In the natural, the pendulum of a clock swings back and forth continually because it is under the influence of a power source, be it a wound spring or an electrical motor.  In the spiritual, a young Christian swinging to and fro on an issue/doctrine can be caused by the influence of a an authority figure, a denominational slant, a charismatic person, or just a stubborn will.  But as we said, the believer should not fluctuate in such a manner; for he/she has been given the Holy Spirit to lead them into all truth.  By the way, It is easy to distinuish a believer who studies the Word in the Spirit as opposed to one who swings to and fro: i.e., the one who relies upon the Holy Spirit for truth posses a peaceful spirit and a sound mind, and he or she does not function from a critical spirit.  When there is a need to correct another, it is done in the spirit of love, being concerned more for the errant brother than for the defense of some spiritual dogma.

We'll begin this WRAP with a brief observation by B'Ann and then, because it is a lenthy WRAP, I will insert my comments between Tim's.  I will use a different color font for my thoughts.

When the Lord Jesus Christ says something, we ought to listen attentively, carefully, and with a heart to obey. When He sees fit to say it several times, we really ought to yearn to receive it. Jesus gives us this teaching at least two or three times throughout the gospels.

"He who finds his life shall lose it. And he who loses his life for My sake shall find it." (Matthew 10:39)

"For whoever desires to save his life shall lose it, and whoever desires to lose his life for My sake shall find it." (Matthew 16:25)

"For whoever will save his life shall lose it; but whoever shall lose his life for My sake and the gospel's, he shall save it." (Mark 8:35)

"For whoever will save his life shall lose it, but whoever will lose his life for My sake, he shall save it." (Luke 9:24)

"Whoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it, and whoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." (Luke 17:33)

"He who loves his life shall lose it. And he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal." (John 12:25)

We must ask ourselves, what does He mean to "lose our lives" so that we may "find it, save it, preserve it, keep it"? Well, it seems pretty obvious that the "find it, save it, preserve it, keep it" means that IF we lose our lives, we will enter into, and abide in, eternal life - John 12:25 makes that clear. So we are left at trying to understand His teaching that we must "lose our lives" in order to find Life in Him.

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Galatians 4:
1: Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
2: But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
3: Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:
4: But when the fullness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law,
5: To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
6: And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father.
7: Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son,then an heir of God through Christ.
8: Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods.
9: But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?

Lest we do the word "if" a disservice, let's look at the way the Apostle Paul used it in his letter to the Romans.   As we look at the passage that contains it, note that Paul is addressing the same Jews that Jesus came to seek and save, only from this side of the Day of Pentecost.    (See Acts 2.)

1: Brethren, my heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.
2: For I bear them record that they have a zeal of god, but not according to knowledge.
3: For they being ignorant of God's righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God.
4: For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
5: For Moses describeth the righteousness which is of the law, That the man which doeth those things shall live by them.
6: But the righteousness which is of faith speaketh on this wise, Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is, to bring Christ down from above:)
7: Or, Who shall descend into the deep? (that is, to bring up Christ again from the dead.)
8: But what saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth,and in thy heart: that is, the word of faith, which we preach;
9: That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

Mark 9:23 Jesus said unto him, If thou canst believe, all things [are] possible to him that believeth.

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The Lord has been revealing much to my heart as of late, as I have felt like "Christian" in Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress, as they near the celestial city, but must pass through the enchanted forest, where the sleep will swallow and destroy them. I have grown weary because I have been unwilling to receive greater revelation from Jesus. As I have endeavored to follow after Jesus in the past few years, I have realized that I cannot partake in the apostasying thing that calls itself by many labels - evangelical, pentecostal, baptist, fundamentalist, churchianity… I am not welcomed there, and I pray it is because I want the Real Jesus to reign over and lead the people. The horrible truth is that the Real Jesus is not welcomed there (Rev. 3:20). Thus is it a surprise that His servants are not welcomed there either?

Since I have not been received by the churchianity organizations, I have been walking with Jesus alone for some time now, and what a blessing that has been! I pray I will always cherish these days, for they have been the days of no one to lean on but Jesus, and thus I have been able to take His yoke, instead of the traditions of men. The Lord has been able to teach me some very important things during this time - like growing in simple obedience to Him, and a longing for Him to fix all that is wrong (including my own sin) since I cannot do it in my own strength. I have learned that I must be willing to follow Jesus, no matter what, and that no person can follow Jesus for me.

