Tom
I dont think there is any contradiction between what you and I said since I too took my point from the teaching of Jesus.

I personally believe that it putting God first which I agree with whole heartedly is not going to cut it for some.
People need to understand that the church which is a grouup of believers that make up the body of Christ need to be out there working. God always used references regarding being a good husbandman. God Himself works! The congregation at large unless you are bedridden, senile, or sometthing drastic needs to get out there and get crackin! Jesus is coming soon.
People need to be trained, you need to be actively involved in building eachother up, but how can you be a good soldier if you dont even know how to shoot?!
That will solve a good majority of the problems, but it cannot be done without God impressing people's minds. We know of the parables, the lost coins, the talents, etc.
How many of us here can say that they are serving God when Jesus Christ's very example was going out to people and telling them about the Kingdom of God, calling sinners to repentance, and letting us know that He was going to die, be raised up, go to heaven build us mansions, cleanse us from unrighteousness, and come again for us if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence steadfast unto the end.
The problem is in the fact that people are lazy. get out there and preach the Gospel. This doesnt mean you need a cardboard box to stand on the corner and shout. Help out your neighbor, be patient with the family member who is in and of the world, visit the elderly that may have been dumped by family and is all alone.
Tell them the good things that God has done for you.
God Bless,
Will

Will
I think what you just described is the unavoidable result of the great commandment, Loving God with all our heart, ie puting Him first, and loving others as ourselves. But Jesus also told us to search first for Gods kingdom. I think it applies here.

/Thomas

We love because He first loved us. It is the perception of His love which awakens love in us. If we can convey the love of God as it is in Christ to others, that will go a great way.

Missionary activity must be a fruit of love. Many speak to others about Christ (or doctrine) but don't know Christ themselves. On the other hand, it is impossible to truly know and love Christ and not speak to others about Him.

Laodiceans have a form of piety but not an experience with Christ. However, they don't perceive their own condition. They don't know that they are lost.

I see a danger in assuming that Laodecians are lost. It can lead to this type of reasoning: "I am saved. Therefore I am not a Laodecian." By thinking this way we are in danger of cutting ourselves off from the very consel the Lord has given to help us. The thinking can be "I used think I was rich and increased in goods, needing nothing. But I recognized the error of my ways. Now I really am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing."

Ellen White spoke of how the Laodecian message worked reformation in the 1850's when it was realized that it was dealing with (what would later be called) the Seventh-day Adventist church. Certainly she was saved (she included herself among those to whom the message was given).

Later in the 1890's the message also worked reformation. Ellen White identified the message of Jones and Waggoner as "the message of God to the Laodecian church." A. T. Jones, who was identified as a preacher of the message, applied the message (i.e. the Laodecien message) to himself.

"It is a solemn statement that I make to the church, that not one in twenty whose names are registered upon the church books are prepared to close their earthly history, and would be as verily without God and without hope in the world as the common sinner. They are professedly serving God, but they are more earnestly serving mammon. This half-and-half work is a constant denying of Christ, rather than a confessing of Christ. So many have brought into the church their own unsubdued spirit, unrefined; their spiritual taste is perverted by their own immoral, debasing corruptions, symbolizing the world in spirit, in heart, in purpose, confirming themselves in lustful practices, and are full of deception through and through in their professed Christian life. Living as sinners, claiming to be Christians!" {ChS 41.1}

quote:

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"I used think I was rich and increased in goods, needing nothing. But I recognized the error of my ways. Now I really am rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing."

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That's the problem. Once you really repent, you will never think that you are rich and increased in goods, and that you have need of nothing. Just the opposite is true.

It seems to me if one does not reconcognize oneself as a Laodecian, then that is deomonstrating the spirit of believing one is "rich and increased in goods". Simply denying one doesn't believe something doesn't make it true (i.e. I don't believe I think I'm rich and increased in goods):

quote:

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No man can of himself understand his errors. "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" Jer. 17:9. The lips may express a poverty of soul that the heart does not acknowledge.(COL 159)

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I see the same danger mentioned previously. If one does not recognize oneself as belonging to the group described by the Laodecian, one cuts oneself off from the very message God gave to correct the problem.

The Laodicean condition is unique to the SDA church and its membership. It does not apply to non-Adventist Christians. Therefore, whatever the problem is, it must be something that can only affect SDA's. So, I'm guessing it needs to somehow involve the 3AMs.