Stuck in "religion"

We need to hunger after God, more of God. We need to never, ever be satisfied with the level we are at in God. Everyone fears the possibility of going to hell and we all tell children when someone dies that the deceased has gone to Heaven but, how many people actually want to and do live the life it takes to get to Heaven? Too many of us go to a church in a what some call a "humanistic" church where they teach you to have a relationship with God for what He can do for you and not the other way around. Philippians 3:12-17 says "Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Fogetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. Join with the others in following my example, brothers, and take note of those who live according to the pattern we gave you."Many churches teach that this scripture means to forget your past hurts; I have been taught that we have taken this scripture completely out of context. Paul is not telling us to forget our past hurts and wounds and to move on with God now. He isn't even teaching us about forgiveness in this scripture. This scripture is about forgetting ("fogetting what is behind...") and it is not about forgetting what has happened to us, our hurts, sins or mistakes. He is talking about forgetting our religious pasts. Paul had to forget a lot of his religion and press on because he met Jesus on the road and a lot of his religion didn't match.We have religion so etched into us that we have to strain and fight to get out of it. This scripture is about people experiencing the Living God and not about experiencing religion. God wants to meet with us in His presence and in His power and when He does meet with you it isn't always according to your previous religious experiences. We will miss out on meeting with God if we can't forget and leave behind our "religious" past. We can not be locked into religion!God's pattern has not changed, ever! The pattern that was started in the Garden of Eden and in Heaven is the same pattern today. When 1/3 of the angels were thrown out of Heaven those remaining didn't say "ok, now what do we do?". They just kept the pattern. We need to recieve, recognize and understand the heavenly pattern and be able to get it into our hearts and apply it to our generation. As I said before, the pattern has always been the same; it is the generations that are changing. "Religious" people may realize that the pattern of Heaven hasn't changed but they don't know what to do with the pattern now that the world has. We need to be able to capture this pattern without having to throw out or televisions or without having to dress like it is 1850 or without having to sing only hymns because that is how it was done. Moses did what God told him to do. He didn't say "God, I grew up in Egypt and that is not the way we did it".If we want to inherit and be spiritually successful we have got to have the same attitude as Moses when God said "This is the way I want you to do it." Folks, we need to do it! We represent Heaven here on Earth. Think about that. Everything we say and everything we do represents Heaven and therefore, God.God doesn't pick certain people and tell them a secret. There are simply those who can grab the pattern and break the old pattern. They are also able to apply it without fear of the church and without fear of people. Too many times we hear, "we are just not like that" or "That is just not my personality". Does God teach it in His word? Then we need to become like that!Being a christian is not about people adjusting to me; it is about me adjusting to Him. We become christians because we want what Jesus is. We can't try to make Him want what we are. We need to find someone who has grabbed hold of that pattern and who is applying it to their life and find out why they are doing it. Find out how...




Note: I am transferring this all from another blog I had that I have forgotten all my passwords for. I have more time now and, unfortunately, this means in order to blog, I had to start fresh but I want to keep those posts. This was originally written Aug 1, 2006.