Called to Reach out Not to Judge

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.  

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, 

and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. 

                                                                                                 Matthew 7:1,2

Is it me am I the only one that is getting sick of hearing Christian, particularly evangelical Christians judging the world.
I am fed up of hearing preacher after preacher in the media trying to stomp out those whom they disagree with.
I am sick of Christians playing politics with the goal to destroy those they disagree with.
Jesus never sent Christians out to judge the world. He sent them out to save the world.
Jesus made things crystal clear when he said,

“He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation.  

Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, 

but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” 

                                                                                                                Mark 16:15,16.
He also said in Matthew,

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.  

Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and 

as innocent as doves.” 

                                                                                              Matthew 10:16
Note those last three words of Matthew 10:16, “innocent as doves”
If we are innocent as doves people can’t possibly get upset with us and they are more likely to open dialogue with us.
Opening a dialogue with any group of people is the only way we will ever win them to Christ.
It is wrong to make people think they have a “special sin” all sin is equal and we should be careful what we call sin.
You can’t just look back in the old Testament and cherry pick laws that we think apply to the twenty-first century.
We are under grace and we should be presenting God’s grace to all mankind.
To the Christian who is reading this I would ask are you judging people, perhaps even without realizing it.
I live in Ontario Canada and we’ve just got our first female premier, she also happens to be openly gay.
As soon as she was elected I heard Christians criticizing her. They had never met her and they haven’t given her a chance to accomplish anything.
The same people who judge her are not judging the leader of the opposition that while in office under another party leader never voted against his party even though they did things against the poor that Christians should have stood up too.
Christians need to step back and take a good look at themselves and see if they are truly doing the work of God or are they attacking people simply because they don’t agree with them.
God allows the governments to reign over us. He allows all groups to have their say.
In God’s world everyone has freedom of speech. They have the right to their own beliefs.
We all, Christian and none Christian will one day be judged by God, NOT by Christians.
 It is a Christians job to evangelize the world. To turn people against us by attacking them has eternal consequences.
Think about it.

What's is with some Christians????

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.   For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.” 
                                                                                  Matthew 7:1,2

I just heard today about a Christian organization that receives some government funding to drill wells and build latrines in third world countries, had it cut because they had anti gay material on their website.
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation report that, “Until Tuesday, the organization's website carried a list of "sexual sins" deemed to be "perversion": "Turning from the true and/or proper purpose of sexual intercourse; misusing or abusing it, such as in pedophilia, homosexuality and lesbianism, sadism, masochism, transvestism, and bestiality."
  I happen to have a great deal of respect for the organization. Still however they are very much old school. They tend to without realizing it I’m sure have “special sins”.
Here they linked pedophilia, bestiality with homosexuality and lesbianism what garbage. There is no “special sins”.
I don’t care what you are, gay or strait the bible makes it clear when Paul writes, “But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference,  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,  and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus”
                                                                                                             Roman’s 3:21-24
It’s interesting that my pastor this past Sunday noted that all sins are equal. There is nothing special when it comes to sins. And I would raise the question is homosexuality a sin? And YES I know what the Old Testament says. But we can’t go back to the Old Testament and cherry pick what laws we want to obey. What laws apply to today.
Consider these laws,
“Keep my decrees.
Do not mate different kinds of animals.
Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed.
Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material.”
                                                       Leviticus 19:19 
Note the last line, do you wear a cotton polyester mix, or a cotton wool mix?
Here's another one,
“Do not cut the hair at the sides of your head or clip off the edges of your beard.” 
                                                                                                                  Leviticus 19:27
How about eating pork or shellfish, the list goes on and on.
It is not the church’s place to judge sinners. It is the church’s place to be as all inclusive as possible.
We are to go out and evangelize the world. To reach the world for a loving God who wants all people to come to know Him in a personal way.
God is no respecter of person. He loves and cares for all people.
Read the words of Paul to the stoics and epicureans in Athens,
"Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious. For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. 
 “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 
 “Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” 
When they heard about the resurrection of the dead, some of them sneered, but others said, “We want to hear you again on this subject.”  At that, Paul left the Council.   A few men became followers of Paul and believed. Among them was Dionysius, a member of the Areopagus, also a woman named Damaris, and a number of others"
                                                                        Acts’s 17:24-32 
Neither Jesus or any of his followers every spoke out about the sins around them. They went into a world that I am sure shocked them. They were Jews going throughout a secular world that had practices dynamically opposed to what they had been brought up with. Yet they simply presented the gospel and let God do the rest.
In doing so they changed the world.
It is something the Church in the twenty-first century needs to be doing.
We have no need to list sins on our website’s. We've all sinned, be we the average person on the street, the pope or the leaders of the organization that prompted this blog post.
We need to extend our hand to people in every walk of life and say “God loves you, and show them the way to heaven.
            Think about it.