So, here I am, unable to join the churchianity system (for that would be sin), yet hearing the Lord's voice to move forward and to love His remnant sons and daughters, and in so doing, be a light to the perishing (John 13:34-35). And my heart has been quietly asking the Lord, 'how Lord, can I serve you "full time" without any financial support from the brethren'? I am finally able to hear the Lord's answer to my fearful heart. It has been there all along, since I met Him some twelve years ago, but I could not receive it. I tried it in my own strength, and according to the traditions of men, but that failed, praise Him!
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If it is any comfort, you are not alone in your experiences with the denominational heirarchy set up by man.

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Here is His answer to all those who profess to be His disciples. Listen to the Master's Words in Matt. 6:24-34:

"No one can serve two masters. For either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon. (25) Therefore I say to you, Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat, or what you shall drink; nor for your body, what you shall put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? (26) Behold the birds of the air; for they sow not, nor do they reap, nor gather into barns. Yet your heavenly Father feeds them; are you not much better than they are? (27) Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to his stature? (28) And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They do not toil, nor do they spin, (29) but I say to you that even Solomon in his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (30) Therefore if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much rather clothe you, little-faiths? (31) Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, With what shall we be clothed? (32) For the nations seek after all these things. For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. (33) but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness; and all these things shall be added to you. (34) Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow shall be anxious for its own things. Sufficient to the day is the evil of it."

Perhaps the most important word in the Lord's answer to me and to all who are seeking Him with all their heart, is found at the beginning of verse 25. It is the word, "therefore". You see, dear brethren, that word "therefore" is a connective word that connects the truth in verse 24 to the truths following verse 24. And what does He say in verse 24? He plainly says, "you cannot serve God and mammon." For those unaware, the word "mammon" means wealth or material things - it encompasses money and the material things money can buy. So, the Son of God says that His disciples cannot serve both God and mammon. In contemporary words, His disciples cannot have two employers or bosses - we will either be working for God and His Kingdom (those eternal things which do not spoil), OR we will be working for the mammon system of the world (that which perishes).

Don't let Satan's voice place fear in your heart as he says, "so, you think you can survive in this world by just working for God? Hah, you'll be out on the street in a matter of weeks, starving and destitute. You need to be properly trained and educated (see "Are Seminaries Biblical?" at http://www.John14-6..org/education-olotry.htm ), or you need to continue to spend 40+ hours per week working for my world's employers so that you can have the material things that you 'need'". Who re we going to listen to, Satan or Jesus? I pray we will listen to Jesus, because He follows this potentially fearful truth in verse 24 with the promises after the word, "therefore", in verses 25 and following. Don't you see dear brethren? He gave all the 'don't worry about material things' teachings right after He gave the truth that we must choose who we will be completely devoted to, God or mammon (Satan's greatest false god), for He plainly says we cannot serve both.

Now, the more subtle attack to the truth revealed above will come from your Christian leaders or friends. They will say, "oh, it’s a spiritual truth only, it does not mean that all Jesus' disciples have to work full time for God. It just means that you must not love money. You can spend the majority of your waking hours working for the world and for mammon, just love God in the process, and support the pastor or leaders, who are the ones called to work for God full time." Dear brethren, here is the heart of the clergy-laity system. It is the lie that Jesus' commands apply only to a select few, and the rest of His sheep can ignore those of His commands that interfere with our loving the world and the things of the world. Those leaders in the churchianity system are only too eager to have you support their vocation, and thus to feed their pride. In return, they promise to assure you that you are following Jesus. But are we? He says that we must "lose our lives" or else we will not find the eternal life we so desire. He says that we must "forsake all" in order to be His disciples (Luke 14:33). Yes, we are saved and sanctified by grace, through faith (Eph. 2:8-9; Acts 26:18), but that faith must work, or else it is proved to be intellectual assent only, and thus will not justify us (James 2:24). Dare we pick and choose which commands of the Lord we will follow, and which ones we will not? Dare we invent fancy, complex intellectual theories under the guise of "sound theology", which theories nullify the commands of Jesus?

