The Simplest Answer is Always LOVE!

Lately, it seems to be quite a struggle to hold onto hope for real world peace, to feel safe and secure in life, and to trust in the best intentions of humanity. News headlines lines literally wreak with purifying stories of hatred and malice, murder and deceit, heartache and suffering. I suppose the most baffling aspect of it all is why would things be worse, when there are churches and religions massively covering the earth claiming to teach unity and love? In fact, I don’t think there is hardly a religious person out there that would not agree that LOVE is the key that unlocks happiness, peace, joy, liberation, forgiveness…

Then why, why is the world in such a mess?
Why is religion not impacting the world as it could be?

The reason religion is failing to unify is because of a little conjunction that most religion adds to the simple message to love.

That conjunction is “and”.

What comes after that conjunction is as vast and as varied as personalities are.

Love and go to church
Love and give money
Love and dress the way we dictate
Love and submit to authority
Love and be baptized
Love and call yourself a_____________
Love and join our affiliation
Love and see things the way we see them
Love and agree with everything the pastor preaches
Love and don’t listen to rock music
Love and wear a covering on your head
Love and don’t ask questions
Love and be compliant
Love and serve our church
Love and stay away from______________

On and on and on it goes. Where it stops nobody knows.

Its not what follows the “and” that is the problem. It’s the “and” being there in the first place.
The “and” is what breaks the fellowship. The “and” is what divides. The “and” is what turns love into hypocrisy. The “and” is what removes the unconditional. Its the “and” that provides the excuse to commit atrocities. Its the “and” that inflates the ego. It’s that little conjuntion “and” that is added to the simple message of LOVE that dilutes it and robs it of its potency.

LOVE!

That is the key to world peace. That is the key to happiness. That is the key to Spirit.

God is love. Love is God.

The message of the sages is simple:

LOVE!

Written by Elizabeth A. Van Cleve
10/09/2016

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Ten Paradox’s in Unhealthy Religious Bodies

Jesus taught us that “the Kingdom of God is within YOU!” He taught us to look inside for our answers. He abolished the “law” so men and women would cease to look outward for God and begin to look inward- the place where we are most afraid to look.

I have personally experienced all in the following list. The sad part about these subtle and not-so-subtle contradictions, is they create a dishonest person. Most members see these things, but fear and insecurity cause them to turn a blind eye. They are told their heart is honest because they listen and obey their message, all the while, leveraging the fear of “disobedience and rejection of God,” they create inward conflict and dishonesty to their own conscience.

1. An unhealthy religious body will applaud your personal reasoning as long as you are listening to, and agreeing with their message, but they will question your reasoning if you are looking elsewhere.
2. When tragedy happens to a member of an unhealthy religious body, it is a gift from God to help them grow. When tragedy happens to someone outside their group, it is a punishment or consequence of sin.
3. A “message” is judged good or bad according to whom delivers it rather than on it’s soundness.
4. Breaking a church rule is like breaking the fellowship, unless you are a long-stander or high-tither.
5. “Right” or “wrong” is nebulous, shifting from pastor to pastor, member to member, and congregation to congregation.
6. Answered prayer is from God when among members, but from Satan when among outsiders.
7. Their church has been in existence since the time of Christ, but “so-and-so” brought it back to light in more recent years.
8. Jesus Christ is the head of the church body, but you need the pastors permission to before making any moves.
9. The building is not the church, just a convenient place to gather- but don’t you dare gather together anywhere else- unless its with them of course.
10. To destroy someones reputation is like murder-  except for the reputations of those who have left.

Don’t be afraid to listen within to what your heart is trying to tell you- even if it is direct opposition to what is being taught to you from without.

My child, pay attention to what I say.
Listen carefully to my words.
Don’t lose sight of them.
Let them penetrate deep into your heart,
for they bring life to those who find them,
and healing to their whole body.
Guard your heart above all else,
for it determines the course of your life.
Avoid all perverse talk;
stay away from corrupt speech.

~Proverbs 4:20-24

(NLT)

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Fifteen Myths about Bible Translation

I love myth debunking- especially when it comes to “the word of God,” because so many religious organizations hold people in spiritual captivity by misappropriation of the “WORD.”

