Category: Ephesians

  • Called to right beliefs and right living

    I have spent some time recently on a relatively new (at least to  me) social media platform, reading the “Christian” post section and follow-up comments.

    I shouldn’t have been surprised, but I was astounded by the range of error, heresy, and just plain biblically illiterate posts there are. Some of the posts are from people genuinely seeking guidance or information, but most make me shake my head. 

    Like any form of social media, it was filled with plenty of people who hold the view, “my mind is made up, don’t clutter it with facts or truth.”

    Every cliche and trope imaginable is out there.

    The Bible has too many, or too few, books. The church has deliberately hidden books from the Bible. You can only trust that person’s favorite translation. You can’t trust any translation and must read it in the original languages.

    If you don’t belong to a specific denomination, you are going to hell. 

    The cults are out recruiting. The Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Latter-day Saints are trolling for the unwary. Other weird groups I had never even heard of are doing the same.

    The Roman Catholics and Protestants are busy bashing each other. Still, neither side has any understanding of church history, or what their own position actually believes, let alone what the opposition thinks. Now, there is a lot to debate, but it should be done in love and with understanding.

    The God of Islam is the same as the God of Christianity.

    Everyone is going to be saved, or no one needs saving. Hell isn’t real.

    The range of poor understanding and deliberate twisting of Scripture is nothing short of phenomenal. 

    The church worship wars still rage, with only the poster’s personal choice of music being from God, and everything else is from Satan.

    The doctrine of salvation by faith is disputed. You need to add various combinations of church membership, tithing, good works, baptism, and more to be saved, at least according to many posters who claim to be believers.

    Church buildings are too simple, too extravagant, or not needed at all.

    This one hurt my head, “I don’t believe in God, but I’m a Christian because I follow the teachings of Christ.” I think it was George Bernard Shaw who initially said it, but it still boggles my mind.

    I could carry on and list all the heresies that have plagued the church, and every conceivable form of divisiveness, but I think you can get a sense of things from what I have said.

    The apostle Paul would need to be writing corrective letters nonstop and employing a huge ministry team to deal with it all. We’re as messy as the first-century church, and every century since then. The church is messy because it’s filled with redeemed sinners and incomplete knowledge, but it remains God’s church.

    If you ever needed proof that God was loving and patient, look no further than the church. Only God could keep such a messed-up, disparate group of people somehow functioning together despite our flaws and best intentions.

    There isn’t a church group or a Christian alive who hasn’t got at least some part of the picture wrong.

    Now, it isn’t proper theology that saves us. Yet, being saved is just the entry point to becoming all Christ calls us to. We are called to grow in knowledge, understanding, faith, and love.

    We are called to both right beliefs and right living; both orthodoxy and orthopraxy are huge.

    But that is not the way you learned Christ!— assuming that you have heard about him and were taught in him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:20-24

    I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2

    Let’s have the beliefs and lives that Christ calls us to. Let’s strive together to represent the hope and image of Jesus better.

    Be blessed, 

    Kevin

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    Check these out

    Right belief or right living?

    Where do you find the truth? Read the Word.

    Well done good and faithful servant

  • What is the church? The hands and feet of Jesus.

    If you ask people, “What is the church?” they will most likely tell you about a building somewhere nearby. They might even know the name or the denominational (or non-denominational) affiliation of the building.

    Some people might be familiar with the service times or some of the better-known programs the church offers.

    If there is more than one, they will likely know something about the differences and have a preference. They might have questions about why there are two or three churches within several blocks of one another. It’s a valid question.

    There is a sense in which those answers are correct because we often talk about going to church, i.e., the place we gather for corporate worship.

    So,, what is the church?

    Someone once wrote (I can’t find a source), “Church people and God’s people are not the same thing. Church people go to church. God’s people are the church.” We are the hands and feet of Jesus.

    That’s a huge difference. The church visible, are all those who attend a church or claim an affiliation with a church, and all the buildings, programs, and baggage that entails. They may or may not be Christians.

    The church invisible is the true body of Christ, all believers in every culture through all of time. The word “church” is a translation of the Greek word ekklesia, which means “an assembly” or “called-out ones.” The root meaning of church is not a building, but people.

    Paul makes it clear that the church and the meeting place are not the same thing. “Greet also the church in their house. Greet my beloved Epaenetus, who was the first convert to Christ in Asia.” Romans 16:5

    As believers, we are the church. 

    And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. Ephesians 1:22-23

    For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13

    When we start to think things like “the church ought to do something about that” or “someone from the church ought to,” it’s time to look inside ourselves. Are we being prompted by the Spirit to do something?

    If that something is too large for one person to tackle, we could join with others to get it done.

    The church isn’t a building. The church certainly isn’t perfect, after all, it is comprised of redeemed sinners in the process of being more Christ-like.

    Still, it’s the avenue Jesus chose to bring His message of help and hope to the world.

    There is a very real purpose to the church. We are the hands and feet of Jesus, guided by the Word and the indwelling Spirit to do His work.

    What an incredible responsibility! What an incredible privilege! We do what we can do, and the Lord does the rest.

    My friends, let us boldly BE the church.

    Hallelu Yah (Praise God)

    Be blessed, 

    Kevin

    Gleanings From The Word – Experience an extraordinary God in ordinary life. 

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    The Church has a blessed future

    Finding a Good Church

    Every Member Is Necessary — 1 Corinthians 12

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