I was a hardcore fundamentalist who loved the rules. Being reared by a conditional daddy, who would beat me if I stepped out of line, was a potent shaping influence. I was a quick study of the regulations of legalism, and I appreciated every rule.
I did not want to make a mistake or fall out of favor with God or my peers. However, I did not understand how fundamentalism is a straitjacket religion that binds precious souls and rarely exports well to the next generation. It makes you religiously weird and socially awkward.
Mercifully, God loved me so much that He wanted to give me something better, but He had to make an extraction out of a legalistic culture to set me on a new path. He yanked me out of my pre-determined sequence, blew up my plans, ripped me down to the dirt, and began rebuilding a new kind of person, heading in a direction I had no clue existed.
The shocking and inspiring story of Sophie Ottaway.
Watch the full interview here: https://lifeovercoffee.com/podcast/ep-490-sophie-ottaway-engineered-at-birth-to-be-a-girl/
Focus on the Cause, not the Effect, so you can remove the cause and not be affected by the effect.
A local church’s worship value is not primarily about the music but the lifestyle because you never ask, “Are you worshiping?” The reason is that we worship all the time. God made us for worship—wired us for worship, you could say.
Worship is part of what it means to be image-bearers. Who could do otherwise? The better question is, “What or whom do we worship?” https://lifeovercoffee.com/three-characteristics-of-a-fantastic-local-church/
Whenever a person chooses sinful anger, he is, in effect, giving the other person control over him. It’s counterintuitive. In his anger, he is like a marionette, a puppet on a string.
Anger toward someone is the total submission of their thoughts, attitudes, emotions, and behaviors to the other person. It is not self-control, as governed by the Spirit of God, but someone out of control or under the control of another spirit. https://lifeovercoffee.com/podcast/ep-110-help-for-the-angry-person/
