I have input, but there's no reason to put it here. This thread will be shut down and removed just like all the good ones. Really no point in posting anymore......
During the first two years of my Christian life after accepting Jesus as Saviour, all my new Christian friends treated me as a problem case. I felt really put down by them. I felt that they were all better than me, and that as a Christian I was a bit of loser and probably not amount to anything.
Then I went out into the middle of a park at 11pm on a cool autumn night, away from those people and their church, and reached out to God personally. He revealed Himself to me and assured me that He did not see me that way. He told me that if He didn't like me, He would change me. That gave me quite a different perspective on God and the church. I discovered that the Church is not God and that Jesus is a separate entity to the Church and that if the people in my church couldn't accept me as I was then, God did accept me as a true believer and that He was well able to change me into the believer that I wanted to be.
My whole understanding of the Bible changed and I saw the truth of the New Testament in a new light. I then knew that my friends were wrong about me because they saw me just from the outward appearance but did not see my heart. Only God could see that.
It didn't stop people putting me down though, and over the 50 years I have been involved in different churches, I have had all sorts of stuff levelled against me. It was only when I discovered my standing with God, that I could stand with Him without any guilt, shame or inferiority, that I could not only cope with the accusations, but I could agree with them! I did not have to defend myself, because God promised to be my shield.
I had the experience of a manager at work tell me to consult with the psychiatrist because I was a Christian, and three weeks later he collapsed and died of a heart attack. Another guy at a workplace where I was ridiculed an old believer who told him that a day of judgment was coming. That guy committed suicide soon after. So there is a danger attached to accusing and putting down believers who are trusting in Christ.
Relatively recently, an elder in my church criticised me after a morning service. On my way home I asked the Lord whether the criticism came from Him. He said "No!" and so I went on my way rejoicing. That elder contracted a respiratory condition and died a year later. When someone has a critical spirit against fellow believers, they put themselves in danger of being removed by God.
In a workplace not long before I retired, there was a team leader and another team member who told two of us who were Christians not to bring our Christianity to work. Soon after, the team leader left the workplace, and ended up in Australia, never to be seen again. The team member was accused of bullying and left under a cloud, and then danced drunk on tables at a police function and fired from her next job. She left the country never to be seen again.
An older lady in my church said to others that the then session clerk and I was not pulpit material and refused to attend services when we were preaching. She was gone shortly afterwards to a retirement home on the other side of the city.
These are examples of people with critical and judgmental spirits being removed from having any influence over me or any fellow Christ-trusting believers.
These show that no matter what people in the church say about you, Christ does not say these things, and you can trust Him that He sees you as a true believer and will work through the Holy Spirit to enhance your experience with God and lead you to a fellowship of believers who will love and accept you as you are,
