Category: Personal Relationship with God

Freedom

You can be free to do what God wants you to do and free to be who God wants you to be. That freedom comes through Christ and gives us a feeling like no other freedom we have ever known. We think we are free when we are doing our own thing, but the sense of freedom we feel when following Christ is so much more. Without Christ, we cannot be free to receive His blessings. We are in bondage when we get involved in the sin He so often warns us to stay away from. We think we are free to do anything, but when we do what He has told us not to do, we create circumstances that bring negative consequences. This brings us under bondage and causes us to feel things God never intended for us. He warns us against sin because He does not want us to experience these negative consequences. He wants us to have freedom in Him so that we can receive His blessings and have life to the fullest. He does not promise a life without trouble but He has many many promises that are ours if we walk with Him. Life will be so much more fulfilling.

Get Back on Track

We all make mistakes and wrong decisions, but Jesus is there to get us back on track.
Jesus, forgive us (me) for our (my) short comings and guide us (me) into better understanding and help us (me) to keep you at the center of our (my) lives (life) that we (I) can minimize our (my) regrets and maximize our (my) purpose. In Jesus Name, Amen

Overcoming a Bad Church Experience by David Sanford

Overcoming a Bad Church Experience

If you or your spouse have had a bad church experience in the past, you’re not alone.

by David Sanford

If you or your spouse have had a bad church experience in the past, you’re not alone.

Approximately 22 million Americans say they are Christians and have made a faith commitment to Jesus Christ. They say that commitment is still important to them, but they have struggled with faith or relational issues and therefore quit going to church. Tens of thousands more will join their ranks this week.

Like a safe harbor, local churches can be a second home for many people. Sadly, churches also can be the setting for some of the harshest attacks against our faith.

Problems tend to arise when people are:

  • Unsure of where they fit in a local church.
  • Confused or overwhelmed by church expectations.
  • Rejected, humiliated or hurt by someone in the church.

Steps to Recovery

If you’re still struggling with a bad church experience, you’re not alone. The good news is that it’s possible for you to make a healthy recovery.

Many people have found it helpful to use a journal to record some of their recovery steps, but there are many steps you can try along with your spouse:

  1. List the ways you’ve been wounded by others. Write down who hurt you and how.
  2. Describe any times you’ve been confused or overwhelmed while attending a particular church.
  3. Describe any times you wondered how you fit in a local church.
  4. Study what the Bible teaches about experiencing God’s forgiveness and forgiving others. Read the story of Joseph and his brothers in Genesis 39-45. If you have an opportunity, look up verses on “forgive” (and related words) in a Bible concordance. In your journal, make a list of what you learn.
  5. Pray about what you’ve learned about forgiveness. Ask God to make each truth real in your own experience.
  6. Identify who you need to meet with to ask for forgiveness for the wrongs you have done. Pray ahead of time that they will graciously forgive you. If a lot of time has passed, it’s even okay to pray that they’ve forgotten what you did.
  7. Identify who has wronged you. Tell the Lord how badly you were hurt. Thank God for understanding how you were wounded. Ask Him to give you the ability to forgive each person in your heart, no matter what they did, even if they never apologize to you. Identify the individual(s) you can’t seem to forgive. Do you need to meet with that person and a third party to seek repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation? If so, who could you ask to serve as that third party? A Christian counselor? Your pastor? Another godly older friend?
  8. Start the process of finding a new, healthy church home.

Spiritual Drifting

Leaving your church under bad circumstances can lead to the temptation to abandon church entirely. Here’s what some prominent Christians have had to say about spiritual drifiting:

“At a deep level I sense the church contains something I desperately need. Whenever I abandon church for a time, I find that I am the one who suffers. My faith fades, and the crusty shell of lovelessness grows over me again. I grow colder rather than hotter. And so my journeys away from church have always circled back inside.” — Philip Yancey

“Life is full of people who ‘used to believe.’ But because things turned out darker and tougher than they supposed, they have decided that ‘there can’t be a God to let things like that happen.’ But ‘things like that’ have always happened, to all sorts of people; even to Christ.” — J. B. Phillips

“Maybe if you have money, health and a busy schedule, you don’t feel the need to fellowship with other Christians. But when the storms of life hit — and they will — suddenly you’ll find nobody’s there. If you remain shallow in your relationship to your local church, you will lose out on the support of other Christians when you need it most.” — Luis Palau

Is your focus on others or yourself? Sometimes we need to examine ourselves.

Jeremiah 5:2-4 (NIV)

2 Although they say, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’
still they are swearing falsely.”

3 O LORD, do not your eyes look for truth?
You struck them, but they felt no pain;
you crushed them, but they refused correction.
They made their faces harder than stone
and refused to repent.

4 I thought, “These are only the poor;
they are foolish,
for they do not know the way of the LORD,
the requirements of their God.

Luke 6:42
How can you say to your brother, ‘Brother, let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when you yourself fail to see the plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.

Hebrews 10:25
Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching. (NIV)

  • Are you attending church or making excuses?

Hebrews 4:11
Let us, therefore, make every effort to enter that rest, so that no one will fall by following their example of disobedience.

  • Don’t allow sin in your life to separate you from God. Repent and get rid of it. Don’t allow the sin of others to cause you to turn away. Others will fail you. Concentrate on your relationship with God and don’t look at their relationship as an example or a standard.