89. What pollutes your life? (Matt15)
Posted by:
SeLahGirl on
August 28, 2008 at
1:22PM EST
This is from a conversation on another thread, so some of it might not make much sense here...
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Matthew 15
The MESSAGE: What Pollutes Your Life
1-2 After that, Pharisees and religion scholars came to Jesus all the
way from Jerusalem, criticizing, "Why do your disciples play fast and
loose with the rules?"
3-9But Jesus put it right back on
them. "Why do you use your rules to play fast and loose with God's
commands? God clearly says, 'Respect your father and mother,' and,
'Anyone denouncing father or mother should be killed.' But you weasel
around that by saying, 'Whoever wants to, can say to father and mother,
What I owed to you I've given to God.' That can hardly be called
respecting a parent. You cancel God's command by your rules. Frauds!
Isaiah's prophecy of you hit the bull's-eye:
These people make a big show of saying the right thing,
but their heart isn't in it.
They act like they're worshiping me,
but they don't mean it.
They just use me as a cover
for teaching whatever suits their fancy."
10-11He then called the crowd together and said, "Listen, and take this
to heart. It's not what you swallow that pollutes your life, but what
you vomit up."
12Later his disciples came and told him, "Did you know how upset the Pharisees were when they heard what you said?"
13-14Jesus shrugged it off. "Every tree that wasn't planted by my
Father in heaven will be pulled up by its roots. Forget them. They are
blind men leading blind men. When a blind man leads a blind man, they
both end up in the ditch."
15Peter said, "I don't get it. Put it in plain language."
16-20Jesus replied, "You, too? Are you being willfully stupid? Don't
you know that anything that is swallowed works its way through the
intestines and is finally defecated? But what comes out of the mouth
gets its start in the heart. It's from the heart that we vomit up evil
arguments, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, lies, and
cussing. That's what pollutes. Eating or not eating certain foods,
washing or not washing your hands—that's neither here nor there."
[keep in mind each of those have spiritual and physical significance...
murder of people by murdering their reputation thru gossip (causing
people to separate themselves from them, to reject them, to kill
fellowship/relationship with them), fornication/adulteries by receiving
anything into our spirit/life that is not of God... evil arguments as
opposed to good arguments that are done in love to build up the people
of God in their faith... you get the point...]
There's
always a double standard at work and people love to swing to one
extreme or the other and to deny that they are embracing an extreme.
Often times, that denial is rooted in the fact that they are deceived
themselves. The young refer to the older generation as "old fogies"
living in a fog, brainless, senile, out of touch with what God is doing
in the current generation... and yet, the older saints remain part of
this current generation of the church, with great significance and
purpose. Just because you age, does it mean that you have no relevance,
no voice, no awareness of what the Spirit of God is doing afresh?
On the other hand... when I was young I met with constant criticism in
the church world for having an opinion about Scripture. The pat answer
to dismiss my passion and heart-felt attempts to understand and to live
out Scripture was, "you'll understand it when you are older." I
remember thinking that I couldn't wait until I had gray hair some day
so I could voice my heart for God and all that I felt he was saying and
revealing.
Both extremes had negative aspects, and yet both
extremes were also valid in ways. The older I get the more I understand
things with a richness... I understand God as Father/Daddy in a whole
new way when I became the parent. Then I understood him and myself on
an even deeper level when my children became teens. The conflicts of
life and relationships over time opened my eyes and made me wiser about
alot of things. Things that I could have never understood when I was
younger.
In my youth, I was constantly asking God about
things that my elders didn't have answers for, and he often answered
them. I think because I asked... not because I was young. The elders in
my life didn't have to deal with the things my generation was dealing
with, so they didn't have all the answers I needed to walk out my walk.
As God taught me about such things, I gained an insight that they
lacked. However, I could go to them and discuss what God had said and
there was always some wisdom they would add that would make my
understanding even richer.
God is the same yesterday, today, and forever.
There is nothing new under the sun.
The devils schemes are predictable and that's why we're not ignorant of his devices.
Satan just packages it differently for every generation. As long as he
can keep us divided, the young will understand the packaging but not
always have the experience. The old will have much experience and
recognize the enemy's tactics... but they don't always see thru the
packaging because it is new and unfamiliar. If we could bridge the gap
and respect one another, work together, and love as God loves... we
could be an unstoppable force. We would see the deceptions and schemes
of the enemy so clearly revealed as the church, as the whole family of
God. There is power in numbers, there is power in generations bound
together in the love of Christ.
