I never had a denomination. My mom sent me to sunday school in the Catholic church but I used to play hookey and use the quarter at the penny candy store. I went a few times but all I remember is standing and kneeling and sitting and singing.
When I was around 18 I picked up this old bible out of pure boredom and started at the back of the book.
This one had all kinds of REAL CREEPY pictures in it. Dragons and Angels and lots of fire. Needless to say, it left me rather uneasy.
I joined a Southern Baptist church for about a year. The Pastor kind of scared me always yelling about damnation and hellfire.
I made sure to get baptised just incase.
Later on I started a Church of God correspondence course. They focused a lot on end times. But life got busy so I moved on and forgot all about it.
I think Y2K made me look around at what was happening in the world. How to survive the year 2000.
I started reading the bible again.. on my own.
Been that way ever since.
I don't think God recognizes denominations. I believe he looks at the individual regardless of what pew he/she is sitting in.
I passed through a few different ones but never found a "home" so to speak.
I get a lot of those "ah ha" moments when I read the bible. God gave me commonsense of which I am most grateful.
And a heart that is willing to feel.
I don't believe any denomination has it all right or all wrong. I don't believe anyone has all the answers. Or even all the questions.
We grow. A little day by day.
It's been 30 some odd years since I been in a church of any kind.
I guess you could say life is my church and the people I meet at the market or the bank or walking down the street are the members.
I watch videos like yours and others and I may agree or disagree with things. Doesn't mean I'm right, just means I'm learning.
And I don't know the bible by chapter and verse like some people. I listen to a conversation and a word or a sentence will pop in my head and I search for that word or verse in the bible. Like it just comes to me.
I never studied languages so I don't know Hebrew or Greek. I just know that I hear what I hear. And try to explain what I understand that I'm hearing to others.
Doesn't mean I'm right, just means I'm learning and willing to listen.
The Lord has many voices and many ways to get his message out to people.
It's the listening that's important.
As far as the endtimes goes, God already has it planned out and there is nothing anyone can do to change it.
I feel the important thing is to be the best Christian you can be in any kind of weather, rain or shine, good times or bad times.
And the Lord will take care of the rest.
Hugs
Ziggy,
Thanks for sharing your heart on this.
The reason I encourage folks to go to church is the same reason I encourage myself to do so. I don't go because primarily the people I find there all though i am happy to see them, as you stated there is a whole world of folks around us. But these folks are unique out of those in the world around them being on some level they are looking or walking in the direction of God, christianity, Jesus or they would not be there. Even if it has become a religionist exercise with the reason lost to why? and are living in sin.
For me, even at times when I am odds with the message being preached, I am learning, I am present and most importantly I am growing in the soil (the body of Christ) that God has provide me among His people, even if the others around me are not.
The other thing important to me is it keeps me more accountable to Him. Sometimes it is easy to forget the "why?" we live when we do not surround ourselves with that purpose in a community of believers helping, touching, speaking too and working together and bringing the social/spiritual community of God into our everyday life in a tangible way. It marks us as different and Holy (set apart) and can bring us into a transitional understanding on display as we share and convience others that Jesus is the only way. And we have room for adoption into the family of God, not because of the dictates of our family of faith, but with God's help leading hungry souls to the family members within it that can help you grow in Christ.
The accountable part for me is important on an individual level in this way. It is hard for me to come together with fellow believers to worship God and harbor sin in my life. Because I love God I can not come and play the hypocrite. I can't open myself up to worship/song and have this sin sitting there, or fellowship with fellow believers pretending to be someone I am not. I want to walk in a honest and genuine relationship with God as a representative of His kingdom in relationship with others. And for me I can lose sight of that if I am not part that.
I agree with you the numerous families of faith found out there are at best imperfect images of God's perfect fellowship and at worst can be a habitation of devils trying to get you off course. But we are following the Lord in this way as a body of Christ in a tangible way being tested as His bride. In Johns Revelation of Jesus warning to the churches we see both types of people in them and each will receive what is coming to them.
But not only that out of that worship of Him from those with their whole heart, this gathering together in which his spirit can distribute God's gifts among us was meant to be the means to minister His knowledge to us for us to grow. And with this purpose in mind. That we fulfill God's desire and His vision for what He sees, because those who learn to fellowship in Him now are being prepared to fill this, His picture of the complete bride for Himself.
Revelations 21:9-27
9 One of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues came and said to me, “Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God. 11 It shone with the glory of God, and its brilliance was like that of a very precious jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal. 12 It had a great, high wall with twelve gates, and with twelve angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the twelve tribes of Israel. 13 There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south and three on the west. 14 The wall of the city had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb.
15 The angel who talked with me had a measuring rod of gold to measure the city, its gates and its walls. 16 The city was laid out like a square, as long as it was wide. He measured the city with the rod and found it to be 12,000 stadia in length, and as wide and high as it is long. 17 The angel measured the wall using human measurement, and it was 144 cubits thick. 18 The wall was made of jasper, and the city of pure gold, as pure as glass. 19 The foundations of the city walls were decorated with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was jasper, the second sapphire, the third agate, the fourth emerald, 20 the fifth onyx, the sixth ruby, the seventh chrysolite, the eighth beryl, the ninth topaz, the tenth turquoise, the eleventh jacinth, and the twelfth amethyst. 21 The twelve gates were twelve pearls, each gate made of a single pearl. The great street of the city was of gold, as pure as transparent glass.
22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. 23 The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp. 24 The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their splendor into it. 25 On no day will its gates ever be shut, for there will be no night there. 26 The glory and honor of the nations will be brought into it. 27 Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.
