Gwen Shamblin 8: Not Smart Enough to Think

[AmazonGrace]

Most people who think they're sinfree are just focused on one particular sin that they're either struggling to avoid or not even desiring to commit, and ignoring all the rest. IMO.

Gwen's focus  is binge eating and she couldn't care less about helping the poor or any of that other charitable nonsense.

[AmazonGrace]

I stand corrected, Gwen is getting more loving and more merciful each day.

Today we learn what liquid joy is, and no, it's not a dishwashing detergent or an alcoholic beverage: it's Gwen's desire to live forever.

Good things are happening to some unnamed people and Gwen is feeling happy, so this proves God exists. 

Spoiler

The Proof of God

August 04, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

The world has many questions…does God exist, is God loving, is God personal…and beyond a shadow of a doubt I give a resounding “YES!” to all these questions because of the fruit.  When you see the first person healed it is amazing, then the second and third…astonishing, then when you see thousands and hear of millions, you become a believer that God is working thru the Remnant of Believers to the extended community. After witnessing what I have witnessed—thousands of miraculous turnarounds, healed lives, restored marriages—I can say with authority that God is bringing back a revival of healing thru Love. I testify to constant peace and happiness. I have found this love and it is a real feeling of inexpressible joy that—believe it or not—grows more each year, which is proof that not only does God exist, but He loves. and He can fill this empty, longing need that, when unfilled, causes great grief and crime and pain in the world.

I can truthfully say that I am more in love with God today than I was yesterday and this spills over to more love, mercy and empathy for my fellow man each day. The ultimate result is a strong desire to live and live forever. Perhaps it could be described as liquid joy.

Witnessing restored marriages proves God so getting divorced proves what?

Edited August 4, 2019 by AmazonGrace

[SilverBeach]

20 hours ago, NarcissismKills said:

the failure of the media to say a word is deafening.

A former RF member should contact Leah Remini, she did a wonderful segment on her show about Jehovah Witnesses because of the many parallels to Scamontonlogy. One of them reached ut to her.

[SuperNova]

8 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I can truthfully say that I am more in love with God today than I was yesterday and this spills over to more love, mercy and empathy for my fellow man each day. The ultimate result is a strong desire to live and live forever. Perhaps it could be described as liquid joy.

So Gwen wants to live forever in a liquid state?

WTF?? Does Gwen realize that normal mammalian bipeds don't express themselves in such abstract ways?

[RFsurvivor]

9 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Witnessing restored marriages proves God so getting divorced proves what?

Well I was going to point you to Remnant Fellowships article about their stance on divorce but it seems to have been removed....in general they have a backwards explanation as to why some divorces are acceptable.

 

ETA: Found the link, I had to search for it...it used to be on the main area

http://www.remnantfellowship.org/About-Our-Church/What-We-Believe/Divorce-and-Remarriage

Edited August 4, 2019 by RFsurvivor
found the link

[mhainlen]

On 8/3/2019 at 7:46 PM, Marmion said:

I am amazed , and a bit amused , how people are finding such remarks to be unusual enough to be noteworthy .  As I have mentioned before , I had grown up in such Holiness  churches as the Church of the Nazarene  , where entire sanctification  was taught to be a second work of grace , subsequent to justification .  

I grew up in some fairly fundie-lite churches. When I showed up at a Nazarene college I was completely thrown by the entire sanctification doctrine and how it was taught and promoted. As an outsider, even a very conservative and religious one, it felt very odd and a bit cultish. Granted NYC had just taken place a few weeks before I showed up on campus, so that increased the “OMG I accidentally joined a cult” feel for an outsider (after I figured out that not everyone had gone to New York City together before starting college).

[G33kywife]

29 minutes ago, mhainlen said:

I grew up in some fairly fundie-lite churches. When I showed up at a Nazarene college I was completely thrown by the entire sanctification doctrine and how it was taught and promoted. As an outsider, even a very conservative and religious one, it felt very odd and a bit cultish. Granted NYC had just taken place a few weeks before I showed up on campus, so that increased the “OMG I accidentally joined a cult” feel for an outsider (after I figured out that not everyone had gone to New York City together before starting college).

