Shekinah Church

From Paul’s blog ” Counseling One Another ” ( counselingoneanother.com )

It is our conviction that every Christian should be an active member of a Bible-teaching local church. As believers in Christ, we are members of His body and must discipline ourselves to be actively involved in ministry as a way of life. Here are some specific reasons why you should be a committed member of a solid, Bible-teaching local church.

1. You follow the pattern set forth in the New Testament. Although the word “membership” itself is not used the principle is present in the New Testament. For example, most of our NT books are letters that were written to specific groups of people who had chosen to identify themselves with Christ and each other. The word “church” is almost always used to refer to a specific group of people who in some way had committed themselves to serving the Lord and one another in the same ministry location. Numbers were known (Acts 1:15, 2:41, 4:4), rolls were kept (1 Tim. 5:9), servants were selected (Acts 6:2-5), discipline was practiced (1 Cor. 5:12-13), worship was corporate (1 Cor 14:23), and shepherds knew for whom they were responsible (Heb. 13:17). If you are a part of the body of Christ by virtue of repentant faith in Jesus Christ then you should want to make that association visibly known through church membership.

2. You have a greater opportunity to use your spiritual gifts. At the moment of your conversion the Holy Spirit came to live inside of your body (1 Cor 6:19). When He did this, He brought along the spiritual gift(s) that He sovereignly chose for you to possess for the blessing of the church (1 Cor 12:7, 11). As we use our gifts, we are being good stewards of the manifold grace of God (1 Peter 4:10). Can you use your spiritual gift without joining a church? Yes, but in most churches many ministry opportunities are limited to church members only. This is as it should be. Unity in doctrine, purity of life, and submissive accountability to one another and leaders are necessary for a healthy Christian life. The process of becoming a member also gives the existing leadership the opportunity to discern one’s agreement in doctrine, ministry purpose, and goals; thus enabling them to know where best you may serve.

3. You become a more committed part of a spiritual family. Joining a local church demonstrates a certain level of commitment. It shows that you want to be more than a bystander, that you want to be involved in ministry in a more significant way. Joining a local church is like entering into a covenant relationship with other believers in order to love them as an active part of a spiritual family (1 Jn 4:7). We also need the spiritual oversight and soul care of faithful shepherds (Heb 13:17).

4. You ensure a balanced Christian life. By nature we all have the tendency to gravitate toward extremes. God’s design for the church—as a multi-faceted body whose members are interrelated and interdependent—provides the ideal atmosphere for balanced Christian growth. As we sharpen each other, our continual contact with other believers promotes balance. In his book, Spiritual Disciplines within the Church: Participating fully in the body of Christ, Donald Whitney writes, “No one develops the proper spiritual symmetry just by listening to Christian radio, watching Christian television, or reading Christian books.  You can’t get this kind of maturity merely by participating in a group Bible study. Unless you’re an active part of a local church, your Christian life and ministry will be imbalanced.”

5. You avail yourself of the wisdom of a multitude of counselors. God never intended for us to live our lives independent of others, or “above” them. He desires for us to develop relationships of accountability with other Christians. According to Proverbs 11:14, in the abundance of counselors there is victory. The local church is a great place to find wise counsel and direction from spiritual leadership and older, more mature believers (Titus 2:1-8). These relationships will help guide you in the many decisions that you face in life so that you may discern God’s good and perfect will.

6. You experience the joy of serving others. God has re-created us in Christ Jesus for the purpose of bringing glory to Him by bearing fruit (Eph 2:10; John 15:2).  The fruit of the Spirit is primarily manifested in our relationships with others (Gal 5:22-23). Believers are to follow the example of Christ the Master Servant (Jn 13:15). By joining a local church, you are agreeing with God that one of the ways to bear fruit in the Christian life is by serving others.

An elderly man was at home, upstairs, dying in bed. He smelled the aroma of his favorite chocolate chip cookies baking. He wanted one last cookie before he died. He fell out of bed, crawled to the landing, rolled down the stairs and crawled into the kitchen where his wife was busily baking cookies.

