Joining a Church Does Not Save Anyone

One cannot just "join a church" and think they are a Christian. Born again status is a work of the Holy Spirit. Christ changes us into a new creation we cannot do that to ourselves. He sanctifies us, we cannot do that to ourselves. He keeps us until He comes for us, we cannot do that ourselves. Our response to the gospel is to trust Christ and then He does all the work in us.

If anyone is attempting to make themselves clean apart from the work of the Holy Spirit they are engaged in self worship. The pride that comes from thinking they are doing everything right will destroy their ability to see themselves in truth, that truth being that we are incapable of being good apart from the work of Christ.

Those who believe they have done a good job of following all the rules are involved in a work based religion not followers of Christ.

Those who are works based often place unbiblical rules on others just like the Pharisees did. They make rash and harsh judgments, even guess as to our spirituality or our actions. They treat with contempt those who do not think they way they do or do the same things they do. They require allegiance to them, their ways and their words without deference to others to learn if their ways are actually biblically based.

It is alright to have a standard that is not in the Bible, as long as one knows that it is their standard for God not His command to others.

Romans 14:1-12 "14 As for the one who is weak in faith, welcome him, but not to quarrel over opinions.
2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
3 Let not the one who eats despise the one who abstains, and let not the one who abstains pass judgment on the one who eats, for God has welcomed him.
4 Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand.
5 One person esteems one day as better than another, while another esteems all days alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind.
6 The one who observes the day, observes it in honor of the Lord. The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.
7 For none of us lives to himself, and none of us dies to himself. 8 For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord's.
9 For to this end Christ died and lived again, that he might be Lord both of the dead and of the living.
10 Why do you pass judgment on your brother? Or you, why do you despise your brother? For we will all stand before the judgment seat of God;
11 for it is written,
“As I live, says the Lord, every knee shall bow to me,
and every tongue shall confess[b] to God.”
12 So then each of us will give an account of himself to God."

A mother was once chastised by her adult "Christian" children because she stated boldly that her children and her husband were going to watch a movie that had filthy language as well as the Lord's name in vain in it.

She was instructed by these children that she was unsubmissive by not obeying her husband in watching this movie with all of them. This was an abuse of the scripture that says a woman should obey her husband. The husband and the children should have honored the mother by deferring to her counsel.

We are never to obey our husband when he asks us to do something that violates our own conscience before God. Any husband who will not honor his wife is violating her conscience and violating God's law to honor, protect and love with understanding his wife.

A husband who will side with the children in their contempt for the mother for following her own conscience is not obeying God, in fact he is working against her relationship with her God. As well as her relationship with her children. The father should have honored the wife, chosen not to look at the movie and instructed the children that Mother was right.

In another case a wife was instructed by a "Christian" to watch the pornography with her unsaved husband because she needed to obey her husband even if he asked her to do evil. This was a lie from the devil. We are never to disobey God to honor someone above Him. Husbands are not gods, they are human beings with flaws like all of us, we are never to worship our husbands as gods.

Exodus 20:3-5 "3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me."

My response to this wicked "Christian" was to rebuke him strongly that he placed a terrible burden on this new believing woman that could defile her soul.

God said that woman can win an unsaved husband by their obedience to Christ. When the husband sees their dedication to the Lord, even willing to be hated to follow Christ, the husband might think about his own sinful heart and choose to trust Christ.

When you meet "Christians" who pervert the message of the Bible to dominate others we have seen people we need to avoid. These are people who are listening to the devil's whispers rather than seeking God for truth.

When we love God more than any other human being we will not disobey God to obey the human being.

Acts 5:29
"29 Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men."

Shame on those Christians who have used and twisted the Bible to be able to guilt others into entering into sin with them. Shame shame!!!!