Quote:
Originally Posted by Michael The Disciple
We have never been moved like that at a Oneness Church unfortunately. Matter of fact after trying to fellowship with several Apostolic Churches in our town weve had to give up. Formalism that is deadening. Music from the Hymn books of many years ago that put at least me almost to sleep and its ONLY when they start the "shockamoo" thing they feel the Spirit is moving.
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Years ago, I used to go to church, expecting to receive something. If I didn't get what I was was looking for, I would start looking somewhere else.
Then the Lord taught me, 'I put you in a family, not so you could divorce your family if they don't satisfy your personal wants. Rather, I put you in a family so YOU could help meet THEIR needs.'
It completely changed my entire outlook on church.
Once I got that understanding, the only time I 'left a church' would be if they made it absolutely clear they didn't want what I was trying to bring to the meetings and that in their minds they wanted me to 'move on'.
The last time that happened, we quit going and within a month the pastor had dumped his wife and ran off with some floozy and the church collapsed entirely. God had moved us out of there before the crater erupted.
I look back though on two churches I had left in my early days, and I feel bad. As if I had abandoned them because 'MY' felt needs weren't being met. And I wasn't intentionally selfish, either! I really thought and believed that if I went to a meeting and was not seriously impressed with a 'move of the Spirit' that God wanted me to shake the dust off my feet and move on. That God didn't want me there.
And maybe God was protecting THEM from ME, at that time in my life.
But I have since learned, the meeting is what the people make of it. There won't be any more Holy Ghost in a meeting than what people bring with them when they come.
If the meeting is dead, it may very well be because you didn't have enough Holy Ghost in
you to light the fire. (I mean 'you' in a general sense, not YOU personally, brother Mike.)
There is a danger in having a room temperature religion. Lukewarm means 'achieved equilibrium with the environment', in one sense. If one enters a dead meeting, and one cannot 'feel the Spirit' and get lost in the presence of God UNLESS the environment has all the right stuff - the right music, the right preaching, etc... one may just be lukewarm, one may just be adjusting to the surrounding temperature.
We aren't saved to be thermometers, we are supposed to be thermostats.
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