I went to a Naz university too. I got out after a semester because I just couldn’t deal with how intense everything was. Chapel 3x/week (and you’re fined if you don’t go!), ridiculous rules for male/female interaction (my fave was the “four on the floor rule.” Meaning, if you sat next to someone of the opposite sex on a couch or bed, all four feet needed to remain on the floor), dress codes, etc. The funniest part of the dress code thing was that the school was literally on the beach. It was totally normal to see bikini clad women and shirtless men out there. 

[Coconut Flan]

You didn't by any chance go to Pt Loma Nazarene?

[G33kywife]

1 hour ago, Coconut Flan said:

You didn't by any chance go to Pt Loma Nazarene?

I did indeed. I’m much smarter now, don’t hold it against me. ?

[MathQueen]

You didn't by any chance go to Pt Loma Nazarene?

As did I. I’ve been reading the thread drift here with interest. I attended long enough ago that I started on the original campus. Dorm hours included study hours 7-9 during my freshman year, as well as chapel 3x week with assigned seating. It was tough to hold down two jobs and not run into conflicts with the rules.

[AmazonGrace]

Today in Gwen Ramblin Lara: we imagine a wonderful planet with saints and pearly gates and no pain and this somehow proves God's eternal love. (Next up, we imagine light saber injuries and this proves the Dark Side of The Force. )

Spoiler

 

An Unbelievable Love Story

August 05, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

God’s will is protecting and ensuring the eternal existence of love, and that will never end—as long as the stars twinkle and the sun rises in the east and the moon reflects light! Stop and imagine an enormous separate planet far away, populated with love-filled Saints from thousands of centuries. It would be a planet of no pain—a painless planet, with a Leader who would ever ensure no breach of hateful emotions, ensured by colossal walls with white pearly gates.

So this wonder-filled God of Love was obviously desirous of personal associations, so He became the author of all beautiful, ever-faithful relationships. The Bible is a rich history that reflects the search for the loving hearts, starting with Abraham, whose offspring went down to Egypt and then were rescued by God, and finally these populous two million Hebrews became Zion and established Jerusalem—the City of Peace. It is an unbelievable love story and a telling journey of the ups and downs as the children of God learned love from hate.

Read more in The History of the Love of God, Volume II

 

 

[SuperNova]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Stop and imagine an enormous separate planet far away, populated with love-filled Saints from thousands of centuries. It would be a planet of no pain—a painless planet, with a Leader who would ever ensure no breach of hateful emotions, ensured by colossal walls with white pearly gates.

Is there anywhere in the bible that explains heaven as a planet? If so, what would be the purpose of "colossal walls"? If the afterlife is just moving to a new planet, why would walls be needed? Is the planet segregated? Is there a RF/Brentwood section where no fatties are allowed?  As usual, Gwen leaves me with more questions than answers.

[AmazonGrace]

I'm also a bit confused how walls keep out negative emotions. Prisons must be happy places. 

[throwaway9988]

21 hours ago, RFsurvivor said:

Well I was going to point you to Remnant Fellowships article about their stance on divorce but it seems to have been removed....in general they have a backwards explanation as to why some divorces are acceptable.

 

ETA: Found the link, I had to search for it...it used to be on the main area

http://www.remnantfellowship.org/About-Our-Church/What-We-Believe/Divorce-and-Remarriage

So basically one big long retroactive justification for Gwen’s divorce? I love how it says copyright 2003 at the end—I was in Remnant in 2003, and at that time Gwen was definitely preaching the opposite of some key points in that document. 

[Coconut Flan]

14 hours ago, G33kywife said:

I did indeed. I’m much smarter now, don’t hold it against me. ?

It's actually quite a good school for many programs.  I always asked for interns and work study students from there as my first choice over any other school in San Diego.  They were by far more prepared for a work environment than say SDSU or San Marcos.  

[Alisamer]

7 hours ago, SuperNova said:

Is there anywhere in the bible that explains heaven as a planet? If so, what would be the purpose of "colossal walls"? If the afterlife is just moving to a new planet, why would walls be needed? Is the planet segregated? Is there a RF/Brentwood section where no fatties are allowed?  As usual, Gwen leaves me with more questions than answers.

