The title of my blog is Time 2 Change Churches. It is about bringing our churches "back" to biblical preaching and teaching. It is about seeing our church from a biblical perspective. Is your church teaching obedience to God's Word? Holiness? Reverence? Righteousness? Are you taught that it is necessary to be born-again? Where does repentance fit in with your walk with Christ? Do you evangelize? Or is your church just teaching you a new joke or two each week? PLEASE PASS THIS BLOG ON!
"If you claim to be obedient to God's Word and you are not showing compassion to your neighbor and show the love of God living within you, then how do you know you are saved?"This is good stuff. You finally are getting somewhere. Showing love to our fellow man is important stuff and Jesus teaches on how we are to treat each other exhaustively. Also, if we call on the name of the Lord for repentence, God will not turn his back on us. I expect to hear from you and you will probably have a scripture all picked out ready to show me where it says what in the Bible.
A sign of true compassion is to love your neighbor enough to share the truth of God's Word with them. It is a love that says, "I don't want you to go to hell, and I am willing to be rejected, to be ridiculed, and to be hated for the sake of the cross. My goal is to bring people to Christ!" If a sign of compassion is to just love our neighbor and let them blindly head towards a cliff, then that is not true love. Yes, you might not want to be offensive to them, and yes, you might not want to make them feel bad, but ultimately, if you let them go over the edge without telling them what they need to hear, then you have not shown the love of Christ within you. If you read in Ezekiel, you will remember the Scripture about how we are to warn people of impending danger. If they refuse to hear us, and they die, they will die in their sins and their blood is not on you, but if we do not tell them and they die in their sins, when they die, they will still die in their iniquity, but their blood will be on you. Just remember that true love means telling people the truth in all situations.
God's Love can't be just shown by telling people they are going to hell. It just can't be. If that were the case, then Jesus could have just left out all the stuff about how to treat each other and those who are less fortunate. He could have just said, "Make sure everyone is saved and that is enough love!" No, he didn't say that. He said "what you have done to the least of these, you have done to me." That isn't just about preaching to people, it is about being.
God's love does not ignore the truth. When the rich man approached Jesus and said what must I do to be saved? Jesus said, you know the Commandments and he listed some of them. The rich man pridefully said, I have kept the commandments since my youth, and Jesus said, yet you lack one thing. Go and sell all you have and come follow Me. The rich man went away sad. He thought he had the answers to being saved. He was sure he was headed there but Jesus exposed the heart to show it was wicked and unwilling to give up his own money in order to follow Him. Maybe you could look at it as a kind of "tough love" because it is hard to tell people they are headed for hell, but it would be a lot harder for me later on in life, when it is too late, to have not told people what they needed to do to go to heaven. Don't look at my desire to see people saved as a bad thing or a hateful thing that is lacking love. It is quite the opposite. When you truly follow Christ, you only want to see people saved. You can save the "feel good" moments for later. But for now, I will continue to show people that they are headed for hell unless they repent and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone. A person still engaging in homosexuality is not headed for hell. Love is willing to step out and tell them the truth that they MUST repent of their sins. The emergent church wants to turn their heads away so as not to offend the homosexual person. That is a total LACK of LOVE to do that. The goal when they do that is they just want their churches to be filled with people. So lets not offend anyone and everyone will be happy. I cried when I finally realized what a terrible sinner I was in God's eyes. And I am so thankful for the faithful saint who showed me the errors of my ways. I have repented of my sins and am experiencing more happiness and joy than ever before. And yet, I have been persecuted more than ever before too. I rejoice in that!
We are not going to change each other's minds, that is for sure, but it is interesting that when Jesus talks to the rich young ruler, he didn't just say, "repent and you will be saved." No, he was making a point about his un-giving heart. "Go and give away all you have to the poor." How many times do we think of ourselves instead of following Jesus heart and think outside to others. Unfotunately the "feel good" moments, as you call them, never come around under this model of Christianity since it isn't so much about the people as it is making sure we cover our tail with God. Remember Ezekiel, we must cover our tail, instead of meeting people where they are.
I noticed you didn't address the issue of homosexuality. The emergent church is very wishy washy on that subject. What is your view on that? or the view of your church?
