Confessions of a Recovering Pharisee

I'm beginning this post in hopes that I never post it. The past few months of my life have been crazy. When God takes a notion to purge something from your life it's not usually very pleasant. As painful as it's been, I've never felt more alive and in His arms in my life and my two years of college look like a Sunday afternoon stroll compared to the education I've received in this time. To move forward in life you have to realize where you are wrong and that's where this story starts.


I met Jesus when I was seventeen years old after spending my whole life in church. I didn't know where to start. Growth doesn't begin until life begins but more than I needed direction I needed some good, fatty milk. Like most new Christians, I quickly discovered things that made the church people frown and things that made them pat my back and that was my initial perception of spiritual growth. I moved forward listening to God at times and men at times and I pieced together my religious walk from a combination of the two. I had an outfit and a ritual and the brethren were proud of me but my soul hungered for more. Like any good Pharisee I was proud of myself. Instead of struggling with my sin nature in the form of worldlyness like you imagine others to face my struggle became pride, cynicism and an overall lack of compassion. I would hurt for lost people as Christ would draw me on one hand and then be frustrated with everyone for not being as holy as I was on the other hand. The cure for every Pharisee is the same, though, and that's a midnight rendezvous with Jesus. Just ask Nicodemus! About four years ago that happened as I learned what it meant to really pray. I'd never really REALLY been in the throne room before and when I got there I got addicted. Pharisees are what they are because they have no fellowship with God. It is impossible to be proud of yourself and commune with Him at the same time. I had grew a little over the previous five years but my world woke up at this point. I had real direction in my soul on a daily basis! I knew what His voice sounded like and I wanted to follow it wherever it lead me!


The struggle began again. On one hand I'm hearing the voice of God's Spirit in my heart and then I'm hearing preaching and advice from Christians in my life that went against it. One Voice was drawing me toward a life of compassion and love while the other voices drew me to criticize, judge and presume. The love of a Pharisee is highly conditional and performance based and the pressures often weighed on me to stick with the methods these voices had pressed on me for fear of losing their love. Love? Love that can be lost? That's a concept entirely heretical in itself. A hierarchy that uses fear and emotional abuse to control those under it is not found in scripture but then again, Pharisees don't need scripture. Why, then, do we need Pharisees?


In the Bible you have those who followed Jesus because they loved Him and those that worshipped religion because it made them feel important. That's really the defining factor of being a Pharisee: your god is religion and you are lord. Why would you care about the lost or the babes in Christ? They are just bragging rights or competition to you. So, you write out a big list of outward rules, you live strictly by them and you have an attitude of bitterness, malice and disregard for those that don't line up with your guidebook. You swear the King James Bible is the only version to use but you live by your own version every day. You put your religious garments on and use them as a measuring stick for the spiritual condition of those around you. You live clean and view the ones who have made mistakes as second rate and unusable to God. You carry these thought patterns as a good Pharisee in supposed dedication to Jehovah and then while boasting in the synagogue Jesus Christ, Jehovah in the flesh, walks by and you don't even know who He is!!! Meanwhile, your ministry has a list of people it has damaged and discouraged three miles long and you are convinced the devil is just fighting you. You think the devil is fighting you because that's how important you perceive yourself to be when really he is your team mate because you are playing on his side! Your message beams brash and hateful and you call it unctionized and bold. Your demeanor shines with the dullness of bitterness and you call it holiness. Your attitude boasts of self and pride and you call it liberty and humility. God help, you think I'm throwing stones, I'm saying I've been there. I'm saying I'm sorry.


Religion is an insatiable task master. I served it with everything I had and it offered me no reward. Can a man serve two masters? I tried. Yet, in the long suffering of God, little by little He has painfully chiseled these pieces away; many of them just in recent months. I've learned what love looks like and how it never changes and how I owe it to even my enemies. I've learned that spiritual growth looks different in every single persons life and I have no idea how to judge where you are in it. I've learned that there's not a box on the planet Jesus fits in and that He has no favorites. I've learned that He cares about you when you dress wrong and carry a corrupt Bible version. I've learned that He has no allegiance to any organization of man and that He is more interested in what HE is doing in ME than what I see in others; he didn't hire me for that. I've learned that holiness is based on love and obedience and not standards and convictions. I've learned that 99% of religion revolves around temperance and there's eight more fruits of the Spirit that get looked over. I've learned that if you live, eat, sleep and breathe religion and get love wrong that you've wasted your life.


My passion is to change the world and I want to start right now by saying I'm sorry. My attitude hasn't always been right, I haven't always cared like I should or been patient. At times I sought to please men and have even allowed myself to be influenced by attitudes of condescension and elitism. I haven't been a Pharisee in four years but in the past few months God has taken a sledge hammer to the last remaining pieces. Painfully. I want my life to change yours but that desire is not really affective until you know that I know I've been wrong at times in the past in this area and that I know you've probably noticed. I want to live right for the right reasons. I don't want to cut corners and compromise out of fear of religion. I want to instantly and immediately move toward every ray of light God gives me no matter how uncomfortable or awkward it may seem. These are my ramblings. These are my confessions...

The Independent Fundamental Baptist’s Second Biggest Problem

In September of last year I wrote a post entitled The Independent Fundamental Baptist’s Biggest Problem and year to date it has been my number one most popular post. It’s a topic I’ve not stopped chewing on. As I stated previously, I am an IFB or a Fundie or whatever anybody else wants to call it. I was born one; I will die one. The history of revival fire is found in this old time way. The problems we are facing today are self inflicted and if revival is to be had we are going to have to confront them head on. Resolution can come! The power of God used to be on our churches but the Holy Ghost of God is sensitive and He has been grieved today. In my first post I attempted to shed light on, what I am sure, is the number one problem; pride. Today, with God’s help I’d like to shine some light on the source of this pride problem. Our second biggest problem, the source of the corrosive, destructive pride problem, is our standards and convictions.

Listen to me close, friend. I don’t own a television, I’m against it, my wife doesn’t wear pants, we don’t listen to secular music at all, I’m for a life of separation that rejects worldliness and pursues holiness! I stand against sin and not just on a personal level. I speak out against fornication and complacency and half lived, carnal Christianity. I'm against show business Christianity that has NO standards and convictions. There are places I don’t go, there are things I don’t do and there are people I don’t fellowship with but the kicker lies in the motive. Standards and convictions are fundamental to the life of holiness; separation doesn’t come without them! Lines must be drawn, battles must be picked and contending must ensue…..for the right reasons.

So often, it seems, our convictions and standards have absolutely nothing to do with holiness and walking with God but rather they have become trophies in our halls of achievements, homemade crowns to be worn to church, idols placed in borrowed Roman Catholic Grottos to be caressed and bowed to and honored above God Himself! Like the garb of a Pharisee, meticulously chosen each morning for self glorification and personal, public recognition we champion our standards and convictions and use them like a fine tuned machine that emits nothing but pride! There is no room for the Holy Ghost of God in most of our churches because the air that should be permeated with sacrifice and sweet savors and incenses of prayer and praise is polluted with pride and arrogance.  

Why do you do what you do? Every standard and conviction that you hold to in your life should be traced back to a tearful, broken decision you made as homage paid to God. Every standard and conviction you have should be a humble attempt at separation and an overall drawing nigh unto God! “I separate myself as a vessel of honor unto You, oh God!” should be the testimony our life shouts! As heartwarming as it is to see a lover dote on his spouse and separate himself and see him live his life in consideration of her, our actions should also warm the hearts of the lost people around us! Do they look at our actions and think “wow, that guy has laid aside everything as he longingly looks toward the Heavens” or do they say “wow, that guy has decorated himself with religion as he hatefully glares toward us!” There is BIG difference and the world KNOWS the difference! We have a pride problem but it takes a foundation cracking root in our idolatry problem. If we want revival the groves must be cut down, the idols must be trampled and the hearts and wills must belong to HIM!

Christian….and addicted to Pornography

If being born into the family of God cleared you from ever being tempted to sin again the writers of the New Testament sure could have saved a lot of paper and ink writing to Christians about dealing with their flesh. Until your flesh is pumped full of embalming fluid and laid to rest in a cemetery you will struggle with it. In order to subdue it, however, you must starve it. It has an appetite the size of The Grand Canyon; a hole you are incapable of satisfying! Attempts are often made to fill that hole but the project is always expensive because of what that dark hole calls for. Addictions are built this way. Bottles and bottles of liquor and bags upon bags of drugs can never fill this cavernous void. We’ve all watched addicts attempt it and lay their lives to ruin at the same time but few of us think we are capable of such an end. You’ve got your life together, right? You dress, walk, talk and live like a Christian. You may even be a Sunday school teacher, song leader or even a preacher…you just look at a little bit of porn here and there…I mean, nobody knows, right?

 

The only way I could have been raised any more conservatively would have been to be shipped off and raised by the Amish. My family was strict, our standards straight and our hair all parted neatly to one side but as a seventh grader in a Christian school I found myself subjected to my first pornographic image. It was a printed picture in a friend’s wallet but I can still see it in my mind as clearly as I saw it that day. My upbringing kicked into gear immediately and I shunned the image and scolded my friend but my curiosity had been teased. I started finding ways to pull up images on my family’s home computer and it became a daily habit, an addiction that ran on for a couple of years. I hated it! I wanted it gone but Satan had devised a ploy that played aggressively on the way God had designed my mind to work and I was stuck fast! I must have sincerely repented of it a hundred times but each time I found myself mentally justifying it again in some way until finally, it happened. I was sitting there minding my own business one day and my dad came walking in with this serious look on his face and said “get in the truck, let’s go for a ride.” I had been caught. I’ll never forget that ride. He didn’t ground me, he didn’t take all my prize possessions away, he just understood and loved me. I can’t tell you how embarrassed I was but at the same time, on the inside, I felt renewed! I wasn’t fighting alone anymore! I had accountability!

 

My story is a very mild one but it still stands as proof that a good person with a good family and good intentions can struggle with this addiction and be completely under the radar! That was only about 12 years ago but technology has SOARED since then! Chances are that YOU have a smart phone with a media package and can look at whatever you want and delete the history when you are done. You don’t have to download anything or buy anything or hide magazines under the bed anymore; just pull out your phone when you are alone and the feed is endless. The problem is that, if YOU aren’t rescued early like I was, the potential is there for you to not just stop with images. I heard a testimony just yesterday from a worship leader at a high profile church that ended up in bed with multiple women he’d met online before he finally got the nerve to look for help! I wonder how many “good Christians” are reading this post right now that have gone that far or are about to? I wonder how many preachers are reading this right now that would be outright devastated if their iPhone history could be brought back and reviewed by the people they preach to?

 

This sin is difficult to beat mainly because of how it is approached. First, we convince ourselves that it really isn’t all that bad and we make excuses for it. We look down on others who are involved in truly petty sins while we ourselves harbor this grotesque, adulterous sin! Second, we are determined to fix it ourselves. Right, the same flesh that drives us in this horrid addiction is the flesh we entrust to heal us of it. Not. Going. To. Happen. My friend, it’s time to do some confessing. Your flesh NEEDS to be embarrassed about the problem. If you are married, your wife is the perfect candidate to confess to. Women don’t always understand this struggle so don’t expect it to go to well. Women tend to take it personally; you’ll have to help her understand but she’s the one you’ve been cheating on and she is the one that needs to know. (If infidelity has already occurred your pastor needs to know and you need to resign from all public ministry positions and allow restoration to take its course. God has no intentions of throwing you away but it’s time to put yourself in His hands.) Accountability is the next step. You need someone, preferably either your wife or someone that has struggled with this in the past and knows how you may hide it, to be accountable to. Set it up where you guys chat daily or weekly so that you are constantly confront about it. Honesty on your part is key to getting the process started AND keeping it going in the right direction. You MUST recognize that you have a serious problem and not allow Satan to gain another square inch of your mind! As your wife learns more about how your mind works she can become a great asset to you from keeping you in check around town when lust may present itself to being there to keep you on your toes with all of your media access. She’s your partner, your teammate, it is her job to offer this sort of help. My friend, its time to get the process started and head towards victory! Repent to your Father and let him show you where to find accountability. Today is the day!