The church is open to all who believe.

In his book Gifts of the Desert Kyriacos Markides quotes a Greek Orthodox Monk saying, “The Church Is like a hospital, it takes fallen, sick, and confused human beings, who suffer from all sorts of destructive passions and sins, and with its very tangible therapeutic methods helps them attain real health.”

In Ephesians 4 14-15 Paul says this:

14Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. 15Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ.

Many people say that the Christian Church is exclusive But when you step back and look every major religion is exclusive.

But I also want to make it known that it is also inclusive Jesus said in John 3 starting at verse 14 Jesus says this:

“14Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the desert, so the Son of Man must be lifted up,15that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life. 16“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Don’t miss the next sentence

17For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

People outside the Church spend so much time telling us that we cause hate because we believe that Jesus is the only way to God. God knows who will and who will not accept Christ. We do not need to put human constraints on an all knowing, all seeing, eternal God. If some one does not want to be with him now why would he want to cause them the grief of spending eternity with him.

The world today says the Christian message today is one of exclusivity but I want them to see that Jesus died for everyone and when you take all the world religions today none of them but Christianity have a loving God at there heart who would give his son for our sins. They just don’t.

The church of god (Anderson In) says this: No one person decides that another will or will not be admitted to membership in a local group. Neither congregations nor congregational leaders vote on who shall be received as members. The Church of God believes that when one accepts Jesus Christ as Savior, God places that person in the church

Jesus’ prayer in John 17 sums it all up.

20“My prayer is not for them alone (he has just prayed for the disciples). I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25“Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

If you are not part of the Body of Christ today I’m not going to tell you that you have to go to the front of a church, you can pray right where you are. None of us are here by coincidence or chance we are here for a reason. So if you do not know Jesus all you need to do to start the process is tell him you want to know more about him ask him to guide you as you read your bible and he will begin to draw you closer to him and reveal himself more and more to you.

James 4:1-14

1What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? 2You want something but don’t get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. 3When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

4You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God. 5Or do you think Scripture says without reason that the spirit he caused to live in us envies intensely? 6But he gives us more grace. That is why Scripture says:
“God opposes the proud
but gives grace to the humble.”

7Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. 8Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

11Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

As Christians today we have been trained to see things differently. As a whole however, we do have some things that are nonnegotiable.

1. God is eternal
2. Jesus is the son of God
3. Jesus died for our sins
4. Jesus rose from the dead and we will follow Him in eternity
5. Jesus will return and judge everyone who ever lived
6. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one but also three

This is meant to be a wake-up call not a theology class so I will get to my point. We are not required to agree that the millennium will take place after a rapture or that it is all allegory. We are not required to believe in predestination or free will. It is o.k. to disagree with fellow Christians and not think they are going to hell because they do not believe exactly what you do.

We are not only in the process of dividing Christ’s church. We are driving a wedge between us and people on the outside of the church who do not understand what you are arguing over.

We need to get beyond these definitions and actually start being transformed by the word of God. We must stop bickering and arguing amongst ourselves and start living the life we are supposed to. If we were to start fighting for the souls of the lost like we are willing to fight for double-predestination we would not have enough time on our hands to argue with each other like we do.

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