“This is he that came by water and blood, even Jesus Christ; not by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit that beareth witness, because the Spirit is truth.” I John 5:6
The true remnant last day believers will be identified, not by their tenants or statement of faith that their church has in place, nor by a denomination they may belong to, but by the Spirit of truth. Truth recognizes truth.
“He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. 49But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.” Lk. 6:48-49
Notice that the scriptures did not say “if the flood,†but instead “WHEN the flood.†Saints, you can be certain that the flood will rise and the stream will beat against you. Is your Christian foundation built on a favorite minister, favorite Christian author, favorite denomination or church, or is your foundation built on Christ? As certain as you can be that the flood and the stream will come, you can be certain you will stand if your foundation is built on Christ.
One Saturday morning many years ago, while preaching in front of an abortion clinic with some other ministers, an elderly lady came up to me and asked me who I was affiliated with. In a quick response to her answer I said, “Jesus.†I really knew what she wanted to know. She wanted to know what denomination or organization I was affiliated with. For the first 16½ years of my Christian life I was a member of two different denominations. Since then I have been what is referred to as nondenominational. Some call it independent. I like to call it “dependent,†dependent on the Holy Spirit.
It is only natural for many believers to want to know what denominations or groups other believers associate with. This would not be the case if the body of Christ would have never divided themselves up into schisms. No doubt, the intention behind many of those who form new denominations, fellowships and affiliations is an attempt to honor God by having the most accurate doctrine or trying to resemble the first century church. One of the problems this creates for us is that many of the saints do not seem to quite know how to have true fellowship with those outside of their particular denomination or fellowship. Those in the nondenominational, independent ranks don’t always have it right either. They can have an attitude of excluding others who do not believe exactly as their church scripted as well. And, of course, those who want to gather disciples unto themselves will form their own church that foolish sheep will flock to. Thus we are left with the body of Christ, who is supposed to have one head and function as one body, being divided into many fragments and often unable to cooperate, much less get along with each other. Being on the outside of the denomination structure of the present day church has given me a little insight to this question of who I am affiliated with.
So with that said, I will tell you who I am affiliated with. I will mostly do that by telling you who I am not affiliated with. I am not a Lutheran because I don’t follow Martin Luther. I am not a Wesleyan because I don’t follow John Wesley. I am not a Roman Catholic because I don’t follow the pope nor the false teachings of that church. I was born into a Catholic home, but learned this religion had no power to set me free. I am not a Calvinist or an Arminian, I am a “Bibleist†(I made that word up).
I am not a Puritan, but “unto the pure all things are pure†(Titus 1:15). I do not belong to the Reformed Church, but I believe our God is sovereign and that He did predestinate me to be conformed to the image of His Son. Besides that, we don’t need the church to be reformed, we need her to come back to her original form of holiness, righteousness, unity and power.
I am not a fundamentalist but I believe in the fundamentals of the word of God. I am not liberal, but I am liberated in the Spirit. I am not a conservative because a Christian is to be more conservative than many that call themselves a conservative.
I am not a Baptist, though I believe in getting baptized. I am not affiliated with the Church of Christ; even though I believe in baptism, I don’t believe baptism saves you. Yet if you are in Christ, you belong to the spiritual church of Christ. I am not a Pentecostal, though I believe in the experience and power that was given to the church on the day of Pentecost to reach the lost, and I expect what happened on that day to continue until the Lord comes. I am not a charismatic even though I believe in spiritual gifts, all of them. I do not affiliate with the Word of Faith teachings or teachers, yet the faith I have is often heard in the words I speak.
I don’t belong to the United Pentecostals / Jesus Only, yet I do believe, Jesus is the only way to the Father, who He and the Holy Spirit are One with. I also believe in the authority that is given to me in the name of Jesus Christ and use it often for God’s glory. I am not a member of the Brethren Church, but all that are in the church are my brethren and I am theirs.
I certainly don’t belong to any of the cults. I don’t belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, although I am a member of the church of Jesus Christ and I am living in the latter days. I don’t belong to the Watchtower Society also called Jehovah’s Witnesses, yet I am a living witness of our great Jehovah.
I’m sure you know I am not a Muslim. Allah and my Heavenly Father are not the same God. The God of the Bible never threatens people to convert or else be killed. Instead He loves, invites and even woos people to come. He says, “That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life†(John 3:15). Instead of killing people in attempts to convert them, He sent His Son who demonstrated His love for fallen rebellious sinful man and went to the cross and died for all.
I don’t belong to the Holiness Churches, yet I know that I must, “….put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness†(Ephesians 4:24). Holiness is a life I live because the Holy One is inside me. That is what the HOLY Spirit does, He makes unholy people holy.
I am not a Seventh Day Adventist. In regard to the “Seventh Day†I believe in keeping the Sabbath day holy right along with keeping the other six days of the week holy. I can’t imagine that we can wake up one morning and say, “I don’t have to keep this day holy.†I read and pray all seven days of the week. About resting on the seventh day, I have entered into God’s rest when I was born again. No more burden of sin nor weight of guilt. Since I have been saved, I have had my rest seven days a week, twelve months a year. In regard to “Adventist,†I am convinced that we are the generation that will witness the return of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is recorded that the early church met daily from house to house. Well, at this present time I have fellowship with the saints at least three days a week. But I believe the day is coming when we will meet more often because of the evil that will prevail around us all. We will need to meet because we will need one another.
