I've heard the question asked "Do Christians have to go to church?" As believers in Christ, we don't HAVE TO go to church; rather, we DESIRE TO GO WITH ALL OUR HEART and GET TO go to places where we can hear truths about our wonderful Jesus. The reason why going to some of these designated places of worship is such a big chore for many Christians, especially young people, is because something else, not the gospel, is being preached at many of such gatherings.

Think about it: You have a friend who can tell you so much about a certain Someone who is so in love with you and wants to bless you with all that He has, even when everyone else has rejected you and all look upon you with condemnation and disgust because of your many sins and addictions; Someone who took all the bad that you deserve so that you can keep on getting all the good that He deserves. Someone who died for you and will never condemn you, judge you or wonder why you just don't want to stop sinning. Unlike the world that thinks you love to wallow in your sins, He knows that you really want to stop but cannot. He knows that you can't save yourself from your many sins that you struggle to give up everyday so He came to save you from those sins. You'll want to know more about this Someone. This is the gospel and that Someone is Jesus. Matthew 1:21 says of Him:

“She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

But in many “churches," Christ isn't portrayed as Saviour from sins, if He is given any prominence at all. Rather, God is wrongly portrayed as a hard Taskmaster who is eager to punish the sinner when he sins and let the devil have a go at him at the slightest opportunity.

People who are already doing their best to be obedient but can't (because the arm of flesh will fail) go to church looking for Salvation, including salvation from their sins. But there they are told that God will punish them if they don't obey the law and stop sinning by themselves, as if they had not been doing their best to obey. They are not pointed to Christ as the One who saves from sins. The Lord is presented as Punisher of sins and not Saviour from sins. This situation is akin to an oncologist father refusing to take care of his beloved child who has terminal cancer…. because the child has cancer. He even tells his beloved child “heal yourself of your cancer or else I will punish you.”

More law is given to these beloved of God in church, but the very law that they are given makes them go and sin more, “For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under law but under Grace.” Romans 6:14. Under law, sin has dominion.

Remember Romans 5:19– “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man’s obedience many will be made righteous.”

Committing acts of sin isn't what makes people sinners. Adam's disobedience did, long before anyone had the chance to do an act of sin. Acts of sin, lack, oppression, sickness and every bad thing that plagues the world today exist as a result of having this inherited sin/old nature. When the law is introduced as a means of putting oneself in the right with God, acts of sin proliferate; we see this in Romans 7:5-

“When we were controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced a harvest of sinful deeds, resulting in death.”

The law that people are being told to obey so that they can get in God's good books arouses evil desires that cause one to sin profusely.

1 Corinthians 15:56 says: “For sin is the sting that results in death, and the law gives sin its power.”

Without the law, sin is powerless over us. When we believe that we are made righteous by the obedience of Christ (Romans 5:19) and not our own obedience, we are free from the power of sin. We get to produce a harvest of good deeds for God according to Romans 7:4-

“So, my dear brothers and sisters, this is the point: You died to the power of the law when you died with Christ. And now you are united with the One who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a harvest of good deeds for God.”

This is the crux of the gospel: Righteousness by faith. No matter how vile your sins are, Christ will never condemn you, judge you or tell you to go and get your act together before He graces you with His audience and saves you from your sins and their consequences. We see this in His way with sinners throughout the gospels. He never asked the woman caught in adultery, Zacchaeus the thieving tax collector or Peter who denied Him three times to first go and obey the Ten Commandments, fast, or be a particular way first before He showed them His salvation.

But in many churches, Christ isn’t portrayed as the One who saves from sins. People are told to go and stop sinning, obey the Ten Commandments and save themselves from sin before Christ will look their way, and no one can. Following this cosmetic recommendation to get right with God when Christ died for this same purpose (to give us right-standing with God) is akin to a person with HIV rejecting a freely given cure for the virus and thinking that he can be made whole by putting plaster on a festering wound that is as a result of an illness from the virus. See Romans 8:3-4 (MSG)

"...The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us."

Unless the virus itself (sin nature) is removed, the diseases will recur and eventually kill the carrier. Christ came to save us from the power of the virus of sin.

Our hearts and minds are naturally averse to sitting under such teachings that tell us what we already know about ourselves but are powerless to change; teachings that condemn us and then increase the burden (of the law) that we are unable to bear. It is against man and contrary to man; see Colossians 2:14– “having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us.” The letter kills. Christ has fulfilled its requirements for us.

The people yearn for the truth that makes free but what is being served in many places of worship is a horrid mixture of part-law and part-grace aka "Stop sinning, obey the Ten Commandments to make yourself right with God and come to Christ or else you will burn in hell." This is the "neither hot nor cold" that Christ spoke of in Revelation 3.