Maybe the "colossal walls" are to keep the separate denominations (or religions - I'm not convinced God doesn't go by many different names, myself) from realizing they're not the only ones there? 

Also, if the afterlife is moving to a new planet (I'm cool with this), are there beings from other planets there, too? Oooh, what if many of the fictional races/species/etc. that humans have invented are actually real, we just haven't consciously come across them yet? Can they be on that planet? Do the Jedi have their own section? Is there a special area for wizards of the Harry Potter kind, and do they communicate at all with Gandalf? Are the Klingons and Romulans on opposite sides of the planet? Are Sebaceans, Scarran or Nebari there? Could I go hang out with the Cybertronians?

This is much more thought provoking than Gwen's usual devotions that are basically "Don't eat."

[fransalley]

On 8/3/2019 at 11:55 PM, G33kywife said:

I was raised in the Nazarene church as well, and the teaching that we can be sinless (and should strive to be) really messed me up for a long time. I’ve been out for 15 years and can still head down a legalistic path if I’m not conscientious of it. My entire extended family was super involved in the Naz church. I was the first to leave, but now everyone else is out too. I don’t know if I would call it a cult, though. Maybe a cult-lite? 

I was never involved in a Nazarene church or any Holiness church.  However, in the church I was in during college, one of our campus ministers encouraged us to go a day without sinning.  He talked about how he'd once been a part of a group of men who encouraged each other to do this.  He also said that the reason David was so penitent when he sinned was that he just didn't sin that often, so when he did, it made a big impact on him.  

During a Bible study where he brought up the subject of going without sinning, one of the members said that that wasn't possible because we all had a sin nature.  His answer:  "Yes it is!"  

I do not think it was an accident that he ended up leaving the ministry.  He and his wife have since gotten divorced.  

[Marmion]

13 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Today in Gwen Ramblin Lara: we imagine a wonderful planet with saints and pearly gates and no pain and this somehow proves God's eternal love. (Next up, we imagine light saber injuries and this proves the Dark Side of The Force. )

  Hide contents

 

An Unbelievable Love Story

August 05, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

God’s will is protecting and ensuring the eternal existence of love, and that will never end—as long as the stars twinkle and the sun rises in the east and the moon reflects light! Stop and imagine an enormous separate planet far away, populated with love-filled Saints from thousands of centuries. It would be a planet of no pain—a painless planet, with a Leader who would ever ensure no breach of hateful emotions, ensured by colossal walls with white pearly gates.

So this wonder-filled God of Love was obviously desirous of personal associations, so He became the author of all beautiful, ever-faithful relationships. The Bible is a rich history that reflects the search for the loving hearts, starting with Abraham, whose offspring went down to Egypt and then were rescued by God, and finally these populous two million Hebrews became Zion and established Jerusalem—the City of Peace. It is an unbelievable love story and a telling journey of the ups and downs as the children of God learned love from hate.

Read more in The History of the Love of God, Volume II

 

 

From what I know of LDS doctrine , it sounds like it's along similar lines to Kolob  .   Mormons cite 1 Corinthians 15 : 40-41  , as a proof text . http://www.mormoninfo.org/faqs-31/Doesnt-1-Corinthians-1540-41-teach-that-there-are-three-kingdoms-of-glory-or-heavens-3709 ,  https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/re-19-no-2-2018/analysis-joseph-smith-translation-1-corinthians-1540     Nice going , Gwen Shamblin Lara .  First you copy from Nazarenes , and other Holiness and Pentecostal churches , with your teaching of Christian perfection , especially pertaining to extensive fasting . For comparison ,  http://www.pentecostalpioneers.org/fasting.html  , https://hsoutpouring.com/2015/12/fasting-that-breaks-strongholds/   Then you imitate the Latter Day Saints movement , with their notion of cosmology .  http://www.brunson20.com/2013/07/one-eternal-round-locating-kolob.html  Cultists are such plagiarists . 

Edited August 5, 2019 by Marmion

[AmazonGrace]

The one in which Gwen doesn't understand the difference between faith and science. Does your baby have a PhD? 

