Dividing ourselves
Greetings in the name of Jesus:
What happens in the process of dividing ourselves in the cell groups of people who worship differently? Those who concentrate on certain areas of worship and gifts above the principles of growth in the knowledge and the plan of what salvation really means? It simply means that we are following ourselves and we are being led away from the main objective that God had in the church.
Our first duty is to teach the flock about the basics of salvation in Christ Jesus so that they are not led astray by teachings that are too deep for them to understand. In this plan of salvation are we striving to go further and go deeper in the things of God? YES! But not at the expense of dragging others along with us who cannot digest that truth yet. I am convinced that there are many baby Christians who do not understand the principles that many of us teach and preach yet who are too embarrassed to say please explain it to me because I don't understand. It is those people who in turn form ideas and philosophies themselves about the teachings that we give them that are mostly truth but not all truth, and it is our fault.
What does that mean to the carnally minded man in Christ? Like it or not when we first come to Christ we come to him as babies. We are babies in Christ first, or undeveloped Christians. We are people who still think with the senses of this world and not the mind of Christ. We are people who have been saved; yet as Paul says they were in Christ long enough to walk upright Christ, but who still walk as men of the world and who barely are indistinguishable from the rest of the natural or unsaved men of the world. One of the things that we should strive for the most is to be in harmony with one another. That's the same thing as being in unity. Paul speaks of the main issue here as being with the Body should be in harmony and not in competition with itself. Once again Paul uses the concept of husbandry to make his point that we are all striving for the same goals in Christ, and we must act as one body in the course of our effort. If we do not do this as a body united the rewards of our work, as individuals will be lost in the aftermath of the struggle and strife that will follow. When Paul speaks of rewards here he isn't speaking of salvation but in Romans 3:10-18 the quality of our service (of what sort it is) and whether or not it will be lasting becomes the main point.
As in almost all cases Paul does not let himself off the hook by just making the accusation, but he gives a clear challenge to the people to use his life as an example of what they should do. It is time that we stood up to the plate and really assessed our own situation as individuals. Do we consider ourselves as mature Christians? If we do then we have a responsibility as to what we teach others and what we share with those around us so that they are correctly developed in Christ and not led astray by a teaching that they do not yet understand because they are unable to digest it in Christ. If we are not as developed as we think we should be in Christ is our responsibility to seek growth by questioning those things that we don't understand until we can grasp what the Spirit teaches us about them. Our Christian growth is not automatic to the time that we have spent in Christ, and therefore we need to continuously assess where we stand in our growth patterns. It could easily be that we have gone astray somewhere that we did not intend to just because we have not taken the time to grow properly as Christ is taught us that we should. It all comes down to how much control we allow ourselves to give God's Holy Spirit. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
What happens in the process of dividing ourselves in the cell groups of people who worship differently? Those who concentrate on certain areas of worship and gifts above the principles of growth in the knowledge and the plan of what salvation really means? It simply means that we are following ourselves and we are being led away from the main objective that God had in the church.
Our first duty is to teach the flock about the basics of salvation in Christ Jesus so that they are not led astray by teachings that are too deep for them to understand. In this plan of salvation are we striving to go further and go deeper in the things of God? YES! But not at the expense of dragging others along with us who cannot digest that truth yet. I am convinced that there are many baby Christians who do not understand the principles that many of us teach and preach yet who are too embarrassed to say please explain it to me because I don't understand. It is those people who in turn form ideas and philosophies themselves about the teachings that we give them that are mostly truth but not all truth, and it is our fault.
What does that mean to the carnally minded man in Christ? Like it or not when we first come to Christ we come to him as babies. We are babies in Christ first, or undeveloped Christians. We are people who still think with the senses of this world and not the mind of Christ. We are people who have been saved; yet as Paul says they were in Christ long enough to walk upright Christ, but who still walk as men of the world and who barely are indistinguishable from the rest of the natural or unsaved men of the world. One of the things that we should strive for the most is to be in harmony with one another. That's the same thing as being in unity. Paul speaks of the main issue here as being with the Body should be in harmony and not in competition with itself. Once again Paul uses the concept of husbandry to make his point that we are all striving for the same goals in Christ, and we must act as one body in the course of our effort. If we do not do this as a body united the rewards of our work, as individuals will be lost in the aftermath of the struggle and strife that will follow. When Paul speaks of rewards here he isn't speaking of salvation but in Romans 3:10-18 the quality of our service (of what sort it is) and whether or not it will be lasting becomes the main point.
As in almost all cases Paul does not let himself off the hook by just making the accusation, but he gives a clear challenge to the people to use his life as an example of what they should do. It is time that we stood up to the plate and really assessed our own situation as individuals. Do we consider ourselves as mature Christians? If we do then we have a responsibility as to what we teach others and what we share with those around us so that they are correctly developed in Christ and not led astray by a teaching that they do not yet understand because they are unable to digest it in Christ. If we are not as developed as we think we should be in Christ is our responsibility to seek growth by questioning those things that we don't understand until we can grasp what the Spirit teaches us about them. Our Christian growth is not automatic to the time that we have spent in Christ, and therefore we need to continuously assess where we stand in our growth patterns. It could easily be that we have gone astray somewhere that we did not intend to just because we have not taken the time to grow properly as Christ is taught us that we should. It all comes down to how much control we allow ourselves to give God's Holy Spirit. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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