Mirage: a misleading appearance, usually in the desert or at sea, resulting from a reflection of some distant scene in such a way as to give the impression that it is near. Often the subjects reflected are inverted.

Brothers and sisters in the Lord, it is of utmost importance for us to abandon the pursuit of the mirage of modern Christianity.

It is nothing more than another noble human religion pursued by those who deem themselves righteous, whether they admit it or not. There are many good things talked about, taught, and encouraged in this religion based on the gentle aspects of Christ teachings but they ignore or twist the commands of our Lord. They spend enormous time satisfying the masses with their selfish desire for salvation and then lead them into a spiritual desert filled with mirages of the truth allowing them to wander towards varying degrees of their natural understanding.

Recently I have been writing strongly for the return of the Church to the ideals of the Early Church that was written about in Acts and taught about in the New Testament, by our Lord, Paul, Peter, John, James and others. But what truly is this Church: is it alive today and how do we find it? It is this very strong desire leading me to look at other groups both currently and through history that have pursued the same.

What I have found is that, almost universally, mankind is extremely capable of producing collective results on a grand and impressive scale, especially in the name of religion. Yet very seldom do they mirror the Early Church.

One of the very first examples we have of a collectivistic community is the people who were building the Tower of Babel. Let's look at how soon this took place after the flood.

Understanding why we should be content is just as important as being content. Contentment for the Christian believer produces something that has eternal value. Biblically based contentment also prepares the believer to deal with spiritual choices that we make all the time whether we realize it or not.

Contentment is one of the most important character traits that the fruits of the Spirit develope in us, cf. Gal. 5:22-23.

When we find contentment generously displayed through our Christian walk we begin to experience the deep mystery of the gift of Faith, Hope, & Love planting our feet on solid ground allowing us to say the same as Paul did in Romans 8:37-39.

Greetings,

Over the past few years I have heard it mentioned several times by others that God has led them through many churches and experiences, refining the truths of God through this process. I even struggled through this same process, I must admit, but never quite came to the conclusion that God had purposely led me through these various levels of spirituality. (...)

God does not lead us into partial truth, for he is completely incapable of it. God does not lead us to travel through the "bowels" of mixed truth and partial, or complete deception, in order to build us up in the faith gradually.

For decades I struggled with a fruitless grasp of the principles of the kingdom of God. Every time I would come across a scripture that seemed to be impossible to apply literally I would then intellectually grapple with how I could apply it so that I could still be faithful to scripture. In my sincere desire to be faithful to what the scripture taught I entered the arena of "theological thinking". I believed that God honored my desire for the truth and that eventually I would come to a proper understanding and application for those things that conflicted with the realities of the day.

When was the last time you can truthfully say you longed after the Almighty? Does it compare to what King David wrote in the above Psalm? Think about it just for a few minutes before you continue to read this article. Reflect honestly on your desire, your longing, your thirsting, your deep continual need to be refreshed from the living waters that only comes from he who is the Word, embodied as the Son of God, your Messiah, your fortress, your redeemer, your King. The next thing that I am going to write is probably one of the most important principles that very few Christians even come close to knowing or understanding. It is powerful and once you grasp the depth, and significance of it, your spirit will never be the same.

Some denominations respect the role of the solitary believer, starting, perhaps, with hermits. However, most churches will say the “lone wolf” is not possible. Without fellowship, faith will wither. We are directed in scripture to assemble.

Still others insist it is better to worship alone than to participate in Sunday worship. We also could remember that on the frontiers of history, solitary believers often have found themselves far from any organized church. Joseph found himself alone and managed to get by. Moses was often isolated in his faith after his return to Egypt, but he found favor with God anyway. Today we can ‘assemble’ virtually.

Greetings,

We witness the beginnings of the cultural influences on the early Christian Church when the Roman government under Constantine in the early fourth century recognized the Christians as a legitimate religion. Many pagan practices by other religions throughout the Roman empire were adopted into the church for the purposes of appeal and general acceptance by the masses.

Of course these pagan practices were not adopted without them being altered to fit into the Christian faith, never the less, the practices of the early church were not adopted by the masses but rather the practices of the early church were adapted to fit the cultural of the day.