Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling! Phil.2:12
Scripture for this study: Wherefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only,
but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.
A. Which church to attend?
This was an article written by a nutritionist in a hospital in July 1996.
She was a baptized member of this church for a few years!
This is the article she wrote in 1996.
You would think that a well known church with a large congregation would be the right one!
Common sense would dictate majority rules.
It is like when we go shopping for merchandise we seek famous brand names for quality assurance,
if it is highly demanded it must be good.
God said my ways are not your ways and my thoughts are higher than yours. Isa.55:8-9
When I first walked into church of Christ in Flushing I was surprised with its appearance.
The building structure looks like a house and the people dress casually.
Most people would think this is not a church, because a church have to look like one,
like a race car with it’s correct name and appearance. But did you even know that it is possible to install a Porsche engine in a Buggy VW?
It can look plain but it has real power inside. Some churches are decorated with fine adoring and its members in formal attire.
They act and look proper, but that only happen in church.
Matt.23:27-28 describe these whitewashed beautiful looking people, but they are the opposite inside.
These people perform religious rituals only they know, and they are the blind leading the blind Matt.15:14.
They only honor God with their lips but their hearts are far away.
They worship in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men. Matt.15:7-9.
So don’t follow what everybody is doing or what they tell you,
because the majority of the people will seek the broad road that leads to destruction
but few will seek the narrow road that leads to life. Matt.7:13
If you have problems figuring out which is the right church look at God’s word and compare,
don’t end up like the seeds in Matt.13:3-23 when trouble, confusion and worries come it fall away.
Majority of the people will et discouraged but the few that persevere will be victorious and yield much fruits.
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves.” Matt.7:15
Many preachers will preach the Word in a way that appeal to the audience they are shrewd to detect the audience’s needs
thus they alter the gospel to fill their desire attracting a large crowd.
God’s word is living and active sharper than a double edge sword it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow,
it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Heb.4:12
If you listen to God’s word, it is not censored to please the hearts desire but truth that cuts.
I did not like everything preached in the church of Christ, but God’s word is God’s word, my like or dislike has no effect on the truth.
Truth offended people but there is nothing wrong with that because Jesus offended so many people that they want to kill him!
They did kill him!
I want to be the seed in Matt.13:8 that fell on good soil, where it produced a crop … a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.
Even truth that does not appeal to me, I have to learn to accept it because I wish that one day I would see His face!
B. In reality such a person can still drop out from the church!
1. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perished; no one can snatch them out of my hand. Jn.10:28
2. Eternal life is a gift of God in Christ Jesus our Lord! Romans 6:23
3. We have to stay inside the hand of God by not forsaking our own assembling together! Heb.10:25
4. Knowing the Bible as well as this person is not enough! You have to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Phil.2:12
5. You have to crave for pure spiritual milk and grow up in your own salvation! 1 Peter 2:2, Eph.4:11-15
6. Evil heart of unbelief can pop up at any time! Heb.3:12
Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall b e in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God.
7. Take heed Take heed lest there shall be any one that makes spoil of you through his philosophy and vain deceit,
after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. Col.2:8
8. Take heed and keep yourselves from all covetousness; for a man’s life consist not in abundance of the things which he possess. Luke 12:15
9. Take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness,
and cares of this life, and that day come on you suddenly as a snare. Luke 21:34
10.now I make known to you brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, wherein also you stand,
by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, except you believe in vain. 1 Cor.15:1-2
May the Lord bless you and keep you always!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kovNysdwV9o