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It’s a Matter of Interpretation

March 11, 2014 by DoneWithReligion

So many times what we say and what we mean are two different things.

Take for instance the word church. Most of us think of a building where Christians meet every Sunday for an organized, pre-planned service of music, prayer and sermon by a paid pastor. In reality, church is better described by the word ekklesia. It’s people. It is people who are following Christ and allowing Him to live and love through them. Church isn’t a place, a building, or the house of God and it isn’t at a set time or day. Church is the body of Christ, each of us equally functioning as part of the body under Christ, going out each day and letting Christ live through us, loving others, accepting others.

How about the word Christian. We think of people who love God, go to church, pray, read their bible and try to do the right things. Actually Christian is a man-made word that originally was used to describe those who followed the teaching of Jesus and were doing the works of Jesus. Today, rather than being the true sense of following Christ, it is more widely known as a religion. Christians are considered people who believe in Jesus, go to church, follow specific rules, adhere to a set doctrine, pray, read the bible and try to get more people to come to their church. We think of Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindu and a host of other religions rather than a way of life walking with Jesus.

When we talk about prayer, we generally think of a pastor or godly person saying spiritual sounding words to God. Many times prayers are written out and followed word for word to make people sound more spiritual. Actually prayer is just talking. Like you would talk to a friend or relative, prayer is talking to God. Not only talking, but being quiet and listening for God to speak to you. Believe it or not, prayer is not spoken in King James English. It is talking to our Father like we talk to anyone else.

What about the bible. Of course our first thought is a book that God inspired men to write. If we look closer at John 1:1, we find that the Bible is not a book at all. “In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God and the word was God”. Actually, the Bible (the Word of God), is Jesus. He is the inerrant, all powerful, living Word of God. What we call the Word of God, the bible, is a book that is God inspired. It is words that show us the ways of men and the Way of God. Does that mean we don’t need to read the bible? Of course not, we can learn a lot about God and ourselves by reading it. What we don’t want to do is make the bible equal to God. The bible is not part of the trinity, it is a book. Again, God inspired, but humans still had a part in writing it.

The word worship is generally thought of as a time during the service when people are lead into song and outward praise to God by a leader or group, paid to lead people this way. The style of worship also varies greatly from group to group. Many people think worship are songs, or lifting of hands or dancing. A lot of people think of worship as a church service. Worship is a true sense of reverence and adoring praise to our Father. It is personal and does not need a professional leader to bring us to this point. It is a sincere and earnest thankfulness we have for God.

I’m sure there are many other words we could come up with that would fit here, but the main point being is it is not as important the word we use, but the true meaning. Jesus is the all in all. It doesn’t boil down to our doctrines, beliefs and man-made efforts. It’s following Christ, allowing Him to live through us and giving Him the throne of our lives. Jesus is the head of the body, the rest of us are equal parts with equal functions.

 

This Post was a Guest Post at Till He Comes website.
Visit the site here http://www.tillhecomes.org/what-christians-say-and-what-christians-mean/

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Love your Enemies…Really?

February 18, 2014 by DoneWithReligion

As christian people, we’ve always heard that we are to love our enemies. Do good to those who use you. Turn the other cheek.

The dictionary describes an enemy as a person who feels hatred for, fosters harmful designs against, or engages in antagonistic activities against; or an adversary or opponent.

So an enemy can go from someone who rubs you the wrong way all the way to someone who wants to literally kill you. How is it possible that we can love our enemies when we think about the more extreme sense of the word?

In all honesty, we can’t. In our own human ways, we are incapable of loving people like this. We have a hard enough time loving people who are different from us and not really even an enemy as described above.

In some cases we can make up our mind to look past someone who treats us bad. We can make sure to treat them in a kind way, help them when they have a problem, support them any way we can. We can walk away rather than argue. We can smile and be pleasant rather than give them a dirty look or flip them off. Sometimes it is within our human power to make a choice to treat others as we would like to be treated. There are other times when, in our own strength, it is just impossible to be loving.

Obviously we look to our role model, Jesus, and see how he lived. He truly loved people. It didn’t matter if they agreed with him, if they were despised by the general population, if they hated him, or if they put him to death. He loved mankind. He came with the purpose to show the love of the Father to a fallen world.

Without the love of the Father living within us, and with us staying out-of-the-way and allowing that love to come through, we will not be able to truly love our enemies. But, the power of the Spirit living within us is more than able to do what we can’t.