Christ never condemns or judges, no matter how vile our sins are. He saves us from our sins and transforms us to life (see 2 Cor. 3:18.) 1 John 4:19 says “We love because He first loved us.” As He opens our eyes to His love for us more and more, not only do we desire to hear more about His saving Grace, hence our desire to be in places where the true gospel is preached, we get to love to talk about Him too. In Him, we get to live in triumph over sin and death (Romans 5:17.)

When and where the true gospel of righteousness by faith and not works of the law is being preached, the exhortation to us in Hebrews 10:25- "Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching" becomes our default mode. We desire to be in the assembly of fellow believers.

Remember Revelation 21:8 King James Version (KJV)- "8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death."


Christ came to save us from our sins that lead to hell, as it is written in Matthew 1:21- "She will bear a Son; and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
We see our salvation in the word of Christ Himself in John 3:16- “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life."

Christ came to save us from our sins so that we will not perish in hell. Only believe. But the message that we hear in many places of worship is "deal with those sins that you have been trying so hard to give up and obey the law or die and perish in hell." But Romans 3:20 tells us that all the law-keeping in the world cannot make anyone righteous in the sight of God. Christ did it all. We are made righteous by His obedience, not ours. Through Him, we get to live in triumph over sin and death. We get to stop living in sin. (Romans 5:17.)

Believers will swim oceans just to get to places where the true gospel is being preached. Christ does it all.


http://rightbelieving101..com/2018/02/why-many-people-dont-like-going-to.html?m=1

Yes.

that's correct especially in Africa

solite3:
that's correct especially in Africa

Yes my bro...

Christ never condemns or judges, no matter how vile our sins are. He saves us from our sins and transforms us to life (see 2 Cor. 3:18.) 1 John 4:19 says “We love because He first loved us.” As He opens our eyes to His love for us more and more, not only do we desire to hear more about His saving Grace, hence our desire to be in places where the true gospel is preached, we get to love to talk about Him too. In Him, we get to live in triumph over sin and death (Romans 5:17.)

This part is totally true. I've come to love God more since I got genuinely saved. I've been looking for the slightest opportunity to tell people at my office about this wonderful thing I've found.

alBHAGDADI:


This part is totally true. I've come to love God more since I got genuinely saved. I've been looking for the slightest opportunity to tell people at my office about this wonderful thing I've found.

Exactly my brother.... That's so true...

Lord Jesus

No. Nobody has to go to church!

Good lord

No. For where ever two or three people gather together, the Lord is surely there with them.

Church is just like a fellowship place to gather Christian and be strong in spirit......

Lord didn't said we must go to church

Yes....with our body spirit and soul

yeah

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no...church nowadays na where people dey go do showoff

yes Christians have to

No.. So long as you read the bible.... But your pastor will tell you it's compulsory because he needs your money...

My appearance in church is to do eye service. Just to fulfill all righteousness. Lots of distraction from one girl to another and other things. But I get inspired most by observing quiet time, read religious books, listening to sermons. I'm pretty sure, I'm not alone in it.

nobody knows anymore

when two and one are gathered together.......

but i wonder why pple keep telling me to go to church when i tell them am looking for a good girl for marriage..

pretense is even more in churches this days

this is why catholic is the best, when u wana get distracted u try take a look at the biblical photos around the building

dayo2me:
My appearance in church is to do eye service. Just to fulfill all righteousness. Lots of distraction from one girl to another and other things. But I get inspired most by observing quiet time, read religious books, listening to sermons.

Aurielfinizu:
this is why catholic is the best, when u wana get distracted u try take a look at the biblical photos around the building

that's a form of idolatry na. Worshipping images.

Your ideology on how the world works is quite laughable and mundane but I’m going to pretend I didn’t notice how ill-informed, brainwashed and indoctrinated by the society you are, I’ll proceed to answer your questions/dysfunctional opinions stated herein.

Yes I only believe in what can be re-demonstrated and proven with irrefutable evidence after rigorous peer-review and not what I’m told by somebody who was told by somebody who was also told by someone else, which is the syndrome that afflicts most Nigerians. Juju as you call it is a myth but to the untrained eye it’s as real as it gets.

Voodoo, charms, black magic, juju are all words used by unintelligible illiterate black Africans (mostly) who wouldn’t reason for themselves even if their lives depended on it, they hold on to bronze-age beliefs passed on to them from their ancestors who didn’t know how to cure common cold because they had no antibiotics, they didn’t know where the sun went at night because they know not what revolution and rotation of the earth on its axis is, they wonder what rain, thunder and lightning is because they don’t know that when a positively charged cloud gets in contact with a negatively charged cloud it discharges electrons which can be seen in form of a bright streak across the sky. They have no idea what these things are so they are in awe and have no choice but to worship it and sometimes go a step further to worship it by way of libations and ceremonial rituals to appease it. Today we know what all these things are because they’ve all been demystified by science but yet some people exactly like you are still holding on to the era of the stone age despite being in the 21st century. Attributing things to an imaginary deity while holding a phone in your hand which integrates more than 20 different technologies in it simply implies the biggest irony of our time, an unfortunate anomaly.

