Are there any radical reformers out there?
Anyone out there that has found all organized churches to be false?
Anyone out there that has found all organized churches to be false?
Are there any radical reformers out there?
- Thread starter Nebuchadnezzer
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I have not been to all of the organized churches, so I can't claim I've found them all to be false.
But really such blanket statements don't reflect reality. It tends to have more to do with the mindset of the speaker than any verifiable claims.
Not to mention the ego involved to believe that the one speaking is so far above, spiritually and intellectually, all the thousands or millions involved in organized churches that they alone can see clearer than all those others.
It often amazes me that a religion that teaches humility and humbleness is so full of people eager to elevate themselves above everyone else by making grandiose accusations against so many others they've never even met.
But really such blanket statements don't reflect reality. It tends to have more to do with the mindset of the speaker than any verifiable claims.
Not to mention the ego involved to believe that the one speaking is so far above, spiritually and intellectually, all the thousands or millions involved in organized churches that they alone can see clearer than all those others.
It often amazes me that a religion that teaches humility and humbleness is so full of people eager to elevate themselves above everyone else by making grandiose accusations against so many others they've never even met.
I heard it tends to have more to do with the mindset than any verifiable claims.
So I realize the church were I thought I was saved is pretty much a cult. It is a community church. It really is a reformed Catholicism (my definition). I realize what saved me was the reading of the bible away from the church when I was home, at work. I won't say I didn't learn at my church, I did. They provided a lot of truth and a lot of historical information in the studies. But still it is a cult. But still I had to be saved outside of it.
And I have been looking all around to see if I could find a better church, one that is closer to the truth. And so far I can't. I don't thing there are any true churches above ground. I am now thinking there has to be true churches but maybe they are underground or just held in peoples houses.
Can anyone else weigh in please?
if one wants to "reform all" of the false-churches',
(((which))) 'church' do we begin with?! -
who sends us on this mission? -
is it God or is it man?
(((which))) 'church' do we begin with?! -
who sends us on this mission? -
is it God or is it man?
Hello Nebuchadnezzer
The question that a person should ask themselves before thinking of reforming any church is, is it even possible to reform a church?
To reform means to change into an improved form/condition, or to amend/improve by change of form, or removal of faults/abuses, or to put an end to an evil by enforcing/introducing a better course of action.
I do not know we call Martin Luther, John Calvin and John Wesley or any other person who tried to change any church a reformer, since they did not actually successfully reform any church. It was their intention to reform the churches, but they failed and ended up starting a new church.
Martin Luther tried to reform the Catholic Church and failed to do so, so he founded his own church. And the Catholic Church has not changed for the better since he left it. This is the same with John Wesley, who tried to reform the Church of England, and instead ended up starting the Methodist Church.
So history shows that churches cannot be reformed. Individuals within the church can decide to reform, but it is difficult to reform the entire church.
Why is it near impossible to reform any church?
I believe that one of the reasons that it is not easy to reform an entire church is that most Christians do not want to change and they like way that they are, even if they are asked to change for the better.
The other reason that I have realized is that a lot of Christians take advantage of God’s love and His grace. Whenever I have a one-on-one discussion with Christian about changing their sinful ways or being more obedient to God: They either start their defense by saying the words “God loves me” or end their defense with the words “God loves me”
I believe that many Christians take advantage of God’s love and His grace.
I once spoke to a Roman Catholic about the Catholic practices and beliefs that are unbiblical and their response to me was “I was born a Catholic, I grew up as a Catholic and I will die as a Catholic. I will not change. And God loves me”
This is the same mentality as a husband who thinks to himself, my wife loves me and that is the reason why she married me, I see no need to show my love to her by buying gifts for our anniversary, helping her with household work or mowing the lawn or listening to anything that she has to say. These works will not earn the love that she has for me. Anyway she fell in love with me before we got married and I never used to do these things before. Such a husband is taking advantage of his wife’s love.
Some Christians have the same mentality. They say, “We are saved by grace through faith alone and not by our works. Therefore there is no need to be obedient to God or to stop sinning or do any works because God loves us and we are saved already and we are not under the law.” They are taking advantage of God’s love and His grace.
thank you for your response. I am looking to change. I have made some changes too. I have found power to change some of my desires and my actions. Can you give me any advice on where to go from here?
Hello Nebuchadnezzer
In addition to prayer and reading the bible, I have found the following to be useful in helping me to overcome sin and I have seen great progress in my life.
