1 ¶ For I would that ye knew what great conflict I have for you, and for them at Laodicea, and for as many as have not seen my face in the flesh;
He is troubled for the Colossians, for the Laodiceans, and for us. Here is a rundown of the problem with the Laodiceans which can be run aside our own walk of faith. It’s not that we aren’t a giving people, many attend church regularly if not every time the doors are opened, read their Bible, and pray. But….
Revelation 3:14 ¶ And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God; 15 I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. 16 So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. 17 Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: 18 I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see. 19 As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. 20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. 21 To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
The Christian culture, which means the “I-go-to-church-like-you-go-to-the-bar-or-shopping” crowd, the I-dress-right-and-you-don’t” crowd, does not necessarily by their works have a passion for Christ. They are about as cold as any nominal believer who’s home asleep or watching TV now. This, going to church, is just what they do. It’s their Moose Club, their Sunday morning flea market, and their way of feeling like they’ve got something over on the lost person who is reading his morning paper right now. As I heard one lady say years ago, while in a church (as in the building) on Christmas Eve, “this is just what we do on Christmas Eve”. She wasn’t there because she wanted to be with other Christians to worship the living Saviour. She was just following the dictates of the Christian culture. She’d have been a faithful Muslim if she had been born in Saudi Arabia.
There’s no thought to it, no heart for it. We just follow the crowd. I wonder about some of you children when you are no longer under your parent’s thumb. Will you still unite in worship with other believers at least once a week or every few days? Or will you find a reason to disappear? What are you thinking about it right now, I wonder? Are you only here because you have no other choice and this is where your friends and family are? Or are you here because you love Christ and love the brethren? At least if you were cold you wouldn’t think you were on fire. But being lukewarm gives us a false sense of security.
2 That their hearts might be comforted, being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgement of the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ;
Here is a wonderful wish, that our hearts be comforted, being knit together in love. He wants us to have a full assurance of understanding in the mystery of God. How can you have a full assurance if you don’t know what God says in His word? How can you have full assurance if you don’t know if you’re saved or how to be saved or if you believe you are always in danger of losing your salvation?
How can you have full assurance of understanding if you don’t even know what parts of the Bible pertain to you doctrinally? How can you have full assurance of understanding if you think of yourself as a 10 th century BC Hebrew under the theocracy set down by the Law?
How can you know anything about the mystery of God, and of the Father, and of Christ, if you use a Bible that perverts the Scriptures and downplays, even denying the divinity of Christ?
By the way, we are supposed to love each other and all through the New Testament that is commanded.
John 13:34 A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. 35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.
1 st Corinthians 13 defines the nature of a Christian’s love for the brethren just as Ephesians 5 tells us all to submit to each other but for the wives to submit to their OWN husbands, so we are to love everyone but our love for each other is to be different and more defining of our part in the body of Christ.
3 In whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
This is a great statement. All true wisdom and knowledge proceeds from God and Christ and all true wisdom and learning begin with a knowledge of God and Christ, and that can only be certainly accomplished by knowing His word. You can’t know the God of the Bible unless you know the Bible. I realize there are some exceptions to that when a Sudanese Sikkuk Christian only knows that he is trusting Christ and has never seen a Bible and even is willing to die for Christ then God has accomplished this through the Holy Spirit. But, we in this country have no excuse.
4 ¶ And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.
It is very difficult to be deceived if you are in your Bible and know it. Christians are very easily deceived, those who don’t know the Bible, because they can be led astray by every wind of doctrine, wanting to be fed only by a sermon because they are too lazy to feed themselves with the word.
Ephesians 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;
We have been beguiled by the development of a “Christian culture” in America that is not Bible but seems like it could be. We’ve invented additional times we must attend church that Paul never envisioned or we’re reprobates. We’ve invented things that we feel are necessary in worship that aren’t anything to do with the “old time religion” and yet, if we don’t use them, we are carnal. We’ve adopted “godly” clothing that the people in the Bible never heard of. We’ve created buzz words and trade jargon that not only turn the unbeliever off because he doesn’t understand them but because they remind him of a self-righteous crowd’s talk. These words are often used in the Bible but not in the same way we use them.