Spoiler

 

What is Your Priority?

August 06, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

To those who understand and claim to be born again of God, the laws should be written on the heart and Love should be on the tongue. True Religion is Love…God is Love and man loves God first.

Your religion is to fill your heart full of God’s love and then give it back out to God and man. Love of God is the number one command, purpose, direction, goal, activity, job, career of your life. Does your life reflect that God is even 10 percent of your life’s chosen priority? We have to stay in a state of constant conviction and examination of our heart because it is so deceitful —the heart is always tempted to cast guilt away or flatter itself so much as not to detect its lack of love. The spiritual heart is and should be the center for all science and philosophy and medicine. Each person should be required from birth to pursue one to three Ph.D.s in “Spiritual Wholeheartedness.” Next is the study of Love—since it is God, His Kingdom, His Church and His plan of Salvation, we will need four Ph.D.s. The state of the heart of man and the love in-side the heart for God first and man second is simply everything, ac-cording to Moses and Jesus Christ. Just consider…if we have an invitation to Heaven to live forever in the next life, should you not study a little about the road map to Heaven?

Read more in The History of the Love of God, Volume II

 

 

[Marmion]

7 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

The one in which Gwen doesn't understand the difference between faith and science. Does your baby have a PhD? 

  Hide contents

 

What is Your Priority?

August 06, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

To those who understand and claim to be born again of God, the laws should be written on the heart and Love should be on the tongue. True Religion is Love…God is Love and man loves God first.

Your religion is to fill your heart full of God’s love and then give it back out to God and man. Love of God is the number one command, purpose, direction, goal, activity, job, career of your life. Does your life reflect that God is even 10 percent of your life’s chosen priority? We have to stay in a state of constant conviction and examination of our heart because it is so deceitful —the heart is always tempted to cast guilt away or flatter itself so much as not to detect its lack of love. The spiritual heart is and should be the center for all science and philosophy and medicine. Each person should be required from birth to pursue one to three Ph.D.s in “Spiritual Wholeheartedness.” Next is the study of Love—since it is God, His Kingdom, His Church and His plan of Salvation, we will need four Ph.D.s. The state of the heart of man and the love in-side the heart for God first and man second is simply everything, ac-cording to Moses and Jesus Christ. Just consider…if we have an invitation to Heaven to live forever in the next life, should you not study a little about the road map to Heaven?

Read more in The History of the Love of God, Volume II

 

 

Let's see . She either is thinking along the lines of the lyrics of these two songs .  

 

 Or , more likely , she is referring to the Weslyan doctrine of perfect love  , resulting in entire sanctification  .   

[NarcissismKills]

While we like to focus on Gwen Shamblin Lara's absurd daily devotionals, it's easy to forget that the Remnant Fellowship cult Wednesday and Saturday assemblies almost always consist mainly of sniveling weepy "testimonials" to Gwen's greatness bleated out by her phone-clutching followers. Gwen listens from the front row with her wretched family. Her gratingly nasal contributions to the assemblies consist of zero content gibberish at best and always a dose of shameless self-promotion. Agonizing to watch or listen to. Remnant Fellowship is clearly a sad-masochistic cult, otherwise there is no way to explain its continued existence. Just thinking about Gwen makes me queasy.

[Briefly]

On 8/3/2019 at 10:55 PM, G33kywife said:

I was raised in the Nazarene church as well, and the teaching that we can be sinless (and should strive to be) really messed me up for a long time. I’ve been out for 15 years and can still head down a legalistic path if I’m not conscientious of it. My entire extended family was super involved in the Naz church. I was the first to leave, but now everyone else is out too. I don’t know if I would call it a cult, though. Maybe a cult-lite? 

My dad was raised Nazarene.  Even though he quit attending for years and then eventually  joined a Baptist church later (which was a good S. Baptist church and not what they have become), he never quite got over the guilt and the idea that God was punishing people.  When my mom died, he actually said to me that he just could not figure out what he had done that was so bad that God would punish him by taking her from him.  It just about broke my heart when he said that, but that was how strong the Nazarene guilt for even existing was in him - many decades later.

