Pro 27:6 KJV Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
just trying to be a true friend Brother
just trying to be a true friend Brother
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A Foot in Both Worlds
- Thread starter FossMaNo1
- Start date
disciple1
Newbie
That's good to hear, I've been to churches where they think their job is to fight other peoples sin, and leave theirs all alone, and just judge other people.
I've also been to churches first of all I want to say I'm not against gay people, but some churches have them there and they don't even have anything to say to help them, their just there.
And the churches that quote malachi chapter 3 like the only thing god cares about is getting money from people even if their not helped by the message.
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Victory-N-Christ
God:Mighty -N-Power!!
please keep this thought in mind: I am in charge of their spiritual well-being so I can't get so comfortable to a point where they start to think of me as common.Then they might not take me seriously when I preach to them :
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its the Word of God spoken in faith that carries the power to believe (faith) to others (Rom 10:17); if they won't hear the Word of God spoken in faith, they won't believe even if you've been raised from the dead (Luke 16:29-31).
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aiki
Regular Member
We should certainly be "going into all the world and preaching the Gospel," yes. But we are to "come out from among them and be separate," too. The Church can get pretty insular, preferring and obeying the latter command far more than the former. The thing is, many churches where the leadership wants to reverse such a trend and reach out to the lost world more actively, often end up merely compromising with the World. These churches seem to forget the Bible's clear declaration that "the preaching of the cross is foolishness to them who are perishing," and Christ's warning that the World will hate the light, and righteousness, and truth of God:
John 15:18-21
18 "If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you.
19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
20 Remember the word that I said to you, 'A servant is not greater than his master.' If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you. If they kept My word, they will keep yours also.
21 But all these things they will do to you for My name's sake, because they do not know Him who sent Me.
In an effort to overcome the natural animosity that there is between the World and the Word, many Christians work hard to make the lost sinner comfortable in the Church. But this inevitably requires fudging on the Gospel. What sinner wants to hear of "the wrath of God to come," of the jeopardy of eternal divine punishment under which they stand at every moment? What lost person wants to hear that they are, in fact, lost and in desperate need of a Saviour? What unbeliever wants to hear that their moral choices have been, by and large, corrupt and sinful ones? It isn't for no reason that Jesus declared,
Matthew 7:14
14 ...narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.
It won't be through making a sinner at ease in the Church that he will come to a saving faith in Christ, but through the supernatural work of God's Spirit drawing, convicting, illuminating and regenerating them. We don't aid this work of the Spirit but hinder it when we try to become a friend of the World:
James 4:4
4 Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
Be genuine, yes. But this doesn't mean carrying on as though there is no difference between you and an unbeliever. The Bible makes it very clear that we are to live such that Christ is revealed in us. And when we do, the World, more often than not, will reject us. That's not a bad thing. It's what we should expect (see above) and even glory in.
Matthew 5:10-12
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 "Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake.
12 Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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