Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Posts Tagged ‘church’

What’s Wrong with Saying “I Don’t Know”?

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , , , on August 27, 2014| 6 Comments »

To those of us who have grown up in ‘church’, have you ever felt that you needed to know all the answers?

When a non-believer questions your faith, or asks something about the bible, do you feel you have to know the answer and be able to explain it to them?

I know I have always felt that way. Although the more I think about it, and the more I run into people who have all sorts of questions, I have come to realize that I don’t have all the answers.

Even my wife and I talk and have questions we can’t answer. We’ve come to realize that God is too big for us to have Him all figured out. If we don’t have all the answers for ourselves, how could we have all the answers for everyone else?

Basically, questioning is not wrong. I think we’ve been taught that we shouldn’t question the pastor, the bible, our faith, even God, but God isn’t afraid of our questions. What is wrong with us saying ‘I don’t know’?

Do not know

Admitting that you don’t know does not mean you aren’t a good ‘christian’. Admitting that you don’t know doesn’t mean your faith is shallow or we don’t believe God.

If we knew everything, what kind of a God would we be serving anyway? The Spirit will be teaching us during our entire life here on earth, and we still won’t begin to know it all.

While Jesus was on earth, he basically told stories and parables. A lot of the time, he did not give a direct answer. He usually asked another question rather than give a direct, set answer. I suppose if he gave a direct answer, we would have made it a basic doctrine by now anyway.

Don’t be afraid to question. That is the best way to learn. God is perfectly capable of guiding us to the truth in His timing.

Read Full Post »

The Two Shall Become One

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , on August 6, 2014| 7 Comments »

Marriage is an institution that’s been around since the very beginning.

Adam and Eve were married, although not in the traditional way we think of marriage. God joined them together and they became one. No ceremony, no pastor, no license.

Marriage was given as a representation of what God intended for His Church….humans becoming one with God.

Yes, God is not out there somewhere. He is right here, right now. When we accept His gift of grace through Christ, we become one with Him.

Just like the couples who unite in marriage become one, the Church, which means the people, become one with God. We aren’t talking about a building, but those who unite with God through faith in Christ. The true Church is not a building made by hands, but those of us who have had the old sin nature crucified with Christ. We have been raised up with Him as new creatures, and are now one with Him.

God isn’t up in heaven sitting on a big throne looking down on us. No, He is right here within us through the Spirit.

Jesus prayed to the Father in John 17 asking that we might be one just as He and the Father are one. Through the work Jesus did on the cross, we have become the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit of Christ lives within us and we have become one with God.

That doesn’t mean we are God, but His Spirit is within us. The Kingdom of God is within us.

We should focus each day on the fact the God is within us. We don’t have to go somewhere and hope He shows up. We don’t have to wait until we die to be with Him. He loves us and lives within us each and every day. We are living in the kingdom right now, daily in His presence.

In this world, it is by faith that we live the spiritual life, but when this earthly life is done, we will see naturally what is already taking place in the spirit.

Thank God for marriage and the joy we have in this world. Even better than that is the wonderful marriage between the Lamb of God and us, the Church, united as one.

Read Full Post »

What is Church?

Posted in christian living, Community, Ekklesia, tagged , , , , on July 18, 2014| 17 Comments »

My wife and I have for years ‘gone to church’ Sunday after Sunday. We sat in a pre-planned service, being entertained, listening to one person tell us what God was saying, and looking at the back of the head of the person sitting quietly in front of us.

Each week we sat there, not having the opportunity to say what was on our minds, no chance to talk and get to know our brothers and sisters sitting all around us. We were told we were having good fellowship and teaching, learning more about God each week.