Key 1 - Selflessness
The focus of the bible is love, especially the New Testament. Jesus is our example in all things and we as Christians should imitate his life. Now what kind of life did Jesus have? Many Christians will have different answers, but I have one word to describe it and that word is “selflessness”.
Jesus never thought about himself and never tried to please himself. He was only worried about others and only concerned about helping others and this is how we should be.
1.1. Testimony of a woman who was addicted to drugs
I watched a sermon some time ago about how to stop sinning and overcome addictions. The pastor said that one day a woman who he had never seen before came to church. She had colored her hair with different streaks of colors and had tattoos. After the service, he ran after her to ask her who she was and asked her if he could pray for her. She exclaimed that God does not answer prayers, and that she has been praying for many years for God to take away her drug addiction and he had not. She said that she needs to take drugs every 2 hours in order to “function” properly.
With the unction of the Holy Spirit, he asked her if she could give bible studies to people. She was shocked and said that she had never read the bible and had never given bible studies to anyone. Then he explained to her that she does not have to say anything. The church has a set of DVDs and books and some people had asked for them. So he told her that if she delivers them, God will answer her prayer. She agreed to the proposal.
She drove off to deliver the bible studies and phoned an hour later and said that she had pressed the buzzer at the address that he had given her and no one had answered. The pastor said, that she should pray until the door opens. Then she prayed and nothing happened and she phoned again. The pastor said, “You must continue to pray and not leave the area until you have delivered those bible studies.” After several hours of praying in frustration, finally the door opened because one of the tenants was taking out the garbage.
The pastor said that at about 6 o’ clock in the evening, the woman phoned and told him all that had happened. And she further said, “I need to take drugs every 2 hours in order to function properly, but I left your church at 11 o’ clock in the morning and now it is 6 o’ clock and I did not feel the craving for the drugs the whole day. Today God has answered my prayer!”
The lesson is that when you want to stop sinning, you should not focus on the sin. You should focus on helping others and not focus on yourself. Focus on who you can help and who you can evangelize to.
When you focus on others and not trying to fix yourself, you will find that you are becoming more like Jesus and becoming more selfless and you will find yourself not having the desire to sin or indulge in any addiction.
1.2. Pray for others you know have the same problems and struggles as you
I have seen that when I pray for others and ask God to help those who have the same problems as me, my prayers get answered at a faster rate, then when I am only praying for myself. When God sees you behaving in a selfless way and sees that you desire others to change, he brings more of the power of the Holy Spirit to change you.
1.3. Stopping to sin for others sake
I have a cousin and two uncles who are not really interested in Christianity. They believe in God, but do not go to church and by their lifestyle it shows that they are probably going to end up in hell. I have been praying for them for a long time and have not been seeing much results. So an idea came into my mind, that I should give up one of my worst sins for their sake. So I prayed to God and said that I if do not commit that particular sin during the day, that he would put more effort that day in trying to reach these family members by having the Holy Spirit press more upon them and that He should put more effort into saving them.
I have not seen a change in them yet, but since I requested this, I have definitely seen a change in me. I have found that I am more motivated to stop sinning for the sake of others than for myself.
The thought of me not committing sin to increase the possibility of them going to heaven is more motivating to stop sinning, then deciding to stop to sinning because I want to go to heaven.
Another example is of a lady I heard of that stopped smoking because she was afraid that the second hand smoke will harm her new born daughter. She lived in an apartment at the top floor that did not have a balcony. So she had to smoke indoors because it was inconvenient for her to keep going downstairs to go outside to smoke. She also decided to quit because she wanted to live longer for her daughter. The love of her daughter motivated her to quit the habit.
Therefore deciding to stop sinning for the sake of others is a good motivator to stop sinning. It helps to find a motivation other than yourself to stop sinning or overcoming any habit.
Key 2 - Brain Health
The mind, spirit and the body are connected. What goes into the body does affect the mind and spirit.
You have different types of systems in your brain and one of them is the limbic system. One of the parts of the limbic system is the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus governs certain things and some of them are appetite, emotions, and sexual desire. So emotions like anger are because of the hypothalamus and feeling sexual desire are because of the hypothalamus etc.
The human brain also has different parts and one of the most important parts is the frontal lobe.
The frontal lobe has various functions and some of them are judgement, decision making, problem solving, memory etc. The most important thing is that the frontal lobe is the self-control center of your brain. You decide what is right or wrong using the frontal lobe of your brain.
So when your hypothalamus says that you should fornicate with someone who is not your wife, your frontal lobe tells you that you should not do that. The frontal lobe stops the hypothalamus from getting out of control.
