Anyone else like me?
I know whose I am but I often do not live like it. Take for instance, Life.
What is life? Is it just the living, the breathing, and being conscious? Yes, those are necessary in order to sustain life.
But what is life?
Is life what we do?
Is life who we are?
What is life?
When I was a younger man I didn’t think of these things. I took them for granted. I was… therefore I was alive. And if alive then I had life. I never questioned what life actually was/is. So what is life?
Genesis 1:26-27
¶Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
¶So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 2:7
…then the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
So…
All these years I have misunderstood what life was. I was under the delusion that life is about me. It’s actually about God. Just as I have misunderstood the Bible. It’s not the story of man but of God. Man is secondary. Man is the result of the will of God. Life is the result of the will of God.
John 1:1-4
¶In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
He was in the beginning with God.
All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.
In him was life, and the life was the light of men.
Are you beginning to see as I see?
Life is a gift of God. When one speaks of the sanctity of life this is what they are talking about. Life is not man’s to give and therefore it is not man’s to take unless according to God’s Law.
Obviously I have much to learn about life.
At this point I see my learning is sorely lacking as to what life is and how I should regard it. I have only seen life as a series of circumstances and how they affect me personally. My life has been based on my reactions to the events of life and I haven’t stopped to think on what life is, and where life comes from. Right now I see through a cloudy, dimly lit, out of focus glass. I pray I will grow, mature and begin to see with more, and more clarity.
Yesterday at church, Pastor Kyle mentioned that when we are in distress and need clarity (at least this is what I got from what he said) we should give thanks in everything, and for everything be thankful. That caused me to think of the most basic thing of all,”Life.”
Now as scripture says, “the LORD God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature” we see life is literally, God breathed.
Later, in the Garden of Eden, man disobeyed God’s one command and became spiritually dead, becoming separated from Adonai through his sin. Thus Death entered the world.
And so death reigns from then until now on the physical body. But God had, before creation, prepared for us a sacrificial lamb, without spot to take away our sin and restore us to himself: his son, Jesus, the Christ.
John 14: 6
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the LIFE*. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
(*Emphasis mine)
All of John 14 is Jesus’ witness to the Truth, of himself, and of the Father.
Our restored life is in Jesus Christ, who is in the Father.
Again, “life” is a gift from God.
Yet how lightly we esteem it. How flippantly we care for it… how often we neglect and abuse it as if it were our own.
Anyone else with me?
Do you see what I see?
Do you understand what I’m trying to say?
God has to deal with me in degrees, as with an infant. I have to learn to crawl, and then walk before I can run. In this case I have a small taste of the truth and small understanding about life now.
So here is something I was given earlier as I was thinking about all of this. How do I start my morning? What is the first thing I do when I wake up?
I reach for my phone.
I check in on the world before I recognize the very one I claim is Sovereign Lord over all Creation, Adonai.
What if I change that?
What if instead of reaching for my phone I would recognize Adonai first and as Kyle said, give thanks. What if a prayer of Thanksgiving was the first thing I do every morning?? How would that affect my day? How would that change my life? My approach to life?
I found this Prayer
Morning Prayer
I give thanks unto You, Adonai, that, in mercy, You have restored my soul within me. Endless is Your compassion; great is Your faithfulness. I thank You, Adonai, for the rest You have given me through the night and for the breath that renews my body and spirit. May I renew my soul with faith in You, Source of all Healing. Blessed are You, Adonai our God, Ruler of the Universe, Who renews daily the work of creation.
Maybe seeing life as less about me, I will appreciate the life I have more… because I will see it for what it really is a gift from God.
My answer to the Question: “Why Did You Leave? Would You Go Back?”
