Belonging...

[Carl Emerson]

Hey there,

As I watch a Sunday morning service online, I get an intense feeling of not belonging - so I cant watch it, and I switch it off.

So instead I take my dog for a walk and pray putting the matter in His hands.

It occurs to me to ask you - is it 'normal' to be a sojourner?

The only sense of belonging I have is to my wife and family.

The things of earth have grown strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace...

I fellowship with a small group of friends.

My walk has been more Pauline - directly impacted by God and as a result have a radical love for Him that is generally not understood.

Hebrews 11 records...

"37 ...They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and hid in caves and holes in the ground...

These are given acclaim for their faith... there is no suggestion that they 'had a problem'.

The local church seems like a museum to commemorate a faith that was, rather than a vital walk now.

I guess it is not surprising that I have a deep belief in community as in early Acts.

As this generally doesn't exist I remain largely alone.

But I have hope that our faith will eventually move more towards such a corporate life.

Then I will have less of a sense of not belonging.

 

[Hidden In Him]

Hey there,

As I watch a Sunday morning service online, I get an intense feeling of not belonging - so I cant watch it, and I switch it off.

So instead I take my dog for a walk and pray putting the matter in His hands.

It occurs to me to ask you - is it 'normal' to be a sojourner?

The only sense of belonging I have is to my wife and family.

The things of earth have grown strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace...

I fellowship with a small group of friends.

My walk has been more Pauline - directly impacted by God and as a result have a radical love for Him that is generally not understood.

Hebrews 11 records...

"37 ...They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and hid in caves and holes in the ground...

These are given acclaim for their faith... there is no suggestion that they 'had a problem'.

The local church seems like a museum to commemorate a faith that was, rather than a vital walk now.

I guess it is not surprising that I have a deep belief in community as in early Acts.

As this generally doesn't exist I remain largely alone.

But I have hope that our faith will eventually move more towards such a corporate life.

Then I will have less of a sense of not belonging.

Be encouraged. My wife and I haven't been able to watch services on TV in years. We try, but always end up turning it off as well. Our church is ok, but not nearly as Spirit-filled as it should be.

But I'm seeing something all of a sudden. The Spirit-filled are being brought together through the leading of the Lord. I think the time is now at hand when those led by His Spirit are going to begin increasingly finding one another, and increasingly be led to one another.

I think that is where your true family is anyway, so the Lord may have reserved you having a true spiritual family for the times we are entering now.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Yes there are signs of this happening...

 

[Amittai]

... is it 'normal' to be a sojourner? 1

The only sense of belonging I have is to my wife and family.

The things of earth have grown strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace...

I fellowship with a small group of friends. 2

My walk has been more Pauline - directly impacted by God and as a result have a radical love for Him that is generally not understood.

Hebrews 11 records...

"37 ...They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and hid in caves and holes in the ground...

These are given acclaim for their faith... there is no suggestion that they 'had a problem'.

The local church seems like a museum 3 to commemorate a faith that was, rather than a vital walk now.

I guess it is not surprising that I have a deep belief in community as in early Acts.

As this generally doesn't exist I remain largely alone.

But I have hope that our faith will eventually move more towards such a corporate life. 4

Then I will have less of a sense of not belonging.

1. It was the "old normal" all along.

2. Most of us don't have that much.

3. They required of us the designer outlet barbecues, bad amplifying and unconvincing videos of Zion!

4. What you mean is joint and common = individuals maturing in integrity in their interactions. Corporate = being a figment of the monolith.

 

[Richard T]

It takes some doing to really belong to a church. The people have to be welcoming, genuine and truly serving God to make it work. Many churches do not have this. As I have been questioning as to whether the current pandemic parallels Eli's judgement as found in I Samuel 2, the second part of that judgement is God assigning new priests. Perhaps the virus will be a catalyst also for new ministries that are far more in tune with God.

 

[Carl Emerson]

Funny you should say that...

My son of 19 in his theological journey has announced that he no longer wants to break bread with the family because I am not ordained !!!

 

[Martyr's Crown]

I do believe strongly that there will come a time where true Christians will come together in a stronger unity.

Though this will become easier seen when there are times of persecution. During times of tribulation, it will bring out more those who wants to stay faithful to the Lord Jesus.

Right now there are a mix of wheat and tares type of Christians, during good and peaceful times many may not see much of a difference between these. But once it starts becoming more tough, it will become clearer who belongs to the Lord and who doesn't.

