Who Am I And What Am I Worth?

American Christianity has gotten too superstitious. I'm not sure if prosperity gospel has seeped into our thinking somewhere or if it's just American culture in general. Either way, we've developed a skewed idea of what a spiritual walk and a blessed life is supposed to look like.

I spent three or four years of my life in full time ministry inside one of America's many performance based genres of Christianity. A works based system places higher importance on those who work more. Normal people with family commitments, financial struggles, and personal issues are left to feel inferior and worthless. There's actually a lot of dishonesty in this type of system because nobody is free from these problems no matter how perfect and holy they paint themselves. To make a long story short, God opened my eyes to it all and I left. While my mind was clear and fresh I made some very intentional decisions. I moved my wife and my children back to top priority where they belonged. This included reducing my travel schedule to about half of what it used to be and holding it there no matter how many invitations to do otherwise came to me. I chose to focus on the legitimate burdens God had placed on my heart instead of the vanity that had begun crowding it out. This means that the last year of my life has included a lot more off stage ministry work than the previous four. I recalibrated everything and started over. The year is almost over and, as I look back over it all, I see one of the greatest ministry years of my life. Why have I struggled so much, then?

I can remember thinking that the elitist sect I was a part of was the last leg of real Christianity. I felt like I was part of something extremely important and that very few people were doing as much as me. If I can be honest, I miss that feeling. Truth brought me down to a place of equality with every person who has faith in Christ. My selfish nature doesn't like feeling common. The ministry work I do that isn't on a stage gets very little attention. Just a few hours ago God allowed me to greatly impact a struggling Christian I met in town but the story will never get told and my reputation will not grow from it. There is a carnal part of me that has been starving these last few months from lack of attention. It's not dead yet but I'm anticipating the day. 

What am I worth? If God calls me to minister to strugglers in my hometown and equips me for the job, am I valuable if you don't know I'm doing it? If God calls me to skip a few singing opportunities so I can stay home and make sure I'm the husband my wife needs and the father my children need am I still important in the grand scheme of things? 

What I've discovered is an identity struggle. I've taken that crowd that is applauding me as my wife and I walk off the stage and defined myself by it. I've let the size of my fan base determine my value. When I meet men who are better at doing what I do it drives insecurity into my heart. When I meet men who are more well known for doing what I do I question my gifts and abilities. Who am I? What am I worth? What terrifying questions these become.

The answers are actually simple. Who am I? I'm a child of the King just like you. No matter how cranked up my ego gets and no matter how depressed and beat down from insecurity I become, I'm still the Kings child. I'm not a Private, a Lieutenant, or a Five a Star General; I'm a child of the King. I'm not a working class commoner, an unskilled average Joe, or a needy beggar; I'm a child of the King! What am I worth? What is my purpose? What is my calling and my cause? How important is it? Again, the same answer fits every single one of us. Christ is the true Vine and I am the branch. I am the medium that Jesus Christ literally lives through wherever He chooses to let me exist and with whatever hand He so chooses to deal to me. If he makes me a benevolent rich man, a world class song writer, a local youth pastor, or the owner and operator of a one man grass cutting business, I am the branch that provides fruit to that place. The only qualification to fulfill this calling is to have breath in my lungs. He may build me up, He may tear me down. He may enrich me with provision, He may make me suffer. No matter the climate, I am a branch!

What an identity! It's beautiful isn't it? We have to keep each other reminded of these things because they are so easy to miss. I'm sure I'll struggle with them all over again, maybe even next week, but the truth won't change. The world doesn't need another show stealing celebrity, they just need some sweet fruit that will draw them to the Vine. That's who I am, that's who you are, and it's important. 

Stop Chasing the Deserters

In my mind I'm a freedom fighter. I use the intellect God gave me to provoke the oppressors and defend those who haven't the mind to do it themselves. (Orchestra music begins) I stand on hilltops in front of villages full of simple slaves and I stir them to rise because I understand there is more of them than there are of the slave drivers so I lead them to freedom! (Orchestra music screeches to a halt.) Well, that's what it looks like in my mind at least.

I've been bent this way for a long time. I'll never forget the huge fight I picked on the play ground when I was in fifth grade. It never actually happened but it should have. There was a group of about ten or twelve bullies in our fifth grade that made the lives of everyone at school miserable. It dawned on me one day that we outnumbered those rascals so I went to work. I passed notes, I met with guys in the hallway, I whispered across urinal dividers, and I got every able bodied guy I knew stirred up to end this thing once and for all. After I got fifteen or twenty of these oppressed "good kids" united I went to the ring leader of the bullies and set a date to fight this thing out. I told him we were sick of him and his buddies and it was stopping today. The time was tomorrow at recess. I could hardly sleep that night. I was excited in a good kind of way. I hate competition, I never played any sports, but I have always loved a good fight. Tomorrow came. Recess came. I walked out on the field that afternoon looking twelve of the toughest guys I knew in the eye. I looked around me and I had one friend show up. He was a mean fat kid that watched too many action movies. I had to stand down that day. I had the fight in me but I had a group of friends that were a bunch of deserters. I tell you what I wanted to do. I wanted to spend the rest of the week picking fights with all my friends that hung me out to dry that afternoon. 

I think in the Christian life that's exactly what a lot of us wind up doing. I've come to terms with the fact that the Christian life is chock full of kids that want a good grade but very few that are interested in the actual fight. The few of us that want to give our lives for what matters wind up getting so mad at all these egocentric babies that we start fighting them instead of that group of devils we are supposed to be waging war with. We have to take our eyes off of those people. We have to do what we can without them. There's that weird kid with no daddy that needs to know he matters. There's that short, chubby girl that needs to know she's pretty, too. Realistically, there is a whole world of people that need hope. The deserters are going to do there thing but if we are going to do ours we are going to have to forget about those guys. What's sad is that we are fighting for those deserters, too. They'll appreciate it one day.... Meanwhile, we gotta get our heads in the game and our swords in the fight. 

What is wrong with us? (An honest look at Fundamentalism)

             I have spent my entire life inside Baptist fundamentalism. I began as the unfocused teen simply interested in success for my life and Jesus as part of my culture. I went on to discover faith and surrender. It is there that I sought completion solely in  Christ. Unfortunately, instead of staying there, I went on to join the ranks of the Pharisees. I glamorized my works, belittled "lesser" Christians, placed all my faith in performance holiness, and did my part to help build the intimidating, authoritarian side of this movement by associating myself with the shunners and avoiding the injured. When one is a Pharisee, it's healthier for his pretensive reality to pretend like those who have been hurt have somehow brought it upon themselves. Mind you, I'm not throwing stones; I'm just speaking from personal experience.

