Finding a Church as a New Believer (331) - January 3 2026

It is very important for those newly saved to be able to find a church to continue to grow in Christ. In some of today's churches there seems to be a charge for joining a discipleship group. A charge or collection for healing, deliverance, prophecy. Inside some churches, coffee, books, food are being sold. So much is about sales and making money. A new believer must think the church looks more like a place of business than a house of worship unto the Lord. If Jesus turned over tables in the church for selling when He was alive, he definitely would turn them over today. What must God think of sending His Son here to die, and see people now charging for deliverance and healing?
 
 -What should believers see and be discipled at Church.
 -What are new believers finding in some ministries today?
 -What is the Truth, the Way to Jesus, the Life to live?
 -Eliminating confusion about the Truth as a believer.
 -Comparing what is done in some churches, versus what is in the Bible.
 
This program covers the following Scriptures from the Amplified Classic version (AMPC): Mark 16:15-16, John 1:1-3, John 14:6, Exodus 20:15, Matthew 10:8, Matthew 18:6-7, Matthew 10:7-8, Romans 12:2, James 1:22, Matthew 21:12-13, Titus 3:5, Romans 11:5-6.

Transcript

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(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai. Go Unlimited to remove this message.) And welcome back to yet another episode of Touch of God. My name is Catrice. I'll be bringing the message for you today. We'll be talking about finding a church as a new believer. But first, we're just going to review what we spoke about last week. Last week on At Christmas, What is Important, we touched on that we must focus on the things that really matter and leave the images on social media where they belong, on social media. The truth is, the world you see on social media is not real. When we follow the things of the world, it produces fruit from the world. Because the focus is self-love and things, money, power, vanity, selfies, and trying to create an image after the world's self-indulgence. The following of world images causing some people to buy out of control, to maintain an image, trying to appear a certain way. Remember, the grass and flowers shall fade, but the word remains the same. We can't take makeup, cars, clothes to heaven or to hell. Your choice. This season, come out from what the world is telling you to celebrate and celebrate real life abundantly. Last week's topics were Christmas, the way the world wants you to live according to the desires of the flesh, spiritual cycles of bondage that increase around Christmastime, Christmas life in balance and not through addiction and temptation, Christmas living life according to the spirit, and lastly, thankfulness. This week on finding a church as a new believer, for those unsaved, pursuing Jesus, thinking about Jesus, newly saved, already saved, Jesus is returning for a bride without spot or wrinkle. Some of the world-based churches have been collecting money for God's free gift of life. Now, I want to put an emphasis on some of the churches today have been doing this, not all, but some of them. Some of them charge for preaching, they charge for healing, charge for deliverance sessions, charge for discipleship disguised as helping the body of believers. Believers not wanting to live by the Bible get caught up in paying for salvation. Sadly, if they read their Bible, they would know the gift of God is by grace and salvation. Healing deliverance are free from God. Many times offerings are taken up for healing salvation deliverance or a word of prophecy. This is not why Jesus died. This has left some believers unequipped for these current times we are in. Without the truth, some believers do not know they are to walk in authority that Jesus gave. This week's topics, what should believers see and be discipled in from the church ministries? What are new believers finding in some ministries today? What is the truth, the way to Jesus, the life to live? Eliminating confusion about the truth as a believer. And lastly, comparing what is done in some churches versus what is in the Bible. Again, before we go forward, I do want to emphasize a disclaimer. This is some churches and not all of the churches. And the point of this message is for you to be wise as you're looking for a new church, as a new believer or for anyone that you are equipped with knowing the difference so you won't be led astray. Amen. What should believers see and be discipled in from the church ministries today? Let's go to Mark 16, verse 15 to 16. And he said to them, go into all the world. So this is Jesus speaking to his disciples. And he said to them, go into all the world and preach and publish openly the good news, the gospel to every creature of the whole human race. He who believes, who adheres to and trust in and relies on the gospel and him who it sets forth and is baptized will be saved from the penalty of eternal death. But he who does not believe, who does not adhere to and trust in and rely on the gospel and him who it sets forth will be condemned. Let's continue in Mark 16, verse 17. And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe. This is the authority that Jesus died for you to walk in. In my name, this is continuing with the verse, Mark 16, verse 17. In my name, they will drive out demons. They will speak in new languages. They will pick up serpents. And even if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them. They will lay their hands on the sick and they will get well. Let's look at what are new believers finding in some ministries today. So we just discussed the authority that Jesus left us as believers and as disciples of Christ. But let's look at what is being found in the ministries today. Well, it's story time. And so we're