Bomber2k said:
Nope of course i have not sold everything... where in the bible does it say to do that? Perhaps in the old testament in context to something there, but its definetely not what we should be doing today.
If God honestly told me to sell all my things i would do it. At the moment he is not.
Matthew 19:21...."Jesus answered 'If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me"
A rather famous answer from Christ to a man asking how he could be perfect. Not necessarily a commandment, simply an example of how one can acheive perfection.
Selling everything you have is foolish because then you have nothing that can help others. Plus, it is not God's will for you to be poor. As it says in the bible, God wants to fill you overflowing! - that means in all aspects of your life.
Apparently not so foolish to Christ, as I have shown, he felt selling everything you own was part of becoming perfect, and indeed is even rewarded in Heaven for doing so. I've seen this 'its not Gods will for you to be poor' line of reasoning before, usually from a TV preacher trying convince people to send him more money so he can get a new mercedes. Christ was concerned with being rich in spirit, not with worldy success and riches, with building heavenly treasures and not earthly. Worldly riches meant nothing to Him, and honestly, they shouldn't mean much to us, this life is short and you can't take it with you. As the saying goes "man does not live by bread alone....."
It is not a sin to have money, but to love money. Money is one of the keys to saving this world.
Of course, we all know it takes money to get around in this world, to print bibles, to make videos, etc etc. Where money becomes a problem is when we fail to put it to good use. When we decide to spend it on our selves for luxury and not to help others. Most of us probably fail miserably at that. Christ probably looks at our country and wonders how we can allow so many to be poor when we have so much. Something for the Christians driving fancy cars and living in nice big houses, and even myself with my nice thousand dollar computer, to think about. What we own and what we choose to do with our money should have purpose with Christ. He didn't give it to us just so we could have a merry old time making ourselves feel good.
About church, Church and Youth Church is awesome and it is awesome! to be able to worship God with a lot of people!! If its just with a small group eg. 'homegroup', over the internet chat, radio etc, its kinda not giving God the respect he deserves. Do you have any reason NOT to go to any church?
A good thing to do with you fellowship group would be to start a church from it and invite ppl that you know!
Thats a big mistake in my view. There has always been the church, even in the old Testament. Jesus did remind people that the Church is not the building but the people in it. I can see where you think that we are the church and therefore wherever we are the church is, but that does not make sense on its own.
Just because I am with my christian friends somewhere does not mean we are the church then and there. What about the pastors, elders etc talked about in the bible... eg. go to your church elders to sort out a bad situation
Those are great things, as I have said church can be a postive experience and Christians should seek it. However, the question is not whether we should go to church but if not going is a sin. As I said before in this thread, whenever we gather in His Name, He is with us. Doesn't seem the stuff of sin to me if your only a few and Christ is there with you all, no matter where you may be. Whats important is that you gather in His name, that you have fellowship, praise and worship Him, not the place or number of people or the organization you do it with.
Bottomline is, going to our modern notion of 'church' can be a good thing. But a better Christian or a worse one it does not make. Each of us decides that alone, it is not decided by our ritauls but our faith. I have never done anything worth doing at a church that I haven't been able to do alone or with a handful of friends joined together in His name. Indeed, when my wife was too sick from cancer to go to church anymore, we would pray together at home, we would praise His name; she would sing to Him and I would listen. We would study the bible, and try to learn from it, try to understand it. I got just as much out of that as I ever got out of going to what passes for church in our country. We decided to do that, we chose to, the sin would have been if we had not chosen to do so at all, not that we didn't do it at the local 'church'. The upside of church is that it presents an environment where we can thrive as Christians, it helps us keep our focus on Christ and God. I could never truly argue that going to church is bad, I simply take issue with anyone who argues that not going is a sin. Be careful what standards you set for others, because God will hold you to them.
