How much we think we know, and how little we really know.
It is important to recognize the need for one another in our life. I often receive email concerning friendship, people expressing their feelings for the oneness we share. However there is more to this walk than friendship, there is the reality of opposition, surprising to some this is just as necessary in your life as friendship.
Most consider when others have different opinions it is because they are in the dark concerning the things they disagree with you on.
Each of us have mind sets, in many areas. Most of the things we are convinced we know as a fact, we only have a fragment of understanding.
One of the best examples of this is the two subjects we are instructed it best not to discuss among friends, that is Politics and Religion. For harmony’s sake it is wise to avoid discussing either of these subjects when in a group. Unless of course you want to see just how opinionated some of your acquaintances are.
For example religion, is a subject that touches each Family one way or another. It causes some tense moments when two close members of a Family attend different Churches. Each religious order has its set of rules they are convinced is spiritually correct. Doctrinal points so important to their mind set they become blinded to reason. The attitude we are right, and the rest of the world is wrong. This is very prevalent in the bigger organizations. “We have the most members therefore we must be right, or we are growing at a rapid pace, therefore we must be right, the majority of people couldn’t be wrong.”
I observed this kind of mind set in the small groups, down to the home meeting groups. The attitude, “ We have a greater understanding than the Churches, therefore we have disassociated with them.”
My intent is to express what I feel is necessary for all groups to consider.
Is the Lord, or the God you are dedicated too “A God of love” or is He a God of “Isolation and judgment”? Of course most will confess their God as being a God of Love. Yet they isolate him away in an intangible, “hard to describe place,” where one can only hope for His favor. They seek to please Him, by submitting their lives to the rules, and regulations of some organization, they have determined is correct.
It is obvious when observing the rituals, various groups feel necessary, they require a tangible object, in order to have a feeling of reverence, and presence of their God. It seems they put the power in a statue, or some item they liken their God too. Something seen in order to express their desires for His favor.
In the limited capacity of my thinking, this is difficult for me to understand. When we set aside all religious orders, and come face to face with the inner self, We will find there is a guidance we are born with called conscious by some, and the subconscious by others. As for me I like to consider it to be the God of every man, the part of the Spirit breathed into Adam, which is the light, that lights every man born in the world. Of course there is the conscious mind that makes us aware of things around us, it operates during our wakening hours. However when we retire at night the conscious mind also sleeps. During this time the subconscious keeps our body functioning, such as heart beat and breathing, subconscious never sleeps. It works in the harmonious order in which God intended it to when He created man. We can say “I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” Regardless of how one might surmise we arrived to this state of being. To me it is obvious the existence of a supreme being who’s essential nature is love. His love is all encompassing, a portion of that encompassing love is given to every individual born. This is the ruling factor of our life. So much so that it cannot be separated or divided, but will only be satisfied when every man comes into the Harmony with the substance from which He was taken, that of course is Love “GOD”
All of our rituals and customs, all our work and efforts, and mind sets, will never change or sway God’s plan to rearrange the mind of creation back to its original existence. The only completeness one will ever experience is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Any order religious, or otherwise, dose not have the power now, nor will it ever have, to change the Devine order of God. He gave us the door and the means of being complete, He sent His Son that all men every where through His sacrifice would be made complete in Him. It is written “Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit saith the Lord.” We can look at our mountain of opposition knowing in self we can do nothing. Yet we realize there is within each of us a power, and might, that is well able to bring down the highest mountain, and dissolve the largest opposition. The light of the Lord Jesus Christ dwells in every man. The Spirit of truth, which continually sets us free from the things which we are not. The lie which is the thief, and robber, the little foxes, stealing and blinding man from the reality of his identity in the Father. With the natural mind man conjures up what he feels is supernatural powers, working himself up into an emotional high, and calling it a visitation from God. Then on the other hand, when he observes a tribe of natives in a jungle in some far away place, doing the same emotional dance they call Him heathen. In need of God.
I know some of the Pentecostal folks will think I am coming against dancing in the Spirit, and praising God, I assure you I am not coming against this type of worship. I am simply stating, if this is the way you feel the Lord moves on you, then do it will all that is in you, on the other hand don’t condemn others who feel they are worshiping God the way they feel their God is telling them to do.
Don’t label them as heathen, when in reality they are your Brothers and Sisters. They all came from the same lump, and they are learning just as all the rest of us, “What they are not.”
Every religious order now or ever existed, will come to the reality of just how frail their religious rituals, and tangible items are. The only mediator between man and God is the Lord Jesus Christ, and where do you suppose He is? He said, He would come and abide in you. Now my Brother\Sister answer me this. If the Lord Jesus Christ is abiding in you, as well as being the light for all mankind, and abiding in every man, why then can’t we worship Him in Spirit and Truth? Why do we need a set of man made rules separating us from who we really are? Don’t you know your body is the Temple of God, and He lives in you. Why seek Him on the outside of your being, like he was a strange God off in an unreachable place some where off in the future? He is a now God, and you are a now People. His Kingdom is within. Who are you? You are the incorruptible seed of God. You are His offspring, His Family, the apple of His eye. That is who you are. Don’t listen to the lie telling you, you are something other than a member of the Family of the Most High God. Free from the bondage of sin and death. Loved with the unconditional love of the Father of us all.
Love and harmony in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Bill Green