We have to come to an end of ourselves, just as in the case of grace. We are totally unable to keep the commandments and live a perfect life that God commands. The ten commandments are a tutor that leads us to the fact that we are incapable of fulfilling this requirement.

Thankfully the New Covenant took effect when Jesus died and rose again. The free gift of God’s grace cleansed us from our sinful nature and made us new creatures in Christ. Now, because of Him, we can love our enemies. We are now one with God and it is his spirit that loves through us, just as Jesus did when he was in his earthly body.

So, loving our enemies is mostly something we are unable to do apart from the love and strength of the Spirit that lives within us.

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Below is the link list for the February 2014 Sychroblog on “Loving Our Enemies.”

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One with God

February 13, 2014 by DoneWithReligion

A ​reader​ ​recently ​posted a reply to one of my articles, and it got me to thinking. We are taught from an early age in the christian religion that God is up there in heaven somewhere, looking down on us who live here on earth.

I can remember hearing so many times the pastor saying during a special service, God is going to show up and the spirit ​will fall, and we will have a special time of fellowship together.

So why is it we are told that God is up there and we are down here and he may show up now and then when the conditions are right? It just didn’t make sense.​

After some time ​of thinking about this​, it just didn’t feel right to think that God is going to show up only at certain buildings where people meet at set times, with set programs. God sent his Spirit to live within us all the time​.

Jesus prayed in John 17 that we are to be one as he and the father are one. The Spirit lives within us, which to me says God lives within us. We are merged together with Him. We are one with God as Jesus is one with God.

​W​hen​ two people marry​, God says they become one. So it is with God and us. When we put our faith in him and accept his free gift of grace, we become one. We are no longer separate individuals, we are one with God. We aren’t God, but we are merged together as one. We are the temple,​ or house of God.

I wanted a better way of saying what I felt, so I started saying I was a Christ follower. But as it ​was pointed out​ to me​, this still ​suggested​ a separation between God and us​.

​We have to get the religious thinking out of us and begin living the truth, that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. God is within us. There is no separation, no waiting on God to come down. We don’t have to follow and keep up with Christ. He is within us.​

We don’t have to wait until Sunday to go to a building for God to show up, that isn’t his house. We are the body of Christ, each of us are equally important parts. We are his dwelling place, each and every day.​

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Steps to Leaving

February 4, 2014 by DoneWithReligion

For those of us who have left organized religion, it seems most of us go through similar steps in the process.

There are the months or, in our case, years of dissatisfaction and questioning. My wife and I knew for a long time something wasn’t right, 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 the option to stop attending church is very much part of our thinking, the next step was to really question ourselves. Thoughts like, are we really Christians, are we backsliding, are we losing our religion (losing your religion is a good thing). We began to feel something was wrong with us and wondered what others were going to think.

Next was the decision to stop attending something we felt was way off base from what true Church should be. Then there were feelings of keeping this to ourselves. Don’t tell anyone, just stop attending and keep it to yourself. In our case that was easy. We had been a part of an organized fellowship for a few years, but never got involved in other activities. It was a larger group of people and we didn’t do anything outside the normal Sunday morning show….service. This made it much easier not having to explain our actions to anyone else. To those of you who have made this decision and were active members, even pastors or so-called leaders in the church, we applaud you for making such a stand.

Next came the ‘us vs. them’ mentality. We wanted to look at the organized church almost as an enemy. We wanted to 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 didn’t want to hang around with those still stuck in the religious game. Obviously this isn’t the way to feel or treat people.

The next step was realizing God loves all people. Not just those outside the walls of the organized church. He loves us all, no matter what line of thought, doctrine, religion or lifestyle we choose. Jesus came to love people and show each of us the love of God. Finally we came to love and accept everyone. We no longer care what people think of our decision, we just want to love and accept each of them.

We are sure this isn’t 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 with walls and focus more on the Church (ecclesia) made not by hands, but by God. A group of people who are saved by grace, following Christ, equally a part of the body and equally important to the body, and touching others day by day with the love of God.

We are all on different steps in life and fellowship, but we know that God is with us and leading us each step of the way. Keep the faith, keep your eyes on Jesus and be the Church each day of your life.

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A new year, a new beginning

January 21, 2014 by DoneWithReligion

As 2013 came to an end, my wife and my participation with the organized church also came to an end.

