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comments by Dave... inspired by the song "I'm So Sick" by FlyLeaf This song (besides being a totally rockin' tune - hehe) reminds me how organized religion is often such a deceptive thing, that can sometimes cause people to do things based on a completely faulty understanding of who God is and leaves them messing with a whole lot of stuff that, really, has nothing to really do with Him at all... Make no mistake, I'm happy to say I totally believe in God (and I count Him as my closest friend); but I'm not a fan of the term "religious" any more for a number of heart-felt reasons. Having spent most of my life growing up in a "religious" environment (something I decided to leave behind at last in late 2001), I've seen the good, the bad and the ugly... Even worse, I've contributed to it and helped propagate it. Sometimes my religious behavior wounded dear friends and, as it turned out, showed very little of any kind of "Christ-like" behavior towards others. My self-deception of thinking I had some kind of "righteousness" of my own because I attended church, was a good kid, and knew a lot of Bible stuff made me sometimes arrogant and treat other people with a condescending attitude. I am so sorry for the way I sometimes behaved back then. My hyper-spirituality did nothing for anyone and it certainly didn't help people see any sincere expression of genuine love for God. The strange thing is, my heart was still very affectionate towards God and I meant well most of the time - but this is why I say religion gets in the way and can ruin anything pure and distort it terribly. I've seen how religion can make people phony and basically suck all the joy out of life - because it makes people presume that God is interested only in pious performance and guilting His followers until they go out and win 20 converts or at least make them feel like crap for not choosing their immaculate denomination. Sigh... and with all the garbage done in the name of God by religious people, it's no wonder to me that so many people want to steer as clear as they can from anything that even smells a little like religion. Believe me, I feel the same way these days! I've found that some people who are absorbed with religion, love to have their self-righteous egos stroked week after week. They want someone to pat them on the back for their good performance, make them feel spiritually validated, and tell them only what they want to hear. But, usually, genuine people with sincere hearts respond to genuine truth and when that truth shows itself through genuine love it makes itself all the more obvious - not to mention desirable. People don't need God crammed down their throats (especially considering the fact that what's really being crammed is not "God" at all; it's just religion). I think most people would much rather prefer that people who say they believe in God just start demonstrating it (by showing actions that are demonstrative of His true character, which is always love), rather than always flippin' their jaws, pointing their fingers and pretending they are without sin. Here's a news flash: no one is without sin so the super-spiritual "I'm better than everyone else" nonsense can stop! You might recall a story in the Bible where a bunch of religious people wanted to kill a woman whose life was tainted with past sexual sins... In fact, they were all claiming justice because God's Law showed her deserving of punishment and they were quick to quote "chapter and verse" (to use a manner of speaking) and spell out why it was right to basically send her to hell for breaking the rules... But look at what Jesus said to this angry, bloodthirsty crowd (a religious crowd no less)? He simply says, "let he among you who is without sin, be the first to cast his stone." In one breath, Jesus exposed all of their hypocrisy and makes things very clear; that they are every bit as guilty as her and every one of them had done things that were contrary to God's Law. Everyone dropped their stones and left her alone. Funny how that when the name of Jesus is uttered today, most "non-Christian" people think of religion and church... yet, time after time, the real Jesus we read about in the pages of the New Testament section of the Bible proved He was not a fan of religion and He constantly was correcting their faulty understanding of God and His heart towards the people He created. God (in the person of Jesus) visits man, clothed in the same flesh and blood as man himself, and tries to give man a clearer picture of what is really in God's heart. Most of us know how that act of love on God's part was repaid to Him; The religious world one day nailed Jesus to a cross. Remember this truth when you think about the real Jesus as opposed to the "Jesus" that too many are familiar with today because of what organized religion has tried to push on everyone. To put it simply and bluntly, religion is often the very enemy of God! It resists Him, it denies Him, it avoids Him, it re-defines Him, and it blinds people from seeing Him clearly. Jesus' next words to the woman, that this crowd of finger-pointing "church folks" wanted to shame and destroy, were words of love and tenderness, not condemnation or finger pointing or hypocritical religious jabber but pure love. "Where are your accusers now friend? See how there is no one here to condemn you? Neither do I condemn you... Go now in peace, and leave your sin behind." He invites her to simply start over. He knew she had committed sins against God's Law, yet He forgives everything from the past (without so much as a lecture or handing her a new rule book) and gives her a true chance to be free and begin again, free of shame. That's the character of God that too many church people have forgotten about. You see, when love touches your heart it is a powerful thing. It doesn't need a book of rules and a punishing stick to keep you in line. Love compels you to do things because you want to - not because you have to. Not only does it compell you, but it fills you will all the joy and eagerness to accomplish it. True love opens the heart. There's an instinctive desire that is born that just seems to take over and it provides all the energy to complete itself without any external force pushing you one way or the other. Many church folks know all about the 10 Commandments. They want it posted all over the walls of every school and courthouse and they want to rub any tiny violation in someone's face the moment they detect a failure. But even the Bible does not tell us to take this kind of approach and attitude regarding our failure to measure up to God's law. That doesn't mean God's Law is meaningless, it just means that it enables us to clearly see that we are all guilty (yes, even deserving of punishment for our sins) but His love does not allow the guilt of past sin to keep us away from knowing Him... and we can know the Creator of the Universe within the purest context of love without any shame accompanying at all. God forgives us and reaches out His arms to us. We don't have to wallow in shame over our past errors, we just need to recognize His love and open our arms back and take Him up on that holy bear hug!