Truthfully, we were getting so tired of this religious social club environment. We were not getting anything out of this experience, and we certainly were not putting anything into it…..other than our money when the offering basket went past. We have become tired of the religious enterprise with its pre-planned services, the CEO and board of directors, along with the gimmicks and programs designed to ‘bring the people in’, especially when we were told to go out into the world. We were feeling a lot like what our friend Kenn Bruner said in one of his postings… people “who are tired of a predictable and ‘business as usual’ mundane and mediocre existence as a Christian; those tired of sitting in a church pew Sunday after Sunday in their “comfortable and safe” place, bored to tears”.

What we are finding is that true community is believers living their daily lives with one another by caring, loving, assisting, encouraging, and building one another up. This is what is known as the true Church. It is fellow believers living daily for Christ, not a once a week trip to a building and sitting there for an hour. As Ken Eastburn said in one of his postings… “Organic house churches are different than Bible studies or small groups as to fellowship and caring for one another. Meeting together once a week to study and discuss the bible is fine, but an authentic family of God is different. It goes deeper. Coming prepared to meet the needs of others, even when it is inconvenient, demonstrates the love of Christ”.

We are followers of Christ, going about our normal daily business, living with Christ as our head….not a pastor. We live as one with Christ, letting his life and love touch others each and every day. We assemble with our brothers and sisters in Christ any day, anywhere. Sunday is not the Lord’s day, every day is the day the Lord has made. God’s house is not a building where we gather with people who believe similar to the way we believe. God’s house is us, His people, those of us who have accepted His grace. We are called to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves, not just those who believe like we do.

It has been good for my wife and me to stop being part of the Sunday morning crowd at the building of our choosing. It has us looking to God more, listening for His voice and allowing the Spirit to teach us rather than one man. It has us loving and accepting people as they are, not just those who believe like us. The Church is meant to be a community, living, loving and caring for one another each and every day. Although we have not yet found what we are looking for, we are trusting God to lead us and bring us into a community of believers he has for us. As Dan Notti said in one of his postings… “Believe God for it. Authentic community is God’s intention for believers. He has made the provision for it through the work of his Son and the power of the Holy Spirit, and He has the patience and love to stand with us as we experiment with living into it. Can we believe him for that”?

Read Full Post »

What You Do Does (and Doesn’t) Matter

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , , on April 29, 2014| 2 Comments »

I grew up in the church being taught that what you do, good works and good deeds, are very important. I’ve never questioned that teaching…until recently.

I began to wonder why works are stressed so much by the church. If we are living by grace, why do we need to worry about what we do?

Of course, after thinking about it and reasoning a while, I’ve come to some different conclusions.

Works, in regard to salvation, are not necessary. No matter what we do or don’t do, it doesn’t change how much God loves us, and it doesn’t have anything to do with our relationship with God.

So many people seem to think the whole Christian experience is based on how much we can do. All this does is put people on higher or lower levels in Christianity than others. Those who do many works sometimes look down on those who don’t do a lot and think lower of them. Those who don’t do a lot look up to those who are constantly busy and wish they could be more like them.

Do we really think people are positioned in God’s kingdom based on how much they do for God? After all, Jesus did all the work. He died so that we could be free and enjoy life in the kingdom.

Jesus wants us to be one with Him and one with each other. We are all equally important members of the body of Christ. When we focus on how many works we do each day, feeling obligated to do as much as we can, we end up being divided in the body of Christ.

In regard to our salvation, works do not make a difference whether we do a million good works or if we don’t do any.

Works make a difference when it comes to showing God’s love to those we meet throughout the day. The bible says to do our good works before men so that they would glorify our Father in heaven.

This type of works happens because of love. The Spirit living within us loves others and does the good works to show that love. There is nothing done out of obligation or rule keeping. When works are done out of necessity, they are basically dead works.

Works done through love by the power of God within us brings glory to the Father and shows His love to those around us.

Works will happen because we love the Father and because the Spirit dwells within us. If our works only come out of obligation or due to rule keeping, we might as well stop right now. If we do good works to earn our salvation, or make us feel like we are doing our part, we should stop and question our motives.

