{"id":583,"date":"2014-09-03T03:00:41","date_gmt":"2014-09-03T07:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/merit-or-mercy\/"},"modified":"2014-09-03T03:00:41","modified_gmt":"2014-09-03T07:00:41","slug":"merit-or-mercy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/merit-or-mercy\/","title":{"rendered":"Merit or Mercy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Renaissance Girl<\/p>\n<p>I am one of those people that struggles not to live on a merit system. Time and time again, I compare myself with those around me, and evaluate who gets what, and why I don&#8217;t have what I think I deserve.<\/p>\n<p>This past weekend I had the opportunity to listen to a recording of the Community&#8217;s founders, Mother Cay and Mother Judy. I was too young to have taken in their teaching at the time, and it&#8217;s a gift to be able to hear their words &#8212; spoken to individuals who lived what they heard and became the founding generation of our Community.<\/p>\n<p>There was a lot to take to heart, but one phrase stood out to me about my constant comparing. \u00a0In speaking about control, Mother Judy said &#8220;you negate Jesus Christ when you live according to a merit system.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It seems so clear, but hearing it again had a fresh impact. \u00a0Why do I assume God&#8217;s role, and decide what I should and shouldn&#8217;t have? \u00a0And where does that leave space for the mercy and love of God?<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/of.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogflower.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-4087642\" src=\"http:\/\/of.communityofjesus.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/blogflower-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"The Community of Jesus\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/feeds.feedburner.com\/~r\/TheCommunityOfJesus\/~4\/eFn8Ssi2Tkw\" height=\"1\" width=\"1\" \/><\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Renaissance Girl I am one of those people that struggles not to live on a merit system. Time and time again, I compare myself with those around me, and evaluate who gets what, and why I don&#8217;t have what &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/merit-or-mercy\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"1","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-583","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-paraclete-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=583"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/583\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.paracletepress.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}