Ex-Church of Christ Support Board

Attended a Community Church this weekend.

The sermon was about knowing God is holding on to us. The minister said there was two ways to think about God. He loves us in "spite of" or "because of".
His take, which I believe, is that God loves us in spite of our flaws. The minister said how sad if you believed that God loved you because of what you did, because you could never do enough to make up for Jesus dying for us. This really struck me as the CoC doctrine, that you can do enough, be perfect enough to get to heaven.

How freeing to know that God loves us in spite of our flaws. Knows when we are trying to do the best we can and still loves us when we fail.

Coc likes to sing songs about a loving God but their sermons were always a hateful, vengeful, un-understanding God.

I think God does love us ... faults and all! We're human. We have flaws.

The coc does not know the meaning of grace. It's refreshing to know about the freedom through Jesus once you leave the coc.

Exactly right --- the Church of Christ denomination stumbles over grace, and in reality is a religion of works. Even though some say that they preach grace, the bottom line of their message implies that human effort is extremely important because somehow Jesus didn't really do all that was needed for us on the cross. In other words, grace is something that has to be EARNED. Has anyone besides me heard the phrase "Jesus did his 90%, but we still gotta do our 10%!"

The concept of grace is not anything they do not wish to understand.

Opie wrote:Has anyone besides me heard the phrase "Jesus did his 90%, but we still gotta do our 10%!"

Wow. Never heard that before. Not only does it miss the "saved by grace, not of works" concept but it severely diminishes the importance of Jesus' sacrifice. Only 90%? Come on.

Lev

God loves.

I just don't believe there's anything inherently wrong with me that God, or anyone else for that matter, should have to love me, in spite of myself. If we're all that dirty and filthy, such that God has problems even looking at us, then maybe he fucked up when he made us. I just don't buy this whole "worthless me" thing that religion uses to control people.

GuitarHero wrote:I just don't believe there's anything inherently wrong with me that God, or anyone else for that matter, should have to love me, in spite of myself. If we're all that dirty and filthy, such that God has problems even looking at us, then maybe he fucked up when he made us. I just don't buy this whole "worthless me" thing that religion uses to control people.

I feel this way too. No saints, no sinners, no unclean filthy people, just human beings who need to learn how to get along in the world. I told my husband recently that I didn't need anyone to die for me to save me from myself. I hate that my children still hear this every Sunday. I want them to feel good about themselves.

Grace wrote: The sermon was about knowing God is holding on to us. The minister said there was two ways to think about God. He loves us in "spite of" or "because of".
His take, which I believe, is that God loves us in spite of our flaws. The minister said how sad if you believed that God loved you because of what you did, because you could never do enough to make up for Jesus dying for us. This really struck me as the CoC doctrine, that you can do enough, be perfect enough to get to heaven.

Very good. It is correct but does have pitfalls. Paul addresses this in Romans 6:1 KJV 6 What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? Otherwise the quote will not make sense. The problem is that some were sinning more because they were saved anyway. The purpose is to free you from sin not to sin more. We are already bad enough. Work towards perfection while knowing you are not perfect. This will save you from two traps Christians fall into. The difference is subtle.