After so many years of feeling dissatisfied with organized religion, we decided to make a break from the traditions, rules, regulations and doctrines we each grew up learning.

It can be a scary decision to stop attending something that has been part of your life since you can remember. So many friends don’t understand why we made this decision. So many people who feel we are wrong and have fallen from grace.

Now let me say, neither of us think there is anything wrong with participating in organized fellowship. We do think we need to call it as it is, church is not a building or place we meet God. The Church is made up of each of us followers of Christ and it is a life-style that goes on day by day, anywhere, anytime.

God says we are now His temple and He lives within us, not a building made by hands.

Looking to the new year, we see it as a time of new beginnings with our walk with God.

We see this as a new start away from law-living and following man-made religion. It’s beginning a path walking with Jesus as our friend and partner in the grace and freedom He provided.

It is a walk consisting of loving God and loving others. Accepting all those we come in contact with each day. It is not a set of rules to follow, or things we need to do to be a better Christian.

It is coming to realize that what we do or don’t do, does not make a difference in our relationship to God. It is letting Christ live through us and letting His love touch people. It is knowing that Christ paid the price for our salvation and learning to live by grace, and grace alone, not by adding law and works.

After so many years of ‘going to church’ each Sunday, we don’t know for sure where the path will lead us in this new walk, but we know that we both feel closer to God. We feel a new dependency on fellowship with our Father and with fellow believers. We also feel a renewed sense of excitement now that we are out of the box of organized religion.

We look forward to see where God takes us and how He will touch people with His love as we walk with Him day by day.

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We are starting the year off with the theme of ‘New Beginnings’.  Here is the list of links for this month:

Jen Bradbury – Enough

Abbie Watters – New Beginnings

Cara Strickland – Bursting

Carol Kuniholm – Acorns, King, Beloved Community

Done With Religion – A New Year, A New Beginning

Kelly Stanley – A Blank Canvas

Glenn Hager – Overcoming The Biggest Obstacle To Reaching Your Goals

Dave Criddle – Get Some New Thinking

David Derbyshire – Changed Priorities Ahead

J A Carter – The Year of Reading Scripture for the First Time

Damon – New Beginnings: Consider These 5 Questions Before Tying The Knot

Jeffrey Kranz – Where To Start Reading The Bible

Joanna990 – On survival – my one word for 2014

K W Leslie – Atonement

Happy – my One Word 365 surprise

Michelle Moseley – Ends and Beginnings

Matthew Bryant – A New Creation

Liz Dyer – It’s a new year and time to make some new mistakes

Edwin Pastor Fedex Aldrich – Foreclosed: The beginning of a new dream

Jennifer Clark Tinker – Starting a New Year Presently

Loveday Anyim – New Year New Resolutions

Loveday Anyim – New Year Resolution Dreamers

Loveday Anyim – New Year Resolution Specialists

Loveday Anyin – New Year Resolution Planners and Achievers

Jeremy Myers – Publish Your Book with Redeeming Press

Amy Hetland – New Beginnings

Phil Lancaster – New Beginnings

Mallory Pickering – Something Old, Something New

Margaret Boelman – The Other Side of Grief

Kathy Escobar – One Image

Sarah Quezada – Which Comes First: The Beginning Or The End

Doreen Mannion – When It’s Over It’s Just The Beginning

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What Do You Mean, Jesus Wasn’t a Christian?

January 16, 2014 by DoneWithReligion

Jesus wasn’t a Christian? How can you say such a thing?

Especially here in the USA, when we think of Jesus we think of Christianity. Actually Christianity is just another religion. Jesus didn’t come to start a religion. Men started calling those who followed Christ as Christians, but in our modern era, Christianity is thought of as a religion more than it is a lifestyle of following Jesus.

Jesus doesn’t belong to any particular religion. He loves and accepts people no matter what they believe. He came to show the love of the Father to the human race, not start a new religion for people to fall in line and follow.

If we mean Christian as being a follower of Christ, then there is nothing wrong with using this word to describe our fellowship with Him. If we use Christian as a sense of belonging to a particular church, following a particular doctrine and set of rules, then I would rather not have anything to do with that term.

Jesus is the Son of God, and He loves all people. He doesn’t see Muslims, Jews, Christians or any religion. He loves people. He sees people who need the love and acceptance of God. The only way people are going to come to true fellowship with God is through Christ…not Christianity.

