Even as a young child, God was working with me, putting HIS truths into my heart on various subjects.
One morning, I awoke and heard my mother speaking with my aunt.
My mother was telling my aunt about my dad's first wife.
I was devastated to hear this for I knew it was wrong to divorce and remarry!
How did I know this? We didn't attend any church. I'd never heard these scriptures.
But I knew, even from an elementary school age.
I believe it is the following happening:
Hebrews 8:10 For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
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From early childhood, when we would visit my aunt in another city, I would go to church with her, at Church of Christ.
I recalled very seriously considering that which they called communion or "The Lord's Supper."
They must have told me I could not partake of this when they passed the tray of crackers and then the tray of individual small "cups" of grape juice. But I very carefully watched my aunt as she took these. She was very somber.
I wondered very much at one thing. They taught you must "examine yourself" before you partook of the cracker and grape juice.
How do you do this? I wondered.
(I was probably about 7 or 8 years old as I thought about these things.)
When I was approximately 15-years-old, I went forward at Church of Christ and was baptized.
Now I could partake of the bit of cracker and the grape juice.
But I still wondered how I was to "examine myself" before doing this.
After I was truly born again, when I was approximately 37-years-old, God began teaching me the truth about "The Lord's Supper."
Paul says:
I Corinthians 11:28 But let a man examine himself (by the Word of God), and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup. (examining himself by the Bible)
Eating and drinking the word of God is the Lord's supper.
We examine ourselves by the Word of God as we hear the Word of God or as we read the Bible, applying that Word in an appropriate way, making changes to our lives as needed.
(The Lord's Supper has absolutely nothing to do with the partaking of crackers and grape juice. These are just fleshly ways set up by fleshly religious men and copied by other fleshly religious men for their church gatherings.)
The partaking of the Word of God is The Lord's Supper.
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Knowing this, how could I go to one of these churches and eat that bite of cracker and drink that grape juice?
I can't.
So this eliminates almost every church group that meets today.
Of course I would tell them what God has shown me about "The Lord's Supper", if I was there and if there was opportunity. But if I do go to a church group, it is never for any reason other than to meet with the group as the church, with a pure heart. I would never go expecting to see wrong doing in the church.
Two or three years before I left Texas, a man told me of a church group he thought I would enjoy.
I certainly had hope of this, so I called to speak with the pastor.
I got a recorded message telling the following:
* Time of services:
8 a.m. Bible Study
9 a.m. The Lord's Supper
10 a.m. Worship
(I just hung up the phone.)
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