More recently, though, I've stepped away from the political side of fundamentalism and begun to get to know the side of this movement that seems desperate to overcome the movement itself. What is wrong with us? I want to know because I want to see it fixed. I've done a considerable amount of homework on where fundamentalism came from. Honestly, I was afraid it was going to turn me off even more to what I have known my whole life.  In reality,  I found a sincere group of revolutionaries that lived a little over two hundred years ago -- imperfect people, mind you, that were weary of religious authority. I found a group of people with the desire to base their beliefs on a literal interpretation of Scripture. Nothing added, nothing taken away. They were our country's first non-denominationalists. Had they been able to look ahead in time and see the "denomination" we've made it into today, where churches strictly adhere to the oral traditions of camps and successful preachers are emulated more than the life of Christ, they would surely be sick at their stomachs. The Christian life has liberty because of the personal element of the relationship with God. I have my own copy of God's Word, my own access to my Father's throne, and my own ears to hear reproof and encouragement depending on what I need. The authority hierarchy that many fundamentalists have begun to subscribe to in recent decades has brought fear into this otherwise good movement. People must hide their past, camouflage their current struggles, dress the part of perfection, and leave the wounded behind. Those who comply to the system have pride struggles that can get bigger than life itself. The pride then goes on to form more false authority, more intimidating pressures, and more discipled hypocrisy. Play along or else, you know? The oral traditions become a sort of law that scripture can't attest to, but who is brave enough to question it? 

Why am I saying all of this? I'm saying it because I want to remind everyone that faith and spirituality are between you and God. Holiness is sincerity of heart and purity of motive.  You can let God purify you to that place, even while not meeting someone else's spoken law or tradition. You can live without man-made systems. The names "fundamentalist" and even "Baptist" have the potential of souring. Don't pass out on me, now. These titles are just like my own home church's name. If my home church goes crooked, I don't have to go down with the ship because my relationship with God doesn't depend on anyone's system. The guidelines need to be simplified. Does your church pledge its allegiance to only Jesus? Does it preach faith as the basis for salvation AND spirituality? Does it love people -- even those inconvenient backslidden ones? Does it operate free of outside influences and fear of external politics? Does it promote honesty? You probably attend a good one if you can answer all those right. Does it constantly demean and insult those it disagrees with? Does it push you to throw away relationships with friends and family over preferences that it pretends are doctrines? Does it inspire you to be a tattler and a gossip? Does it leave you making excuses for  heart sins that nobody wants to admit or recognize? You may be in a church that could potentially ruin your marriage and turn your children off to Jesus. 

People only have the power over you that you give them. We need revival, and I'm not  afraid to admit it. Don't be afraid to detach from opinions and live as God gives you liberty to. Ask Him to purify you from sin. I'm talking about those nasty, murky waters of motive. Ask Him to strengthen your faith. You can't be His disciple and a slave to man's approval at the same time. Ask Him to relocate you spiritually to a place of dependency on only Him. I'm not saying it won't be painful. However, if our lives are to matter, then what is REAL must become top priority in our minds. Fundamentalism began when guys picked up their Bibles and said, "We can survive with ONLY this." We need that passion back. Revive us again, oh, Lord....

Dear Zach,

I had a phenomenal day today. The last few days have taken a lot of weight off of me as God began completing some huge life lessons in my heart. The last two years of my life have been filled with huge life lessons, really, and I see several more beginning as I enter into this new segment of my life. I've been saved by the grace of God for eleven years next month and that eleven years encompasses most of my mature life (if you consider age seventeen to be mature). I got to thinking about what it would be like if I could sit down and write a letter to myself to mail back in time to when I was seventeen years old and a brand new child of God. There are a thousand things I could say, I guess, but I've narrowed it down to the items I feel like could have steered me clear of some of the areas the monster named "experience" has had to teach me. I can't send this list back in time to myself but I'm going to write it anyway and let you read it right where you are today in hopes that it may change your tomorrow for the better. 

1.  Don't lose yourself in other people's expectations.

When I surrendered my life to God in my early twenties He developed some specific burdens in me and put some callings on my life to help make a difference in those places. A lot has changed about me since I gave God everything but every one of those burdens is still alive and kicking in my heart. The segments of my life where they went dormant or got propped up to collect dust in the corner was the segments where I allowed other sincere Christians to pull me in to what they thought I should be doing. People can pin all sorts of responsibilities onto us, some of which we may even be good at, that God just simply didn't ask us to do. Before you know it, good intentions and a lack of an ability to say no has got you stretched thin. Usually the things that really suffered most when I lost control in this area was my wife and my children. I really missed a lot. Way more than I'm comfortable admitting. All I can do at this point is learn from it and refuse to let it happen again. 

2.  Don't let passion for God turn into self glory.

Sometimes all the Devil has to do to ruin a good Christian is encourage him. When God began to open my eyes to spiritual things I came alive to the cause of Christ! Then the pastor said something like, "It's really encouraging to me how active you are in the church. You teach Sunday School, run youth meetings, sing, go on visitation with me every week..." and the battle began. Can you believe how amazing I am? If you AREN'T aware of how amazing I am I'd like to run all my stats by you! Seriously...when pride takes over a Christian's life of service it becomes a shiny life of sin. As much as I hate that you guys don't know every little thing that I am doing for Jesus right now it really is better this way. Motive can shift in an instance and we must guard it with our lives!

3.  Don't let your separation unto God make you a judge of your brother.

I canned my secular music, I got rid of my television, I became more faithful to church: I drew a lot of lines in my life, some that needed to be drawn and some that didn't, but almost instantly I became critical of the people around me that had not drawn those same lines in their life. Like a five year old boy making fun of his two year old brother for not being able to quote the alphabet. I really did get like that. Not only in the areas of growth but in areas of culture and education. What if these "inferior" people I looked down on so quickly just simply didn't have the light or the opportunities that I've had? What if these backslidden, angry Christians with horrible attitudes are where they are because of people like me that lack the good sense to see what drove them there? What if all the people around me that are wrong and burnt out and even God haters need me? What if I'm the problem? Let's work on me instead of them and see what that does for a change. 

4.  Don't live for approval. 

If you have two or more friends, you are bound to do something on a preferential level that one of them is not going to agree with. Pray about your preferences. Every preference you have is vital in your life to keep you guarded from slipping in principle areas. Which genres of Christian music do you think are right? Where are the lines for modesty? Is your taste in churches more country in culture or do you like city style? Make these decisions in your life for God and make them for your family and make them for nobody else. If you make one decision in your life to please an outside source you will become a slave to that outside source and it's likely that you will never get out or get hurt bad trying. 

