Religious Fixes

WHERE CAN I GET A FIX???


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Colossians 2:8-10 – “Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, according to the basic principles of the world, and not according to Christ. 9 For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10 and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.”  NKJV

 

Before I venture into this and explain what I’m talking about let me ask that you read:  Colossians 2:8-3:2 and Ephesians 4:11-16.  Now let’s get to the heart of my message for today.  I asked you to read those verses because I believe that those, along with others are vital foundations upon which I hope to build my thought in the hopes of inspiring, encouraging, and helping some break free of what I can only call the “religiousness of religion or the religious” which is often nothing more than a rekindling of the mentality and philosophy of the Pharisees and Secularist.

The fix I am speaking of is not drugs albeit Karl Marx said, “religion is the opium of the people” usually translated “religion is the opiate of the masses.”  Sadly, for some who profess to be followers of Christ that may be a more accurate description than we care to acknowledge.  While I understand what many are saying when they decry religion, in my view, it is not religion, but the ‘religiousness of the religious’ that is a larger problem.

Spiritually, our world is at war!  Tragically, that is often also a description of the condition in the natural through the interactions of man to man and nation to nation.  In the church today, I am not sure that we always realize where the real battlefield is or what the real battle is.  I have become convinced that we, too often, focus on symptoms and believe them to the disease or the battle.  The only consistent result of that is frustration, disappointment, despair, disillusionment and ultimately defeat.  That is not the Church that Jesus described in the Gospels that He was building. We have problems in the world today but making war on symptoms will not solve the problem it will only frustrate our purposes.

Jesus declared in Matthew 24:14, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all nations and then the end will come.”  That is truth and being fulfilled powerfully through the means of technology but let me ask a probing question.  “What is the Gospel of the Kingdom?”  I am not trying to get into a lengthy debate over an issue that has divided much of the church today but to simply suggest that the Gospel of the Kingdom focuses on LIFE, not symptoms.  It is the Life of God that is to be lived in each of our hearts.  It is more than salvation and going to heaven when we die it is about LIFE NOW!  The words of John in 1 John 4:17 ring in my mind as I write, “…because as He is, so are we in this world.”  AS HE IS not was or will be but IS and that is IN THIS WORLD right now!

As I study the Book of Acts and the First Century Christians I realize that what they had would be and is often called radical today but it was the norm of the Christian life and that norm has not changed.  It could be called Traditional Christianity and if that is true then what would you call what we have today or most have today?  They turned the world upside down with their Religion or Christianity!  I argue that what we call Radical Christianity is actually Normal Christianity and that kind of Christianity is always innovative and captures the hearts and minds of people.  It does not do so with entertainment but truth, life, and power.

Inside and outside the realm of the Church or Christian circles our world is ravaged by divorce, betrayal, child abuse, addiction, battering, and many inadequacies.  Many within our churches are ensnared by some sin or thought process that is destructive, beaten down by rejection, wounded and are like caged animals and filled with despair.  The problem is of epic proportions and demands the question, “Is there an answer?”  The immediate and obvious answer is, “Yes!”  The answer truly is in God but there must be more to the pursuit of a remedy if we are to become the Church Triumphant that Jesus spoke of that the very gates or powers of hell would not be able to resist.

I want to say more on this matter but will pause here and pick this up next time as we focus on the War, Warriors, and Warfare in which we can pull down strongholds and see the captive set free, the blind eyes opened, and true deliverance come in lives spiritually, emotionally, mentally, physically, and in every way.

            God bless you as you embark on today’s leg of your life’s journey in Christ!

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GOD? What Do You Want From Me? [Part 2]


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1 John 4:7-11 – “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 He who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.”  NKJV

 

             Imagine a God who is Omniscient (all knowing) who does not like us.  That is a horrific thought, right?  Most of us have or have had a secret(s) that we were ashamed to confess even to our closest friends but God KNOWS everything about us and knows our thoughts even before we think them.  The terror that would accompany the thought that God who knows all about us and does not even like us would drive us suicidal.  He would be an infinite monster!

The Bible never says:  God HAS Power or Love it says HE IS!  Love is not something apart from Him it is WHO HE IS.  But what is Love?  What is Love as it is spoken of here in this passage?  Love, in the English language has become almost a worthless word for we apply it to so many things and give it some many shades of meaning.  What do we think of when we say or hear Love?

Let me suggest a possibility:  It means that we reach out to someone we can reasonably count on that is in our class.  Before you get self-righteous and pious, that is exactly what most of us do much of the time if not all the time.  In European history when a member of a royal family fell in love with a commoner they were fired.  If the king fell for a commoner and married them he would be required to give up his throne.  Likewise when we humans fall in love we tend to keep within our self-imposed boundaries.  Naturally we do not talk about it and possibly refuse to admit it but we do it.

When we say LOVE what do we mean?  If I love a person I am acknowledging that person calls forth my highest admiration and when I look at them I admire them.  We are so captivated by them that when we talk about them they are elevated to a level of worship in our eyes and minds.  We adore them!  Likewise when we LOVE someone it means they answer to what I feel is beauty (eye of the beholder).  Beauty is something that happens in our heads and that is what we usually understand to be love.