I am not attracted to the Hebrew or Messianic Jewish influence on the church in that I rejoice in the consolation that I do not have to come under the bondage of the Law of Moses with its ordinances and feasts that cannot perfect me. Yet I am a Gentile who loves the Jewish people and still believes they are God’s chosen people. I have willing submitted myself to a new royal law. It is the law of love which fulfilled and continues to fulfill all the law of God.
So the question was asked to me, “Who are you affiliated with.†I trust you can see that I am affiliated with Jesus, just as I told that dear sister that Saturday morning many years ago. Who am I affiliated with? I am affiliated with you, if you are a born again believer. The word of God is my final authority, not as I perceive it, but as the Spirit of truth teaches and reveals it. I am in unity with you, if you do believe the truth and are willing to believe all the truth. Without a determination to know all the truth, our unity at best will be just some ecumenical thing, which really is not unity.
Please forgive me if I overloaded your brain with all these different aspects of man’s organized religion. However, I didn’t invent these; this is the mess the church is in today. Do you want to simplify your walk with the Lord? Then why don’t you too be satisfied to be affiliated with Jesus and let the word of God and the truth fully establish your life.
“Now I beseech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that ye be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment.†I Cor. 1:10
“Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus: 6That ye may with one mind and one mouth glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7Wherefore receive ye one another, as Christ also received us to the glory of God.†Rom. 15:5-7
The testimony of the early church, taken right from the bible, is they were in “one accord†in the upper room. Even after about a ten day span, they were still in “one accord†on the day of Pentecost. I wonder how united my church would be, if we spent ten days together. Anyway, the early church had a unity that is not seen today, not because we can’t have it, but because we don’t believe it can be. Often our idea of unity, is for us all to share the same cause or all belong to the same denomination or all agree to the same creed written by authors other than those who penned our bible. These things can bring some degree of unity for some people, but then another group forms that has their own cause and creed. That is why we have so much division today in the church. Add to that, the lack of love and concern for one another, and it is easy to see why the church doesn’t get along with each other.
The reason the early church had such a unity is because they were fully surrendered to Christ. He told them to wait in Jerusalem for the promised Holy Spirit. So, they all waited together. While in that room, there were no saints determined to carry out their own agenda. They were not jockeying for position, but willingly came under Peter’s leadership. They were praying together and were holding to the Old Testament scriptures, so much so, that they were literally fulfilling scripture by appointing someone to take Judas’ place. You can’t believe the word of God much better than that. We see this true unity in the early church, but true Christian unity has escaped our generation.
How is it, that millions of Christians, can all read the same book called the bible, declare that it is the unadulterated word of God, insist that it holds the highest authority over their life, and yet there be so many disagreements amongst us? I know there are many saints that really want unity. If you don’t want unity there is something desperately wrong with your spiritual man. God created us because He wants to share His kingdom with us, He created us because He wants to have a love relationship with us. When Christ entered us upon salvation, the desire of God came with Him. The desire for love and unity came with Him. As we mature in the Lord, so does our love for God increase, and as our love for God increases, so does our love for mankind, especially our brothers and sisters in Christ.
When I met my wife Joy, I thought she was pretty. She was willing to let me date her, and I did. I found out she was a nice girl too, but I just liked her in those first several months of seeing her. One day I realized I loved her and wanted to be with her more, so much more that I asked her to marry me. We got married and 6 years later we got saved. Joy gave birth to 3 sons who all married and gave us 9 grandchildren. You know what? I still want to be with Joy, even more. I want to be around my sons, daughters-in-law and grandchildren too. This is the nature of families. Even more, it is the nature of God. Adam didn’t even finish his first assignment, of naming the animals in the garden, before he was asking where his companion is.
It is only natural for Christians to want unity, and because of that desire for unity, many prayer meetings, conferences, workshops and such have been held for the main purpose of uniting the body of Christ. Who can hold it against those that try such things? I commend them for their effort to bring unity to the body. However, they are going about it the difficult way. Unity is much easier to achieve than one might think.
First you have to believe that we really can have true unity. Paul would never had told us to speak the same thing if we couldn’t; he would have never told us that there should be no divisions amongst us, if it weren’t possible for it to be so. I Corinthians 1:10 is one of those verses in the bible that it seems many Christians really don’t believe. They have shrugged off the possibility that we could have true spiritual unity in the church, years ago.
As I said, to have unity is a very simple thing. Romans 15:5 holds the answer. It says, “Now the God of patience and consolation grant you to be likeminded one toward another according to Christ Jesus:†It is right there as plain as can be; our unity must be “according to Christ Jesus.†It is not according to Terry Fischer, it isn’t according to The Church In Wisconsin, it isn’t according to you, or your church or your creed or your denomination. I am not asking you all to think like me, or for us all to think like one of you. I am asking us all to get the mind of Christ. However, for this to happen, we all have to be teachable. You and I cannot be stubborn in our hearts and say, “this is the way I always believed and I am not changing.†Let’s be honest church, with all the different doctrines we have, someone has to be wrong. Are you willing to change the way you think if the scriptures and the Spirit of truth prove you wrong? My mentor told me, “You don’t look to the bible to prove yourself right, you look to the bible to prove what’s right.†If you and I have a contrary interpretation of a verse in the bible, either I am wrong, or you are wrong, or we are both wrong. We can’t both be right. The Spirit of truth would never teach opposing views and leave us confused and divided. So with that said, it is up to us to be teachable, no matter how long and how well trained we may be. Let’s not agree to disagree, let’s agree to get the mind of Christ and have unity according to Christ Jesus. I am one that believes we will have it. I plead with you to determine in your heart that we can have unity, and that you will cooperate toward that end.
