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Church Shortcomings
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What about all the Shortcomings of the Church?
How can we know anything about anythingTo try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible? NO! That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about. Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us? How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences? We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers. Why is that? How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read. Why is that? Same scientific facts. Different answers. Same Bible. Different answers. Why is that? The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible? How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible? How do we analyze what we have seen and read? How do we interpret what we have seen and read? We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly. An example might help. Question: Why do you believe in evolution? Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact. Question: Why do you believe your science teacher? Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read. Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice. If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts. When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from? There are three possibilities.
Question: Why do you believe in creation? Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him. See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved. In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same. Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us. The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan? The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know. Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me" The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem. Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God. How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32) "If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it" Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay. "[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31). "There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48) That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own. "When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19) Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true. In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations. They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him. You may hear this question. "What about all the things that are wrong with the Church?" And you may hear about very specific things taht are worng with certain members of the church. You may hear these things from people who have left the church, who never were in the church, who are believers, and who are unbelievers. You may hear this as an excuse not to receive Jesus as Lord. You may hear this as a reason not to attend church. You may hear this as a reason to reject miracles, the moving of God's Spirit, or anything else that is of God.
In most cases, this is an excuse that someone gives so that they don't have to obey Christ. As with most accusations and judgmentalism, there is usually some element of truth. Those who are following Christ are flawed people. They are often broken people. Every one has a past that they rejected for Christ. And not everyone in the Church is following Christ. Not everyone who is religious is following Christ.
The fact that a person could question the things that are wrong in the church is an indication that you are seeing that there are things that are the Church and things that are not the Church. They are seeing that there are things that have come into the Church that are not of the Church. They can see that these things don't belong there.
They are saying that they have some sense of the difference between right and wrong and the holy as opposed to the profane. Will this person just stand as a judge and reject Jesus Christ and His Church, or will this person seek and find those who are moving on with Jesus to that Church that will be without spot or wrinkle?
The church is called to become what is right in the Earth. It is to be the salt of the earth, preserving that which has died and healing that which is infected. It is called to be the light of the world. Christ is to flow out through each member to believers and unbelievers alike. The love, which God is, is to be alive in every member. When the church stops walking in righteousness or when the church becomes lukewarm, the unbeliever becomes confused and rightly asks, "What about all the things that are wrong with the Church?"
When a person becomes a member of the Church, they do not join. There is no way to join the Church. They may join an organization, and that organization may call itself a church, but the real Church is something else. You must be born in. If you are born in, you are born as a baby. Maturity will come if you walk with God. Unfortunately, many Christians never mature because they never walk with God. Immaturity in Christians is confusing to unbelievers and they rightly ask, "What about all the things that are wrong with the Church?"
That being said, unbelievers need to realize the following:
If any person believes in right and wrong, then they do not believe in materialism. Materialism has no basis for right or wrong. Relativism is the belief that there is no right or wrong. Post Modernism is really just a mental framework for Relativism. An evolutionist, relativist, materialist, naturalist, agnostic, post-modernist, Unitarian, or Emergent has no basis for any talk about right, wrong, error, correctness, morals, values, or any such thing. When they engage in talk about any of these subjects, implying that someone is doing something wrong, they are simply hypocrites.
If the person is looking for a perfect church, it would be difficult to find such a thing. The very act of being born into the church is an admission of a sin and short-coming. Every person who is born into the Church is admitting a short-coming.
So, we are not going to find a perfect church until we come to an event that the Bible predicts, the manifestation of the sons of God.
If this person is looking at the church in a way that is causing cynicism, the source of this judgmental attitude is not the Spirit of God. It is important for each member to seek God that his or her calling will be sure. We need to look into the Word and see how to minister to our brother and sister in the Church. When God reveals the order of the Body of Christ and the reality of the life that is available through Christ, this moves us toward God and toward our brothers and sisters in Christ. Satan only wants to destroy and take us away from Christ and His life. Some People Turn Away From God Because of the Waste, Entertainment Gospel, and Emphasis on that Which is NOT According to Scripture Author/Compiler Last updated: Jan, 2012 |
This is the only sub-topic of Church Shortcomings:
Church Waste
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God has established the pattern of Scripture, for life and for the Church. You can feel free to use the Contact Form further down on this page to ask any question regarding this pattern of Scripture. The Church, the Body of Christ, and discernment of this Body, is the method that God is using to finish the work in His Body. The Body of Christ, God's Temple, is built up by that which every joint supplies, building each other up in love, and the Temple must be built according to the pattern of Scripture. 
We believe the Holy Scriptures teach:
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Contact FormYou can feel free to use this Contact Form to ask any question regarding this pattern of Scripture. The Church, the Body of Christ, and discernment of this Body, is the method that God is using to finish the work in His Body. The Body of Christ, God's Temple, is built up by that which every joint supplies, building each other up in love, and the Temple must be built according to the pattern of Scripture. If you would like to ask any other question on any subject or submit a correction or suggestion you may use this form.Please remember to include your email address if you want an answer. John 10:35b the Scripture cannot be broken, Put a Link To This Page on Your Site. HTML Code: Links: SeekFind.net ~ What about all the Shortcomings of the Church? What about all the Shortcomings of the Church? Human theology and reasoning is not necessarily correct, but the Bible is without error. The Bible can only be understood by revelation, and revelation is given by the Spirit of God. God does reveal in His own way. But we only know in part. If we think we know any thing, we do not know it as we ought. We are instructed, by God, to keep seeking Him. The Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth. The truth sets us free. Lies bind us. Whoever seeks Jesus does find Him. Jesus is the truth. 
THE CONCLUSION |
