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Good, Better or Best? This is what a Christian brother and I discuss a lot over the things that go on in the body of Christ as well as our political discussions. Will is one of my main people that I fellowship in life anymore. I spent 30 years in the walled in fellowships. I have come to the conclusion that most of that is "Good". Some may be better but I do not view it as best. Saying good is not saying it is what I want to ever really be a part of. I had been at least somewhat associated with several different denomenations. There is no such annimal as a non-denomenational fellowship. Each place has its' own beliefs which are better known as a doctrine. So, we all have our own denomenation whetehr its just our beliefs or a groups. It has been about 8 years now since I felt compelled by the Holy Spirit to "prove to myself" what I actually believed based on scripture and not on what I had been taught. My background was that I grew up in a Methodist Fellowship. I was saved when I was 15 which really had nothing to do with being at that Fellowship. It had much more to do with being around a fellowship that was going on at lunch at the High School. I immediately became a Charismatic within months and that did not go over too well with the Methodist Pastor. There was a Charismatic Methodist Pastor over in another town that I ended up going to that fellowship instead. To this day that has been the only Pastor I have ever felt close to. Different reasons. Down here in Florida the churches are usually much bigger and the people are transient. Up in Ohio it was small town and peoples lives were much more intertwined. That I miss. The weather and the economic difficulties, no. I spent 20 years in Florida in the Assemby of God fellowships. During which I worked on TV crews and also spent 5 years in the deliverance minsitry. I tithed and did what was part of the core beliefs. I had great times financially when I tithed and I had great times financially when I no longer tithed. God is good period.Its' all about him. His goodness and his kindness. During my life I spent many hours reading the Old and New Testament. I used to get up an hour early each day just to read God's word. My beliefs were as per most doctrines a mix of the Old Covenant/Testament and the New Covenant of Christ. I am careful not to call the New Testament the New Covenant, because that New Covenant of Christ does not take place until Jesus gave his spilled blood for the remission of sins. That is when it begins. That is when Christianity begins. Up unto that time, God had a relationship only with the Jewish people. Gentiles were out of luck. That may be hard to accept to us today but it is what it is. At Calvary the veil was torn and mankinds relationship with God forever changed. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Thank You Jesus! Most of my adult life I had been involved in "the place to be" here in Florida. In the late 70's Calvary Assembly was the fastest growing fellowship in America. I use the word fellowship because thats what it is supposed to be when we gather corporately. We as believers as a whole are the Church. It is not a building or meeting place. It is the people. My ministry throughout my life has been to the people that fall through the cracks in organized christianity. Wounded people. Many cases women who have been physically, verbally and spiritually abused in life. The message is always the same. Jesus loves you just as you are. You matter to God. God is about you and not what has happened to you or anything you may have done. He accepts you 100%. He can heal you. He will NEVER reject you. Why is my heart that way? Well I was adopted. I was raised by two wonderful loving parents and yet I had an emptiness inside that a psychologist would call abandonment issues, but I would say was the fact the people anointed in life to be my parents rejected me for whatever reason. Later in life I met them, but that is another story. My heart has always been that of a Pastor. I know that is my gifting. Personally I do not believe gifting is supposed to be positional. Its just for the edification of the body of Christ. I know I have gotten a little sidetracked here. Like I said, about a decade ago I was challenged by the Holy Spirit to prove what I believed within the confines of the ascriptures after Jesus had given atonement. Why would it be like that you might ask. Here is why. The Covenant that we now have with God in which it is now inclusive of all mankind is found there. The things that changed because of the complete and finished work of Jesus are found there. Many things Jesus did as he was fulfilling the law are no longer done or even seen because of the atonement on the cross. This was a scary thing for me. It meant putting everything I believed to the real litmus test. Life after the cross is where our lives are best related to our relationship with God. It's also why when you show a sacred cow taught since 1873 (tithing) is so hard for people to discuss because it has been what they have been taught. Yet the scriptures when taken in context and not assumptions prove something completly different. I started out looking for one place after the cross where a born again believer ever was prayed over to have a demon cast out. In most cases you will hear people in that belief "ministry" say that a christian can only be oppressed.Well there is no place in the scriptures after the cross where this happens. It does happen as some people were being saved which makes total sense. This led me to realize that many things we are taught, we are "primed" for. In deliverance we are taught how to do it. We tell the people who are going to be prayed over what could happen. All of this sets the stage for the ceremony. Do you see what I am saying? Conjured up by mans preconceived actions. It is soulish, not spiritual as people would like to think. So I had to totally step back from that way of thinking. It simply is not supported in the New Covenant. Feel free to look at scriptures after atonement. LOL I always get people coming back with me on scriptures before atonement. Those do not matter. Why? because the cross changed the world. Not to drag it on, but the same with generational curses. We all know they, like demons exist. But after the cross, once again there is not one place of a generational curse being cast off of a born again believer. Do you start to see the focus here? What Jesus did took care of that for you. The Kingdom of God is here as well as that banquet table for you as a believer.It is our heritage as a believer that we should humbly partake in.Humbly and realize the great sacrifice by our Lord to give us this heritage. The Fellowship as it is in structure is "Good". I would never advocate leaving your fellowship. For me I ask God a lot of questions because in the past, I just accepted and went on because I desired to be a good sheep. Then I just came to this place where I was getting burnt out every so often and would even eventually leave a group because of the burnt out feeling. That is when I realized the difference between operating in nice programs that appeared "Godly" but were just a program and not God's will. If it takes you away from your family, its not God's will. Your greatest ministry towards God is loving your family and actually putting them first. That is Gods