With his last remaining strength he crawled to the table and was just barely able to lift his withered arm to the cookie sheet. As he grasped a warm, moist chocolate chip cookie, his favorite kind, his wife suddenly whacked his hand with a spatula.

Gasping for breath, he asked her, “Why did you do that?”

She replied, “Those are for the funeral.”

If nothing else, I hope this made you smile.

There was a little old lady who would come out every morning on the steps of her front porch, raise her arms to the sky and shout, “Praise the Lord!”

Well, one day an atheist moved into the house next door. Over time, he became irritated at the little old lady. So every morning he would step out onto his front porch and yell after her, “There is no Lord!”

Time passes with the two of them carrying on this way every day. Then one morning in the middle of winter, the little old lady stepped onto her front porch and shouted, “Praise the Lord! Lord, I have no food and I am starving. Please provide for me, oh Lord!”

The next morning, she stepped onto her porch and there were two huge bags of groceries sitting there. “Praise the Lord!” she cried out. “He has provided groceries for me!”

The atheist jumped out of the hedges and shouted, “There is no Lord. I bought those groceries!”

The little old lady threw her arms into the air and shouted, “Praise the Lord! He has provided me with groceries and He made the devil pay for them!”

Provided courtesy of Holly Dye @ Refocusing Our Eyes blog

Where can you find that God has ever failed to keep a promise, or that He ever lied to the soul that depended on Him? He calls on blind folk to trust Him, even though they walk in darkness and have no light (Isaiah 50:10). Those who flee to Him for refuge, have His promise and oath for their salvation.

Why should we despair, when we have a God of mercy and a redeeming living Christ! We live in a world that is swarming with promises, where mercy is revealed, where grace reigns, and where the greatest of sinners are privileged with the first offer of mercy. To despair in the face of all this would be to not appreciate Christ’s offer of grace. Despair undervalues the Father’s strength and the Son’s redemption.

Despair is unreasonable!

Despair sets humanity up as God’s judge; it tries to take control of the promise; it contradicts Christ’s offer of mercy; and it makes doubt the administrator of our reason and judgment, when it comes to determining what God is capable of doing and what He is willing to do.

Despair! It is the devil’s friend, the devil’s master. It forged the chains that hold him captive in the darkness forever. Why would we choose to give way to despair when we live in a land that flows with milk and honey?

Say to your soul,

“This is not the place nor the time for despair. As long as my eyes can find a promise in the Bible, as long as I have life and breath, I will wait for mercy, I will fight against doubt and despair.”

This is the way to honor God and Christ; this is the way to crown the promise; this is the way to welcome both the invitation and the inviter; and this is the way to thrust yourself under grace’s sheltering protection.

Never despair, so long as the Bible lives.

1. If you seek first to please God and are satisfied therein, you have but
one to please instead of multitudes; and a multitude of masters are hardlier
pleased than one.
2. And it is one that putteth upon you nothing that is
unreasonable, for quantity or quality.
3. And one that is perfectly wise and
good, not liable to misunderstand your case and actions.
4. And one that is
most holy, and is not pleased in iniquity or dishonesty.
5. And he is one
that is impartial and most just, and is no respecter of persons, Acts x. 34.
6. And he is one that is a competent judge, that hath fitness and authority,
and is acquainted with your hearts, and every circumstance and reason of your
actions.
7. And he is one that perfectly agreeth with himself, and putteth
you not upon contradictions or impossibilities.
8. And he is one that is
constant and unchangeable; and is not pleased with one thing to-day, and another
contrary to-morrow; nor with one person this year, whom he will be weary of the
next.
9. And he is one that is merciful, and requireth you not to hurt
yourselves to please him: nay, he is pleased with nothing of thine but that
which tendeth to thy happiness, and displeased with nothing but that which hurts
thyself or others, as a father that is displeased with his children when they
defile or hurt themselves.
10. He is gentle, though just, in his censures of
thee; judging truly, but not with unjust rigour, nor making your actions worse
than they are.
11. He is one that is not subject to the passions of men,
which blind their minds, and carry them to injustice.
12. He is one that
will not be moved by tale-bearers, whisperers, or false accusers, nor can be
perverted by any misinformation.