On another occasion, Jesus sat down to talk with a Samaritan woman at a well. He asks her for a drink from the well and she is amazed that He is even speaking to her (for Jews do not associate with Samaritans). She replies, "You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?" Jesus says to her that if she only knew the gift God has for her and who it is she was talking to she would asked Him for a drink and He would have given her "living water" that would cause her to never thirst again. This water, He tells her, would become like a perpetual spring inside that would give eternal life. Well, of course she was now very interested in this "living water". She didn't understand at first that He was speaking symbolically of a more profound truth. Jesus then asks her to go get her husband and she confesses that she is not married. Jesus, not having met her before, then tells her that He knows; in fact, He knows that she has had 5 husbands and the man she was presently living with now was not her husband. She immediately becomes aware that this man is very different than any other person she has met before and she presumes He is some kind of prophet. Perhaps this is where her own awareness of religious pressure kicked in because she immediately wants to know why Jews think the Temple in Jerusalem is the only authorized place for worship. Perhaps she is expecting that He is going to prescribe some kind of ritual or regiment of religious performance... But He does not of those things. In fact, He prescribes no religion at all!!!! Instead, He introduces her to the heart of God, who loves her and wants to have a friendship with her. Jesus tells her that Jerusalem, even with all of its grandiose Temple worship rituals, is nothing to be concerned about! If we were to try and put that in modern-day English, you would basically have Jesus telling her that a prescription of ritual church attendance in not the answer. Instead, He says only that God wants to know people who have sincere hearts, who will commune with Him in truth from their innermost parts. At this point He reveals plainly to her that He is the promised Messiah and the revelation hits her that, despite everything she has ever done in her life, God loves her and still invites her to the closest relationship possible! Naturally, she runs to tell all her friends! You can imagine the fury of the religious leaders. Here is this man who ignores all the hard work these men have engage to place people under their influence and control, and goes around forgiving prostitutes, thieves and adulterers and telling them God wants to be their closest friend! This was an offense to their status quo religion. God hanging out with sinners and genuinely loving people without trying to convert them to some kind of works-righteousness, "measure-up to try and impress God" religion? Wow! The more we look at the message Jesus brought, the clearer it becomes that most people who have been influenced by religion, have a very distorted understanding of the heart of God. Their understanding is wrapped up in the concept of a god who only "loves" people if they keep all the rules perfectly and perform right 100%. They have been sold the concept of a god who eagerly waits to cast anyone into hell who messes up. Those of you who have obtained this distorted view of God (even those of you who have decided that you're not sure you can believe in God because of the hypocrisy and attitude you have experienced at the hands of religious people over the years), I encourage you to grab a Bible and read 1 Corinthians chapter 13 (start at verse 4 and work your way to the end of the chapter). When you do, replace the word "love" with the word "God". Then you will have a good start on understanding better what God is really like towards us all. Even though a lot of Christians preach "God is love", I've discovered that very few would want 1 Corinthians 13 to be interpreted as a description of the actual heart of God. The reasons will become very obvious when you just read it.... The most prevalent example that comes to mind is verse 5, which says, "Love (GOD) is not rude. Love (GOD) does not demand its (His) own way. Love (GOD) is not irritable, and it (HE) keeps no record of when it (HE) has been wronged..." Religious people love to imagine a God who is keeping a Santa Claus list and checking it twice... ready to kill whomever doesn't measure up. But tell me who doesn't want to know the God of 1 Corinthians 13? I promise you, He is 100% real!!! Today the religious system calls out to its followers, tickling their itching ears, willing to give them just enough to keep them quiet and playing the game and then plenty of shame and fear to keep them afraid of leaving. As a result, people remain in a perpetual state of spiritual immaturity, continually dependent on the system (and its leadership) and fearful of what may happen if they ever forsake it. But many are waking from this slumber and breaking out into real truth and total freedom to really know God for who He truly is and to discover His family outside the walls of religious bondage! If you've spent much of your days stuck in the rut of religion or at least are pretty sick of those who have and throw it around all the time, maybe it's time to finally say as it does in the FlyLeaf song: "I WILL BREAK!" A lot of people move straight from being burned on religion to presuming God is a farce or at the very least a pretty crappy god because He doesn't seem very loving when the plight of the world is taken into