Surely Christ represents all of these atonements and rituals.
I think Hebrews (in particular chapter 9) puts it best.
He 9:1-10 talks of the kind of rituals you are expounding
Now, I'm going to go out on a limb and assume you don't sacrifice animals on Yom Kippur, I'm merely suggesting that whatever you do on that day is of non effect as to your salvation as far as I can tell.
I doubt it displeases God, and if you want to do it, fine, but I'd hope you wouldn't try to argue that it's a Christian necessity :-/
For instance, though I was only born again in January and am not sure how I truly feel about it yet, I think that I will probably celebrate Christmas. I think I'd like to recognise the day Jesus was born, but I also recognise it isn't exactly specifically presented as a necessity.
In fact Easter is probably more important or even Pentacost (though less for the original meaning but because it was when Christ first sent his Holy Spirit to us)
Anyway I wouldn't wish to deceive anyone into thinking they have to celebrate or recognise any of these times to be assured salvation.
Unless I'm mistaken really the only 'ritual' if you like of this sort which Christ commanded was the 'The Lords Supper' of Mt 26:26-28, Mk 13:22-24 and Lk 22:19-20, which he did not specify as to when we do it, so I've always thought, any time and as many times as we can!
Sorry if this was not your intent!
Be blessed and may the glory of Christ shine your way!
Response to "Church Service- Church Worship Service"
Posted : 27 Sep, 2015 10:36 AM
God Bless you Brother George,
I understand your apparent frustration with regards to modern churches, it is difficult to find one which allows freedom of the Holy Spirit to work within it, like Paul described in 1Co 14:26-33.
But I'm sure I'm not alone when I wonder what your solution is Brother?
You seem to be denouncing the modern concept of church services, but not offering a substitution, are we to not meet at all as Christians? This surely cannot be acceptable to you?
Like I say, I to have become disillusioned with some of the churches I've attend, for various reasons, but I still want to gather with my fellow Christians, so I find myself (and my Brother with whom, God be thanked, I live) move from one church to another periodically!
Actually, we have been fellow-shipping at home only for the last two weeks, but this is not because we disbelieve in the concept of churches, just that we are waiting for God to find us one!
Are you aware of the (albeit not biblical saying) 'Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater'?
In your reply to Jude you said
---The Gospel does not require man to do anything, for Grace, and Faith which are necessary for FAITHING into Messiah are given by GOD Almighty.
Ephesians 2:8
For by grace you have been saved through faith; and [fn]that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; ---
Of course I agree but I just wanted to add that this does not mean that we should sit back and be idle regarding our commission
Ja 2
20 But wilt thou understand, O thou vain man, that the faith which is without works, is dead?
21 Was not Abraham our father justified through works, when he offered Isaac his son upon the altar?
22 Seest thou not that the faith wrought with his works? and through the works was the faith made perfect.
23 And the Scripture was fulfilled which saith, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed unto him for righteousness: and he was called the friend of God.
24 Ye see then how that of works a man is justified, and not of faith only.
25 Likewise also was not Rahab the harlot justified through works, when she had received the messengers, and sent them out another way?
26 For as the body without the spirit is dead, even so the faith without works is dead.
1Kings 17:7 And it came to pass after a while, that the brook dried up, because there had been no rain in the land.8 And the word of the Lord came unto him [Elijah], saying,9 Arise, get thee to Zarephath, which belongeth to Zidon, and dwell there: behold, I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.10 So he arose and went to Zarephath. And when he came to the gate of the city, behold, the widow woman was there gathering of sticks: and he called to her, and said, Fetch me, I pray thee, a little water in a vessel, that I may drink.11 And as she was going to fetch it, he called to her, and said, Bring me, I pray thee, a morsel of bread in thine hand.12 And she said, As the Lord thy God liveth, I have not a cake, but an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse: and, behold, I am gathering two sticks, that I may go in and dress it for me and my son, that we may eat it, and die.13 And Elijah said unto her, Fear not; go and do as thou hast said: but make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and after make for thee and for thy son.14 For thus saith the Lord God of Israel, The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.15 And she went and did according to the saying of Elijah: and she, and he, and her house, did eat many days.