Jesus did all that was necessary and required for us to have a relationship with the Father. We can’t earn it or pay God back for it. We can accept the free gift of grace and enjoy living as one with God. Then let Him love others as His does the good works through us.

As with any part of our walk with God, it is because of love that we do anything. We are to be available anytime, anywhere for the Spirit to work through us.

Read Full Post »

New Life

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , on March 19, 2014| 13 Comments »

At this time of year, new life is a welcome sight. Trees start budding, plants start showing signs of life, the grass starts to green up. It is a good time of year.

Spiritually speaking, for my wife and myself, this is a time of new life also. Not in the sense of rededication or recommitting our life to God, but of a new way of looking at things, of new truths being revealed.

We both grew up in organized religion and followed certain doctrines and specific beliefs. After nearly 58 years in the system, our dissatisfaction with what we were seeing, and many questions we had about some of the things we had been taught, finally brought us to a point of leaving.

Having been out of organized religion for a year now, we have found that it is a time of new life for us. We have a new dependency on fellowship with the Father and with other brothers and sisters, even though it is outside the four walls of what we call church.

It is a time of new life in the way we think of church. What we had always thought of church is really not so. Church is the body of believers, each fulfilling an equal function in the body, with Christ as the head. It is not a building we attend once a week for a pre-planned religious service.

We have new life in our learning process, open to let the Spirit teach us and not settle for a specific doctrine or belief system based on what a particular denomination has told us. We had many things that bothered us and caused questions that just didn’t make sense, but we are finding new life knowing that God is within us and that we are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to rely on a man or woman to teach us. We can listen and hear the leading of the Spirit for ourselves.

We have come to realize the new life we have in the New Covenant. No longer do we need to try to mix the old covenant law with new covenant grace. We now depend on Jesus, and Him alone, as our all in all. He lives within his followers and is the living, inerrant Word of God. We have the mind of Christ, and the Holy Spirit within us teaching and guiding us.

We’ve found new life in fellowship. We had such a hard time finding true fellowship within the four walls. We’d sit for an hour looking at the back of someone’s head, listening to a man or woman tell us what they thought God was saying. Fellowship normally doesn’t happen at a typical church service. We’ve found more fellowship going about our daily business, knowing that God is within us. He brings other brothers and sisters along that we wouldn’t find while sitting in a meeting. We each have a small group of fellow believers that we meet with regularly and have really come to know what fellowship is meant to be.

We know everyone isn’t going to agree with what we are finding to be good for us. A lot of people want the organized meetings. There is nothing wrong with that if that is what you want for now. But we have found new life being outside of organized religion and traditional church. For us, this is so much better and we’re finding some of the questions that were bothering us actually have been answered. Some things make so much more sense now. Of course, there are still many questions, but rather than beat ourselves up over trying to make sense of everything, we’ve accepted that God is in control. We’re not going to know everything or have the answers to everything. We each learn over our life-time, and as God reveals new truths to us.

It is also a time of new life in the way we accept others and let Christ live and love through us. We can love and accept people the way they are. We can be loving and kind and not condemning. As followers of Christ, we are all at different stages in our walk with God.  We aren’t on different levels, as we feel all of us have equally important functions in the body, with Christ as our head.

Actually, each day is a time of new life. Stop looking to man, and man-made institutions to be your link to God. The Father says that we are now one with Him. Let Christ live through you every day and listen for the Spirit to teach and guide you as you go about your daily routine.

