-bed in 1926,when she lay dying of typhoid fever. God answered her prayer when she asked "LORD, if you would see fit, let me live to raise my three children". My late father was 8 yrs, his brother, 5 yrs, and little sister, 2 1/2 yrs. Dad stood beside his father as the doctor said, "Tom, Lizzie's dying! See the blue on the feet and legs". But God heard my little Methodist grandmother's sincere prayer and let (allowed, permitted) her to raise her three young children. HE allowed her to hold my first grandson in 1983. She died in 1984, twenty days before her 87th birthday.

She was the first of our family to embrace the Acts 2 message of salvation. What would have happened IF Grandma had died. But God knew she would follow through. When that old preacher came to their city, she heard, searched out , believed the WORD and repented, was baptized in Jesus Name and received the Holy Ghost, speaking in tongues as the SPIRIT gave the utterance.

Grandma made a decision that would change the course of many generations of her family. Our two little Great-Grandchildren have begun the sixth generation. Their parents are walking in the same truth Grandma received and embraced in 1933. HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON!

GOD is still pouring out His Spirit, as of yesterday when a lady who had come her second time to our church, received the Holy Ghost, during the second song. Was baptized in Jesus Name and came out of the water, rejoicing and speaking in tongues again. GOD sees those who are open hearted and are hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and HE is filling them with HIS SPIRIT!

Falla39

[Sister Alvear]

Yes, my grandmother was methodist...she used to tell me she shouted her hair down!

[acerrak]

sister falla i understand you belive in the apostolic movement and your family does as well. but God is saving souls to this day in the methodist churches, the baptist churches the trinitarian pentacostal churches. He isnt calling them out of those churches to place them in the upci or the apostolic movment.

He is redeeming them in those churches and using them to do wonderful things.

Even Gods fruitfull Spirit in them testifies of this. what your grandmother couldnt do back so many years ago to set out and proove that preacher wrong. I can do so today.

the truth was out even before asuza street. God brought back the power and re-established His gifts in saved people. and to this day there is many people who will be in heaven not because of some oneness doctrine but just because they simplied belived in Jesus.

[RandyWayne]

tv1a, would you consider your mother an UC or someone who has just spent her life in the culture of the UPC? (or I suppose, both).

I know a number of folks who fall into the latter. They are not UC, or even conservative by any means, but they have "the look!" and the lingo and know how to act in church, down pat.

[Margies3]

I KNOW I am going to take alot of flak for this observation before I even put it out here...........

but TV, when I read what you posted, the very first thought I had was that if I were in your Mom's shoes, I am not sure I would want you praying for me either. Not because I am an UC because I most certainly am NOT (I don't even go to an Apostolic church anymore). But you mentioned that you had distanced yourself from your mom before this happened - so much so that even tho she only lives 1/2 hour away from you, you had to hear from your sister 6 hours away that she was even in the hospital. And then, when you heard, did you go to her immediately? No, you waited until "the Holy Spirit prompted" you. Hello? This is your MOTHER!

I am trying very hard not to sound judgmental (I'm not not very successfully. Sorry about that). But what I would like is for you to consider this from your MOTHER's point of view: She has a son who lives a half hour away from her, who distances himself from her because he doesn't agree with the decisions she has been making (even tho she is an adult and has every right to make her own decisions), and who finds out that she is at the hospital with chest pains but doesn't come to her immediately and in fact doesn't even bother to show up until the Holy Spirit prompts him (on Sunday? That's over 5 days later!). I'm not sure I would appreciate your prayers either if I were in his shoes.

Again, I apologize for sounding so harsh. I just want you to consider this from HER point of view. Maybe it's time to examine YOUR heart?

[MawMaw]

Originally Posted by Margies3

I KNOW I am going to take alot of flak for this observation before I even put it out here...........

but TV, when I read what you posted, the very first thought I had was that if I were in your Mom's shoes, I am not sure I would want you praying for me either. Not because I am an UC because I most certainly am NOT (I don't even go to an Apostolic church anymore). But you mentioned that you had distanced yourself from your mom before this happened - so much so that even tho she only lives 1/2 hour away from you, you had to hear from your sister 6 hours away that she was even in the hospital. And then, when you heard, did you go to her immediately? No, you waited until "the Holy Spirit prompted" you. Hello? This is your MOTHER!

I am trying very hard not to sound judgmental (I'm not not very successfully. Sorry about that). But what I would like is for you to consider this from your MOTHER's point of view: She has a son who lives a half hour away from her, who distances himself from her because he doesn't agree with the decisions she has been making (even tho she is an adult and has every right to make her own decisions), and who finds out that she is at the hospital with chest pains but doesn't come to her immediately and in fact doesn't even bother to show up until the Holy Spirit prompts him (on Sunday? That's over 5 days later!). I'm not sure I would appreciate your prayers either if I were in his shoes.

Again, I apologize for sounding so harsh. I just want you to consider this from HER point of view. Maybe it's time to examine YOUR heart?

I had some of those same thoughts about the situation, Margie.
I can't imagine dropping contact with my Mother just because of her
supposed "legalistic tendencies"? At least that's what I gathered as his
reasoning for leaving her alone?? good heavens

[Falla39]

Originally Posted by Sister Alvear

Yes, my grandmother was methodist...she used to tell me she shouted her hair down!

Sis. Alvear,
My late father remembered seeing his mother shout down her long hair in the Methodist church. Hairpins flew everywhere!
He also remembered her cutting her long hair, putting on bright red lipstick and putting on a chemise and dancing the Charlston. This was after her oldest brother, etc., who was in WWWI, came home and the little songs the soldiers sang was no doubt intimidating to the girls, wives, etc. at home.
"Oh the girls in Spain, they go naked in the rain", or "the girls in France, they wear hoocey, koocey pants"! So what might a girlfriend, wife, young mother do! They might try to get even (by trying to out-do the girls in Spain and France, if they didn't have the Holy Ghost to lead and guide them). And the truth had not yet come to their tiny town. But HE was on the way!
Dad said "Mother didn't look like my sweet Mother with this sudden change. So he craweled under the house in the space where their potatoes, onions, etc, were stored, and cried!

Falla39