Some will say, 'Oh, but there are special giftings and callings, like those listed in Eph. 4:11'. Yes, but does a few disciples having those giftings or callings nullify Jesus' commands for His other disciples? Asked another way, because some sheep have a different function in His body, means that the vast majority of His other sheep need not follow His voice? It is lies like this that prevent the true body of Christ from forming and manifesting real churches/communities/families that are full of His Life, and thus a true light to the nations. It is the clergy-laity lie that prevents the called out ones from truly coming out of the world and truly coming into Jesus' family - to walk after Him together as His family of servants, truly living in community to agape one another and to serve Him with all we've got. It is the clergy-laity lie and all the principles therein (along with an unwillingness to stop serving mammon), that stands between churchianity and its organizations, and the called out ones living in community as Jesus' family.

The same clergy-laity lie is used with Jesus' command to His disciples to "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…". We are told that the "great commission" only applies to "missionaries", and not all of His disciples. What a sad perversion, as the world all around us perishes while we wait for others to obey His commands. Or worse, we pay others to obey Jesus for us. No, let us rather each obey Jesus, and support each other as we lose our lives for His sake.

I am sure many will raise objections to the truths uncovered in God's Word contained in this article. The problem is that we have read into the Scripture what we have been taught and experienced - namely the traditions of men and churchianity. For example, in Acts 6:2, we have had in our mind the apostles working at some restaurant, instead of serving the saints at the community eating house. If we would just look a little closer, 6:1 would make it plain that it was among the believing community. Another objection will be passages like Col. 3:22-24, which we have always been told applies to the present day employer-employee situation. But that simply is not so, because it applies to "bondservants" which were people who were owned by a master. We, by God's grace, are not owned by our employers, but rather are free to choose who we will serve. Paul makes clear elsewhere that if a bond slave can be made free, that he ought to do so and "rather use it" to serve the Lord (1 Cor. 7:21). We must not twist Paul's teachings in order to nullify Jesus' teachings - they teach the same things, if we will just believe with child-like faith and not look to hold onto anything in this world. Instead of using Paul's teachings to nullify Jesus' teachings, let us live lives that look like Paul's, in as much as he was a reflection of Jesus' life.

Back to Matthew 6. Jesus drives home the plain truth of verse 24, in verse 33, where He plainly says, "But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." He commands that we "seek first the kingdom of God". We must examine our lives and answer the question, how much of my time, resources and energy is spent obeying Jesus' plain commands to go, preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations? On the other hand, how much of my time, resources and energy is spent working for the mammon system - the world's employers making more widgets that will perish? Which is truly "first"? Is "seeking" only a mental exercise that I fit into my worldly schedule, or does it entail action and obedience to His commands - commands like "go, preach the gospel, make disciples"?

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Herein lies another problem with your understanding.  Before, you erred because you did not interpret the Scriptures in context.  Now, you err because you do not apply all of the Scriptures dealing with the subject you are addressing.  It seems that you would have all who have been born again quiting their jobs and going on the streets for Jesus, or some such.  What about the following Scriptures?

I Timothy 5:8
But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is
worse than an infidel.

I Corinthians 7:
20: Let every man abide in the same calling wherein he was called.
21: Art thou called being a servant? care not for it: but if thou mayest be made free, use it rather.
22: For he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman: likewise also he that is called, being free, is Christ's servant.
23: Ye are bought with a price; be not ye the servants of men.
24: Brethren, let every man, wherein he is called, therein abide with God.

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Let us approach this critical truth from a different perspective. The question we must ask ourselves is, do our lives look truly different since we were called by Jesus to follow Him? Have we left our nets and all other things to follow after Him (Acts 1-8)? Or are we still fishing for fish (John 21:3) - even after our first meeting the Master and trying to follow Him in our own strength (Matt. 19:27; 26:74-75) - due to our unbelief? Perhaps we have not let the Holy Spirit have His way in our lives, and thus we have not let Him empower us to live and speak as our Master commands? Perhaps the Jesus we were first introduced to in churchianity was not the Real Jesus, but rather a "good" counterfeit? Well, are we pressing forward in the faith, and finding the Real Jesus, and starting to truly consider ALL His commands? Are we willing to "go forth to Him, outside the camp (at this time in redemptive history, the unclean thing which I and many others call churchianity), bearing His reproach"? (Heb. 13:13)

