World Religions

World Religions » Catholic

Question:

Answered on 07/26/06:

But what He’s saying is, “don’t put your trust completely in anybody other than God, except God. God is your heavenly father. God is your source. God is the one who is going to love you like nobody can love you and heal you like nobody can heal you and provide for you like nobody can provide for you. There’s one ultimate relationship between men and God and that is to know God as our Father.

Philip said in John 14:8, “Lord, show us the Father. That is all we ask, and then we shall be satisfied.” The heart of every man and of every woman is to know God as their Father and to be in right relationship with God as their Father. And Jesus was pointing to that relationship as their Father and saying that nobody should be a substitute for your relationship with God. People can be father figures in our lives, but not a substitute for God as our father.

As far as priests, again, Jesus is referring to substituting a person in place of God as our father. And if somebody looks to a priest and calls him “father,” there’s nothing wrong with calling him that out of respect. But you shouldn’t be looking to him as a substitute for God. No priest or minister should be a substitute for God. We should be able to go directly to God through Jesus Christ and that’s what Jesus was referring to.

Question:

Answered on 07/21/06:

The one book that I know of that’s in the Catholic Bible that’s not in the traditional Bible is the book of Maccabees. And although it’s harmless, it’s not in the original language. So what we need to do is to stick to what’s original.

Now, I could take a Catholic Bible and I could use a Catholic Bible to preach my sermons. I could use a Catholic Bible to lead somebody to the Lord because in the Catholic Bible, John 3:3 is the same as in my Bible. John 3:3 says, “Unless a man is born again he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” And so, for that purpose, I believe that it’s okay if someone’s reading a Catholic Bible. But just to be safe, you ought to read a Bible that is more accepted by the historians around the world. That is the Protestant Bible.

And again, I’m not coming against the Catholic Bible because it includes the entirety of the Protestant Bible, but it just adds some books that didn’t pass the criteria of the rest of the sixty-six books that are in the Bible. I hope that answers your question. And I hope I’m not offending my Catholic brothers and sisters because I certainly don’t mean to do that. And I’m not criticizing their Bible because it includes everything that my Bible includes.

Question:

Answered on 07/21/06:

So that’s the difference between asking a friend to pray for you, which is clearly validated in the Bible, and asking a Saint that is already home in heaven to pray for you, because there is no one in heaven, the Bible says, that will mediate for us and no one in heaven that will pray for us, except Jesus Christ himself, Hebrews 7 declares. And so that would be how I answer that question. But it’s a great question.

We have to make sure, again, that we go to the Bible. Man, I grew up Catholic. I love some of the Catholic tradition and some of the Catholic faith—the whole concept of family, and the whole concept of communion, and the whole concept of the holiness of going to church. I think it’s fantastic and I urge people to embrace those elements.

But not everything that is taught in the Catholic church, and not everything that is taught in any church is right. That’s why we have to always go back to the Bible as the foundation for what we believe. Let us not offend the Catholics, but let us not offend God. Okay? Let us go to the Bible, let us make sure that we honor God, not man, not a pope, not me, not anybody. But God himself is to be honored. And the Bible is to be honored. And when man adds to the Bible or takes away from the Bible, then we put ourselves in a position where we are making ourselves equal with God. And we must not do that. We must humble ourselves and accept what God has given us. God has given us the Word of God.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

Obeying those commandments doesn’t save us. What saves us is believing in Jesus Christ. But those commandments reveal to our heart and reveal to our conscience that we need a savior. So the Ten Commandments were given to restrain society so that society had boundaries and society had morals by which to live.

And secondly, and not necessarily in this order, the Ten Commandments were given to expose the sin inside of men’s hearts and to reveal to men that they couldn’t keep the commandments. The commandments force men to recognize their own frailty and their own weakness and their own sin so that they would then look to God and look to a Savior to save them from that sin.

That’s why God gave us the Ten Commandments. Because living by those commandments will always bring greater joy and greater fruitfulness in our lives. Recognizing those commandments exposed our utter weakness and our utter sinfulness, therefore putting a demand on us to call out and to cry out for a savior and recognize our need for a savior. Everybody knows they have sinned. Why does everybody know they’ve sinned? Because we have the Ten Commandments. That’s why everybody knows that they have sinned.

