I believe that there is and has only ever been one true Church, which is made up only of those who are Born Again believers from whatever church background, or none, worldwide, past present and future. Those who through the revelation of the Holy Spirit have seen Jesus for who he is, recognised what he did, turned from their sin and accepted him into their lives as Lord and Saviour. Anybody who hasn’t taken these steps towards him and made that commitment is not, in my view, part of the Church. And in my experience many church-goers and even clergy fall outside this criterion.
And already in God’s eyes we are spotless; having had our sin washed away in the blood of the sacrificial Lamb we are free from it. We are not though, yet perfect – far from it some might say – and won’t be while we are in our mortal bodies, but we are without sin in God’s eyes. If we were not we wouldn’t be called a Holy Priesthood; those who have been made holy as he is holy and can come into His holy presence and stand before him face to face.
It is this Church which will be presented to the Father as the Bride.
Within the denominations there are many tares among the wheat and goats among the sheep, and where they are in the majority, I believe God’s word tells us not to be yoked with unbelievers. I know there is an argument which says stay and lead by example, but I have found that such died-in-the-wool ‘tares’ have absolutely no desire to change and most will be quite derogatory about those in their midst who confess to be Born Again and Spirit filled.
Many clergy are afraid to preach the truth in case they offend life-long church members who then may leave, causing dwindling membership to drop even further – I’ve seen it happen. These stiff-necked people are often the driving force of the church (small c) as they refuse to step down from positions of authority on PCC committees and the like, which can result in the stultifying of the church.
Those of us who do belong to the One True Church should be showing love and a lack of prejudice towards one another. We who carry the divine DNA and are brothers and sisters in Christ, children of the Living God need to be seen to be kind and loving to each other as “By their love will you know them”. We have so much in common, and our Father tells us to encourage one another, so let us do just that.
And already in God’s eyes we are spotless; having had our sin washed away in the blood of the sacrificial Lamb we are free from it. We are not though, yet perfect – far from it some might say – and won’t be while we are in our mortal bodies, but we are without sin in God’s eyes. If we were not we wouldn’t be called a Holy Priesthood; those who have been made holy as he is holy and can come into His holy presence and stand before him face to face.
It is this Church which will be presented to the Father as the Bride.
Within the denominations there are many tares among the wheat and goats among the sheep, and where they are in the majority, I believe God’s word tells us not to be yoked with unbelievers. I know there is an argument which says stay and lead by example, but I have found that such died-in-the-wool ‘tares’ have absolutely no desire to change and most will be quite derogatory about those in their midst who confess to be Born Again and Spirit filled.
Many clergy are afraid to preach the truth in case they offend life-long church members who then may leave, causing dwindling membership to drop even further – I’ve seen it happen. These stiff-necked people are often the driving force of the church (small c) as they refuse to step down from positions of authority on PCC committees and the like, which can result in the stultifying of the church.
Those of us who do belong to the One True Church should be showing love and a lack of prejudice towards one another. We who carry the divine DNA and are brothers and sisters in Christ, children of the Living God need to be seen to be kind and loving to each other as “By their love will you know them”. We have so much in common, and our Father tells us to encourage one another, so let us do just that.