FAITH

 

Faith is the passport, the visa, and entry fee into the Kingdom and all its resources. It is not by the rules of any organization. Nobody has a right to lord it over believers, and bend them through some little door of their own into the blessings of God, dictating what their lives must be. There is no need. Faith alone is the opener, not a life conforming to somebody’s ideas of what is right and wrong. Some exercise this oppressive control and disguise it as ‘care.’ We are each responsible for our own lives, and cannot shuffle off praise or blame onto somebody else who told us what to do.

Religious groups that require personal submission to a leader are cults, not churches. A church contains all sorts of people at every degree of spiritual progress. The only pressure should be the exhortation to heed the Word of God. If church members begin to bow to a leader’s personal orders, it is a creeping death, it is cultism. There is danger when any person is lifted up as having a higher than normal relationship with God. Jesus said, “you are all brethren.”

A cult is a contradiction of the character of Christianity. Instead of faith, it substitutes obligations, obedience to the demands of the leaders. Liberty is the essence of Christ’s gift to mankind. A cult is elitist, and Jesus and the Gospel are all embracing, all‑inclusive, and never exclusive. Thank you Jesus. REINHARD BONNKE

MARCH 22nd -2010

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