Why All the Denominations Within Christianity?

You hear this question, in one form or another, asked very often. “If Christianity is God’s way of living, then why does God allow so many differences in Christian denominations? Why doesn’t He just establish one way of doing things within the churches?”

First, let’s establish - what IS the Church? The Greek word for church in the Bible is “ekklesia” and Strong’s Concordance gives the following meaning: a religious congregation; a community of members on earth or saints in heaven or both; an assembly.

The Christian Church is composed of all the Christians who have lived, are living now and will live in the future. The Church is a group of people who, by circumstances of life, have chosen Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord and are thus appointed by God to be eternal members of the God Family.

What does the Church have to do with denominations? Nothing!! There are members of THE Church in every Christian denomination. Contrary to popular opinion, the Church is not divided. There is not a Catholic Church, a Lutheran Church, a Methodist Church, etc. Christians can get hooked up to any denomination and be members of THE Church.

Then why all the differences between Christians? Why all the differences of doctrine and methods of worship? That is like asking why people in general look different, are emotionally different, and see situations through different eyes.

There is only ONE criterion which determines whether you are a Christian and thus a member of THE Church. The Bible says a Christian is one who repents of his sinful life and believes in Jesus Christ as his Savior and Lord. That’s it! That’s all it takes! It is a MIND thing. And it is a one time thing. Of course, it must be sincere. You can’t fake it. You may fool those around you but you can’t fool God.

When this mind thing takes place, a supernatural and wonderful event occurs. The sin nature with which you were born and which has been controlling you previously is removed completely from you human spirit and is replaced by Jesus Christ living in a spiritual union with you. Jesus Christ can now be the controlling factor in your life as you allow Him and trust Him to guide you.

And more, the Christian, now having the nature of God within him, is actually reborn a new species and a member of God’s own Family with all of the attending rights, privileges and blessings.

This all happens within through a mind choice at one moment in time. Now, if the new Christian desires, he can be baptized with water as a public profession of his faith. But any physical ritual is after the fact of his new birth.

But, although this is true in actuality, the new Christian seldom realizes the spectacular thing which has happened to him. In fact he may go on many years without realizing the full implications of his conversion and new birth. But to bring the Christian gradually to an awareness and understanding of who he is in the Family of God, the Holy Spirit dwells in and acts on the person’s soul or mind.

OK. Now we know what a Christian is and how he functions. Or do we? There is more. Humanity is general learns to live by depending on their own choices and strengths. After all, it seems like this is all they have to work with. It is very hard for people to understand that the ultimate goal of God is for people to live dependently on God rather than independently on themselves. It is hard for people to grasp this before conversion, and it is still hard to grasp after conversion!

This brings us to my belief why God allows so many forms or denominations of Christianity:
Just as God allowed all the Old Testament forms of Judaism to exist so that the people of Israel could try to do many things in their own strength – and fail miserably to recognize dependence of God, God also now allows all the New Testament forms of “Church” to exist for the same reason.

All the forms of legalism within the different denominations are God’s present day way to bring Christians to the breaking point of their independence and be forced into the recognition of their dependence on God through Christ within.

God must see that this is best done by Christians (yes, real, sincere Christians) to join a form or denomination of Christian Church which appeals to their soul faculties of intellect and emotion. Because these faculties are where Christian growth and transformation take place.

THEN God can deal with them on their level on a daily basis to correct their natural independent thinking into the supernatural dependent approach that God desires of His children.

To follow up on the thinking of this article, read my previous article: "Have You Achieved the Second Desperation Yet?"

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