We cling to time periods as being saintly and worthy of mimicry, like say, the turn of the 1900’s, the Twentieth Century, when Christianity was actually headed rapidly toward its lowest point in the west, which the Apostles would have thought was a time of apostasy.
We love any hymn, almost, written before 1950 that has a few “God” and “Jesus’s” sprinkled through it no matter how doctrinally in error it is or how misleading to the new Christian simply because we’ve always sung it. We talk about things that happened in those times, and we don’t realize that they never happened. When you examine the history of the so called great revivals you get some chilling facts which come to light that would shock you, like how, in the North, women of the church would descend on a community before the revival and bully the bar owners into being willing to close on the nights of the revival. This I learned in my study of the origins of the Welfare state which was brought on my Yankee post-millennial pietists who believed neither in a rapture or a millennial reign of Christ afterwards but wanted, like the religious left, to bring in the kingdom of heaven on earth and create a “Christ-like” utopia.
The average fundamentalist church will only attract people who grew up in one and have strayed. It is rare that an unbeliever who has never had any direct experience in their youth with a church body will darken the doorway. Modern fundamentalism has become Satan’s dog and pony show while the liberal churches are nothing more than a place to talk philosophy.
Romans 16:18 For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple.
In wars like the Civil War and World War One the fundamentalist old time religious church pulpit was totally taken over by the federal government as a propaganda tool. In this last age of the church we have been beguiled.
We need to get back to the Bible, to God’s words in the Bible, and the Bible alone and turn from America’s godless Christian culture where Mom and Dad have no problem sending their child to an “Acquire the Fire” event where they can be indoctrinated with “Christian” rock or “Creation” events where all sorts of wickedness goes on behind chaperone’s backs or where a person can be controlling, bigoted, mean spirited, and hateful but as long as they give well, dress ultra modestly, door knock, and never miss a church service they are ooookay.
5 For though I be absent in the flesh, yet am I with you in the spirit, joying and beholding your order, and the stedfastness of your faith in Christ.
This is another one of those phrases we use, being with you in spirit. He joys in their order and in the stedfastness of their faith. That’s a tough thing for us today. In those days the standard of living for the common person was very low. We can’t even imagine it. What you were likely to lose if you resisted the powers that were when they commanded you to burn incense to the emperor and acknowledge that, he too, was a god, was death. We don’t usually get called on to risk death but we won’t even risk a few of our material possessions to stand for Christ. We’re not afraid of being executed, we’re afraid of losing our stuff.
Let me ask you this, let’s suppose a president was to command you to do something that you knew was not what God called you to do in His word. Would you be willing to turn from Christ and do it? To be patriotic? Would you do it to keep from having your property confiscated? How stedfast will you be for Christ?
Before World War One, Germany was not our enemy. The German Empire had been rated very highly in its humanity by British observers. Americans, many of them of German descent, had no desire to go to war with Germany. The Kaiser had not had a war in his nearly two decade reign. He was not very warlike. The British Empire, on the other hand, was evil. They had been responsible for the deaths of nearly 20 million Indians in the late 1800’s in what has been called The Victorian Holocaust. We had fought two wars against that empire. Even after World War One the British would practice aerial bombing by dropping bombs on helpless villages in their domains. They supported and then turned against Israel decades later. The Arab armies that attacked Israel at its birth decades later were led by British officers in many cases. The mess we are dealing in Iraq was started by the British Empire.
However, in the conflict that ensued in Europe, our Democratic President Woodrow Wilson, was fanatically devoted to Great Britain. And even though his 1916 campaign slogan, AFTER the sinking of the Lusitania, was “He kept us out of the war”, his born again Christian Secretary of State, William Jennings Bryan, resigned because he claimed the president was trying to start a war with Germany to support Britain.
