Allergies, migraines, back pain, sleeplessness, cough, cold, day, night....there's a pill for that. Whatever ails you we have found a remedy for, just be sure to pay close attention to the label. Because, we have extra-strength, daily dose, maximum relief, 8 hour, 12 hour, and 24 hour varieties. We even have the diluted, dulled down children's strength brand medicine.
I recently was walking through the pharmacy and actually stopped to pay close attention to the tons of options available for any ailment imaginable, and I could not help draw parallels to the way we come to God.
We like our Jesus "specially formulated" to whatever needs we believe are most important at that moment. We require our God to be "rapid release" in His response, and require the remedy to be free of any "side effects" of sacrifice or obedience. We prefer the Jehovah PM that allows us to be drowsy in out diligence and prevents us from "operating heavy ministry" while taking. We encapsulate His message into easy to shallow lukewarm "liqui-gels" and give the bitter truth a bubble gum flavor. The sad reality is our treatments have been successful. We have quieted the ringing of conviction in our ears, we have handled the headache of holiness, and have eliminated the "back pain" from carrying that pesky cross.
We have medicated the masses with a "generic" God, and have forgotten the "name brand" by which all men must be saved. We have placed our faith in "over the counter" orthodoxy but neglected to put our sin under the cross. Our youth suffer the most from the pretense of our pious pill popping, Because we worry that the "placebo presence" we have in our churches right now might be to "strong" for our kids. So we secure our truth with child-proof caps, and put it high on a shelf for when there "of age". Then we divvy out the "junior strength Jesus" that promises no over- dose.
The only problem with this is that evil doesn't come in children-strength, and the symptoms of sin aren't stopped with an insignificant "infant drops" intimacy with God. But there is a prescription capable of truly providing healing. There is a treatment of truth that goes right to the source of our pain...to "deliver" fast effective relief"....right where we need it most. It is the uncomprimised word of God, and the perfect person of Jesus Christ..." the anytime, empowering, saving, restoring, providing redeemer, so you can lived blessed medicine!!!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Friday, June 25, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Un-organized Religion
Un-organized Religion
History is littered with those attempting to harness God, to leash His omni-presence, and build boundaries around His boundless person. This "God is my co-pilot" mentality seeks to put the driven divinity in the passenger seat of man's bandwagon. We fence in the Almighty six days a week, until on Sunday we turn our religious levers and ask our God-in-a-box to pop out and perform for us. Like a master puppeteer with hands of hype we pull man's heart strings, but our theatrics leave us tangled, and our knock-off leaves us in knots. I've come to realize that the problem with the man behind the curtain....is at the end of the day it's only a man behind the curtain. Our smoke and mirrors only serve to leave us coughing and confused. We have replaced the righteous lit city on a hill, with fog machines, projector scenes, and laser shows; because we have to. We have to take everyones attention off the fact that God is not in our sanctuaries. We don't want to admit that our hearts resemble more the dry-ice in our props, then the all consuming fire of Jesus' presence. It all boils down to control...we want it...God has it, but faking it is cheaper then paying the price to experience it.
Rules, regulations, and liturgy bring shallow comfort in there predictability. It's much easier to write a bulletin around man-made ministry, then God breathed spontaneity. Don't get me wrong I'm not against having a plan....I plan to fall on my face and tarry in the upper room of intimacy with the Most High till His Spirit baptizes me in power to turn this world upside down. This type of fanatic mentality creates real issues though, it makes it difficult to beat the "lunch rush" to the local all you can eat fare. I weep over the appetites that truly get our praise, when were willing to watch and wait for our table buzzer to go off longer then on our knees in reverence to Him.
Religion is neat, and simple. It offers structure, and solace. It allows for wiggle room from the rigid requirement of organic obedience, replacing pursuing His presence with perfecting our processes. If practice made perfect, then our redundant repetition would have brought righteousness, but instead it brought bondage. We learned how to make faith a formula, and in doing so we have cured ourselves of the undistinguished disease of desperation. We have made for ourselves broken cisterns unable to hold water, we are clouds without rain, advertising what we do not have the ability to offer. Churches have taken out bank loans, and exhausted themselves with telethon like building plans in painstaking effort to achieve the fulfillment of scripture, we have worked hard to gain a form of godliness, but I fear we are working even harder to deny the power thereof.
God is calling us to un-organized religion. To wild worship, and unchained companionship with Him. It's a fact that God moves when we move out of the way. We only have to over-compensate in our services because we have under-estimated Him in our service. When our agendas and itineraries fall to His will and tempo; our pyro-technics will not compare to the brilliance of the glory He will pour our upon us. He is offering His liberty and living words in exchange for our piety and dead works. His redemption in exchange for our regulations, and His glorious intimacy traded for our legalistic liturgy. We can continue to speak only about what He has done, or we can be a part of what He is doing. We can only learn about miracles long past, or learn first hand of the miracles he longs to pass through us. We can only worship He who was....or we can gaze upon and worship who He is, and in doing so experience the worship of Him that is to come.
History is littered with those attempting to harness God, to leash His omni-presence, and build boundaries around His boundless person. This "God is my co-pilot" mentality seeks to put the driven divinity in the passenger seat of man's bandwagon. We fence in the Almighty six days a week, until on Sunday we turn our religious levers and ask our God-in-a-box to pop out and perform for us. Like a master puppeteer with hands of hype we pull man's heart strings, but our theatrics leave us tangled, and our knock-off leaves us in knots. I've come to realize that the problem with the man behind the curtain....is at the end of the day it's only a man behind the curtain. Our smoke and mirrors only serve to leave us coughing and confused. We have replaced the righteous lit city on a hill, with fog machines, projector scenes, and laser shows; because we have to. We have to take everyones attention off the fact that God is not in our sanctuaries. We don't want to admit that our hearts resemble more the dry-ice in our props, then the all consuming fire of Jesus' presence. It all boils down to control...we want it...God has it, but faking it is cheaper then paying the price to experience it.
Rules, regulations, and liturgy bring shallow comfort in there predictability. It's much easier to write a bulletin around man-made ministry, then God breathed spontaneity. Don't get me wrong I'm not against having a plan....I plan to fall on my face and tarry in the upper room of intimacy with the Most High till His Spirit baptizes me in power to turn this world upside down. This type of fanatic mentality creates real issues though, it makes it difficult to beat the "lunch rush" to the local all you can eat fare. I weep over the appetites that truly get our praise, when were willing to watch and wait for our table buzzer to go off longer then on our knees in reverence to Him.
Religion is neat, and simple. It offers structure, and solace. It allows for wiggle room from the rigid requirement of organic obedience, replacing pursuing His presence with perfecting our processes. If practice made perfect, then our redundant repetition would have brought righteousness, but instead it brought bondage. We learned how to make faith a formula, and in doing so we have cured ourselves of the undistinguished disease of desperation. We have made for ourselves broken cisterns unable to hold water, we are clouds without rain, advertising what we do not have the ability to offer. Churches have taken out bank loans, and exhausted themselves with telethon like building plans in painstaking effort to achieve the fulfillment of scripture, we have worked hard to gain a form of godliness, but I fear we are working even harder to deny the power thereof.
God is calling us to un-organized religion. To wild worship, and unchained companionship with Him. It's a fact that God moves when we move out of the way. We only have to over-compensate in our services because we have under-estimated Him in our service. When our agendas and itineraries fall to His will and tempo; our pyro-technics will not compare to the brilliance of the glory He will pour our upon us. He is offering His liberty and living words in exchange for our piety and dead works. His redemption in exchange for our regulations, and His glorious intimacy traded for our legalistic liturgy. We can continue to speak only about what He has done, or we can be a part of what He is doing. We can only learn about miracles long past, or learn first hand of the miracles he longs to pass through us. We can only worship He who was....or we can gaze upon and worship who He is, and in doing so experience the worship of Him that is to come.
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