Question:
Dear Greg,
Is
it enough to pray, read the Bible, do your best to follow in Jesus’ footsteps
and not attend any church? I was
brought up Catholic and have begun to question many issues, the main one being
the second commandment, which tells us not to worship idols or make any graven
images from heaven, the earth or anything below the sea.
The Catholic Church does exactly this.
I started attending a Pentecostal church, but in reading your site, I may
be getting involved in some legalism. I
feel confused! Please help me.
Elizabeth
Answer: Dear Elizabeth,
What
is “enough”? Is it enough to
believe in God, trust in Jesus Christ as your Savior and commit your life to
him? If you surrender your life to
Jesus, and believe that he is capable of saving you, without your help or anyone
else’s, you are saved. That is
enough!
Ephesians 2:8-9 says what I
have just said, in a slightly different way.
However, the passage also includes verse 10, where we read WHY God saves
us. We are saved so that God may
make us into his workmanship. He
doesn’t just save us so we can remain a secret Christian--an unknown,
undeclared, unseen Christian. He
saves us so that he can produce his works in us, so that the light of Jesus may
shine in our lives—light that he will produce.
He just uses us to reflect that light.
How
will that “work” in our lives? What
will the “workmanship” that God produces in each of us be?
One thing history and experience tells us—not every Christian will look
alike. Some Christians may teach
Sunday school every week for 40 years, without missing a week.
That may be what God uses them for. The
fact that they do so will not be something they can boast about (Ephesians 2:9),
for God has saved them by grace. Others
may become missionaries, going to some remote country, living there for decades,
learning the language and culture, and perhaps helping to translate the Bible
into that little-known language.
Others
may be God’s children who are recovering from an earthly version of hell
someone called a church. For a long
time they blamed God, but by his grace God has helped them to heal from that.
Now they love God dearly, and worship him, but they cannot bring
themselves to trust any church—to attend one, become involved with one, for
they fear being used and hurt and misled again.
PTM ministers to many such individuals.
You may be one.
Our salvation is not measured by nor is it dependent upon if or how often
we attend a church. There are times,
given a certain situation in any given church, when we might be spiritually
better off not attending. In the
main, attending a Christ-centered, grace-based church that teaches from the
Bible is usually a positive experience. PTM
encourages church attendance, but we also realize that many of those we serve
have been mugged and beaten up by legalism.
We oppose any arbitrary conditions that a church or a religion might
impose: you have to attend such and such a percentage of the time, you must give
so much money or a certain percentage of your income, or you have to do or not
do a long list of things.
There
is nothing wrong with having a healthy skepticism about a church, congregation
or pastor--to question the messages, to check out what is said and done and
encouraged, just like the Bereans (Acts 17:11).
Remember, there is no one true church, and there is nothing wrong with
changing your spiritual address to a spiritually healthy, or healthier church if
you feel you need to.
May
God bless you Elizabeth.
In
Christ,