 

This post is part of the March Synchroblog, ‘New Life’, which can be viewed here
http://synchroblog.wordpress.com/2014/03/26/link-list-march-2014-new-life/

K.W. Leslie – Sin Kills; God Brings New Life
Carol Kuniholm – New Life. Mystery Fruit.
Jeremy Myers – I Get Depressed On Facebook
Glenn Hager – A Personal Resurrection Story
Loveday Anyim – Spring Forth – Ideas That Speak New Life
Loveday Anyim – Inspired By Spring To Create A New Life
Sarah Quezada – Post Winter Delight
Edwin Aldrich – Finding New Life In Our New Home
Doreen A. Mannion – Each Day A New Decision: Choose Life
Kathy Escobar – new life through nonviolent communication
Anita Coleman New Life, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, and Eternal Living
Sonja Andrews Persephone
Mallory Pickering New Life Masterpiece Theater Style
Liz Dyer New Life, Empowerment and Dropping Keys

 

Read Full Post »

It’s a Matter of Interpretation

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on March 11, 2014| 1 Comment »

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/

Read Full Post »

Steps to Leaving

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , on February 4, 2014| 5 Comments »

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.

Read Full Post »

A new year, a new beginning

Posted in christian living, tagged , , on January 21, 2014| 19 Comments »

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.

—–

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

Read Full Post »

Simple Truths from Outside the Walls

Posted in christian living, Community, The church, tagged , , , , , , , on August 23, 2013| 2 Comments »

I’ve read many articles about church abuse. Seems many Christians have been through bad times in the organized church and they have become angry and frustrated with the system. Certainly understandable.

For me, I can’t say I went through anything I would call abuse in the system. I grew up in church and was very active over the years. I truly felt I was doing what was pleasing to God and I earnestly was trying to learn and do what He would want me to do.

churchasbusescandal

So when I hear all the abuse stories and all the troubling times in organized religion, I don’t always understand. I know there are many people in the modern, organized church that truly love God and are trying to please him. I also realize there are many people who were unduly abused in various ways during their church life, and that is very sad.

For me, after several years of being unsatisfied with the system and feeling there certainly had to be more to it than what I had been part of, I dropped out of traditional church. Obviously this has to be something you feel is right for you, and I don’t think it is a good thing to tell people they should do the same. This is a choice that each believer has to make for themselves. I came to this conclusion after many years of seeing things, questioning things, reading things and just being completely frustrated with the system of organized religion.

I have no regrets in leaving, although I have no regrets for being a part of it for so many years either. I did learn a lot and made a lot of good friends. Of course because of the years involved, there are many beliefs and ideas I need to detox from now.

For now, feeling the system is wrong, I have decided to walk with God outside the walls of the organized church. Not that anyone is intentionally trying to do what is wrong but the whole modern-day organized church is off base. Granted, the system is the only thing we know. It’s been this way for years and we grew up with it and thought it was the way it should be.

We have it engrained in us that to assemble ourselves together is to go to church on Sunday morning and sit through a scheduled program. No where does scripture tell us that assembling together has to be done in a particular way, at a special time or in a set place.

We are told that the pastor is the spiritual head and he is who we learn from and come under authority and guidance. Of course God tells us that Jesus is the head of the church, which is his body, and the Holy Spirit is our teacher and we need no one to teach us other than him.

We are taught that we are saved by grace, but we need to live by the law to be pleasing to God. Reading through Paul’s teachings, it is easy to see that we live by grace, and trying to live under law is a curse (Galatians 3:10-13). Jesus fulfilled the Old Covenant and the Law for us because we couldn’t. Jesus did the work, Jesus died and ended the Old Covenant. Upon his resurrection, the New Covenant began and we now live by grace. The New Covenant commands are to love God with all our heart and love others.

The Law was a tutor to show us that we were completely incapable of keeping the law and living a perfect life. Only Jesus was able to live a perfect life. For us Christians, a tutor is no longer needed because we have come to Christ and depend on his work and grace.

We are taught that the Bible is the true, living, inerrant word of God. John 1:1 tells us that in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. To me that says that Jesus is the living Word. The Bible is the inspired words of God, but we are not to look to the Bible as the all-powerful, inerrant source of what God has to say. We should look to Jesus who is our all in all, our very life.