It’s time we stop looking to the organized world of religion as our way of becoming acceptable and pleasing to God. We need to look to Christ and allow Him to live through us and let Him love all those we meet each day. Stop demanding that people come to follow your doctrine, your rules, your beliefs and accept people as they are. Show the love of Christ to them and let God work in them the way He sees fit.

We are never going to completely agree with each other on doctrine and religion. Only through Christ and the love He gives will we be able to love and accept others. Let us be known by the true sense of the meaning of Christian, being someone who is doing the works of Jesus, and letting Him reign as Lord of lords and King of kings.

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New Creatures in Christ

December 18, 2013 by DoneWithReligion

Colossians 3:5 Therefore consider the members of your earthly body as dead to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and greed, which amounts to idolatry. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you laid aside the old self with its evil practices, 10 and have put on the new self who is being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the One who created him, 11 a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and freeman, but Christ is all, and in all.

As followers of Christ, our old nature has been killed and buried. We have been raised up as new creatures in Christ. We no longer have to serve sin because Christ has set us free.

We have Christ living in us and we can rely on His power to overcome temptation by His strength. Even when we mess up, we can live a life free from the guilt and punishment of sin. (Not always the consequences, but the punishment has been satisfied).

When God looks at us, He sees Christ in us. We are now holy and righteous in His sight. Not because of anything we have done, but because of the work Christ did. We no longer have to work to earn salvation. It is a free gift provided through Christ.

In Christ, we are all brothers and sisters, there is no upper level or lower level Christians. We are all saved by grace, equal parts of the body and living under the headship of Christ. Christ is our all in all.

May we continue to grow in Grace and let Him have the preeminence.

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Note of Explanation

November 29, 2013 by DoneWithReligion

I wanted to post a short note of explanation about this site. I started this blog as a way of expressing my thoughts on different thoughts and ideas. I want to make it clear that this isn’t a teaching site. These are only my opinions and thoughts. I may be right, I may be wrong, but it is the way I am thinking at this moment in time.

My thoughts and interpretations have changed over the years, and I believe as God reveals His truth and teaches me, my thoughts and interpretations will continue to change.

I don’t want you to think I am trying to teach or push my way of thinking on anyone. I am only posting how I think and feel with the hopes of providing another way to look at something. I hope that it gets you to thinking and seeking God’s truth for yourself.

I also know that no matter what, we all won’t agree on everything. We are all free to form our own opinion and belief, based on the truth God is currently revealing to us. I don’t want arguments to overtake this site. A healthy disagreement or debate isn’t bad, but hard feelings and fighting are not what this site is intended to produce.

Try to read each article with these thoughts in mind. Let’s accept the fact that we are brothers and sisters in Christ, and although we have different interpretations and different ways of looking at things, we can accept each other in the love of Christ.

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to read my postings.

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My Journey to Leaving Organized Religion

November 13, 2013 by DoneWithReligion

My history with organized religion began back when I was just a little boy. My parents were active members of their church and once I was born, they started taking me and I’ve been a part of the organized church basically since that time. I was saved in the church when I was 10 years old during Vacation Bible School. I was active in one way or another for years and years, so when I say I’ve grown to see church in a different way, you will know I am not someone on the outside knocking church.

I grew up in a Christian family and was one of the kids who never got in trouble, didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t cuss, I was always in church whenever the doors were open. I actually got to thinking I might be one of God’s favorites….can you believe it?

Over the past several years, I’ve had a groaning deep inside about modern-day church. I’ve been feeling that something just isn’t right. What we call church today just doesn’t seem like what God intended.

I began going to church out of habit because it was the thing Christians do to show they were different than the world. I felt that if I didn’t do certain things that were considered wrong, and if I did good things and attended church, I would be pleasing to God.

People seem to make so much out of going to church. I noticed that Christians, myself included, seemed more interested in finding out where others went to church. If they went to the same type of church as we did, we felt they were alright. We would make sure and invite friends or non-Christians to church rather than talk to them about what Christ did for us. We felt it was the place of the church to do all the evangelism and witnessing. We thought that if we got them into church, the pastor would take care of everything.

