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Image of a local church building, set in rural setting with
sunrise lighting and color. Image serves as a symbol,
representing the local community of Christian believers.
A good church is much like a family,
and there are believers in various stages of spiritual growth
and maturity, just as any family will have members at varying
age levels. Most church meetings will also include people
who have not yet surrendered to Christ, even though they may not
yet realize that fact.
It is not all that uncommon for a
man or woman that is involved in church activities to suddenly
realize the truth of the gospel, and to simultaneously recognize
that they have never been spiritually reborn. This happens
to Sunday school teachers, board members or other elders, and
even occasionally to a pastor. If the Scriptures are
presented in a faithful way, the Lord will continue to work in
people's lives, even if they have been religious all their
lives.
There is no perfect church just as
there is no perfect family. The men, women and young
people that make up a local congregation of believers face many
challenges in life and many temptations. Young make
mistakes and bad choices, from time to time. So do the
adults. A truly Christian family of believers will be
forgiving and accepting of any believer who confesses sin and
turns back to the Lord for help and healing.
People say and do things that hurt
the people around them, and unfortunately, Christians are not
immune to this shortcoming. As long as we follow the Lord,
we are just fine. But when we are filled mostly with self
instead of the Holy Spirit, we help to add to the pain in other
people's lives. One thing we must all learn to do as
Christians: forgive. Until we forgive, we are only adding
to the problems created by the sins of those who stumbled.
The above graphic may be used by Christian believers in various kinds of
personal witness, for church programs, and other Christian
activities. There is no charge for this use, so long as
the copyright/credit info is included with the image or a link
back to this site is provided.
To use the graphics on this site,
right click the image (Mac users hover the mouse cursor over the
image) and select the "Save As" or "Save Image As" and save the
file on your computer's hard drive. Images not saved to
your computer will not work properly (especially animated GIF
files), or will suffer broken links in a short time.
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