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Post by conchydong on Jul 17, 2024 15:29:51 GMT -5
I consider myself a Christian but I don’t go to church anymore. I still pray and thank Jesus for his sacrifice. Do you consider me as a Christian still or do I have to go to church and pay my tidings? I respect most of your opinions but am a bit confused on what you consider a Christian.
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Post by One Man Gang on Jul 17, 2024 16:10:58 GMT -5
I am sort of in the same boat but I do try to hit church on Sundays that I'm home.
I'm a believer, but I can be a mean, rotten bastard. Organized religion, the shit you see on TV leaves a lot to dislike and I can see why those wolves have left many people disenfranchised. I treat them like much of the white noise on this forum.
When it comes to defining a true Christian, I feel it's God who truly knows what's in a man's heart. Many outwardly, superficial "Christians" will not make it at crunch time and many who seem like total dickheads might. It costs nothing to believe. If I'm wrong, I've lost nothing, but if I'm right, a non believer has lost everything.
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Post by Tarponator on Jul 17, 2024 16:19:13 GMT -5
According to the NT: Love god (to include him) & love others. Jesus didn't make it hard. That came later.
I look forward to Bullfrog's response.
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Post by conchydong on Jul 17, 2024 16:20:19 GMT -5
When my family still ran a Funeral home in Key West I used to see the preachers asking for their check before the service started. That’s when I started to get against organized religion. There may be some good hearted pastors out there but I have seen my share of greed from them,
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Post by Tarponator on Jul 17, 2024 16:21:34 GMT -5
It seems to this punctuation pro that Jesus wasn't all that fond of organized religion. For the most part, I don't disagree, and there are certainly worse organizations to support.
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Post by One Man Gang on Jul 17, 2024 16:35:46 GMT -5
Good to see you migrating in the right direction, Tarp... Now if I could just get you to correct cyclists punctuation and spelling with as much verve as you do with the right wingers around here.
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 17, 2024 16:42:46 GMT -5
I consider myself a Christian but I don’t go to church anymore. I still pray and thank Jesus for his sacrifice. Do you consider me as a Christian still or do I have to go to church and pay my tidings? I respect most of your opinions but am a bit confused on what you consider a Christian. Do you sincerely believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, who died for your sins, and rose again? Do you trust in that sacrifice, and that alone, for the forgiveness of your sins before God? If so, that’s what makes you a “real” Christian. Your lifestyle and actions follow through from that sincere faith. Your life reflects the sincerity of your faith. Not only because its logical that your actions will reveal what you really believe, but also because at the point you sincerely believe that Gospel, God’s Spirit comes to live in you and He starts changing you. That’s what it means to be “born again.” Many fake Christians are diligent to go to church, and many sincere, born-again Christians may drift in and out. It all starts from the sincerity of that belief in the Gospel. Does a person really believe Jesus is the Son of God who died for their sins? And that He rose from the dead 3 days later? That’s an extraordinary thing to be convinced of. In this case “believe” doesn’t mean “suspect” or “think” or “maybe.” It means you are convinced of the absolute reality of it. So convinced that you repent of your unbelief and of living a life without knowing God and instead turn to Him with a willingness to follow Him and live for Him. That sincere belief, or lack thereof, is the difference between real Christians and fakes. Everything that grows out of being a real Christian comes from that real belief. That’s one reason Jesus regularly likens Himself to a vine and Christians as the branches that are growing out of Him. That sincere belief leads to Him actually living in you. Its not necessarily something you feel. Its something that happens as evidenced by a sincere change in your life and your nature. Its not a change you make in yourself. Its a change He brings about. Church is important for several reasons. Between Christians, its the primary way we have a spiritual community with each other. Its a community that Christ ordained. It also provides for leadership who are charged with looking out for your spiritual health and growth. A new born-again Christian is like a spiritual baby, and the baby grows by hearing the preaching and teaching of God’s word. If you don’t get fed, you don’t grow. There is a supernatural process by which God uses Scripture preached by pastor or teacher to teach, grow, and also chasten a Christian that doesn’t come through any other way. But church doesn’t make someone a Christian. Different teachings about Christ, the Gospel, and how a person is saved from their sins are fundamental dividing lines between true denominations of Christianity and the false churches and even cults. This is why Protestants have a big divide with Catholics. Catholics trust a lot in rituals for continued forgiveness of sins, which we Protestants hold to amount to a false gospel, a man-made system that was added to Christianity in the early Middle Ages. Because belief in the Gospel is what saves someone and starts the life-long process of someone growing in Christ, that’s where false teachings are most commonly asserted. Many professed Christians in the U.S. don’t actually believe the Gospel. Its a game they play for gain or perceived necessity. You can’t read someone’s heart of course. But you can perceive their actions. Jesus said you know someone by their “fruit.” Fruit in this regard is a person’s sincere lifestyle of love and not living in sin as a matter of course. Fruit is also the substance of what they say, preach, or teach about God. So yes you can and often should look at how someone lives to see if they are likely fakes or not. But whether they regularly attend church services is not the measure as to how to evaluate someone’s life.