On 8/5/2019 at 6:41 PM, Marmion said:

From what I know of LDS doctrine , it sounds like it's along similar lines to Kolob  .   Mormons cite 1 Corinthians 15 : 40-41  , as a proof text . http://www.mormoninfo.org/faqs-31/Doesnt-1-Corinthians-1540-41-teach-that-there-are-three-kingdoms-of-glory-or-heavens-3709 ,  https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/re-19-no-2-2018/analysis-joseph-smith-translation-1-corinthians-1540     Nice going , Gwen Shamblin Lara .  First you copy from Nazarenes , and other Holiness and Pentecostal churches , with your teaching of Christian perfection , especially pertaining to extensive fasting . For comparison ,  http://www.pentecostalpioneers.org/fasting.html  , https://hsoutpouring.com/2015/12/fasting-that-breaks-strongholds/   Then you imitate the Latter Day Saints movement , with their notion of cosmology .  http://www.brunson20.com/2013/07/one-eternal-round-locating-kolob.html  Cultists are such plagiarists . 

But in LDS doctrine, God was once a man and he had a God who had a God, to infinity and beyond. Each MAN can become a God and rule over his own planet.  Women can also become Goddesses but never with the same power that the man earns.  Women earn their way to higher levels of heaven by having babies.  Lots of babies, because there are Mormon souls waiting to come to earth.  But since Gwen is a woman, does she think that she is going to become like God?

[AmazonGrace]

Today we learn that joy ends crime.  All you need is love, doobydoobydoo, all you need is love, love, love is all you need. 

Spoiler

 

Building a Kingdom of Love

August 07, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

Love is a legitimate solution that ends so much suffering that a human can migrate toward inexpressible joy, which of course ends man-on-man crime. It is essential to know that the Genius God created the empty spot in the heart so that He could fill it. But why is He even wanting to fill an empty hole in the heart that He created? It is so He can fill it with love. Why would God do such a thing? Here is the answer: how do you feel when you adore someone? It is the most beautiful feeling in the world. Likewise, hate is the most miserable, disheartening and depressing feeling in the world. It stands to reason that if man recoils from pain, how much more so would the God of the Universe desire to separate out good from evil, love from hate, self-evaluation from projection and judgmentalness—with no in-between.

Not only is He separating out love with all of its glorious components and hate with all of its miserable components of judgmentalness, pride, debauchery, lust and greed, but God is taking the love and building a Super Community consisting of Pure Love that will be way beyond our imaginings and more formidable than any nation known to man. Think about this: God is building a Kingdom based on Pure Love—the most powerful, influential substance in the world. But more importantly, He is separating out the beautiful, positive, warm, endearing and delightful emotions that feel best, and severing them from the worst hateful emotions in the world.

God is preparing a castle of love for each of us who choose this love and righteous life with Him! Here is a most foundational Truth…the eternal purpose/plan of God: God is separating love from hate and building a Kingdom of Love, so that His Kingdom can come on Earth as it is in Heaven, according to Jesus’ prayer.  He will destroy hate in the end and leave only love behind, so it is what is in your heart and soul and mind that matters. What have you filled this empty hole with?

God gave you a hole in your heart so he could fill it with love or because he wanted to create employment opportunities for heart surgeons.

[Marmion]

14 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

Today we learn that joy ends crime.  All you need is love, doobydoobydoo, all you need is love, love, love is all you need. 

  Hide contents

 

Building a Kingdom of Love

August 07, 2019

by Gwen Shamblin Lara

0 Comment

Love is a legitimate solution that ends so much suffering that a human can migrate toward inexpressible joy, which of course ends man-on-man crime. It is essential to know that the Genius God created the empty spot in the heart so that He could fill it. But why is He even wanting to fill an empty hole in the heart that He created? It is so He can fill it with love. Why would God do such a thing? Here is the answer: how do you feel when you adore someone? It is the most beautiful feeling in the world. Likewise, hate is the most miserable, disheartening and depressing feeling in the world. It stands to reason that if man recoils from pain, how much more so would the God of the Universe desire to separate out good from evil, love from hate, self-evaluation from projection and judgmentalness—with no in-between.