Fifteen Myths about Bible Translation.

Here is a great site that gives you a comparison chart to the versions of the Bible, including when each version came out:

Translation Comparison Chart

For a deeper look into what the “WORD” really is, see the chapter in my book, “The Voice of God Within” titled: “For the Bible Tells Me So.”

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Counting the Cost

It is often preached to sinners that they have a “cost to count” before they get saved. But counting the cost is something that we must continue to do throughout our walk with God and sometimes it can be after years of service that our biggest count happens, when we are faced with the fact that what we have been preaching to others might have not been right. When God begins to open our eyes to more light and we see that we were WRONG in things that for years we thought we knew and understood so clearly, let me tell you something, this is some of the hardest counting a soul will EVER do, because it takes the GREATEST humility.

Just as Saul was arrested on the road to Damascus, he said of himself, “Though I might also have confidence in the flesh. If any other man thinketh that he hath whereof he might trust in the flesh, I more: Circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee; Concerning zeal, persecuting the church; touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless. But what things were gain to me, those I counted loss for Christ. Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,” Phil. 3

He was a very upstanding citizen and believed wholeheartedly in what he was doing that it was an honor to his God. But God arrested him one day and told him he was WRONG!

The early church practiced this humility among themselves. They prayed and fasted and came together to settle questions that they were unsure of, such as the question that arose of whether or not one needed to keep the law of circumcision. There were differing opinions, but the MIND OF CHRIST was of UTMOST importance, and only in humility and subjection to HIS LORDSHIP could this be accomplished.

There is a counting of the cost that must be done in the religious world to day~ even among those who call themselves “The Church of God.” 

Truth has been compromised.

In Revelations 2 Christ spoke to seven congregations and told them to count the cost for these reasons:
1. thou hast left thy first love
2. thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balac to cast a stumblingblock before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed unto idols, and to commit fornication…So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate
3. thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols
4. I have not found thy works perfect before God
5. thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:

Consider these things that Christ warned the people to repent of:
1) Christ was no longer their first love
2) They held false doctrines that caused the children to stumble (sin) eat things sacrificed to idols (Messages that are not from a sacrifice to God but to lift up a man) commit fornication (be unfaithful to God’s spirit and truth) and hold the doctrine the Nicolatitanes: “Nicolaitans,” comes from the Greek, #3528, nikao-nik-ah’-o: to subdue, conquer, overcome, prevail, get the victory and #2992, laos-lah-os’: a people. The term, “Nicolaitans,” literally means, “to conquer the people.” Nicolatitanes is a “religious hierarchy of delegated authority.” ~wickedshepherds.com
3) Again we have Jezebel teaching worship of something other than Spirit and truth
4) Christ said their works are not perfect which tells me their was some dishonesty in their hearts.
5) An indifference to spirit and truth. “What difference does any of this make? I am rich and increased with goods and don’t need anything.” And Christ says they are so blind to their own spiritual depravity.

Christ said the Father seeks those who will worship Him in “Spirit and in truth.” That means, sometimes, truth is going to come to our spirit and we need to be worshiping God enough to be able to forsake the lies we have clung to our entire life and humble enough to say, I was wrong! 

I think it is good to go outside at night and look at the stars and behold the magnitude of God. We really have a TON to learn! No matter who we are or what we know, myself included, I know nothing yet as I ought too, God is so great, and we are so minuscule.

You see, sometimes the cost is the very thing you think is so precious and right- sometimes its the one thing you preached the longest and the hardest against. Like Saul- sometimes that one thing needs to become DUNG!

“let God be true, but every man a liar…” Romans 3:4

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Be Still and Know I AM

The entire reason Christ came to earth was to reconcile mankind to God- God wants to completely embrace us in his love and spirit. He wants to immerse you in himself, just as Moses went up alone on that mountain. He met God after being alone for forty years in the desert.
God told Moses, “I Am that I Am.” 

And Christ told us, “I AM the bread of life;” “I AM the truth, the way, the life;” I AM the living water.” 

