Here is part three of my testimony (including the introduction); I hope it has blessed you in some way. I does get a little more uncomfortable from here on … Again, feel free to ask questions and make comments. God bless.
Hello once again my friends, I am lying here in bed feeling a little under the weather, so I thought I would take advantage of the time I have here to share a little more with you. It is nothing to worry about; I believe it is just a cold, so I am trying to nip it in the bud before it knocks me out of work. I know my entries have been short, but I am doing what I can with the little time I have, so please bear with me. Once again, if you are new to this blog, you will want to go back and read my previous two entries before reading this one, or you may be a little distorted with what is going on.
I left off from the last entry telling you of how God was really making me look at where I was in relation to where He was, which, to my surprise, was not the same place. He was teaching me that my hope and trust was in a system and not in him. I have come to see that so many of you have fallen into that same deception, therefore, my heart is to, as I said in my introduction of my blog, is to have you, the reader, look at yourself and ask; what is my hope in?
Anyway, I heard a minister speak one night, at the church that that I was attending at the time, about “the church system”, and how it was a man made system and not one from God. I have to admit, I thought he was crazy, just as some of you will think about me. He spoke about church pews, stain glass, the podium, and the steeples. He said that all of these things, among others, where all the residue of the Catholic Church carried over through the reformation; therefore, he named our beloved system the Cathagog system (a blend of the synagogue and the Catholic Church). His words, though they sounded completely ludicrous, got me thinking. Could this be possible, could these words be true, if so…what ells could be wrong with the beloved system that I had labored in for so long? I begged God to give me eyes to see, and once again, He stood true to his word “what so ever you ask for in My Name shall be given to you”.
God put it in my heart to get up at 4 am every morning and spend time with Him. It was during this time that God began to reveal simple truths to me through his scripture and in prayer. Everything I would read in scripture would lead me to the same thing over and over again…LOVE. Four letters, yet I learned that it was the very glue that held every page of that bible together. From geneses chapter one all the way to revelation chapter 22,it was LOVE. LOVE is who God is, LOVE is what Christ did, Love is how we know, and are known, that we belong to Him.
Love is a word that we use very loosely here in this country, for example, I love pizza, I love that car, and so on. The bible, however, paints a completely different picture of what LOVE is. Love is a cross; Jesus demonstrated his love to us by giving his life on a cross. We as well, if we have true love, have a cross we bare. We stretch out our hands and feet and let the “world” crucify us. We who belong to Christ, who are true disciples, must carry our cross (or should I say lay down our lives) Mt 16:24 “Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.” Without this cross, our cross, we cannot be his disciple. Lu 14:27 “And whosoever doth not bear his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple”. Remember dear reader, I did not write these scriptures. I know we can bend and twist any scripture to make us feel better about what it says, this too is a tradition of westernized Christianity, but I challenge you to simply believe what is says with no alterations.
Anyway, I set out to look for the true cross-baring love in the church, and WOW, was I disappointed in what I seen or, should I say, did not see. The love that I read about in scripture was virtually non-existent. Don’t get me wrong, there are people in the church system that do show the love of Christ, but ,for the most part, what God showed me broke my heart.
One example of this is found in 1john 2: 15-16; it says this, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, are not of the Father, but are of the world”. Christianity, as we know it today, is going after the world so much that they even make it gospel. You hear, so called, ministers of the gospel preaching sermons on how to conform to the world all the time these days. What is the result of these false teachers… their disciples, which is you and I, surender to “the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life? Where does that leave us…without the love of the Father, go back and read 1 john 2:15-16 again. Today’s “Christians”, for the most part, work and work to gain riches in this world, and what is worse is they give God credit for giving it to them. When you see the heart of such disciples, it is easy to see that their goal is not for the kingdom of God, but rather for their own lustful desires. You may say how I can make such judgments on another man’s servant, but the scriptures tell me I can judge only one way, and that is by their fruit. The fruit of such “Christians” is easy to see…houses, cars, and big savings accounts. Another way I can make such a judgment is the results of my own pathetic life. Remember, I, myself, am a product of westernized Christianity. It is extremely hard to see the residue of all the doctrine that has been poured into me over the years, and it is even harder to get it out.
I just recently set out to buy a pre-owned automobile for my family because all I had was this pick-up truck with a small-extended cab. I have three children and my wife, so this truck was excessively small; my kids are not getting any smaller if you know what I mean; therefore, my wife and I went out to get something practical. I had all the right things in my mind that would make our new vehicle a smart buy. We wanted something that was good on gas, something that was automatic, great safety fetchers, and nothing flashy, so we found a wagon that met “our” description of all of these things. To my wife and I, this was a great buy; however, what was not flashy in our eyes is not the same as not flashy in Gods eyes. The young people (teens) where we live where drooling over this car. They thought it was an awesome car, which is exactly why my wife and I did not want anything flashy. Those kinds of things will tempt a young heart to desire such worldly things. “If it is ok for Frank (me) to have a car like that then it’s ok for me to go after such a car. You might not think that this was a big deal, what is wrong with a nice car? Little things like that explode into much bigger things in a heart of a child. My point to all of this is this, even though my intentions where good, I still have a lot of scum in me that was imputed through the “American dream” doctrine taught to me through the years. Every man is right in his own eyes, but our ways are not God’s ways. Anyway, sorry for chasing that rabbit, let us get back to my revelation.
John says if the things in this world are what you are after and desire, then the LOVE of Christ is not in you. In fact, Paul says we are to become poor so others may become rich; Not earthly riches, but by adoption into the beautiful kingdom of God. This is just one example of what God showed me during this time of cleansing. I could go on and on, but this is the dissected version remember. This revelation alone however, was enough for me to see that this, so called, church system lacks the very proof that enables us to know that they are true Disciples of Christ…what is that proof…the lack of cross bearing love.
I know what happens when one reads such words as I have written today; this self-righteous indignation rises up in you. All of a sudden, scriptures that have embedded themselves in various different rooms of your religious domain come to surface. You want to strike back with every verse of scripture you can muster; you must defend yourself against such an enemy that would attempt to tear down your comfortable dwelling place. I did that for years. I do not want to convince you that I am right and you are wrong. I am not looking to get into some biblical debate of your vs. mine interpretation of what the scriptures are actually saying. Again, this blog is to simply challenge you to look at where you are, and ask yourself “am I truly in the body of Christ, or have I bought into a great deception?
I read a great book not too long ago by author, and fellow erroneous misfit, Shane Claiborne, in his book Irresistible Revolution, where he quoted a well-loved singer songwriter Rich Mullins. Rich, as he was speaking to a crowd of people at a university, said that we hear many preachers preaching about Nicodemus where he asked Jesus what he must do to be saved, and , as we all know, Jesus’ reply was to be born again. However, Rich brings to our attention another young man in scripture who asked the very same question…the rich young ruler. Jesus did not tell him that he must be born again; he told him to sell all that he has then give it to the poor. Why do we choose one scripture to anchor our faith in yet practically ignore another? Oh, we may hear a good sermon on the rich young ruler about how we must “be willing” to lay it all down for Christ, but the problem is Jesus did not tell him to be “willing” to sell all that he has. He told him that is what he must do to be saved. The problem is, if a preacher preached the truth of that scripture, most of us would react the same way that poor lad did…walk away sorrowful. This is just one, of thousands of examples of the polluted water-downed gospel that has infected our world, namely the western world. The sad thing is, we are taking that same message of westernized Christianity to the world. God, please open our eyes to see what we are doing.
Well, that is enough for today. If I have not completely lost you, I will continue the revelation of how God has brought me to where I am today at a later date. I have yet a great deal to share. Like I said in the intro, I will bring you up to date then I give you a week-to-week account of what God is doing in me. Once again, thank you for reading this blog, and feel free to give input in the comments section. My prayer is that God will help us all to open our hearts and let his light revel the dark truths that are dwelling therein.
Be sure to check out the video on my myspace, it brings a great ending to this blog entry. You can find the link on the right side of this blog page under blogroll.