Powerful Opiates: Religious Practice & Spiritual Sentiment

Before I begin, let me define the terms I use.

Religious practice is something we do in order to achieve a specific, religious result or outcome. The objective is to meet an obligation, by means of some kind of religious rite, and thereby achieve some sort of spiritual or emotional feeling.

Spiritual sentiment is that spiritual or emotional feeling that is attached to religious practice.

Opiates are powerful drugs that stupefy a person and keep them from functioning properly.

On a certain day, Jesus was addressing the religious Jews and others. No doubt, we would call many of these people “good,” because they worked hard in the discipline of their religion. They acknowledged the Scriptures as the Word of God, and they read these Scriptures every day. They were not lazy toward their religion in the least. Jesus recognizes their hard work, for this is what he says:

“You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”

But now pay careful attention to what He says about the significance and the merit of their religious work and discipline, in light of the truth. Notice, while He recognizes they are hard-working in their religion, He tells them that this is not good enough to bring them life. He clearly tells them that the only way that they can have life is to come to Him.

Jesus' words here are very clear. He reveals that it is possible for a person to diligently follow and keep religious practice, get a good feeling via spiritual sentiment, yet totally miss the objective of life, which is only secured through, and in, Him alone. Religious practice will not secure or move the heart of God. The only way that we can secure and move the heart of God is to quit fooling ourselves with religious practices, surrender ourselves, and COME to Him.

Notice that Jesus uses the word, “refuse,” when characterizing these people not "coming" to Him. Why does he use this word, refuse?

In His Word, God has made it clear that He draws all men and women to Himself. He is lovingly faithful to reach out to every human being, continually, calling them into relationship. He does this for everyone. So it must be our refusal to come that explains why we have not come. One would not be guilty of not showing up at a party to which they were not invited. But if one is invited to a party and they do not show up, they have “refused” to show up. For not showing up at a party, after being invited, we may have a legitimate excuse. Maybe we were sick or had to be out of town.  But there can be no excuse for not coming to Jesus, except for the excuses that we think, in our own minds, are legitimate.  So Jesus rightly uses the word, refuse.  While they surely work hard at their religious practice of reading the Scriptures, the very Scriptures that reveal Jesus, they are numbed, by these practices, they are drugged by these practices and sentiments, into feeling all warm and fuzzy, and into believing that they have come, when He says that they have refused to come.  We make excuses for not coming to Him because our minds and hearts are drugged and under the influence of religious practice and spiritual sentiment. 

One excuse for truly coming to Jesus is that we tell ourselves, and others, that we have ALREADY come, we are already with Him.  We say, “Jesus and I are okay; everything is fine between us; I have come to Him and am already with Him.”  But, in reality, our own hearts and our own miserable conditions testify against this statement, and we are far from Him.  And we know that we are lying to ourselves, and to others.  But most often, we would rather be revered or accepted by way of our known, religious practices than by the reality of an honest and healthy relationship with the person of Jesus. It is much easier to pretend, for ourselves and for others, than it is to surrender our wills and our lives. It is much easier to practice religious rites, like reading the Bible, going to Communion, or reciting the "Our Father" prayer, than to actually sacrifice our lives over to someone else, even if that someone is The Lord who gave us that life, and sustains that life, and loves us more than anyone can love us. So, when invited to come, we give the excuse that we have already come.

