Excepted from God's Design for the Church by Conrad Mbewe
Just as it was so important for a clan or tribe to ensure that only those who qualify to be inheritors should be considered for the inheritance, it is even more important for the church. The church is the household of God - 1Timothy 3:15 It is wrong to have in church membership individuals who are not children of God.
Nonbelievers cannot be Church Members.
According to Ephesians 2:1-3 we can get at least five truths from this passage:
- They are spiritually dead.
- They are enslaved by the world.
- They are enslaved by the devil.
- They are enslaved by their sinful nature.
- They are under the wrath of God.
Church leaders should jealously guard the door into membership into the local church. Only those who have received the Gospel and have been baptised are to be added to the church - Acts 2:37-41
There are at least two basic tests:
- They should understand and respond to the gospel message.
No one becomes a Christian and still thinks that God accepts them on the basis of their own moral and religious efforts - They should testify of a morally changed life
They should be repentant. It is God who morally and spiritually changes their hearts.
1 Corinthians 6:9-11 - Is there evidence of changed life in you? Has God washed you, sanctified you and justified you in the name of the LORD Jesus Christ?
There are a lot of people who have a mental knowledge of the gospel because they have heard it over and over again but who are never experienced in a moral transformation. They know the truth intellectually, but they betray what they know by the wicked lives they live. Most of them conclude that the sermons calling for sinners to repent are for those who are visiting the church and not those already who are church members. They continue to live in sin, and the church gets more and more corrupted and scandalized.
