“Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful; and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another; and all the more as you see the day drawing near.” (Hebrews 10:23-25 NASB1995; see also Hebrews 3:13)

This is a passage of Scripture which is often misquoted and misused to try to shame people into being in attendance at a building called “church” once a week, on a Sunday morning, to sit in a pew, or in a chair, to listen to announcements, to sing “praise and worship” songs (chosen and lead by one person), and then to listen to a sermon, usually by the same person every week, with no one testing what is being taught to see if it is biblical, and then to go home and live a normal life until the next week of required attendance where you go through the same routine all over again.

Well, first off, “the church” is not a building that you go to every Sunday morning in order to go through this weekly routine while you live however you want the rest of the time. It is not a building nor is it a place you go to. The church is the body of Christ, the universal body of believers in Jesus Christ who have trusted in him to be Lord and Savior of their lives. By faith in Jesus Christ they have denied self, died to sin, and they are now living to please God in walks of obedience to his commands, in practice, although not necessarily in sinless perfection. But we should all be growing in our faith.

The gatherings of the church are to be daily in any appropriate location on any day of the week at any time of day or night, which does not have to be a physical location, but which can be on the internet, via a phone call, or via a video call or a text message or any other means of communication between brothers and sisters in Christ where we are gathering to share with one another biblical words of encouragement and exhortation so that none of us are hardened by sin’s deceitfulness, so we are not led astray by lies and liars, and so we help one another to mature in our walks of faith in Christ.

[Acts 2:14-18,42-47; Romans 12:1-8; 1 Corinthians 12:1-31; 1 Corinthians 14:1-5; Galatians 6:1; Ephesians 2:8-10; Ephesians 4:1-16; Ephesians 5:15-21; Ephesians 6:10-20; Philippians 2:1-8; Colossians 3:12-16; Titus 2:11-14; Hebrews 3:13; Hebrews 10:23-25; James 5:19-20]

For the whole purpose of us assembling together is not so that a small minority of people run the whole show while we sit as spectators taking in the show, while they let us sing a few pre-chosen songs, chosen by one person, and afterwards we all go home until the next week, and then repeat the same pattern. The whole purpose of us gathering together is for mutual encouragement and edification and teaching, to help one another to draw closer to the Lord in our walks of surrender to him. This is where we get to use our spiritual gifts in our assigned (by God) body parts, for God’s glory.

The church is also not a place of business incorporated under the state, partnered with the ungodly of the world, which God forbids. It is also not a business being marketed to the people of the world just like any other business, using secular marketing schemes for the purpose to attract the people of the world to your gatherings, which God also forbids. It is not a social club nor a civic center nor a place to hob-nob with the powerful and wealthy of the world in order to win friends and influence people. But this is what much of what is called “church” has turned out to be in our day.

And God is calling his children to come out from among her lest we take part in her sins and in her punishment, for God has remembered her iniquities. And he is commanding us to not be partnered with the ungodly and with their idols. And then God will be our God and we shall be his people when we go out from among those whose worship is of idols and of men, who have turned the church into a marketplace partnered with the world rather than to serve God only and to do what he says. And we are to meet with the body of Christ for mutual encouragement and edification, and not just once a week.

[Matthew 21:12-13; John 2:13-17; Acts 5:27-32; 1 Corinthians 1:10-13; 1 Corinthians 3:1-9; 2 Corinthians 6:14-18; Philippians 3:18-19; Revelation 2:1-29; Revelation 3:1-22; Revelation 13:5-8; Revelation 18:1-5]

The Train

An Original Work / July 17, 2011
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love

The train is coming down the tracks.
It captures all who in faith lack.
The engine is controlled by man;
Leads each captive to ruin.

The cars, they are God’s holy church,
Which follows men who are on the search
To trap the church in their own snare;
For Christ they do not care.

The track, it leads to God’s judgment
For those who are not repentant,
But follow, each his own stubborn way,
And Jesus they do not obey.

So God is calling to His bride
To turn from sin and in Christ abide;
Stop placing their trust solely in man;
Trust Christ for His forgiveness.

Institutional Religion
An Original Work / February 12, 2026
Christ’s Free Servant, Sue J Love