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Works or Faith

May 28, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

Galatians 2:16 – nevertheless knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the Law but through faith in Christ Jesus…….

We Christians sometime spend our time trying to obey the Ten Commandments when in actuality we do not need to be trying to keep the law at all.

GraceandLaw

We will go to church every time the door is open, tithe our ten percent, we do not smoke, drink, dance, go to movies, we look down on and condemn those who do not do what we feel the Bible commands. We feel guilty every time we mess up and think God is going punish us if we do not do everything we have been told is ‘right’ to do as Christians.

What happened to grace? What happened to being saved through faith in Christ and Him alone. It is not Jesus and baptism, not Jesus and church attendance, not Jesus and tithing, we are saved through faith in Christ and his grace. It is Jesus plus nothing. We have been restored to fellowship with God through Christ by his death and resurrection. That does not mean we just live our lives doing whatever we want, but we live out of love and in the freedom we have through grace. We do things because we love God and love others and no longer out of obligation or trying to follow the law.

Let’s stop laying all the rules and regulations on ourselves and others thinking that will make us better people. Let’s live in the power of His grace through the Holy Spirit, loving God and loving others, letting God lead us in the way He wants us to go and enjoying the right standing we have with our Father.

Posted in christian living, Kingdom of God | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments »

Church Abuse?

May 22, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

Many times when I mention that my wife and I have left the organized church, people assume something happened to hurt us or make us mad.

Just to be clear on this subject, neither one of us have ever been abused or hurt by the church. Neither one of us are mad about some event or some person at church.

After nearly sixty years in the organization, and after the last ten of those years feeling that something is not right with the system, we made the decision to leave and follow Christ outside the walls of religion. To be clear, that is our decision and we certainly do not expect everyone to agree and do the same thing. Many people are part of the organized religious system we know as church who truly love God and want to serve Him.

We believe the Church is a community of people and not a building nor a service held one day each week with paid professionals leading the service. We believe the Church is each of us who follow Christ and see him as the head. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and each of us are equally functioning members making up his body.

We believe forsaking not the assembling of yourselves means we need one another. We live each day having fellowship with those God brings us together with, no matter where it happens. We never truly found real fellowship when we sat in an organized service for an hour looking at the back of the head of the person in front of us. We believe true fellowship is not just sitting together with other people in a room, but it is daily loving, encouraging and praying for one another and meeting the needs of those we are able to help.

Church

The temple in the Old Testament was only a shadow of what was to come in the New Testament. God now lives in us as his temple, and he is our leader rather than another human being we call pastor. There is no hierarchy in the Church today. Each of us are equally important parts of the body and able to teach, encourage, build up and pray for one another. It is truly a priesthood of all believers, not a one man show. Those with specific gifts for helping the Church are not better or more spiritual than the rest. They are brothers and sisters who walk along beside those who need encouragement. They are those who have learned a spiritual lesson and are there to help those who are still learning. They are servants more than they are anything else.

So when I say that we have left the church, it is only the building and organization I am talking about. We left, not because we were mad or hurt but because we believe the religious system most people call church is far from what God is building. He is building a group of people who will daily follow Him outside the walls of religion and organizations of men, loving God with all their heart, soul, strength and mind, loving their neighbor and accepting all they meet along the way.

Posted in christian living, Community, The church | Tagged , , , , , , , | 18 Comments »

Frustrated with Christianity

May 19, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

Have you ever felt frustrated with modern-day Christianity? Obviously the church today is not what God intended and in America the church has become a big corporation more than anything.

On the other hand, no matter what church or Christian group you belong to it seems we just cannot accept each other. We always have groups that say one thing and then along comes another that says something completely different. Then one group gets mad and argues their point and it just seems fruitless to continue debating one another. One group says this is the way to do it, the other says no your way is wrong but our way is the way to do it.

grouparguing

Obviously this is not to say that the advice of trusted Christian friends should be avoided, but the continual arguing over differences, doctrines and interpretations should be something we stay away from at all costs.

I am at a point where I am frustrated with this type of Christianity and ready to say forget it. God loves me. There is nothing I have to do or stop doing to receive God’s love. I am saved through faith in Jesus Christ and I have the Holy Spirit living within me. I do not have to listen to this group or that group, this speaker or that preacher. God can guide me in the way He wants me to go and I no longer should worry about my reputation or what others think as long as I am living pleasing to my Father. Does anyone else feel this way too?

