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Frank Viola | Beyond Evangelical
Official Blog of Author & Speaker Frank Viola. Digging below the surface and moving beyond the shallows in today's Christianity.
On Pearls
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Frank, I deeply appreciate this post. The wisdom through lived experience can be read in your words. Thank you for always being willing to share your Gain with others.
I love this book… From Eternity to Here. I am in the middle of Jesus to John and stopped to read the Bethany teaching. Thank you so much. The fig perspective open my eyes to an expanded thought process…
Hello Frank,
By meditating on the suffering, remember that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God who takes away the sin of the world was on the cross. Jesus of Nazareth was both capable of suffering and brought hope to our suffering. Look to the suffering of Jesus of Nazareth, is to look at our reality. We must break with our society and again being able to suffer. That is living in freedom! No handcuffs, no arrests! Being able to help others and put before us that suffering is part of our life while we’re on this earth. Know that it is not self-evident and natural when we are healthy and when the family is united and at peace. Jesus of Nazareth invites us to accept with gratitude both joy and sorrow, success and failure.
Thanks Frank! That really resonated with me and convicted me about my need to let the Lord deal with bitterness that I was suppressing. I can’t wait for Him to touch this hidden place in my heart now. Our Lord is so amazing!
Frank, thank you for posting about this today. It serves as a reminder of somethings I have recently gone through and have the opportunity to become very bitter over. It also serves as a reminder of the scripture we find in Matt 7:6 “Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs, lest they trample them underfoot and turn to attack you.” (ESV) These pearls that are created in us by our allowing of our relationship with Christ to create them, utilizing our pains, anger, hurts, sorrows, etc., need to be protected. We truly need to be careful whom we cast our pearls in front of, because these pearls are truly God’s – not ours. So thank you for the gentle reminder of Hid truth today about this. 🙂 I do appreciate it.
As a worship leader, I feel I have had a ton of irritations in my time! Great to know that it is all worth it in the end! This will form part of my teaching on worship leading (see the website) because I think we all need to hear this!
This makes me think about times where I have not walked in Christ with my brothers and sisters thus becoming the “foreign substance” toward them.
So true, Frank. How many times I’ve had pearl being formed within me, and instead of embracing it as a working of God, I’ve tried to run from it. Realizing, only afterward, that it was the Lord Himself working within me to answer my most desperate prayer, “Lord, purify me!”
You mean I can’t just pray in toungues and tithe my way out of it! Darn! That’s years of waisted saliva and funds!
Just kidding. Great word Frank.
I love Watchman Nee’s “Release of the Spirit” on our Father’s workings to help us “die [to our life] to live [from His life]”.
Thanks for that Frank, very timely. I mentioned before on your post “Life is Short, Making Things Right, and Eulogies”, there is an issue I need to move forward on and trying to see the right way to deal with it is hard. Seeing that it can end up a pearl in the end is helpful to keep pushing through on getting a God solution to the issue. I am not in despair over the issue, I just know that for the health of the body of Christ some sort of resolution is necessary and that is my main concern – I could just walk away from it but I don’t think that will solve anything in the Spiritual realm in the end.