Not only is He separating out love with all of its glorious components and hate with all of its miserable components of judgmentalness, pride, debauchery, lust and greed, but God is taking the love and building a Super Community consisting of Pure Love that will be way beyond our imaginings and more formidable than any nation known to man. Think about this: God is building a Kingdom based on Pure Love—the most powerful, influential substance in the world. But more importantly, He is separating out the beautiful, positive, warm, endearing and delightful emotions that feel best, and severing them from the worst hateful emotions in the world.

God is preparing a castle of love for each of us who choose this love and righteous life with Him! Here is a most foundational Truth…the eternal purpose/plan of God: God is separating love from hate and building a Kingdom of Love, so that His Kingdom can come on Earth as it is in Heaven, according to Jesus’ prayer.  He will destroy hate in the end and leave only love behind, so it is what is in your heart and soul and mind that matters. What have you filled this empty hole with?

God gave you a hole in your heart so he could fill it with love or because he wanted to create employment opportunities for heart surgeons.

Now you just brought this song to my mind .  

Like I have been saying throughout , Gwen Shamblin Lara has simply been recycling cliches that most any evangelical  would know , except for the implicit reference to Kolob , which is a Mormon concept . Speaking of which , people here might be surprised to know of the influence which early Methodism had upon Mormonism .  { https://usreligion.blogspot.com/2011/01/methodism-mormonism-and-atlantic-world.html , http://blog.mrm.org/2013/02/methodists-and-mormons/  , https://rsc.byu.edu/archived/volume-9-number-3-2008/john-wesley-methodist-foundation-restoration  } Now as far as becoming like the Most High God , while neither Mormons or Wesleyan Holiness people would ever claim to be equal in majesty , and authority to the Lord , both would believe that a Christian can , and must advance to a state of perfect sinlessness , which is on par with that of Jesus .  { https://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon500.htm  , https://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon543.htm ,   https://www.deseretnews.com/article/865571984/UVU-professors-study-puts-focus-on-LDS-women-and-depression.html   }  It's just that , if this article is to be believed https://www.mormonwiki.com/Perfection  , Mormons believe that people will attain exaltation in the Celestial Kingdom , while Lara , and for that matter perhaps Nazarenes , believe that entire sanctification is attainable in this earthly lifetime .   So , all in all , one may speculate that Gwen Shamblin Lara has borrowed ideas from either or both of these respective sets of doctrine .  And at any rate , from what I have read , both here and elsewhere https://www.womenofgrace.com/blog/?p=29464   ,  

Quote

https://www.culteducation.com/group/1224-weigh-down/21804-praying-to-be-thin.html  

, Remnant Fellowship constitutes a cult , but I think everyone reading this would have figured that out by now . 

[throwaway9988]

^ Great points.  When my family joined Remnant, we didn't have any sort of background with any other evangelical churches, or even any other protestant churches.  So when Gwen would borrow tropes/lingo from other churches and then claim that she had uncovered Truths during her Bible studies to share with us, we would eat it up.  To us, she was like a real prophet, teaching us things we had never heard before.  And whenever it became obvious that other churches were indeed teaching some of the same tropes/lingo as Gwen, Gwen would always claim that false preachers from other churches were copying her, and that their imitation of her was just further proof that she was teaching Truth. 

 

For example, my family loves to parrot Gwen's lines about how "Remnant is different; we have a relationship with God instead of a religion.  Our prayers are being answered.  Our lives are changed.  Through God's grace we are choosing to stop sinning and be saved."  My family actually thinks that Gwen is the only modern preacher teaching those things and (supposedly) putting them into practice.  They don't realize that Gwen co-opted all of those concepts from other churches.  

 

A better education in history and world religions probably could have saved my family from falling prey to Gwen Shamblin Lara's Remnant Fellowship cult.  Honestly, if they had even bothered to Google any of Gwen's tropes/lingo it would have only taken a split second for them to realize that multiple other churches have been saying some of the same things for decades and that Gwen is clearly a false preacher whose most notable original contribution to Christianity is the concept of starving yourself for Jesus.