People have been looking for God in the wrong place. They keep “going to church,” and church keeps dividing and controlling and confusing them.

God said, “I AM that I AM!”

When Christ was conversing with the woman at the well she said to Him concerning the place they were at, “Our fathers worshiped in this mountain, and you say in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship.” John 4:20

The woman was opening up a spiritual argument with Christ about where the right place of worship truly was. The Samaritans were divided against the Jews- they had religious division. 
Christ answered her, (21) “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will neither in THIS mountain, NOR at Jerusalem worship the Father. You do not even know what you are worshiping. We know what we worship for salvation is of the Jews. (23) But the hour comes, AND IS NOW, when the TRUE worshipers shall worship the Father in SPIRIT and in TRUTH. For the Father seeks such to worship Him. God is a Spirit; and they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth.” (emphasis mine)
Jesus put to silence her argument and BROKE DOWN HER WALL OF DIVISION! Amen! Essentially he said, neither one is right- THIS WALL HAS GO! This is NOT what God cares about. What God wants is a true worshiper. (someone who worships from their spirit with honesty)

God wants to isolate you as an individual. Christ taught us that the “Kingdom of God is within you.” 

Religion is just division! “Babylon” is symbolic of religious confusion- all religions erected have become a “the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. “ Rev. 18:2-3

They worship the “SYSTEM” instead of GOD- as Christ taught at the well. They cease to be intimate with the true God. They are entangled in their doctrines, creeds, rules and regulations and their belief that these things make them SUPERIOR to all else.  And They have made quite a market of the whole religious system.

Christ did not come to establish a “NEW LAW AND ORDER.” Yet that is exactly what so much of religion does. Most of them agree that the OLD LAW was done away with, but they take the New Testament Bible and each religious faction creates a new law and order out of its pages and with the dictate of Judge and Jury, they hammer out the New Testament scriptures as “Thus saith the Lord,” according to their own peculiar interpretation of them. Thus, faction upon faction is formed- Division, fighting and ugliness that Christ himself became martyred by, is created.

This is NOT what Christ died for.

What did Christ come into the world to do? Why did He die such a horrible death? And why did He rise from the dead?

In the simplest, purest form—- LOVE!

“For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son…”

He gave us Christ, and whoever believes in Him, listens to Him, HEARS him, will not perish, but will have eternal life.
WHY?

“I AM”

“I AM the life.”

Christ came to turn our hearts to God- the children’s hearts back to the Father. He came to reconnect us to the source of eternal life. We, who were/are walking in darkness, He came to connect us to the source of light; I AM

“I AM the light.”

We, who cannot find out way, who feel so lost. He came to reconnect us to the GREAT I AM!

“I AM the way.”

He came to SAVE us! Praise God!

He came to show us the beauty and value of our own soul.

“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows.” Matt. 10:29-31

God wants to immerse you in his Holy Spirit. He wants to encapsulate you in His love. He wants you to “be still” and to listen to HIM!

Religion will proselyte you and make you one of them. But Christ will clean you up and make you one with HIM!

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19 Cult Characteristics

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?

(Isaiah 58:6)

Someone recently told me that it takes the average person that leaves a cult five years to clear themselves of its fears and distortions. That makes a lot of sense when one has been in something that they have embraced as the epitome of truth and right.  In this day of so much confusion and so much calling from every direction, it behooves us to pay attention to the warning signs and above all, to pray and seek God and ask him to be our light. Don’t allow anyone or anything to destroy that mustard seed of faith God put into your heart. Treasure it. Water it. An above all guard it.

Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.
(Proverbs 4:23)

University of California at Berkeley (19 Characteristics)

Recruitment

1. Deception – Group identity and/or true motives are not revealed. The group leaders tell members to withhold truth from outsiders.

2. Emotional Leverage/Love Bombing – Instant friendship, extreme helpfulness, generosity and acceptance…Group recruiters “lovingly” will not take “no” for an answer-invitations impossible to refuse without feeling guilty and/or ungrateful. “Love”, “generosity”, “encouragement” are used to lower defenses and create an ever increasing sense of obligation, debt and guilt.

