Written by Liberty ~    We have the responsibility to take care of one another's needs as brothers and sister. But I'm not sure there has been much evidence of that when it comes to us taking care of each other physical needs.

I'm only addressing these thought to my Christian brothers and sisters on here in an effort to challenge all of us to get back to the original principles of the New Testament Church of taking care of each other and NOT turning to the government instead of God.

Once the sacrifice for our sins was paid and Christ breathed His last breath on the cross the curtain in the temple was torn and God left the building and now resides in the heart of all Christians through His Gift of The Holy Spirit. No temples needed to house God any more for our body 

is now the temple of The Lord. But, somewhere along the line we lost focus of that. Somehow we blindly overlook that the only thing the Bible authorizes the collection of money (1 Cor 16 - and Acts 2 : 44- ) was for physical needs of each other as Christians. We were never to be a burden on any government.

In fact that Gods tells us what happens when we turn to the government instead of God when we are in need. The government will strip us force us to bow to them and make us their slaves. ( Gen 47:13-27 and 1Samuel 8:18 )).

Christians saved and gave, so all Christians wouldn't have unmet needs. Even Paul said he never took money from anyone he preached to. He felt it could discredit the spoken Gospel. Local groups gave funds for him to travel and spread the Gospel ( missionary) but he never accepted funds from those who he preached to. Never were there buildings built for the comfort of brothers and sister just for the purpose of meeting. They met in there homes and rented rooms. The only money collected in the name of Christ was for the physical care of the brotherhood.

Somewhere along the way the Christ Church who He designed to be self sufficient and without need started giving into the prideful need for large fancy Non-Scriptural structures to sit in and eventually sold themselves into the very slavery God warned us about in the above scriptures. Instead of following the ministry of Christ and through His example of sending out His own and spreading the word door to door and meeting in peoples living rooms, we are trying to attract people to fancy comfortable buildings of which some today are 50 million and more while 3-4 million is very common as are million dollar staff salaries while we now are trusting billboard advertising to fill the seats. The once Scriptural benevolence and missionary giving of 100% of the money collected in Christ Name now only averages around 10%. Where we once, gathered and gave in small but strong close knit groups, in order to take care of each others needs as Christians, we now seem to sell our needy members off into the slavery of the government and in complete defile of Gods word we spend 90% of the money collected in His Name on real estate, maintenance and payrolls.

We are now turning to the government in time of need instead of turning to God and his people ( the Church ). His warnings in ( Gen 47:13-27 and 1Samuel 8:18 ) couldn't ring more true than today.

The once volunteer ministry of faith and free will support of ones mission, has given way to million dollar payrolls of salary paid jobs based on how many seats a speaker can fill up in million dollar pieces of comfortable real estate instead of those who used to volunteer their homes and time. All this has happened with good loving, God fearing and well intentioned Christian brothers and sisters that has moved with the times, fashions and trends as we can so easily do but in the act, we are having a harder time finding ourselves in His word. Here is a challenge. Take our local Church Budgets and try to match them up with Gods New Testament Word concerning The Christian Church and it's mission. Find the expenditures and their need. Also find all of our paid positions as compared to the voluntary ministries.

Again I'm only addressing my Christian brothers and sisters on here in an effort to challenge all of us to get back to the original principles of the New Testament Church of taking care of each other.

In no way would I suggest we leave your Church congregation or to stop giving but only consider getting back to the way the New Testament lays out the mission.

Maybe by sitting down with our leadership and use Gods word while raising some of the following possibilities.

What if we had a Bible study concerning these things ? Maybe we could call it " finding our Church and mission in the New Testament " ?

What If we stopped spending Gods money on real estate, maintenance and payrolls and started splitting up our congregations into groups of ~20 in each others homes with one of our elders and members teach or study and share our needs and Gods Word and Works amongst each other ? There is no mention or position of a paid speaker in the Christian Church . Search for one.

What if we then have 100% of each others giving's go to the needs of our needy brothers and sisters for health insurance and food or rent etc, and then to our needy neighbors ?

What if each group would periodically visit other ( sister) groups in their homes to sing and share His word and how it's working in the lives of our group. ?

What if this could all be done keeping the scriptural structure of leadership while applying all the time that once was spent on building maintenance and the infrastructure of financed and payroll to door to door visits in the neighborhood ?

And what if all that extra time could also be spent on addressing the needs and the giving of all of that additional 90% of Gods money once spent on everything else but the physical needs of our needy members of His Church. ?

How can His Church properly function on only 10% of what He intended.

Our needy members Health insurance?, Rent ?, Education ? ,Transportation ? , Retirement ? , Hospital bills ?, In home care for the elderly ? . Aren't these the things we ( The Church ) are responsible for.

Doesn't Charity begins in the House of the Lord. ?

What would our nation look like if we no longer allowed our members to be a burden on society. This is what our nations founding fathers counted on. The Church and it's biblical self-reliance made it the provider of our nations schools, Universities,  healthcare and hospitals, while taking care of the poor only came from the charities and not government.

Again I'm only addressing my Christian brothers and sisters on here in an effort to challenge all of us to get back to the original principles of the New Testament Church of taking care of each other.

In no way would I suggest we leave your Church congregation or to stop giving but only consider getting back to the way the New Testament lays out the mission.

This may help bring some understanding of what makes The United State different from every other nation on earth. Which also explains why we should never do or follow what the other nations do.

It seems worth a study. 

.

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