Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum COTH (Church of the Highlands)

God's ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts. What I do know is what He has revealed though His word. I cannot and will not speculate as to God's motives. I will comment on what He has said. Again, do you have any passages that show where it is not God's will for us to suffer and face trials?

I Pet 3:17 - "For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil.", so yes, suffering can be according to God's will according the inspired Apostle Peter.

"If" is a conditional statement. Yes, God allows it, "if" it is His will. Words have meaning. If no suffering was ever according to God's will, then this verse is meaningless.


Heb 2:10, "For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.

Jesus was made perfect or complete through suffering.

Christians are made complete through our trials, James 1:2-4, Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

It is God's will for us to be complete and we cannot get there without trials and suffering. To help us understand this concept, James 1:5 then states, :"If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him"

It takes wisdom from God to understand there is joy in trials, because trials and suffering make us complete.

Mman, I’m not saying that I’m interpreting what I stated in my last post. I’m saying that using punctuation and sentence structure, it actually reads what I stated. We aren’t going to agree on this issue, and that’s fine with me, so back to the topic at hand.

COTH is a great church in my opinion, but it isn’t for everyone. However, you can’t deny what they’re able to do and are doing in the community.

God wants us all poor as dirt, without a pot to piss in, & completely destitute so that we're completely unable to help ourselves & anyone in need whatsoever ... c'mon guys, use your brain ... no doubt wealth & prosperity gets abused; I get that; but we're blessed TO BE a blessing ... i'm not into the mega church movement (necessarily) myself, but i have participated in the COTH small group programs multiple times & the "heart" of it was solid & the outreach they perform is reaching a lot of people ... to do that takes "resources" -- true whether it's small or big ...

Well said, BGD. I know this is oversimplified, but it's very different to pray, "God, bless me financially" (because my theology believes financial riches are promised) and "God, I'm asking you for something bigger than I can understand, give me MORE than I need, WAY more than I need, in abundance, so I can be a blessing to those around me." ("and guard my heart against whatever my sinfulness and selfishness would do with it otherwise)

Just playing devil's advocate here (I truly do enjoy talking about this subject with other believers) -

How would you reconcile Jesus' words in the Lord's Prayer when he is teaching his disciples to ask of God, "give us this day our daily bread" with the concept of asking God for more than I need?

well first of all - you should never consort with the devil nor be his advocate in any way .... but to answer your questions, easy - see my previous reply - God blesses so that we, in turn, can be a blessing -- we take our "daily bread", and take what's leftover to bless others that He brings in our path .... i don't like to publicly discuss these things, but a youth from my program years ago came into my path recently & she was in an abusive situation, through no fault of her own .... i'm blessing her at the moment w/my abundance, and praise God, we're able to get her out of that abusive situation & into something that's safe & secure .... i praise the Lord that he blessed me financially so that i could be in a position to help her out at her desperate time of need ...

Jesus works through His people .... He will find a way to bless those that serve His will .... it's a very simple spiritual concept ....

Haha, yeah poor choice of words probably on my part, should've come up with a better phrase in light of the spiritual nature of the conversation.

Anyhow, I totally agree with your point. I genuinely like to discuss as believers how we approach our thinking and attitudes toward our finances and material resources. That is an awesome testimony of how the Lord allowed you to bless that child's life and provide her a safe life.

I'm going to be totally honest - it's been comforting to hear some of you that are members or attendees of COTH speak on this subject. I have heard negative things about it, and some claiming it's a prosperity gospel church, and I dug into this thread to find out for myself. I'm a member of a Southern Baptist affiliated church in our area, and COTH has drawn several folks in our area from other churches to join theirs, not by actively recruiting them of course. So as is usual, you'll hear negativity and rumor started about any church that moves in or starts attracting folks from other churches. More often than not, it's because God is at work and people want to be where God is moving. Sounds like that's the case at COTH.

Go listen to some of their sermons. Pastor Chris gives a usually incredible sermon, and every one is available online. His series on relationships and romance back a few months ago (could have been longer) was just downright good.

Good stuff. I'd say that we understand the "Lord's prayer" as a template for prayer, not a declaration of specificity. That sounds muddy...did that make sense? In other words, when we pray we ought to follow this "pattern", one step of which would be asking of God for ourselves ("give us this day our daily bread"). Basically, the point isn't to specifically ask for the bare minimum--the "daily bread", but beseeching God to move for MY OWN PERSONAL benefit(s). Confession, praise, intercession, requests, so forth...it's a pattern of prayer, a "how to" if you will. The take away from that verse isn't the specificity of daily bread, but rather at this point you can/should ask for your benefit.

https://www.churchofthehighlands.com/media/message/the-prayer-of-moses

No building's better than deerstand as sunlight reveals God's beauty with nature's soundtrack and a rifle in my hands.

God promised a more abundant life through Jesus Christ. That could mean alot of different things to alot of different people. I have more than some, alot less than others, but God has blessed me with exactly enough to have peace. There was a time when I did not have peace with my finances. I stayed worried and stressed out about it. I gave my work life and my financial life to the Lord and he changed all that. No, I am not rich but I dont want to be. I am completely satisfied with that part of my life. I do believe if it were important to me to be monitarily wealthy, and my intentions were honorable, and I glorified God with all that I had, he would give me the wealth I desired. It takes different things physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially to make each one of us feel satisfied and at peace.God is able to give each one of us all those things, but first we have to forget about ourselves and what we want and ask the Lord exactly what it is he wants from us. Then its just one foot in front of the other having faith that the Lord knows best, your will not mine Lord. Seek ye first the kingdom of God and all these things will be added unto you. We just need to quit worrying about ourselves so much and let the most high God take care of us.