Nothing flows from the inexistent spiritual to the physical (you wish it did but it doesn’t and if you can prove it does then you can be a recipient of a Nobel award). The physical is all there is (sorry to burst your little bubble).

Do you even know the history behind your Christianity? (All religions of the world are equally as silly as the next religion but for this purpose let’s take your choice religion, Christianity, as a case study). Have you ever heard of Emperor Constantine and how he held this epic meeting bringing together all priests and Heads of different religions at the time, sat them down and ask all of them to formulate one single religion to unify all of the pagans together. That day many pagan religions were fused together and the name Christianity was adopted. All those who didn’t approve of it were executed immediately, these are historically verifiable facts, read about “The meeting at Nicea”. Your religion is a joke which was handcrafted by men like yourself and forced on people for thousands of years by burning unbelievers at the stake and always keeping the next generation of adults indoctrinated from birth by immediately instilling religious dogma in them from birth so at an early age they already have developed “Cognitive dissonance”

Isn’t it funny that your parents are Christians and youre also a Christian. Your religion is the right one while that of others are all wrong … but this is what all Muslims, Buddhists, Zoroastrian etc. also say, mine is right while every other person’s own is wrong.

Geography, your religion is a function of the geographical location you were born. If you were born in Pakistan, today you’ll be defending your variant of Islamic faith till your last breath.

Let me quote you, “…This is why Christians pray…”

Yes they do pray but their prayers lacks efficacy and it’s redundant by all standards once you step out of your confined mental box to really look at it. Remember all the hashtags, pray for London, pray for Amsterdam, pray for Cote de voire, pray for Paris, pray for Turkey, pray for nice, pray for Brussels, pray for Paris (again), pray Kenya but again and again the events still keep resurfacing because the prayers aren’t working (there are many applicable slimy excuses on God’s behalf but none of it is plausible). Surely by now someone would have already thought of averting it from happening by praying proactively and giving us a society with a perfect system and harmony, but no, reality hits, it happens again and again till we run out of hashtags.

Prayer is an illusion which makes you feel you’ve played your part in something by closing your eyes, muttering words to yourself while communicating with a man tucked away in the sky billions of miles away. In reality, your intergalactic super cosmic chit-chat boils down to zilch, zero, nothing. It’s all imagination and a laughable practice.

Science have been able to eradicate many diseases, most recent was polio. But, billions of hands clasped together in prayers were not able to eradicate any disease for thousands of years until science came along. Hence, a single hand in the science lab shaking and mixing burettes and pipettes is much productive than billions of hands held together in prayers.

I’m still surprise you don’t know that Christianity is a pagan religion majorly remodeled after Mithraism, same wine new bottle. You talk about juju worshippers carrying out ritualistic sacrifices but you forgot that eating of bread and drinking of wine is an actual ritual where real flesh and wine were eaten by worshippers in the past until it was reformed by modern Christians into what it is today because it would look grotesque in these times. Talking about sacrifices, read your bible and find out how many times your lord your God asked for sacrifice, I mean human sacrifice, spilling of human blood to his glory. It’s quite numerous if you navigate your bible well enough or just do an online search if you’re too lazy to read the whole book. Even the devil in the bible never sacrificed anything (though the devil is also an imaginary being just like God, Jesus, demons angels etc.). Theological scholars and statisticians have been able to peg the amount of people killed by God in the bible in comparison with amount killed by Satan. Guess what, God killed 2.5 million people (excluding those who died in the flood) while the devil killed 10 people (family of Job: he took a bet with God regarding Job and got permission from God to do the killings). So who is the bad guy between both imaginary creatures? All pseudo-facts here were retrieved from your fairy-tale book called the bible which shows your God is a blood thirsty psychopath or a monster compared to the devil (despite both being work of fiction).

Read about “Flavius Josephus”, the Jewish scholar who was coerced by the Roman Empire to write the book of the gospels and create an agreeable character called Jesus Christ. Yes his pen created your lord and savior. This was forced on the citizens for centuries until all traces of the scam was lost, unless you read history books and see for yourself which you might not want to in order not to tarnish your delusion.

I quote you again “…either you’re serving Jehovah God or you’re serving the devil ”

Well, do you know how many religions exist in the world? There are about 3700 religions and Gods out there being worshipped but yours happen to be the correct one, how lucky of you. Do you know how many denominations the Christian faith has? I bet you don’t, it about 40,000 denominations (go Google it). So being born a Christian isn’t enough you still have to push your luck further and make sure you’re born into the right denomination or you risk hell fire (more fiction). I hope you’re in the right sect otherwise this would have been for nothing.

