{"id":234,"date":"2013-03-28T06:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T06:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/?p=234"},"modified":"2015-01-02T06:58:16","modified_gmt":"2015-01-02T06:58:16","slug":"love-god-but-hate-the-church-impossible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/?p=234","title":{"rendered":"Love God but Hate the Church?  Impossible!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the last few years there has been a movement building around the concept that it is logically possible and reasonably sound to love God while at the same time hating the church.\u00a0 I\u2019m not exactly sure where the thought originated but it has spread like wildfire.\u00a0 It offers a faith of convenience.\u00a0 Have all of the blessings associated with belief in God with none of the \u201cpesky tasks\u201d of Christianity.<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>There is a church in the area where I live that has put up billboards and bought radio spots to promote themselves as the place to go for all those who \u201clove God but hate the church.\u201d\u00a0 While I generally understand the idea they are trying to convey my immediate impression is two-fold: (1) it is arrogant, and (2) it is ignorant.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div>Now, before anyone burns me in effigy let me explain my reasoning:<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-indent: -0.25in;\">The church is not a product of men.\u00a0 If it were then its importance would be questionable.\u00a0 But the church is a product of God.\u00a0 He decided (in His infinite wisdom) that men were to experience the blessings of Christianity through the church (Ephesians 1:22-23).\u00a0 How can man expect to replace the plan of God and it be met with any intended success.\u00a0 Revelation 22:18-19 clearly states that any attempt to add to or take from His revealed will result in eternal consequences.\u00a0 It is arrogant to assume that we can exclude something that God included and still reap the intended blessings.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"text-indent: -0.25in;\">The church was not set up as an afterthought of God.\u00a0 It is not a worthless entity that plays no worthwhile role in our lives.\u00a0 The church was eternally intended in the redemptive plan of God (Ephesians 3:10-11).\u00a0 The Old Testament promised it (Isaiah 2:2-3; Daniel 2:44; Joel 2:28-32).\u00a0 And moreover God thought enough of the church to send His only begotten Son to shed His blood in order to purchase it (Acts 20:28).\u00a0 To minimize the worth of the church is to minimize the value of Jesus\u2019 sacrifice.\u00a0 It is blasphemous and utterly ignorant to assume that an individual could possibly love God while at the same time hate something that God loved enough to send His own Son to die for!<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div>Not only should we not develop the sentiment of loving God while hating the church, we absolutely should not be doing anything that will encourage this attitude in the lives of others by catering to their simplistic view of what Christianity is supposed to be all about.\u00a0 Christianity is not supposed to be about comfort, ease, and selfish intent.\u00a0 It is about sacrifice and service.\u00a0 Love God but hate the church?\u00a0 Impossible!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div><\/div>\n<div style=\"text-align: right;\" align=\"right\">-Andy Brewer<\/div>\n<p><!--EndFragment--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the last few years there has been a movement building around the concept that it is logically possible and reasonably sound to love God while at the same time hating the church.\u00a0 I\u2019m not exactly sure where the thought originated but it has spread like wildfire.\u00a0 It offers a faith of convenience.\u00a0 Have all &#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/?p=234\">Read more&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/no-church.jpeg?fit=300%2C300&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p5xRY9-3M","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=234"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1111,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234\/revisions\/1111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=234"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=234"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biggerbetterfaith.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=234"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}