Lord God, we thank you so much for your Word. It is a constant encouragement to us in our daily lives and we long for a deeper understanding of it so it can sustain us in our journey as we pass though this world on our way to your heavenly glory, in Jesus mighty name, amen!
I want to thank my Brother in Christ for giving me this interpretation which he himself clearly learned from the wisdom of the Holy Spirit.
In verse 9 the Lord says to his Elijah 'I have commanded a widow woman there to sustain thee.' Yet when we get to verse 12 she seems not to expect his arrival, she doesn't even appear particularly willing to help him, at first anyway.
So when God says that he commanded her, I believe that we are to take from this that he commanded her destiny, as well as that of Elijah. It was the Lord who put her in that place, as well as the Lord who lifted her faith up to the necessary level, in order to sustain his son.
Sometimes we might not even know what God has commanded of us until it is time for us to put our faith in him to the test. Let us take these verses as a prayer point to always let Gods commands govern our lives - even if we don't know fully what they are. And to always be ready to be faithful to do what he expects us to do.
So Lord we thank you for your commands and we ask you to keep on commanding us in all your ways, we ask you to raise our level of faith to the level you expect us to be at. Amen!
I believe I understand your disappointment with what the 'called out ones' as you would put it (I have no problem calling it that) or 'the church' as I would put it has become.
The problem is, this argument is one of semantics, are we arguing about what a concept means, or what it is called? Whether it be, the called out ones, the gathering, the Brotherhood, the Body of Christ or the Church...Sorry to quote from someone other than a prophet but it seems apt 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet'!
I doubt you would argue against a gathering of 'the called out ones' and if so, where are we to meet? Can we meet in a building? Can we have a time of worship in this building?
I do agree that some (maybe even a lot) of Churches have lost their way. We are in fact to expect this, there are plenty of allusions to apostasy within 'the called out ones' in the Bible.
If we denounce the idea of gathering together completely though, where would we be? Worshiping on our own and in danger of of falling prey to the enemy I think...
That all said though, I can appreciate your worries. I fear that most people who call themselves 'Christians' only do so on the basis that they 'visit a building' once, twice or however many times a week it may be...I personally never leave 'Church' Because I recognise the Church as what the Word describes it as, the body of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
The problem with the church building nowadays is that many people walk in to it, do their worship then walk out of it and apart from a little prayer before bed, carry on their lives thinking that their 'service' to God is done, and anything else they do in life is extra (like a little charity work here and a little good turn there). In Mk 10:21 Jesus wasn't asking us to give up our possessions for Him, but ourselves. He wants us to be willing to give up everything that we are all of the time. It is not good enough to just simply give up a couple of hrs a week but the whole week! And yes it is a sacrifice, but he gave his life for us so that we can be saved from the eternal damnation that we deserve.
It all sounds very strange to me, and though it's probably impossible to take sides as with so little information, I guess I find it difficult to believe that 20 members, one of them a 103 year old and another a Deacon, would be all at fault. But who really knows!
I also don't know what 'holiness style' refers to, I think all pastors should preach holiness, what other preaching is there?
As for falling about on the floor, well, I have heard of this happening at times. The Holy Spirit causes it, it can be a sensitive subject, some think it's a show perhaps. I believe it is certainly possible, never happened to me personally. But it wouldn't, on it's own, cause me to leave a church.
Anyway, there is plenty of scriptural evidence for apostasy and we should be very sensitive to the idea of churches being infiltrated by the enemy. I myself have had to (after much praying and trying to fight in the spirit) leave a church because of what I felt as attacks within it. I still pray for the church at didn't leave in bad terms, I think it's important not to sow discord...that's why this story is sad, not a good example of Christianity, sounds more like a political party than a church :-/
Transformation by faith, from conformity to renewal.