When Wilson determined to go to war to prop up the British Empire, he enlisted by propaganda and force thousands of fundamentalist and liberal preachers to preach war from the pulpit. If you, a preacher, were not willing to preach fiery death to the barbarian Hun, the savage Germans who allegedly bayoneted babies and killed women and children (which the British never seemed to have a problem with either), you would lose your church and many went to jail. There were many, whose names are practically forgotten who refused to fly the flag in the pulpit and to preach the lie that the German empire was a threat to our freedom. They stood for Christ and the Bible as ambassadors of a heavenly kingdom, and refused to be a mouthpiece for the government, supporting thuggery and murder.
Later, a former Marine Corps general, Smedley Butler, would give a famous speech entitled, “War is a Racket” where he showed that World War One had nothing to do with defending America from threat and that the boys who died at the Marne and Belleau Wood did not die for our freedoms or to save our country but died for a lie, to aid in our defense of a dying empire in a war that would have ended in a stalemate had we not intervened. The ground was now laid for the Second World War.
Would you stand for Christ and against what others would call patriotism to keep your pulpit? Your possessions? Your freedom? Many thousands burnt incense to the emperor in World War One, in a manner of speaking. What would you do?
What will you do when the current President or a future one launches an initiative in the name of national security that is based on obvious lies and falsehoods? Our current President has monetarily supported a coup in the country of Honduras all the while condemning it publicly. He’s no different than any other politician. When they say you can’t preach against homosexual behavior or abortion from the pulpit what will you do? Will you be stedfast for Christ by your faith and obedience?
When your relatives and friends mock your faith will you still keep faithful? What will it take to knock you off your feet? You’ve already been labeled by the government subversive as a right wing extremist so what will you do when the government insists on mental health screening not only for your children but for you? The government has already labeled you as a threat. The only thing that remains is to label you mentally ill and remove you from society, their society. You WILL be told to renounce your faith, just as the first and second century Roman Christian would have been by saying it’s okay to believe what you want but you have to believe this to or at least say you do or you’re going to be committed, for your own good AND for national security. What will you do?
6 As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: 7 Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Here are some basic instructions for the Christian. Remember, how when you first were saved, before you really knew a whole lot how excited you were and how quickly you were in danger of seeing this parable come to fruition in your own life.
Matthew 13:18 Hear ye therefore the parable of the sower. 19 When any one heareth the word of the kingdom, and understandeth it not, then cometh the wicked one, and catcheth away that which was sown in his heart. This is he which received seed by the way side. 20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it; 21 Yet hath he not root in himself, but dureth for a while: for when tribulation or persecution ariseth because of the word, by and by he is offended. 22 He also that received seed among the thorns is he that heareth the word; and the care of this world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becometh unfruitful. 23 But he that received seed into the good ground is he that heareth the word, and understandeth it; which also beareth fruit, and bringeth forth, some an hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.
Become rooted in Christ by becoming immersed in His word, waiting on instruction from the Holy Spirit and obeying immediately. Follow the Bible, not cultural Christianity, and do not allow your faith to be dampered by doing things that are not in God’s will but, in your mind, for God. Thanksgiving is an essential part of faith. It’s a consequence of faith and obedience.
Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
1Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
Philosophy is empty. It’s a forever wrangling about right and wrong, rights and duties, and the meaning of life apart from the Bible. It is man’s constant worship of his own intellect and powers of reasoning. Philosophy is a denial of God.
A famous politician once said that Jesus was his favorite philosopher. That politician was an idiot. Jesus was no philosopher. He is God. God is not a philosopher. He’s not producing empty words about what He thinks. God is the source of all knowledge and wisdom as it says in verse 3.
Philosophy is vain and empty and is a gross deceit.
9 For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.
Let me review. The fullness of God dwells in the body of Jesus Christ. Jesus, God the Son from eternity, is the body of God. I refer you back to verse 15 of Chapter one. Let’s review our components again. We are created in God’s image, both male and female (Genesis 1:27); consisting of a body, soul, and spirit (1 Thessalonians 5:23). God also has a soul (self identity and rational thought), God the Father, a body in which His fullness dwells, God the Son, and a Spirit through which is will is communicated to creation, the Holy Spirit. God’s components can function independently but in harmony. Ours can’t. If YOUR soul departs your body is dead because it is corrupt.
