Church Division

Church Division.......

How can WE the Church succeed at the mission of spreading God's word if we are divided? What I mean is, how can the Word of God be spread as He wants if we are divided and conquered.  I say the modern day church is divided and conquered because my experiences show that there is more pride in being tied to one's denomination of choice vs  being a Christian, or child of God.

When people are asked, "what's you're faith/religion?", the general response given is "I'm of catholic, baptist, protestant, methodist, etc faith!"  Your choice of denomination IS NOT YOUR FAITH!!!  Our faith is being a child of God, end of story!

The church is so hung on denominational beliefs that the denominations can't and in a lot of cases will not co-exist for the common good of their communities, or to spread God's word in proficient manner. Politics, hierarchical design, and a few other things have allowed the church to be viewed as a corporation, which to me is a sin, and a mockery of the church Christ let behind for us. The difference between each denomination is set in their doctrines primarily.  I have no issues if Jim, Erica, Kelly, Wade, and I want to praise God differently, within reason. My issue is simple, Jesus nor God ever gave us the denomination. The command was to spread the Gospel to all inhabitants of the Earth, not go divide God's people, the church.

The church is conquered by greed, deceit, and ego...... all the qualities of Lucifer, the Antichrist.  The division of the church has allowed him to enter and corrupt a lot of the church. More and more we hear stories of theft, child abuse, and all sorts of other negativity coming from the church, and less about good deeds.  Granted, a great of this is because the media reports on the negatives and omits a large part of the good the the church does. However, there is still more negative everyday.

We all need to reunite a 1 church in, of, and for God, the spread of the Gospel, taking care of our communities and uplifting each other, and to change the common view of the church these days by acting like children of God should, as well as put God back as head of the church, and make ourselves available to His will, and allow Him to guide us and use us.  I close with the following Scripture, Matthew 16:16-25. Please please please, I pray it be the Lord's will that we as the church can fix our issues and become more like the vision he left behind.

¹⁶ Simon Peter answered and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

¹⁷ Jesus answered and said to him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven. ¹⁸ And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it. ¹⁹ And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed^[a] in heaven.”

²⁰ Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ.

Jesus Predicts His Death and Resurrection

²¹ From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.

²² Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, “Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!”

²³ But He turned and said to Peter, “Get behind Me, Satan! You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men.”

Take Up the Cross and Follow Him

²⁴ Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. ²⁵ For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Amen, God bless, and God be with you always :)

do you like what you see?

How often can we Christians look in the proverbial mirror and say "I am the perfect child of God?" For me, never, not while being truthful to God.  He gave me an image to prove that I, while in the flesh, can never be "perfect".  God/Jesus/Holy Ghost visited me in a vision/dream holding a mirror.  They said come, take a look, a good close look at yourself. Here is an opportunity to play God on yourself. Tell me if you are 100% pleased with what you see.  The catch was that the mirror allowed me to see myself from the inside out, through the eyes of God. He tells me, once your done observing, feel free to pick out what you don't like.  Well, when all was said and done,  had about 1% of me left, and i am sure that is being generous.

I feel we all should examine ourselves in a similar fashion on a regular basis, and then go to God to ask what is His will to make us whole again. There is a high level of humility, intimacy, vulnerability, and trust in God required to do this correctly, as I am learning. But, who better to be these attributes with than God? The one constant in the universe, and He only wants to help you get better. So to me, its worth it to give it a wholehearted chance as it will only help you get closer to God
Now, having said that, we know there are people who just know they are perfect as they are, and love the opportunity to point out someone elses shortcomings.  To them,  offer a caution: John 8:7
So when they continued asking Him, He raised Himself up and said to them, “He who is without sin among you, let him throw a stone at her first.”  To translate this verse in my own words, the Holy Trinity are the only beings to ever walk this planet.  Don't judge others, especially if you are guilty as well.help your fellow Christian up in the name of Jesus.

In closing,  we need to look into the mirror through the eyes of God in order to not be the the offenders Jesus speaks against in John 8:7. Go to god in prayer and ask Him to grant you His sight so you see for yourself what needs to be taken out, fixed, or improved upon within you.  If we take our time and do this, we won't have time to think about what someone else is guilty of. We will only have time to fix and repent forour own issues with the helping and able hand of Jesus. Amen

dualism

Main Entry: du·al·ism

dualismPronunciation: \ˈdü-ə-li-zəmalso ˈdyü-\

Function: noun

Date: 1794

1 : a theory that considers reality to consist of two irreducible elements or modes
2 : the quality or state of being dual or of having a dual nature
3 a : a doctrine that the universe is under the dominion of two opposing principles one of which is good and the other evil b : a view of human beings as constituted of two irreducible elements (as matter and spirit)

In today's world, people want to have their proverbial cake and eat it too, which could be understandable. As a Christian, I battle with this wanting to enjoy the spoils and lust of the world, and still serve God wholeheartedly.  The conflict comes when we realize that some of the spoils and lusts of life go against God's will. Some choose to try to live live a secular life separate from their God fearing life. How does this make sense? How is this possible? How can this be "ok'd" by The Almighty? The Creator is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent, therefore its a moot point to try. In the days of the Crusades, dualism was a common way of life. As history dictates, dualism does not work for God. How can we proclaim God on a Sunday or when church we are around church folk, and then be a whore monger, drug dealer, killer, or practice some other unscrupulous vocation like "He won't know about this...." why do we tolerate this from our Siblings in Christ? What message are we spreading to the next generation about Christianity? "We can do whatever just keep it separate from God? All that we do should be of and/or for God. All that is being doing is we are making it easy the enemy. how can we be reconciled back to God as he intended, when we try to live separate from Him?  Clean comments welcomed