3. Exploit Personal Crisis – They use an existing crisis as a means of getting you to participate. They exploit vulnerability arising from:

• Broken relationships
• Death in the family
• Loss of job
• Move to new location
• Loneliness/depression
• Guilt/shame
• Stress/fear

4. Crisis Creation – They employ tactics designed to create or deepen confusion, fear, guilt or doubt. i.e. “you aren’t serving God the way He intended.” Questions areas of faith never before examined or explored and attack other faiths specifically.

5. All The Answers – Provide simple answers to the confusion they, themselves, create. Support these answers with material produced or “approved” by the group.

Programming

1. Intense Study – Focus is on group doctrine and writings. Bible, if used at all, is referred to one verse at time to “prove” group teachings.

2. Opposer Warnings – Recruiters are told that “Satan” will cause relatives and friend to say bad things about the group to try to “steal them away from God.” Recruits soon believes group members, alone, are truthful/trustworthy.

3. Guilt and Fear – Group dwells on members’ “sinful nature” (many use public confession). Guilt and fear arising from “failing God” are magnified to manipulate new member.

4. Schedule Control & Fatigue – Study and service become mandatory. New member becomes too busy to question. Family, friends, jobs and hobbies are squeezed out, further isolating the new member.

5. Attack Independent Thought – Critical thinking is discouraged as prideful and sinful, blind acceptance encouraged.

6. Divine Commission – Leader(s) claim new revelation from God, within past 200 years, in which all but their group are rejected by God. They, alone, speak for God.

7. Absolutism – They insist on total, unquestioning obedience and submission to the group, both actions AND thoughts. Group “love” and acceptance becomes dependent upon obedience and submission. Unconditional love…isn’t.

8. Totalism – “Us against them” thinking. Strengthens group identity. Everyone outside of group lumped under one label.

Retention

1. Motive Questioning- When sound evidence against the group is presented, members are taught to question the motivation of the presenter. The verifiable (sound documentation) is ignored because of doubts over the unverifiable (presenter’s motives). See Opposer Warnings (#2 above).

2. Information Control – Group controls what convert may read or hear. They discourage (forbid) contact with ex-members or anything critical of the group. May say it is the same as pornography making it not only sinful and dangerous but shameful as well. Ex-members become feared and avoidance of them becomes a “survival issue.”

3. Isolation, Separation & Alienation – Group becomes substitute family. Members encouraged to drop worldly (non-members) friends. May be told to change jobs, quit school, give up sports, hobbies, etc.

4. Coercion – Disobedience, including even minor disagreement with group doctrine, may result in expulsion and shunning.

5. Phobias – The idea is planted that anyone who leaves goes into a life of depravity and sin, loses their sanity, dies, or will have children die, etc. Constant rumors of bad things happening to people who leave. No one ever leaves for “legitimate reasons.”

6. Striving for the Unreachable – Group membership and service are essential for salvation…”Work your way into God’s favor.” NO matter what you do, it is never enough.

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, 27 for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. 28 There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female,for you are all one in Christ Jesus. 29 If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. . . So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir. . . Have I now become your enemy by telling you the truth? Those people are zealous to win you over, but for no good. What they want is to alienate you from us, so that you may have zeal for them. . . It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. . .  You who are trying to be justified by the law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. 5 For through the Spirit we eagerly await by faith the righteousness for which we hope. . . You were running a good race. Who cut in on you to keep you from obeying the truth? 8 That kind of persuasion does not come from the one who calls you. . .  For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 15 If you bite and devour each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other. . .

(Study and pray over Galatians for a more in-depth understanding of these scriptures)

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New Wine

“[No] one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.”

(Luke 5)

“They say the old wine is better” – Jesus said this after preaching from a boat, touching a man with leprosy, telling a man his sins were forgiven, sitting down to eat and drink with a roomful of tax collectors and sinners, and being questioned and ridiculed every step of the way because it was not according to the “customs of the day.”

