A
few months ago I felt God put these scriptures on my heart, I felt
like there was something in them that I had not heard or thought of
before....
Matthew
18:3
And
he said: "Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like
little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
Matthew
19:14
But
Jesus said, "Let the children come to me. Don't stop them! For
the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are like these children."
Mark
10:15
Truly
I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a
little child will never enter it."
I
think we have all heard the explanation in Church of this meaning
that we have to have the faith of a child. I'm not going against that
explanation, I just felt like God was telling me there was something
more to this. So I was meditating on these scriptures for a few days
and trying to think of some clever answer to this question when one
day as I was thinking about it I felt like I was Gibbs smacked on the
back of the head...
I
felt God saying “It's you, you came to believe when you were a
child. What did you know about me when you accepted me?” So, I
started trying to remember what I knew about God at that young age. I
knew “God is good, Satan is bad” I knew “Jesus is God's son and
that he was punished for the bad things I did and that he rose from
the dead” That is it. I knew nothing about man made denominational
doctrines, I knew nothing about the “trinity”, I knew nothing
about the deity of Jesus, I knew nothing about whether or not laying
on of hands for healing was for today or not, I knew nothing about
pre, mid or post tabulation rapture. I knew absolutely nothing about
the things that divide us, I only knew the things that all Christians
agree on -God is Good -Jesus is God's son- Jesus died for my
sins-Jesus was raised from the dead-period.
Seeing
God through the filter of religion:
If
you come to God through some denomination, organization,
non-denomination or any other such organized group, generally you
will be taught the basics of truth BUT you will also be taught man
made rules, regulations and doctrines with the same importance as the
Biblical truths you receive. So, in other words you might hear things
like this “You have to dress up for Church” with the insinuation
that if you don't dress up, you are somehow less of a Christian. Or
you might hear things like “We should only sing the old hymens”
or the opposite “We should only sing the modern worship songs”
with the insinuation that anyone who doesn't subscribe to this belief
is some how less of a Christian.
In
truth these things are not addressed in the Bible at all, these along
with many other things are simply man made rules and doctrines.
Sometimes these man made rules might be necessary, but they should
NEVER be elevated to the level of Biblical truth. In this case you
are literally seeing and experiencing Jesus through the filter of
religion.
Coming
as a child:
On the other hand, when we come to Christ as He demanded, as
children, that means we literally have to let go of everything we
know and everything we think we know. We have to take all of the
religious, denominational, Church thinking, all of the theology and
all the man made doctrines and precepts and just throw it all in the
trash, everything must go and then we must go back to just the very
basic thing that a child understands when he or she accepts Christ “
God is Good -Jesus is God's son- Jesus died for my sins-Jesus was
raised from the dead” It is only then that He will be your
teacher...
1
John 2:27
As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you,
and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches
you about all things and as that anointing is real, not
counterfeit—just as it has taught you, remain in him.
It's
not to say we can never be guided or taught by man, because we can.
It simply means that we pass the teachings of man through the filter
of Jesus, instead of passing the teachings of Jesus through the
filter of man. God is our teacher. As the religious pass Christ
through the filter of their religion, if we come to Christ as a
child, we will pass the religion and denominations through the filter
of Christ. We will take the truth from it and leave the religion.
My
goal is never to tear anyone down, to simply criticize for the sake
of criticizing. My goal has been and remains to try to help people to
think outside of the box of religion. You see, religion takes God and
tries to package Him in a way that you get everything you need at
Sunday service. The truth about God is that He is so much more than
we could ever imagine. If we have read the Bible hundreds of times
and we think we know everything about God, than we are only fooling
ourselves. He is so infinitely more than we can ever understand on this
earth. What we call Church, what we call religion in most cases is
just holding us back from experiencing God in a bigger and more
meaningful way. Always remember that if you think you know what love
is, His love is more infinite than you can imagine. If you think you
know what goodness is, His goodness is much more infinite than we can
imagine. If you think you know who God is, He is so much more
infinite than you can imagine. We are only scratching the surface,
lets dig in and break open the pretty little box of Church, religion
and denominationalism and unleash the infinitely powerful and loving
God!!
