The fruit of the Spirit

[Anna G]

According to God’s Word, this is the fruit that should be evident in the lives of Christians:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” Galatians 5:22-23.

However, here is some (not all) of the fruit that I and others have seen, heard, read and/or experienced from the CLE church:

Manipulation. Control. Deception. Lies. Slander. Aggression. Rudeness. Harshness/nastiness/viciousness. Ambushing. Moving goalposts. Creating unnecessary drama/issues. Twisting/editing/misinterpreting/adding to what people have said. Unrighteously judging people without sufficient evidence/context/understanding. Using (multiple) deceptive and distractive techniques that completely avoid discussing the central points of an issue/topic, etc.

Additionally, there is the fruit of accepting, justifying and normalizing ungodly behaviours such as these as if they are somehow good and righteous.

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” Isaiah 5:20.

To those of you who have the Holy Spirit, I urge you to take note of every time you see incongruence between words and behaviour in this church. At some point you need to be honest before God and acknowledge that there is complete disagreement between some of the behaviour that is regularly displayed by some people in this church and the behaviour that is expected of Christians in the Holy Bible. And, as such unrighteous behaviour is clearly not of the Holy Spirit, at some point you may want to question what spirit is really at work within this church.

To those of you in this church who are true Christians, I urge you to repent before God for any and all times that you have willingly and deliberately chosen to ignore the promptings of the Holy Spirit as He has tried to warn you about the ungodly behaviour in this church: any and every time you have seared your conscience and ignored the lack of peace that you’ve felt when you’ve seen and heard things that are not of Christ—any and every time you’ve chosen to close your eyes and ears and ignore all the many signs and red flags that are right in front of you—any and every time you have chosen unrighteous compliance, complacency, comfort and/or passivity over righteousness, truth, correction and rebuke—any and every time you have put the reasoning, perspective and words of men above the Word of God—any and every time you have chosen to justify and rationalize ungodly behaviour, and make excuses for people who are bearing ungodly fruit.

I urge you to go to the Lord God in deep repentance and ask for His forgiveness for any and every time you have actively or passively been in agreement with any of the wicked and unrighteous words/actions that have been spoken/written/done by this church.

I pray the Lord is kind and merciful to you and gives you the grace and humility to acknowledge and confront the wicked and unrighteous behaviour that you have been actively or passively in agreement with, and/or partaking in, and/or condoning as acceptable.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” 1 John 1:9.

Good bye.

[Zoologistkid]

Anna, I may not have been able to discuss anything with you but you have not given any examples of what you are claiming and of who was doing any of these accusations. On a side note, who are the "others" that have noticed these evil actions alone with you? If there are any accusations, then they must be brought to the attention of the congregation. They should not accuse without giving any example of who or what was said and leave without properly explaining their accusations.

Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican. Matthew 18:15-17

[creationliberty]

Anna, we recorded the entire conversation the Sunday you departed. Would you like us to release that for everyone to listen to? Or do you want to come clean?

I mean "Anna" -- If that's even your real name. We can't verify that either.

you have not given any examples of what you are claiming and of who was doing any of these accusations

Bingo. That's one of the major problems we had with Anna. She's very passive aggressive, which is another form of murmuring... which God says he hates.

Neither murmur ye, as some of them also murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
-1Co 10:10

[Zoologistkid]

I was going to accuse her of that but I was worried that I got the definition of it confused and whether these were a case of vague accusations because of her wording. Well, in the end, I should have done so in the first place. Instead, I just pointed out what Christ gave to the church in case of any trespasses between brothers.

Murmur=to utter complaints in a low, half articulated voice

Despite the wording that points to very specific acts like lying or slander, they still are vague because they have no one to attribute any of these actions.

Vague: of uncertain, indefinite, or unclear character or meaning.

[Zoologistkid]

On another note, I mentioned this in my first post but who are the others that Anna mentioned?

However, here is some (not all) of the fruit that I and others have seen, heard, read and/or experienced from the CLE church:

If Anna is right, where are these others that agree with her? If there are others, where are their account of seeing these awful acts? Without proof of these accusations, could these even be treated the same as rumors?
RU'MOR, noun [Latin]: Flying or popular report; a current story passing from one person to another without any known authority for the truth of it.

[creationliberty]

Well, we also know that she's in communication with some other people we've had to remove from the church for their unrepentant contention too. I won't go into the details of how we know that, but we know. Apparently, they're forming what I will call a "CLE Anonymous" group where they can go lick each other's imagined wounds in an infinite cycle of loathing.

We're just going to move on, continue to study the Word of God, and go do the works He told us to do. They're free to do whatever they please, and God will judge all of us in the end.

These six things doth the LORD hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
-Pro 6:16-19

Sadly, however, because she is with that group, I'm going to have to ban her from the forum now. That group (which is mostly made up of women with a vicious vendetta) have been harassing people who join the forum, and we've gotten various reports about it.

[Rowan M.]

I noticed one of the accusations that Anna made is "Unrighteously judging people without sufficient evidence/context/understanding." Yet it seems to me that this is precisely what she is doing in her post above! She is sitting in judgement and not providing any evidence for her claims.

If there was any substance to what she is saying, providing examples to back it up would be charitable for two reasons. Firstly, it would prove the truth of what she is alleging. But as Chris has pointed out in the past, if you make accusations without evidence, it's just so much railing accusation, which is in turn lying.

But secondly, if there was some sin we were guilty of, it would be good to be made clearly aware of it so we could repent, then learn from it and do better in future. Throwing about a whole lot of accusations without specific examples is not helpful, and certainly not charitable. Frankly, it's not all that much different to what abusers do. Or the mainstream media, for that matter.

That's about all I have to say, other than that I am not seeing much fruit of the Spirit in Anna's post, and there wasn't too much of it in evidence during the last two meetings she attended either. Which is very saddening and disappointing. I can only pray that the Lord would be kind and merciful to her and give her the grace and humility to understand her own wicked and unrighteous behaviour (because accusing without evidence is not righteous).