5.  Be careful who your friends are.

Inevitably, when I failed in areas one through four I built a faulty system that caused me to fail here, too. Friendships should never ever never ever be built on what you can do for each other; that is a business relationship and not a friendship. Friendships should also never be built on sins that you have in common: "We are both jealous of this group, or bitter at these people, or better than those over there." If sin is the common ground then progressive sanctification is going to eventually wreck the relationship. When you manage to fill your friend list with relationships like these you set yourself up for a whole bunch of drama. Build on positive camaraderie, build on love, build on spiritual connection:  these are the sorts of relationships that won't let you down.

Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee (Part 2)

I've reached a point in my life where I feel it is time to step out. I'm done. I can't stay here any longer. A year and a half ago I wrote a blog post called Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee that was the initial steps of this journey. It's been a journey that I feel like is just getting good and started. For the last ten years of my life I've been part of a religious system that was based largely on fear of honesty. I have developed a desperate need for real! I'm not going to live in fear any more. I'm not going to make decisions based on what you think of me any longer. It seems that the very opinions I've valued most in recent years have come from people trapped in the same fears that I have been trapped in. Inevitably we have done little more than feed each other. I know good people in passionate ministries that are more conservative than I am and I know some that I highly appreciate that are more liberal than I am. Just within the borders of my Facebook friend list is a difference of opinions longer than I could list. Proof we are human. Where I came from people were afraid to even like a status if it was posted by someone that wasn't "like us." "They aren't like we are." What does that even mean? I refuse to live that way any longer. I have a burden for lost people that I pursue with God's help most every day and I have come to terms with the fact that I can do that with or without your help. The time in my Christian life when most of my friends thought I had it all together was when I was the most self conceited, self absorbed, and self righteous. Now that I've come to terms with who I am I've lost many of those friends. The facade was more popular but I'm not wearing it any longer. God made me for a purpose that I'll miss if I focus my life trying to fit in with you. God made me for a ministry that won't work if I let you define me. God gifted me with boldness that I'll lose if I continue to give ear to your opinions. 

Why am I telling you this? Because I love you and I want you to step out with me. The world doesn't need any more flawless, untouchable Christians because they know it's a farce. How many times have we saw the problems with our own eyes and made excuses for them? That's where I am. I'm done making excuses for you. I'm done making excuses for me. The Pharisees were polished but they got outpaced by some roughneck fishermen who didn't know the Bible near as well simply because those old fishermen didn't mind being honest with Jesus and letting Jesus be honest with them. That's where I'm going to build my house. Your life isn't perfect and neither is mine. No matter how much we try to get on social media and church platforms and paint it that way we all still have the same selfish, self promoting, deceitful heart beating in our chests that we must contend with every day. I've tried to make men happy and its a miserable life. I can't live there any more. The last few months have handed me plenty of discouragement but they have given me a taste of what I've been searching for and it tastes so wonderful that I'll never be satisfied with anything less: REAL. I'm catching my "second wind!" The Zach you've been reading behind for the past few months and, Lord willing, from now on is going to be raw and honest and likely outside of your box. You may like it, you may not like it but I'm not afraid of you any more. God has broken the chains in my life. I didn't say cut. I said broken. It's not going to be easy to step out of the politics your Christianity has been built in because that's where we have become comfortable. In fact, it may be the fight of your life. Revolutions and revivals alike have never been carried on the backs of men who were afraid to stand and say something nor have they ever been brought by men who desire to blend and be approved of. We can do this. We don't need the Christian political system as bad as we think we do. It's robbing the church of its children every day. The statistics aren't on our side. The Devil may get my children one day but it won't be because I handed them to him with a blindfold over my eyes that I tied on myself. I want light. I want real. I'm walking out of this place and I want you to come with me.

Numb to Church

It's Sunday morning and your conscience is telling you to go to church but reality is asking you a very legitimate question. "Why?" You scan through a list of churches in driving range of your house and the whole scene just looks like a busy blur of shallow activity. Numbness is the sensation that the idea of church brings to you. I'll never forget when I was sixteen years old and I busted my knee skateboarding. It wasn't one of those bloody mess sort of things. The blow took place just below the knee cap but the force raised a knot the size of a goose egg and to this day the feeling has never came back. Skateboarding was my passion but I quit that day. Those of you that know me know that I got another board in recent years but it was just to reach out to some young people in my life. I've never pursued skateboarding with the aggressiveness and vigor that I did through my early teens. Why? Because numbness is an incredible deterrent. 

When a person gets hurt by church it is rarely an injury that can be seen on the outside but the damage that takes place to the infrastructure of that person's spiritual peripheral nervous system can take all the feeling out of life. The network of Christians that we live around is where we wind up pulling most of our conception of God from because it's the easiest place to find His working hand. When a piece of "God" turns out to be an absolute fraud thats a blow that can set you up for a recovery so slow that you'll likely die before it happens. This morning you find yourself at a place where you need to be getting out of bed and getting ready for church but you really just need some answers, too.

Before I try to describe some kind of "fix all" for you to implement into your life I want you to take a deep breath and realize that what you feel is normal. God designed you. He knows what your weaknesses are. God knows where you've been and what you've been through. If you decided to make today another Sunday that NO church saw your face you didn't decrease on His "favorites" list. All those church people your life used to revolve around may completely forget about you. Maybe they think you deserve every struggle you face because of how disappointing you are to God. None of that matters. Fact is, if you are a born again child of God, He was sitting on the edge of your bed this morning like any good daddy would be smiling at you with that "lets give this another go" look on His face. Yep. Contrary to what you may believe He is still crazy about you. As a matter of fact, He'd really like to spend some time with you. That blow you took, that numbness you feel, it may make a whole lot of people in your life look complicated but God hasn't changed any. Don't let any person that has wronged you cheat you of fellowshipping with God. 

The second thing I want you to realize is that God is interested in healing you. Man would be happy if you would just suppress all the questions you have, jump back into performing, and pretend like everything is fine but God doesn't need another hypocrite contributing to this same problem in other people's lives. No, God wants to heal you. When I was in middle school there was a gang of bullies that made a lot of people's lives miserable. I remember going home in the evenings and walking around my neighborhood with my dad. I'd share I'll my frustrations with him and he'd encourage me. Most of those guys got kicked out of my school within a year or two but my dad sustained me while they were in my life. The problem is that most of the time Christians put "dad" in with all the things that hurt them and walk away from Him, too. Your Bible hasn't been inconsistent, though. God isn't responsible for all the two faced religion you've seen. When we cut Him off with all the church people we open ourselves to falling into some serious sins. Maybe thats where you are today. Maybe your life has slid into all sorts of shameful actions because of your numbness. The sin in your life may be "confirmation" to all the church people that they were right about you when they had those "bad feeling" about you they claim they had. Religious fakes usually think they are prophets, don't they. They're too blind to see that they created the situation that got this ball rolling in your life. God is a good daddy and He is hurting for you right now. If you stop and look you'll see that gentle hand of grace that has never stopped reaching into your life. Step one is to get back on talking terms with God. He hasn't cut you off. You've actually cut Him off. God breaks fellowship with cold hearted rebellion not injured desperation. No, friend, He's still got full focus on you and He wants to walk you through this. He can sustain you. He can HEAL you if you'll let Him.

