Walking by Faith

This last year God took me from my place of 'comfort in religion' and set me out in the 'wilderness' to teach me many valuable lessons. At the time I didn't understand why he would want to take us out of a church and put us out here without one, but we prayed and fasted for direction and God was clear, walk by faith. Just like when Abraham was told to go...go where? God had a plan for Abraham.

Then there was Jonah who was sent to Ninevah. Ninevah? A pagan colony? There's no church there for Jonah to join. Jonah resisted, but God directed his steps to get him to where God wanted him to go. I also thought about Saul, who became Paul. God blinded him, healed his blindness, then asked him to preach, but he asked him to preach, Jesus! The very Messiah of those who Paul had persecuted.  I would imagine all these people wondered the same thing we did when God set us out in the wilderness, but God has been faithful.

I thought I knew what faith was, until He showed me that I had a very limited understanding of what faith really is. Did Peter know what real faith was before that day on the sea? When he jumped into the water, he had his lesson on faith. 

{Hebrews 11: 1} Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

If I know where the stepping stone is, if I can see it, I can step on it...but that wouldn't be faith. Faith is stepping out where there is no place to step, the invisible place. During this year of walking in the wilderness, God revealed many things to us and I will begin to share these things with all of you.

This part of our walkabout with God has been the most amazing adventure I have had in my relationship with God. As with any adventure there have been scary moments of walking on a tightrope and other moments of exhilaration like riding on a roller coaster. Yet, I will be praying about how to be careful with how I share this journey with you. Most likely you will feel some of those same feelings I felt as you read about the things he has taken us through. We have been through our own 'fiery furnace' like Shadrach and his brothers have. We have been in our own 'lion's den' like Daniel. We have been in Esther's position before a king who could 'take our lives'. We have 'walked on water' like Peter, been 'given sight' like he gave to Paul, and had 'revelations' like John. I say all these things as metaphors of course, for we have not literal been in these positions, so please don't misunderstand me and think I'm a lunatic.

The first part of my walkabout that I'm going to introduce to you is the place of being told, STOP! This big red stop sign was staring us in the face for a while as we pondered the direction God was taking us in. It wasn't God putting the stop sign before us, it was fear that did that. Many years of being told what God's will for our lives was, is what put this sign up. A preacher would tell us time and time again that he knew God's will and it was to be in his church. When God began telling us it was time to leave, we didn't understand. But we knew we had to obey and we were so deeply compelled to obey the voice of God over the voice of man who says he is 'the voice of God to the people'. Stop. Stop. Stop. Why? Why say stop, if God is saying go? So who was right to obey? A man or God? We chose to walk by faith and go as God was guiding us.

Part of this journey also involved being told we couldn't read about what other churches believed. We were told by a leader what he thought the churches believed and we were to believe him and not look into it ourselves. God was guiding us to discover what each of the churches believed and as we walked through our studies with God's Spirit as our Teacher, we discovered why so many 'leaders' resist their congregations from learning these things. They disagreed with each other..the leaders of these churches..and that part we knew, but what we didn't know specifically was which things were of such sharp division. 

As we furthered our studies we found that many other churches also disagreed with the teaching from where we were at before. So we went to God and asked which teaching was true. He has unraveled us from many man made teachings and false interpretations and it was been quite a journey.

What I would like to share with all of you is what we discovered about various teachings in multiple denominations of the Christian sects. What I will share with you will be what each denomination has to say about many particular topics and set them here so you can see the parallel and comparison of what they believe so you can decide for yourselves. I won't tell you what to believe, but I will share with you a variety of things to ponder and seek the Lord about. The results I share with you will be startling to some and to others it may not be any surprise at all. One thing is for certain, this journey I share with you takes a mature faith in Christ. If your beliefs are based on your religious forefather's interpretations and you have built your faith on those things, then you will discover what I discovered. My faith was not on Christ alone, Sola Christo. My faith was on interpretations and dictations of a religious forefather.

When God showed me how to get truly anchored in Christ, then looking at these various interpretations did not cause me to falter. I had no fear. I knew that my salvation was not contingent upon interpretations or education of theology. My salvation was on Christ alone. He holds us firm in him.

~Lisa

Where My Walkabout with God Takes Me

Many of my online friends ask me about how we fellowship since we don't belong to a local building most people call 'church'. When God called us out of the 'church' He showed us what 'church' really was and how much freedom we really have in choosing where to fellowship and with whom.

It wasn't a denomination that established the church, it was Jesus Christ and He established that within the people. As a matter of fact, the word 'church' wasn't the original context of what He was referring to. Jesus called it the ekklesia, which is the Body of Christ, the people. He is very clear as to where the Temple is..we are the temple of the Holy Ghost.

He gives us the freedom to select where to gather and with who to gather with. For our family, we saw a need within ourselves and it was God who was revealing that to us. 

{The need was for simplicity}

Our lives were so wrapped up in full time ministry that we didn't have time for each other, nor for helping those who would call late at night or stop by with a crisis in the middle of the day. We had become too busy to serve and we cringed at having to ask people to make an appointment when they were experiencing tragic turmoil in their lives. When we followed God by faith to leave the church we were in, He revealed to us a group of wounded people that may never go back to a church ever again.

{Christians wounded by other Christians}

We have heard it before... "Well, they need to get over it and go back."

I just can't begin to tell you how extremely hurtful that kind of statement is to a person who has been deeply wounded by a group of believers. A local pastor took notice of this group of people over the last several years and commented to me about the ministry God put into our laps. He shared with me how so many times people would try coming to his church and testify of the pain caused by churches and pastors. It grieves him so much to see them hurting, but because of the past hurt being inflicted by people who call themselves 'pastor', these people were far more reluctant to ever trust the title ever again. He shared with me that he saw the need for our ministry to remain out of the box, away from titles, so that God could reach out through us to help these wounded families. Families looking for the same thing..simplicity.

For many people, church has become so large that they simply can't keep up with the amount of activities and meetings, let alone the financial burden a large church puts on the people. More often than not, the few who do serve became laden with a yoke they were not meant to bear alone. They become exhausted in their service, feel obligated to keep serving, afraid to step down, and eventually they crash. They can't even walk away, because they are so crushed under the weight that all they can do is crawl away. They feel utterly defeated. Serving God should not be like this. These are among some of the people we fellowship with. 

Sometimes we gather in our home and sometimes in others. Sometimes it's over dinner at a local restaurant or coffee at a local cafe. It doesn't matter where you gather, the point is to be together to encourage one another in the faith. My walkabout with God takes me wherever His Spirit guides me. He guides my husband, my family, and our friends all over the city and even on the internet to help lift up the fallen, the exhausted, and the wounded.

How shall the Body effectively invite others to believe, if we're too busy crushing our own with such burdens? How can we be an influence in the community when we're leaving our own kicked to the curb and dare tell them to 'just get over it'?

If the Body you gather with has wounded people fleeing from your churches, it's time to stop right there and pay attention to what's going on. How can we possibly be a Light to the unbelieving world when our own are lost and dying under the rubble? That's where our walkabout with God is taking us. To help dig them out, encourage them, support them, feed them, and see them heal.

Lisa