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

Prozac or Mistletoe?

It is Christmas time, so I endeavor to be more cautious and charitable than I ever am. And my intention is not to throw anyone under the bus with this writing. But I have been wanting to say what I'm about to say for a very long time. I say it in support of joy. I say it in support of people. And I say it in support of Christmas itself.

For 14 years, every Christmas season, I was force-fed a diet that consisted of guilt, shame, and stern warnings. I, and roughly 125 other people, during the Advent season, were reminded that millions of people around the world suffer the heart-wrenching, spirit-debilitating effects of depression more so at Christmas time than any other time of the year. And this is a true statement. No doubt, in an effort to inspire compassion and good works toward others, we were reminded, year after year, Christmas after Christmas, that suicides increase at Christmas time (which is not statistically accurate) - that millions weep over the loss of beloved friends and relatives, who can no longer share Christmas gifts or a bowl of eggnog – that the poor, destitute, and homeless, many of whom have always been poor, destitute and homeless, feel most rejected and left out of society during Christmas time, for they cannot afford to celebrate in the same fashion as most can celebrate. Consequently, for 14 years the unparalleled joy of Christmas time, which should have been mine, should have been ours, was diminished, greatly, by an unintentional, yet reckless, spirit of morosity. If there is no joy in Mudville, at Christmas time, there is no unbounded joy at a certain location in Gloucester, Massachusetts. But, again, I speak with no malice, only regret, and I hope, in this writing, that my offered, different perspective might help someone else to remember to and celebrate Christmas the way, I believe, God intends it to be celebrated.

Christmas time is not to be a self-absorbed, selfish time of year. Of all the times of the year to be self-absorbed, to be selfish, let it not be Christmas time. The holy Child was not given to men by a self-absorbed and selfish God. The Child was a gift to the poor in spirit, and to the lost. The Child came selflessly, and grew selflessly, and lived selflessly, and died selflessly. To The Child, The Man, to The Father, to The Spirit, it was all about others; it was about us. So, to honor The Child, to memorialize and celebrate His birth, His coming, and in keeping with His command to follow Him, we must be all about others, too. Let Christmas time, let Christmas Day, be about others, the depressed, the poor, the destitute, the homeless, and “the least of these.” And not just at Christmas time or upon Christmas Day, but every time of year, every day of the year. For the Christian, all of this should go without saying.

So, in our work, our daily work, we give to the depressed, to the rejected, to the poor, to the destitute, to the homeless, to the lonely, to the forgotten. We provide for them, we pray for them. These are our works. But work is not celebration, neither is celebration work. Work focuses on being sacrificial. Celebration focuses on being thankful and joyous. Sometimes we work – sometimes we celebrate! Sometimes we weep with those that weep, but sometimes we rejoice with those that rejoice. And Christmas time, my friends, is not a time to weep but to rejoice!

During Christmas time, I would submit that our Christian hearts are more bent, naturally, to pray and work for the least among us. So, at Christmas time, our work is most proficient now than any other time of year. How is this so? Because we are Christians, filled and led by the Spirit of God. Christians need no extra, morose reminders to increase at Christmas time the good that they do all year long. The Angels that heralded the birth of The newborn King knew perfectly well that there were depressed souls, poor shepherds, homeless Bethlehem-ites, lonely widows, and pining friends, yet they focused on joy, they advocated joy, they proclaimed joy that night. They put their work aside and they greatly celebrated the coming of The Child born Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace! Should these angels be found guilty of the charge of negligence towards the plight of depressed souls? Should these angels be ashamed of themselves for not taking a short time then, hovering above the sheep, to advocate visiting the the sick and shut-ins? Should this host of angels not be embarrassed to loudly and joyously sing and light up the skies with the divine light of Heaven, over little Bethlehem, when there was so much suffering and misery to be found, not only there, but all over the earth? No, they should not be found guilty, they should not be ashamed, they should not be embarrassed. Their work was over for a time; now it was time to celebrate! We would do well to follow their example. I have nothing against taking the opportunity of Christmas to remind folks to pray for and help others, but I do not think it a good thing to rob Christians of the full joy of Christmas by emphasizing sufferings over thanksgiving and work over celebration. All God's children need a time of refreshing, and what better way to be refreshed than to dance with Fezziwig or toast with Cratchit? What better way to honor the giving of The Child than to give gifts to our loved ones?!

