I John tells us that if we sin yet say we have no sin then we lie and God is not with us. Rules are not meant to be broken. Especially God’s rules. He loves to see his creation obey his words, instructions and commands. David once wrote, ‘thy words I have hid in my heart so I may not sin against thee’. Yet we see today so many people forgetting to hide God’s words in their hearts as they pursue church offices. Case in point:
The 61-year-old Meredith, who has pastored a “reconciling congregation” at Clifton United Methodist Church as an openly gay man since 2012, came under fire within the denomination after marrying his partner of over 29 years in a UMC church in 2016.
Jesus said, ‘if you love me keep my commandments’ and for some strange reason we cannot find in the Bible any of Jesus commands or instructions where it states that one is obeying God if they practice homosexuality and take the role of a pastor. Now some people may claim that homosexuality is not sin but that would be a gross error on their part. It is a sin no matter if anyone accepts it as such or not.
Sin does not depend on who accepts or dismisses it. Sin is sin because God declared it to be sin. It is we humans who must stop being arrogant and humbly accept God’s declaration and abide by it. We have no power nor authority to change what God has already declared to be sin.
Although the regional appeals committee ordered the West Ohio Conference to rehear Meredith’s case, the appeals committee reportedly asked that the case not be reheard until after the special meeting of the global United Methodist Church in February 2019.
This provides the opportunity for the case to be considered moot if the UMC is to revise language on homosexuality in the Book of Discipline, the ABC affiliate reports.
Churches can change their rules all they want. Their rules are mostly of human origin and not worth the paper they are printed on. Churches can change rules that govern their denominations but those rule changes do not make God’s rules moot nor do they change what God declared to be sin. If the UMC changes its stance on homosexuality then instead of one man or a few people sinning, you will have many more joining their ranks. Church rule changes, unless the coincide with God rules, do not alter what is sin.
#2. https://www.christianpost.com/news/navy-floats-idea-of-atheist-chaplains-221739/
If there aren’t atheists in foxholes, why should we put them in the Chaplain Corps? Senator Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) can’t imagine. Like most leaders, he’s astounded that the Navy is even considering letting someone who doesn’t believe in God join the chaplaincy. Three years ago, the idea was so absurd that even Obama’s military attorneys went to court to stop it. Now, with Secretary Jim Mattis at the helm, no one can quite understand why the topic is even up for discussion.
There are a host of verses pointing out why this is wrong. How can anyone be a chaplain, Christian or otherwise, when they do not believe that God even exists. How can you help people when you have nothing to offer them? Atheists may make an argument that their services could help military members who are atheists but it would be a weak defense.
Atheists have no plan of salvation. They have no power to grant eternal life to anyone? And they have no power to forgive sins. And on it goes. What good would an atheist be in helping others? But the followng quote tells us the enemy’s plan
“The Navy has sufficient authority to create programs for humanist or atheist service members,” the senators write. “The Chaplain Corps is not the appropriate place. The Chaplain Corps serves religious needs, not philosophical preferences. Approving a secular-humanist chaplain would open the door to other applicants representing other philosophical worldviews. Over time, this situation would erode the distinct religious function of the Chaplain Corps.
Destroy the chaplain corps and you destroy many people in the military. These are the attacks on the Christian faith we must be on the look out for and take the appropriate spiritual measures to fight against such strategies. The atheist does not belong in the chaplain’s corps because they do not accept nor follow God’s rules. They do not like God’s standards of right and wrong, etc., and would replace those with their own ideas.
Those ideas would do nothing but harm others.
#3. https://www.christianpost.com/news/7-reasons-churches-dont-grow-221380/
After having co-planted and co-pastored a church for ten years in the Denver area and having preached in churches across the nation, quietly evaluating what makes them work (or not), here is my list of non-scientific reasons why some churches don’t grow.
The bold words are why we included that article in this post. They are not God’s rules. They are rules made by someone who wants churches to be they way he wants them and not God’s way. There are many reasons why churches do not grow. Most of them are spiritual ones and different churches break different spiritual rules. God does not bless sin.
That is the main reason why churches do not grow. it is not because the church has organ music instead of drums and a hip worship team. It is not because they are not organized enough and on it goes. It is because too many churches ignore what Jesus commanded or what God commanded and do things their own way. Doing worship and evangelism is fine but there is more to church life than those two aspects and that is part of the problem.Most churches only focus on those two items and ignore the rest of the biblical instructions.
They ignore God’s rules and then wonder why their church is not growing as it should. Jesus said ‘lift me up and I will draw all men unto me’. That is the start, there are more instructions that need to be followed. Sadly, most people just do not listen to God and follow what the secular world wants or they follow their own ideas or they copy others and on it goes.
God wrote the Bible and both he and Jesus gave out rules to be followed. They did not write their rules because they had nothing better to do. Nor did they write them to have them broken. God punishes the disobedient and rewards the faithful. If we want to make an impact for God and Jesus, then we need to get back to following God’s rules honestly. We need to stop playing games, stop playing church, stop playing follow the leader and turn around and follow God.
We are not talking about legalism here. That is a topic for another day. To be spiritually true, there are rules to follow. We will never be free from rules. Read what Paul said about them. Fighting legalism does not mean we do away with God’s rules or change them. To be spiritual and holy we follow God’s rules correctly. If you want to point to Jesus, he followed his Father’s rules when he was on earth.
Jesus said he was here to do the will of the one who sent him and you never saw him break one of God’s commands or rules. We are not better than Jesus and we must make sure we follow God’s rules properly with fairness, justice and mercy. As well as with wisdom, understanding and knowledge. Having no rules means we are not obeying God.
theologyarchaeology 
Yes I have known about and experienced the one way street the church puts out. It gets very tiring.
Worship is easy, and most of the churches I have attended the worship ‘leader’ or ‘team’ are usually only doing their own worshipping and do not lead the people.
And they wonder why church attendance is declining. “Come to our church. We have neat-o cool worship music, and we also have sermons.” Then they cannot figure out why people do not come. Oh, as far as pay, YOU are supposed to ‘give to the church’. (Ahem) Oh, they also need a cool neat-o church building. Since the early church ways are no longer effective (according to them) they have to do things their way.
I also find that they prefer fads, follow the leader and other games. I guest preach here in this country but it is few and far between. They do not like to pay people properly here either.
I am fully aware of that. The churches are more concerned about pleasing certain individuals than making disciples.
thanks but my preaching is why I am not in Churches. they do not want to hear it
Reblogged this on John Cowgill's Literature Site.
They can sure use your preaching in a lot of churches.