See therefore that you live upon God’s approval as that which you chiefly
seek, and will suffice you: which you may discover by these signs.

1. You will be most careful to understand the Scripture, to know what doth
please and displease God.
2. You will be more careful in the doing of every
duty, to fit it to the pleasing of God than men.
3. You will look to your
hearts, and not only to your actions; to your ends, and thoughts, and the inward
manner and degree.
4. You will look to secret duties as well as public and
to that which men see not, as well as unto that which they see.
5. You will
reverence your consciences, and have much to do with them, and will not slight
them: when they tell you of God’s displeasure, it will disquiet you; when they
tell you of his approval, it will comfort you.
6. Your pleasing men will be
charitable for their good, and pious in order to the pleasing of God, and not
proud and ambitious for your honour with them, nor impious against the pleasing
of God.
7. Whether men be pleased or displeased, or how they judge of you,
or what they call you, will seem a small matter to you, as their own interest,
in comparison to God’s judgment. You live not on them. You can bear their
displeasure, censures, and reproaches, if God be but pleased. These will be your
evidences.

Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord, and that he may send the Christ, who has been appointed for you—even Jesus. He must remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore everything, as he promised long ago through his holy prophets. Acts 3:19-21

     Heavenly Father, the promise of “times of refreshing” from you, our Lord, is so very timely, inviting and tantalizing. Not a singular event of refreshing, but multiple seasons of renewal and gospel joy; several prolonged revivifying encounters with God the Holy Spirit; not a weekend retreat for getting “fired up,” but a long slow burn of hearts coming alive again to the unsearchable riches of your transforming grace. Indeed, Lord, send many waterfalls of fresh grace cascading down upon us… all for your glory.

Though our repentance does not purchase our refreshment, it’s like a gracious spigot through which you are pleased to flood the dry fields of our souls with living water—artesian springs of heavenly goodness. So we repent, we repent of our stultifying unbelief. We repent for letting dry duty supplant gospel delight. We repent for treating your commands like suggestions. We have worshiped you with our lips but our hearts have been far from you, and that really hasn’t bothered us all that much. Our theology has not given rise to the doxology of which you are so very worthy.

We repent for accepting strained and broken relationships as our new normal. We repent of our critical gossipy hearts. We repent of keeping and re-reading a record of each other’s wrongs. We repent for making our repentance to be co-dependent on someone else’s repentance. We repent of letting the “good life” replace the grace life. We repent for looking more to better organization rather than the God of resurrection for changes in our churches.

We repent of nursing grudges rather feasting on the body and blood of Jesus. We repent for fertilizing our roots of bitterness rather than pursuing stories of reconciliation. We repent for expecting little from you and demanding more from one another. We repent for withdrawing from people without drawing close to you. We repent for getting used to cold, smug, indifferent hearts.

Father, you have already completely wiped out our sins by the cross of Jesus, but we now appropriate our once-and-for-all forgiveness for our very-present-and-obvious sins. Have mercy of us, have mercy on me the sinner. You appointed Jesus as our all-gracious Savior and we keep that appointment with him right now, yet again. We have no other righteousness. We have no other hope.

How we long for the Day when you will send Jesus back to restore everything, as promised by your holy prophets. But send him today, by the Spirit, to initiate promised times (plural!) of refreshing. May our repentances and your refreshing become way more notorious than our sins. So very Amen we pray, in Jesus’ loving and faithful name.