Life

Read Ecclesiastes chapter 1

“Meaningless! Meaningless!”

 Says the Teacher

“Utterly meaningless!

Everything is meaning less....

I have seen all the things that are done under the sun;

 all of them are meaningless, a chasing after the wind. 

        What is twisted cannot be straightened; what is lacking cannot be counted. thought to myself, “Look, I have grown and increased in wisdom more than anyone who has ruled over Jerusalem before me; I have experienced much of wisdom and knowledge.” Then I applied myself to the understanding of wisdom, and also of madness and folly, but I learned that this, too, is a chasing after the wind.” 

                                                                                     Ecclesiastes 1:1,14-17

Carl Sagan looked at the above picture taken from the Voyager space craft over six trillion miles from earth and said,
“Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor, and explorer, every teacher of moral, every corrupt politician, every ‘superstar’ every ‘supreme leader’ every saint and sinner in history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam”
I have Bi-polar affective disorder and when I get depressed sometimes I believe what Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes one. Yet I know he’s not right. That all there is, is this life, and everything in it is meaningless.
I cannot believe even though we are as Sagan put it “on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam’, there is not more to life.
Albert Einstein wrote, “Human beings vegetables or cosmic dust. We all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player.”
I think he was close to the answer.
            The late Martin Luther King Jr. Said,
“We thank thee for thy Church, founded upon thy Word, that challenges us to do more than sing and pray, but go out and work as though the very answer to our prayers depended on us and not upon thee.
Then, finally, help us to realize that man was created to shine like stars and live on through all eternity.”
I believe Martin Luther King jr. was right. We are eternal beings. We are destined to live on throughout eternity. The question is where will you spend eternity?
Think about it.

We can't choose the laws we want to obey

Read Galatians 2

For through the law I died to the law 

so that I might live for God. 

I have been crucified with Christ

 and I no longer live, 

but Christ lives in me. 

The life I live in the body, 

I live by the faith in the son of God, 

who loved me and gave himself for me.

“I do not set aside the grace of God for 

if righteousness could be gained though the law

Christ die for nothing.

                                                                                                        Galatians 2:19-21
Paul makes it clear we can’t choose the law when it suits us and lay aside grace. Either we live under the law which cannot save us or we live under grace.
Many in the church today mix the Old Testament teachings with the New Testament. They conveniently pick the laws they choose to follow and forget about the rest.
The law is their to show us right from wrong. This in itself is not a problem. The problem arrises when those within the church choose to pick which laws they wish to observe.
There are many out there who say capital punishment is supported by the bible. Which it is. But the bible also forbids the eating of shell fish and pork.
Do those who are out there justifying capital punishment by using the bible also refrain from eating shell fish and pork?
You can’t have it both ways. This is what Paul was saying. We now live under grace.
I firmly believe that Christ came at a crossroads in time. God knew a new era in the world was beginning. That’s why he sent Christ when he did.
God knew the gentile world would have a hard time with some of the laws. That in parts of the world especially in the times of the early church it may be impossible to even obey the laws, especially the food laws at times. That’s why he made it easy for us to obtain salvation.
The Council in Jerusalem recognized that there was a new era coming. In Acts 15 it made a simple statement to the gentile believers.

“It seemed good to the Holy Spirit  and to us 

not to burden you with anything 

beyond the following requirements; 

you are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, 

from blood, 

and from the meat of straggled animals

 and from sexual immorality 

you will do well to avoid these things. 