My brotherly counsel to you is not to allow any well-intentioned person to diminish within you the joy of Christmas. For over 2000 years, regardless of what date we chose to celebrate, the birth of Jesus Christ has been celebrated by the angels of heaven. And as is done in heaven, may it be done on earth. God rest he merry, gentleman (and ladies), let nothing you dismay. Remember, Christ our Savior, was born on Christmas Day, to save us all from Satan's power, when we had gone astray. Oh, tidings of comfort and joy!

Sing your carols; choose, joyfully purchase, and give your gifts; bake your pies; deck your halls; ornament your trees; cook your feasts; kiss under your mistletoes; light up your logs; dance; drink; be merry and light of heart, for it is Christmas time - the fat-est, most wonderful time of the year!

The time of work focus comes, as it should and always will. This is the time of focused celebration!

A very merry Christmas to you all! God bless us, everyone!

Halloween: Good or Bad?

I'm not going to go through the history of this holiday; there is enough, readily available, helpful detail on this subject on the web.  So, I won't take the time to write, here, what others have covered.  I will advise the curious reader, those wanting to know facts, to one of those web sites, one I often use, The Christian Research Institute.  Here is an excellent article that gives an overview of the holiday: http://www.equip.org/articles/halloween-for-christians-oppression-or-opportunity

I celebrated Halloween when I was a kid, back in the 1960s.  I believe I was a carrot my first year; my mother made the costume.  I then went as a cat (store-bought) for the next two or three years.  As I grew older I became a hobo, Dracula and a woman.  It was a lot of fun to dress up in costumes, venture out into the dark night, ring doorbells, show off my costume, and...get free candy.  I remember the fun of coming home, where my brothers and sister and I would pour out our bags and see what we got.  I also remember the "scary" years, when the urban myth prevailed that hidden razors should be sought in apples and various drugs had been injected into candy bars.  That's when Halloween began to decline in fun, but by then I was almost old enough to quit celebrating completely.

So, here I am now a Christian grown-up, and what do I think about Halloween?  Well...

Halloween of my day is not the Halloween of today, nor of my own kid's day; Halloween is not the fairly innocent Frankenstein, Dracula, carrot and cat costumes of the 1960s.  I think, ever since Jamie Lee Curtis appeared in the movie, "Halloween," the holiday has become increasingly darker.  The blood, gore and occult are more in fashion these days, as are the seances and other Spiritualistic practices. These days, fewer kids  bob for apples and eat donuts off of hanging strings (with their hands behind their backs) as in my day.  Instead, more and more adults run to adult parties in hope of hearing some sage words from Harry Houdini or to speak with their dearly departed.  Death, blood, gore, Spiritualism, and a fixation with darkness now define Halloween today.

When my kids were growing up, we enjoyed watching them engage in the cultural holiday, but we guided them along the way.  Recognizing that dressing in costumes is fun, we encouraged characters and costumes that were not dark, because we are Christians and we do not celebrate death, blood, gore, Spiritualism (which is a real religion and quite pervasive in our entertainment programming).  We understood that allowances of practice are equal to endorsement, so we never allowed our kids to dress up as witches (witches are real, as you know), or skeletons (which are symbols of death), or any other dark character.  Our kids dressed up as Moses, an angel or princess, etc..  And they had just as much fun and got just as much candy as the kids that were dressed in those other costumes.  While many kids unwittingly celebrated death, gore and darkness, our kids celebrated what I and my wife had celebrated in our day: a night of costumes and free candy.  Our kids' celebration was just fun, not fun and dark.

Now, some will say, "Aw, loosen up, Rick; you're taking this far too seriously.  It's just all in fun!"   But to this I would say, "baloney!"

All people, of any age, are influenced by the world around them and by the practices in which they engage.  Jingles work because they embed themselves into the mind.   "Recreational"  uses of drugs, even "safe" ones like pot, often surprise the user, later, with a full-blown addiction (mental or physical). And the age-old warning from mother, "Be careful who you're friends are," is found to be as valid now as it ever has been. The bottom line is that when we allow ourselves or our children to do a certain thing, we are endorsing it.  And something endorsed will most always turn in to something accepted and, later, vigorously upheld and maintained.  So, do we really want to spiritually desensitize our children to the importance of sound, Christian doctrine by allowing them to, even for one night, become a witch?  Like that is okay?  Of course not!  Witches are real and Wicca is a religion that utterly rejects Christ's teachings.  Do we really want to desensitize our kids to the reality of Satan, who is a real entity and the enemy of our souls, by allowing our children to "dress up" as him?  Come on!

