On Being Churchy Or Sitting At Jesus Feet

The Pharisees were militantly churchy in Jesus’ day.  They were all about the religious order of their day so much so, they could not recognize the Son of God when He came, nor did they want to hear Him.  Can you imagine being so stuck on your own way of doing things that you could not recognize or desire to sit and hear what Jesus Himself had to say? 

They had been regurgitating the same traditions and idealisms and attitudes for decades.  Ever learning but never coming or becoming into the knowledge of the truth.  Truth being the Person of Jesus Christ.

Today we have a definition of love going round that is functioning in a way that is not a biblical love. It is a conformist kind of compromise….it’s a super-sweet, let’s just get along, let’s just wink at things that may be truly off because we don’t want to have a disagreement with one another.  We wouldn’t want to hear an opposing viewpoint and would consider that being argumentative and “not loving”.  Has anyone actually read Matthew-John and Jesus’ dealings with others, even His own disciples?  He was always about His Fathers business.

You would have definitely considered Jesus unloving in todays churchy definition of love.  He did not compromise truth for the sake of getting along with others and be considered “nice”. Being nice is not the same as actually loving biblically.  Loving biblically is loving someone enough to never compromise truth to be nice. It’s siding with God in the Light of His Word and sharing that view.  Militant churchiness is not a Godly way of living and many charismatic circles unwittingly keep congregants “challenged”, “heightened”, and “pumped” into becoming powerful in themselves to be something and work things up.  It’s something many don’t see happening when they have a need to be someone or something and stir up something tangible in God’s kingdom.  It flows opposite to Jesus’ true teaching on what it means to be a real disciple of His.  It is through much tribulation one enters the kingdom of heaven.  You must take up your cross daily and follow Him.

This taking up of your self and being powerful and making progress and being head-strong and extroverted is not necessarily you living by God’s Spirit.  You getting all super spiritual and making moves isn’t what God is after.  He desires truth in our inward parts.  It’s real and raw. It’s questions and not as many answers. I cannot stress how real and raw it is.  You are not a specimen of perfection. In fact, God reveals the inward grossness that lurks deep within that only He can touch and change as we go to Him honestly with it and honest with Him daily.  That is the real and raw of our walk with Him and the longer we know him, the deeper He gets into what is real in our lives and what is just spiritual jargon covering over stuff.  We need Christ.  And we need Him even more so, desperately, the older we get.  And that my friends, is the blessing of a walk with God.  We need Him more today than we did 10 years ago. We see our yuck and are honest with Him even more so today and even more so tomorrow.  And the flesh part doesn’t necessarily get much better.  What gets better is our going to God more consistently.  We know we cannot do anything, seriously NOTHING out of ourselves without him doing all.  

What is our definition of super-spiritual these days? Well, it won’t be amazingly outward with a powerful person strutting about.  It’s the raw, and real, an inward work and it may even look ugly as God is getting deeper in His Truth.  And that is the true work of God.  And you may never be impressed with such an individual but God is loving His clay that is yielded to Him no matter how that clay may look as the transformation is happening.  God always gets His man.  So don’t let charasmania or militant churchiness try and fool you and trick you into becoming someone that is powerful.  That is the devils territory.  And please beware of the prophetic.  Those “words” pump up the flesh when flesh needs pumped.  And when doesn’t it need pumped? Run away from anything that pumps up the old man and your flesh.  Suffer with Christ. Let Him have His way.  Learn confidence in who He is when you may have nothing but His silence and no prophetic words at all.  Listen at His feet. Take Him in all of His Word.  Take His Word before any man.  It’s all in simple trust.  He is to be trusted. Let God be true.

But this militant churchiness in people. Ugh.  Jesus referred to these as blind.  They could not see well at all because only at the feet of Christ is true vision to see rightly.  It takes time to disengage from the world’s religions.

I’d take a thousand people who are honest about their junk than one who has been churched into being powerful.  All day. Everyday.