Why we do what we do.

My family's life looks very different than others; because of this, we get a lot of questions about how we live and why we live this way. In this post, I will share our process. I grew up in the middle of the prosperity gospel and megachurches in Texas. I was in the homes and lives of many leaders from different denominations. What I saw in their lives was not what I saw in scripture, and instead of running away from church and Christians, it drove me into scripture to see how we are to live. I did this to such an extreme that if I couldn't find it in scripture, I decided I would not do it. I even stopped thanking God for my food for a time because I didn't know if it was something we were to do. I know that sounds ridiculous, but I was 17 years old and I was not going to do it because a person told me it was of God without knowing if it was in the Bible. I was determined to learn what the Bible said and not what I was told it says.

Over the years, God has had us look at how the church is to function and what He expects from His people. We don’t go to a church building regularly for these reasons. We don’t know of one that looks like the scripture. I’m not saying we are looking for worldly perfection. We desire to follow scripture so closely that we will be considered in the Philadelphia church. Years ago I was pondering the people in the 7 churches listed in Revelation. I was thinking of how terrible some were, how they had problems. I was firmly rebuked by God. I heard every Christian fits into one of them. This was sobering to me. It made me stop thinking how terrible some were to oh my, which one do I fit into?! This shook me and since then I realized I want to be a part of the Philadelphia church. It’s been my prayer for years. I’ve asked God to do whatever needs to be done to make me part of that group of people. This leads me to what I’m about to share. In scripture, there are specific instructions on what to teach baby believers. Hebrews 6 tells us those teachings. 1 Peter 2 tells us how a newborn baby should live and what they should desire. So from Hebrews 6:1-2, we see that newborn babies are to be taught repentance from dead works and what faith towards God is. They should be taught there is one baptism (Ephesians 4:5) and that one baptism is Jesus baptism (Matthew 3:11-12, Acts 19:1-7) and it includes baptism of water, baptism of the Holy Spirit, and baptism of fire. The Holy Spirit has taught us to teach people who, what, when, where, why, and how people are baptized. So the baby believer isn’t shaken ( Ephesians 4:11-16) after they are taught this by looking at examples in scriptures then they aren’t confused unless they are hanging on to tradition over scripture. They learn the same thing for laying on of hands. When they learn this they will learn who to commission and who not to commission/put into leadership, who to cast demons out of and who not to cast demons out of, how to lay hands on the sick, they will learn laying hands on people to give a blessing, and to give the Holy Spirit. Then resurrection of the dead and eternal judgment. They will learn there is a first resurrection, it happens at the 7th trumpet/ last trumpet ( 1 Corinthians 15:50-56, 1 Thessalonians 4:13-16, Revelations 11:15) we learn from the elementary teachings who goes in the 1st resurrection and who doesn’t, that there is a 1000 years of Jesus ruling and reigning with the ones who have washed their robes/removed abomination and sin practices out of their lives. As we learn this for ourselves and teach it we have to learn that Satan is released after 1000 years to deceive the nations then he is thrown into the lake of fire with the false prophet and the beast, then the 2nd resurrection happens and this is judgment day. At this time death and Hades are thrown into the lake of fire they are the last enemies ( Revelation 20, 1 Corinthians 15: 25-28). Then we see what we see in Revelation 21. 
Years ago I was reading Hebrews 6 and God posed a question to me. Do you know these? I didn’t know them. I grew up in church, around huge ministries my whole life, and went to Bible college but I had never heard of them. I was concerned for myself because I had been teaching women out of my house for years. I had no clue how to teach these or that they even existed as fundamental teachings that I needed to know for myself to grow up to spiritual maturity and that as a leader I was to teach others. I had read them who knows how many times but never once did I think I should know them and teach them. So I immediately started with the women in front of me by telling them these are the elementary teachings and I don’t know them for myself or how to teach them. I asked them if they did and they were in the same state of shock as I was. We wondered why all of us who have been in churches from different backgrounds have never been taught these teachings. As we dug deep into scripture on these topics we started examining what leaders should be teaching, how they are to live, and their purpose from scripture. As we did this over the years we realized we didn’t want to be a part of churches that go along with sin practices, teach people they can live however they want and still go to heaven, use money the way it is used, and not used according to scripture, invite unbelievers into gatherings of worship/use it for evangelism instead of going out to evangelize then bringing the ones into gathers who desire repentance and choose to be disciples of Jesus. These were some among other things we learned that we didn’t want to partake in anymore. 
The only way we know how to be a part of the Philadelphia church is to be imitators of the men and women in the scriptures, to do exactly what they do. Because we choose not to be a business-based church gathering we can live out Matthew 18:15-18 and 1 Corinthians 5. We can fulfill how Jesus says to give in Matthew 6 to give without giving to get something back. We strive to follow the patterns as closely as possible if we don’t it’s because we haven’t been taught it but we trust that God will teach us.  If we mess up we learn from it and live it out better the next time. When I say we it’s all the people in the body that we have met along the way who want to live like this. We have been called all kinds of names simply because we are mimicking scripture and people are not familiar with it. As we have walked out the scriptures we have seen them come alive in our own lives and the people in the body of Christ. We have seen babies grow up into spiritual maturity and take their place as leaders in the church. We have people who fill the different roles in the body, it is beautiful to watch but also hard at times. But we are striving with all our energy to be imitators of the ones before us in the scripture who we see are pleasing to God. If there is something here I’ve written that irritates you please take it to scripture to examine it all against the word. I encourage you to not say no to anything because you’ve never heard it before. If you see it in scripture and still don’t understand how to live it, I would encourage you to ask God to teach you how and to give you opportunities to live it so you understand.