                                                                                   Acts 15:28,29

Something to think about.
The message of Christianity is one of love and forgiveness. Not rules and regulations that cannot save anyone. It is about freedom not do’s and don’t.
God want’s us to live for him and not sin. We should never sin deliberately. Paul make it clear in Romans salvation through faith is not a licence to sin.
Still when we sin, and we all do, it is important to know we can turn to God and as John states, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness.”
                                 1 John 1:9  
That is the message of Christianity. God’s loving us so much that he sent His Son to die for the forgiveness for our sin.

In the Morning of My Life

 the Morning of My Life

 In the morning of my life

 I will look to the Sunrise

At a moment in my life 

When the world is new.

And the Question

I shall ask only God can answer.

Will I be brave and strong and true,

Will I fill the world with love my whole life through?

Will I fill the world with love my whole life through?

In the evening of my life

I will look to the sunset

At a moment in my life 

When my life is through.

And the question I shall ask only I can answer 

Was I brave and strong and true.

 Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?

 Did I fill the world with love my whole life through?

                                                                                By Leslie Bricusse
                                                                             From the Musical Good by Mr Chips
I seen the Musical Good by Mr. Chips in the late sixties just after its release. For some reason the words of the song written above have lingered with me all of my life.
The questions posed in the song seem to me worth answering.
I am now approaching my fifty-ninth year on this earth. I have seen massive technical advances from the first satellite in space to man on the moon, to robotic ships sending pictures form the surface of Mars and around the various planet, to the establishment of the internet and the massive social media complex we now have.
I watched from my perch here in Canada as a teen the horrors of the Viet Nam war.
I watched as the Americans turned the dogs and fire hoses on black demonstrators who were peacefully demonstrating for their basic human rights.
I grew up in a household in which my parents were not Christians as I would define them but they but never the less were active in trying to make the individual person better.
All of his life my father was an active trade unionist and did manage to get better wages and benefits for those he worked with.
He taught me that it was the individual that mattered and should be lifted above all other things.
When I became a Christian in my late teens I could see through the teachings of Jesus that my father was correct.
Jesus always catered to the needs of the individual.
Although I was saved through a Baptist church I became involved in what some called the Jesus movement. I was frequently called a ‘Jesus freak’.
It’s a movement that crossed denominational lines and sought to return to the roots of Christianity.
In the case of those I associated with we were searching for our  Jewish roots.

Jesus was Jewish He lived by Jewish ethics
One principle of Judaism that I firmly believe needs to be a mainstay of the Christian faith is ‘Tzedakah’.
Tzedakah is a duty that all Jews are called to perform.
In English it is translated Charity. In Judaism however giving to the poor in not viewed as a generous or magnanimous act, it is considered an act of justice and righteousness. The performance of one’s duty giving the poor their due
Philip Bernstein said of Tzedakah,
If there is one area that identifies and unites Jews, no matter what their personal beliefs and practices, it is Tzedakah.  Tzedakah is more that charity or philanthropy, noble as they are, more than man’s humanity to man, exalted as that is, more truly it is righteousness and justice.  Without these qualities civilization would perish.
It is the highest ideal in Jewish teaching—for it is the highest application of Jewish ethical values.  It is Judaism in action—and Judaism is inherently and deeply a religion of action, a way of life, a way of living.”
I believe the ideal of Tzedakah is an ideal of Jesus. One only has to look throughout the New Testament to see Jesus and His disciples putting this into effect.
The apostle Paul wrote.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 
 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.... And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”
       1 Corinthians 13:1-8a,13 
True Love is the ideal of Christianity it is this love I believe I and all Christians must live by.
It is something I believe I need to strive for everyday of my life so that I can answer the questions posed in the song lyrics quoted above with one word, ‘yes’.
As this new year begins it is something I believe all within the church needs to look at.
Are you filling the world with love? Because love, as corny as it may sound can and does change the world. Jesus did and we can too.
Think about it.

Merry Christmas

To all who read this blog.
My prayer for you is, whoever you are, May the love of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ be with you this Christmas and throughout the coming year.

What is a Christian

What is a Christian

Over the years I’ve met and heard in the Media and other places people who call themselves Christians. Yet to hear them talk you’d think they were the most judgmental even bigoted and people you’d ever met.
A lot has been said and done in the name of Christianity. Many people zealous for the faith have forgotten the fundamentals of the faith, leaving a lot of wreckage in their wake.
These people potentially have by their words and deeds sentenced many people to hell.
A great burden is placed upon the Christian, one that involves the eternal well being of all they come in contact with.
For me the following is what I believe a true Christian must believe and follow.
I could write a book on each scripture reference and at a later date I just might. Still here as brief as I could make it is what I believe makes a Christian a Christian.

First they we must believe.

“Let love and faithfulness never leave you; 

bind them around your neck, 

write them on the tablet of your heart. 

Then you will win favor and a good name in the sight of God and man. 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; 

in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight.” 

                                                                                            Proverbs 3:3-6  

Second,

“Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life.

 No one comes to the Father except through me.” 

                                                                                              John 14:6

Third

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, 

that whoever believes in him shall not perish 

but have eternal life

For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,

 but to save the world through him”.

                                                                                John 3:16,17
Fourth

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—

and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 

not by works, so that no one can boast.  

For we are God’s workmanship, 

created in Christ Jesus to do good works, 

which God prepared in advance for us to do”. 

                                                                           Ephesians 2:8-10

Fifth,

Then Jesus came to them and said, 

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,

 baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  

and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

 And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

                                                                                                    Matthew 28:18-20
Sixth,

“I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. 

Therefore be as shrewd as snakes 

and as innocent as doves.”

                                                                      Matthew 10:16
Seventh

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. 

For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, 

and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you”. 

                                                                                              Matthew 7:1
Eighth,

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’  

But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 

that you may be sons of your Father in heaven. 

He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain 

on the righteous and the unrighteous. 

If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? 

Are not even the tax collectors doing that?  

And if you greet only your brothers, 

what are you doing more than others? 

Do not even pagans do that? 

Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.”

                                                                                         Matthew 5:43-48
Ninth

Love is patient, love is kind.

 It does not envy, it does not boast, 

it is not proud. It is not rude,

 it is not self-seeking, 

it is not easily angered, 

it keeps no record of wrongs. 

Love does not delight in evil 

but rejoices with the truth. 

It always protects, always trusts, 

always hopes, always perseveres. 

Love never fails.”  

                                                                       1Corinthians 13:4-8a
If Christians follow these scripture I feel strongly that they can and will reach those around them.
Living in North America I as a Christian have unprecedented freedoms to talk to people about my faith.
There are entire Christian television networks. Millions of people watch daily various evangelist and pastors preaching the word of God.
Sadly there are many that while preaching have put their own biases on that word. In doing so they have turned people off.
Standing in a pulpit be that in a church building or in the media and spitting hell fire and brimstone I’ve found doesn’t win people to Christ, especially in the twenty-first century.
People know there’s sin in the world. They may call it by other names but they know the world and the people in it are far from perfect. They know there is a need to change for the better.
But screaming judgmental dogma from the pulpit will only push people away potentially sentencing them to hell.
The Apostle Paul once had a unique pulpit. He stood before a bunch of what the bible would define as sinners and those of other faiths. In fact he was asked by those men, Epicurean and Stoic philosophers  to speak to them in the Areopagus in Athens,
What he said should be a model to us on how to speak to those of other faiths and beliefs.
This is what he said,
Paul then stood up in the meeting of the Areopagus and said: “Men of Athens! I see that in every way you are very religious.  For as I walked around and looked carefully at your objects of worship, I even found an altar with this inscription: TO AN UNKNOWN GOD. Now what you worship as something unknown I am going to proclaim to you. 

“The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands.  And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.  From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live.  God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us.  ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’ 

“Therefore since we are God’s offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man’s design and skill. In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to all men by raising him from the dead.” 

