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Topic: THE TRUE BIBLE CHURCH
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bluefrog
unregistered
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posted
I remember when I first learned to swim. The lady who was my cub scout mom took all of us brats to a pool and the instructor made swimming look easy. We all jumped in the water and came up coughing, gaggin, and though we were gonna die.
Everyone else in the pool was swimming, it was hot, the water was cool and pretty. Our cub mom was behind us and we wanted to do well for her. You might say we wanted all this and were baptised.
That was when we got serious. We learned to dog paddle, float, side stroke, spit water at each other, do cannon balls, and the more we learned the happier we became.
My cub scout mom wanted us to learn to swim so later we wouldn't drown. God Bless Mrs Bettes.
About the true bible church..it doesn't call the building we meet in a church. Like you say above, the church is the members and Jesus is the head, not the pastor. Each member is given a spiritual gift to make the body function properly. Making a study of those gifts is a very interesting thing to do. Isn't that somethin...Jesus was preparing us all along to do what he had planned all along and the bible says so.
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Found in Him
Advanced Member
Member # 7596
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posted
You mean a personal experience with Jesus right?
-------------------- ~To Him That is able to keep you from falling and to present you before His glorious presence without fault and with great joy...to the only God our Savior be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.~ Jude 24
Posts: 1503 | Registered: Jan 2009
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Eden
unregistered
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posted
Cornelius Stam wrote, as posted by WildB quote: Many people have truly come to know Christ as Savior after having been sincere, religious "church members" for years. Though faithful supporters of some earthly church organization they had never experienced the truth of II Cor. 5:17: "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation."
I think it is more likely that they had never experienced "seeing themselves as sinners". I think someone could go to church, especially in the Catholic church but also in the Protestant church, who was BORN into a family that "went to church", and so they also mechanically went to church", but THEY NEVER HAD A PERSONAL EXPERIENCE OF THEIR OWN SINFULNESS before a righteous God, and thus they were NOT REALLY SAVED YET.
I think that is much more likely than that they had NOT YET experienced the truth of II Cor. 5:17: "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation."
They have to see themselves as a SINNER first before they could ever see themselves as a NEW CREATION, I think.
love, Eden
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WildB
Moderator
Member # 2917
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posted
by Cornelius R. Stam
Many people have truly come to know Christ as Savior after having been sincere, religious "church members" for years. Though faithful supporters of some earthly church organization they had never experienced the truth of II Cor. 5:17: "If any man be in Christ he is a new creation." It is possible to be a member in good standing of some church organization, yet be outside of the one true Church of which the Bible speaks.
This is because the true Bible Church is not an organization but a living organism, a spiritual body, with a living Head and living members. Again and again St. Paul, by divine inspiration, calls the Church, the Body of Christ. He says: "We being many, are one Body in Christ..." (Rom. 12:5). "Ye are the Body of Christ, and members in particular" (I Cor. 12:27). "We are members of His Body" (Eph. 5:30).
How do we become members of this true Bible Church, the Body of Christ? First, we must acknowledge ourselves to be sinners in God's sight, for Ephesians 2 relates how Christ died for sinful men that He might "reconcile" them to God "in one Body" by the cross (Ver. 16). Thus, when believing sinners are reconciled to God by faith in Christ, they are regenerated, given a new life, by the Spirit, and by the Spirit are baptized into the Church, the Body of Christ.
"Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit" (Titus 3:5).
"For by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body" (I Cor. 12:13).
Every one of us should ask himself: "Have I been baptized by the Spirit into the Body of Christ?" If not, trust Christ as your Savior and become a member of the one true Bible Church. Then associate yourself with some local assembly where Christ is honored and the Bible taught, "rightly divided."
-------------------- That is all.....
Posts: 8775 | From: USA, MICHIGAN | Registered: Mar 2004
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