The Lord Jesus Christ is God in the flesh. The Son of God, capital S, is God in the flesh. The Son was only begotten once in history in the form of a man. That was Jesus Christ. When you looked at Christ you saw God.
John 14:9 Jesus saith unto him, Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known me, Philip? he that hath seen me hath seen the Father; and how sayest thou then, Shew us the Father?
10 And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:
This is a reference to spiritual beings above us. He is over them all. They have no power that is beyond His reach. They are the rulers of the darkness.
Ephesians 1:21 Far above all principality, and power, and might, and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this world, but also in that which is to come:
Romans 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
Ephesians 3:10 To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God,
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
We are complete in Christ. Everything that makes you feel as if you aren’t is coming from someplace other than God, for the purpose of confusing you, hurting your walk with Christ, and damaging your testimony.
11 In whom also ye are circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
Our body and soul have been separated in an operation of God much like Christ was resurrected through such an operation.
12 Buried with him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with him through the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised him from the dead.
By our faith in the risen Christ, God has separated our flesh and our souls. In the Old Testament, under the Law, still evidenced in the Gospels before Christ’s resurrection, the body and the soul were said to experience death. What happened to one happened to the other. After the resurrection the flesh and the soul are spoken of separately.
The three parts of a human being are specifically mentioned in this verse;
1Thessalonians 5:23 And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
And further on, in the Tribulation letter or epistle of 1 Peter;
1Peter 2:11 Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul;
Here is what our water baptism symbolizes, being buried with Him in death and rising with Him, as a symbol of our own resurrection to come. When we receive Christ we become a new creature.
2Corinthians 5:17 Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.
Galatians 6:15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature.
But we also expect a resurrection body.
Romans 8:23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
1Corinthians 15:52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
But don’t expect to be raptured IN this body that you are wearing now. I think you’ll leave it behind and freak a whole lot of people out.
1 Corinthians 15:50 Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God; neither doth corruption inherit incorruption. 51 ¶ Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52 In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
I don’t know as the unsaved will see the rapture so much as they will see the consequences of it with planes crashing, cars careening off of other cars, and people just dropping physically dead as their souls depart to be with the Lord.
1 Thessalonians 4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. 18 Wherefore comfort one another with these words.
Now, when is the last trump, when we receive our resurrection bodies? Some say its right here, the seventh trumpet.
Revelation 11:15 And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever.
Others say that we’ll immediately receive resurrection bodies when we’re raptured.
13 ¶ And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses;
It would seem, judging by the context that this “uncircumcision of your flesh” is a reference to the action by God above in verse 11 whereby a saved person’s soul and flesh are cut asunder so that the sins of the flesh do not damn the soul, not the Jewish circumcision required by God for Abraham and all of his descendants. The unsaved are dead in their sins, as it says in Ephesians, the “children of wrath” and the “children of disobedience” in Ephesians and later in Colossians.
Christ has made us alive with him AND forgiven us all our trespasses.
14 Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross;
Leviticus 18:4 Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God.
The Law was against us and was in the way of our peace with God, and Jesus nailed it to His cross, removing it as an obstruction. We would do well to quit trying to put ourselves and others back under it. The Law is God’s standard of righteousness and shows us that we, as the Jews were, are totally incapable of keeping it. Many of us make our own little versions of the Law, adding things we keep pretty well or like, and judging everyone by, not God’s Law, but, say, Bill’s Law, or Lisa’s Law. Then we can determine whether or not someone is saved or carnal based on our own standard. This is wickedness.
One doesn’t like movies but has no problem with television. Another doesn’t do illegal drugs but is totally dependent on legal, prescription or over the counter medications to get through the day. One doesn’t smoke but can’t stay away from candy and sweets. One isn’t an alcoholic but they are a glutton. And so on. One godly man makes sure his wife dresses like a homeless person but he dresses like a strutting peacock.
