Posted on 08/28/2016 2:41:41 PM PDT by Salvation
Hence God’s reply to Moses “No man can see my face and live,” thus did he hide Moses”In the cleft of the rock”(yes an old church hymn...”he hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock”) and allowed him to see the “hind parts of God” as God passed by. Yet a funny thing...the scripture records Moses as speaking with God “face to face”!. A contradiction(?)...I don’t think so. God’s inner face and Moses’ Inner face or inner man were in direct communion...even if Moses couldn’t physically see God’s face and live. That will come later when he and we have our glorified bodies...then we will be like Jesus for we will see him as He is and in turn we will be able to behold the Father as Jesus beholds him! No, you won’t go crazy then!
Thanks, Binger. We had some great times up there in God’s country. Will be great to go again.
I saw a small church turn into a multi-million dollar money machine. I once knew everyone and their families.
Seminars, gatherings, the faithful opened their homes to visitors.
Two services on Sunday morning, everyone wearing name tags.
They out grew the converted bowling alley church building.
When they bought a Convention Center the city was losing money on They exploded into a mega church. ATM, Starbucks the whole nine yards. They even sold breakfast buffet and lunch in the fellowship hall.
When they started taking donations in wheelbarrows up front so they could see who contributed I left.
I’ve not been in a church since. I pray, I believe.
I won’t support the money changers in the temple though.
And people have come to the realization that it doesn't necessarily mean church services as we've been raised to believe.
Meeting together with other believers is good and necessary to a degree, but it should not be nor can it be, the mainstay of our relationship with God.
If church attendance is what we require then it reveals a serious defect in out relationship with God on the more personal intimate level, the one of daily Bible reading and prayer.
How does that translate into, *You have to go to church on Sunday*?
Like the woman who washed his feet with her tears, it’s a measure of how much one loves the LORD Jesus Christ.
Thank you
I have been to Catholic Mass, many times.
Last time I went to Catholic Mass it was in Latin and my cousins couldn’t eat meat on Friday.
“4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord....
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 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.
14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” that would not make it any less a part of the body....If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? 18 But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose. 19 If all were a single member, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, yet one body.
21 The eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you,” nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.”...
27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. 28 And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helping, administrating, and various kinds of tongues. 29 Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? 30 Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret? 31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts.” - 1 Cor 12
I’m not saying that everyone needs to be a member of a formal church, but the NT doesn’t support playing Solo Christian either.
I am so very sorry that you experienced this. It is so sad how the ‘church’ has been perverted in far too many situations. I pray that the Spirit will bring you into fellowship with other believers so you can enjoy growth and Brotherhood the way it was intended. We were without a fellowship after our ‘smallish’ church started traveling down the same big, seeker-sensitive path. We are now happily a part of a much smaller fellowship of Christians who are hungry to be fed and to serve. It’s family, like our former church used to be.
I prefer evening services to Sunday morning services. I’m attending more than ever before.
+1
Again, good points.
You are always welcome back.
There are still Churchs that have the Mass in Latin. Not many.
I really appreciate that Jesus is there in the Eucharist.
Great link. There are some good parody’s on there.
As I have gotten older, my appreciation for the blessings from God is centered on the Mass and the Eucharist.
God’s Peace be with you.
Romans 3:31 Do we then make void the law through faith? Certainly not! On the contrary, we establish the law.
To all that are okay with going it alone instead of being part of a church: Revelation shows a multitude worshipping God, not an individual or even a small group. Perhaps now is the time to get used to this idea.
My $0.02.
SDG,
K51
No, you can’t go it alone, but having your spiritual life depend on church once a week is no better than eating one meal a week. It’s just not going to sustain you spiritually.
It’s my daily interaction with my Savior that keeps be going through out the week, not the once a week thing. Church nice but it’s not what I depend on for spiritual growth and maturity. That way if you happen to miss church for some reason, it doesn’t throw you for a loop.
Nor does Scripture tell us that it has to be church (as we know it) worship services. All we are commanded is to not forsake the assembling of ourselves together. It could be a Bible study or small group as well. As long as you are getting together with fellow believers for time focused on God.