Is it just me or does everybody enjoy those jokes/riddles that run along these lines;“How many (fill in the blank) does it take to (fill in the blank)”? You know like, “How many people from a-certain-ethnic-background does it take to screw in a light bulb” (apologies to Parma natives). Well, I have one you probably haven’t heard, and maybe it isn’t too humorous but here goes. How many men does it take to screw-up an entire nation? Well, if his ideas are powerful enough one wicked man can wreak havoc upon an entire nation seemingly single-handedly. The pages of history are made filthy with the telling of evil ideas advanced by evil men with great affectivity. And few have proved as potent and evil to our nation as John Dewey, Father of the Modern Education system and the pragmatic instrumentalist worldview he helped craft and advance. June 01 marked the 59th anniversary of John Dewey’s death, who yet being dead still speaks – all too loudly. Dewey was a prolific author and agitator (a.k.a.” community organizer”) . His collected writings fill 37 volumes and he was a founding signatory for the original “Humanist Manifesto” in 1933. But surely his crowning achievement was the utter dismantling of the once robust liberal arts biblically-based educational system our forefathers labored to institute. Says  Dewey regarding education; “Education is a regulation of the process of coming to share in the social consciousness; and that the adjustment of individual activity on the basis of this social consciousness is the only sure method of social reconstruction”. Aha, so now we know why little Johnny can’t read. It’s because we’re not to teach little Johnny to read, ‘rite or do ‘rithmetic.  We’re to teach little Johnny to be Johnny Rebel. Johnny will help us usher in Utopia by being “adjusted” to the “social consciousness” in order to “reconstruct” society. But as far as knowing what 1+1 equals and why, neither Johnny nor society needs that knowledge. Besides, little Johnny’s too stupid to learn the 3 R’s. Have you seen his grades lately??!!

( In case you haven’t figured it out, I’ve come across some great Newton poetry.  I hope you enjoy it. )

1. Sometimes a light surprises
The Christian while he sings;
It is the Lord who rises
With healing in his wings:
When comforts are declining,
He grants the soul again
A season of clear shining,
To cheer it after rain.

2. In holy contemplation,
We sweetly then pursue
The theme of God’s salvation,
And find it ever new:
Set free from present sorrow,
We cheerfully can say,
E’en let th’ unknown to-morrow
Bring with it what it may.

3. It can bring with it nothing
But he will bear us through;
Who gives the lilies clothing,
Will clothe his people too:
Beneath the spreading heavens,
No creature but is fed; And he
who feeds the ravens,
Will give his children bread.

4. Though vine nor fig-tree neither
Their wonted fruit shall bear,
Though all the field should wither,
Nor flocks nor herds be there:
Yet God the same abiding,
His praise shall tune my voice;
For while in him confiding,
I cannot but rejoice.

The Lord, our salvation and light,
The guide of our strength and our days,
Has brought us together to-night,
A new Ebenezer to raise:
The year we have now passed through,
His goodness with blessings has crown’d,
Each morning his mercies were new;
Then let our thanksgivings abound.

Encompass’d with dangers and snares,
Temptations, and fears, and complaints,
His ear he inclin’d to our pray’rs,
His hand open’d wide to our wants.
We never besought him in vain;
When burden’d with sorrow or sin,
He help’d us again and again,
Or where before now had we been?

 
His Gospel, throughout the long year,
From Sabbath to Sabbath he gave;
How oft has he met with us here,
And shown himself mighty to save?
His candlestick has been remov’d
From churches once privileg’d thus;
But though we unworthy have prov’d,
It still is continu’d to us.

 
For so many mercies receiv’d,
Alas! what returns have we made?
His Spirit we often have griev’d,
And evil for good have repaid,
How well it becomes us to cry,
“Oh! who is a God like to thee?
Who passest iniquities by,
And plungest them deep in the sea!”

 
To Jesus., who sits on the throne,
Our best hallelujahs we bring;
To thee it is owing alone
That we are permitted to sing:
Assist us, we pray, to lament
The sins of the year that is past
And grant that the next may be spent
Far more to thy praise than the last.