observation. But even in this frame of mind, they are often demonstrating that they are still being plagued by the religion that once forced itself on their thinking. So we find that often Christians and non-Christians end up battling the same sinister device. The hope I have is that both will ditch that whole religious anxiety and not be so instantly presumptive of God in a bad light, cause I can tell you from my own experience that He is what makes each day worth living for me. He is totally real. People always let you down somewhere but He is always solid and knowing Him doesn't have to translate into anything one might describe as "churchy" or "religious". He is closer than a brother and truer than any friend and it is only this Love that actually has the power to fulfill what everything else we sometimes try to shove into our hearts to make the silent longing for truth and something more. I share this as a guy that has walked plenty of years in religion and wasted plenty of time. I share it, not because I think myself some kind of guru or know it all. The truth is, I'm finding out that I know very little... But that's ok with me, because I'm discovering the only thing that really matters and, let me tell you, it has nothing to do with religion. I don't believe in magic prayers or trying to convert people to some kind of religion, loading them up with rules, reading materials, and formulas. I just talk to God the way I talk to a close friend because that's exactly who He is. Though I'm not happy about the crap that still exists in my life and the sins I sometimes succumb to, I know that God isn't grading my performance to decide whether or not He loves me and accepts me. He's looking to see what's really in my heart. The simple fact is, though I do sometimes sin, my heart of hearts doesn't want to. Love compels people to a path of justice, truth and the desire to want to reciprocate actions of love to the one who first showed His to us. All of us will fall down... sometimes we even deliberately trip ourselves and others and do things because we want to do what makes us feel good at the time instead of stopping to regard a better path. And Jesus remains there, always loving us, always with arms open... Never a foul thought towards us. Never a feeling of disgust or impatience. You know the saying "love is blind" and how, when a person is madly in love with another person, they often see right past their flaws? You know how outsiders watching two love-stricken fools will sometimes shake their heads and say, "I don't know how they put up with each other with all the problems he or she has"? Well, God is love-stricken with us. He looks past our failures and chooses to see only the potential with which He created us to live in. Everything He does in our lives is to bring us to that ultimate positive. Our humanity is the only thing that keeps us from seeing it many times, but it doesn't change the fact that His heart swells with love because He is Love itself! My church friends will say, "But Dave, what about winning converts to Christ?" Ah yes, religion's biggest concern... more converts to keep it running. After all I have shared I have to ask, "Are you frickin' serious?" When you were growing up and got yourself into trouble and then hurt yourself, whose arms did you automatically run into? Did anyone need to tell you where to go? Did anyone need to build you a special building and tell you that, only here, is where you will receive help? Did anyone have to give you a rule book to follow so you'd have a clue which arms of love belonged to your mom or dad or guardian? Somehow you just knew and you responded accordingly. I remember from my own childhood, and have observed other children when the parents discipline them and, even after a spanking, 9 times out of 10 the child will turn around (immediately) and burry his head in the arms of his parent and hold them tightly. My father and I were very close my whole life and I remember, as a child, he sometimes gave me some pretty hard spankings. Yet I always turned right to him and threw my arms around him crying, "daddy!" Even in discipline, I understood - somehow - that my father loved me and that I could trust Him. No one had to program this response... Therefore, my personal opinion is that "conversion" is something that happens when God Himself makes Himself real to a person and draws them, through genuine love, to Himself. It's basically a revelation of truth based on convictions that flow out a person's unique experience with God and his manifested love. It's one thing for me to talk about something. It's another thing for someone to realize on their own that God really loves them, that He forgives them, that Jesus died for them (and then was raised from the dead) to set them totally free from - not just sin - but religion too. Someone changing their mind based on better compelling evidence of truth and love and a deep revelation that sparks from the heart that only God Himself can peer into and communicate with.... That's not something I can do. That's not something I can give an "altar call" for. It's something deeper than a fleeting emotional experience. The best I can do is maybe share a page of my thoughts like this to try and explain how I relate to God's love and truth so you will know about it. Whether someone else hears and believes it is up to them. I'm not counting some spiritual roster of souls or getting anxious about numbers so I can, I guess, pat myself on the back and say "what a good little evangelist I am." Geesh, that's pathetic, yet sadly typical in today's religious church. So much done in the name of Jesus that, at its core, the motives are selfishness, guilt, and spiritual pride. I dare say that very little (if any) of it flows out of genuine love purely. And if it doesn't come from love, then it is a waste of energy, time, and money. It's absolutely worthless and nothing but noise!!! (check out the first 4 verses of 1 Corinthians 13). Not sure all of that has much to do with that song by FlyLeaf (hahaha), but that song stirred it up because I know that so many people want to BREAK away from the worthless nonsense of religion and get on with reality. So just do it! Don't let religion make you anxious or beat you down and don't let it suck you in with whatever enticements it attempts either. Live free! Have a cool day! Dave |