                                                                             Acts 17:22-31

Paul presented the Gospel plain and simple. Not your condemned to hell, no you vile sinners. He simple presented the word of God. As should every Christian believer.
If you are a Christian I would ask you to examine yourself and see if the way you present yourself and the gospel to others is positive or negative.
Look at it from the none believers eyes. If you were a none-believer would you receive the message you are presenting?
If you do not believe Jesus Christ is the Son of God, God incarnate. The saviour of the world, consider what was said above.
I truly believe Jesus came to save the world and I believe he wants to come into your life today. And he doesn’t care who you are. His first thought is for you as a person. It is not contingent on anything you do.
The basic premise of Christianity is God reaching down to man because man is not tall enough or good enough to reach up to God.
Think about it.
If you have any questions contact me at. Nealbelieves@gmail.com

The birth that had to be

‘In those days Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)   And everyone went to his own town to register. 
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.  While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born,   and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.” 
                                                                                                                                          Luke 2:1-7
Imagine this. You are a multi billionaire with everything you’ve ever wanted at your finger tips. You have servants aplenty. All you ever had to do to get anything was to snap your fingers and someone would get it for you.
Additionally you’ve been very healthy. You’ve never known what it was to be sick in your life.
Now in all honesty how can you relate to someone who is just the opposite? Someone who is so poor they are living from day to day. Every penny they have has to be carefully spent. They live from pay check to pay check and quite often they have to choose weather to spend the money on food for themselves and their children or pay the electric bill.
When they are sick they worry that they can get the right health care and drugs to help get them better. They also worry that they will miss too much time at work and thus have even less money for food and shelter.
Can a multi billionaire even stand in judgement of someone this poor?
In all honesty I think a multi billionaire can intellectually say he understands but having not experienced that kind of poverty and the physical and mental strains it puts on a person he can’t truly relate.
At the same time while he knows what it is to be human judging a man of humble means can also be difficult.
I think that’s what God realized after he created man. It goes without saying that God the creator of mankind has the right to stand in judgement of his creation, especially if it isn’t going in the direction He expects.
Still when a man stands before God he could in his defence justly say ‘you don’t know what it is to be human. What it is to face the day to day temptations and trials a man or woman has.’
But God can. He can do it because He chose to send His one and only Son, Jesus Christ into this world.
Jesus in his lifetime experienced what it was to be human. He felt the sun against his face,and the rain. He had friends, attended weddings and funerals.
He taught the truths of God to thousands and was regarded as a great teacher. At the same time he was despised by many of those in authority amongst his people.
From his earliest days he knew what it was like to be a political refuge, his parents had to flee to Egypt, to escape Herod’s wrath.
Jesus showed us and taught us what God wanted us to do.
While he spoke out against the Jewish leaders, the leaders of his people to correct them. He never spoke out against the ruling secular authorities of Rome.
Still he was falsely accused of breaking the law. Even the Roman governor of his day said Jesus had done nothing deserving of death.
At the same time for political expediency he let Jesus be flogged and put to death on a Roman cross.
Because of all of this Jesus can justly judge the individual. He understands everything about being human.
Now all of that being said we know that the sole purpose for Jesus coming to earth was to save the world. John 3:17 stating, “ For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but that the world would be saved through Him.”
God fully understands that we cannot live a perfect life that’s why He sent His Son to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins.
John 3:16-17 put it this way,
Jn 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.  17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”
The bible makes it clear that it is God that is reaching down to man to offer eternal life.
Ephesians 2:8,9 states,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.”
God simply wants us to admit we are sinners to confess our sins to Him directly and to ask him to come into our hearts and lives.
If we do this with a sincere heart he will come in and direct us along the paths of righteousness.
The choice is yours. You can do it right now. Simply say this prayer.
Dear Heavenly Father,
I admit that I am a sinner and fall short of what you want for my life.
Please come into my life today and take away my sins.
Guide me and direct me in the way you would have me go.
                         In Jesus name I pray
                                              Amen.
If you’ve prayed this prayer I would suggest that you start reading the bible. You can’t learn about God unless you do.
The other thing you should do is find a church that teaches directly from the bible and attend it.
We all need encouragement from other Christians it helps us grow in our faith.
Pray and ask God to help you find such a church in your area and He will reply.

Because

Because

Because... “...He (God first loved us.”
      1 John 4:19

I will... love God

Because... “...God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

I will... love God

Because... Jesus said, “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this shall all know that you are My disciples.  If you have love for one another.  John 13:34,35

I will... love my brothers and sisters in Christ.