You don't have to be Dr. Phil to see that such allowances are not spiritually healthy for your child, the little person that you are trying to raise and teach to follow Jesus.  The Word of God clearly states that there exists no fellowship between Darkness and Light.  So, why on earth would we want to "celebrate" and allow our Christian kids to "celebrate" any holiday using dark, ungodly, anti-Christian costumes or practices?  Allowing this to happen is counter-productive to our goal and confusing to the kids, and I believe it is poor stewardship of the parent's role as teacher and protector of the small ones entrusted to their care.  We should, instead, promote characters that, at the least, are not dark and morose and filled with occult overtones.

It is not prudish to deny these types of costumes; it is prudent to do so, because we recognize that children are easily confused and influenced by what we allow and they can, like adults, become desensitized by the bad message and practice.  As I said, permanent mindsets are the result of thoughtless acceptance and thoughtless acceptance is the result of desensitization.

Christian parents, do not desensitize your kids to the darkness and the occult, which needs to be recognized as real and which daily imprisons countless hearts in cells of deep, personal, spiritual despair.  Instead, celebrate the holiday differently and use these modern, dark and occult images and practices of today's Halloween, which are swirling all around us and gaining momentum, as opportunities to talk with your children about the root of these dark strongholds, and explain to them that God has no fellowship with evil, and the symbols of Satan, death and the grave.  And since God has no fellowship with these things, we should not playfully, casually pretend that they are not real by dressing up as ungodly characters, nor engage in practices in which God has forbidden his people to engage (such as seances, tarot cards, Ouija boards, and other occult, holiday "amusements").  Christian parents cannot ignore the influences of these subtly destructive, seemingly harmless but popular holiday practices, else they will surely find that they have fostered the desensitizing of their children to the presence and reality of spiritually dark forces among us.  No, Christians should not be paranoid and look for a devil behind every tree, and they should not to obsessed with evil spirits, but neither should they pretend that dressing up as Satan or a bloody killer is no big deal to God or to a healthy faith and personal attitude.  Halloween can be a very, positive, spiritually instructive time for Christian kids. Let us take our faith and our kids faith seriously.  Images, costumes and practices do matter, and they matter much.

At my house, we still carve pumpkins, give out candy to the neighbor kids, and sometimes my youngest  dresses up in costume.  Halloween is still fun over our house.  But that's because we haven't bought in to the prevalent dark and occult parts of the holiday as it is "celebrated" today.  At your house this year, it still can be a fun day of costumes and free candy.  And that's plenty of fun alone.

And who doesn't love watching "It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown"?

In Honor of Fred, my Friend

The song, linked below, proclaims this truth concerning the Christ Child, "...though the years have come and gone, He's waiting that same way. So come in from your hillside, and meet Him there today.  Meet Him at the manger..."

These powerful lyrics come from a Christmas cantata that my friend, Fred Serino, chose for our congregation's holiday program, back in the late 80s.  Fred was our choir director.  He asked me to perform the narration, and so I had the pleasure of joining the choir for about two months. My time with them concluded, after the performance of the cantata, but it was an experience I shall never forget.

I have remembered those fun times of rehearsals; the laughter and conversation; Fran and her wonderful piano accompaniment; the smiles on the faces, young and old; the camaraderie; the coffee and snacks; the joking around; the crisp, autumn evenings; the jitters of performance night; and Fred.

Fred was not only our choir director, he was our inspiration, our teacher, encourager and friend.  He set a high standard, though never displayed impatience with our mistakes.  He made us feel good about ourselves, made us all feel that we belonged and were important to him and to the whole program.  He smiled when we teased him, laughed when we messed up, gave us one-on-one time to help us work out a detail.  He made, for each of us, a treasured experience, one that, every Christmas time, I fondly recall with tears in my eyes.  I can never thank Fred enough for this wonderful memory, and I can never thank those folk enough for warmly welcoming me in to their fold for a time!

It's not the Christmas season yet, I know.  But it's always Christmas Day when you remember the gifts that God has given you.  And I was remembering Fred today.  So, Fred, if you are out there, this one's for you, the blog entry and the opening song from the cantata.  Thanks, Fred, for everything!!

Click on the link, below this line:

http://www.4shared.com/audio/VKvDR8Ye/14_-_Meet_Him_At_the_Manger.html