The third thing I want you to realize is that whether you are twenty years old or seventy years old it's ok to start over. Maybe you were deceived spiritually about a lot of things that lead to your numbness. Maybe you had your faith in people instead of God. Maybe you were part of a church that was just plain wrong about everything. Maybe your own family did this to you. Here you sit somewhere in the middle of life and you are tore all the way down back to your foundation. You can rebuild! You can set out on the frustrating journey of church hunting and find a group of people that love you and you can start over. There are places like that out there. It may take some effort to find and it may not look like anywhere you've been before but you can find it with God's help and you can shamelessly stand up, start over, and walk out of the ashes.

The last thing I want you to realize is that relapses are going to happen. You are going to run into those people that hurt you in public or on social media. You are going to be riding down the road one day and randomly remember the injustice you've seen and you're going to get angry again. We like to pretend that once we get a victory we never revisit our defeats but this is not a movie or a novel; this is real life and you are going to have frustrating relapses here and there. Buckle your seatbelt and stay honest with yourself. What you went through was bad but you don't need to live in it every day. Recognize self pity in your life and don't feed it. When Jesus healed the cripple man He told him to take up his bed and walk. That man was no longer sitting in that spot where he suffered for all those years but in all his victory he still had a reminder. He still had that bed in his hands. Let that bed be a reminder of Christ and His healing and not of the years that disease robbed you of. It's going to take some time and effort, friend, but you can get the feeling back. You don't have to live numb.

How to Love a Mean Christian

Christianity is the most peaceful, joyful, balanced, fair, love based walk that a human could ever encounter. In fact, the main reason the world is so critical of Christianity is that they recognize this fact and they see most of us living contrary to it. Real world Christians, however, recognize that the Christian life is a journey of learning and growth that never ceases. Those of us living here on the inside know how flawed we are and don't even feel the need to pretend that we are perfect. We understand who our Father is and in all of our childish, distracted, near sighted simplicity we trust that He is going to finish the work He has started in us. Then, in the midst of this quiet, personal journey of grace, we come across these arrogant, vocal, know-it-all Christians who seem to think they have it all together. These "perfect" Christians aren't joining us in our content walk behind Christ where we find rest in Him and satisfaction in our crosses. No, their life mission seems to be one of self deception where they are already a completed work and have been commissioned by God to help Him fix us so we can be as holy and right as they are. The worst part is that most of the time these mean Christians make us so mad that we wind up returning the attitude but what if these people aren't as simple as they appear? What if they need our help and our love? In order to help them we have to understand what has created their situation. There are a lot of factors but lets just take a look at the one area I believe may be the root issue.

Insecurity

Even the nicest house dog can turn mean when he is afraid. At the heart of every mean Christian you encounter is actually a person who is afraid. Maybe they haven't felt like they could compete with the talents and abilities of the people around them. Maybe something or someone in their past has made them feel as if they had very little self worth. Since this insecure Christian feels as though he would never be recognized or appreciated among the masses of "regular" Christians he is driven to create his own cult inside Christianity where he then can be recognized as extremely above average. After a while of living this way he starts believing that he really is better than most of those around him and his anger and resentment toward the people he feels intimidated by is then taken out on them through an attitude of condescension. They have made him feel meaningless, he believes, so in his new imaginary world where he is one of the elite he now attempts to return the favor. 

How Can We Help?

Most of the time we instinctively try to fight fire with fire but there is two problems with that tactic here. One, the mean Christian needs his imaginary form of Christianity in order to have any self worth and he is never going to allow you to take that away from him. If he has to label you "ungodly" and call you a "heretic" in order to discredit anything you say he will not hesitate to do that. Secondly, you attacking him only confirms his inner fears that the world around him doesn't appreciate or respect him. No matter how brilliant your thoughts are, how passionately you speak, or how knowledgable of scripture that you are he isn't going to hear your words because of your approach. The essential key to reaching a person with this sort of insecurity is by proving their suspicions wrong. The simple concept of forgiving, long-suffering, tenderhearted kindness combined with an intentional outstretched hand of love goes a long way. Find something good in them and focus on it. Be the friend they've been looking for whenever even a tiny opportunity presents itself and don't take anything hateful or spiteful that they may say personal. The key? Realize that they are a person just like you with a struggle that may simply be different than yours. See them as brothers and sisters and do what you can to encourage them. Ignoring them may be the easiest answer but it's not what Jesus would do.

The Personality of Legalism

There are legalists in every spectrum of Christianity. You can't just point your finger at every person that lives by a stricter set of personal guidelines than you and throw the label at them. Holiness is a personal walk just like faith; there are no two people that are alike. However, it is important that we know what it looks like so we can keep from falling into it ourselves. The first dilemma that we run into is that nobody wants to be a legalist so even the people that fit every quality of the word live in continuous denial of it. To keep ourselves from being bitter name callers we must go back to scripture, find the legalists mentioned there, and study their traits. In Luke chapter eighteen I believe we find everything we need straight from the mouth of Jesus to get a good idea of what the personality of legalism looks like. I fear that it is more common than most would care to admit. Let's take a look...

Luke 18:9-14 (KJV)

[9] And he spake this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: [10] Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican. [11] The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are , extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. [12] I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess. [13] And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. [14] I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

They Trust in Themselves

Verse nine puts the first nail in the coffin when the Holy Ghost inspired Luke's commentary on who this parable was directed toward. Jesus, knowing the heart problem in the legalists, directed this parable toward "certain which trusted in themselves." The legalist claims a devotion to Jehovah but faith is the only thing that pleases Jehovah. This man was dressed right and walked right, verse ten even tells us that he was going to the temple to pray, but his confidence was in the power of his own flesh. When verse eleven begins Jesus reveals to us that even the prayers of a legalist are directed toward his own flesh when he stated that this Pharisee "prayed...with himself." Thats a pretty stark contrast to the men we know through scripture who prayed "in the Holy Ghost." The legalist will tell you that his faith is in God but he lives a life that contradicts this lip service. Whenever you find a man who's spirituality produces pride and self satisfaction you find a man that is trusting in himself and not God; you find a legalist.

They Believe Their Form of Faith is Superior

This parable is not about a religious man and a lost man; this parable is about two believers that are both headed to the house of God to worship. Jesus tells the story in such a way that he draws the mind of the legalist to assume the worst about a man that Jesus knew would be the hero of the story. No legalist wants to hear that the publican in the story is the real spiritual man. So we have two Christians, if I may borrow the word, and one is assuming his form of Christianity is the superior form with the superior methods. This legalist is so convinced that his way is better that he even thanks God at the end of verse eleven that he isn't as bad off spiritually as the other man of faith. Whenever you find a Christian who believes that his personal form of Christianity is superior to all that don't meet his standard you find a man who's faith is in his own performance and not God; you find a legalist.