Because... Jesus said, “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.”   Luke 6:27,28

I will... love my enemies.

Because... The Bible says, “Love suffers long and is kind: love does not envy; loves does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things; believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  I Corinthians 13:4-7

I will... I will love.

Because... The Bible says, “Now abides faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.  1 Corinthians 13:13

I will... Have faith in God..
     For according to Ephesians 2:8,9:
“...by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves; it is a gift of God, not of works; lest anyone should boast.”
Have hope in Christ...
For according to Romans 5:1,2: “...having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our LORD Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace which we stand, and rejoice in hope of glory of God.”

Have love... For Jesus said in Matthew 22:37-40:
“...you shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.  On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Because of this and much more
I will love.

On being Christian

Read Luke 11:37-54

“Jesus replied, 

‘And you experts in the law, 

woe to you, 

because you load people down

 with burdens they can hardly carry

 and you yourselves

 will not lift one finger to help them.’”

                                                                                   Luke 11:46 Niv
One friend of mine looked at this verse and quipped jokingly “proof lawyers have never changed.”
Here’s another trivia statistic the majority of lawyers in the world are in North America and most of them in the United States.
Sometimes I look at our churches and wonder if they are not all in them.
Take a quick look around at church culture. I’ve seen churches filled with you must do this or you can’t do that, or this is wrong, or only this is right.
In two thousand years the Church has picked up a lot of baggage. Within every denomination there are things that are of men not of God. Likewise there are men and women within the church who wish to enforce these things.
The early church had this dilemma the leaders then deciding in acts 15 that the law was burdensome and in Acts 15: 29 made things simple.

“You are to abstain from foods sacrificed to idols.

 From blood from the meat of strangled animals

 and from sexual immorality.

 You will do well to avoid these things.”

That being said the Apostle Paul makes it clear how we obtain our salvation.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, 

through faith–

and this not from yourselves,

it is a gift of God-

not by works 

so that no one can boast.

                                                                                   Ephesians 2:8,9
Paul in his writing in Romans makes it clear that
for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
                                                        Romans 3:21
John writing,

“If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins 

and purify us from all unrighteousnes,”

                                                                                                             John 1:8,9

We have no need to go through a mediator such as a priest or minister. We can confess our sins directly to God and He will forgive us.

That’s why Jesus paid the ultimate price.

Something to think about.

The key to a Christian life is simple.
 First with a sincere heart we must come to Christ and confess our sins and be willing to change our life. To one that reflects Christ.

 Second we must be willing to put Christ first in our lives always remembering that God will not call us to do anything we are not capable of doing.

 Thirdly and while this is not a prerequisite for getting into heaven, we should read and study the word of God. The Bible. Always remembering that the more we know of God the more we can do for him and the less chance we have of falling away from Him.

It’s really that simple.

Obligation

“They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved—you and your household.”                                                                                                        Acts 16:31
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.  For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” 
                                                                                           Ephesians 2:8-10
“As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without deeds is dead.” 
                                                                                         James 2:26
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. 
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, 
I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 
“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? 
When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? 
When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 
“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ 
                                 Matthew 25:34-40
First of all Christians are saved through faith in Jesus Christ. However James makes it clear that “faith without deeds is dead.”
While our faith may save us, as someone once said we live in our deeds.
Christians have obligations to God, and to their fellow man. Matthew 25:40 “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine you did for me.” makes that very clear.
As Christians we have an obligation to tell the world about the salvation Jesus offers. However we must remember that we are Christ’s representative. And Jesus didn’t just meet spiritual needs. He looked to the physical need of the individual.
Jesus upon seeing the crowds hungry in Matthew 14 performed a miracle feeding them with five loaves and two fish. He also healed the sick.
We are to do likewise. The early church certainly did.
Acts chapter two records,
“They (the believers) devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe, and many wonders and miraculous signs were done by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” Acts 2:42-45
The Talmud while a Jewish holy book and not a recognized Christian holy book has a point when it states,