We just need to keep on getting closer to God, and keep on seeking Him daily. Growing in our relationship to Jesus Christ, and feeding on His Word as well as letting our faith grow stronger in Him. As well as fellowshiping with others which He puts into our way. We will be fine when we trust in the Lord! And He will not let us be taken out from the grasp of His hand! When we are His, He will not let us go in any way! But keep on working with us and leading us into eternity, preparing us for eternity...

 

[RickardoHolmes]

Hey there,

As I watch a Sunday morning service online, I get an intense feeling of not belonging - so I cant watch it, and I switch it off.

So instead I take my dog for a walk and pray putting the matter in His hands.

It occurs to me to ask you - is it 'normal' to be a sojourner?

The only sense of belonging I have is to my wife and family.

Thank you for the interesting and thought provoking post.
Today, for the first time ever, I watched a live stream of a church service as it was happening.

The speaker had a very positive message. I have never been to his church, likely never will. But I want to Email him and express my thanks.

As for "belonging" I have never felt that I belong in a congregation. I have always been a sojourner. it has been my source of peace, my source of comfort and my reliance on that which is Godly vs that which is earthly. I simply do not fit in with congregations, and have long since given up trying.

I belong many places...with my family, with professional groups, with hobby groups.....but not churches. That has never worked out for me. What I do know is that GOD exists in every molecule of the universe.....not just inside one group or one building.
Just continue your journey with your eyes looking up to God for guidance ( as the pastor said today online) With God guiding your path, you will go where HE knows best.

 

[Carl Emerson]

1. It was the "old normal" all along.

2. Most of us don't have that much.

3. They required of us the designer outlet barbecues, bad amplifying and unconvincing videos of Zion!

4. What you mean is joint and common = individuals maturing in integrity in their interactions. Corporate = being a figment of the monolith.

Yes 'corporate' was not the best choice of word...

 

[Scott Husted]

Hey there,

As I watch a Sunday morning service online, I get an intense feeling of not belonging - so I cant watch it, and I switch it off.

So instead I take my dog for a walk and pray putting the matter in His hands.

It occurs to me to ask you - is it 'normal' to be a sojourner?

The only sense of belonging I have is to my wife and family.

The things of earth have grown strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace...

I fellowship with a small group of friends.

My walk has been more Pauline - directly impacted by God and as a result have a radical love for Him that is generally not understood.

Hebrews 11 records...

"37 ...They went around in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, oppressed, and mistreated. 38 The world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and hid in caves and holes in the ground...

These are given acclaim for their faith... there is no suggestion that they 'had a problem'.

The local church seems like a museum to commemorate a faith that was, rather than a vital walk now.

I guess it is not surprising that I have a deep belief in community as in early Acts.

As this generally doesn't exist I remain largely alone.

But I have hope that our faith will eventually move more towards such a corporate life.

Then I will have less of a sense of not belonging.

There is seemingly at first a price to enter into the gates of the city ...

 

[Carl Emerson]

There is seemingly at first a price to enter into the gates of the city ...

Would you like to explain what you mean?

 

[Scott Husted]

Would you like to explain what you mean?

It's really not something to explain so much as it is something to experience ... but I will if you wish, I warn you though, it is Bible wide ...

 

[Carl Emerson]

Hit me with it...

 

[K2K]

The Lord created us, and we are individuals. So He created us as individuals. Some of us are very o outgoing, and some not so much. We have a personality!!

Now, from my conversations with the Lord, and they seem to match up with the Bible, the Lord likes relationships! Mainly He like us to have a relationship with Him but others also, but that doesn't mean that everyone need to have a relationship with everyone else. There is also something written about the Lord giving us the desires of our heart.

If someone prefers fewer but closer relationships, is that worse that someone who prefers more relationships but does take the time to get close relationships?

I put that as a question, because perhaps one or the other could be a problem if there is a problem behind it. For example, could someone not want a close relationship because a close relationship with bad in the past and there is a lack of forgiveness that needs to be addressed. So what we all need is a personal relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ!! He can tell us if there is a problem with our thinking, even our thinking about relationships. This includes our going to church, what type of church, and how we are to involve ourselves, or relate, to the church He wants us to go to.

The questions and issues brought up in the OP are personal, and they answers we need when we have those questions (and we do have those types of questions) need to be answered by our Lord. A person is not better or worse if they like a big church, a small church, or just an intimate bible study with a few close friends. However a person does need to talk to the Lord about these things because seeking Him or not does directly have implications on whether you are doing better or worse!