They are Defined by What They Do and Don't Do

As this Pharisee began his prayer it was not "our Father which art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name." He lifted his chin high and reminded God of all the things that he did not do! I imagine if he had been given a pulpit that his preaching would have probably consisted of a lot of this, too. Just as soon as he finished there, he was so pleased with himself, that he went on to remind God of all the things that he DID do. I imagine his long list of good works wasn't just reserved for his private prayer time either. Everything that this man was revolved around what he did and didn't do. Never a mention of grace, never a mention of God opening his eyes and ears, never a mention of God strengthening his faith or establishing his heart, never a mention of the cleansing work of the Spirit. No, just look at what I can do and look at what I can keep myself from! Whenever you find a man that is obsessed with what he does and does not do you find a man that believes in a works based spiritual life instead of a faith based spiritual life; you find a legalist.

They Devalue Others

Luke told us that Jesus was addressing those who had their confidence placed in their own self but he quickly followed that with the other primary defining characteristic of a legalist; they "despised others." This word "despise" literally means to devalue or "make of no account." When a man turns legalistic in his thinking he quickly becomes the judge of others and he isn't a very fair one. In order to maintain his confidence his primary passion becomes picking other people apart. We see in verse eleven that at the very introduction of this Pharisee's prayer he thanked God that he was not as other men were. As he closed that thought he narrowed the focus down to the closest person he could get his eyes on and that was the publican. Was he burdened for the publican? No, rather, he profited from the inferiority that he believed the publican to represent. Without anyone to compare himself to his life would carry very little meaning. The legalist is a vain elitist and always a gossip because his confidence depends on other people being wrong. Whenever you find a man that can't quit critiquing, criticizing, and gossiping about other people you find a man with blatant disregard for the grace of God; you find a legalist.

There was one man who went home justified at the end of this story and that was the humble, broken publican. The poor, wretched publican was a nothing, a nobody, with no confidence in himself. He was broken because he knew God. He was humble because he knew himself. Jesus wasn't interested in the man who had it all together. Jesus was interested in honesty. The minute we enter into denial about who we are and what our flesh is we, too, can enter into legalism. Legalism is deadly because it is a cause of it's own that works directly against the only cause that matters; faith in Jesus Christ and His completed work.

Dropping Standards: Not Always a Bad Thing

I've not tried to hide the fact that I used to be very outward focused on my ideas about what spirituality was supposed to look like. Over the first decade of my Christian life I acquired a long list of things I decided that my family would and wouldn't do from avoiding modern Christian music to not having a Christmas tree. Many of these things I find myself smiling about today. Of course, we still hold firmly to the convictions we have against clear cut areas of sin but natural growth and spiritual maturity have lead us to drop many of these opinion based, personal preferences down to a place of less importance in our lives. I've personally been the one to jump up and down about people who "threw all their standards away" and now the topic seems a lot more complex. Are there some times when dropping some standards might be a good thing?

One of the first areas that springs to mind is young people reaching adulthood and leaving home. Countless times I've watched the children of pastors, preachers, and missionaries leave home and "throw all their standards away." I've watched onlookers shake their heads, run them down, and start discussions in prayer rooms about how much these young hopefuls backslid and dropped the ball when they left home but is that really what happened? Very rarely, and usually only accompanied by extreme spiritual discouragement, have I seen a Christian take a conviction that God put on his heart and just lay it down and walk away from it. The case with many of these young people is that these supposed standards were never theirs to begin with. Once they stepped out from under the pressure of mom and dad the importance placed on these areas, whatever they may have been, fell away. Sure, this can be a dangerous time in this young adult's life but it is also crucial for their personal walk with Christ and its development. The real problem is that if a heart issue did exist in the child before it left home that we were all too satisfied with the facades to ever spot it. Now, for the first time in that young person's life they are being who they truly are and ultimately Jesus has something He can actually work with. There is no high premium in scripture for hypocrites no matter how much religious training they exemplify on the outside.

The next area that comes to mind is just plain and simple spiritual maturity. Take my little girl for example. When she first started talking and conversing with people she was not allowed to use the word "hate" at all. A two year old cannot fathom the gravity and weight that such a little word like that can carry. Now that she is fixing to turn five she uses the word nearly weekly as she tells her mommy "I hate that you hurt your finger" or "I hate that we aren't getting to see Grandma today." My little girl didn't digress morally because she began using the word that she originally had been taught against. No, maturity gave her the balance she needed to move forward and learn to use that word correctly. Many of the preferences I held to in the first season of my spiritual walk kept me out of a lot of trouble and helped me to grasp the importance of purity. Many of the standards I held drew strict lines in the sand to keep my flesh from areas that I had not developed temperance to handle. I'm not crawling any more though. In fact, I'm not even toddling. As a Christian I am now on my feet walking and eating meat. Do I have a lot to learn? Oh, of course! Until the day I die I'll have a lot to learn but I can now discern things that as a weaker Christian I was "not able to bear." This example holds true in my own home where many of the gates we put in front of the stairs, the padding we placed around the brick on the fireplace, and the locks on the kitchen cabinets are now gone simply because maturity has deemed them no longer necessary for my children. This same sort of scenario exists in the spiritual relm.

The last area that comes to my mind is religious peer pressure. I've been on the receiving end and on the giving end of this one. New believers need to be discipled but there is a fine line that can sometimes be crossed when we take areas that may be common practice to our particular genre of Christianity or to us personally and prioritize them over the black and white areas of scripture that actually need to be taught. The intentions and motives behind such practices are not always bad but it is dangerous to say the least because it can easily become a "grievous weight" or an area of bondage in that Christian's life. Everybody wants to fit in with the Christians after they get saved but the bar must be set as Christ and revealed as a level no man has reached! These standards that carry political weight in an assembly are most always bringing glory to a man somewhere that is thought to be the bar. Once a person loses faith in that man or manmade system these types of standards always come down because they were a result of pressure and not spirituality. At this point, a man can rebuild on the right foundation and have a real grasp of who God is. Just because one of these brothers or sisters doesn't recover and land exactly back where we are on all of our personal preferences doesn't mean he or she isn't right with God and no longer deserves respect. In fact, what you see on the outside now is what was probably in the heart all along. The only difference is that this person is no longer afraid of what you think about them. Keep in mind that we have our own spirituality overvalued when we use it as leverage to look down our noses at anyone.

