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By Jeff Redington There are so many religions today, and even in the Christian church there are many splits in theology, theory, doctrine, and so forth. This brings me to my subject. Am I a Christian? Or am I a religious zealot? Am I a Christian in my ways? Do I do unto others as I would have them do unto me? What set of principles am I operating under? Who do I really answer too? Who do I really fear? What really helps me make my decisions? What is my guiding light? Do I put the group, organization, its rules, traditions ahead of my devotion to the almighty? When it comes to doing right or wrong, what is my source of strength? To follow the group, am I being asked to wrong my fellow man, my brother,.... to treat him like he was dirt? Here is the problem with most religion, you have religion, but not true and pure religion, with principles that are based on Christ and what he would do. "What would Jesus do", does not play into the equation, but rather what did "Old brother So-And-So" say? What do our leaders say? What does deacon "whoever" think? I once was in a work place, a very large manufacturing plant with over 2000 employee's, and someone asked me if my Morman Friend was going to hell because he was a Morman? My answer was this, "It does not matter what you call yourself, "Methodist, Lutheran, Baptist, or Morman, if you are not a Christian, you are going to hell." Well this caused quit a stir, because this man went around saying that I said, "My friend was going to hell because he was a Morman." Then I had one man grab me by the shirt and put his big fist in my face and tell me I had better never tell him that... and I repeated exactly what I said above. This is the truth, and you can truly call yourself anything you want, but are you living the life of Christ, are you treating others as you would your own brother? Or are you able to easily cut people off, and act as if you never knew them, because they have decided that your religion is not for them? Are you Christ like in your religion? Does your religion cause you to act and behave in un-Christ-Like-Manners? Do you find yourself being mean, un-kind, ruthless, un-merciful, hateful, yelling, correcting, always on to people, and never loving... maybe you have religion... and not Christiananity? Here is my challenge to you, and to all who claim to be Christ, are you Christian? "I am Church of God", and you can tell, by the mean ways you cut other groups off. By the way you treat your ex members. By the way you treat your people. You can tell you are "Church of God" and not Christian. "I am of , Cephas, Paul,.... and the list goes right down to this day, D.S. Warner, Danny Layne, and so forth, you have made yourself of a man, and not of Christ, your Lord is not Christ, but possibly rather a man, who call all the shots... tells you all what to do, what to wear, what to eat, what to drink, who you can sit with, what kind of car you can drive, what kind of curtains you can have in your home, who you can marry, and on and on and on,... your Lord is not Jesus Christ but a group, and it's ministry taking the place of the Lord Jesus Christ himself. Taking the place of the Holy Ghost himself. The Church of God Restoration use to talk and preach about "Holy Ghost leadership",.... but you did not hear much of that after a while. They already had all the answers to all of your problems, and all the rules for all your life, that the Holy Spirit could not get a word in "edge-wise". In other words this Churches religion has entirely taken the place of the Holy Ghost. The real fact is, if you believe in real Holy Ghost leadership, you must first shut your own mouth, to allow the Holy Ghost to actually speak, keep quite and let him show you what to do. Keep quit regarding your brother, and let the Holy Ghost tell him what to do. Get out of the way in other words, and let God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit actually guide a person to heaven. Religion, groups, traditions, can all get entirely in the way of allowing a person to get anything from God themselves. We must step aside and let God have his way. Are you in the way of God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost, hindering them from working in your life, and others, because of your religion? Does your religion and its teachings, traditions, get in the way of letting God have the say. 99 times out of a 100 this is the case. If I were to ask you what your religion was, would it be Church of God, Baptist, Methodist, Morman, or would you simply reply, "I am Christian"? I am Christian, I do not let my religion get in the way of helping others, I do not allow my religious belief's out weigh what Christ would have me do. I do not treat others un-kindly, because they are of a different faith than mine. I show love to those who disagree with me. I treat others as Christ would have me too, even when all others around me are telling me to do the opposite. My guiding principles are not based on the Church or group which I attend, but rather, Christ. I am Christian, and if my religion try's to force me to do what goes against my Christian belief's, then I will drop the religion, in order to gain Christ. I will only follow other's as they follow Christ. I am Christian, I am like Christ, in that what he said is more important than any religion, tradition, or creed of man. I will choose him over them all. That is my manner of life. That is my manner of making decisions. That is my focus. I am Christian first and foremost, husband, father, brother, citizen, worker, professional, minister, helper, all based on this one thing, that I am Christian. What are you? What will people say when you are gone? He was a good worker. He was really strong on his religious belief's. He sure did believe in those traditions and stood for the old time ways. Or will they say of you, he sure was Christ like in all he did, even in his pursuit of religion, he never lost focus on what it was all about. I am Christian, and that is what works for me. |