The stench of the Pharisee
Church permeates so many aspects of the church today. Even this
dividing of loyalties and families. This is not what God meant when he
said he came to divide families. Choosing Christ when your family
rejects him is a whole other ball game... that never results in
justifying arrogance or being unkind to people. God disciplines with
love and so should we, not with hatefulness.
I believe in
gifts and prophecy and the works of the Spirit in our lives with
manifestations... but I also KNOW the counterfeit that masks itself
with similar works. It's more than just "DOING THE STUFF" ... it's
"BEING THE STUFF." The problem is that most people that I see in such
movements like this become very unkind and mean-spirited to parents and
to anyone that disagrees with them. Their zeal blinds them to the real
fruit of much of their behavior... and they become those blind
following the blind into the ditch. Someone is teaching the young. All
this talk about believing this stuff and not being told differently
based on your youth is a bunch of hooey. Some adult somewhere is
teaching it to you.
Karen Wheaton, John Wimber, Billy
Graham... who ever the leaders of movements... they are almost always
old people who teach it to younger people who teach it to younger
people. We follow. We're sheep. It's our nature. We follow the voice of
the shepherd. We just better be sure the shepherd we're following is
genuine and not just wearing a fluffy white mask. We've all been fooled
at some point in our life. This comment isn't meant to dis anyone, and
it isn't directed at any one post. I haven't even read everything said
very thoroughly. There's just alot of stuff every where in the air of
the church world at the moment that is creating a stench.
We really need a return to the word of God, the law for the NT
church... you can call me foolish for using it as the light for my
path, you can say I'm an old fogie cuz I refuse to go along with
anything that doesn't measure up to the order and breathing reality of
it, you can call me blurry minded, living in a fog, old-fashioned,
out-dated, and foolish... but I believe the Bible. I believe it's the
spoken living words of Christ and I can feel his very breath on my face
every time I open it and begin to read and I hear him speaking. I love
people, I am so very thankful for good, committed leaders who sacrifice
so much... but they will never be above God in my heart... and their
teachings or the teachings of a movement will never be above the
teachings of Jesus. My salvation is rooted in what Jesus said and
did... not in the work of the Holy Spirit. I love the Holy Spirit, he
is God, he manifests the power of God and walks beside me and enables
me to accomplish the example of Christ in my own life. But I'm
commanded to be like Jesus as the Spirit leads me in that work.
Our youth pastor said something so profound last night that has stuck
in my head. We are studying the Lord's prayer and last night he was
teaching on knowing the will of God. He said that the will of God is
not something that we cannot know... God wants us to know his will, he
commands us to perform it. It was the commission God gave to Christ and
he gave to us. I love the way this pastor expressed the simplicity of
such Truth... "We know the will of God by doing what Jesus did... if we
are doing what he did... we are doing the will of God."
He
went on to explain... The will of God is for us to be patient with
people. The will of God is to show mercy to people when they are
unkind. The will of God is to help the poor, the widow and the
orphan... the will of God is to love your neighbor... The will of God
is doing EVERYTHING Jesus did. Walk thru the Bible, make a note of
everything Jesus did, and then do it, become it, be like him.
The problem I see with swinging over to extremes by such movements is
that the fruit begins to rot on the vine, right there in the middle of
the church, still wearing the name of Christ, but not reproducing
anything healthy or that resembles him at all. Most poeple I know
caught up in over-emphasizing the gifts are very mean people. Much like
the description of the Pharisees above. If that is the model such
church leaders are modeling to the youth, justifying arrogance and
rebellion and disrespect against anyone that opposes living in such
extremes -- or who opposes their leader (masking it with a spiritual
elitist mask as they use all the right buzz words)... it is a dangerous
model, and I don't see Christ anywhere in it. Vomit... just like the
lukewarm in Revelation. They put on a good show, but they are lukewarm
and putrid in demonstrating the LOVE OF CHRIST.
Asuza Street Prohecies of 1906:
In the last days just before the return of Christ..."
1) There will be an over emphasis on power rather than righteousness.
2) There will be an over emphasis on praise to a God they no longer pray to.
3) There will be an over emphasis on the gifts oof the Spirit rather than the Lordship of Christ."
and that was from a Pentecostal minister. I wrote that in my Bible as a
young, new Christian, 21 years old. And I find it more true today at 43
than at any time in my walk. I believe the coming of the Lord is so
very close.
Love - genuine love - to you guys <3