We feel safer when we think everything has to be black and white but the beauty of grace is how personal it is. Most of the time it takes a lot of private prayer and meditation for God to be able to reveal to me exactly where I am. I tend to be biased towards myself and my view of who I really am usually winds up clouded. When I realize the immense amount of effort that I have to exert just to sort through my motives, my crutches, my vices, my insecurities, and all of my intricate internal workings I quickly realize that it would be absolutely impossible for me to look at you and know where you are in this process. As Christians we just have to love each other and trust that the Father is doing the necessary work in each of His children's lives. In every one of the above scenarios we find real people with real needs for love and friendship. We will either be the friends these people need or we will allow our own selfish agendas to cause damage and hurt and no good ever comes from that. When our motives are wrong we will often be quick to misjudge the motives of others. Romans two abrasively reminds us that it is the goodness of God that shapes a man and that we should be careful not to despise His long-suffering nature. Mine and your lives are like 1,000 piece puzzles that the Master is assembling. Unfortunately, the onlookers around us usually only have a clear view of three or four of those pieces at a time. 

Symptoms of Flesh Powered Religion

We have an epidemic in our churches that is ravaging us like a violent disease but making us dangerously numb to what is happening in the process. The problem dates back to being as old as the New Testament church itself and stands as an issue that aroused the apostle Paul like nothing else we ever saw him write about. The problem? Flesh powered, performance focused, eye pleasing religion.


Whether you attend Lakewood Church with pastor Joel Osteen or the strictest of fundamental Baptist churches, the problem is here and Paul told us how to spot it. First, you have to understand how the real spiritual walk operates. The first step is salvation by grace through faith. Next, growth and spiritual maturity comes through a purification process called sanctification which is performed by grace through faith just like salvation. The product of this process is holiness which is defined as "purity of heart and motive." This is where many of the early, New Testament Christians who were converted out of the Jewish religion really missed it and inspired a host of others to miss it, too. They believed that you could take a list of rules and regulations and, with the power of human flesh, accomplish spirituality. Just like many believe that salvation consists of nothing more than a simple decision with no draw from Jehovah and no convincing from the Holy Spirit, many also believe that the workings of God are not necessary for sanctification and holiness. Removing the grace of God from sanctification leads to an outward focused performance of the flesh that is designed to bring man glory. Remember, whatever authored your spirituality will always get the glory for it.

Peter showed us in his first epistle that true holiness always produces unfeigned love of the brethren. Paul, with the help of the Holy Ghost, revealed the fruit of the Spirit to us in Galatians five to even further show us the peaceful, loving nature of a spiritual man. In the same chapter where the fruit of the Spirit is listed in conjunction with faith based spirituality a list is also given that reveals the works of the flesh in conjunction with flesh powered spirituality. This list was given in the context that if you rely on the flesh to power your spirituality that these are the sorts of things you can expect to find IN YOUR CHURCH. This is not a list that our elite group of Christians are free from but rather this is the list of symptoms that, once analyzed, diagnose us as a very sick group of individuals in need of the purging fires of revival. Let's break down the list found in Galatians 5:19-21.

1. Adultery and Fornication. God recognizes these as two separate sins but they represent the same heart problem. We all know a preacher or a missionary or a Sunday school teacher or an upstanding church member that has fallen prey to these physical sins and many kept right on preaching, teaching, and singing with the same charisma and people skills as they always had without ever missing a beat until they got caught. The reason? Because the only spirituality they had to begin with was flesh powered and sin has never stopped the flesh from being a top performer. These sins can be active in the mind as well even if the body isn't acting on them. If you are a Christian man accessing the internet to read this blog post statistics are staggering that you have accessed pornography intentionally sometime in the last six months. How interested are you in honesty?


2. Uncleanness and Lasciviousness. These words mean luxurious, wasteful, and indulgent with unrestrained carnal desires. It means that while the world hurts we spend ungodly amounts of money on comfort and ease and entertainment. It means that we host revival meetings at our church multiple times every year while consistently ignoring the community. It means that we have preachers, pastors, and singers that actually use ministry as a means to live lavish and lazy. It means that once a week we sooth our conscience with "soul winning" activities while extinguishing our burden with selfishness the other six days a week. It means we can't afford missions giving because our Netflix account might have to be cut back. It means that we live our lives without any real burden because the flesh is only interested in the work that others can see or read about on Facebook.


3. Idolatry. This is the simple adoration of anything that fills that place of passion in our lives where God belongs. This manifests itself before church starts and after it closes when all we can talk to our brothers about is Friday night's ball game or Saturday's hunting adventure. In a more complicated light, this also includes the manufacturing of a version of Jesus that is contrary to who He is in scripture and a commitment to that version of Him rather than to the real One. This fruit of the flesh is evident when we use our religion to pin medals on our chests and forge crowns of glory for our heads while pretending to do it all for Jesus. Idolatry shows itself when we serve God with our form and show disregard for anyone who may shed light on how our form is wrong. Worship of the true Jesus is hungry for truth while worship of ourself and our religion will avoid it because flesh is in the drivers seat and it doesn't want out.


4. Witchcraft. This comes from a greek word pronounced pharmakeia which is where we get our word pharmacy or pharmaceuticals from and is defined by the use of and administering of drugs. Whether its sleeping meds, pain killers or unrealistic amounts of caffeine that is being abused to obtain our ups and downs it is proof that flesh is what we are leaning on. (Note: I am talking about chemical abuse and not medication that you actually need.)


5. Hatred, Variance, Wrath and Strife. These words all paint a grim picture of a people that have forsaken the biblical principles of loving their neighbor as themselves and are incapable of getting along with each other. The word religion is defined as "the outward practices" of your belief system. First, our flesh convinces itself that its own outward practices are superior to Christianity around it and then it uses that superiority complex as a license for condescension. We fight, argue, bicker, name call, and throw people and groups completely away all for the sake of exalting ourselves. True spirituality produces humility while flesh powered spirituality produces hypercritical arrogance. If we had half as much truth as we think we had we'd be in the ditches with our brothers, with tears in our eyes, trying to share it. You have to actually love people if you are going to help them, though, and the flesh is not capable of real love.


6. Emulation, Seditions, and Heresies. This word emulation is defined as what happens when people make spirituality into a competition. This word is defined, whether in Greek or English, as passion or zeal for a thing or cause that stands separate from the gospel. Whether it is one of the many Methodists that have ran me off of their front porches because I'm a baptist or whether it's the fist pumping fundamentalist in front of an ecumenical shouting about old time religion, this competitive, elitist, self absorbed mind set reveals a form of spirituality governed by the flesh and not the Holy Ghost of God. Seditions and Heresies further carry this same point when this word "heresies" is defined as people dividing into "sects" and causing unity to be destroyed over "differences of OPINION." It's one thing to break fellowship with a group of Mormons who do not believe Jesus is God but it is an entirely different problem when you cause discord and division over your personal, extra-biblical preferences.


