In reading others blogs about Jesus, church, and faith..I find myself returning to the issue I've had all along. The issue of religion or as I am calling it..a runaway train. It seems to run everything spiritual down that is in it's path.
All of those years I devoted to the church should have been the ties that bind me to the congregation, my family. How does one start out so full of fire and end up yawning their way through their service among the body? Easily...religion. It quenches the spirit and kills the life. It's the bushel basket that isn't supposed to be placed over the flame.
My fire is back but it burns in a different window now. I have simply moved my "candle." God knows my heart and He knows my struggles. He's walked with me right out the door of the church (the building not the faith). There's a difference between being convicted and knowing you're being convicted but suppressing it so you don't have to feel it. I haven't had to suppress it because it never came. God hasn't convicted me (and Christians know it when He does) of not attending Sunday service...not once. I think it's possible that it's part of my journey and He will use this just like He used my time serving in the church.
There's much to be said for the time I was there. Many children came to Jesus because I chose to obey. But just like that road seemed to materialize under my feet, a new path has materialized as well. I have to walk this out or I am not true to myself nor to the Holy Spirit within me.
This is a deep well of my life. I hear the enemy trying to call me back in. How do I know it's him? Because I know that what started out as a beautiful fire became quenched embers the longer I remained. Why would God have me in a place that leads me further and further from the truth? He wouldn't. That leaves one other entity or force pulling me back. The enemy and none other.
Last night, as I was completing my evening bed time rituals I became aware of a sudden rush of freedom. I knew my heart ached for the things of the Kingdom however, I didn't feel that bondage to the rituals that I had once believed were the only keys that fit the lock of that door. I use to follow a stringent routine of rituals. Bible study at 8...prayer at 9....life...prayer....life....Bible....life...prayer...bed. For all of that I felt empty and entirely unfulfilled. I was happy but not complete.
I have since that time put away those rituals and left inspiration up to God. Call me Father. Call me unto thee. I will come. And call me He has. Sometimes He calls me at 5 and sometimes at 7. Sometimes He calls me in the wee hours and sometimes He doesn't call for long periods. But when He speaks to me, I hear His voice because it's not mingled with man's.
I don't hear the voice of a man telling me "once saved always saved." I hear my Father warning that there will be a great falling away and that, "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." Hebrews 6:4-6.
I assume that anyone who wants to argue that scripture's validity with me would be reading from a translation that uses the comfortable words that people seek out. Just like the church doesn't teach that there's a hell because it's not comfortable for their congregants, they move the words around in the newer translations to form scriptures that don't even resemble the earlier translations. Why take a scripture that is self explanatory such as, "Jesus wept," and change it to say, "Jesus cried." What's the point in that? It says He wept, so let Him weep.
I will end this saying with, I am called of my Father and not of man. I won't be summoned to a building because man says it's the way of the Christian. I know of only one way to be...in Christ. I reiterate what I've said many times before, Jesus never healed one person and said, "now, you get yerself into a good Bible believin church." He said, and I quote, "go thy way." "Thy way" isn't anyone elses except for mine. I will walk with Jesus and if it means walking alone with Him then so be it. If I can't satisfy my need for corporate worship because the church doesn't uphold sound doctrine anymore, then so be it. I'll deal with it when I get home and He will deal with me.
All of those years I devoted to the church should have been the ties that bind me to the congregation, my family. How does one start out so full of fire and end up yawning their way through their service among the body? Easily...religion. It quenches the spirit and kills the life. It's the bushel basket that isn't supposed to be placed over the flame.
My fire is back but it burns in a different window now. I have simply moved my "candle." God knows my heart and He knows my struggles. He's walked with me right out the door of the church (the building not the faith). There's a difference between being convicted and knowing you're being convicted but suppressing it so you don't have to feel it. I haven't had to suppress it because it never came. God hasn't convicted me (and Christians know it when He does) of not attending Sunday service...not once. I think it's possible that it's part of my journey and He will use this just like He used my time serving in the church.
There's much to be said for the time I was there. Many children came to Jesus because I chose to obey. But just like that road seemed to materialize under my feet, a new path has materialized as well. I have to walk this out or I am not true to myself nor to the Holy Spirit within me.
This is a deep well of my life. I hear the enemy trying to call me back in. How do I know it's him? Because I know that what started out as a beautiful fire became quenched embers the longer I remained. Why would God have me in a place that leads me further and further from the truth? He wouldn't. That leaves one other entity or force pulling me back. The enemy and none other.
Last night, as I was completing my evening bed time rituals I became aware of a sudden rush of freedom. I knew my heart ached for the things of the Kingdom however, I didn't feel that bondage to the rituals that I had once believed were the only keys that fit the lock of that door. I use to follow a stringent routine of rituals. Bible study at 8...prayer at 9....life...prayer....life....Bible....life...prayer...bed. For all of that I felt empty and entirely unfulfilled. I was happy but not complete.
I have since that time put away those rituals and left inspiration up to God. Call me Father. Call me unto thee. I will come. And call me He has. Sometimes He calls me at 5 and sometimes at 7. Sometimes He calls me in the wee hours and sometimes He doesn't call for long periods. But when He speaks to me, I hear His voice because it's not mingled with man's.
I don't hear the voice of a man telling me "once saved always saved." I hear my Father warning that there will be a great falling away and that, "it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, and have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, if they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put Him to an open shame." Hebrews 6:4-6.
I assume that anyone who wants to argue that scripture's validity with me would be reading from a translation that uses the comfortable words that people seek out. Just like the church doesn't teach that there's a hell because it's not comfortable for their congregants, they move the words around in the newer translations to form scriptures that don't even resemble the earlier translations. Why take a scripture that is self explanatory such as, "Jesus wept," and change it to say, "Jesus cried." What's the point in that? It says He wept, so let Him weep.
I will end this saying with, I am called of my Father and not of man. I won't be summoned to a building because man says it's the way of the Christian. I know of only one way to be...in Christ. I reiterate what I've said many times before, Jesus never healed one person and said, "now, you get yerself into a good Bible believin church." He said, and I quote, "go thy way." "Thy way" isn't anyone elses except for mine. I will walk with Jesus and if it means walking alone with Him then so be it. If I can't satisfy my need for corporate worship because the church doesn't uphold sound doctrine anymore, then so be it. I'll deal with it when I get home and He will deal with me.