On a personal note: this type of thing has often come up in my life, and both ways. Once I wanted to get away from a small church because I just wanted to go to a service, not be seen, and just walk out afterwards. So I decided to go to a very big church, but the Lord didn't like that, and talked to me about it. Then later when the smaller church broke apart I wanted to go to another smaller church like where He had me, but then He told me to go to that very same large church He didn't want me going before. It turned out that He then needed me to go to that big church because of how He wanted to grow me then. The big church had a ministry school He wanted me in. It also had several other ministries that He need me in to grow me. So sometimes it is just a mater of the season of your life and what He is doing with you at a certain time of your life.

So again, it all points back to us seeking Him for instructions and wisdom.

 

[Tempura]

It occurs to me to ask you - is it 'normal' to be a sojourner?

Probably. Certainly seems so. I don't think I have a strong sense of belonging either, but I also don't have a strong sense of not belonging. I'm quite a hermit though, so perhaps I'm just so used to not belonging that I don't feel it too hard.

But since you feel like you don't belong, you can easily understand and deal with those who feel the same way, even if someone just stopped by in your life for a minute and then walked away. There can be a real connection in that, and real belonging. One atom in the body of Christ meeting another in their sense of loneliness. But you belong in the same body, whether you feel it or not.

 

[Scott Husted]

Hit me with it...

I’m so sorry, I just saw your reply …forgive me …


Let me start this small jaunt by saying, I will say things that I’m sure you are more than aware of (so humor me), in fact there’s nothing I can say about the things I will reference as foundational truths of the walking out of our relationship with God that don’t already belong to all those who have ever been called by his name, whether they understand them at present or not is a moot point, (only God gives the increase, and it comes in no other way).

The “seemingly at first a price” of course is your soul, but what does this mean as an absolute to us … Jesus said he was the door, that by him if any man entered in, he would be saved, and would go in and out, and find pasture. This of course is in relationship to our soul, for our Father is after a deep calls to deep relationship now, via a soul we find, which is the truth that the heavenly Jerusalem is a picture of, but it is every bit the name written on a stone that no man knows but the one that receives it (much like Jesus’ no one knows the son but the father and no one knows the father but the son, or Abraham’s “I am thy exceeding and great reward, who also looked for a city whose builder and maker were God). And let me say right off that if you believe the city that comes down from God out of heaven is a literal city or if you believe it’s the church makes no difference … the inward journey into this truth of the city is something that can be entered into at a price … by the keeping of his commandments … which the first again is not to eat. This city is also in another form the pasture that Jesus referenced as in (which I won’t go into at the moment of the one he referenced as being out), or as the waters that would spring up in us after he has given us to drink, promising that we would never thirst again (not that we would not drink again mind you).

There is a progression of truth that begins in the first garden that Jesus simplified as first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, whose connection in one form is the three feasts one is called up to Jerusalem to keep (remember Paul said the law was spiritual, which is another way of saying it is an inward truth). We must remember that the kingdom of God (Jesus told John’s disciples is preached) begins in Genesis for us, just like born again was not something new, Jesus almost seemed taken back with Nicodemus who was supposed to be a master in Israel, but did not know this simple truth that in type was strewn about the Old Testament in various forms.

The commandment not to eat is the first revealing of the feast of Passover (as the face of the waters is the first revealing of the brazen laver which we see our face in, just to throw it out there), or the picking up of your cross, which is something that is taken down to a single thought. To lose our soul is not about a selfless life though it becomes a byproduct of it in the form of living for others. A seed abides alone unless it first drops to the ground was not just Jesus being this very truth, but Jesus as this seed in us, as well as a collective truth of this reality of this one son. This seed is the son we are in relationship to this city, as well as it is the son we are in relationship to our father.

Our soul like Sarai (in type) trying to fulfil the promise of God has no part in it other than the garden in which the seed grows (so to speak). This type of truth plays out in different forms throughout the whole of scripture, and is why the heavenly Jerusalem is not revealed until Babylon is cast down, or like a woman who is desolate … as Jesus said, you must hate your own soul … which is the life that Jesus gave for his sheep.