And therein lies the problem. Churches are just not doing a good job of preaching against sin. Let's call sin what it is. SIN. Transgression of the Law. Homosexuality is transgression of the Law and if a church does not teach that, then they are leading people astray. At the same time, if they do not tell people that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire, then again, we have led people astray. That is why it is so important to not stray from preaching the Ten Commandments. Paul said, he had not known what sin was, but by the Law. Jesus used the Law, Paul used it, so did Timothy, and Peter. Our conscience bears witness that we have broken God's Commands. When a church, any church, fails to preach all of God's Word, the dirty side of breaking His Laws and the lovely side of what Jesus did by dying on the cross for us, then the church has failed to properly teach the people. My prayer is that your church, my church and my neighbor's church are all going to return to biblical preaching. The homosexuality issue is one glaring part that is not properly taught by many emergent churches. When you hear them say, that they have to refigure what the Bible says about it, it is just not accepting the Bible as being divinely inspired by God and to be absolutely true!
awesome post! thank you!
Thank you Michelle!
Nate, I find it interesting that you don't view telling people about God's plan for salvation as a loving act. All that other stuff is very important, (ie. caring for the homeless, feeding the hungry,) and they ARE loving acts, but how could I should someone more love than teaching them the way to save thier soul?
It is an interesting thread, that to show a person love means to get them saved. This is going to be a generalization, (but really, aren't most of these posts anyway?) but I have done a fair share of working in the homeless shelters and soup kitchens around our community, and for the most part the people who are caring for the poor and downtrodden are not the people in the evangelical churches. I'm sorry, they just aren't. And that is the problem as I see it. Evangelical churches are so concerned with making sure that people get to heaven, that they forget the people around them. Now, I know, that you will argue with me and tell me how many different evangelical chruches are involved in missions, and I will grant you that there are some. But as for my experience, it just isn't that many. So, I guess my point is this, that in order to live out the teachings of Jesus you can't just say that to love a person is to get them saved. Jesus calls us to more than that. (someone reading this just had a heart attack, and I'm sorry, for your heart attack I mean)
I haven't figured out if you and I disagree or not Nate. I agree with you that we are called to do much much more. I also agree that the evangelical church doesn't do anywhere near enough. (Although in my community, it's the church that runs the rescue mission.) Now, do you agree with me that the most loving thing you can do is preach the gospel?
Nate, you have touched on what my blog is all about. My whole thing is that regardless of what church people attend, all too often our faith is left "inside" the church. I want people to take their faith "outside" into the real world. To be obedient to His Word. Repentance of sins. And to fulfill the Great Commission. Our number one goal should be to see to it that people do not go to hell. We can serve them as Jesus would but if we do not care about them as to their final destination then our love is in vain!
in tomorrow's post I am putting a letter from YS and again it fails to mention repentance of sin. I worry about the direction that they take.
Nate:You said "\'when Jesus talks to the rich young ruler, he didn't just say, "repent and you will be saved." No, he was making a point about his un-giving heart. "Go and give away all you have to the poor."'The young ruler wanted to know how to be saved. If Jesus meant "Have a more giving heart" he would have been teaching a false gospel. Make no mistake about it, Jesus was pointing the man to the heart issue that kept him from salvation: Idolatry. He was guilty of breaking the first and second commandments and Jesus pointed that out to him.Again, Jesus couldn't have been saying "have a giving heart"...or are we saved by acts of benevolence?Having read your comments about the gospel message, I must ask you, do you believe that repentance is even a necessary element of saving faith?
excellent point tim!
Hello Brian:While Nate would have to confirm or deny this, I think what he is doing is missing two points:1. We do not argue that we ONLY give a message. If we see others who have legitimate need, we help them. When Jesus fed the 5,000 he did so, in part, to meet a need. However...2). You don't go around "meeting needs" and not giving the message. While Jesus DID feed the 5000, we find that not much later, he was approached by some that he had fed. They wanted more bread. Did he give it to them? No. He rebuked them for only looking at the physical and not seeing Him as the Spiritual Bread that they really needed. That wasn't very "Seeker Sensitive". Yes, we DO affirm that helping others is important. But we don't leave the message out, either.
good point Tim, it is true that Jesus never failed to do what was right. he didn't come to just "do" things for people. It is important to see the message He gave to his listeners.
And here it is nearly 4 1/2 years later and the church is continuing to fall. Why? Because our churches have become so entertainment minded that they fail to even "desire" to preach God's Word properly. There is a church in Monmouth, Illinois that wants to spend $750 for a survey to find out what their spiritual gifts are. Who are they asking help from? Willow Creek Church. The same church that admitted that they have been doing church wrong for the past 20 years. What happened to them up in Chicago? The mature Christians were leaving because they were not being fed God's Word. It was nothing more than entertainment and drama. It is a sad excuse of a church and it is led by a pastor that signed the Pact Between You and Us (the muslims and Christians). I mentioned to the church that I felt it was a mistake to spend God's money that way, but I kind of doubt it will do any good. The seeker friendly churches want "NUMBERS" of people. They want their church to grow numerically and financially. Their first concern should be for spiritual growth.
