God bless!

                Isn't it interesting how though religion is supposed to be all about unity for the most part it is more separated than the world itself? How is it that we can walk down a city block and count up to 10 churches on that one block? Who decided that there was different denominations and different interpretations? Who took it upon themselves to start "something new"? how is it that we can see people from a church in our neighborhood and we try to avoid them because they "don't go to my church!" When did the Messiah come down and speak to a particular individual differently than He has to us all? When did people start getting sick because they left one church and went to another? When did God start punishing people because they went to a concert to see a Christian artist? As you can see I'm very passionate about this subject because to me it is man that has manipulated all of these "feelings" . Are we are such blank canvases that instead of reading the Bible we take what is said by our leaders as gospel?

                Please don't misunderstand my tirade as a reason to rebel against your leadership (unless they are spewing this garbage into your head of course). We were formed to select church membership based on variables such as location, language, sound doctrine, demographics and ultimately relationships. In other words as long as they are not preaching anti-biblical doctrine or living outrageously sinful you are good. I say outrageously sinful because in case we were not aware, all of us Sin (including you), we just have to be weary of situations where people don't want to change but rather sit in Sin. In the verse from today we see how the disciples actually stopped people from doing the work of the Lord because they were not "one of them". Really? What made them different? Why do we look at certain Christians and judge them for where they go? Does this make us feel better about our own sin? I want to be clear with one thing "if we have accepted Jesus as our Lord and Savior then we are Christians", this doesn't mean we are Sinless we all make mistakes but it does mean that the Jesus's Blood accounts for all of our sins (not just us at NBMI). The moral of the story today is we have to begin to be "United" by the blood rather than the name of a church. Let's get over ourselves and realize that it's not about our ministry but about the ministry that Jesus established.

Shaking my head at us all!

Pastor Joell A. Perez

P.S. this is very much experience speaking today as I have sat on both sides of this issue J

Mark 9:38 "Teacher," said John, "we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us."