Is The Church Necessary as a Place to Worship?

As most of you probably know, if you've read my profile, I'm a great fan of Martin Zender. Certainly, I don't agree with everything Martin writes. If I did, I might start calling him "Master", and I don't think he would like that too much!! But, after my journey for TRUTH had proceeded for over a year, I found Martin's website. It was there that I discovered his book, "How to Quit the Church Without Quitting God". It was the thing that allowed God's truth to really impact me. I highly recommend it if you are seeking for God's truth and not finding it inside the four walls of a church.

Now back to my question.....I'll let the apostle Paul speak for me. I trust him. I think he knows what he's talking about. I mean he had a pretty decent teacher out there on the Damascus road and in the Arabian desert.

Acts 17:24

the Lord inherent of heaven and earth, is not dwelling in temples made by hands.


So where is HE? He's in your heart. He's wherever you are. Wherever you and your friends are............

Check out Martin's book. It's worth a read......

As a Man Thinks, So is He......

I have been listening to Dr. Wayne Dyer's CDs lately. I find him to be a very sincere guy. I also find what he has to say intriguing to say the least. By the sound of his presentations, he could definitely be described as a universalist. I find his ideas to be sensible and to address universal human problems and dilemmas, and they contain constant references to scripture and Christ as well as other philosophies and religious leaders. He seems to think there is a universality to God (easy enough to believe) and every man and woman can Him find no matter what his or her theology or philosophy. I find this refreshing in today's disjointed, fragmented world of theologies/religions that hate one another under the same banner, "Our God is the only God". Dyer's CDs are something I will explore more deeply, letting the Spirit lead me as He will. What do you think?.................................

A Letter to My Brother-in-Law

I received an email from my brother-in-law yesterday. He's a great guy, that I love a lot. He's had his ups and downs with his religion much as all of us raised in the church. The email was a link to a video found on YouTube. When I played it, I was sort of surprised. It was a video called "Are You Ready". It showed a minister preaching to a group of people. He topic was Matthew 24. His message was about the "rapture". Using the KJV, he was telling the audience that Jesus could return anytime, and that we all had better be ready. He could come in a flash,like lightning.Then, suddenly, there was a loud boom and bright flash. When the blinding light faded, the minister and about half the audience were gone, obviously "raptured" to heaven. The people who were left stood and looked around with puzzled looks. One of them, finally realizing what had happened, fell to his knees and began weeping. The video came to an end. I thought to myself, why did Bill (not his real name) send this to me. It just didn't fit with his style. Maybe he was reaching out, asking me for an opinion on this event. About a year ago, we were sitting in his backyard, when I broached the subject of religion. I was early in my search for God's truth and my explanation of what was happening in my life was probably poorly explained. when I told him I felt all humanity would be reconciled to God, and would be with God in heaven, he mentioned that he wouldn't won't to be in heaven if Hitler was there. So, I dropped the subject for the time. I hadn't really thought about our conversation until this video showed up. I wrote Bill an email about the video and thought I would share it with you:

Bill-

Thanks for the video. But the event of which Matt. 24 speaks has already taken place. It happened in 70 AD with the fall of Jerusalem. This video is typical of the scare tactics used by the church today to frighten people into the church; to scare the "Hell" out of them, to strengthen the church's hold on them; to prevent them from learning the Truth about God. The Kingdom of God has come Jesus told his disciples that, they just didn't understand. The Old Covenant with Israel is complete. The New Covenant of grace is in effect because of the cross of Christ.. Maybe that's what the writer was speaking of in the hymn, AMAZING GRACE. The fall of Jerusalem was foretold by Jesus in Chap 24 of Matthew. This is not some future event, but one that took place over 1900 years ago when the Romans surrounded, stormed and destroyed Jerusalem and with it the old sacramental system of the Jews who rejected Him. After His ascension to the Father, He chose the most unlikely man to take the real "good news" to "the nations", the gentiles, you and me. That man's name was Saul (Paul). Paul, receiving a revelation from Christ on the Damascus road, afterwards he went into Arabia for three years, where I believe he received the real gospel, the gospel of grace. The good news that you and I are reconciled to God thru the cross of Christ. The work has already been done. Everyone is redeemed, many just don't realize it. Paul tells us that the covenant with the Jews has not been voided and eventually, all Israel will be saved in spite of their stubbornness and refusal to accept Christ as the Messiah. After all, the Jews are to reign with Christ in the millenial kingdom along with the ones who believed in this eon, before the millenial kingdom begins). After the millenium comes to a close, in some future eon, Christ will have defeated all His enemies, the last to be defeated is death,. He will then turn over the keys of the kingdom to His father and God will be "ALL IN ALL". If there is work to be done now, it is to let everyone know that Christ paid the price, our past, present, and future sins have been erased, taken care of. Now we can enjoy a full relationship to the Father, who "graciously" took care of it all for us and showed us the true meaning of LOVE, whether we know it or not. Paul's writings are the real "good news" Read Romans 5 and you will find that as a result of Adam's disobedience ALL were condemned; thus also it is thru one just act (by Christ) ALL shall be made just in the eyes of God. I Cor 15:22 states it again: "for as in Adam ALL are dying, thus also, in Christ , shall ALL be made alive.." In the letter to Timothy, (may possibly not be Paul's hand, but certainly his theology) it says: "for all this are we toiling and being reproached, , that we rely on the living God, who is the Saviour of ALL mankind, especially (which means but not exclusively) of believers". Check out Rom. 11:32, "For God locks up ALL together in stubbornness, that He should show mercy to ALL".