plan. You are loving him the most by loving them, not a group or a concept. He has given them to you. All of this just seemed so weird. God was not weird at all, but the stuff going on was and is. So I started studying much closer the activities of the early Christian Fellowships. What I found pretty much were my instincts all along. Things were just not right. Paul was probably more responsible for the strength of the body of Christ today than any other person outside of the trinity. He travelled and set up fellowships. He spent time with people in the community debating daily. He also worked a job as a tentmaker so that he would not be a finacial burden to the fellowships. Think on this. If tithing brought such blessing, why would Paul rob the people of that blessing by not wanting to be a finacial burden? Hmmmn Yeah. Paul also stated that in some cases the people who were travelling and setting up fellowships away from their families and hometowns be paid which made sense because they were travelling and were not on a permanant basis. Yet Paul doing the same thing, chose to work as an example. So this started me thinking. Why did he do it that way. I then studied where the Christian Fellowships met in homes many times during the week to share. The more I looked I found out that the Christians did not use a Temple or a Synagagogue to meet in. It was the only belief system that did not do that. Buildings are often a form of reference. They become a focal point. For over 300 years the believers did not talk so much about the crucifixion as they did resurrection! He's alive. Many had been crucified, but he is alive! It was in the year 330AD that Constantine started building "Christian Buildings" for worship. Constantine wanted to make a state religion. He was not even a believer, but his hand would shape what we know today in structure both in building and services in the body of Christ. He built 19 buildings in 3 cities to start of something that went on throughout the world. But was it the best thing? In the fellowships before Constantine, there was not on any regular basis an orator in a group. Most of the sharing done was compelling wonderful testimonies of the people. It was emotional without a 3 point or 5 point sermon. Fellowship was actually all people being involved. This touched my heart as I read about this because deep inside I knew that was how it was supposed to be as my heart had always felt that way. Gifting in the groups was for things to be orderly as well as the edification of the fellowship. Pastors were overseers much like elders except that they also were servants, making sure the group needs were met. They shared no more than anyone else in the group. The fellowship was not a sermon based concept as it is today. Som if you get borred with an ongoing verbalism, do not feel so bad about it. It was never intended to be that way. Many of the things we have in the organized fellowships today came out of the pagan churches of that time that were implemented and actually cause division in people today. Before I share that, I want to go back to another place where God told Isreal he wanted to dwell with them. They became afraid and asked God for a King. He gave them that King. They were afraid of intimacy with God. many of us today are too. The Pulpit concept came from pagan churches that were implemented into these buildings. It raised an orator above the crowd. Placed them in a position being more than those people were. That was the reason for the Pulpit in the pagan buildings. raising another man over other people. That is not God. Most people do not even think about it. The sermon points were also taken from a non-believer as well. The orator Aristotle. He created the formed speech that is used today. It was no longer the better thing to speak from your heart for a short while about God's goodness and what he was indeed doing. Now it had to be presented with "fashion" and strength of structure. Even at this point the conversion of the pastor walking in his gifts to what we have today would perhaps not have happened had it not been for John Crystendom (Sp). He was an attorney who was great in his courtroom orations. He became very popular and the whole town would come out to listen to his orations on Christ. His style spread and that was the groundswell for pastors becoming orators in fellowships as we have it today. So just as Isreal took a King over God's presense, the same thing happens today as pastors have went from overseers and servants to a King like figure in a fellowship. Is that bad? Anytime the Gospel of Christ is preached it is a good thing. As time went on, in the 500's AD, Pope Greggory of the Catholic Church wrote a book on Priestly duties. Over the centuries the protestant church accepted these obligations as part of a pastors duty. So that is where that came from. Why would I not call the organized church God's best in any way shape or form? Once again, i am not advocating leaving a church because of what I say in here. In the word of God it says that we all as believers are priests and prophets. All of us. Not some. All believers. Jesus said that the Holy Spirit is given to us to comfort us and to teach us all things. That is a very personal issue. it is one that the early body of Christ recognized and implicated when everyone was allowed to share. The word also says that there is a time when a believer no longer needs man as a teacher because the Holy Spirit is his teacher. In a organized fellowship there is a great issue at hand. Defferment. many women complain their are few men leading in the organized church. Well, how many ushers can you have? how many worship leaders etc? They are taught to deffer. So they become complacent and do not fulfill their own gifting all because they have been emasculated by the infrostructure that was implemented by a non-believer in the first place. If one looks deep in the scriptures we will find that Jesus Christ is our authority, and not a man. Oh, many people will take an obscure scripture here and there and build a doctrin off of a scripture and not scriptures pertaining in context. One popular abused scripture is touch not my anointed. That is blown way out of context. In the present Covenant of Christ, we are all anointed. Some say from one scripture obey your government. yet do we obey if it is Russia and they kill christians and take away the bibles? No, that government is against God.Common sense would help people realize God's word is part chronolohical, part history, but it all is used in understanding and pointing to the new covenant of Christ. We are no longer judged by the Law. The law was nailed to the cross as were the ten commandments. In place of that is moral law written on the believers hearts. Jer 31:31-34 predicts that. hebrews 8:13 proclaims that as does Hebrews 7 and Collosians 2. We are free in Christ. There is a good, better and best. However God is all about a love relationship with him. Its not about how good you can be or else Jesus would never need die on that cross.Its about receiving Jesus one time forgiveness of sins, past present and future. Then allowing him to live through you with a like faith in him! Blessings Dennis |
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You will not find one generational curse being broken over a believer after the cross 
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