What about Venial sin and Mortal sin? I don’t believe that there is a difference between any kind of sin. To God, sin is sin. It all was paid for through the blood of Jesus. And only our faith in Jesus Christ and in His blood will save us from sin, whether it’s Venial or whether it’s Mortal or whether it’s immortal. Jesus’ blood will cleanse us and forgive us from all unrighteousness according to 1 John 1:9.

And the only sin that we cannot be cleansed from is the unpardonable sin, which is to reject Jesus Christ. That’s the only thing that cannot be pardoned. You cannot be pardoned for rejecting the only sacrifice for our sins.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

In other words, if somebody is talking about their problem all the time, worried about their problem all the time, afraid about their problem all the time, they’re basically idolizing their problem because they’re exalting that problem above God and above what God’s Word has to say to us. That’s idolatry.

So if somebody exalts Mary, the Virgin Mary above Jesus, then, yes, that’s idolatry. If somebody who’s Catholic honors her because of the contribution she made to Christianity by giving birth to the Son of God, then that’s not idolatry. But if they exalt her equal to or above Jesus, then yes, that is idolatry just as if we exalted Martin Luther equal to or above Jesus. The same is true for the saints as well. If we exalt Paul the Apostle to the same level of Jesus or above Jesus, then that is idolatry. If we exalt our own opinions above Jesus and above the Bible, then that is idolatry also.

Here are some Scriptures to look up. 1 Timothy chapter one says that “there is no mediator between God and man except Jesus Christ.” The Bible says in Mark 3:34-35 that His mother and His brothers and His sisters came to greet Him. They had questions for Him while He was preaching. And it was said, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are out waiting to talk to you.” And Jesus said, “Who are my mother and brothers and sisters? Those who hear the Word of God and obey the Word of God, they are my mother and my brothers and my sisters.”

Now, be careful, because you don’t want to start an unnecessary fight with people over those Scriptures. You need to just relax and if they have questions, then just answer them, but don’t go on the offensive with them. You’re not going to change them right now in their life. But you know what will be the best thing is to show them love and compassion. And live what you know to be true before their eyes.

And then if they ask questions, then kindly and gently answer them. The thing you need to ask any Catholic or any Presbyterian or anybody is, “Do you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead? And if you do, and you put your faith in Him with all your heart, then that is the prerequisite for salvation, not whether you’re Catholic or Presbyterian or Methodist or anything.”

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

Now, I believe that the Catholic church means well. They don’t do it in a derogatory way or in a way to hurt people or offend people. But, there are things that I’ve done that were sincere but they were sincerely wrong. There are things that the Catholic church does that are sincere, but they’re sincerely wrong. And the only way to have balance in our lives and the only way to be strong in our lives is to stick to the Scripture, to stick to “what does the Bible say?”

If you believe that you are supposed to be in the Catholic church, I would politely say to those that are in authority over you that you don’t believe that it’s biblical or right to teach the intervention of saints and that you prefer not to do that even though you’d like to teach many of the other things like the sacrament of Holy Communion and the sacrament of marriage and all those other things. But you can’t teach something that the Bible doesn’t support. And you can only pray through Jesus Christ.

And so, you’ve got to make up your mind. Are you going to live by the Word or by man’s doctrine? And you might find yourself having to make that choice. And if you do, stick to the Bible. In the essentials, let there be unity. In the nonessentials, let there be liberty. But in all things let there be charity. So, in the essentials, you’ve got to stick to the Word of God and make sure that you line up with the Bible.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

Now, why do the Catholics add the books that they add? I don’t know, but here’s the most important thing: the books that they do add do not take away from the truth and the substance of the books that are scriptural and are considered by every other main source to be the tradition and history of Christianity. Those who agree that the 66 books are the books of the Bible are not contradicted by the Catholics having a few extra books.

I’m not saying that it’s good to have a couple extra books in the Bible, but I’m not criticizing the Catholics because that’s a part of their tradition. But it’s not a part of the canonization of Scriptures, the Scriptures that are considered to be Holy Scriptures by most of Christianity. The majority of Christianity sticks to the 66 books Why the Catholics add others, I can’t answer. But I can say that still you can find in the Catholic Bible John 3:3, “that unless a man is born again, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.”

Question:

Answered on 03/22/06:

I have learned to have patience with not only my Catholic friends, but myself as well because there are things I have said that I would later like to go back and say, “You know what? I shouldn’t have said that.” As I have studied the Bible, I have found that the legitimate place from where Catholics derive the teaching on purgatory from is in Luke 16 when the rich man died and he went to Hades and the poor man died and he went into Abraham’s bosom. There was a holding place, if you will, that people went to who were believing in the Messiah to come, but Jesus had not yet died for our sins and risen from the dead. So, there was a place called Abraham’s bosom in Luke 16. I think that is probably where the Catholics got the teaching of purgatory from.

It is not an accurate teaching when it is a place that everybody goes to and then God decides, people pray for you, the saints pray for you, and you can make it into heaven. That’s not it at all, but they got it from that teaching where it was Abraham’s bosom. Ephesians 4 also talks about how Jesus went and led captivity captive. I believe He took those were held in that holding place, in Abraham’s bosom, after He rose from the dead, He took those souls into heaven with Him and presented them before the father sprinkled by the blood of His own body. That’s where I believe that came from.

World Religions » Jehovah's Witnesses

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

So, you just need to realize with Jehovah’s Witnesses and people like that, you’re not going to be able to talk to them, you’re not going to be able to convince them, so don’t even welcome them into your home. Don’t even answer the door. Do not have conversations with them. That’s what the Bible says. If they are a relative, you can talk to them about other things, but I would not let them say a word about the Bible or about religion or about God at all. Because the Bible forbids us to engage in conversations with people like that.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

So if you can do that, you pull them aside and say, “Look, we’re sticking to the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God. Jesus Christ is God. He is Lord. He is king.” You see, they don’t believe He’s God. They believe He is “a” son of God, but they don’t believe He’s the son of God, that He is the deity, that He is the Godhead incarnate, Christ, God in the Flesh, Emmanuel, God With us. They don’t believe that and so they deny the deity of Jesus Christ.

And you have to warn that person and say, “Look, this is not in accordance with the Bible. And I highly admonish you to not get involved with the Jehovah’s Witnesses because they do not stick to the Scripture and they do not stick to the true authentic faith in Jesus Christ, His death, burial and resurrection and His deity, His Godhead, His being God.”

So you warn them, admonish them, pray for them and do whatever you can to get them out of there if you can. By the way, use compassion. Walk in love. Don’t be belligerent or mean-spirited, but be loving and you’ll be able to help that person. I hope that you’re able to help that person because love never fails. But we have to speak that truth in love and the truth is there are fundamental differences between true Christianity and the Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

Also, with regard to Jehovah witnesses, we need to remember 2 John 10 says that, “if anyone comes to you and brings not this doctrine of Jesus Christ as Lord receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed.” We need to realize that it is not our job to win Jehovah Witnesses to the Lord. The Bible says we are not to receive those people into our lives because they disrupt. They want to argue and fight and contend rather than really having a deep desire to know spiritual truth. They are indoctrinated by religion, by a spiritual force.

It is a cult and the Bible says don’t even receive them into your house. That is what I would encourage you to do. That doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be a good example and share our faith with people in a non-threatening situation. But, we shouldn’t bring those people into our lives or into our homes. As far as the deity of Jesus Christ, Colossians 2 is your verse.

World Religions » General

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

First, let’s answer that by answering the question “what does get us into heaven?” It’s not religion or being perfect or doing everything right that gets us into heaven. What gets us into heaven is the blood of Jesus Christ. And so, if you put your faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, if you’ve confessed Jesus Christ as the Lord of your life and you believe that God raised Him from the dead, you shall be saved. Now, that is the only way to be saved. You can’t be saved or go to heaven because you’re a good person, you can’t go to heaven because you’re not a bad person, you can only go to heaven because you’ve received Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior.

Now, does that mean that you should be involved in the Eastern Stars and that sort of thing? No, it doesn’t because even though those things won’t send you to hell, they will complicate your walk with God and they will confuse your walk with God. Because you weren’t created to follow those kinds of sects or religions or practices or fraternities or groups or whatever you call them. They’re not lining up with the Bible. Therefore, they’re not something that is going to help your Christian faith. Can they send you to hell? No, only rejecting Jesus’ blood will send you to hell. Not putting your faith in Jesus’ sacrifice will send you to hell. But those things will confuse you in your relationship with God here on this earth and could hurt your ability to help save somebody else from going to hell

So, I want to really warn you to stay away from those things, not because they’ll send you to hell, but because they will prevent you from being the kind of Christian that you need to be. That’s why you need to be plugged into a church. If you have time to be involved in groups like that, you certainly have time to get involved in a church where you can grow, where you can be healthy and where you can become a mature, strong Christian and then you can help others become mature, strong Christians as well.

Question:

A while ago, I was involved in the Church of Christ out of Boston. And I didn’t feel right about being there. I felt that God was telling me to leave because, for one thing, they believe more in the New Testament rather than in the Old Testament teachings.

Answered on 04/12/06:

Further, the Boston Church of Christ teaches that after you are baptized, you can – and must – live a sinless life. That again is not scriptural. They also teach that you should not use musical instruments in the church, and yet that is contrary to the Scripture. The Bible says that we can play instruments and we should honor God and glorify Him with every instrument (Psalm 150:4).

Here is the tricky part. Do they believe that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead? Yes, and that is what gives them some semblance of orthodoxy. But outside of that, they say you have to be baptized in their church. So stay away from that group and get into a church that teaches the uncompromised Word of God and has grace and mercy rather than legalism.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

So to be born again means when you accept Jesus Christ died for your sins and risen from the dead you are saved. You may have grown up Muslim, Catholic, Presbyterian, atheist or no religion at all. But if you receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior it doesn't matter how you grew up.

What matters is that you believe that Jesus died for your sins and rose from the dead. That is what saves us. Jesus makes his gift of salvation available to anybody. You can't be born into Christianity; you need to be born again. You need to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and savior. And you will spend eternity with God in heaven. I want this for you and all your relatives and friends and people you are associated with that may be Muslims. We reach out to our Muslim friends and we want them to be saved. But they must receive Jesus Christ as their savoir. They need to believe that Jesus died for their sins and rose from the dead. And that will bring anybody into the gift of salvation.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

The question is, “what is that church built upon?” Is that church built upon the traditions of men who have established a religious government and a religious structure? Or is that church built upon the foundations of the Bible as the Word of God and as the way in which we find and discover how to live? That’s the difference between the non-denominational and the traditional, mainline denominations such as the Methodists, the Presbyterians or the Catholics.

The non-denominational churches don’t have the traditions that were established by the men who established those denominations. Non-denomination means you don’t have to have an affiliation with this particular denomination. You can come from a Catholic background, you can come from a Presbyterian background, you can come from a Jewish background. And I think that you don’t have to become part of my “non-denomination" denomination. You simply have to desire to grow in the Word of God. Whereas in some denominations, you have to become a part of a particular denomination. And I think that’s where some of the differences are.

I think that we don’t find our symbolism in crosses and statues and things like that. We find our faith in truly taking the Bible and applying it to our everyday lives so that we can not just see that we’re doing our service to God for an hour or two a week, but that we’re taking in the answers from God’s Word and then applying them in our everyday life. Now, people can do that in a Catholic church, they can do that in a Presbyterian church, they can do that in any church.

But the reason why non-denominational churches are the fastest growing churches in the world is because you don’t have to be attached to the tradition of men that have been established in that denomination for years. You rather are attached to whatever the Bible says, plain and simple. And that’s how I believe that everybody should be even if they’re a part of a mainline denomination. They should be true to the Scriptures and truly live practically the way that the Bible says to live.

Now, what is it that the Jewish people believe that Christian people don’t believe? Excellent question. Jewish people believe that the Messiah, the savior of the world who will rescue them and be their savior and be their Lord, they believe that He has not come yet. They believe He’s coming, but they don’t believe that He’s come already.

And the difference is that we believe, according to the Bible and according to history, that Jesus not only claimed to be that Messiah that they were hoping for, but He proved that He was that Messiah through His resurrection, and through His miracles and through His teaching and through all of the prophecies that were predicted in the Old Testament and in the Jewish Torah. All of those prophecies came to pass in Jesus’ life and the Jewish people just have never bought into the fact that He’s their Messiah. They’re waiting for one to still come. Now, He is coming again. But He’s coming for people who already believe in Him now here on this earth.

And so, that’s the difference. They don’t believe that the Messiah has come yet and we believe that He has come and He is Jesus. And I believe that every Jewish person that claims the name of Jesus will experience supernatural peace like they’ve never experienced before because they already know there’s a Messiah coming. Now, they need to put their faith in the fact that He has already come 2000 years ago.

Who are the Jewish people waiting for? They don’t know. The Jewish people know that he is the Messiah. The Jewish people know that he’s the savior. The Jewish people know that he’s going to be the king of kings. But see, those are all the things that Jesus already is. And the devil has deceived the Jewish people by blinding their minds from realizing and recognizing that the Messiah has already come. He proved that He was the Messiah because He fulfilled all of the promises and all of the predictions of the Jewish law in the Old Testament of the Bible.

Most religions and most people believe in “God.” But there’s no way to reach God, there’s no way to meet God and to come into God’s presence except through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. It works like this. Every one of us, you, me and everybody else in the world, has sinned. God is perfect and we are not perfect. Because God is perfect, there’s no way to approach a perfect God if we are imperfect people. You know, He’s too holy. He’s all light. He’s all holy and pure and if you come into His presence, you’ll die because He’s perfect.

It’s like coming into the presence of the sun. If you were to fly a ship into the sun, if it were even possible, it would burn up before it even got close because there’s too much light, there’s too much heat. Well, God formed the sun in the palm of His hands so think of how holy and how much light and heat is in the presence of God.

And what that tells us it that there is only one way, God has made only one way for us to be able to approach Him and that’s why blood had to be shed. That’s why Jesus’ blood had to be shed because His blood, being perfect and holy, was shed to cover us from our sins, to wash us from our sins and to cover us so that we could come into the presence of a perfectly holy God without inferiority and without the blemishes of our filth and our sin.

So, God comes to the earth in the form of a man named Jesus and He sheds His blood for our sins and that blood covers us, cleanses us and changes us so that God says, “Now you can come into my presence perfectly cleansed by my perfect blood and now you won’t burn up in my presence because of your sin and your sinfulness. Now you can come into my presence because you’ve been washed by the blood of Jesus Christ.”

So, you can be Jewish and still believe in my church. You can be Jewish and still believe in the Messiah. You can be Jewish and still believe in everything that you’ve ever been taught. I want you to keep coming to the church even if you don’t believe everything I’m saying yet, because you’ll grow in it. I won’t offend you. I’m going to help you and walk with you in that as I teach the Bible. You can always come to my church.

Here’s the thing. You can maintain all of your Jewish beliefs, but you must remember that the only way to heaven is by putting your faith in the Messiah that has already come because only His blood can cleanse us from our sins.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

So basically, you’re asking, “If a person believes what they believe, does that make it right and will God honor that?” If you know that if you jump off the roof of your house, you’re going to fall and break you leg, but I believe that if I jump off the roof of your house, I’m going to fly, does it really matter what I believe? No. What I believe is not going to change the result, is it? I’m still going to break my leg whether I believe I will or whether I don’t.

The point is that Jesus rose from the dead after being buried for three days. No one else has ever done that. Jesus rose from the dead and His resurrection is the point at which we believe.

Either we’re fools for believing something that isn’t true or we have been brought into the light of the gospel by putting our faith in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Muhammad did not rise from the dead. I can believe in Muhammad but Muhammad did not die for my sins and Muhammad did not rise from the dead. But Jesus did.

I respect Muslims who truly believe what the Koran teaches. I respect that they will hold to their belief, but that doesn’t make it right. I can honor them and respect them and show them love and appreciation for the fact that they have strong beliefs. But Jesus rose from the dead and that trumps everything.

Question:

Answered on 04/12/06:

But I think that there is a balance there that needs to be addressed. I think that the Catholics do well to honor her, not as the mother of God, but rather as the mother of the human Jesus. God, the Holy Spirit gave birth to the God-ness, the God-hood of Jesus, but it was Mary that certainly gave birth and took care of him and loved him and raised him as he grew up.

