Is Church Attendance Required Today By Christian Believers?

Like many other verses in Scripture, Hebrews 10:25 is much over-used in our contemporary culture and society today because where two or three or more meet, in the Name of Christ, stirring up one another to keep doing good deeds (exhortation) and encouraging one another (comforting) is called teaching about Christ Who Is The Beginning and Ending (Alpha and Omega) of all prophecy about Himself.

In the very beginning when Adam and Eve distrusted and sinned against God, of which the consequences was eternal death; God made a way of escape from this eternal punishment by providing His Son to die in place of sinful men and women thus giving them Eternal Life (Genesis 3:15 and John 3:16). As a reminder of The Saviour to come, God instituted the rituals of sacrifices (offerings) to constantly remind people of and point them to the great sacrifice that One Day Jesus Christ would make for the sins of the world. Examples: Abel and Cain - Genesis 4; Noah - Genesis 8:20-22; Abraham - Genesis 12:7, 8; 22:1-19. Up until the time when God led His chosen people, the Israelites, out of Egypt, worshiping God and confessing sins through sacrifices was done individually or by the head (father/priest) of each family. Example: Job - Job 1:1-5. When God lead the thousands of Israelites out of Egypt toward the Promised Land of Canaan, He Himself became their Leader, thus the manner by which they were governed was called a "Theocracy." At that time God gave specific instructions to Moses: "Let them make me a sanctuary: that I may dwell among them" (Exodus 25:8). All the rituals are outlined in detail in the books of Exodus and Leviticus. Thus corporate worship with sacrifices (offerings) using various animals, and foods were instituted by God, all for the purpose reminding them of their Redeemer to come.

New Covenant Replaces Old Covenant

When the Son Of God came to this earth at the appointed time, He established a "Better Covenant" under grace and the Old Covenant passed away as Hebrews 8:6-13 reads: "But now hath he [Christ] obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people; and they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away." After Christ ascended back to the right hand of the Father at the Great White Throne, Christ sent to all the men/women of earth the Holy Spirit to avail them His help in His stead to guide and direct any "whosoever believeth" in the Way, Truth and Life of righteousness outlined by Christ as His conveying bequeathment.

Manner Of Worship Today

When the woman of Samaria questioned Jesus as to where was the proper place to worship, Jesus replied: "Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father. Ye worship ye know not what; we [meaning the Israelites] know what we worship: for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John 4:21-24). From what Jesus says here, it appears that the Israelite corporate system of worship (because the Sanhedrin Court would be abandoned in AD 70) would come to an end at the completion of Jesus' Mission on earth - as Jesus told His disciples that: "Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them" (Matthew 18:20). By following Christ's instructions, the faithful early believers maintained the wholeness well-being Jesus had established in each one and encouraged one another of the staying power of God - through the Holy Spirit to keep themselves unspotted from the world! Scripture tells us that under the New Covenant our bodies are the Temple Of God: "What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God's" (1 Corinthians 6: 19, 20). And Jesus Himself said: "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! Or, lo there! For, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20, 21). For the first 200 years of Christianity the followers (or disciplinarians of, by and for Jesus) met in houses. See Colossians 4:15; Romans 16:5; Philemon 1:2; 1 Corinthians 16:19.

All Saved Persons Are Anointed With The Holy Spirit

When a person has the Holy Spirit's anointing by being born again he/she does not need another teacher as from then on the Holy Spirit is the only teacher anyone needs from the time of being born into God's Kingdom [their] Heavenly Home while sojourning throughout [their] lifetime on earth; thus making their lifetime more abundant by being and doing to the glory of God as 1 John 2:27 says: "But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man [person] teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him."

Ponder This

Is God still with you when you are not with fellow believers in a religious building or setting? If not, does one hour or ten hours a week inside a church building please a Holy God? Why would God ask us to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thessalonians 5:17)? Galations 6:5 says: "For every man shall bear his own burden." What does that mean? Either the "heavy" burden of a sin-sick life, or the "lighter" burden of a sin-destroying, grace-giving Life! It is entirely each and every person's own will or decisive action.

Of The Two, Which Type Of Ignorance Is Your's? Perhaps Both?

Ignorance is the lack of the knowledgeable understandings of this world's programming of people gainsaying by soothsaying others to hold their lives against themselves, having lessened the substantial value of the overall characteristics of Godly living. In other words, is conventional wisdom (worldly wisdom) (street language) enough for Godly-living? Is God's Spirit and Truth, what the majority of culture resinates? In any age, has the majority, affrontedly ever been heart-beating-with-God's? Ignorance is the lack of interest, in studying for one's self, the pro-bonafide, pro-activity of living the more Abundant Life, as example, before all men and women within Its Way throughout Truth. The Apostle Peter said: "For this they willingly are ignorant of...." 2 Peter 3:5. It takes a studied and learned Godly-Wisdom to live a God-foreordained-of-His-Word-more-abundant-life. There is no real peace in making war that makes a society raw; but the peace that passeth understanding is making God pleased as He makes a society eased. "With long life will I satisfy him, and show him my salvation." Psalm 91:16. God is altruistic to any "whosoever" who and which is faithfully altruistic to Him; and that without being a respecter of differences in personages. Amen!