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Post by conchydong on Jul 17, 2024 16:44:49 GMT -5
Thank you for your response. I still don’t believe that going to church is necessary as you have stated,
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 17, 2024 17:04:17 GMT -5
I consider myself a Christian but I don’t go to church anymore. I still pray and thank Jesus for his sacrifice. Do you consider me as a Christian still or do I have to go to church and pay my tidings? I respect most of your opinions but am a bit confused on what you consider a Christian. If you’re specifically wondering what I mean if I reference “non-Christians” in the context of American politics (and I don’t think this will make the thread political where I’m about to go with it), I’m referencing a trend in American Christianity to claim and then religiously follow people who either don’t claim to be Christians at all, or adhere to a sect of Christianity that teaches a false gospel (such as Catholicism), and treat those people as if they’re fellow evangelical Christians. Take Thomas Jefferson. Great American leader in a secular, political, sense. The man wasn’t a Christian. He denied the divinity of Christ and the Gospel. He even went as far as to edit the Bible and only leave the parts he agreed with. That’s serious blasphemy. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t a great leader. God constantly uses leaders for His own purposes who don’t believe in Him. But don’t claim the man as a Christian and then take his spiritual teachings to heart if you’re a Bible-believing Christian. He was a great leader in politics but bankrupt in terms of what He knew and could teach about God. Vote for him if you agree with his secular policies. But don’t read his edited Bible in a way you accept it as spiritual truth. Separate the man as a leader from the man as a prophet. He was no prophet of God. There’s always been a bit of a mythology where American Christians lionize the U.S. as a shining example of a Christian society. Its more accurate to say we’ve been a society with a lot of Christians at various times. And the count starts over with every generation. Every person either believes or they don’t, and they live and die and bring forth the next generation who either believes or does not as individuals. I don’t like seeing Christians conflating tenants of their faith with secular politics. It leads to heretical beliefs among other problems.
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 17, 2024 17:06:16 GMT -5
Thank you for your response. I still don’t believe that going to church is necessary as you have stated, Did I say it was “necessary?” That wasn’t my intent if it sounded that way. I said its something a Christian should do. It doesn’t have anything to do with whether someone has started that real relationship with God or not. Its unhealthy for a Christian to not go. That’s not the same as being “necessary” in the same way believing the Gospel is “necessary” to be a Christian.
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Post by Tarponator on Jul 17, 2024 17:12:51 GMT -5
Unhealthy?
How so?
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Post by bullfrog on Jul 17, 2024 17:22:44 GMT -5
A Christian can’t grow without the church. That same supernatural process that makes a human “born again” causes the person from that point to have their original, sinful, human nature transformed to be more Christ-like. A big part of that process comes from the fellowship of and in the church. The church isn’t a political organization or a building, its literally a spiritual, supernatural, collective of all the born-again Christians of the world. Maybe you could consider us spiritual communists in that regard. Or the spiritual Borg. 😉. We’re all together as if we’re parts of a body on and Christ is our head. As such, you cut off a part, it withers. It can’t grow and be healthy unless its plugged in where its supposed to be. God designed it that way. He likes us to need each other. That was one of Jesus’ prayers before the crucifixion. He asked God the Father to have all Christians abide in Christ as Christ abides in God the Father, and for us to be one with each other as He’s one with the Father. That notion of spiritual community is important to Him. Its the way He wants things to be.
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Post by Tarponator on Jul 17, 2024 17:27:35 GMT -5
Thanks for your response. I wonder what Jesus would think of churches, as my recollection is that he said nothing related to church attendance/participation in the gospel.
Did I miss something?
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Post by richm on Jul 17, 2024 17:32:51 GMT -5
I dont go cause the pastors i encountered were predictable in what they’d say. Promoted cliques. Let laymen change stuff and teachings. Etc. etc. and one church told us to sell our house and give them the proceeds, leave our jobs to live on the property in a shed.
I think the best thing a new christian can do is read the NT. Going to church gets them all botched up. It is all about Jesus.
Guy i know just had a face to face w God. He started going to church and they are teaching him everything Solomon did wrong in Proverbs! How does that help a new believer? They are also telling him everything is predestined. As in you have no free will, just living out a timeline. Not a good way to start a fellow off.
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Post by Tarponator on Jul 17, 2024 17:37:47 GMT -5
That raises an interesting philosophical question: Do we have freedom of choice -or- is everything's god's will? I suppose some can and will argue it's "and" not "or", but are these two things not in direct conflict with each other?
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