I also spent a lot of time, as do a lot of people, working around the church or doing ‘church’ activities. It seemed like the more I went to church, or the more things I did, I felt like a better Christian. This is a problem today. People get more involved in working for the church, or for the pastor, that they no longer are doing things out of love for Christ, but out of love for things about Christ. Many people feel the more things they do for the church, or the more often they attend services, the closer they are to God. They feel guilty if they miss a service or are asked to do something for the church and they say no.

I started realizing that going to church was not the answer. There was certainly more to sitting there letting someone else tell me what God was saying through His word. I became very dissatisfied with the church and I kept telling my wife that there is something wrong with the way things are being done. Something just isn’t right.

Over the years I’ve seen all the fighting and arguing among church goers. If you go to a different denomination than someone else, seems like you just can’t get along because of the differences in interpretation and understanding of the Bible. I would think about the verse ‘By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another’ (John 13:35 NASV) and wonder where is the love?

I see the mega-churches with all the glitz and glamour and wonder why all that money is going into a building, the pastor’s car, house and all the other expenses churches seem to require. I realize most churches give to other missions and other ministries, but it seems a very small percentage of the total giving actually go to ministries that help others.

All this has been weighing on me and I’ve been more and more uncomfortable sitting in church for an hour every week, looking at the back of the head of the person in front of me, being entertained and preached too. Then I’m told that this is good Christian fellowship, although I haven’t really talked to anyone during the entire service.

I have been struggling for a long time with my feelings and wondering what was going on with me. Was something wrong with my fellowship with God? Was I getting tired of church and Christianity after all this time? I can’t say there was any one event that made me feel this way, but it was a progression of events, thoughts, praying, reading, searching.

After all these years, I just couldn’t make any sense out of sitting and being entertained for an hour and then going home thinking I had fulfilled my Christian obligation. So much of the teaching in the church today is more or less telling us what we need to do and what we need to stay away from to make us ‘good’ Christians. While sitting in a service listening to this, it hit me that all this sounds a lot like the Law. I was feeling good about myself based on what I did or didn’t do, and how often I was in church. I got to thinking, didn’t Christ fulfill the Law? Wasn’t he the perfect sacrifice for us? Didn’t he put an end to the Old Covenant and begin a New Covenant of Grace? Why was the pastor still telling us we needed to follow the 10 Commandments and do things to earn God’s love? It just didn’t make any sense. Especially when reading verses such as Galatians 3: 23-26 But before faith came, we were kept in custody under the law, being shut up to the faith which was later to be revealed. Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor. For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

For such a long time, I’ve wondered if the issue I was having about organized religion and modern-day church was a spiritual problem or not, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized I had a legitimate complaint of how modern-day church was going.

The way I see it, God said that we, His people, are the temple of the Holy Spirit. To me that says that God lives in me, not in a building. He says we are all sheep and He is the Shepherd, not the person we call pastor that gets up each week and talks about what they think the Bible says.

Don’t get me wrong, a lot of good things have happened in church over the years, and a lot of sincere people who love God and want to please Him are a part of organized religion. I feel the organized church of today is over emphasized, making people think that everything happens in church. We have to wait until Sunday for God to show up and do something. What happened to the fact that we, His people are the Church and we have a relationship with God every day. We can have an impact on those we come in contact with each day by the Spirit of God loving them through us. Why do we feel we have to get people to wait until Sunday to come to a building for God to do something?

Christians will dress up and act differently, saying they are going to God’s house, but don’t realize that God’s house is within us. God lives within us every day of the week and we no longer have to go somewhere to meet Him.

I also wondered why so many events and teachings of the church still seemed to center around Old Covenant living. We are saved by grace and nothing we do or don’t do makes a difference in our salvation. We can’t make God more pleased with us by doing things and we can’t make him not love us for not doing anything.

After some time of wondering and praying, I finally started coming across various other people, through books and web sites, that were feeling the same way as myself. I would read something that really agreed with my spirit and think, wow, that is exactly the way I’ve been feeling.

I think for me three things really aggravated me with the church. One was how I saw the way people looked up to the pastor and the leaders of the church. It seemed like they were almost on a different level than the entire congregation. That didn’t fit in with the verse ‘What is the outcome then, brethren? When you assemble, each one has a psalm, has a teaching, has a revelation, has a tongue, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 1 Corinthians 14:26 NASV). Jesus is the head, we are the body. We should be letting the Spirit teach us and lead us, not another human being.

The second was the worship leader. I felt like he was telling me how to worship, when to raise my hands, when to do this and do that and basically trying to make me feel guilty if I didn’t respond. What happened to people responding out of genuine love for God and not because someone is trying to pump it up to make the worship team look good.

