Praise the Lord
Let’s get started.
Church member, born again believer or saint of God, which are you?
The differences are the following; a church member is just that a member just like a club membership, you come and attend regularly but not all the time, in most cases. There are the exceptions of those that apparently believe that they will receive a perfect attendance certificate when they get to heaven. Little do they know that there will be no one in heaven with such certificate.
Your most loyal of saints can attest that in the process of living life happens and when it does, sometimes church may not be a #1 priority.
The church member will however donate from time to time but doesn’t feel it’s required all the time and definitely not a tenth all the time. They will be at most of the important functions and make sure they are seen by the pastor whenever they do come. There is no concrete commitment on anything from them and so at as though we should be appreciative they came in the first place, disillusioned that their social worth merits praise over the real reason they should be attending church.
The born-again believer graduates from being a church member and has accepted Jesus Christ as their Lord and savior and believe that baptism is a vital part of their walk. Their commitment increases and their study habits, reading, and attendance picks up.
Now, to the crème de la crème, the saint. They have bought into the complete system hook, line, sinker, boat, oars, kitchen sink. Not only have they been baptized in Jesus’ name, but they either are tarrying, have tarried, or are planning to tarry to receive the holy ghost, just as the apostles did on the day of Pentecost, when the first in filling on the holy ghost occurred in the Upper Room. They understand and have accepted the importance of giving, and if you are not a Jew, you are not required to pay tithes, giving a total volunteer action and places you in favor with God.
Giving doesn’t exempt you from anything as some are led to believe it’s just the righteous thing to do in accordance to how God has blessed you. You don’t have a right nor will God ignore you tight fistedness when it comes to His sheep. There are multiple scriptures I could quote but I don’t want the focus to change. I’ve written articles before on tithing and you could just run a query in the search box on The Weekly Challenger website for it.
So, there you have it, the differences and believe me every church has a mixture of all three and yes more likely than not the pastor knows.
It’s not his job however to attempt to make everyone a saint, it’s already been decided before God decided to make man and we can’t change, convict, or convince anyone of anything, it’s our responsibility to just preach the word and shepherd God’s sheep.
Isaiah 43:11
“I, [only] I, am the Lord, And there is no Savior besides Me.
This as well as many other scriptures that I will post truly not no explanation because of the simplicity in which they are written.
This is God Himself stating that He is the ONLY GOD and there is no other God except Him. If you don’t receive or understand this to say just that then you are being blinded from seeing it.
Isaiah 44:6
“For the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of hosts says this, ‘I am the First and I am the Last; And there is no God besides Me.
Again, God confirms who He is and that there is no other God except Him.
So just from these 2 passages you have to come to one of two conclusions, either God’s word is true or God lied, well if you think that there are multiple gods in the form of the father, the son, and the holy ghost. (Trinity)
Oh, don’t worry, there’s more, much more. If you didn’t know by now know this, I’m Holiness, Apostolic, a Jesus only. I was raised Baptist, like 99.999999 % of blacks in America. We followed the teaching of the Worldwide Church of God; Dr. Herbert W. Armstrong was the leader up until January 1986 when he transitioned.
Unbeknownst to me they are apostolic to the core to include many Old Testament practices. From there, I was baptized as a member of the Second Street Church of Christ in Winter Haven under Bro Eddie Harper. I was baptized by him in 1988 but wasn’t sure how it was done. This is important and I will cover shortly. I then started following Dr. Fred Price and Ever-Increasing Faith Ministries from 1992-2003. His teaching on Faith is second to none and I pride myself on my understanding on what true faith is and how it works.
In 2003, I met Elder Ron Donaldson at a Black Business forum at the Bayfront and from there our relationship began. Our relationship grew as we both had offices at Grady Terrell’s office building, and it was there I learned that Elder Ron pastored Progressive Church of Our Lord Jesus Christ located in a store front on the corner of 9th and 16th Street south across from JHop Middle School.
I had never heard of apostolic, didn’t know of Acts 2:38 nor did I believe in the holy ghost and speaking in tongues. Boy was I in for a rude awakening. An awakening that still to this day astounds me. I will continue my chronological journey of my faith walk next week but I want to make sure you know a little about what and why I believe the way that I do. It’s vital.
Till next week,
Blessings,
Bishop Dr. Robert L. Harrison, Jr., PhD