Are we a holy nation, a royal priesthood, the called out ones (church), Jesus' family of servants, shining His bright light to a perishing world? Have we truly entered into a new creation life (2 Cor. 5:17)? If we look at our unbelieving neighbors, are our actions and words (our lives) TRULY, measurably, visibly different? Or is our faith actually only a matter of head knowledge and a little higher morality? Is our faith a matter of fitting in with others who remain in the world (looking for a version of churchianity with which we share the most intellectual/doctrinal agreement), or is it an all consuming passion to follow after Jesus Christ no matter what the cost? Do we continue to seek after the Lord primarily through the intellect, or are we humbling ourselves and seeking to obey His commands as a little child, from a pure heart (one that is washed by ALL of His Word)?

Oh, brethren, we must fear lest we fall asleep, or have fallen asleep (Matt. 25:1-12). The world IS growing more wicked and the "church" IS growing more deceitful by the hour. We are entering into those last days times where we must be willing to receive the love of the truth (2 Thess. 2:10-12), or be caught in the terrible tide that will sweep so many away into outer darkness. Jesus says plainly, that we are not of the world, and thus the world will hate us (John 15:19-20). The apostle Paul says the same thing in 2 Tim. 3:12, and that verse is followed by, "But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived". As we read the New Testament we see that the persecution was always the worst from the existing religious establishment. Nothing has changed if we have eyes to see, and hearts to speak the truth in love. Jesus commands, "Do not labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him" (John 6:27). Do we dare equivocate with the plain command of "do not labor for the food which perishes"? Exactly what type of food are we laboring for, for 40+ hours per week? He tells us in Matt. 6 that we cannot serve both God and mammon. He tells us here to not work for material things. He tells us, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth…" (Matt. 6:19). Are our deceitful hearts saying, "oh, Lord, I'm not laying up treasure, I'm just trying to provide well for my family" (see "Mis-Focused on the Family" at http://www.John14-6.org/familyolotry.htm ); or, "oh, Lord, I'm not laying up treasure because I barely have enough to get by on right now". But, dear person, what are you laboring FOR? We are commanded by the Lord of glory to neither store up NOR labor for mammon.

I will close with these glorious words of the Savior of the world.

Luke 12:32-34, "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. (33) Sell what you have and give alms. Make for yourselves purses which do not become old, an unfailing treasure in Heaven, where no thief comes nor moth corrupts. (34) For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

Once again, He surrounds His call to leave the world's mammon system - and instead to work for, and trust in His provisions - with a command to not worry about it, and a promise that He will give us the kingdom of God. Oh dear saints, can we not hear His Words? We must step out in faith, and we must do so clinging to Him and to His promises. Let us obey all His commands, even the ones we cannot fully understand. Let us sell and walk away from those possessions which are keeping us back from obeying Him and from serving Him with all our time and resources. What more of a glorious and gracious comfort and promise can He give us than, "Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom."?

"He who loves his life shall lose it. And he who hates his life in this world shall keep it to life eternal."

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I'm trying to figure out why you are purposely ignoring the many Scriptures dealing with "full-time calls" that God puts upon individuals. 

Also, as to the support of your "ministry" (It appears that you feel you have a "call" from God.), when B'Ann and I began our ministry in earnest, the Lord laid upon our hearts Paul's word to the Corinthians. 

I Cor. 4:
10: We are fools for Christ's sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honourable, but we are despised.
11: Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwellingplace;
12: And labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:

It is good that you can see the problem of the individual believers falling into the snare of hiring "professional workers" to witness and to do the work of the church in their stead.  We were never told that we could hire a person to do God's work for us.  Each of us that are genuinely born again have a specific and unique call that no one else can do. 

One more thing.  It is not uncommon for believers to try to "live by the Word," whipping it upon themselves--and anyone else that will listen-- ignoring these Words of Paul by doing so.

II Cor. 3:
1: Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you?
2: Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men:
3: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.
4: And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward:
5: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
6: Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.

It is our prayer that the Lord will show you whatever it is that has your pendulum wound so tight. 

p.s.

You might profit from a new study of the word "cross" with the following approach.  Put the word "cross" into one of the on-line Study Bibles found on our site.  Observe "when" the word cross  was spoken (i.e., under the dispensation of the law or of grace), too whom, and in what context.  Then do the same with the words "crucify" and "crucified."  Note as you do, Matthew 23:34: