And upon this rock I will build my church

Mat 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

Good morning to you dear friends as I mentioned yesterday I would like to look at the church, its purpose, and its make up. In the above referenced verse we find that Peter had just declared Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the Living God. Now all this if you will read before hand was revealed unto Peter by faith, and faith alone. This is where the rock comes in, it is upon that solid foundation, faith, that Christ was to build His church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. Peter did not start the church as some would have you to believe. The Lord loved the church, the bride of Christ so much that He died for it. I would specifically like to focus on the local New Testament Independent Church of the bible. One in which there are certain distinctions made from today's teachings of certain false doctrines, and ideas. All this will of course as the local New Testament assembly is, be explained through scripture. You say then what is the church and I say the church is an organism; living, breathing, growing, and going forward in the Lords work until His return. The church is not some organization where men gather to debate the worlds problems. The church is much more than shallowness of brick and mortar, as the bible teaches wood, hay and stubble will burn in the fire, so why would the church that our Lord and Savior built be anything associated with these items. The church is not associated with the state or government, as we are a separated assembly of believers each to a local authority under the Pastor of that certain assembly. In European countries it is a very popular belief that the the church and state are one, or that there is a certain state denomination that is supported and said to be the only true church, while scripture will support otherwise. The church is not the Kingdom as some would have you to believe, as the Kingdom is future(Acts 15:16) and the church is to be built during this present age (Eph 4:12). Almost all non-scriptural aspects of a church that claims to be new testament is that they will have a single thing in common, they cannot and will not come under the authority of a single Pastor as the authority, no instead they will heap to themselves multi levels of authority, or councils that will demand obedience, or some type of fellowship that would tell the sub-ordinate church's what they should be doing, teaching, and preaching. A non new testament church will also allow just about anybody to become a member and participate in their functions, without any true profession of faith or obedience to Christ or the scriptures. This is where a lot of church's start to allow the world to infiltrate their church's and it no longer operates under the authority of Christ, but under the ideas and wills of men and women with agendas. An actual local new testament church is quite different as its composition of membership differs and its governing differs. A true local new testament church is comprised of saved(scriptural regeneration), baptized believers into a local congregation distinctly lead by a Pastor as the leader of the church, as Christ is the head of the church. A true local new testament church has a pastor in authority and the church is autonomous (that is self governing), they do not belong to some convention, fellowship, board, or otherwise that would dictate their worship, preaching, or teaching. Dear friend this will be all for today I will stop at this point and I will pick this up again tomorrow as I want to digest this slowly along with you. If you cannot wait until tomorrow then leave a comment and I will be more than glad to try and answer it in tomorrows post along with the continuation of this study. I hope this has helped so far and may God bless.