It’s all superstition to believe a man was made of mud, the whole world was created from nothing but the incoming woman had to be cloned from a rib bone and a talking snake (seriously?) deceived this woman to eat some fruit which made us all sinners … the story is out rightly comical, might as well have been written by a circus clown, that’s how funny it is if you had grown to the age of 19 and this story was presented to you for the first time. But since it was told to you since infancy you take it as true. If you step outside your dogma you might even notice how silly it is even right now.

If I told you that a donkey spoke to me you would instantly conclude that I’m crazy or you’ll ask to see the donkey yourself for evidence, hence you dismissed me on some rational grounds. But the minute you read it from the bible, rationality goes straight out the window and you believe in talking snakes and donkeys. So you believe in an ancient book written by ancient goat herders without evidence rather than your own critical reasoning.

It’s also superstition when washing of sins needs a human sacrifice (I’m talking of human ritual), nailing someone to a cross to remove sins is actually human ritual, which is what your God practices. Also it’s stupid to feel that one act can affect the other, how can the death of someone on a cross affect the cleansing of sin? What’s the correlation? This requires ignorant gullible people to believe, as a rational mind cant process the depth of foolishness involved to accept this as fact.

You called me gullible. Biggest laugh I’ve had in a long while. How is it that I’m the gullible one? You’re the one who believes ridiculous things like a girl supposedly a virgin magically delivers a baby boy by way surrogacy, this baby happens to be the son of God, this son also happens to be God himself also (talking about trinity, do you know the whole trinity thing and resurrection was only recently added to the bible by some monks less than a thousand years ago, it wasn’t there before). He died to wash away sin yet people still sin till this very day, how pathetic. How else do you define gullibility other than a bunch of people giving their money to a self-acclaimed minister of God for him to read from a book you all have a copy of once a week.

Nigeria loses over 20 percent of its internally and externally generated revenue to pastors who fleece more than 40 percent of the population with tax-free returns. Imagine billions of naira being lost all around the nation every Sunday, if these monies were diversified elsewhere we would be in the same league with irreligious countries like Japan, Sweden, Denmark etc. all their monies circulates within the economy and they just keep prospering. Our economy is being raped in the guise of religion.

Religion is make-believe.

Science is evidence-based.

Why don’t we see pastors in hospitals healing people in droves and emptying clinics off their patients? We see only doctors there using equipment and apparatuses provided by science because prayers won’t heal (forget the show you see on TV) you need drugs provided by science despite having faith as huge as a mountain in your choice deity. Since you like make-believe so much then just remain encased in your cocoon called religion and dream on. Zero advantage to be derived from it in the real world.

I don’t blame people like you and how you view the world because science is hard so why not believe the most simplistic tailor-made answer; Genesis 1:1 God create the heavens and the earth. Period. Ponder no more. Now, you don’t need to bother about finding out about “Abiogenesis” which is a tougher story to digest, no need to read heaps of science books, rather stick to that book written to keep you deluded for life.

God didn’t create man.

Man created God.

Man created god to explain away all the difficult questions.

Imagine 5000 years ago, a prehistoric man sees lightning zipping across the sky and even this lightning to his bewilderment strikes trees and causes fire. He had no explanation for this, so he begins to revere lightning, next he begins to worship trees struck by lightning, he worships rivers, rocks, sculptures and calls it God. Now, he passes this practice his sons and daughters, who also passes it on to their sons and daughters and now it has been passed to you through the ages (it has gone through many, reformations, reinterpretations, customizations, diversification etc.) and now you are going to pass it on to your sons and daughters too, they’re also going to pass it on too and it goes on like that. It’s the oldest running scam in history ever since medieval politicians understood the massive gains and benefit they could acquire from people’s gullibility (Read about: “East meets West” Greeks and Roman politicians partner up to form the biggest religion, Christianity)

Also, whenever you catch yourself quoting the bible like you did earlier, just know it’s all “circular reasoning”, the worse of its kind.

How do you know the bible is true?
Because it’s the word of God.
How do you know it’s the word of God?
Because it’s written in the bible.
How do you know the bible is true?
Because it’s the word of God.
How do you know it’s the word of God?
Because it’s written in the bible.

Circular reasoning because each need the other to prove the other and can’t be proven independently. Both of which, God and the bible has no irrefutable evidence to back its claim of existence and infallibility respectively. Since God has been camera shy for the last 2000 years and only resides in peoples heart it would be pretty tough to prove if he exists.

And as for the slavery thing you spoke about, you don’t want to get me started on that slavery write-up you made which was riddled with erroneous assumptions, it would only open up a different can of worms unfavorable to your argument.

Enough has been said.

Rise above superstition!