To prove, to ourselves and to others, that we have already come, we point to the things that we do and to our sentiments and feelings, which we think are good and can save us.  Look, we say, don't you see that I read my Bible?  Don't you see that I attend church, and I make sure that my children attend church?  Don't you see that I have received my first, holy Communion, that I have been confirmed, that I celebrate Christmas and Easter?  Don't you see that I send my children to Sunday school and read them stories from their child's Bible?  Don't you hear my morning and evening prayers?  Don't you know how much money and personal time I give to charity and to the poor?  Have you seen me become teary-eyed when people pray?  Don't you know how personally moved I am when I see the news stories concerning sick or missing children?  Don't you know how I have prayed for them? Don't you know that I avoid profanity?  Didn't you hear me pray the rosary and other prayers?  Don't you know how much I love God and want to please Him?  Haven't you seen me being kind to people, when they did not deserve it?  Am I not a good father?  Am I not a good mother?  Am I not a good brother?  Am I not a good sister?  Do I not work hard for my family?   And there are a thousand other things we say and do, to which we point and say, “Look,” in order to prove, to ourselves and to others, that we have already come to Jesus.  But, in our hearts, we know that we have not come to Him, and that we are lying to ourselves and to others.  We know.  Our true hearts and the consistent practices of our lives testify against us.

Now it must be understood that Jesus did not speak these words to these people in order to break their spirits.  Rather, He spoke these words because He wanted them to know the truth about themselves and about what it means to have life.  He loved them, as He loves us, so much that he did not want them to continue in the darkness of error, and the futility of false security. The truth is often difficult to hear, especially when we have been trying, as best we know, to do the right thing. But difficult to hear on not, the truth must be given, else Jesus would be guilty of holding back the truth.  "Come to me," says Jesus,  "Don't put the cart before the horse; come to me first; only then will reading the Scriptures prove meritorious to your spiritual growth."

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, is that religious practice and spiritual sentiment can drug us into a stupefying state of mind and heart. Without really coming to Jesus, religious practice and spiritual sentiment will numb us into believing that we are Christians, when we not. For Christians are only Christian when they COME, fully come, to Jesus. And they come on His terms, which is by sacrificing their wills to His will.  True faith, which heals, comforts, saves, and grows, can only come to us when we truly come to Jesus.  True faith in God and a proper, healthy relationship, is not evidenced by performing religious duties and rites, or by securing the warm, fuzzy feelings associated with spiritual sentiment.  True faith in God and a proper, healthy relationship comes when we come...fully...sacrificially...to Jesus.

So, let us stop proclaiming our diligence in reading our Bibles. Let us stop pointing out that we pray. Let us stop pretending that church attendance and meeting certain religious obligations make us Christian or close to God.  Instead, let us come to Jesus, by surrendering to Him our lives, so that we might have Him, truly have Him, and have life. For Jesus also said these other things, on a different day.  He said, “He who gives up his life, for my sake, will save it. For I have come that you may have life, and have it more abundantly.”

False Teachers, Part 1: Joyce Meyer

All of my life I have been a student of the Bible. The Bible declares that God is the author and finisher of our faith; He gives us faith and sustains it.  But this does not mean that, because of our sincerity, we are free from falling into error.  The only way to remain free from being duped by a counterfeit is to be an expert in the genuine.  So it is the plan of God, the expectation of God, and the responsibility of men, to read the holy Scriptures often, to study them diligently, and to go back and check them when some preacher or spiritual teacher brings us a message or an idea foreign to what the Church has taught for centuries.

I can attest that it takes time to discover whether or not a certain preacher or teacher is teaching false doctrine; I was once a fan of Frederick K. Price and Kenneth Copeland, both of them false teachers. It was the 1970s, and I was a young man still studying.  Also, I had little knowledge of all of their teachings; I did not know exactly what they taught about the nature of Christ, or the full nature of what it means to be a Christian. But, after a while, yet not a very long while, their teachings on these subjects, and others, showed them up as false teachers when I checked them out with the holy Scriptures.  Therefore, I do not throw rocks at others when I find out that they are following a false teacher, for they, like I once was, may not have been exposed to a particular false teaching. I do, however, correct unbiblical doctrine when I find it, because that is my job; it is my job as a Christian educator of over thirty-five years, as well as my job as a Christian.  But I do understand that it sometimes takes extra time to study and pray through the various layers of someone's teachings, until the truth is revealed.  But start we must, and we must continue to uncover truth until the day that they stick us in the proverbial pine box.  So I encourage you to start now, and keep going; do not stop.