“When a man [a believer] appears before the Throne of Judgment, the first question he is asked is not, “Have you believed in God?”  Or “Have you prayed and observed the ritual?  “He is asked: “have you dealt honourably and faithfully in all your dealings with your fellow men?”
This is what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 25. We as Christians have an obligation to our fellow man.
How we deal with those around us tells a lot about us. To quote again from the Talmud,
“Rabbi Akiba was asked by a Roman general, “Why does your God who loves the needy not provide for their support Himself?”  He answered, “God the Father of both the rich and poor, wants the one to help the other so as to make the world a household of love.”
I as a Christian do not believe we can separate our faith from our life. Christianity is a way of life. As such our faith must be very much a part of our every day actions.
We should not have to tell people we are Christians they should know we are as a result of our actions.
Dwight L. Moody the great evangelist of the nineteenth century wrote,
“We are called to let our light shine, and if we do we wont need to tell anyone it does. Lighthouses do not fire cannons to call attention to their shining.”
We have an obligation to do what Jesus would do. Not only to share our faith but to meet the needs of the needy. It is my opinion that when Jesus said in Luke 12:48, “...From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.”  He meant what he said.
All of us will be held accountable to God to the extent that we could help people. A person of humble means who can only offer a cup of water will be rewarded by God for giving that cup to someone in need.
Likewise I believe a person a who is in a position of power with the ability to give millions or pass legislation in government that will help ease the burdens of many will be held accountable for their actions also.
I know our American friends like to speak about the separation of church and state and perhaps there is some merit to the concept. Certainly after hearing some Christians in the media, I a Christian would not want them ruling me.
However what I am saying here has nothing to do with ruling and everything to do with giving each and every human being basic human rights.
We as Christians cannot hide in the idea “it is not my affair” It is our affair!
If we claim to be of the household of Christ we have an obligation not only to offer salvation but to as far as possible meet the needs of our fellow man.
We who claim to have Christ living within us are Christ’s representatives in this world. We are under an obligation to show God’s love to the world.
Love as defined by the Apostle Paul,
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.... And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.” 1Corinthians 13:4-8a,13
The results of us not doing so can and will have eternal consequences,
“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,  I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’ 
 “He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’ 
“Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life.” 
                                                                                                                  Matthew 25:41-46
Think about it.

Query

“Ask, and it will be given to you; 

seek and you will find; 

knock, and it will be opened to you.

“For everyone who asks receives,

 and he who seeks finds,

 and to him who knocks it will be opened.

“Or what man is there among you who,

 if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?

“Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent.

“If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

 how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who 

ask Him!

“Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you,

 do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

                                                                                             Matthew 7:7-12
God does not want robots.   He want’s people with a free will. People who ask questions, seek out answers.
While it is true that we are saved through faith and that according to Hebrews 11:1 faith is :“...the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” God does not want us to be robots, following blindly without thinking.
One of the signs of a cult is that the leadership demands that the followers follow blindly. That they don’t ask questions. That they just follow the teachings of the leader.
Jesus makes it clear that we are to ask questions. “Ask...seek... knock...” He states. Ask questions about what you believe, seek out the answers in the Scriptures, knock on God’s door through prayer to get the answers.
If we do these things God will show us.
Seek out good council in a good church, a pastor and  other Christians who study directly from the Word of God.
Don’t  rely exclusively on study books and commentaries.
Question the commentaries and study books by looking at the Scriptures to see if they are taken in context or whether the author is taking liberties with Scripture to prove a biassed point of view he or she may have.
It’s fine to have a healthy scepticism about what you’re being taught, if it makes you seek out God’s will.  
Always, always remember no church congregation is perfect. Nor are pastors, Bible teachers or theologians. We all make mistakes.

The Bible is, however, the divinely inspired Word of God. It was written to the early church to teach them what God wanted. By studying it and seeking out God’s guidance in prayer we will get answers, but it is important that we study the scriptures. It is important that we let God show us the remarkable truths that are in them, for our day to day life.
“Study to show thy self approved ...” Paul tells Timothy and through his second letter to him he states the same thing to us.
Study the word of God learn what you believe and why you believe what you do.
Ask God for wisdom, guidance and knowledge. Seek God’s truths and will for your life. Knock on God’s door, for the Scripture tells us,

“For everyone who asks receives,

 and he who seeks finds,

 and to him who knocks it will be opened.”

                                                                                   Matthew 7:8