Sermons were supposed to be preached in temples by “anointed men of God.” People with leprosy were to be kept far away from. No one but God had the right to pardon someones sins. The righteous were not mingle with sinners and furthermore, they usually spent their time fasting and praying, not eating and drinking.

Earlier in this chapter we read that Jesus went out alone in the wilderness and took time to pray. There, all alone with God, Jesus was given new wine to drink and new wine to share when he came back into the crowds. He had something fresh and life-changing.

If all you are drinking is the “old wine,” then all you will be doing is complaining whenever you see the new wine being poured out; you will be blinded to all the good the new and fresh wine is doing.  You will have one solo message; “THE OLD IS BETTER” and all around your eyes will only see that the old is not being adhered to- the old ways of doing things, the old religious systems.

Go, take some wilderness time with God alone, and let him pour forth some new wine into your soul! Let him give you something new and fresh- something relevant for today’s needs. Get out of your religious rut and back into the leading of the Holy Spirit. Let go of the old so God can bless you with something new!!!

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The Strong Hold’s of Idols

Yesterday as I sat in a doctors office waiting for an appointment, directly across from me stood a two foot, beautiful carved wooden Native American woman. Her eyes seemed to pierce right through my soul and my imagination got the best of me. The artwork so cunningly worked, I had to avert my eyes away and I shifted in my seat, feeling uncomfortable beneath her constant stare. Curiostiy pulled my attention back to her again and these scriptures came to my mind:

“He that is so impoverished that he hath no oblation chooseth a tree that will not rot; he seeketh unto him a cunning workman to prepare a graven image, that shall not be moved. “ (Is. 40)

“Who hath formed a god, or molten a graven image that is profitable for nothing? .  .  .   He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it.  Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto.  He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire:  And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god.  (Is. 44)

I have never been exposed to an idol worshipping religion and so reading these scriptures in the past and thinking about people worshiping carved images has always seemed like such foolishness to me.  But now, as I sat here  in the office under the realistic and intense glare of this artistically crafted wooden woman an understanding came into my heart that had not been there before; And I always praise my Jesus for these precious moments of insight, for the door of understanding is a door of freedom and growth, first for oneself, and then to share with others.

I began to feel the strong hold that such an idol could take on a people who did not know the one and only true God. It has been said that the imagination is the stongest nation and that is why the apostle Paul warns us in 2 Corinthians 10: 4 & 5  when he says, “(For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ; “

But even beyond that, another lesson came through to my heart. The Lord spoke to me clearly and said that if a wooden idol could have such a pull and quickly take such a strong hold of fear on the imagination of a vulnerable soul, how much more a man or woman that has life energy flowing out of them. When they stand behind a pulpit, high above the rest of the people and take an “authorative” position, how great an influence does that have on vulnerable souls? Now add to that, a man or woman that shouts, gets angry, pounds on the pulpit or stomps; What an impact!

You see, life is a mystery and the imagination and fear are very powerful. All through history we have untold accounts of brutal genocides all done in the name of “beliefs” or “God’s” or some powerful man that got behind some form of a pulpit and began swaying massive amounts of people. And just like that wooden woman, the people are drawn in, because they are not listening to the true God- the God of love, peace, joy, humbleness, meekness, goodness, mercy, etc… They are unsure of themselves, and unsure of life. This unsurity and insecurity in man leaves him vulnerable to be taken captive by whatever comes along claiming to be the “authority of God.”

One thing I am learning- truth will produce something inside your heart. If you are sinning, it will produce conviction. There may be some fear that you are missing the mark with God. But truth will also produce abundance of mercy. It will pave a beautiful road right to the cross of Christ to have those sins forgiven, removed and cast into the depths of the sea.

Truth will produce love. Truth will produce peace and joy. Truth will set you FREE! Free from the corruption of sin and all its ugly vices. Free from religious forms and rituals. Free to be a child of God and all He created you to be. Free to grow in Christ. Free to have His spirit in your heart teaching you and leading you. Free from all the opinions of men. You now have Christ alone as your head and your advocate.