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19 comments:
"If you claim to be obedient to God's Word and you are not showing compassion to your neighbor and show the love of God living within you, then how do you know you are saved?"
This is good stuff. You finally are getting somewhere. Showing love to our fellow man is important stuff and Jesus teaches on how we are to treat each other exhaustively. Also, if we call on the name of the Lord for repentence, God will not turn his back on us.
I expect to hear from you and you will probably have a scripture all picked out ready to show me where it says what in the Bible.
A sign of true compassion is to love your neighbor enough to share the truth of God's Word with them. It is a love that says, "I don't want you to go to hell, and I am willing to be rejected, to be ridiculed, and to be hated for the sake of the cross. My goal is to bring people to Christ!" If a sign of compassion is to just love our neighbor and let them blindly head towards a cliff, then that is not true love. Yes, you might not want to be offensive to them, and yes, you might not want to make them feel bad, but ultimately, if you let them go over the edge without telling them what they need to hear, then you have not shown the love of Christ within you. If you read in Ezekiel, you will remember the Scripture about how we are to warn people of impending danger. If they refuse to hear us, and they die, they will die in their sins and their blood is not on you, but if we do not tell them and they die in their sins, when they die, they will still die in their iniquity, but their blood will be on you. Just remember that true love means telling people the truth in all situations.
God's Love can't be just shown by telling people they are going to hell. It just can't be. If that were the case, then Jesus could have just left out all the stuff about how to treat each other and those who are less fortunate. He could have just said, "Make sure everyone is saved and that is enough love!" No, he didn't say that. He said "what you have done to the least of these, you have done to me." That isn't just about preaching to people, it is about being.
God's love does not ignore the truth. When the rich man approached Jesus and said what must I do to be saved? Jesus said, you know the Commandments and he listed some of them. The rich man pridefully said, I have kept the commandments since my youth, and Jesus said, yet you lack one thing. Go and sell all you have and come follow Me. The rich man went away sad. He thought he had the answers to being saved. He was sure he was headed there but Jesus exposed the heart to show it was wicked and unwilling to give up his own money in order to follow Him. Maybe you could look at it as a kind of "tough love" because it is hard to tell people they are headed for hell, but it would be a lot harder for me later on in life, when it is too late, to have not told people what they needed to do to go to heaven. Don't look at my desire to see people saved as a bad thing or a hateful thing that is lacking love. It is quite the opposite. When you truly follow Christ, you only want to see people saved. You can save the "feel good" moments for later. But for now, I will continue to show people that they are headed for hell unless they repent and put their faith and trust in Jesus Christ alone. A person still engaging in homosexuality is not headed for hell. Love is willing to step out and tell them the truth that they MUST repent of their sins. The emergent church wants to turn their heads away so as not to offend the homosexual person. That is a total LACK of LOVE to do that. The goal when they do that is they just want their churches to be filled with people. So lets not offend anyone and everyone will be happy. I cried when I finally realized what a terrible sinner I was in God's eyes. And I am so thankful for the faithful saint who showed me the errors of my ways. I have repented of my sins and am experiencing more happiness and joy than ever before. And yet, I have been persecuted more than ever before too. I rejoice in that!
We are not going to change each other's minds, that is for sure, but it is interesting that when Jesus talks to the rich young ruler, he didn't just say, "repent and you will be saved." No, he was making a point about his un-giving heart. "Go and give away all you have to the poor." How many times do we think of ourselves instead of following Jesus heart and think outside to others.
Unfotunately the "feel good" moments, as you call them, never come around under this model of Christianity since it isn't so much about the people as it is making sure we cover our tail with God. Remember Ezekiel, we must cover our tail, instead of meeting people where they are.
I noticed you didn't address the issue of homosexuality. The emergent church is very wishy washy on that subject. What is your view on that? or the view of your church?
And therein lies the problem. Churches are just not doing a good job of preaching against sin. Let's call sin what it is. SIN. Transgression of the Law. Homosexuality is transgression of the Law and if a church does not teach that, then they are leading people astray. At the same time, if they do not tell people that all liars will have their part in the lake of fire, then again, we have led people astray. That is why it is so important to not stray from preaching the Ten Commandments. Paul said, he had not known what sin was, but by the Law. Jesus used the Law, Paul used it, so did Timothy, and Peter. Our conscience bears witness that we have broken God's Commands. When a church, any church, fails to preach all of God's Word, the dirty side of breaking His Laws and the lovely side of what Jesus did by dying on the cross for us, then the church has failed to properly teach the people. My prayer is that your church, my church and my neighbor's church are all going to return to biblical preaching. The homosexuality issue is one glaring part that is not properly taught by many emergent churches. When you hear them say, that they have to refigure what the Bible says about it, it is just not accepting the Bible as being divinely inspired by God and to be absolutely true!
awesome post! thank you!