I really think if we accept God’s love for us the way we are, follow Him by being willing to do what He wants us to do and listen to the guiding of the Holy Spirit within us we will be OK no matter what others say. We no longer have to be tossed to and fro by listening to all the different voices in Christianity today. We need to listen and trust God and enjoy the fellowship we have with Him through Christ.

Posted in christian living, The church | Tagged , , , , , , | 65 Comments »

Showing Love

May 11, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

In our world today there seems to be a lot of talk in the Christian world of standing up for our beliefs and doctrines. It seems we feel this is the best way to show our devotion to God and be a witness for Him.

I am not so sure we are going about this in the correct way. As Christians we are getting to be known more for what we are against and being unloving rather than showing the love of God to others.

A lot of us go to a church building on Sunday and sing and smile and listen to a sermon and think we have fulfilled our duties for the week. All day we are feeling good and close to God and think everything is good.

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Then Monday hits and we go grudgingly off to work with a frown on our face and feeling down. We may be in a bad mood and snap at our fellow employees and try to make them feel as bad as we do.

It seems we forget that Christianity is not a religion or a one day a week life. As followers of Christ we are to let Christ live through us in the strength of the Holy Spirit. We are to let his love flow out of us to touch those we come in contact with throughout the day.

Rather than try to win people over to our way of thinking by pointing out their mistakes and shortcomings, rather than condemning them and making them feel like outsiders we should be allowing the love of Christ to touch them. We should be accepting and treating all people like we want to be treated.

While Jesus lived in bodily form on earth he constantly spent time with those the religious crowd would not even think of being around. He spent time doing things that the religious leaders thought were wrong and against their religious laws. They could not even accept him as the messiah because he was so different from them and what they thought was a godly way to live.

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Jesus accepted people for who they were, just the way they were and did not show condemnation toward them. As followers of Christ we are to do the same. It is not our job to be the judge of others, pointing out their sins and mistakes and treating them like second class people. The Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin where conviction is needed. We do not need to do the job of the Holy Spirit, we are here to be Jesus to all people, loving, accepting and treating everyone with respect no matter who they are or what they believe.

In our world today with all the discrimination and unloving ways of the world and even of the Church, we need to allow the Holy Spirit to love through us to touch others and let them know they are accepted and cared for, and in God’s eyes they are loved beyond measure. Love is the way of God because God is love. Stop the unloving and condemning attitudes and let those you come in contact with each day know they are loved and accepted just for being themselves.

Posted in Acceptance of Others, Community, The church | Tagged , , , , |

This is Discouraging

May 1, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

You know what bothers me? The way we christians cannot get along. I am not talking about getting along with those outside of our beliefs and our way of thinking, we cannot get along with fellow christians. We are to love those who think and believe differently also, but we are to be known for our love for fellow believers.

Now I do not expect everyone to agree with each other. God gave us minds and personalities and we are all different. But as I read different blogs and postings I see a trend sometimes that is more than just disagreeing. It seems to get down right ugly.

We Can Disagree without Getting Mad

Obviously we are going to disagree on things, but can’t we disagree and yet respect and love the other person? It discourages me so much when I read a blog and go through the comments and see disagreements that turn into arguments. It gets to a point sometimes that I have to get away and stop reading.

I always wonder why it is we just cannot accept the views of others and go on. Seems like a lot of people really get upset when they cannot get someone else to think the same way they do. We have to go on and on trying to prove our point or our way of thinking.

I know when you write a blog you are opening yourself up to comments and disagreements, but do we have to go to some of the extremes of getting mad and losing our tempers because someone else has a different viewpoint.

LovelikeJesus

Are we not being just like the worldly crowd, fighting, arguing and expecting others to see things our way or else? What happened to being known as Christians by the love we have for one another?

Humans are never going to agree with others on every point, but we who are following Christ should be able to disagree with our brothers and sisters and yet do so in a way that non-believers will still be able to notice the extreme love we have for God and for one another.

Posted in Acceptance of Others, christian living, Community, The church | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments »

The Word – Written or Living

April 21, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

When we speak of the Word of God we are not just speaking of written words. The Word mentioned in the verse above is talking about Jesus, the Living Word.