The problem is that the frontal lobe is a very sensitive part of the brain and there are certain things that cause it to be temporarily impaired. This includes alcohol, too much sugar, too much fat, aspartame, MSG etc. Actually anything that is bad for the brain, will directly affect the functioning of the frontal lobe. And when your frontal lobe is impaired, you lose self-control and your limbic system takes over your brain. Meaning that you will struggle to control your emotions, how much you eat and lustful desires etc.
Therefore what I have found that eating unhealthy or drinking anything that is bad for your brain increases the possibility of you sinning.
According to medical science, what we eat and drink directly affects our mind. So if you drink alcohol that impairs the frontal lobe, there is 99% possibility that you are going to sin or at least do something stupid because your judgement will be impaired. If you eat food with lots of sugar, there is a 99% possibility that you are going to be easily irritated, angered and disrespectful.
The health of the mind is important in overcoming sin. If you change to a healthy diet, you find yourself automatically at peace, having more patience, having lots of self-control without even trying that hard. People will start saying, “Wow you are so calm and patient these days”. And it is because you eating a healthier diet.
The diet consisting of processed foods with lots of fat, caffeine, cholesterol, sugar and stimulants that most of us are eating is not what God intended us to eat. The closer you are to the diet that God gave at creation (Fruits, nuts and vegetable), the clearer your mind will be. Even your discernment will increase and you perceive the unction of the Holy Spirit more clearly. The change in diet will have a positive effect on your spiritual life.
If you can control what comes into your body and treat your body like it is the Temple of the Holy Spirit and only allow healthy food to enter, you will come to a point where you will almost never sin because your self-control center (frontal lobe) will be operating at optimal level.
From personal experience, it is almost impossible to overcome sin when you have an unhealthy diet.
I am not a doctor and recommend that you also perform additional research on these topics of the brain. I prefer YouTube videos where the doctors explain these principles in detail. I have not found articles online that explain the above in an understandable manner like the videos do. There are also other things that affect the frontal lobe like sleep, the music you listen to, television and anything that affects your life style. There is also information on these additional factors as well.
Overall, the first step in stopping to sin is to believe that it is possible to stop sinning. Ensuring that your frontal lobe is functioning at optimal level is a very important key in overcoming sin. And the other key to victory over sin, is not focusing on not sinning, but waking up with the thoughts every day “Who can I help today and what good thing can I do for someone today?” And that is love (selflessness), which is the fulfilment of the law and is obedience to God’s commandments.
Sad to say a lot of churches would say you can go to hell if you don't toe the denominational line. Having done an extensive study of same, it is very clear that denominationalism is more important than the word of God in too many cases.
In my area there are more churches that have started up to give someone a ministry because they were not allowed to minister in the church they were in for various reasons. Sad to say the church then becomes a support for that persons ministry rather than the minister supporting the growth of other people's ministry.
One pentecostal minister said God told him he was going to double the congregation every year which means it should have a congregation of 55,000 by now. Today it has about 50 people. Even though the minister is a false prophet, the people slavishly follow him and accept what he says.
Some of the start ups took place several years ago but today they are still plodding along with 20 or 30 people. And there are churches that had a 120 a few years ago and now have 30.
it seems to me that the main sentiment is not to rock the boat.
My experience has been that if you want committed christianity you have no choice but to start your own group as I have laboured away in denominational church and got nowhere for the simple reason that it is all down to one person, the minister, who dictates policy and experience. If it is not what God wants, too bad which was obvious in one church I was in where we had a new minister who said you can do things my way or leave. 50% of the congregation left. In the end the Elders sacked him for his belligerence and high handed attitude.
If you are going to survive any church experience you need a rock solid experience with the author of your faith and know who you are in Christ. Without that you are in the control of people who are far from Christ like. In most cases they are building their kingdom, not God's.
ATM, I find that casual meetups with others of like mind are more profitable than organised religion. The word says that you only need two or three meeting together in His name for him to be in the midst. If Jesus is not in the midst what is the point of meeting. Singing songs, having communion and a sermon won't cut it if he is not in the midst. it is nothing more than ritual for ritual's sake.
And as for elevating communion to some mystical experience is downright laughable. In my comprehensive studies of the New Testament Church, they met for meals, not a sip of wine and a piece of bread. As Frank Viola said in Pagan Christianity when the protestant reformation took place, they dragged over some of the catholic rituals with them, one of which was the communion which was nothing more than a protestant version of the Mass. And having a paid pastor was nothing more than having a paid priest.