Thank you Michelle!
Nate, I find it interesting that you don't view telling people about God's plan for salvation as a loving act. All that other stuff is very important, (ie. caring for the homeless, feeding the hungry,) and they ARE loving acts, but how could I should someone more love than teaching them the way to save thier soul?
It is an interesting thread, that to show a person love means to get them saved. This is going to be a generalization, (but really, aren't most of these posts anyway?) but I have done a fair share of working in the homeless shelters and soup kitchens around our community, and for the most part the people who are caring for the poor and downtrodden are not the people in the evangelical churches. I'm sorry, they just aren't. And that is the problem as I see it. Evangelical churches are so concerned with making sure that people get to heaven, that they forget the people around them. Now, I know, that you will argue with me and tell me how many different evangelical chruches are involved in missions, and I will grant you that there are some. But as for my experience, it just isn't that many. So, I guess my point is this, that in order to live out the teachings of Jesus you can't just say that to love a person is to get them saved. Jesus calls us to more than that. (someone reading this just had a heart attack, and I'm sorry, for your heart attack I mean)
I haven't figured out if you and I disagree or not Nate. I agree with you that we are called to do much much more. I also agree that the evangelical church doesn't do anywhere near enough. (Although in my community, it's the church that runs the rescue mission.) Now, do you agree with me that the most loving thing you can do is preach the gospel?
Nate, you have touched on what my blog is all about. My whole thing is that regardless of what church people attend, all too often our faith is left "inside" the church. I want people to take their faith "outside" into the real world. To be obedient to His Word. Repentance of sins. And to fulfill the Great Commission. Our number one goal should be to see to it that people do not go to hell. We can serve them as Jesus would but if we do not care about them as to their final destination then our love is in vain!
in tomorrow's post I am putting a letter from YS and again it fails to mention repentance of sin. I worry about the direction that they take.
Nate:
You said "\'when Jesus talks to the rich young ruler, he didn't just say, "repent and you will be saved." No, he was making a point about his un-giving heart. "Go and give away all you have to the poor."'
The young ruler wanted to know how to be saved. If Jesus meant "Have a more giving heart" he would have been teaching a false gospel. Make no mistake about it, Jesus was pointing the man to the heart issue that kept him from salvation: Idolatry. He was guilty of breaking the first and second commandments and Jesus pointed that out to him.
Again, Jesus couldn't have been saying "have a giving heart"...or are we saved by acts of benevolence?
Having read your comments about the gospel message, I must ask you, do you believe that repentance is even a necessary element of saving faith?
excellent point tim!
Hello Brian:
While Nate would have to confirm or deny this, I think what he is doing is missing two points:
1. We do not argue that we ONLY give a message. If we see others who have legitimate need, we help them. When Jesus fed the 5,000 he did so, in part, to meet a need. However...
2). You don't go around "meeting needs" and not giving the message. While Jesus DID feed the 5000, we find that not much later, he was approached by some that he had fed. They wanted more bread. Did he give it to them? No. He rebuked them for only looking at the physical and not seeing Him as the Spiritual Bread that they really needed.
That wasn't very "Seeker Sensitive".
Yes, we DO affirm that helping others is important. But we don't leave the message out, either.
good point Tim, it is true that Jesus never failed to do what was right. he didn't come to just "do" things for people. It is important to see the message He gave to his listeners.
And here it is nearly 4 1/2 years later and the church is continuing to fall. Why? Because our churches have become so entertainment minded that they fail to even "desire" to preach God's Word properly. There is a church in Monmouth, Illinois that wants to spend $750 for a survey to find out what their spiritual gifts are. Who are they asking help from? Willow Creek Church. The same church that admitted that they have been doing church wrong for the past 20 years. What happened to them up in Chicago? The mature Christians were leaving because they were not being fed God's Word. It was nothing more than entertainment and drama. It is a sad excuse of a church and it is led by a pastor that signed the Pact Between You and Us (the muslims and Christians). I mentioned to the church that I felt it was a mistake to spend God's money that way, but I kind of doubt it will do any good. The seeker friendly churches want "NUMBERS" of people. They want their church to grow numerically and financially. Their first concern should be for spiritual growth.
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