7. Envyings and Murders. Envy is defined as that uneasiness we feel when we know we have been outdone or are in the presence of someone who we feel that we cannot outperform. The reason so many preacher's fellowships, camp meetings, and recreational conversations among Christians are filled with us overanalyzing the lives of others, making presumptuous assumptions, and judging motives of men and ministries is because our flesh is envious and insecure. Flesh powered spirituality cannot rest in who it is in Christ because it is not dependent on Christ to begin with therefor it MUST rely on lifting itself up and tearing others down. Murder is a literal, malicious killing of another human but Christ told us that if we allow things such as envy to lead us to things such as hatred that murder has already occurred in the heart. Holiness is purity of heart but the flesh isn't capable of such an innocence.


8. Drunkenness and Revellings. Intoxication with strong drink and the problems it brings is a serious issue that many church goers feel they are free of but drunkenness is painted all through scripture as rebellion and stubbornness toward God. When a man wanted to shut God out and numb himself from conviction alcohol was an easy way to accomplish that. Today our churches are inebriated with self. We are drunk on the books and teachings of men and whenever God attempts to change us we can't really even hear Him. Revelling is described in the Strong's Concordance as men who used drunkenness to honor a false diety. The flesh has its gods, the flesh is intoxicated with willing ignorance, and the flesh is revelling in its cause.


Why have we become so easily satisfied with facades? I believe at the heart of flesh powered religion is a desire for measurable spirituality. We want to be able to look at a person and somehow judge how far along they are while also being able to display our superior place of growth for all to see. The fact is, though, that spirituality cannot be measured. a rebellious, cold hearted Christian and a newly saved grown man that is spiritually that of a fumbling toddler may display some of the same outward characteristics. Two Christians that are both spiritually equivalent to a preschooler may have extremely diverse strengths and weaknesses that conclude nothing of where they are on the Christian walk. A Pharisee that isn't even walking with God may display all the outward signs of a seasoned, mature Christian while some men and women of great faith may not ever take on any religious facades that stand them out of the crowd for you to see. Ultimately, though, our carnal flesh loves externally focused spirituality that is powered by the flesh because it provides them with something to hide behind. If Christianity is satisfied with facades then a woman can lay around the house, neglect her husband, neglect her children, watch TV all day and read romance novels during the commercial breaks and, as long as she meets the outward criteria when she leaves the house, we are satisfied. A man can live carnal and selfish, waisting all the family's money on hobbies, but be bold at church with all of his learned, religious vernacular and we are pleased. The Bible tells us that God is no respecter of persons. The word person, as Ive stated before, means "a mask" and its where we get our word persona. Your persona may satisfy you and your church but God doesn't buy that version of you. Real spirituality comes from a heart of faith and doesn't always fit the cookie cutter holes we like to push it through. I've lived both lives. I've lived religiously busy for the purpose of showing some up while oppressing others. I know what its like to surf through a man's wife's Facebook pictures so I could try to judge her spirituality by what she wears. I know what its like to pick up my phone and call someone to gossip about what I've found to be questionable in the life of someone around me....all to the banner of "holiness." The ditches on both sides of the road are lined with people that have been hurt deeply by this lifestyle. It isn't doing anybody any good and it doesn't have to continue. Walking with God is a lot deeper than such a mindset as this and Paul paints it for us in the rest of chapter five. May God have mercy on us.


Galatians 5:22-26 (KJV) "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, [23] Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. [24] And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. [25] If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. [26] Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another."

Recognizing and Recovering from a Cult

Most of the time when the word “cult” is heard the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons and groups such as those are what come to mind but many who have been spiritually abused in church don’t realize that they were in fact part of a cult. Just because a household name such as Baptist or Methodist is on the sign does not keep an oppressive man from taking the leadership position and turning that assembly into a cult.

 

What is a Cult?

After digging through two or three secular internet sites, a couple of psychological web pages, and a few Christian outreach ministries I found that most all of them had the same basic characteristics listed to help people identify what exactly establishes a religious group as a cult. I’ve handpicked six areas that I feel are most important but you can feel free to further search this area out on your own.

1.       Leadership that cannot be questioned. A cult is ran authoritarian style. The leader constantly reminds his followers how he knows things that they don’t, has seen things that they haven’t, and has affirmatively heard from God on things that are not “black and white” in scripture. In fact, the idea is handed out that you cannot correctly understand the scriptures on your own without his guidance.

2.       Mind altering practices. You slowly become disconnected from reality because so many twisted facts are constantly handed to you. The leader seemingly has great insight into people and groups outside of his own and outright lies are passed off to you to keep you from attempting to fellowship with those people and ever see the truth for yourself. The leader often uses mystical techniques to try to portray a relationship with God that you are not capable of having. The majority of his teaching revolves around his opinion on scripture rather than biblical principle itself. Rather than spiritual growth happening naturally for members of the group they are immediately told how to act, think, dress, and live upon joining the group and affection is given or withheld depending on performance. If one member of the group is really meeting the leader’s standards he will be publicly awarded and petted on while those who fall behind are publicly humiliated. Peer pressure is often a cult’s most valuable tool and no real love exists.

3.       Elitist mindset. The group is often held captive by the leader because he has them convinced that no other church in possible driving range can compare to how holy and pleasing to God his methods are. Cults usually do not fellowship with any other churches because no other group ever seems to measure up. The leader is never open or honest about his own downfalls because he doesn’t believe he has any. A large percentage of his teachings is self focus, self glory, and self satisfaction.

4.        The Cult becomes your family. People that are not under the constant brainwashing tactics of the leader can easily see the problems and those are exactly the kind of people the leader does not want you fraternizing with. The cult will either keep you so busy that you don’t have time for those sorts of relationships or it will influence you into breaking fellowship with those outside the group for supposed spiritual reasons.

5.       Money is usually always a driving factor unless the leader himself believes his own deception.

6.       Leaving is never an option. Those who leave are lied about to the extent that all their relationships with people inside the group are usually lost once they depart even if that means breaking fellowship with blood relatives. Fear tactics are pressed so heavily that most are too afraid to take the initial step of leaving because they have been told that Satan will be unleashed on their families. Once a person leaves everything from flat tires to sick children is labeled the “judgment of God” to all who remain to keep them from wanting to leave.

 

What Have They Done to You?

