Eph 1:4 According as *HE* hath "CHOSEN" *US* in him "BEFORE" the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love:
5 Having "PREDESTINATED" *US* unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of **HIS WILL**
HE - GODCHOSEN - Election by GODUS - The ElectBEFORE - Time prior to creation of the world.
PREDESTINATED - God working His grace before the world began.US - The ElectHIS WILL - GOD alone making the decision before the foundation of the world.
If GOD'S Will and Purpose for us could be summed up in 1300 characters, YHVH would hardly have authored 66+ books!
Essentially, I agree with Dale, but would add that James 1:27; Matthew 25:40; and 1st Corinthians 15 will give a babe in Christ a good start.
We are here to LIVE the Gospel and not simple to preach it. I like St. Francis of Assisi's comment 'Preach the Gospel daily. If necessary, use words.' Amen!
The end point of everyone's journey is to 'Be transformed into the Image of Christ.' We must be leaning in that direction now, every moment, and not imagine that translation will do the job on some mystical future day.
Watchman Nee counseled that at no time should we see ourselves as separate from Christ, but rather IN HIM and SURRENDERED TO HIM completely. Amen!
The purpose of the ecclesia (called out ones)or 'Church' is to love God with everything in us and our neighbor as ourselves. These two commandments cover all that a Christian should do and be.
Shalom Aleichem.
My job as a Christian is not just to provide education in the truth of the Bible, or to provide a place and atmosphere for worship, or to provide for the social or physical needs of the community. It is all of this and much more besides.
But none of these are the most important. No, the most important purpose of the Church is to proclaim and preach the Risen Christ, to witness to the Gospell, to be living examples of God's love on the earth.
All that other stuff springs forth naturally from us when we do this. They are a consequence, evidence if you will, that we are following in Jesus' footsteps; not a "purpose" at all, but a sign.
BUT you must continue to contend for the faith within yourself and with your neighbour.
"Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhort you that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. (Jude 1:3)
A healthy life cycle of a Bible Church is to train members to "Go"...this is soul winning or evangelism.When a member wins a soul to faith in Christ they are to "Disciple" the new member to be "Indentified" ("baptizo" translated) with the triune God (worship) and "Indoctrinate" (teaching)the disciple so they can "Go", make "Disciples" so the new member are "Identified" with God and "Indoctrinated" in Christ's commands....so they will "Go"..ect. ect.
You took the words right out of my mouth.I was surprised that of all the multiple choice answers there was not anything about the glory of God.
We do not exist to help, educate, encourage and whatever the church finds it putting it's hand to without all being done to the Glory of God.
If your take away the glory of God then we are acting out of supporting basic Human Rights as outlined by Thomas Aquinas, which is exactly where our entire social system is heading.In this sense we are becoming more Roman Catholic socially than we realise. Selah
Thus we can see the social justice influence even in the framing of this survey.
A church full of people who have been delivered from their sins will do this.
Gifted by God, each person would serve using his or her particular gift/s.
Preaching, teaching, and pastoring would be for the building up and equiping of the saints. The gifts of service would be used accordingly.
Agape love would be demonstrated in the serving.
Worship would flow from hearts yielded to the Lord. God would be glorified.
We would grow in our faith, and in the grace and knowledge of the Lord, and witnessing to a lost world would naturally flow from hearts filled with adoration of the Savior.
And, God would add to the Church as He did in the days of the Apostles.
Wouldn't it be wonderful?
Artyvet wrote:I feel the purpose of the church is to win souls for Christ. Without that everything else in the survey is useless.
Adelphos wrote:The main purpose of the church is to glorify God, plain and simple. Everything else flows from this understanding!
I will not argue that we are to do all we do for the glory of God yet such a statement seems to be so open to abuse. Jesus told us:
John 161 “These things I have spoken to you, that you should not be made to stumble.2 They will put you out of the synagogues; yes, the time is coming that whoever kills you will think that he offers God service.3 And these things they will do to you because they have not known the Father nor Me.
Didn't even Calvin and other reformers persecute and put to death heretics and even those who disagreed with them supposedly thinking they were doing God service?Didn't James and John think they would have been doing God service to pray fire down from heaven upon the Samaritans who did not receive Jesus?
So how do we stay faithful and true to Christ and see the Father glorified in the Son?
Let me suggest it is in humbly giving ourselves to the Great Commission, the seeking and saving (only God can do this) of the lost. Why I beieve it is quite accurate to say if we neglect the The Church's Commission we might only be pretending to glorify God.
So if you look at the church today, with its endless man-made programs of progress and church growth, you will see that they are all doomed to failure because the church has lost focus of its primary purpose. There will be no growth, no evangelism, no blessing until we go back to the Old Paths and regain our primary focus; God's Holy and Awesome Name.
"Let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire" (Hebrews 12:28,29).
Discerning Believer wrote:The only problem Michael is that there are so many out there evangelizing with a false gospel. No repentence, just pray a prayer to invite Jesus into your heart and you'll be OK. When Jesus preached to the lost, he preached hell fire and repentence.
Yes, there is a lot of false repentantless gospel in the world
BUT
should that turn believers away from preaching the gospel? should the fact that jw's and Mormons go house to house keep believers from going house to house with the Truth? Do money and influence hungry TBN, Purpose Driven, Seeker Sensitive, Ecumenical heretics relieve believers in the least from the debt of love we owe God to obey Him and do some hell fire and brimstone preaching of the gospel ourselves?