And be not conformed to this world; but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind...Ro 12:2a
If we could possibly look at ourselves at this moment from the Lords perspective and compare ourself to the 'finished work' (Ph 1:6) he has prepared for us to become, we may well ask this simple question, why doesn't he just change us right now? If we could truly answer this then we probably wouldn't need to be changed at all! But seriously, I think it's because God isn't as interested in us simply being what he wants us to be, as he is with us going through the journey to become what he wants us to be. The children of Israel wandered through the wilderness for 40 years in order to reach the promised land, a journey which may have taken less than 40 weeks. It certainly seems that God is not only willing and patient for us to embark on our own journey, but actually requires us to do so. Not only that he wants us to be the perfected work, but that he wants us to be aware of the change he brings about it us, the journey he takes us on.
We cannot truly know the purpose God originally created Adam and Eve for, but it seems that companionship is as good a guess as any. God walked amongst us in the Garden of Eden (Ge 3:8) and we clearly had numerous conversations which were recounted early on in Genesis. It is only logical that mans fellowship with the Lord was immeasurably more profound than it is for anyone alive today. So, other than trying to make it to heaven and of course win other souls for heaven, what more obvious mission could we have on this earth than to try to mend our relationship with our Creator? We need therefore to understand what it was that destroyed this relationship in the first place, of course it was sin, but what does sin do to our relationship? God is perfect, he cannot abide sin, so since we have sin in us, he cannot have the fellowship with us that Adam and Eve enjoyed before the fall. Sin is a barrier, an obstacle,
Unfortunately we often become confused by the types of obstacles that are in our way, let me explain. There seems to me to be two types of obstacle, firstly there are those things in our lives to which Paul is refering in Ro 12:2. These can usually be described as things 'in the world' which we become conformed into doing, another translation describes them as 'patterns' of this world. Things like becoming angry with our fellow man, becoming proud about certain things and even using profane language before it's too late to stop ourselves. God is more than able to work these behaviours out of our life. These are all unpleasant and Paul exhorts us to be transformed into people that do not do them any more. And as much as we should guard against outside influences in our worldly surroundings to prevent ourselves being further conformed to the world, it is actually more that we should have faith in Gods power to transform us from the inside out that will 'finish this work'.
This is however, I believe, where the danger comes in from our confusion about the other type of obstacle. This type of obstacle is simply, the enemy. I do not believe Paul was alluding to it in Ro 12:2, though he certainly does in other scriptures. There are many sorts of sin in a believers life which they may simply, entertain or allow. Things like adultery, intoxication, lying, covetousness...they seem usually to be covered by the ten commandments, sins which are premeditated. Sins which satan deceives us into giving in to, despite us knowing that they are against God. The problem is that we take these aspects of our lives as things which God can eradicate from our lives. God has definitely got a part to play, but that part is giving us the spiritual weaponry we need to fend the enemy off.
Essentially there are a number of steps we need to take to eradicate any of the obstacles in our lives which are hindering our relationship with God. We need to earnestly pray, we need to become more in the spirit whilst becoming less in the flesh and we need to grow in faith. This would be fine if sin were no more residing in our flesh, but unfortunately sin is still there, and it will be until our bodies die and we are given new bodies on the day of our Lord. The enemy gets to us through our sin and creates the desire within us to act that sin out. So if we confuse that 'act' as the type of obstacle which only needs prayer, spiritual growth, fleshly diminished and faith then we are likely to fail, if we are to succeed against satan we must become warriors in the spirit. In Ephesians 6:10-20 Paul is talking about just this kind of warfare and we must actively put defences up, we must be prepared for the enemy to come to us and rebuke him at every encounter. If we see these obstacles as something only in our inner man to be changed by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, then we are letting our guards down and allowing the enemy to tempt us with all manner of lies from the 'enduring grace of God' on one end of he spectrum to 'The limitations of our own faith' on the other.
We are children of the light, we are the sheep of his flock, if we truly believe that satan is real, then who is it that we think he is going after? Do we think he is going to waste his time on those who are already lost or those who are saved? Be prepared, God will not reward those who ran the race well only to by lured into sin at the end any more than he will deny those who sinned all their lives only to repent at the end.