The farther you enter into the truth and drink of the waters of the river of this city the more of a sojourner you become, and what you see and understand becomes to you as something unlawful to speak, which a better way of saying the same thing is … impossible to put into words …

As a parting thought, the third feast one is called up to Jerusalem to keep is the feast of tabernacles, and semblance of the truth of this feast are found in the promises given to the seven churches in the book of Revelation …

 

[Carl Emerson]

I’m so sorry, I just saw your reply …forgive me …


Let me start this small jaunt by saying, I will say things that I’m sure you are more than aware of (so humor me), in fact there’s nothing I can say about the things I will reference as foundational truths of the walking out of our relationship with God that don’t already belong to all those who have ever been called by his name, whether they understand them at present or not is a moot point, (only God gives the increase, and it comes in no other way).

The “seemingly at first a price” of course is your soul, but what does this mean as an absolute to us … Jesus said he was the door, that by him if any man entered in, he would be saved, and would go in and out, and find pasture. This of course is in relationship to our soul, for our Father is after a deep calls to deep relationship now, via a soul we find, which is the truth that the heavenly Jerusalem is a picture of, but it is every bit the name written on a stone that no man knows but the one that receives it (much like Jesus’ no one knows the son but the father and no one knows the father but the son, or Abraham’s “I am thy exceeding and great reward, who also looked for a city whose builder and maker were God). And let me say right off that if you believe the city that comes down from God out of heaven is a literal city or if you believe it’s the church makes no difference … the inward journey into this truth of the city is something that can be entered into at a price … by the keeping of his commandments … which the first again is not to eat. This city is also in another form the pasture that Jesus referenced as in (which I won’t go into at the moment of the one he referenced as being out), or as the waters that would spring up in us after he has given us to drink, promising that we would never thirst again (not that we would not drink again mind you).

There is a progression of truth that begins in the first garden that Jesus simplified as first the blade, then the ear, after that the full corn in the ear, whose connection in one form is the three feasts one is called up to Jerusalem to keep (remember Paul said the law was spiritual, which is another way of saying it is an inward truth). We must remember that the kingdom of God (Jesus told John’s disciples is preached) begins in Genesis for us, just like born again was not something new, Jesus almost seemed taken back with Nicodemus who was supposed to be a master in Israel, but did not know this simple truth that in type was strewn about the Old Testament in various forms.

The commandment not to eat is the first revealing of the feast of Passover (as the face of the waters is the first revealing of the brazen laver which we see our face in, just to throw it out there), or the picking up of your cross, which is something that is taken down to a single thought. To lose our soul is not about a selfless life though it becomes a byproduct of it in the form of living for others. A seed abides alone unless it first drops to the ground was not just Jesus being this very truth, but Jesus as this seed in us, as well as a collective truth of this reality of this one son. This seed is the son we are in relationship to this city, as well as it is the son we are in relationship to our father.

Our soul like Sarai (in type) trying to fulfil the promise of God has no part in it other than the garden in which the seed grows (so to speak). This type of truth plays out in different forms throughout the whole of scripture, and is why the heavenly Jerusalem is not revealed until Babylon is cast down, or like a woman who is desolate … as Jesus said, you must hate your own soul … which is the life that Jesus gave for his sheep.

The farther you enter into the truth and drink of the waters of the river of this city the more of a sojourner you become, and what you see and understand becomes to you as something unlawful to speak, which a better way of saying the same thing is … impossible to put into words …

As a parting thought, the third feast one is called up to Jerusalem to keep is the feast of tabernacles, and semblance of the truth of this feast are found in the promises given to the seven churches in the book of Revelation …

Yes... I feel your reply, forget the technical detail, our personal journey is primarily an experience of faith - a song - a love song with Him. This is our aloneness, this is our life as the Bride of Christ sharing His cross. I appreciate that we have connected for a moment and shared poems...

 

[Little Lantern]

So sometimes it is just a mater of the season of your life and what He is doing with you at a certain time of your life.

Very true. Ask a person separated from their spouse, or a older single person, or (sad to say) someone whose financial status doesn't quite match the congregation's.

There are people whose current situations make them misfits in the brick-and-mortar church. Sometimes a person's walk with the Lord makes it difficult to find like-minded fellowship with Christian depth.

I have been that person who has gone to church(es) truly open-minded , looking to find Christian fellowship and finally, after years of trying, have quit attending. Interestingly at home, I found the sweetest fellowship with the Lord Himself. Oh, to find that level of fellowship with Him in His Body.

Although not popular with most traditional thinking, I will tell you that the Lord connected me with a church via the internet a number of years ago. And besides my own godly father, the pastor of that church has influenced my walk with the Lord more than anyone I have ever met. I do regularly check with the Lord to see if that is still where He wants me, because I don't want comfort and familiarity to become a rut that closes my ears to His leading.