TheWordisJesus

So many of us focus on the written word and which version is the true word of God. This verse states that the true Word is not a book, but is Jesus who is alive and living within us through the Holy Spirit.

If we were never again able to read from the Bible or hear it read to us, we still have the Living Word of God within us to teach us and guide us.

We can learn and be encouraged when we read the Bible no matter which translation we prefer, but we need to remember that the Bible is the inspired words of God written by men over a long period of time. The living Word of God is Jesus who lives within each of us through the Spirit.

We can read the words on the pages of the Bible, but it is only by the Living Word within us that gives life and power to the words we read.

Posted in christian living, Word of God | Tagged , , , | 2 Comments »

True Freedom

April 19, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

We Christians like to make things so much more difficult on ourselves with constant effort trying to follow the ten commandments, tithe, church attendance, do this, do that, don’t do this, stop doing that. We have the mentality that in order to be approved by God we have to obey the law and be busy doing things for Him. We think that by doing these things we feel better about ourselves and are more spiritual because we are doing something for God.

Galatians 2:16 and 20 make it plain that we are not justified by the works of the law but we are justified by faith in Christ. Jesus lived a perfect life here on earth. He fulfilled the law, the rules and regulations that God required for a person to be perfect. By doing so, when Christ died on the cross he was qualified to be the perfect sacrifice that would do away with our sinful nature. When He died He fulfilled the law, or the old covenant. He said ‘it is finished’ meaning the old agreement was complete and done.

Finished

When He died and rose again he paid the penalty for our sins and set us free. We were spiritually crucified with Him. Now all our sins are forgiven and the sinful nature is dead and buried. We are now raised up as new creatures in Christ and live as the righteousness of God because of the free gift we received through Christ.

We no longer live according to the old covenant and trying to live up to the law. We no longer live trying to do enough good works to be worthy and earn our salvation. We are now free in Christ and we live each day by faith in Him. We live out of love for God because of the grace that was given to us by Christ. When we continue to try to follow the ten commandments and Old Testament law, we are saying that the death of Jesus was not enough to pay for our sins.

Enjoy the freedom Christ purchased for you. Don’t bind yourself to all the rules and requirements of the law. Live a life being free in Christ, and live it out of love for God and love for one another.

Posted in christian living | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments »

Religious Freedom Act? Is This Love?

April 12, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

I am becoming more and more angered over the so-called religious freedom acts being signed into law in various states across our country.

I know it sounds good, and I do believe everyone should have the freedom to choose their religious beliefs or to not accept any religious beliefs. Yet a lot of these bills sound more like discrimination to me.

When we sign into law a bill that forces one groups views on everyone, or when the religious beliefs of one group are forced on another group, that is not standing up for your faith…that is discrimination. When we can forfeit the normal human rights and privileges that everyone should be entitled too, just because they do not go along with one groups ideas of morality and normal day-to-day living, I think we have gone to far.

ReligiousFreedomAct

I can hardly believe in our modern time laws are being passed saying that if you have a certain religious belief, you do not have to give the same rights and consideration to a certain group of people just because they differ from you.

What happened to the teaching of Jesus to love our neighbors and do not judge. Do we not remember that Jesus spent time with the non-religious people and those who the religious crowd would not spend time.

We need to remember, just because people are different, just because we have different views and different faiths or no faith at all, God created us all and He loves us all. We, as his followers are to do the same.

We are not going to legislate christian morality. We are not going to convert anyone to our way of thinking by passing laws, especially those that discriminate against anyone. Remember, as christians we are to love God, love our neighbor, love our enemies, love those who hate us and mistreat us. The Holy Spirit is the one who will convict the world of sin where convicting is needed. We should stop trying to do the job of the Spirit and love one another in spite of our differences.

Posted in Acceptance of Others, christian living, Community | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments »

When All Speak Well of You… Did I Have It Wrong?

April 4, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

Have you ever questioned some of the things you were taught in church? I have been questioning a lot recently, but a couple verses have been on my mind and I am wondering if I may have been taught wrong or misinterpreted what is really meant. The verses are as follows:

Luke 6:22 Blessed are you when men hate you, and ostracize you, and insult you, and scorn your name as evil, for the sake of the Son of Man.

I was taught this verse was talking about living as a christian witness in front of non-believers and how that would upset them. They would insult you and say you were evil because you followed Christ.

