JACQUES GAUVIN, RELIGION

Were You Set Free To Join God^s Church?

Were you forced into God^s church or did you choose His way freely? Can you voluntarily join God^s church once called to the truth or are you put into it by a overpowering God? Does God^s call require a mandatory positive response or do some fall away and some choose freely? Are these honest questions or is there a better way to put it? The truth will set you free.

Our Creator is a God of love. He created us in His image for the purpose of becoming members of His family as spirit beings having eternal life, eventually. Others will die permanently. He set before us life and death and wants us to choose life, not to be forced into it but to do so of our own free will. His way leads to life. Not choosing His way leads to death. In calling us out of religious confusion He opened our mind to His way with understanding. We must strive to follow and keep His way in order to receive His reward of eternal life. We must choose correctly in order not to refuse God^s gift or to have God reject us because of disobedience.

For he who was called in the Lord while a slave, is the Lord^s freedman; likewise he who was called while free, is Christ^s slave. You were bought with a price; do not become slaves of men. 1 Corinthians 7:22 and23 (NASB) So some Christians are slaves and some are free, we are bound to have different perspectives, understanding and explanations of things.

In my understanding, which is based on the Bible now, the way to choose life is the same as the way to join the church and that is to accept God^s calling and instructions to repent, to be baptized and to receive the Holy Spirit. In this manner, obedience, you become a member of God^s church though not yet a complete spirit being having only a little bit of God^s spirit. The way of Christ is the way to join the church. God is the creator and giver of life and He grants repentance and His Holy Spirit to those whom He has called. We, the called, have to choose His way that leads to life just as He told us to choose. In this way we join Him and His flock in worship and in spirit as members of His church.

Once called and chosen by God, which is His doing not ours, we must respond, this is our part. There are words to describe what we do. For example we do the commandments, we obey Him, we accept His teachings, we receive His gifts gratefully, we unite in worship, we join with each other in spirit, we blend our voices in song, we assemble for instruction, we enter through the open door, we congregate, we fellowship, we observe, we let, we give up, we give, we give thanks, we attain, we learn, we retain, we change, we repent, we study, we read, we write, we love and there are many more things that we do. There are many ways to do works of the spirit that show our faith that need not be word for word right out of the Bible. The Bible was not written in English, it was written in Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic. The bond man has been set free.

You can become a member of God^s church freely by following the Bible^s instructions, repentance, baptism and receiving God^s Holy Spirit (see Acts 2:38). Some profess that you cannot join God^s church, you have to be put into it by God. Perhaps this is the view of a former free man who is now God^s slave. I say God gave us freedom of choice and he wants us to choose His way freely. You have to be called by God. That is done by God opening your mind to His truth, a truth that is blocked by Satan, the present God of this world, from the majority of people at this time. Without this awareness of God^s truth we cannot make a conscious choice. To be called is not a overpowering command. It allows for free choice, a response.

Before I was born I made no conscious decision about anything that I can remember and yet I was born. It was a gift from God that I did nothing to deserve. The next life is also a gift from God which we have no creative power over, however this time we have a choice to make, whether we accept God^s calling and ultimate gift of life or not. God has set before us life and death, choose life He says (see Deuteronomy 30:14 to 20 which applies to this day).

We can accept God^s calling and begin to walk in Christ^s footsteps. In my mind that is a very good description of willfully joining Christ in His example and in His way of life and way to life. We are not just put into God^s church. By accepting His calling we are willing participants this is the new man. We could reject the calling by not doing the rituals, not participating in the traditions or in not joining in on the activities, in other words by rejecting God^s statutes, ordinances, commandments and way.

In my search I did not find the concept that we could not join God^s church. We were all called and in various ways, some through the Bible, some through publications, some through radio or television programs, some through word of mouth and still others by God^s voice. But like many other organizations you have to participate with the group in attending, in performing certain functions and in conducting yourself according to the rules. When a branch is grafted onto a tree it is joined to the tree and becomes part of it. The only reason that I see where you cannot join is if you refuse to go along or if you try to go in some other way than through the prescribed open door.

In Isaiah chapter 56 it speaks of foreigners joining God and His people. This chapter also speaks of a day when the dispersed will once again be united, joined or gathered to those already gathered (verse 8).

My dictionary defines to join as || to become a member of || to enter into the company of || to become united || to become a member of an organization. To join in is defined as to take part in. It does not explain how you become a member, but I would be hard pressed to find a better word in the English vocabulary to describe my part in becoming a member in God^s church. I joined my humble self to God^s will and still do through His God given spirit. We are individual entities, free moral agents, gods, we are obliged to make decisions and to make conscious efforts.

If you follow God^s instructions, learn His ways and live by them you come to know that they make a lot of sense. It is a very reasonable and logical way of life because it works. It leads to a better more fulfilling, peaceful life and also leads to a future eternal life. What could possibly make more sense than this?

Repentance, which is changing or overcoming requires accepting God^s teachings to escape Satan^s deadly grasp. How do you do this? By loving God with all your heart and all your might and by loving your fellow man as yourself. To put it another way the selfish self has to die, the old man, and Christ^s love has to take its place, the new man. For whoever wishes to save his life shall lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake, he is the one who will save it. Luke 9:24

I remember when my mind was first opened to some of God^s truth, a bitter battle ensued within me, the knowledge was nearly more than I could handle. I was being brought up a strict Catholic and God revealed the truth of His Sabbath to me. I was a slave to my parents but free to capture every thought. But how could I become a new man at the age of six? I had not even formed the old man yet. It took me about six years to come out of the Catholic church and my parents authority and another dozen or so to turn to the Bible.

If you use the example of the potter and the clay, the clay must remain malleable in order for the potter to shape it. You can^t do it alone and He won^t do it all for you, otherwise it would not be overcoming. The potter adds water to the clay and the clay must absorb it. It is give and respond.

The church is the assembly of overcomers joined or united in the body of Christ to give praise to God together every Sabbath, and much more than that. Those who overcome will enter the Kingdom. We must overcome every adversity to God^s way. Overcoming is a life long process.

Nevertheless give God all the glory for he has provided all that man has which he needs in order to make righteous choices, He has given of Himself by the breath of life. We are free moral agents created in the image of God, not to be puppets or robots but to choose to be of the nature of God, loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and under control, members of the God family, not slaves of men. Let no one deceive you.

2007 Jacques Gauvin

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