Second hand Jesus

The Church has been divided, split into many sects that we call denominations. Why is there this divide? Why do we have Baptists, Methodists, Catholics, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Lutherans...etc...etc? Even after Paul makes such a clear statement about this in 1 Corinthians 1:10

Now I beseech (or - appeal to) you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that you all speak the same thing, and that there be no divisions among you; but that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment

Paul goes on to ask in verse 13 “Is Christ divided?” If Christ is not divided than why should His body on earth be divided? So how can we claim to be believers when we so blatantly ignore such a clear statement in the Word of God? What is it that drives us to divide? The Bible is a huge document and each person who reads it, reads it from his or her own perspective. This leads to many different interpretations of the Word and thus many different sects. Each sect says that it is inspired by the Holy Spirit so how do we know which one really is, or if any of them are? Why would God give us His word if it can be interpreted in so many different ways? The Answer is this, God never intended for us to use our human faculties to understand His word. Let me now illustrate my point with these statements...

God has revealed the interpretation to me

God has increased my mental ability to understand His word

God gives me good logic to use while studying His word.

On the surface these statements might sound fine. But we have to go deeper. Do you notice a pattern in these statements? The use of the words “Me” and “My” What happened to “It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me”? God doesn't “fix” you; He removes you from the picture. Many times you will hear statements in the Church like this “Jesus destroyed sin” Wrong, it never says that Jesus destroyed sin, it says that He destroyed “The Body of sin” What is the body of sin? It' is you and it is me. It is our flesh nature. Sin is still here, but the sinner has been nailed to the cross with Christ and has been Crucified. It's like if you don't put any gas in your car; your car will still be there. You can see it and touch it but it can't go anywhere without the gas. The gas is it's life. Sin becomes non effective if the vessel in which it is made manifest is destroyed. But He doesn't just remove you; he replaces you with His own life. So if I can say with all honesty, “It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me” then at this point He will not need to reveal the interpretation to me, He is the interpretation. He will not need to increase my mental ability, He is my mental ability. He will not need to give me good logic, He is my logic. God doesn't empower my flesh; He removes it and replaces it with His own glorious life. This transformation is not something that can be achieved or even understood mentally. It only comes through faith and His divine revelation of our oneness with Christ on the Cross. Christ said that we must daily take up our cross and follow Him. So this is a repeated leap of faith that we must take, daily acknowledging our death with Him and also His glorious resurrected life that lives and breathes and drives our mortal bodies. There is only one true form of Christianity; there is only one truth and one way. If Christ is our life, than there is no more division because He will be living out the truth through us. Division in the Church is the evidence of the lack of Christ. Any Church that takes a name other than the name of Christ (denominational labels/mans stamp on God’s truth) is committing spiritual fornication. They are only seeing Christ from the outside looking in, not the inside looking out. When we are on the outside looking in, the Jesus experience is merely second hand to us, we are only experiencing Him though others. But when we, through faith and divine revelation, acknowledge our death with Him, and that it is no longer we who live but Christ’s resurrected life that lives in us, we can truly experience Him first hand in all of His glory, for His life is now our own.

Apologetics

I've been hearing the word Apologetics thrown around more and more in the church these days. To tell you the truth I really didn't know what it meant and then when I found out, it still seemed foreign to me. I've been hearing all of these Christian Pastors and teachers and musical artists saying things like "I know what I believe but I just needed to figure out why I believe it" This statement simply amazes me, and it amazes me because of this simple fact. How can anyone who truly feels Christ living inside of them, the Holy spirit bursting within them, the power of the almighty God transforming them really ask the question "Why do I believe this"?

My Grandfather is a Baptist minister. And he is of the old school of thought when it comes to worship and healing and so forth. No matter how much you argue with him, no matter how many scripture you show him, no matter how many logical reasoning's put forth to him, he will never change his mind on these matters. It's the same thing with people like the Jehovah's witnesses who don't believe that Jesus was God in the flesh. You can argue with them until you are blue in the face and put forth all of the scriptural evidence in the world and they still will not change their minds. Now, these two examples I've just given you are of two groups of people who believe in the Bible, if it's that hard to convince Bible believing people of the Biblical truths using logic and scriptures then how much more difficult will it be to try to convince an atheist? Apologetics tries to convince people that the Christian way is the right way by showing them logical reasons for believing. Many Christians study apologetics to firm up their own beliefs so that when questioned by an unbeliever "Why do you believe?" they will have the logical answers. But this entire line of thinking seems completely contradictory to the Christian faith as I know it. As a Christian, Christianity is very logical to me, BUT I didn't come to believe in Christ because of logic. It didn't become logical to me until I believed, because until you believe, Christ is not living in you. When Christ comes in, then it all comes together, it's all logical. But to try to then turn around and use that logical knowledge given by the entrance of Christ in your life to try to persuade an unbeliever, is simply folly. Because like you, the unbeliever will need Christ to make Christianity logical. How then are we to witness to the unbelievers? First I'm going to make a statement that might not go over very well at first but stick with me here. I do not believe in Jesus because of the accounts of Him in the Bible. I don't believe that He was the son of God/God in the flesh because the Bible says so. I believe these things not because of the writings in the Bible, but simply because Christ makes me believe them. I don’t believe in Christ because of the Bible, I believe the Bible because of Christ. I don't have to read books about why I believe, I don't have to study and pray to come up with the answers, because the answer is very simple, I believe because Christ makes me believe. If an unbeliever asked me why I believe in Christ I wouldn't go into some long philosophical speech filled with logic and scriptures, I would simply say that not one second goes by that Jesus doesn't prove to me who He is, not a second goes by that He doesn't show me Himself, not a second goes by that I don't feel the almighty God living in me. To share the feeling of having God living in you is the most powerful witness of all. And as for those people like my Baptist Grandfather and the Jehovah's Witnesses who are both more concerned with tradition rather than Biblical truth, when they ask you why you believe what you believe, say..."I believe because I share a life with God, Gods spirit reveals His will to me, God's power flows through me. And every second of every day He never fails to prove Himself to me.... Why do you believe?"

