Turning the body of Christ into the bride of Christ
Greetings in the name of Jesus:
From the very beginning of what we have been learning about the church we have seen a great deal of difference between what God has intended for us to be as a body of believers and what we as men and women have created. I think it is important that we begin by looking at what some of the principles are of our modern belief system that has been developed in today's church.
1.GOING TO CHURCH SERVICE: this is good in theory but it does very little for our life or our relationship with Christ. The basic principle of not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together with the body was to make sure that everyone was all right. In other words they watched out for one another's well-being beyond the service itself. For most of us if we were cornered and asked what our reason was for attending church services on Sunday chances are we would come up with some
prewritten, or memorized statement that we have heard about our need to continue to fellowship with one another. Very few of us however may be able to give a very heart felt reason for wanting to attend our local church services weekly. That tells me that for whatever reason the church has not done its job in giving us a good reason for that attendance. One of the things that we really need to understand is why we are worshiping God, and what is the expected goal we have in developing a relationship with him?
2.BIBLE STUDY: once more this is again good in principle, but the reason for studying to show ourselves approved unto every good work was to make sure that the student became a teacher, and that the teacher showed forth the fruit of their labor as a teacher. We have people who have set in Bible study classes for years that cannot teach the principles of Christ even to a small child. This tells me one of two things; either the church does not understand the principles and the reasons for studying God's word, or the person who is studying God's word is not there for the right reasons. We seem to have lost the concept of the Scripture that tells us to teach, baptize, and teach. The idea of studying the word of God is simply for our own growth, and the implementation of God's word into our own lives. Once we have begun to make what we learn from God's Spirit a part of our everyday lives several things happen to us. First we become changed as people in our minds and in our hearts toward the value of what God's word is to us. When are hearts and minds become transformed we begin to view life in a completely different way. The reasons that we study God's word, and the efforts we make to share God's word change. Our Bible study takes on a completely different perspective as we now begin to have a purpose for wanting to know God's word in order to live it out in a daily way, and also our teaching of God's word becomes a natural part of our witnessing to the world around us about what he has done for our lives.
3. THE WORSHIP AND PRAISE OF GOD: this principle is beautiful until it is directed by one person in such a way as to lead others to believe that there is only one way of worship that is truthful. We can find God in the middle of the Cathedral of trees, and the most dense forests as well as we can by gathering with a doctrine of belief. One really makes our value worship unworthy is that we dare to despise the value of worship among other groups whose worship we have refused to understand. For the most part not only do we refuse to fellowship with others whose worship service or whose style of worship may differ from ours, but we have refused to try to understand the value of their worship and the reasons they do so. There seems to be a real division and laziness in our churches and in our religious efforts that has caused us to lose the value of worship within our hearts as well. Satan must smile and our attempts to be the only way to God's heart every time we pursue doctrine or religion over the true worship of God. The enemy knows that by dividing us in this way he has ultimately defeated all we know of as the church through our desire to compete against one another and through any means necessary to be the first in the kingdom.
This then is the beginning place for us to concentrate on; it is in the core of why we do what we do in our churches today. It is seen by God the father not has the family that he established for us to be, but as a man made ripoff that is constantly trying to be controlled and manipulated by men. These are just a few of the examples of the difference between today's church and THE BRIDE OF CHRIST that Jesus is returning to take home. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
From the very beginning of what we have been learning about the church we have seen a great deal of difference between what God has intended for us to be as a body of believers and what we as men and women have created. I think it is important that we begin by looking at what some of the principles are of our modern belief system that has been developed in today's church.
1.GOING TO CHURCH SERVICE: this is good in theory but it does very little for our life or our relationship with Christ. The basic principle of not forsaking the assembly of ourselves together with the body was to make sure that everyone was all right. In other words they watched out for one another's well-being beyond the service itself. For most of us if we were cornered and asked what our reason was for attending church services on Sunday chances are we would come up with some
prewritten, or memorized statement that we have heard about our need to continue to fellowship with one another. Very few of us however may be able to give a very heart felt reason for wanting to attend our local church services weekly. That tells me that for whatever reason the church has not done its job in giving us a good reason for that attendance. One of the things that we really need to understand is why we are worshiping God, and what is the expected goal we have in developing a relationship with him?
2.BIBLE STUDY: once more this is again good in principle, but the reason for studying to show ourselves approved unto every good work was to make sure that the student became a teacher, and that the teacher showed forth the fruit of their labor as a teacher. We have people who have set in Bible study classes for years that cannot teach the principles of Christ even to a small child. This tells me one of two things; either the church does not understand the principles and the reasons for studying God's word, or the person who is studying God's word is not there for the right reasons. We seem to have lost the concept of the Scripture that tells us to teach, baptize, and teach. The idea of studying the word of God is simply for our own growth, and the implementation of God's word into our own lives. Once we have begun to make what we learn from God's Spirit a part of our everyday lives several things happen to us. First we become changed as people in our minds and in our hearts toward the value of what God's word is to us. When are hearts and minds become transformed we begin to view life in a completely different way. The reasons that we study God's word, and the efforts we make to share God's word change. Our Bible study takes on a completely different perspective as we now begin to have a purpose for wanting to know God's word in order to live it out in a daily way, and also our teaching of God's word becomes a natural part of our witnessing to the world around us about what he has done for our lives.
3. THE WORSHIP AND PRAISE OF GOD: this principle is beautiful until it is directed by one person in such a way as to lead others to believe that there is only one way of worship that is truthful. We can find God in the middle of the Cathedral of trees, and the most dense forests as well as we can by gathering with a doctrine of belief. One really makes our value worship unworthy is that we dare to despise the value of worship among other groups whose worship we have refused to understand. For the most part not only do we refuse to fellowship with others whose worship service or whose style of worship may differ from ours, but we have refused to try to understand the value of their worship and the reasons they do so. There seems to be a real division and laziness in our churches and in our religious efforts that has caused us to lose the value of worship within our hearts as well. Satan must smile and our attempts to be the only way to God's heart every time we pursue doctrine or religion over the true worship of God. The enemy knows that by dividing us in this way he has ultimately defeated all we know of as the church through our desire to compete against one another and through any means necessary to be the first in the kingdom.
This then is the beginning place for us to concentrate on; it is in the core of why we do what we do in our churches today. It is seen by God the father not has the family that he established for us to be, but as a man made ripoff that is constantly trying to be controlled and manipulated by men. These are just a few of the examples of the difference between today's church and THE BRIDE OF CHRIST that Jesus is returning to take home. May you richly bless God through your life in him.
THE UNWORTHY SERVANT
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