But if your “faith” is filling you with fears, doubt, confusion, hatred for certain groups of people, if it is drawing you into men causing you to obey voices outside rather than instilling the voice of the Holy Spirit within and helping you to trust and follow that voice, it may very well be you have an earthly idol set up somewhere. It may be a religious system. Religious systems will either cause you to be zealous in a wrong way- usually for their system,  or it will sap you of your spiritual zeal. It may be a pastor- you may be idolizing, worshipping, obeying a pastor or some man that you hold up as a “man of God.” The bible teaches us that in Christ, we are all priests. None of us is above another. Pastors are there for our service and help alone. They are not our rulers nor dictators.  It may be your own life- things you know that God is not pleased with but you are not willing to give up.  God knows and an all loving God can help you understand and conquer it in Christs name.

You see, idols can take an extremely strong hold in our life. I know. I have been battling many of them in my own life, and by the grace of God, He is helping me conquer them. That is how I am getting these lessons- through experience. And let me tell you, “the FEAR of man brings a snare.” Many so called “heathen” people have been mocked and laughed at over their intense fear of wooden idols but so much more do we have to battle the intense fear we ALL have of the fear of men. When we stop bowing before their idols, their systems, their ideas of what thier own imaginations have set up as “God” we will not be liked.

But we can take courage. Because so it was with Jesus. Our Lord Jesus Christ deliberately, carefully, purposefully, openly, broke the rules of the Pharisees! He followed one- the voice within- the Holy Spirit.

“The fear of man bringeth a snare: but whoso putteth his trust in the LORD shall be safe.” (Proverbs 29:25)

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Stay Free From Pharisee Thinking

Years ago a visiting minister to our congregation would not sing along with us several of the songs from our hymn book because they were written by what he believed were false christians, though why he set himself up to be their judge I have yet to understand. However, I remember our pastor later mentioning the absurdity of that kind of thinking, and well it was. The songs were very edifying and godly.
Yet its strikes me funny that we see this type of thing going on amongst us all the time in other ways. I see perfectly good sound and edifying articles posted on face book that hardly anyone hits the “like” button on and I know it is because of “WHO” wrote the article rather than anything to do with the “content” of the aritcle. The people are already judged and condemned and so is anything they have to offer. How sad. It reminds me of the parable that Jesus told:

And he spoke this parable unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others:  Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself; “God I thank you that I am not like other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and I give tithes of all that I possess.”
And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, “God be merciful to me a sinner.”
I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other. For every one that exalts himself, shall be humbled and he that humbles himself shall be exalted.  Luke 18:9-14

Many people said of Jesus that he had a devil. But others said, “Can the devil open the eyes of the blind?”

Jesus said, if you are going to judge, at least judge righteous judgement. If what you read is good, it is good. Give God glory. Be thankful for the vessel that was utilized to bring forth a good word in due season. God has even used a donkey to bring a message to a man once. If we refuse a message because of the vessel it is delivered in, even though the messsage is perfectly sound, we are a respector of persons and God says if we have respect of persons we are sinning.

If we are claiming to be living a “sin-free” life, then we should not be having respect of persons. Respect of persons is holding someone up so high that they are almost God-like- unreproachable.

You can gossip all you want about the person who “left your congregation” but woe to the one who says anything about the mighty one in holy robes who stands behind the pulpit. That is respector of persons! That is not right and God will bring judgment upon that.

People are people. Gossip and slander is wrong no matter who it is about. And if someone has left your “congregation” if you are the true body of Christ, your burden would be to see that person reconciled with the body. But cutting them off and treating them as if they are no longer part of your family is not right. That is pushing them further away and sealing them out permanently because you are not showing love but rather wounding them so deeply they will never be able to trust you again. Even God said to his back slidden church, “I am married to you.” (Jeremiah 3:14)

Our message and burden to every soul should always be reconciliation. But reconciliation never comes through the pompous, proud religous minded groups. They either lock you in to a religious system or lock you out because you wont bow to their written or unwritten creeds. Jesus would not be locked in and so was locked out.

Lets stay free! Free from sin, free from Pharisee thinking, free from religious pride, free to love souls so we can truly help them be reconciled to God and/or his body!

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