And the third is tithing. Tithing is an Old Covenant law and is no longer a requirement for living in Grace. I agree, we give out of love and according to how we feel God is leading us, but tithing as part of the law is done. The way I see it, the clergy needs to get paid, the mortgage has to be paid, the staff has to be paid, so they lead people on by saying tithing is still required and that just isn’t right.

My wife and I have stopped attending services for almost two years now. I have come to realize that what we call church is a good place for Christian people to get together socially, but it is not God’s house and it is not the Church. I know we need to continue to have fellowship with other believers, and pastors like to use the verse forsake not the assembling of yourselves together (Hebrews 10:25 NASV), but no where does the Bible say that has to be in a building on a certain day. Christians can fellowship anytime, anywhere. As the Bible says ‘for where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst’ (Matthew 18:20 NASV). I’ve heard of Christian groups meeting for Bible study in a bar as a witness to those who normally go there but who would not dream of walking into a church. Before we condemn this type of thing, we need to remember that Jesus, the Great Physician went to the sick. He didn’t wait for them to come to a building on a certain day. He went to the people who needed Him.

At times I still battle over leaving the church or to stay involved from time to time. I have so many friends that are part of the organized church and they just don’t understand my feelings. It’s almost as if I am out on my own when it comes to my friends and it makes me feel like it would be easier to keep my mouth shut and keep on attending services like normal. The problem with this feeling is, am I trying to please men or am I trying to follow the leading of the Spirit? I am fortunate to have my wife and a few good friends to meet with every other week who have the same feelings. I now know in my mind that I have not truly left church because I am a part of the Church, which is not a building we go to, but is the people of God who are saved by grace. I know that fellowship with other believers can take place anywhere and anytime. I am part of the Church every day no matter where I am.

If Jesus walked the earth today I’m not sure we would find him in church. He would be out meeting the people who most of the church crowd would not want to be associated. It was the religious leaders who were His biggest enemies in times past. I’m not sure it wouldn’t be the same today.

This post was a Guest Post at Gods Leader
You can view it at http://godsleader.com/my-journey-leaving-organized-religion/

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Different Paths, Same Leader

October 10, 2013 by DoneWithReligion

After being in the organized church for well over 50 years, and seeing all the different denominations, beliefs, interpretations etc., one thing makes me sad. That one major thing is to see so many followers of Christ fight and argue over the different paths we take in our christian walk.

Now that isn’t saying the all roads lead to God, but while trusting in God and following Christ, we are going to take many different paths during our life here on earth. They are going to be different from other followers of Christ, but we are following the same Christ.

Those of us outside the institutional church should not divide and separate ourselves into the ‘in church’ and ‘out of church’ groups. In the same manner, those who are part of the modern day church should not look down on and separate from those outside the institution. We need to accept that we both love God and are following Christ along the path he has for us.

I think this is what working out our salvation means. Not that we have to work to earn our salvation, but we continually learn as we follow Christ in our salvation. We, as Christ followers, will take different paths in our walk with God. We shouldn’t expect everyone to walk the same path.

And I hear those of you who even want to argue over the phrase ‘Christ follower’. I’ve had people correct me for using that phrase. By using it I mean Christ is living within each of us, and we walk with him and let him live through us. We are following along with him and not out doing our own thing.

As brothers and sisters in Christ, we are to love one another, encourage and build up one another. We aren’t to be continually expecting everyone to act like us and walk in the same way we do.

We are to be accepting, loving and kind to all we have contact with each day, and especially to those who are fellow believers. It seems we are more concerned about acting and believing the exact same things, and when we don’t, we want to fight, argue and separate ourselves rather than accept that God works in each of us in different ways. He made each of us differently, and he leads us along different paths as we walk toward a common destination.

Rather than expect everyone to be just like us, let’s start loving one another the way Christ loved people while he walked the earth. Let’s not let different interpretations and ways of walking with God be a stumbling block to a loving fellowship with one another.

Besides, we aren’t going to lead anyone to a relationship with Christ when all they see is arguing and disagreements among brothers. We aren’t going to draw people insisting they conform to our way of thinking and following our rules and interpretations. The only way people will know we have something worth checking out, is when they see brothers and sisters in Christ loving one another, caring for one another and building each other up.

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