June | 2012 | Done with Religion

Archive for June, 2012

Love Each Other

Posted in Acceptance of Others, christian living, Community, The church, tagged acceptance, Christian, church, denomination, doctrine, freedom, love, religion on June 29, 2012| 1 Comment »

Do you read many Christian forums these days, or Christian blogs and all the comments made on the article?

If you are like me you may find them all very disheartening. In fact, I have about come to the decision to stop reading comments or forums at all.

When I read that in Bible times Christians were known by the love they had for one another, and then read all the arguments, disagreements, disrespectful comments on these sites it just depresses me.

I know we are not going to agree on all things. We all have our own interpretations and beliefs, but I thought we should be able to look past all those and still love one another and respect each other.

Here in the USA we have grown up in religious freedom and in a land of plenty and we Christians, me included, sometimes seem more like a bunch of spoiled brats.

I love the freedoms we have here and I love the freedom of religion, but sometimes I think the only way we are going to have close fellowship with God and true love for our brothers and sisters in Christ is when this country is under some non-Christian dictatorship. When we can not get a Bible, can not go to church, when we are afraid of being put in jail for our beliefs or worse yet being put to death because we proclaim Christ, it is then that we will forget all our differences in interpretation and doctrine and will come to have real love for other Christians.

I do not want to see it come to that. I wish that all of us Christians, no matter what denomination, what doctrine we hold to, whether we are a part of the institutional church or if we do not attend a church at all we can come together because of our love for the Father and love for one another.

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Be Holy

Posted in christian living, tagged freedom, holy, law, religion, righteous on June 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

1 Peter 1:16 – because it is written, “you shall be holy, for I AM holy.”

I used to read this verse and think of it as a command. I thought God was telling us we had to live a holy life. Of course this made me wonder how that could ever be possible.

As I became more aware of God’s grace and what all it means, I found my answer as to how to be holy.

God’s grace is a gift. Our sins were crucified with Christ when He died on the cross. Our old sinful nature was buried with Christ and we were raised up a new creation.

Because of God’s gift of grace, our souls are now made perfect. Our hope is fixed completely on the grace brought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ. We no longer have a soul that is sinful. We are a new creation in Christ.

Our soul has been made perfect by the grace of Christ. Our body and our mind are still in process of being transformed. As we allow the spirit of Christ to change and transform us, our body and mind will start to come in line with our soul. Of course, that will take a lifetime to complete.

I now realize this is not a command, but a statement. We are holy, because God is holy. Now that Christ has given us the gift of grace, we don’t have to live a Holy life by works, but God sees a perfect and holy soul within us.

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Love One Another

Posted in christian living, tagged Christian, denomination, freedom, love, religion on June 14, 2012|

Whether you are part of an organized religious organization, or what we today call church, or if you are not part of one, we as followers of Christ are the Church.

We should be able to get past our differences in doctrine and interpretation, get past what church we attend or if we attend at all, and focus on our love for God and our love for one another.

We obviously aren’t going to come in contact with every person in the world, but we are to be ready each day to allow the Spirit of Christ, which is within us, to reach out to those individuals we come in contact with each day.

All our organized services and plans to get people in to a service so the pastor can get the good word out will never make a huge difference. It is our job to go out into the world and live a life of love. Again, that doesn’t mean all of us has to become a missionary and go to some far off land. The people we come in contact with each day during our regular routine are the people we need to be showing love.

This is the way we will make a difference in our world, when non-believers see the love Christians have for each other and for God.