₦airaland Forum

Proximo73:
a lot of people do not follow pastors because of miracles

atleast most of them go to church because they want God to bless them with money?

Proximo73:
you use the term 'hold us down '.as if there are other better alternative place order than church God want christians to stand up and go .
Muslims take their Friday mosque going and prayers seriously . why are christians not doing the same?
to me, a large number of christians are not serious with God and you paxonel is one of them.

i may not take church seriously but that doesn't mean i do not take God seriously.
By the way, do you want christians to take religion seriously like Muslims? that may end up to disaster.
Look at boko haram now, how they take religion seriously to the extent of killing people. Is that how you want christians to end up?
please don't take church going seriously, you might not control yourself when you are offended.
that was how Peter got offended and cut someone's ear in the bible. He was taking religion seriously rather than taking Jesus seriously.
so, a better alternative over church is love in your heart everywhere you go

Proximo73:
why did Jesus and apostles of the bible performed miracles?

so, everything that was done by Jesus and the apostles of bible days should be done by christians of our generation so that people will be attracted to church?
then let pastors go and walk on the sea as Jesus did, or raise people from death as Peter did, let's see.
The question is, why are some kind of miracles performed in bible not possible to be performed today or better still, why are some men call themselves men of God but they have never performed one miracle in their life before? yet they have hundred of thousand followers?

Proximo73:
i know we hardly see the kind of miracles that were performed by the apostles of the old, but i think there are still pastors who are used by God to perform miracles today

why do pastors really need to perform miracles in the first place?

trapQ:
Self righteousness won't do no good for it is written, "do not forsake the gathering of the brethren."

You complain about how much you're giving to GOD but you forget that HE paid the ultimate prize for us that no amount can't buy. You forget that He gave you all you have today. Count all the blessings he's bestowed on us and see if you can repay even one tenth. Let's not spread heresies as children of GOD.

when God paid the ultimate price it was absolutely free. He never demanded anything from anybody,in contrast to pastors reading old testament to threaten church members that if they don't pay 10%, they are rubbing God.
If righteousness is not good why is it called righteousness?
Paul told christians of his generation not forsake the gathering of the brethren that is why it was written in the bible. that is for that generation where pastors were good.
But in this our generation, everybody now know they are church for themselves. That as much as Jesus is lord of the Sabbath, therefore Sabbath cannot always hold us down in buildings called church

ifeness:
lets talk about the side effect of not going to church; More time to sleep on Sundays, more savings from your income,better sex on a Sunday morning and more time with the miss/Mrs ,no more urge to satisfy the weekly thirst of money thirsty pastors and enough time to prepare for the week.

lol
these are not side effects at all,
they are all normal activities that can also be done anyday apart from sundays.
You can also go to work on sundays, it's all depend on you

Proximo73:
But God has never says he is not going to do miracles again.
there are so much signs and wonders currently going on in churches today

i really do not know whether there are signs and wonders in churches today.
what i see is, a man was poor, tomorrow he becomes rich and buy jeep.
could that be signs and wonders?

Heavenly102:
The Church is not the pastor or the church staff or the gathering, it is all the believers in Christ combined look for a church where you do not feel as though she is a separate entity from yourself, find brethren which care about your life and making you a better person, people who you can relate with and share wisdom and advice, rather than being in a place where all the admin cares about is their bottom line.

do the church really care?
you know you can always have social gathering elsewhere?

Proximo73:
ofcourse, i have the free will to choose what i want to eat at any given time

Good!
that is how God has his own free will to do whatever he want to do. No pastor or church can control him with their philosophy.
if he says he is not doing miracles again no church or pastor can force him to do

Phemostiga:
wen i checked ur profile i dnt even no wat to say cuz ur profile sayz alot about ur belief.so no comment again

you had better not comment in the first place.
now that you cannot defend what you have already commented that speaks even more volume about you.
now we know who actually need the deliverance

Phemostiga:
u need deliverance ooo xo dat God can damage ur ignorance

do you have any reason for saying this?
i don't think so.
every intelligent human being will have reasons for saying what they say

Proximo73:
but the believe is that, God has the power to do any miracle, therefore you should expect anything

do you have your free will? are you free to decide not to eat rice for dinner but go for plantain instead?

kevoh:
This part baffles me among you guys. There's a RCCG 30 footsteps away from my gate, a Catholic church just down the street, Dunamis church before you enter the street, Winners at the main entrance of the estate yet my neighbour will prefer to drive 50 minutes to a different church in Area 1 in his old and ailing golf, putting his wife and baby through unnecessary stress.