Bill don't be fooled by what you've been taught all your life by the church. Do your own thinking and seek the Truth. Ask the Holy Spirit to direct you to it. He will show you if you truly desire it. took me 58 years to learn the Truth. Check out my blog at: http://searchforlife-don.blogspot.com/

Read as many of my posts as you want, I encourage you to do so. I am telling you these things because I love you and don't want you to spend another moment suffering guilt and disappointment when you find you can't live up to what the church tells you to do in order to be "saved" and "get to heaven". There are more atheists in this world because of Christians than any other reason. On my blog, there are links to other blogs which I read regularly and to other websites which will add to your understanding of the "real gospel", the gospel of grace.
You probably remember one time when I was out at your house and we spoke briefly about this subject. I was only beginning to study the subject and I have a long way to go, but it has changed my life. I will never "go to church" again. I canceled my church membership and haven't looked back. Out of respect for my mother, I would not tell her what I have experienced for at her age, like your mother, she would never understand. (my wife) has been reluctant to join me, but that is fine, you see there is no rush with God. If you check, you will find that Jesus never got in a hurry to "evangelize" the people He met. He simply told them that "the Kingdom of God is among you".(my wife) is happy with totally ignoring the church. Right now, she doesn't have the desire to search for Truth. God gave me that desire about 2 years ago, and He was faithful to show me many, many truths that I had never seen before, even though they were right in front of me and in the scriptures. Christianity has done a great job of hiding the truth from us for 1700 years. A great change is coming. I don't know how long it will take , but Christianity is about to undergo a tremendous change. Interestingly enough, THE INTERNET is the vehicle God is using right now to spread the truth of the gospel of grace. Finally, the internet is being used for good. I guess we should thank ole Al Gore.......

Please take me seriously here, I love you and want you to be truly happy in a wonderful relationship with our Father, God,who loves us even more that we can ever,ever, imagine. And nothing, absolutely nothing will ever change that love He has for us. Remember the verse "GOD IS LOVE"...

Don

Sometimes I Think Too Much.....

I was reading my CLNT (Concordant Literal New Testament) the other day and I came to a verse in I John (I John 3:9). It reads: "Everyone who is begotten of God is not doing sin, for His seed is remaining in him and he can not be sinning, for he is begotten of God". This verse hit me between the eyes. "Can not be sinning", because he is begotten of God. Man this really bothered me. I still sin and I do it quite well, thank you. It went against everything I had come to believe in the last two years, namely that the death of Christ on the cross had redeemed me of every sin that I had ever done, every sin that I would ever do, but didn't promise that I would NOT sin; just that every sin that I commit or had committed had been removed from my account in the eyes of God, because of Christ and His work on the cross. I was puzzled. More than that, I was troubled. I immediately thought, I have a close brotherhood of friends that I trust that I'll turn to with this perplexing verse. After seeking their wise counsel and receiving answers which certainly helped , I began to think. God, why would you lead me this far from my old evangelical, conservative roots, to freedom in Christ to have me run into an obstacle such as this verse? That's a paraphrase of what I was thinking, but my thoughts were something like that. I pondered what my friends in Christ had said. Then I thought to myself, one opinion was definitely missing. That was the opinion of "Free Thinking Faith's blogger extraordinare, Steve Jones. Now Steve has been in the process of a move, so I couldn't reach him. But, I could reach his words. I can't tell how many times they have been a comfort to me. In his wisdom, Steve has reached thru the internet world to comfort and strengthen my spirit. I found Steve thru his "Dogma Free Theology" page. I read one of the articles and was so impressed by it, I printed off the entire site and put it in a notebook. I was equally impressed by the other titles. I must say at that point in my journey, that I didn't fully agree with all that I read. However, I kept them all and found that the more I studied and opened myself to the Spirit of Truth's guidance and leadership, the more Steve's articles became clear and real to me. So, since the author wasn't around, I consulted the author's words and I found the comfort and clarity I so desparately needed. It was in two of Steve's articles, "The Limits of Biblical Authority" and "Sola Scriptura". I will not attempt to reproduce those articles here, especially without Steve's permission, but I will give you a link to them at "Dogma Free Theology". If you are bothered, troubled, or perplexed by the apparent inconsistencies of scripture, I strongly recommend these articles and the entire site is well-worth your time and effort to read. Thank you Steve for restoring my spirit. Here is the link. http://theology.wordsmithjones.com/