But when it comes to God and the Bible declares:  “God is Love” many assume that God is Love in the same way we love.  Virtually every religion in existence has a concept of God based on human love.  However, if God loves like we love how would that work out?  Think with me through some problems with that concept:

  • He cannot find anyone in His Class so immediately we are eliminated. If he were to get friendly with us he would be fired as being God so we are out in the cold.
  • He cannot find anyone in harmony with Him (before salvation) so our disharmony disqualifies us. He is love and holiness and we are selfish and have no plans to change (before salvation).
  • He cannot find any human that would elicit in Him a sense that says about us, ‘That is the best person I know’ for our righteousness are as filthy rags and there is none good (before salvation).

         The dilemma for us is that if God loves like we love we are TOAST!  It is over! We are without hope and hopeless lost forever!   I heard a most appropriate illustration that explains this beautifully:

A missionary went to a witch-doctor and said:  “You preach to me. I come to you with a problem. How would you tell me to reach the Most High God?  I know you have many gods, but I want to reach the Big One, the Most High God.”  The witch-doctor said: “First, you have a big problem, because the Most High God is not interested in you for you are not good enough for him.”  That’s where their religion begins!  Sadly, we have heard the same thing in much more sophisticated terms in church.  We have been told, in so many ways, that we are not good enough for God and He is not interested.

When the Bible says:  God is Love it means that He does not reach out to someone in His class but reaches out to Whosoever Will or reaches down to mankind.  Human love reaches up but God’s love reaches down.  God loves the lost, hopeless, messed up, twisted, distorted, bent, wicked, evil and sinful man and offers LIFE, LOVE and LIBERTY through Jesus!  That is the Gospel message.  What does God want from us?  He wants to dwell in us and with us and manifest Himself through us!

God bless you as you go through this day!

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GET YOUR RELIGIOUS FIX HERE….


Colossians 2:8 – “See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ.” NASU

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I would encourage you to read through Chapter 3:2 and then read Ephesians 4:11-16 before you continue with what I am going to say or at least after you have read this devotional.  Sometimes when I hear advertisements and pitches from preachers and churches I get the feeling that I’m hearing someone hawking a “fix” of some kind and a religious one at that.  A few years ago I heard a preacher say that while he was in prayer the Holy Spirit spoke to his heart and said, “I hate the religiousness of the religious and I want you to resist giving or getting any more religious fixes.”  I found that incredibly interesting and have since that time given it a great deal of thought.

I talk to a significant number of people who are turned off by the routine, form, and ritual of the little Sunday and Wednesday (or whatever day you choose) thing.    We have a world at war today on so many levels and fronts and tragically too often we go to church to get our weekly “fix” and become insulated and inoculated from what is happening around us.  I am convinced that many believers have misidentified the symptoms as being the battle and the result is frustration, disappointment, despair, disillusionment, and too often defeat.  That for one who has spent his life in the work of the kingdom disheartening and causes me to cry out to go for answers.

We claim to have weapons of warfare that are mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds and yet when we look around we see deterioration and decay.  Too many confess that they are seeing little result therefore one can only conclude that something is wrong!  Right?  What have we missed?  We have problems in our world and I refuse to deny it for I have learned that you never defeat a problem by battling the symptoms you have to get to the root cause for the cure.  God has not called us to bring religiousness to our community but LIFE!  Our destiny and purpose is to bring HEALING not just temporary relief.  We are addressing the symptoms of discord, disunity, disagreement and more but not getting to the root cause – THE HEART!  The battleground is INSIDE the cup not OUTSIDE.

We talk about the ‘gospel of the kingdom’ and seem to miss that it is not an event or a future but LIFE and that life here and now as well as eternity.  Noah’s generation was a violent, do your own thing generation.  It was a crime ridden violent hate filled generation much like ours.  The Ark was a statement and place of safety it was a warning to a perverse generation.  It was a covering and refuge.  The early church did not march, demonstrate, picket or boycott nor did they isolate or insulate themselves from their world.  They presented Jesus in word and deed and people’s lives were transformed.  They turned their world upside down and traditional religion of that day hated them.  We must move beyond ‘seeing the vision’ to ‘doing the vision.’  We have churches filled with people who are ensnared, filled with rejection, wounded and full of despair.  We are a mess!  Is there an answer?  I believe there is!  We are a consumer society in which people are trained and conditioned to ‘shop around’ looking for the best bargain, best product, best marketing campaign, and best appearance.  In today’s modern world sound biblical preaching is often not enough and churches fall into the trap of trying to market their product to attract the shoppers.

Each church, pastor, leader, and member should honestly evaluate their focus, purpose, resources, commitment, vision and goal.  Evaluate your effectiveness and if you find that you are focusing more on symptoms than the root cause, I would urge you to make that a matter of immediate and serious prayer!  Lives are not changed truly by placing a religious salve on a wound but by having a change of heart.

            May God be with you as you go through your day!

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