I thought all the churches preach the same tithe/hellfire/heaven noise ? Why not just walk to the RCCG or Dunamis which are closer and receive same message? Or the god in those churches are different?

i wish we christians will someday have this sense,
Muslims think better. Any mosque is mosque

Proximo73:
but the bible says, if you give to a man of God, you will have the reward of a man of God?

the only reward you will get is recognition.
all the promises of you getting blessings and becoming rich over night are all super story or nollywood

Proximo73:
in christianity, the bible is our asset, pastors and churches are our liability .
is God also our liability?

i have said it before, God is not church and pastors.
they say if you sow a seed to man of God, you are giving to God.
How about poor people on the street,
who is going to sow seed to them?

chidekings:
U made valid points,just that Christians do all this things ,not because it is biblical ,but in order not to fall short of God's standard and miss heaven.

this is what is known as fear
the biggest factor that limit Christianity from achieving it vital goals on earth

do you know that there are problems that comes with church going?
problems like
trying to please your pastors or your group members in church or you are tagged unrighteous.
10% of your income is going accumulatively.
assuming it is N 3000 monthly. Your liability becomes 3000×12 =N36000 annually which is above your monthly income.
trust me, you don't have any miracle to show for it. even the Jews do not have these liability.
some of you go to church in places far away from home, you will pay transport or fuel your car, these are extra expenses you ignore and tomorrow you complain,what are you using money for? the naira do not have value.
meanwhile you end up hearing the same word you have been hearing from your pastors from day one, no new messages. Yet bible still remain a mystery to you.
You can overcome these problems by reading your bible for yourselves, love your neighbor as yourself to avoid sin and live a happy life, maintain your believe in Christ and remain saved and simply ignore church or religion.
God do not recognise Sabbath day anymore.
Matthew 12:8 For the Son of man is Lord even of the sabbath day.

Phemostiga:
so what are u saying now,are u sayinng masturbation is not a sin? :oso what are u saying now,are u sayinng masturbation is not a sin?

there is nothing sinful about it, don't mind primitive Africans.
everybody on earth masTubate one way or the other.
MasTubation is simply the stimulation of your genitals during when you sleep or you are conscious.
by science, all living animals and even insects masTubate.
so, it natural

Phemostiga:
can u explain better...masturbation is imoral or is it moral

the believe that mAstubatIon is bad originated from primitive thinking of African reasoning.
they reason that since the pleasure of mAStubAtion makes one face to tilt in an unusual way, therefore, mAstuBation is unusual and it is bad
meanwhile, there is no place mAstubatIon was mentioned in the bible talkless of saying it is a sin.

Phemostiga:
1 corinthians 6v18 flee fornication.Every sin that a man doeth is without the body;but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body

you are quoting something else

itiswell247:
yes it is

define sin

lofty900:
that's your opinion. If there's no heaven then the Bible wouldn't have told us how Jesus ascended up into the sky while his disciples watched. God opened stephen's eyes when he was about to be stoned to death and he saw Jesus at the right side of God, so I believe there's heaven.

you don't understand.
that was how people perceived things in those days, just like the way men perceived that the earth was flat until galleleo out of awareness came and say the earth is sphere, that was how men were primitive and ignorant in those days.
so, God will show them revelation depending on how they perceived things.
since their perception was that heaven is up the clouds God have to make Jesus ascend up to heaven in their sight to appease their expectation, Yes, he told them he will go and send down the comforter, but in the real sense,Jesus didn't go anywhere. Jesus is right inside us on earth,he is the conforter the holy spirit in us. God's kingdom or heaven is right here with us, which will last here on earth forever and ever.here on earth , no end
in the days of Elijah God uses chariots of fire on Elijah because people of that generation were more primitive.
But we are more enlightened people this generation due to education and technological development.
We don't need to be thinking like the way the apostles of the Bible thinked at their time.
we are far more better and sophisticated.
we don't need extra signs and wonders to get us believe that heaven is here with us.
we just know in our heart and live the kingdom life here on earth

lofty900:
Hello, I was thinking about this recently and I decided to pop this question. Everybody will stand before the stand before the judgment throne on the last day no doubt and answer questions about our deeds while on earth but after all that, if you survive the judgment day, you discover that you are among those of us who are qualified to make heaven and spend eternity up there with God and all the angels, Jesus, Moses, Abraham, Elijah and all the the good people. Then God decides to allow people to make their choice either to spend eternity in heaven or earth, where would you want to spend yours? Remember in heaven you'll be a spirit being, no cars, Internet, smartphones, you will be given your white garment, 247 you'll be singing praise and worship, choir practice, blowing trumpet, running errands, bow down and worship the master and so on but on earth, you'll have all these things. Lamborghini, bugatti, Ferrari, champagne, and the rest. No poverty, terrorism, disease, plane crash. Just enjoy enjoy enjoy till infinity...

its a lie,
no heaven beyond the clouds, people are misinterpreting figurative languages of the bible for heaven.
what the bible meant by heaven is life here on earth after Jesus resurrection .
there is computer, internet, cars, working, suffering, hard work for money.
Remember, Jesus gave a parable of talent(money ) and sowing, saying, God's kingdom of God is like unto....
so, there is spending in heaven.
guess what? we are right now in heaven

MuttleyLaff:
No, thank you for taking your time to read

Facepalm and then SMH

May God help us all to understand Mark 9:1 without needing to be spoon-fed

¹And Jesus was saying to them,
''Truly I say to you,
there are some of those who are standing here who will not taste death
until they SEE THE KINGDOM OF GOD AFTER IT HAS COME WITH POWER''
²Six days later, Jesus took with Him Peter and James and John,
and brought them up on a high mountain by themselves.
And He was transfigured before them
- Mark 9:1-2

I'm proud to be a Christian.
thank God i didn't. come into this world via any other family but a Christian family

Scholar8200:
Romans 1:16
For I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ:for it is the Power of God unto SALVATION to EVERYONE that beliveth...
Salvation comes through believing the Gospel of Christ.
And such belief is evidenced by transformation of life:
See Romans 1:8 ''...your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world''

John 3:3 talks of being born again and vs 5 explains it to mean being born of the Spirit.
Now paxonel answer:
1. If the call to be born again is a pre-NT concept, can you establish what epoch that command was applicable (apart from NT) and give Bible references to prove it? Also supply recipients.
2. Is John 3:16 applicable to the NT?

3. Why did Jesus command to, ''teach (ing) them to observe whatsoever I have commanded you'', if all such came before the cross hence does not concern NT saints?
4. From John 3:3,5,16,17, we see that to be saved is not a label but is a result of being born of the Spirit. He that believes the Gospel is born of the Spirit-he receives the Life in his spirit through the Spirit, by his faith that came by the Gospel-and is thus redeemed from sin and its consequences and reconciled to God. This was the emphasis of the messages in the NT books.
If you have a different explanation, supply with References.

if you read this very carefully and think, you may understand.
Bible can be so technical as this.
firstly, the word born again was not a command, it was a term written in the books of prophecy to prophesy what will happen when the Messiah will come to the world to die for mankind.
Nicodemus was a master in Israel, only masters (also known as scribes) had assess to the scripts of prophecies in those days and because Nicodemus had assess to it, he must have read where the term born again was written but could not understand what it meant,
when jesus first told him you must be born again, he recalled that he has read it somewhere,perhaps he thought it meant to be born into the womb of a woman the second time.
Now, Nicodemus never know it was time for the fulfilment of that prophecy about born again and the coming Messiah, so Jesus had to put him through, that now is the time of the prophesy and he (Jesus ) that is talking to you is the coming Messiah ( the same thing he told the woman of Samaria at Jacobs well ).
How did he explain this to him?
He told him, let me tell you the meaning of the term born again you read about in the script of prophecies ( this is what he meant by marvel not that i say you should be born again ), he then started with a parable in
John 3:7 The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit.
in this parable
the wind =the disciples following Jesus (just like all winds have direction of movement, the direction of Jesus and his disciples movement was towards Jerusalem where he was going to be crucified,resurrected and reveal God's kingdom at Jerusalem.
Nicodemus saw these multitude of disciples moving from Galilee towards Jerusalem but could not tell where they were coming from and were they were going to.
but Jesus expected him to join the queue.
By so doing, he will be born again just like the disciples were.
So, born again which means, to follow Jesus in those days before he was crucified, was the means to the kingdom of God (But not the kingdom of God itself)
it was after resurrection that the kingdom was revealed at Jerusalem.
that kingdom is Christianity, the religion we call Christianity today .
so you see, born again was the time the Bible describe as the days of John the Baptist(the time before Jesus was crucified ) which says.
right from the days of john the baptist, the kingdom of God suffereth violence, and the violent (the strongest disciple ) takes it by force.
that born again time was a very significant one

lampardizik:
Jesus never brought any religion from anywhere, even the pattern of His death was from the traditions the Jews had from the time of Moses. He said so Himself that ""Don't misunderstand why I have come. I did not come to abolish the law of Moses
or the writings of the prophets. No, I came to accomplish their purpose."


And as regards the name, you were right but how many "Christians" now do you see doing what Jesus of the Apostles did back then?


Most of them are under bondage of different kinds of doctrines and 'laws' of all kinds...this article is a tool to tell them what they don't know about themselves

But inspite that they of different kind of doctrines and laws, they all believe that keeping the law of moses specifically the 10 commandments, is right?
And also, they all maintain their believe in Jesus Christ which is what makes Christianity one religion inspite the differences in doctrines and creed?
i want to ask, what do you understand by the term FAITH according to the bible?
is Christianity not one faith?
is Judaism not another faith?
is Islam also not a faith?
can you distinguish between faith and religion?
is faith not the old term for a modern day word called RELIGION?

Profbrian:
Ha ha ha this paxonel guy dey funny me o. So heretic. Pls show me your proof in the scriptures.
Prophetudeme see false prophets of the last days the bible talked about

my proof is
Romans 1:17 For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith(that is, from religion to religion, from Judaism to Christianity ): as it is written, The just shall live(exist ) by faith (by Christianity ).
so, we are saved by our faith Christianity

mrpresido:
My brother, the Lord still have those who are His, those who preach from His Heart, the undiluted word of God. These set of people maybe small in number, but they really exist along with those who are fake. I really can't draw out something to prove this fact, but I want you to know that the black nature of a pot, does not mean all semolina cooked from this pot will be black .My analysis is open to critiques but that's what I can possibly draw out to explain what I have said.

is it really true that God miraculously blesses people with money, car, house etc for been consistent in church going as pastors promises? i never see anything like that in the Scripture.
what i know is, everybody who are successful in churches worked for their money

plappville:
I bet You i have never heard anyone used it here. In Nigerian, everyone who goes to church is a born again. Just like they play with speaking in tongue, they also misuse the the born again thing.

i live in Nigeria, africa. we use the word born again to boast a lot.
infact we use it more than the name christian, because we feel that the name Christian is not righteous enough

MuttleyLaff:
Do you believe it is possible to see the Kingdom though without entering the Kingdom

Please study John 3:1-3 first before answering the question, by slowing reading but reading it out loud
Hope you notice how Nicodemus instigated Jesus switching the gear on Nicodemus
Jesus in responding to Nicodemus' admitted observances,
decided to up the ante from ''see'' to ''enter'' after Nicodemus brought in the issue of re-entering a mother's womb

They have a right to their delusion

The reality is that there is no denomination in the Kingdom

Indeed, the time is coming, and it is now here,
when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
The Father is looking for people like that to worship him.
- John 4:23

''born again'' is used worldwide
It is used in the Americas, West and Eastern Europe, Australia, Francophone countries in Africa etcetera

Other appendages used with the Christian tag for legitimacy and validity sake are:
spirit-filled, Bible-believing, tongue speaking, washed in the blood

they are mostly used by fanatic old members of their population and few ignorant young people.
most young Christians of these nations knows better
that these are all mere religious names which do not in anyway add to moral values But are mere titles
that it takes deliberate effort of learning and understanding in order to upgrade yourself morally, which is the most essential thing, not by calling yourself names like spirit filled, born again,tongue speaker , etc

mrpresido:
if someone becomes a Christian that doesn't mean he can not sin, we are still in our bodies. Salvation is God's gift to every believer in Christ Jesus, when we give gifts to our fellow human, we don't collect them back, how much more our father, who gives us the gift of salvation, He would not take it back, for if he does, (which is impossible )then we are not saved, and Jesus would have to die again, which is impossible.
The fact that a high percentage of the messages, we hear from the pulpit today are health-wealth messages, miracles, healing, signs and wonders (in which most are been preached with selfish reasons, out of context of the particular passage) this does not mean that there are no men of God, Pastors, Teachers, Missionaries and Evangelist, Prophets and Apostles that preach the undiluted word of God. God knows who are His, (I wouldn't want to ague this facts) I would advise church members to always go home and make more research about the things been said by the Pastor, Priests, Prophets, Evangelists, Teachers and people who preach to them. This would help to checkout those set of people who lie from God's Word.

brother,
i totally agree with you, it is wisdom going back to search the Scripture after everything.
But so far, i am yet to see one pastor in Nigeria who do not go out of context of the scripture.
for instance, they will read john 3:16 ,whosever believe should not perish But have eternal life, the next thing they will begin to say, just believe in God, you will have miracle car, money. house, children etc.
they will begin to say what people want to hear, neglecting what that Scripture is trying to point out, thereby giving nigerians a characteristic corrupt mindset.
All pastors do this, all of them are guilty

flexybobo:
you are right,
honestly, i never saw it like that:

i understand there was need for ancient catholic church to distinguish sinful christians from righteous christians by calling righteous christians born again, seeing that people were primitively sinful in those ancient Catholic times, but that move was not necessary because, if you look at it.
1. there is no amount of pretence to be righteous that has ever made anybody on earth righteous, we all commit sin in one way or the other
2.as much as christians are trying to be good for the world to see, so are guinuine adherents of other religion are good too, infact most of them are even better than christians, so what are you talking, why the competition?
3. love your neighbor as yourself implies love for all mankind, not just love for Christians only