going to go ahead and tell you a story. And again, I'm going to emphasize this is only some of the ministries. It's not every last ministry, but this is some of the ministries. This is a story. A young girl had just gotten saved by a street evangelist. Afterwards, the evangelist told her to start going to church and reading her Bible daily and praying daily. He advised that if she could find a church family immediately, that she could go on social media. If she couldn't find that church family to actually go to a church, that it was okay to find some online. If she looked at social media, the young girl was so excited to hear a sermon preached. She immediately went home to go on social media. When she started looking, she came across some ministries that her friend had recommended and had mentioned. She really wanted to immediately be discipled, pray for others, and tell people about Jesus. On some social media ministries, there was a monthly cost to join. On some of the ministries, in order to be discipled or ministered to, there was a cost. She did not have money to pay to attend church service online. She decided to skip that particular site for watching or reviewing church online. She did not know that it costs to hear the message of God. She found a ministry page that was not charging for their group. Once she started listening to that ministry page regularly, she wanted to become mentored or discipled by them. She was told to look up their page online and notice that there was a fee to join the discipleship mentoring group. She became discouraged because she really wanted to be mentored and discipled and learn about Christ. She also wanted to be delivered, but that group also had a price, which was a very high price. Almost 10 times the amount that anyone should ever even pay to go through deliverance. And that was only for one session online. Another church charging enormous fees for discipleship camp. She was told that's the cost to pay the speakers that come. She simply had no words after hearing this. Many social media ministries had a join button, which had a fee. This is just simply what she saw from the perspective of a new believer. Once you join the first level of joining, there were additional buttons for each level of discipleship. Again, she had no words and was determined to find God. So it looks like there was a fee to just be discipled, but then once you got into the discipleship group, there were different levels and each level, there was a higher fee attached to that. She was told if you want God to move big, you have to give big. That Sunday, she decided to go to see what the church had to offer in person. When she entered the church, they immediately had a coffee bar or a coffee stand. With snacks and were selling books for sale. There was a selfie corner, which was not far behind to take pictures. If somebody wanted to take pictures of themselves, she thought, what does the selfie have to do with Jesus? Why are they selling coffee and books? She went into the main seating area to get ready to hear the sermon. She thought this is the best part. The worship music came on and it was like a large production. There were dancers and singers. Bright lights were everywhere. It reminded her of the life she used to have when she went to go out and party with her friends. She was concerned because the worship did not remind her of Jesus. The name of Jesus was never said. The music had no scripture. It was okay, but did not leave her to reflect upon all that Jesus had done for her. She could not wait for the sermon. All she could think about was the street evangelist who had told her about Jesus. She wanted to hear more about Jesus and what he had done for her. It was Mother's Day that particular Sunday, and it seemed the main minister was excited about talking to the mothers and women who wanted to be mothers. They spoke around 40 minutes about mother appreciation and handed out flowers. That was nice. Then the minister spent 10 minutes talking about their new book that came out and how everyone can pre-order the book. She thought it was nice, but not on fire like the evangelist she met on the street who was talking about the Lord. The sermon mentioned nothing about Jesus. She felt disappointed and empty. Where was she to go if the church did not talk about Jesus or barely use scripture? This was the church that she was looking for. This wasn't every church, but this is the one that she happened to find as a new believer. She was determined and did not want her Jesus journey to end. She eventually found a church that taught from the Bible and believed in the whole Bible. This excited her. So let's go ahead and look at what is the truth, the way to Jesus, the life to Jesus. This is for new believers to understand exactly what they're supposed to be getting and how to find Christ as new believers, but what exactly is also offered in some of the churches today. When looking for the truth of what the Lord says, look to the Word of God. Why? John 1 to 3. In the beginning before all time was the Word, Christ, and the Word was with God and the Word was God himself. He was present originally with God. All things were made and came into existence through him, and without him was not even one thing made that has come into being. When we understand that Jesus is the Word that shows the way, we can incline our ear to the truth of the Word of God. This can help a new believer to not be led astray. Let's look at John 14, verse 6. One of the disciples of Jesus asked him, What is the way? Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except by through me. So if you're trying to get to God, which is the Father of Jesus in heaven, you have to go through Jesus, which means you have to become saved and become a follower of Christ and do as Jesus did. Let's look at eliminating confusion about the truth as a new believer or a believer. When we depend on the Lord and his Word, which is what we just spoke about, we will always have the truth and never need to depend on man. This can help eliminate confusion when a person hears different messages from different churches on the same topic. If a person always refers to the Bible and looks up everything they heard in church, they can compare the church message to what the Bible says. This will help that person to know if they want to continue to follow that ministry if they are not speaking the Word of God to them. The same thing can be done for whatever a person says to you. Look up that topic in the Bible. Compare what the Lord is saying. This is being said because when you go into a church, now no matter what church you go into, if they're using the Bible, it should all be the same. And you can pick up your Bible to see if they're actually reading from the verse or they're talking about the Bible. This cuts down on confusion and helps more churches to be on the same page. If they work through the Bible. Let's look at this example. If you meet a believer and they steal something, they know you saw them and say, Oh, everyone steals a little. You can always look in the Bible on what it says about stealing. So let's look at Exodus 20 verse 15. It says, You shall not steal. At that point, you will know the truth of the word and not watch what another believer does, but know the truth of the word. That will set you free from the lies you hear or that you see from individual places or individual people. In these times when we don't read the word, we're not going to know the truth because we haven't invested in the truth. But now you are hearing that you can go to the word. Let's say if you don't know that stealing is not a good thing, you can read it in the word. And when you decide to live by the word, you become a sayer and a doer of the word. So let's go back to the original story that we were talking about, about the new believer who was trying to find a church. Once she became saved, could see that the girl was very hungry for the Lord. In what way could all the things she experienced discourage a new believer seeking the Lord? In some cases, we can see that some are not searching and seeking the Lord, and some are. In this case, she was. Let's look at what she experienced more closely. This will give insight to us all about what some new believers experience as a result of what is offered in certain ministries, whether in person or online. Let's look at Matthew 10, verse 8. This is Jesus talking to his disciples. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Freely, without pay, you have received. Freely, without charge, give. If any ministry charges for healing prophecy deliverance, it is incorrect. If any ministry gives speeches to take up offerings because you got healed, delivered, saved, set free, or a word of prophecy, it is not biblically correct. This is based on the verse that we just read, Matthew 10, verse 8. So when we compare what is being done to what is actually happening in the Bible, it's going to shed some light on the truth. Comparing what is done in some churches versus what is in the Bible. Let's talk some more about that. If the new believer experienced some ministries charging for discipleship or mentoring online, how do you think that makes them feel if they cannot pay for God's services? Does this send a message to new believers that in order to get ministered to, God wants you to pay? If you're a minister charging for biblical services, and Jesus says in Matthew 10, verse 8, they are free, it's time to line up with the word. Does this represent God's will for his little ones in faith? How does Jesus feel about when he freely gave so believers could freely receive? So how does Jesus feel about that? When he gave and sacrificed so much so that believers could freely receive. Let's look at Matthew 18, verses 6 to 7. But whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in and acknowledge and cleave to me to stumble and sin, that is who entices him or hinders him in right conduct or thought, it would be better, more expedient and profitable or advantageous for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be sunk in the depth of the sea. Woe to the world for such temptations to sin and influences to do wrong. It is necessary that temptations come, but woe to the person on whose account or by whom the temptations come. In this story, was the girl influenced to do wrong? Was she led to sin as the previous verse was mentioning? We can see in the story about the new believer that she encountered ministries charging to join and charging for ministerial services that Jesus freely gave so she could freely receive. If she can't freely receive and think she has to get the money to pay God so she can be saved, healed, delivered and set free, is that influencing a young believer? Is that causing them to see God as someone who charges and profits off of their deliverance and need for mentorship? If a new believer does not have money to pay, does that turn them away from God and back to sin? These are some things that ministries need to think about. The world wants a person to pay for everything sometimes. How does this show someone that the Lord is different if fees are attached to the tools that the Lord freely gave to set the captives free? Could this be seen as a hindrance to God's young little ones in the faith trying to grow in Christ? Are they being led astray? Did Jesus collect from people before the Sermon on the Mount was preached? Were the disciples charged a large fee to follow Jesus? Let's look at Matthew 10, verse 7 to 8, and we're bringing this up again so then we have clarity that I'm not saying anything that's of my own thoughts. I'm going to the Bible so then you know the truth, those who are listening, and you can be set free for yourself as you look up this verse. So Matthew 10, verses 7 to 8. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples. And as you go, preach saying the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons freely without pay you have received, freely without charge, give. So this is Jesus telling the disciples who are the ones who are going to be the teachers to new believers, that when they're teaching them, when they're curing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing lepers, driving out demons, that they are not to charge anything because they have received from Jesus himself freely. And Jesus himself is telling them to freely give these gifts to the new believers because these are gifts from the Lord that he's commissioned them to do. So when you go into a place that is charging for these things, we know that they're out of order based on this scripture. Matthew 10, verses 7 to 8. We must be doers of the word. In order to be doers of the word, we must know the word. The only way to know the word is by daily reading and praying and asking questions. In Romans 12, verse 2, we're going to talk more about knowing the word because we could see that from Matthew 10, verse 7 to 8, that Jesus gave a free gift. But if you don't know the free gift, you can be led astray. And that's because the Bible is not being read so that you can learn. In Romans 12, verse 2, do not be conformed to this world, this age fashioned after and adapted to its eternal superficial customs, but be transformed, changed by the entire renewal of your mind, by its new ideals, its new attitude, so that you may prove for yourselves what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect in his sight for you. Let's look at James 1, verse 22. But be doers of the word, obey the message. Do not be merely listeners to it, betraying yourselves into deception by reasoning contrary to the truth. Verse 23, for if anyone only listens to the word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his own natural face in a mirror, for he thoughtfully observes himself and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like. Until you study the word and know it for yourself, you will always have the possibility of being led astray because you won't be able to do anything. You're listening to what someone else is telling you instead of knowing the truth. So let's talk about the perspective of a new believer entering into church. When entering the church, and we're referring back to the original story of the experience of the new believer when she entered into a church. When entering the church, she immediately saw a coffee stand selling drinks, snacks, and books for sale, a selfie corner, which was not far behind the coffee stand. She thought to herself, what do the selfies and the coffee have to do with Jesus? Let's look at Matthew 21, verse 12 to 13. And this is pertaining to her experience as a new believer entering into a church. And Jesus went into the temple, whole temple enclosure and drove out all who bought and sold in the sacred place. Let's read that again. This new believer in the story that we're telling in this message went into the church and she saw things for sale. People were buying and selling things inside the church. Now we go back to the Bible because we're practicing going back to the Bible to see what does the Bible say about this? And Jesus went into the temple, whole temple enclosure and drove out all. Who did he drive out? All who bought and sold. So if someone is in a church buying and selling in the Bible, Jesus drove them all out of the sacred place. And continuing in the verse, and he turned over the four footed tables of the money changers and the chairs of those who sold doves. So Jesus himself in the Bible was not happy with people buying and selling inside the church. So this girl who was the new believer, which is what the experience was about that we are reading about, this is what she experienced in the church. Let's continue in Matthew 21 with verse 13. And he said to them, this is Jesus. The scripture says, my house shall be called a house of prayer, but you have made it into a den of robbers. If entering into salvation and church is not based on money, then what is salvation based on? So the reason why this question is coming up, what is salvation based on? If it's not based on money, it's because as a new believer, when you come into a church, or if you have experiences like the girl that we were talking about, who's a new believer, all is she's seeing is, is that people are charging for many different things in the church. And it begins to look like the church is a business and it's not a church because they're charging. So people can be led astray. New believers can be led astray because they think they have to pay for God. When Jesus freely, freely gave this gift and he said, freely give it because they freely received it. Let's look at Titus 3 verse 5. He saved us not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but because of his own pity and mercy by the cleansing bath of the new birth regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit. Verse 6, which he poured out so richly upon us through Jesus Christ, our savior. Let's look at Romans 11 verses 5 to 6. Saved by grace. So too, at the present time, there is a remnant, a small believing minority selected, chosen by grace, by God's unmerited favor and graciousness. But if it is by grace, his unmerited favor and graciousness, it is no longer conditioned on works or anything men have done. Otherwise, grace would no longer be grace. It would be meaningless. When ministries build churches to collect money and do business in the church, God's people can be led astray if not equipped with the truth. So stay in the word. Do what the Lord says for you to do through the word. Come out from among them that lead you astray. Once you know the truth, it will set you free. Amen.