So she should be honored. But not honored as a person beyond or above Jesus, and certainly not as somebody who is standing in the gap between us and God. The Bible says in 1 Timothy 4, there’s only one mediator between God and man, and that is Jesus Christ, the man, the Son of God. A lot of people end up worshipping Mary. And she’s not to be worshipped; she doesn’t want to be worshipped. She fell at the feet of Jesus and worshipped him at the cross. Okay, so she wants us—she does and Abraham does and Moses does and all of these great saints of the past, want us to worship Jesus, not them.

John the apostle, one of the greatest apostles of all time, has a book in the Bible called the Book of John, and he has three letters. And Mary doesn’t even have a book that she wrote that is canonized in Scripture. And yet, when John fell down before the angel, the angel said, “Worship Jesus, not me.” So John understood that we’re to worship Him. The disciples understood that we’re to worship Jesus. And Mary understood that we’re to worship Jesus. You honor Mary best by honoring Jesus as Lord and King, and the only mediator, the only intercessor between us and God, according to Hebrews chapter 7.

Question:

I have a work colleague who said me that Muslims, Jews, and Christians all worship the same God, the God of Abraham. I was wondering why God has three sets of rules, one for Christians, one for Jews, and one for Muslims. Instead of having three holy books, wouldn’t it be better to incorporate the cultures of all three of the people who worship Him into one holy book?

Answered on 04/12/06:

The Bible is clearly a historical book, not just a theological book. It is not just that it is religious beliefs but these are facts that Jesus really did rise from the dead, that Moses really did part the red sea, that Jesus really did cleanse the lepers, heal the sick and raise the dead and cast out demons. Jesus really did forgive the adulteress. Jesus really did deliver the woman who had been with a hemorrhage for 12 years who had spent all that she had to live on and she could not get well but only get worse and she touched the edge of His garment and was made whole. Jesus really did take five loves and 2 fish and multiply them.

The difference between Jesus of the Bible and the world's religions is that this Jesus is alive today. He is the same yesterday, today and forever. This is not a religious book that is a series of rules. It is a living testament; it is alive, it is active, it is powerful and it changes people's lives.

You see, the books of other religions can't change people's lives in a positive way. They can instill hatred; they can instill religious pride, religious jealousy, religious fervor and anger. But the book that can change you from being depressed to having joy, the book that can take you from being stressed to being at rest, the book that can take you from being a sinner to being saved, the book that can take you from being hateful to being loving, the book that can take you from being jealous to being kind and generous, the book that can take you from being fearful to being confident and full of love, that is the Bible.

And it changed my life. And if it can change my life, it can change yours as well. Take it from somebody Middle Eastern who could have easily become a radical fundamentalist Muslim. But I became a Christian because when the religions that came across to my world were available to me, there was one that truly touched my life, changed my life and set me free.

You see the reason why Christianity is the only religion in the world that people should follow is because it is not just a religion; it is a relationship with God, with a God that paid the price for our sins. Mohammed didn't do that. Even Abraham didn't do that. Only Jesus paid the price for our sins. I thank God for Abraham. I am sure Mohammad did a lot of good things. But the fact is that Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead. His blood was perfect, his blood was sinless and spilled for you and me so that our blood would not have to be spilled in order for us to be saved.

Some world's religions like the Muslim religion, believe you spill your own blood to be saved and go to heaven. But you can't because your blood isn't perfect. But Jesus' blood is pure, unstained by sin and when that blood was spilled, it created an entry way for you and me to go to heaven.

Question:

What is the Charismatic Movement, and is it a good or bad thing?

Answered on 04/12/06:

There’s been a swelling of this power of God and the gifts of God around the world, and there is no stopping it. Now, are there excesses? Yes. Are there people who have abused the gifts of the Spirit? Yes. Are there people who have used it to manipulate others? Yes. Are there people who have mishandled the gifts or misunderstood them or taught them incorrectly? Yes. Are there people who acted as if they were better than others because of the gifts? Yes. But you can’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. God gives us gifts because He loves us and because He wants to encourage us in as many ways as He possibly can.

I encourage you to be in a church that believes in that – not one that will shove it down your throat, but a church that encourages it. One that says, “We are not here to judge anybody that doesn’t speak in tongues or doesn’t operate in the gifts of the Spirit, but we want you to be in an environment where you can have and operate in those gifts without feeling like you are an outcast.” When everything is done in an atmosphere of love, people are going to receive the gifts of the Spirit. . . the power of God is going to continue to flow . . . and we are going to change this world.