False fear, guilt, shame, and hope in both the vertical and horizontal points of The Cross is the motion study or time study of the false-cross of all false prophets (teachers) of modernistic vanity; whose modelings are anything but true to the One Authentic Model, although the error and pretension's modality of their wayward ways are followed by multitudes. "Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few [at any given age or generational time] there be that find it." Matthew 7:14. The Altruistic Godly, are known by their moderation in all things and phases of this temporal-life before all people (societies). Never chase a lie. Leave it alone and it will soon run itself to death. 2 Timothy 3:5 says: "Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away." Why? Because they have already decided against the Truth throughout Christ within God! Believers are blessed and know it - to glow in it; unbelievers are cursed and show-off in it - to lessen life by it.

Beneficial suffering is at times needful for growth, but the suffering that lasts and lasts is not getting past one's past of the past. God came, in the form of Jesus, to change sinners into saints. One becomes more than a "sinner saved by grace"; he/she becomes a "saint saved from sin" and kept by the power of grace as grace's power is kept in God's spiritual-place! Jesus, for the authentic Christian, is the only One Who and Which can reconcile a sinner with his/her God.

The reason we don't have membership is that God is the Author and Finisher of one's (whosoever's) faith (trust) in His Faithfulness to his/her own relationship; where anyone, upon choice, can swing the door in or out of being God's guest or intimate friend?! They can come in and sup (partake) or go out and sup (partake) of God's wonder-working promises and glory (character) to glory (character) for the graceful characteristics of God through Christ. God is not a "sheep counter." His people know His voice and follow Him!

Stars, planets, galaxies, and vacuums (black holes) are part of the world we live in; and we are finding out that light coming out of the black holes are the renewing energy that comes to be where it never had been found before. If there are "black holes" in your life, prepare yourself to receive with anticipated expectation, a renewing of God never even dreamed or encountered before because when the flood-gates of blessings occur, you will not have room to contain the whole of them!

The biblical term in 1 Corinthians 12:4 of "diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit" has been "narrowly defined," and leaves a disconnection to actual real self identity of every man/woman having a personal work or purpose adjoining and intersecting the spiritual welfare of the whole or total group of believers for "compelling interests." For instance, giving a cup of refreshing water to a weary sojourner (Matthew 10:42).

While the Word of God says,"I would that ye all spake with tongues, but rather that ye prophesied [meaning teaching of Jesus Christ]" (1 Corinthians 14:5); the most or dominating consideration there are unused portions or unexplored composits which are objectively contributive to authentic experience and worship without excessively burdening or overpowering the core or main teaching of the always growing and maturing towards the substantive prospective of becoming well being in the Will of God, and doing acts of justice, showing mercy and walking humbly by spirit, soul and physical body. Any discreet benefit will certainly enhance the critical mass of reliable designation for a higher goal of acceptability, enhancement, availability and essence.

The "judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7:1) biblical contribution is simply "judging motives" of intrinsic design without it showing itself of expositing itself fraudulently over a period of time and place. "Judge righteous judgment" (John 7:13) biblically means "any talent or small itinerant design" showing itself intrinsically and extrinsically as a positive relevant contribution that can be admissively employed as being a non-contentious preference for the up-building of the body of believers.

God Is - Sovereign, Omnipotent, Omnipresent, Omniscient, and the Unreducible Complexity. There are three things God cannot do: (1) He cannot lie - the planets cannot collide, tides and seasons are stayed because of His power of control; (2) God cannot fail - He is the Caretaker of all He has created; (3) God cannot be pleased without faith - a mere existence can be miraculously replaced by a new man/woman abounding by His spiritual formation.

The same kind of faith ascribed in prayer and fasting in the super-abundant Grace of God's Word is the same type that it takes to cast demons out, and is the same symbolic vitriolic vacuum (black hole) having taken place for God's purposeful fulfillment in the restoration of one who has fallen from Grace.

There are those whose minds have been influenced by both sand and lime. By sand, because the wearing away grittiness of believing the Holy Spirit is not a "functioning God" of the Trinity any longer; and lime by believing that the Holy Spirit will be "withdrawn" at some future date - burning Him out slowly like lime and that people will have to be self-righteous enough on their very own to be accepted by God. God forbid! These notions of "vain imaginations"are every bit and wit as wrong as believing grace gives one a license to go on sinning the same sins before receiving merciful justice again and again. God assures us that He will never leave us (Hebrews 13:5) and that He is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). That's grace that is full of mercy! Amen! And that's grace to abidingly remain within and throughout!

Copyright 2008, 2009 Christianist Libertarian Fellowship. This article may be printed in its entirety for personal study and free distribution. Please include the following statement: "Permission granted by Christianist Libertarian Fellowship for Free Distribution Only - Never To Be Sold". "Buy [possess] the truth and sell it not; also wisdom, and instruction, and understanding" (Proverbs 23:23). Jesus said: "The kingdom of heaven [He Himself] is at hand ... freely ye have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:7, 8).