By Agbbortem
I was born in a Presbyterian family, went to a Presbyterian school, was baptised as a Presbyterian but now I am a Catholic. I was born a Catholic, grew up as a Catholic and became a Baptist Christian when I got married to my husband. I use to be a Catholic until the day I discovered that the Catholic Church does not teach the truth. We hear stories like this in our day to day discussion and nowadays moving from one denomination to another has become the talk of the day. This is known as Religious re-affiliation.
Religious re-affiliation refers to the change of a person from one denomination to another within the same faith. Examples of religious re-affiliation include switching from being a Catholic to Methodist (within Christianity) or from Sunni to Shiite (within Islam).
Religious re-affiliation has become the talk of the day despite its numerous consequences to the religious world. Much is said of men than Christ himself who is the founder of the church. Some even claim one church is better than the other and do go out looking for people to join their churches in the name of evangelisation.
Many denominations are created today because of this practice: if these denominations where without members, they would have ceased to exist. The embarrassing fact is that 60% of those involved in this practice are Catholic Christians. Why are people moving from one church to another and what are they searching for?
Lack of proper Christian Foundation: Everything we do depends on the foundation. As a house is strong and can last longer because of it foundation; so too the Christian life is strong because of its foundation. Many of us are Christians not because of our own personal convictions and believes but because of reasons that do not really reflect the Christian faith. This is what happened to Jesus’ audience in the Gospel of John chapters 5 and 6. They were following him without a proper foundation. Yet when he gave them the true teachings of faith, they saw it as being too strong to believe and had to go other ways. The apostles remained because of their Christian foundation. To be a Christian is not be born from a Christian family, it is a personal decision in total conviction and believe. It is to search and discover Christ in the word of God through the Bible. To be born from a Christian family is good but one must go beyond family to personal engagement in his Christian life. A Christian is not a follower of people but Christ who is the author of faith. (Hebrews 12:2). Why am I a Christian?
The apostles faced this same situation when Christ was crucified. The Bible tells us that they all abandoned Christ and some where even planning to go back to their various homes. A Christian with a stronger foundation is one who has discovered Christ in his life and can really boast of Christ as the apostles did after Pentecost. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God continually gives us the grace to know him and learn from him the true road to follow. If you are a Christian with a strong Christian foundation that is based on Christ, you will not be moving from one church to another in the name of searching for the light.
Steadfastness to God: To be a Christian is to be faithful to God but unfortunately this is not what we see in the Christian world today. Christians are moved by the wind of the world instead of being faithful to God and being patient for his goodness. Religious re-affiliation is often because of lack of faith. That is, Christians move from one church to another in search of solutions to their respective problems. In this case they no longer rely on God but on the people who are leaders of these churches. This makes them even more vulnerable to the devil. They become the devils market place. If truly you have faith in God, you will understand that salvation whatsoever does not come from man but from God. Instead of moving from one church to another because you are looking for something particular from God stay where you are and worship God there in patience and perseverance and you will have you prayers answered.
Some people because of a particular sickness know all the churches prayer programs of this country and even out of the country. They can tell when there is healing and deliverance in which church and which pastor is officiating. This is lack of faith in God.
There are many reasons that motivate religious re-affiliation but those mentioned above are the key reasons to this practice and if you are in any of these situations, then you have to watch out, for false prophets are out there looking for people to die with them and pretending to be God sent. Beware of false prophets and churches.
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