Dineo Nguwazi Lebata: Multiplicity Of Churches And Falsehood! [OPINION]

I was talking to my good friend Steph the other day. We were talking about how in our current day there seems to be so much heresy out there that it is hard to keep up with it anymore. No sooner did I get off the phone with her did I get onto Facebook and notice that some congregants of a local church had a brand new way of suckering people into their fellowship.

First off, let me say that I know that there are many reasons to leave a church. Oft time we hope that we will find the church that is tailor made for our needs and we never seem to find that church. One of the problems with that is that we go to churches looking for ways that the church can meet our needs when all along we should be going there to meet the needs of others. We often go to church to find a godly pastor. Believe it or not, there are good men out there who are as godly as one can get and the good ones acknowledge that it is God that makes them righteous. There are a few pastors who are humble and contrite.

However, on the flip-side of the coin, there are many pastors who are into their “calling” for capital gain or to see who can build the biggest church in their town. To put it frankly, many pastors are in their field to build quantity instead of seeking quality. So, there are those who have attended churches like I've mentioned above who have faltered for the reasons that I have stated above or for any other number of misguided ways. Most people who have quit going to church are what we call, “once bitten, twice shy,” and they have been disappointed by what they have seen in churches and as far as they are concerned, they don’t want to see more hypocrites and fake testimonies. These people are right in assigning that label to many Christians and churches. I've been burned so many times myself that I have quit numbering the times. I’ll have friends from the past call or write and ask me if I remember a particular circumstance or transgression that a particular pastor or church have committed and I am having a hard time remembering them anymore.

I was one of those people; the ones that refused to go back to church. I’d seen it all; the lying, cheating, the theft, the adultery, the fornication and those who are outright false shepherds sent from the enemy of God out to enrich their pockets at the expense of their gullible followers. 

For a period of five years I refused to attend church because I was fifteen times bitten, sixteen times shy, so to speak. I had enough. For those of you who have been burned once or twice, you really are novices. I've been burned numerous times and I've even been kicked out of churches. Believe it or not, I was even excommunicated from the Assemblies of God, simply because I asked questions about improprieties that was obviously happening under the noses, that is everyone was pretending not to notice. So if anyone dare say that I don’t know what I am talking about I would say that I can bet the whole pot and know that you would lose all of your chips because I am some sort of king when it comes to seeing awful pastors, parishioners and being rejected and written off as dead by supposed “good meaning Christians.”

The thing is that after a while God would show me that I was being unreasonable. He showed me that I was expecting Christians to live up to pure holiness and righteousness when that was impossible. Nobody is completely holy or righteous except God. I tend to be a perfectionist that realizes that I cannot possibly be perfect, but I often tend to try anyway, realizing my limitations. I expected others to live up to the personal goals that I set up for myself and when they failed, they were to blame. But NO, I was the one to blame because I was looking up to men instead of realizing the frailty of men whereas I should have been keeping my eyes on God, the author and finisher of MY faith. I was to blame as much, and probably more than the people I was blaming for the folly that I saw in the Church.

Now here’s the deal. When you have a genuine conversion in God through faith in God, you develop the ability to hear from God. If you are truly His, and He wants you to attend a Church then he will work on you while you are not attending. I had to go through a period of sliding back in order for Him to reveal to me that I needed to fellowship with His believers, no matter what they were like. My period of time away from fellowship wasn't great. Looking in retrospect, I was not a good person; I was miserable. I became self-righteous and thought that I was too good for most churches and my big mistake was that I thought I could survive alone. But, as I mentioned above; God finally broke through the varnish that I had painted on myself and he led me back to fellowship with Him and with other believers.

So, why did I say all of that. Okay, here it goes. Well, first let me say that I’ll sure be glad when God comes back and bring a right mind to His Church. I am getting soooo (misspelled intentionally) tired of seeing the perversions of His Word; the contortions of Scripture and the blatant lying that goes on between believers. I’m tired of seeing the false shepherds and the false prophets. I know that these people are a sign of the times and such. I think that bothers me the most and really wearies me is when people like me, who try to help people back to the straight path; when we are maligned, called liars, judgmental, lacking love and other number of titles that are bestowed on the watchmen of the current age. My flesh would just love to respond to these people that I just didn't care anymore; that if they want to disobey God and suffer the consequences I just release them to that fate.

However, when you love people, you just can’t do that and when you have a commission as a watchman you have to warn people, even right up to the time when the enemy thrusts the sword. To hear the words, “you’re being judgmental, leave me alone,” really rends the heart. To watch loved ones fall by the sword because they would not allow you to throw them a shield is truly heartbreaking.

Hopefully we all meet at the HEAVENLY ALTAR. SHALOM!

 *written by Dineo Nguwazi Lebata