God doesn't need makeup
Dr. Roberto Miranda
(Audio: Spanish)
SUMMARY: The pastor discusses the complexity of their church's vision and how they try to balance different strands and extremes of the Christian life. They believe in both lively worship and stillness of the spirit, and they do not force things or manufacture gifts. The pastor then explores various biblical passages that show the different ways in which God manifests himself, including expelling and exterminating nations, sending fire down from heaven, and striking Ananias and Sapphira dead. The pastor rejects the idea of excusing God or making up excuses for these actions, and instead emphasizes that God is sovereign and does what he wants. The church tries to maintain a balance between the God of judgment and the God of mercy and grace.
The Bible is complex and expresses itself in different ways. We must approach it with humility and tolerance, understanding that each culture sees it through its own lenses and prejudices. We cannot judge Scripture, but let it judge us and speak to us. We must accept the mysteries of God and not try to fit the Bible into our cultural boxes. God does what he pleases and we must walk over the pages of Scripture cautiously, with holy fear. We cannot fully understand all things and must respect what the Bible says.
The speaker believes that the land belonging to God cannot be given to anyone, including the Jews. They believe in walking carefully within the mystery of God's ways and biblical sensitivity. They cite examples from the Bible of how God deals with people's situations and gives them space. They believe in creating a complex faith with many nuances and great balance. The speaker also talks about pastoral counseling and the need to discern God's moment in dealing with people. They believe in providing people with space, like Naaman was given, for God to work in their lives. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being a pastoral community of love, mercy, justice, and truth.
The Bible is complex and expresses itself in different ways. We must approach it with humility and tolerance, understanding that each culture sees it through its own lenses and prejudices. We cannot judge Scripture, but let it judge us and speak to us. We must accept the mysteries of God and not try to fit the Bible into our cultural boxes. God does what he pleases and we must walk over the pages of Scripture cautiously, with holy fear. We cannot fully understand all things and must respect what the Bible says.
The speaker believes that the land belonging to God cannot be given to anyone, including the Jews. They believe in walking carefully within the mystery of God's ways and biblical sensitivity. They cite examples from the Bible of how God deals with people's situations and gives them space. They believe in creating a complex faith with many nuances and great balance. The speaker also talks about pastoral counseling and the need to discern God's moment in dealing with people. They believe in providing people with space, like Naaman was given, for God to work in their lives. The speaker emphasizes the importance of being a pastoral community of love, mercy, justice, and truth.
Remember that we are talking about the vision of our church, the complexity with which we try to view the Christian life and the different strands, the different extremes sometimes that we try to keep, related to each other. We are a complex church. It's not that other churches are better or worse than us, that's not the idea, but we have a specific heart, a calling that God has given us, a collective personality as a church. And your pastor also has a way of looking at Scripture and sometimes, as I said last Sunday, this lends itself to misunderstandings even from people who are with us, who are members of our Congregation, and who do not understand why the church does the things it does.
I would like to put a video of the service at 9 in the morning and this one at 12, so that you can see how different the two services were. In both of them the Lord manifested his presence. In both of them the Lord did marvelous things, but the first service was very different from this service, the dynamics of worship was very different. And it is because we believe in both things, the one at 9 o'clock was much calmer, the adoration was much shorter, more contained, but there was a beautiful spirit and God did the work there. God moved in that place. And today, here at 12, well the weather is more enthusiastic, the temperature a little higher, the move of God perhaps more obvious, but the same spirit that was at 9 as well.
I would like to put a video of the service at 9 in the morning and this one at 12, so that you can see how different the two services were. In both of them the Lord manifested his presence. In both of them the Lord did marvelous things, but the first service was very different from this service, the dynamics of worship was very different. And it is because we believe in both things, the one at 9 o'clock was much calmer, the adoration was much shorter, more contained, but there was a beautiful spirit and God did the work there. God moved in that place. And today, here at 12, well the weather is more enthusiastic, the temperature a little higher, the move of God perhaps more obvious, but the same spirit that was at 9 as well.