The other verse is Luke 6:26 Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for their fathers used to treat the false prophets in the same way.

I was told this meant that I was not living as a good christian witness. All non-believers would speak good things about me because I was just like them. I was not living my Christian witness strong enough, pointing out their sins and mistakes. Living like them meant it caused no guilt on their part because I was not being a good Christian example.

The Religious or Non-Believers?

I have come to think I was told wrong about these two verses. I wonder, could it be that these verses are actually talking about religious people rather than non-believers?

When we read about Jesus and how he lived while here on earth, I see something different from what I was taught about living a Christian life. Jesus loved the people who most religious people would not want to be around. I was always told I had to separate myself and stay away from non-believers. I should be ready to point out why they were wrong and that they were on the way to hell if they did not change their ways. This is not to say all these people were wrong or terrible people, but in the eyes of other christian people they were wrong. Neither does this consider the verse saying the Holy Spirit will convict the world and draw others to the Father. It is not our job to convict and condemn, but to love.

DidIStutter

Funny, I just do not see Jesus condemning and staying away from anyone. Jesus loved all people, even those that religion tells me to stay away from. When Jesus spent his time around the people the religious people wanted nothing to do with, He was hated, insulted and called evil…..by the religious people.

Just maybe when men speak well of us, it may not be non-believers. Maybe this is talking about the religious people speaking well of us because we are just like them, religious, condemning, relying on good works and fulfilling the law, and isolating ourselves from the people they thought were evil. Maybe when we want to spend time with those the religious try to avoid, it makes the religious crowd mad and they will be calling us evil. That’s what they did to Jesus, so we can expect the same.

Posted in christian living | Tagged , , , , , , , | 12 Comments »

Leaving Organized Religion

March 30, 2016 by DoneWithReligion

For those of us who have left organized religion, I am finding a lot of us go through similar steps in the process.

There are months, or in our case, years of dissatisfaction and questioning. My wife and I knew for a long time something was not right within the church but kept thinking it was just us or the church we were attending. We would try different churches and find our feelings were the same.

Once we got to the point that we considered leaving church was very much a possibility, the next step was to really question ourselves. Thoughts like are we really Christians, are we backsliding, are we losing our religion? We began to feel something was wrong with us and wondered what others were going to think.

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Leaving church

Next was the decision to stop attending something we felt was way off base from what true Church should be. There were feelings to keep this to ourselves, do not tell anyone, just stop attending and keep quiet. In our case that was easy. We had been a part of a large fellowship for several few years but never got involved in other activities. We went to the Sunday morning service but did not attend small groups or any other activity. This made it much easier not having to explain our actions to anyone else because no one ever missed us. To those of you who have made this decision and were very much involved in all the activities, even pastors or leaders in the church, we applaud you for making such a decision.

Next came the ‘us vs. them’ mentality. We wanted to look at the organized church almost as an enemy. We would point out where they were wrong and why they were wrong. We wanted to associate only with those who felt the same as we did and did not want to associate with those still in the religious game. Obviously this is not the way to feel or treat people.

Acceptance of all People

The next step was realizing God loves all people not just those who attend a religious service every time the doors are open. God actually loves those outside the walls of the organized church no matter what line of thought, doctrine, religion or lifestyle they choose. Jesus came to love people and show each of us the love of God. We came to realize that we are called to love and accept everyone no matter what their beliefs just as God loves us. We no longer cared what people thought of our decision, we just wanted to love and accept each of them whether they are in church, outside the walls, or even if they are not believers at all. So many times while in religion we felt we were to love those who were believers, especially those in our own church. We now realize that God’s love is for everyone, not just Christians. We are to love and accept others just as they are, looking past the labels others put on them and seeing them as human beings.

We are sure this is not a complete list of steps, but it is as far as we are for now. We are thankful for the years we had in the church as we learned a lot and made a lot of friends. We are equally thankful for the decision we made to leave the church and focus more on the Church (ecclesia). That Church is made up of people who are saved by grace, following Christ, equally functioning parts of the body, and who touch others day by day with the love of God.

We are all on different paths in life, but we know that God is with us and leading us each step of the way. We continue to keep the faith, keep our eyes on Jesus, love others and be the Church each and every day.

Posted in Acceptance of Others, christian living, Community, Ekklesia, Jesus follower, The church | Tagged , , , , , | 10 Comments »

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