So don't let anyone tell you that you are not obeying God if you don't meet together on Sunday mornig to observe some relgious ritual. The ones doing that are the ones not obeying God. Follow the masses and be consigned to indifference or break the mould and be invigorated and full of the Holy Spirit and doing exploits in the name of Jesus.
I really appreciate your message. Thank you so much!!!!
You wrote this, "I find that casual meetups with others of like mind are more profitable than organised religion."
This is so true. I have a group with three others (4 total including me). This group is where I learn more biblical truth every time we meet.
I have withdrew my membership since the membership contract had me agreeing to some confession of faith. I also have stopped taking the communion. I too saw it as not trustworthy.
Thank you again for your post and honesty.
The Reformation is now history. So there are no reformers around. Christendom -- by and large -- has gone into apostasy.
But that does not means that there are no churches where the true and full Gospel is being preached and propagated, or where true Bible doctrine is not being taught.
S
Scribe
Guest
What are you trying to reform to? The book of Acts? They had problems in the churches at that time also.
When will you know if you have been "reformed."
I don't like Calvinist churches so if that is reformed, I think they stopped short, they certainly are not book of Acts "reformed"
I seek a church that is what I read about in the book of Acts. I believe there are millions of churches in the world that are like the book of Acts churches and are in no need of being reformed to a different model.
Defined reformed?
When will you know if you have been "reformed."
I don't like Calvinist churches so if that is reformed, I think they stopped short, they certainly are not book of Acts "reformed"
I seek a church that is what I read about in the book of Acts. I believe there are millions of churches in the world that are like the book of Acts churches and are in no need of being reformed to a different model.
Defined reformed?
thanks for posting. Where are these churches. I am in the Northeast. Can you point to any? Please.
Thanks for your comment. I am not looking for Calvinist either. Where are theses millions of churches?
S
Scribe
Guest
Assemblies of God are a good choice. But not the only choice.
You are almost sure to find a core of on fire believer who are wanting to go all the way with Jesus and are not stuck in the past. Seeking a fresh revelation of the Holy Spirit and not wanting to quench the Spirit. People who you can get involved in the Great Commission with and live life with. No compromisers, who want to win souls. People who hate sin, and love righteousness and believe in praying and hearing from the Holy Spirit on every work of ministry.
But the AOG are not the only churches like that.
I would recommend churches that teach that the manifestations of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the book of Acts is a normative experience for all believers and available to all believers.
Those churches that believe that what happened in the book of Acts was for that time period only will not have that same experience. (obviously)
So don't go to those kinds of churches.
Go to the churches that believe what happened in the book of Acts is available for you today. I like the AOG for many reasons but mainly because I believe God called me and directed me through much prayer.
However there are plenty of other churches that have the same kind of spirit as the AOG because they teach the same truths from the bible. There are many non denominational churches that are just like an AOG church and you can't tell any difference, because they both teach and practice the same doctrinal truths.
I believe it is the dynamic of the teaching of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit that makes the difference in these churches.
The Assemblies of God (AG), officially the World Assemblies of God Fellowship, is a group of over 144 autonomous self-governing national groupings of churches that together form the world's largest Pentecostal denomination.[3] It is the fourth largest international Christian group of denominations.[4]
They are asking this, "Can a person be filled with the Holy Spirit without speaking in tongues?"
Answer: I AM NOT INTERESTED
S
Scribe
Guest
Read the bible and surrender to Christ. Ask Him to fill you with the Holy Spirit. He will lead you into all truth. And give you peace.
The world will never stop lying, and you should not expect it to get better He can keep you in the midst of it and make you to ride above it all on the paths of righteousness and holiness.
No church is perfect but there are plenty that have sincere Holy Spirit filled believers who are living this adventure with Christ who you can join and help one another on your journey.
S
Scribe
Guest
Yes a person can be filled with the Holy Spirit when they are born again. That is what the AOG believes. They also believe that as the believers in the upper room who were filled with the Spirit from regeneration, also were filled with the Spirit for power to be a witness and did all speak in tongues, all 120 of them. But that is not all, they also prophesied, laid hands on the sick and the sick were healed, and most importantly turned the world upside down preaching the Gospel with the power of the Holy Ghost.
As I said, whatever happened in the book of Acts is still happening today in the Church that God empowers the same way He did it then. I don't know what else someone would want to be reformed back to if it is not the church of Acts.
And if you are not interested then you will not experience it. You don't have to speak in tongues to be saved or to have the Holy Spirit which of course all Christians have when they have repentance toward God and Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
But if you are hostile toward speaking in tongues (a gift of the Holy Spirit spoken about in scripture) then you would not be comfortable in an AOG church that is for sure.