Probably the most damaging thing a cult does to an individual is to keep that person from thinking for himself. Magicians use the distraction technique to keep your eyes on what doesn’t matter while they manipulate reality. Cults keep you so busy on what does not matter that once you successfully break away from the cult it is actually embarrassing to realize how much truth in scripture that you missed and how many problems you made excuses for. Every human mind is capable of falling into such traps and the fact that you have been there is going to make you stronger. It is of utmost importance for you not to wallow in the guilt of what you have partaken in but rather to rest in the truth you have discovered and to make right the things you have done to hurt others. Let your life become a story of grace and redemption as the Spirit of God leads you to truth and allows that truth to make you FREE! The Bible is for you to read and for you to understand. With all the crooked teachings, manipulative doctrine and brainwashing that you have experienced your mind is going to be reeling in shock and confusion. It is natural for you to want to give up on church and strike out on your own but no healing will come from that. You are likely more injured than you realize and you need real help from real people who are real Christians and know the real Jesus. Submerge yourself into the word of God. Put the books down for a while and just let God walk you through His word. Galatians and Romans and a study on faith based salvation and faith based spirituality will be life changing for you.

 

What Happens When You Leave the Cult?

A real group of Christians with the love of God in their hearts will go after a backslidden saint but this is most definitely not the case with cults. As was stated before, there is no real love in a cult. As soon as you stop seeing things their way they will push you out and ostracize you. Your name becomes mud as you become the next one who is lied about. Embellished stories full of twisted facts are quickly passed out to other members of the group and instead of your phone ringing with sounds of tears and hurt on the other end you hear the silence that so many others before you heard. You get to watch as people who you viewed as family, people you served and were benevolent toward, people you laughed and virtually lived with forget about you and move on as if you were never there to begin with. The few who don’t forget you just stay close enough to watch the awaited judgment of God destroy what is left of you. There is enough injustice in this picture to drive a normal human nearly out of his mind. The hurt is almost unbearable at times because it is inconceivable to think people who love you could turn on you in such a way and even more painful to realize that those people never understood love enough to truly love you to begin with. Pity them, pray for them, and never hold anything against those other deceived members. Reach out to them when they hurt, love them when they hate you, and be thankful that God is longsuffering toward each and every one of us.

 

How Do You Move On?

The key thing I would like to make clear to you is that there is nothing to be salvaged behind you in a cult because you never had anything there to begin with. Now that you are embracing faith and developing a real walk with the real Jesus you must trust Him to do for them what He has done for you but you have no way of knowing how long that may take. If their hearts are hard enough they may never heed His draw. The key to survival is forgiveness; true forgiveness that only Christ Himself can assist you with. Once you reach that point the next vital point is letting go. Place the ball in their court. Tell them that you have no hard feelings, that you love them and even miss them. Make them aware that they can reconnect with you in a respectful manner any time they wish and then, as if they were a balloon filled with helium that you got at the local fair, let them go. Only the Holy Ghost of God can change a man so don’t think you are going to be able to fight it out with them and make them see the light. If you attempt to “talk it out” with them they are going to draw you into nothing but more confusion with their fact hiding, story twisting, mind games and you are not capable of reasoning with that sort of individual. Pray for them but let them go. Trying to continue to force some kind of relationship that they are not ready to be real with is just going to cause your family unnecessary pain. You must forgive them, you must weed out every root of bitterness, but it is absolutely vital that you not daily torture yourself with what they are thinking, doing, and saying to and about you and your family. There is life on the other side. Take those lead ropes to your life out of their hands and give them to Jesus. As long as un-forgiveness and bitterness have a place in your heart the cult leader from your past will still have a hand on you. Know the truth, rest in the truth, and let it make you free.

Forsaking Doctrine to Stand for Truth

When it comes to religion there are few things that we fight over more than doctrine. A thousand years ago Christians died for their doctrine while today Christians kill for their doctrine. I’m interested in being right! I don’t want to live my life in error but I can’t ditch Bible principle for Bible principle. All the doctrines of the scripture are pieces that make up the whole puzzle but often times we pick and choose pieces that we like while throwing away other essential pieces in order to beat our brothers to the finish line. There is a key doctrine that all doctrine hinges on and it makes most Christian’s skin crawl to even talk about it. It’s the doctrine of love!

 

Have you ever dreamed of sitting down with Jesus and asking Him what the most important commandment in the Bible was? Or maybe even the most important, top two? Well, somebody beat you to it and here is the answer Jesus Christ our Lord gave. “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” See, and you thought I was kidding when I said all doctrine hinged on it. You have it right out of the mouth of Christ that loving God with EVERYTHING you are and loving your neighbor with the same tender care, admiration and regard as you have for your own self is the key to all of the Bible’s principles! Can you just imagine sitting down with Jesus and saying, “Lord, that guy I used to hang out with turned out to be a compromiser but I sure showed him! I don’t even call and talk to him any more!” Boy, we are really standing aren’t we…

 

I Corinthians 13:1-3 (KJV) “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing.”

 

My, how those words sting! Do you ever wonder why, even though you walk a straight line, live a sacrificial life, dedicate all your free time to service and study and prayer, and are faithful to church every time the doors are open, that you still haven’t found that “rest” and “peace” and “joy” that the scriptures speak so flagrantly of? Sometimes I think we’ve gotten so bent on STANDING that we’ve forgotten how to walk! We wonder why we can’t get people interested in coming to church with us and why, when they do come, they race to their cars after service and it’s because people can tell the difference between someone loving them and someone trying to “fix” them. God help our wicked arrogance!

 

I Corinthians 13:4-8 (KJV) “Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up. Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Charity never faileth…”

 

It’s difficult to convince the world that we are a people whose entire existence revolves around a rebirth through love and forgiveness when those are the two commodities we dispense to others in such stingy portions. Oh, sure, we love our church family, that is, until they say something we don’t agree with or do something to hurt us. We love that church down the street from us but they’ve got so many problems that we don’t even bother praying for them, in fact, we are happy at how they are failing! We love our lost family members but they are just so wicked that we can’t go around them. We love those people who have left our church but we are just sure they missed God’s will and don’t mind discussing it since they aren’t around to hear us. We love those backslid Christians that fell by the way so much that we just can’t wait for them to encounter God’s judgment so we can say “I told you so!” We love those people that did us wrong but that doesn’t mean we have to smile or wave when we pass them in town! I mean, after all, God understands how wronged we are and, besides, we’d be compromising if we reached out to those sorry rascals! Like little children anticipating Christmas, we can’t wait for judgment day in Heaven so everyone can see how wrong they were and how right we were!

 

Oh, we are straight as an arrow, alright, but we are stuck fast in a dead tree a long ways off from the mark God aimed us at. If we had just half of the discernment we claimed to have we would KNOW how much all those people around us needed to be loved. When Jesus spoke He preached doctrine! He was a Man of doctrine because He is the God of doctrine! Ever wonder why the Bible tells us that they were “astonished” by His doctrine? My guess is that because while they were living in a culture driven by bondage, oppression and crooked religious hierarchy Jesus was teaching “For God so LOVED the world that He GAVE…” Funny how loving and reaching out are inseparable. God help us not to forget love. God help us not to forsake doctrine. We can stand without love but not for very long...

 

I Corinthians 10:12 (KJV) "Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall."