I feel like my heart is continually being ripped out of my chest, and replaced with an upgrade. Over and over and over again. But it isn’t from looking in the mirror, not directly anyway. God has been showing me the inside of me, through looking at the American Church. I know that sounds critical, but maybe there are times where critical is needed.
Over the last few days, God has been allowing me to take part in various debates and discussions concerning numerous topics, and these discussions have a broad walk of life that voice their opinions within these topics. But what has shocked me is not what the atheists say, nor is it what the muslims or the homosexuals have said. What has absolutely made my blood boil, are the comments, opinions, and thoughts from the other Christians!
I have come to believe a few things about the nature and character of God, and how it relates to our proximity to Him. “Our view of God determines our closeness to Him.” Unfortunately, we in the American Church have a distorted, twisted, and disfigured view of God. The truly sad part about this is that we have grown so familiar with this view of God that we do not even realize that there is anything wrong! We think we are close to Him even though in truth, we do not even realize how far away from Him we are. This is due in large part to the acceptance and ordination of false prophets within the Church.
Recently, I heard a preacher say “the reason we don’t see people running to the church to get saved is because the world sees a holy lifestyle while we are within the church, and an absolutely hypocritical lifestyle when we aren’t in church.”
The amount of post-modernism and complacency within the church is truly startling! Remember, “our view of God determines our closeness with Him.”
In a previous entry, I wrote about some of the debates and discussions I took part in that progressed to the point where I was getting attacked and labeled by other Christians as “insensitive, narrow-minded, arrogant, prideful, stubborn, unloving, and even hateful” because I stood on what the Bible said. In all actuality though, they were not calling me those things, they were calling God those things. But because they were either deceived or simply were being cowards, they decided it was easier to attack me, than to voice their opinions straight to heaven.
Here are some of the things that God has been showing me as it relates to his church.
1) Post-Modernism within the thought process of those in the church.
2) The excuse of “interpretations” to defend our twisted views of the complete truth contained in the Bible.
3) The overemphasis of God’s Loving character at the expense of His Justice
All these things interweave with each other, and though this list is not the whole list, this is simply what God has been showing me.
When we view the term post-modern, we usually think about the notion that truth is relative, and is completely determined by the perception of the individual and their “at that moment” circumstances. We are quick to point at our belief that Jesus is “the Way the Truth and the Life, and no one comes to the Father but through Him.” But post-modernism has snuck into the church under the veiled lie that our interpretations of the Bible can vary and that both can be right based on the person who believes it. The context this was presented to me was under the discussion of biblical truth, and not under the varying ways in which the Body can worship God. We know that there is no formula to serve God, and not one church has the exclusive “right way to do things”, however, what I am talking about was not some denominational difference about whether or not the Holy Spirit still operates in this day and age, but rather involved the view of God’s character and specifically things God has commissioned us to do until Jesus returns.
Think about it this way. Say we are discussing the role of “judgment” within the church. One person quickly (almost without thinking about it) makes the statement that “we are not to judge, for the Bible says, “Judge not, lest you be judged.” Then I come along, having heard this previous statement and make the statement that, “there is a difference between judging the person and judging their fruit, the Bible is very clear, “we will know them by their fruit.” I also make the point that we are not to judge the world, but we ARE to judge within the Body, for this was commanded to us through Paul’s letter in 1 Corinthians (chapter 5). I am quickly rebuked and labeled as someone who misinterprets the Bible. But when I ask HOW I misinterpreted the Bible, they refuse to answer, leaning on ignorance, rather than Biblical knowledge. This goes on until another comes in and makes the statement, “you cannot expect another to have the same faith as you, you are right, and she is right.” This answer SEEMS correct, but for the fact that it is laced with post-modern thought.
The context we are talking about is what we are and are not to do concerning judgment. How does one completely omit belief in another part of the Bible just to believe in the twisted view concerning a verse taken out of context that some view as “do not judge, EVER, under ANY circumstances.”? But instead of actually trying to learn what the Bible was talking about, we would rather allow indoctrination to dictate what we believe. This leads me to my point about the excuse of interpretations.
I made the statement one day when talking to other Christians that, “a person’s righteous deeds can be forgotten by God if that person chooses to walk back in sin and iniquity.” I then quoted Ezekiel ( ) as a biblical reference to back up this statement. I was told I misinterpreted the Bible. I asked how, and no answer came, but the accusation of misinterpreting the Bible remained. While reading some of the posts and entries on a facebook group discussion board, I saw a common theme by atheists and deceived Christians. They would routinely defend their position by saying that another person’s belief was based not on God’s Word, but on the interpretation by that person of His Word. But does this ever lead another to search through and study WHY the Bible can be trusted? People making this accusation (misinterpreting the Bible) rely on the weight of the accusation to demoralize the Christian into thinking that if they are to think a certain way, they cannot vocalize, or defend it. For when someone does defend it, they are labeled in ways I stated above.
I was told I was unloving when I said that faith in God required a life of self denial, obedience, and holiness. I was told that God did not require such things, and that God would “want me to be happy and be who I am.” This was told to me by a man that though he claimed to be a Christian, also lived an openly homosexual lifestyle. When he could not defend my statements that God’s Word said that homosexuality was wrong, he decided he would take the position that a “loving God would want him to be happy with who God made him, and live the life that he wanted to.” He came to this conclusion because he viewed God as loving, but not righteous. Merciful, but not holy. He viewed God as Gracious, but not demanding. Unfortunately, far to many Christians hold this view. They are quick to quote “God is love”, yet completely ignore Hebrews 12:29 (our God is a consuming fire).
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