We are taught to tithe, although that is not taught under the New Covenant. Giving as we see a need and as we feel lead is now done out of love, not tithing to the church as a requirement. I personally feel the church today is more of a big business than it is a religious organization. Tithing is pushed because the organization needs to have the bills and the salaries paid.

We are told we are poor sinners saved by grace and that we are weak, unrighteous worms who are unworthy of God’s love. Now apart from God, we are nothing. We can’t live a perfect life and we were not worthy to be in God’s presence. BUT, because of Christ and the work he has done, we were given the gift of righteousness. Apart from Christ, yes, we were poor sinners, but through Christ the sin nature was crucified and we were raised up with him as new creatures. We are now the house of God, and we are holy and righteous in his sight because of Christ.

People want to put themselves under the authority of a pastor or the elders of the church, but God says we are all kings and priests and Jesus is the head. We all have something to say when we come together to build one another up. There are no levels of authority among believers. We are all equal parts of his body and have equal parts to play in encouraging and building one another up.

I think an important fact for us to remember today is that no matter if you are ‘in church’ or outside the walls, we should be looking to each other in love and not fight and argue amongst ourselves. Whether you are going to church, you are going for the Lord, or if you don’t go to church, you are doing so for the Lord. Accept each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, pray for one another, encourage one another, and stop looking down on people who see things differently than you.

Even those outside of Christianity need our love, not our condemnation. Jesus loved those who the ‘religious leaders’ of his day didn’t want to have association. We want our Christian church, Christian schools, Christian dating sites, Christian this, Christian that, whatever we can do to be separate and apart from the non-Christians, yet we were told to go into all the world. That certainly doesn’t mean we are to act like the world, but we do need to love all those that are around us.

LovelikeJesus

I truly feel that being a person in Christ is a daily lifestyle. Being the church is a 24/7 way of life, not a Sunday only thing. God said that He is building His church and that He no longer lives in buildings made with hands. We are the church, we are God’s house. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are the body of Christ. We function together as equal parts of the body under the headship of Jesus. We may be the only Jesus a lot of people will ever know.

We need to adjust our way of thinking and realize that church and Christianity are not a religion. It is a lifestyle we live day by day. Jesus is our life, it should be no longer us trying and doing, but resting in what Christ has done for us. We are in Christ and it is him living in us day by day that makes the difference.

Read Full Post »

We are holy

Posted in christian living, tagged , , , , on July 31, 2013| 2 Comments »

1 Corinthians 3:16,17 – Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? If any man destroys the temple of God, God will destroy him, for the temple of God is holy, and that is what you are.

The Old Covenant days of the temple are over. According to the New Covenant, we are God’s house, His Spirit lives within us. So many people say the organized church is where God lives, but this verse tells us that God is more personal than that. God can no longer be contained within a building. We are His dwelling place.

Each one of us who are saved by grace are now the temple of God. It’s so hard to get away from the thought that God is up there somewhere, or that we have to go to church and wait for God to show up. This kind of thinking is now obsolete.

These verses point out that the temple of God is holy, and that is what we are. We are His temple, and that makes us holy. Not by any works we have done or can do, but by the work that Christ has done. It’s hard for us to accept the fact that in Christ, we are holy and righteous. We are kings and priests. We were sinners, but the old sin nature was crucified with Christ on the cross. It is now dead and we are new creatures in Him.

We need to stop being so negative and depressed because we feel like we’ve let God down and unable to live a holy life. Actually, you can’t live a holy life, but God, through the grace of Christ, makes us holy. We are the righteousness of God. It is Him, Jesus our all in all, living through us.

Our spirit is now holy and righteous in God’s sight. Our mind is still being transformed and our body is still a work in progress, but thanks be to God, our spirit has been made perfect in His eyes.

Let’s start focusing on the fact that God is right here within us through His Spirit. We don’t have to go somewhere looking for Him, we don’t have to wait for Him to show up. Right now we are in His presence. He is the vine, we are the branches. Just rest in Him and allow Him to live through you to touch those around you each day.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »