Just continue to stay open to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
I appreciate Braklite very much , but just because "God used his words" to open your eyes doesn't mean that you 'camp there'.
In my own story God used Herbert Armstrong of all people, and his "British Israel"
writings to 'get my attention '. I didn't camp there...I waited on God to open His word up to me and speak to me from His word.
We aren't called to "Find a doctrine" we are called to follow Christ.
He is more than willing to lead you. :)
God will speak in many ways to us...lets not forget Baalam's Donkey! lol
If we walk every day with one ear tuned to His lovely Spirit...He will speak , step by step.
Many blessings...Helen
Yes but neither am I going to dismiss someone's religion as being a cult. That would be dishonoring to God, who graciously used another believer to help me understand His Word and it would be kicking a gift horse in the mouth of the Christian who took his time to help another believer on their path - I liken it to those that accompanied Pilgrim. Would you join in ridiculing one's denomination so that that one then keeps silent? That would be a tragedy. Wouldn't it be better to say that you don't agree with some of their doctrine - just like you may not agree with some of the doctrine of an Assembly of God church? Listening to teaching doesn't make me a SDA and it doesn't not make me lean towards being a SDA. I've seen error in every church denomination we attended. And some of the leadership in one wounded without conscience - even to turning my family off to attending any church for awhile. One of my children that was hurt has refused to ever attend an independent bible church again and was actually pushed towards attending a Catholic church - what I had come out of. That was a tragedy. Even if those pastors had nailed every doctrine down correctly, they did Satan's work. So who does the better work? Who are you going to hang the label of cult on to scare people away? As a mature believer who has suffered through many battles, if I were to steer a younger believer I'd steer them towards a loving SDA church more than a judgmental Independent Bible Church even if I knew that their doctrine was off by a few things - which I don't know that. The former would at least draw them towards God and not away. How dare we dismiss another's faith or choice of denomination.
Finally, after a number of years, she is trying other churches. I would appreciate others' prayers that my children find good churches. The path is fraught with many spiritual battles and finding your way through false and deceived teachers and hypocritical church leaders.
Because I've seen haughtiness and severe pride in a Presbyterian church, does that mean that I'll write off all Presbyterian churches? Because I saw people rolling around in the aisles, does that mean I'll write off all Assembly of God churches lending to too much emotionalism and call them all cults? No - because I've been around the block - more times than I'd care to remember, and I've seen what is in each denomination. There is good and bad and everything in between. Personally I'd steer more away from a church where pride reigned such as what was in the Independent Bible Church, then a church that had a few doctrines wrong. Because in the end, which does the most evil and which does the most good? And by that I mean good such as drawing people to Christ and helping them grow spiritually and helping them recognize spiritual attacks when they come.
Isaiah 32:6 6 "For fools speak folly, their hearts are bent on evil: They practice ungodliness and spread error concerning the LORD; the hungry they leave empty and from the thirsty they withhold water."
Which denomination left the hungry empty and the thirsty without water? I've been in an Independent Bible church that left my family empty and without water - and turning away from church. I met a SDA who took his time to share what he had learned when I was seeking that opened up truths about the end times that I had been seeking answers to. Who did the Lord's work?
As far as I could tell that Independent Bible church had every doctrine that I knew correct, but yet they didn't follow basic Scriptural warnings about pride.
"To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech." Proverbs 8:13
Who did the greater or lesser evil?
"
You brood of vipers, how can you who are evil say anything good? For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of. A good man brings good things out of the good stored up in him, and an evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in him. - Matthew 12:34-35
I would go so far as to call that doctrinally correct Independent Bible church a brood of vipers - that's how it felt. I didn't feel like we were in a church. I felt like I was among wolves or vipers all around - and they all fell in line under the deluded pastor and church leaders. We weren't being built up, loved, warned about Satan's snares. We had authoritarian church leaders who looked down their long aristocratic noses and told us that THEY were the church leaders. That God put THEM in their positions. That no issue was open to discussion because THEY were placed in those positions by God Himself.
May God have mercy on their souls because the same measure they used will be used against them.
Revelations 3:17 "Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and
that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.
Those church leaders had their noses so far in the air that they couldn't smell their own stench. They couldn't see that they were wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked.
They could have broken me and my faith. I could have chosen to go along with their skewed beliefs and "submitted." While I know this is in the bible I also know that "rightly handling the Word of Truth" is in the bible. I knew in depths of my being that they were wrong. They held all the power - it was their church. Even people who I'd had over to eat at our house shunned me - whose house we had been over to. All but one - they exhibited true Christianity - but they weren't firmly entrenched in that church yet and I hope they never allow themselves to be. All because I stood up for what I believed in. All because I chose to think for myself. They didn't think that a lowly person who held no church "position" could have had power in prayer enough to keep the church pastor from sleeping. No. They must have reasoned that it was of the devil. Yes that's it!
Only it wasn't. I prayed to God. And God answered my prayer.
Those church leaders may have held all the power in their little corner of the world but that doesn't mean that I have to stay in their little corner of the world. The message: Either conform to church leadership or you'll be snubbed and given the cold shoulder and made to feel unwelcome here.
You may pull your submit card on me and you may have everybody against me but my God I'm going to get up swinging. I learned to stand alone for what I knew to be the truth. Nobody gets a pass on hurting my family and pulling some hypocritical bull. That's not of God. None of it was. Christ said he came to bring the sword. Those church leaders couldn't see the ugliness of their own hearts. A few years later the pastor was out.
Matthew 23:23-31 King James Version (KJV)
23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye pay tithe of mint and anise and cummin, and have omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone.
24 Ye blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel.
25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.
26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first that which is within the cup and platter, that the outside of them may be clean also.
27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.
28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but within ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity.
29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets, and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,
30 And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.
31 Wherefore ye be witnesses unto yourselves, that ye are the children of them which killed the prophets.
~~~
I don't want a doctrinally correct church that is full of wicked pride. Those church leaders "omitted the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone."
I hope you continue to practice whatever faith you see as true Brakelite - never buckle to any crowd, and never stop sharing because you're going to help others who are seeking answers like me. We have to follow the truth wherever that leads us.
Give me a church or Christian who ~might~ be doctrinally off but who exhibits the greater things of the Christian faith: love, compassion, tenderness - all the traits that Christ exhibited.
e’s household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. 12 What I mean is this: One of you says, “I follow Paul”; another, “I follow Apollos”; another, “I follow Cephasb]">[