This year I will highlight, mostly using other sources and websites that are trustworthy, some of the false doctrines and false teachers that the Church has to contend with in our days. One of the most revered and oldest, apologetics ministries that I will use will be the Christian Research Institute, founded by the late Dr. Martin. Since Dr. Martin's passing, Mr. Hank Hanegraaff has been manning the helm; he has done a profoundly excellent job of it. Their website is http://www.equip.org/.  Their daily radio broadcasts, in which they field questions over the phone, is called "The Bible Answer Man," and was started many decades ago by Dr. Martin.  In addition to the website and the radio show, their publications, including popular and scholarly works, are of the best to be found anywhere, and have proved invaluable to me in my teaching ministry.

My first installment of "False Teachers" centers on Joyce Meyer, an extremely charismatic and popular teacher within what we call the aberrant "Prosperity" or "Positive Confession" movement. I have chosen Ms. Myer because, over the past three or four months, she has again popped up on my radar. People that I know and care about have purchased and read her books and, I believe, may have been tainted by her teachings, which are completely unbiblical and, therefore, dangerous to the Body of Christ. She is a wolf in sheep's clothing, to be sure.

I say that she is a wolf because she has been confronted by many godly, learned men and women of The Gospel.  And though she has been shown her many biblical errors, and been urged into accountability, she continues to defy these godly counselors and to teach and promote these "doctrines of demons."  She sometimes even lies about her past, with respect to them, saying that she never taught or believed them, though she was well on-record (including her own, written material) when she DID teach\believe these false doctrines.  So I use the word, wolf, because that's exactly what a wolf does; it defies the warnings of the goodly shepherds and, because it is hungry (in this case, hungry for money and power), it sneaks its way into the flock and feeds off the weak ones.  But the weak sheep are most important to God, so we must warn the entire flock when we see a wolf lurking about.  The good thing, for both you and me, is that I have no radio or televison producer to stiffle my words, as some ministries do; I am free to call out "WOLF" when I see one, for the good of the sheep in God's flock.  Joyce Myer is a wolf. 

Now, one last thing.  Before I give you the link to the Christian Research Institute information, concerning Joyce Meyer, I encourage and admonish you to read the entire web page that I lead you to read. Surely your faith is worth reading the entire thing. Next, I would caution you to check your pride; Joyce Meyer is not your mother that you should feel defensive, nor should you feel embarrassed if you, up until now, had been taken in by her supposed ministry and teachings. After all, she does do a good job of twisting Scripture in a way that appears to "prove" her doctrines.  She is good at what she does, this twisting of the Bible and this charasmatic, false honesty, else she would not be so rich and of celebrity status.  Yes, she is good.  So there is no reason for you to feel embarrassed over the fact that you were duped by her; please put any pride you have away; I am your brother, and you need not feel embarrassed.  As a friend and teacher, please just give me the benefit of the doubt, fully read the resource material I commend to you, check it against Scripture and the teachings of The Church, and then you will see, for yourself, that you have been duped by a wolf in sheep's clothing.  But you must do the due diligence of fully reading, without pride involved, and the rest, if you are to do it rightly and achieve truth.  That's your part in all of this.  Read everything, study, pray, and put away pride.

Here, in the link, below, is "the skinny" on Ms. Meyer and her ungodly, unbiblical teachings.  If she should come to your church to "preach" to your congregation, I advise that you run, do not walk, to the nearest exit.  Then, stand guard at the church doors so that no sincere seeker of the true Gospel of Jesus Christ gets past you and inside.  We must not only fight the heretics - we must protect others from their lies. 

May The Holy Spirit of God open our minds to the truth of His Word, and keep us from all error.

CRI, on Joyce Meyer: http://www.equip.org/articles/the-teachings-of-joyce-meyer