What Is Christianity?

What Is Christianity?

What exactly is Christianity? How does one accurately describe it? Some will describe it as a religion; still others will say it's a philosophy or a lifestyle choice. Personally I wouldn't apply any of these labels to it. All of these labels that we give it all have something in common, they are all based on the person doing certain things to achieve "Spirituality" For example, the meaning of the original word for Religion is - a series of ritualistic and outward acts to achieve a higher level. A religious person asks the questions "What can I do to be more spiritual?" - "How can I be more like God?" - "What can I do to change my behavior?" - "How can I please God?" Do you notice a trend in these statements? The "I' in these questions is the difference in being a Christian and being religious. The religious man tries to shape his own life by performing acts and rituals to make himself a better person. The focus is still on himself, only with the pretense that it's about doing the will of God. How Hypocritical. The true Christian man [or spiritual man] doesn't ask the same questions as the religious man. For he realizes that there is nothing that "I" can do to change my life. There are no good deeds I can do or no seemingly spiritual acts that I can perform to gain favor with God. There is nothing we can do because of the simple fact that we as born again Christians are dead. Yes, God placed us on that cross with Christ and just as all of humanity fell by the act of one man, so to was all judgment on humanity carried out through one man put to death on a cross. So the questions of the religious man are spiritually flawed for the "I" is no more, it is dead. You are dead, I am dead. If I am dead then why am I still living and breathing you may ask. As Paul so eloquently put it "It is no longer I who lives but Christ who lives in me" You see, the question is no longer "How can I be more like God?" or "How can I change?" or "How can I please God?" Since you where killed with Christ and also raised with Him with a new life, a life that He lives through you, you no longer have to ask these questions, all you need is the realization of your own death in Christ to understand fully His power over your life. Once this is attained then you become more like God because He controls you and makes you more like Himself, you please God because He lives through you, you are more spiritual because His spirit flows through you, you change because He changes you. The "I" is gone and the focus is where it belongs, On God. Christianity really is not a religion, it's not a philosophy, it's not a lifestyle choice, it's God moving in His children and shaping them into His image. When we try to humanize it and label it that is when the process of God is aborted. The result is a shallow and powerless "Religion"

Christian Leadership

A Pastor is not a dictator to be obeyed without question; he is a leader and a friend whose example should help guide us. A leader welcomes questions because he is confident in his place in the Lord. He understands different people’s points of view and he uses his Biblical knowledge to draw people from all points of view and all backgrounds and all situations to Christ.

Heb 13:17 Obey your leaders and submit to their authority.

This is the main verse used by so called Christian leaders to suppress any questions coming their way. They want you to think that what they say is absolute and without error and so they try to scare you into thinking that if you question what they say, you are sinning against God. People who demand absolute, unquestioned devotion are in actuality weak minded people who are too frightened to face the questions that may arise from believers.

Let’s look at the Greek version of this verse. Instead of saying “obey your leaders”; it says to” be persuaded by the leaders”. Not to simply obey them without question, but to be responsive to their persuasion. In essence it is saying to not be so set in your ways and so hard hearted that you are not even open to be persuaded by your leader. And instead of saying “submit to their authority” It says to “defer to them” (your leaders) in matters that you do not understand. This means to go to them, ask them about a biblical verse or situation that you don’t understand. This verse really speaks of a dialog here, “Be persuaded” by the leader and “defer” to him when you don’t understand.

At times even Paul had to persuade other believers to go where he wanted to send them. This means that they questioned him. They might have said we don’t feel like going, or we feel God leading us in another direction. But did he scorn them for questioning him? Did he tell them that in questioning him that they are sinning against God? No, he simply went about the business of persuading them that what he wanted them to do was a directive from God and not from himself. That is a leader. When we question our leaders it’s not only beneficial for our own learning, but it keeps them on their toes and keeps them sharp

A Christian leader is not someone who just gives orders and expects us to obey them without question, but a leader is someone willing to persuade us, to convince us, the flock, that what he is saying comes from God and is scriptural and is imparted by the Holy Spirit.

So while one school of thought puts the responsibility on the congregation to just willingly submit unconditionally and without question to the Pastor, The other school of thought puts the responsibility on the Pastor to use his God given ability to persuade the congregation to follow his example and convince them that what he is saying and doing is from God.

True, the congregation has a responsibility, to seek God, to follow His word, to be led by the spirit. But it’s the Pastor’s responsibility to continually convince the prudent believer that his teachings are that of God and that they are inspired by the Spirit of God. When the first school of thought is in place, even good leaders will get corrupted. That’s why Jesus told us to seek. He didn’t say to give over all of our seeking responsibilities to the Pastor.

Always seek, always question if what you hear in Church doesn’t line up with scripture. Always strive for the next level, because there will always be a next level until we are face to face with Christ.

God in a Box

Building, forcing, imposing the walls. ceilings and floors, trapped behind locked doors. Pretty little fortress timed and planned. Gripped tightly with the hands of man. Placed behind the curtain, under the pew, in the basement we hide the truth. Majesty trampled under foot, power dismissed with a shrug, swept under the rug. Confined and struggling to be heard. Bursting at the seams, speaking in dreams. Trying to escape this prison, risen up in a new season. The clock is ticking...our will must weaken and let God out of the box