Christ has nailed the Law to the cross. The Judaizer’s, the synagogue of Satan, if you will, keeps wanting to make Old Testament Jews of us all. They’ll face Christ for that.
15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.
Verse 10 says that Christ is the head of all principality and power, and now it is said that he has defeated them. Here’s another clue as to the nature of these principalities.
Since the fall of Adam, Satan has been the god of this world, See 2 Corinthians 4:4, in all his power and glory. Under him rule a vast host of wicked spirits over the kingdoms of mankind.
Jeremiah 13:18 Say unto the king and to the queen, Humble yourselves, sit down: for your principalities shall come down, even the crown of your glory.
Ephesians 6:12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
Whether a world political leader be a reprobate like Clinton or Bush, or a man espousing high principles like Carter or Reagan, they will be under the operative control of Satan once they assume power no matter what their intentions beforehand. The whole world lies in darkness.
1John 5:19 And we know that we are of God, and the whole world lieth in wickedness.
But God’s love is stronger than all of those wicked beings above us.
Romans 8:38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
God has reached down through the thousands of miles and years to reach us under this sea of evil and to snatch a people out for Himself.
Habakkuk 1:14 And makest men as the fishes of the sea, as the creeping things, that have no ruler over them?
Mark 1:17 And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men.
Satan and all of his minions were defeated at the Cross and at the empty tomb.
Luke 10:18 And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
16 ¶ Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday, or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days: 17 Which are a shadow of things to come; but the body is of Christ.
Oops, here we go. We love to judge each other by what we eat and drink, our honoring of holydays each week, things like Christmas and Easter, and all sorts of rituals and observances that are a mere shadow of Christ. Many things we do, while not Biblical, are not wrong, unless we make them a burden and a chain to others. They are a shadow of things to come. It is we as the body of Christ that are important to Him, not our slavish devotion to a certain set of rituals.
For someone to say you will be judged at the judgment seat of Christ for every sermon you’ve missed is an amazing thing to me in light of these verses.
Galatians 5:22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
23 Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. 24 And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another.
Mt 16:24 Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
18 Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, 19 And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.
It’s very simple. It’s all about Christ. Everything else, from angels to feigned spirituality and false humility, mean nothing compared to the head of the body we are, Jesus Christ, in Heaven.
20 Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are ye subject to ordinances,
Why do we, as a people get stuck back in unnecessary rules and regulations and rituals? Because it makes us feel more spiritual.
21 (Touch not; taste not; handle not; 22 Which all are to perish with the using;) after the commandments and doctrines of men?
He mentions here dietary restrictions which he handled very well in Romans 14. Read it.
23 Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.
The spiritual disciplines we have that don’t have to do with the fruit of the spirit or in a direct and positive way in which we follow Him are just so much worship of our own will. For instance I get up every morning and do a short Bible study after I pray. If I make this a habit, an act of self-discipline, rather than a voluntary expression of my desire to know God’s word then I am worshipping my own will and not God.
God is essentially a Libertarian. Everything you do for Him NOW must be voluntary and not simply an act of your own will. You should arrange your life so that you can have a relationship with Christ and that the things you do don’t have to be forced or strained observances of religious ritual. But, since ritual is so comforting to most, it is often easier to simply say “I go to church on Sunday morning. That’s just what I do.” What if you were given by God a chance to minister to someone who was dying that very morning? Would you go on to church because that’s what you had to do regardless of the Holy Spirit offering you an opportunity to be a part of salvation in someone’s life?
Bob Jones, Sr. said “Duties never conflict”. Your primary duty is obedience to the Holy Spirit’s calling, not slavish devotion to ritual and the expression of your own goodness. Trust me. If you don’t show up on time because you are helping a hurt person across the road or witnessing to someone in the convenience store, I’ll understand.
I’m not saying; use the excuse of spontaneity as a means of avoiding duties. The church, as an organization could never exist like that. What I am saying is that there is a line between the worship of Christ and the worship of your own self-discipline and will.