A friend told me once that church attendance for him was tertiary in his relationship with God. First and foremost for him was prayer and Scripture reading and mediation and his own worship time with the Lord.
Jesus was a practicing Jew. We Gentiles are not Jewish Converts, as Acts clearly recognized.
“I did this first in private conference with the church leaders, to make sure that what I had done and proposed doing was acceptable to them. Not one of them intimated that Titus, because he was a Greek, ought to be circumcised. In fact, the suggestion would never have arisen but for the presence of some pseudo-Christians, who wormed their way into our meeting to spy on the liberty we enjoy in Jesus Christ, and then attempted to tie us up with rules and regulations. We did not give those men an inch, for the truth of the Gospel for you and all Gentiles was at stake...
...11-14 Later, however, when Peter came to Antioch I had to oppose him publicly, for he was then plainly in the wrong. It happened like this. Until the arrival of some of James’ companions, he, Peter, was in the habit of eating his meals with the Gentiles. After they came, he withdrew and ate separately from the Gentiles—out of sheer fear of what the Jews might think. The other Jewish Christians carried out a similar piece of deception, and the force of their bad example was so great that even Barnabas was affected by it. But when I saw that this behaviour was a contradiction of the truth of the Gospel, I said to Peter so that everyone could hear, “If you, who are a Jew, do not live like a Jew but like a Gentile, why on earth do you try to make Gentiles live like Jews?”
15-21 And then I went on to explain that we, who are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners, know that a man is justified not by performing what the Law commands but by faith in Jesus Christ. We ourselves are justified by our faith and not by our obedience to the Law, for we have recognised that no one can achieve justification by doing the “works of the Law”...
...But if I attempt to build again the whole structure of justification by the Law then I do, in earnest, make myself a sinner. For under the Law I “died”, and now I am dead to the Law’s demands so that I may live for God. As far as the Law is concerned I may consider that I died on the cross with Christ. And my present life is not that of the old “I”, but the living Christ within me. The bodily life I now live, I live believing in the Son of God, who loved me and sacrificed himself for me. Consequently I refuse to stultify the grace of God by reverting to the Law. For if righteousness were possible under the Law then Christ died for nothing!” - Galatians 2
I am not in any way under the Law of Moses.
“now I am dead to the Law’s demands so that I may live for God”
Romans 3:31 says, “31 Are we then undermining the Law by this insistence on faith? Not a bit of it! We put the Law in its proper place.”
And it is then followed by the rest of Romans, putting the Law in its proper place:
“For if, after all, they who pin their faith to keeping the Law were to inherit God’s world, it would make nonsense of faith in God himself, and destroy the whole point of the promise.... Now we find that the Law keeps slipping into the picture to point the vast extent of sin. Yet, though sin is shown to be wide and deep, thank God his grace is wider and deeper still!...
...1-3 You know very well, my brothers (for I am speaking to those well acquainted with the subject), that the Law can only exercise authority over a man so long as he is alive. A married woman, for example, is bound by law to her husband so long as he is alive. But if he dies, then his legal claim over her disappears. This means that, if she should give herself to another man while her husband is alive, she incurs the stigma of adultery. But if, after her husband’s death, she does exactly the same thing, no one could call her an adulteress, for the legal hold over her has been dissolved by her husband’s death.
4 There is, I think, a fair analogy here. The death of Christ on the cross had made you “dead” to the claims of the Law, and you are free to give yourselves in marriage, so to speak, to another, the one who was raised from the dead, that you may be productive for God....”
If you are under the Law, you need to repent and believe!
What Paul is saying in this passage is, as Matthew Henry said in his commentary:
” ... though we do say that the law will not justify us, yet we do not therefore say that it was given in vain, or is of no use to us; no, we establish the right use of the law, and secure its standing, by fixing it on the right basis. The law is still of use to convince us of what is past, and to direct us for the future; though we cannot be saved by it as a covenant, yet we own it, and submit to it, as a rule in the hand of the Mediator, subordinate to the law of grace; and so are so far from overthrowing that we establish the law.”
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