Christianity and the keys to life's trials and struggles.: Part 2

The third key is the local church. If a church is ran Biblically, the body of Christ acts as a sounding board, a frame, a structure upon which we climb Spiritually. Most do not go to church. The reason unbelievers and many professing "Christians" do not go is because:

"I don't need the church. I can worship on my own."

"I would rather be on a boat fishing and thinking about God, than be in church thinking about fishing."

"The church is full of hypocrites."

"I have my own church at home because no other church is doing it right."

"I find it not relative."

"I do not have faith."

The professing "Christian" who make these statements miss several things:

God calls for the gathering of believers, in the book of Hebrews. This is important because many who were reading Hebrews were leaving the faith and going back to what they were before, Jewish. This was abandoning the church, for the Temple.

No church is perfect. However, to hold the required standard of attendance at no hypocrisy, then please do not own anything, go anywhere, buy anything, participate in any public activity. Why? If the standard is no hypocrisy, then that is the standard across the board. Anyone who buys, visits, participates, supports ANY company that does not agree with their set of values 100%, they are supporting hypocrisy. If they are supporting this hypocrisy, they ae being hypocritical themselves! If the gold standard is good for one thing, it is good for all things.

The church is only complete when all who are Christian attend. God gave each Christian certain gifts. God intended the use of those gifts for the church body. Abandoning the church denies the reality and purpose of those gifts, robs other believers from your gifts, and robs yourself from the gifts, they have, to minister to you.

Church is not designed to be everything for everyone. But we learn how to live in community. Bonhoeffer wrote a great book called, "Life Together" and I highly recommend it. Expecting the church to be everything to everyone is an unrealistic expectation. Better, yet, is to prayerfully ask God how to help you fit into His will wherever He places you.

Lastly, if you are in church and cannot bring your thoughts into captivity and focus on what is being said, the problem lies with you. It shows a spiritual immaturity that has little or no depth. Second, it shows a lack of impulse control over your own emotions. Neither are issues with the church.

It is true not all churches are equal. There are some heretical and false churches. All churches must be measured against God's Word and should strive to live as closely to the Scriptures as possible. The point is not to join just any church, but a Bible believing and teaching church. Joel Osteen, Steven Furtick, Beth Moore, Kathryn Krick, and a host of others are NOT churches.

Finding a local body of faith provides a place to learn, mature, strengthen, challenge, be challenged, and exist in a community that helps move everyone toward holiness and righteousness in Jesus Christ. They will be there in the hard, bad, and good times. Are church members perfect? No. We learn how to bear one anothers burdens, surrender ourselves to one another, and serve others above ourselves.

To reject this key, and those in part 1, is to reject the very tools God gave to help us walk through this life and its troubles. What about unbelievers though?

In a post, Brett and Kate McKay, on their website, Art of Manliness, lay out a case for going to church as well: https://www.artofmanliness.com/character/advice/go-church-even-youre-not-sure-beliefs/

I will say, I disagree with Mr. McKay as to his fundamental statement that morality can be had apart from Christianity (https://www.artofmanliness.com/faq/ see #8). Morality can only be know THROUGH BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY. There can be a form of morality apart from Christianity, but they become subjective morality or situation ethics. To be fair, much of his stuff has helped many people on a lot of things, and even his post about church is pretty accurate. Still, I would go further dealing with the Spiritual nature, and would reject his openness of attending mosques and many Synogoges due to major ideological and religious errors and beliefs.

That being said, there are good local churches, but they do require searching to find. Be careful of any church until you see how they stand on the Bible.

I, of course, recommend Brethren, but not Brethren in Christ, Brethren church, or Church of the Brethren. They do have a few good churches, but many good ones are leaving. If I were to narrow a good starting point of which Brethren, I would say a Brethren associated with the Brethren Revival Fellowship, Charis Fellowships, Covenant Brethren Churches, and in some cases some Old Order Brethren.