"God is spirit and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and in truth." (NKJV ).
What I find to be the most wonderful element that is happening in Christendom these days,is that many Churches and believers are beginning to understand that it is not in the 'correct' liturgy of how a church should conduct services but how much love ,mercy and compassion can we show to ourselves , our loved ones, our communities, and our world. What is more important, from Jesus' perspective? The exact and most correct way to have corporate worship or how many ways can we love and care for each other?As believers we are all free in Christ to worship during whatever seasons and on whatever days we find fitting and appropriate. It is not the manner of how we celebrate Godde, but that we do. The correctness of the ways we do our worship is truly a matter between ourselves and Godde. The first thing that might help us get some perspective is to understand that worshipping is a human response to Godde—who S/he is, what S/he has done and what S/he is doing. It is an active, often spontaneous, celebration of Godde's work through Christ. It is in our worship as Believers and the fact, that we are participating with Christ in His work of human redemption. We must remember that to love one another does not require that we must abandon our own unique cultural values. It means we must learn to respect the cultural values of others, without feeling threatened ourselves. I believe that the main reason is their fear and the feeling threatened by different ideas which are truly hard for them to move through, and we must understand their fear and aid them in maturing in the faith and help them realize that Godde is more than capable of directing and guiding us in the way we should go. Of course, if a particular cultural value is sinful, we must abandon it. But most of our cultural values are not sinful; many are neutral and many are quite compatible with godliness in Christ.As Paul wrote to the church in Rome: "He who regards one day as special, does so to the Lord. He who eats meat, eats to the Lord, for he gives thanks to God; and he who abstains, does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God" (Romans 14:6).
The question that we might ask ourselves is:Can we let this principle rule our attitudes toward one another? If our fellow believers in other congregations are gathering to worship the Lord, then surely we should not get upset about the particular choice of days they worship or the manner in which they worship, but the fact they they are worshiping and praising Godde as they know how to do at the time . What is truly the most important aspect of our faith? That a particular group worship as you believe they should? In all seriousness, how do you know that you are correct? From my personal experience especially in the area of religion ,is that many believe 'they' are the one's who are correct and 'they' are the only one who hear from Godde, but what is amazing is that all who say such nonsense are hearing supposedly from the same Spirit, and all are saying something different,how confusing is that ? So what are we to say or do in that regard? What we need to do is to make sure that what we believe and do is true to our own experience,conscience , and relationship with Godde,and let Godde deal with others in the matter of what is right or not,that is all we can hope do.How do we treat one another? Are we angry and judgmental? Are we considerate and patient? Do we try to understand and appreciate the feelings of those who differ from us? What is the real value of worshiping in a different fashion at all, if the fruit of our worship is judgmentalism and condemnation?Within the essential and central framework of Christian doctrines there is much room for diversity. Our Universal Godde is a lover of diversity which we all can see within the vastness of creation! For me , it shows a Godde that loves a variety of colors, smells, shapes, sizes, etc.. so therefore we can safely assume that our diverse ways of celebrating our faith in Godde ,leaves room for our differences in the ways we worship and in the applications of our services to Godde.We must have the unity in our worship of Godde, the faithful observance of the sacraments (the Lord's Supper and baptism,etc. )of our faith and the faithful proclamation of the Word.We have diversity in the styles and forms we use in administering the sacraments, proclaiming the Word and worshiping the Lord. The Holy Spirit makes us one in Christ, and our diversity in how we express that unity ,which is truly a gift of Godde.
I am encouraged that many Christians, Churches, and denominations have seen the error of their ways and are coming together in the spirit of love ,compassion, and mercy that has been and is continually shown to us by our Savior. We must endeavor to live by the words of Paul when he said:"One person considers one day more sacred than another; another person considers every day alike. Each one should be fully convinced in his own mind" (Romans 14:5).
We must not go the route of the God Police and enforce what we think are the true rules of the faith, for the only true rule of Jesus was to Love Godde and ourselves and others, if we can endeavor to carry that out we will not be to far from the Kingdom.
Blessed be, be a blessing
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