Posted in Americanized Religiosity, Charles Finney, Control and Corruption, doctrines of grace, Fundy-ism, IFB, Just Thinking, Livable philosophy, Manipulation, Orthodoxy, Reformation, Religion, Religiosity, Semi-Pelagian, Shadows, Social commentary, Sovereignty of God, Thinking, Toxic Faith, Traditions of Men, Worldviews, tagged BELIEF AND BEHAVIOUR, Control and Power, cult of personality, culture, Doctrines of Grace, Fundamentalism, Fundies, Fundy-ism, Independent Fundamental Baptist Cult, KJVO, Power and corruption, Reformation, Religion, Sloppy Preaching, Sovereignty of God, thinking, Toxic Faith, Worldview on Sunday, September 15, 2013| 1 Comment »
Over on http://www.stufffundieslike.com forum a question was asked:
Why Did You Leave? Would You Go Back?
For those of you who have left Fundamentalism, and I think that’s probably most of you who post here, why did you leave? Was it the theology, or was it the culture? If it was the theology, what specifically about the theology drove you away? If it was the culture, what specifically about the culture drove you away?
My answer:
Why did I leave?
Most of you know my story and the history of deception and lies I encountered in the Independent Fundamental Baptist movement.
http://www.stufffundieslike.com/forum/showthread.php?tid=45
Why did I leave? Why didn’t I stay and fight?
I believe that there is nothing worth salvaging in the IFB movement. I believe it is a religious cult movement that should die a very public, and very convincing death. The heart and core of IFB error is Theological Error. The error lies in how the IFB presents and views God in relation to both the individual and the “Ministry” of the Local, sanctified, separated, sold-out, sanctimonious sect of believing believers. According to IFB dogma the “Local church” is superior to all other things Christian. In theory and in words they say they worship a sovereign God… but in practice God’s sovereignty ends with the
preeminence of the individual’s free-will. In a nutshell, God is viewed as a reactive deity who frets around his heaven wringing his hands hoping that there will be someone to stand in the gap, make up the hedge, and come up with a masterful formula for winning souls to Christ. Because we know that Church in the IFB is all about the numbers.
Numbers and power actually.
I am more convinced than ever that, Most churches today have a “pastor” who oversees the entire operation, and there may be a deacon board that is either working with the pastor or against him… either way it is doubtful that either “office” is operating biblically. With the advent of the Professional Clergy there has been a rise in the cult of personality as well. The Professional is seen in a light that is clearly not biblical and we see that whether by “influence” or by acquired “authority” these men rise to prominence. Even the small rural churches are patterned after this and the pastor is looked on as a man of authority over the congregation. And there is the rub.
Even the meanest paid rural “pastor” would not willingly give up “his power” over even the smallest group of people. It is not about the money, heaven knows many, if not most, small congregations pay at or below the poverty level. No, it is about power to influence and control a group of people and mold their worldviews.(This is the danger of the passive approach to worship where a one-way conversation takes place. The only view allowed in these meetings is the pastor’s. This affords almost total control by the speaker to inject his own views as ‘god breathed’. Whatever the “anointed”, “man of god” says while behind the “sacred desk” will be seen as, and accepted as, the “word of God”.) That is an especially strong allure for men of lesser character who are drawn to such positions. I have no doubt that there are good men who are trying to do what is right in these positions and I commend them and pray for them but the position itself is the enabler, the seductress; and even the best of men will, sooner or later, succumb to the temptation of power. We see a picture of this in J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord of the Rings Trillogy”. As a Ring Bearer, Frodo Baggins had an awful burden to carry yet, even he failed in the end and succumbed to the power of the ring; unable to destroy it he claimed it for himself. The thread through-out the tale is about power, the use and the abuse of it. Many who would have taken the ring would have done so out of a noble purpose but would have been corrupted by it’s power and their corruption would (like Sauron) only be limited by the (unlimited) power of the ring.
Would I go back?
No, not even if my life depended on it.
I truly do not believe that the IFB movement is worth saving, and I truly believe that it is a cult. A very seductive powerful cult that relies more on the abilities of man and less on the power of the god it claims to serve. That may sound harsh and it may be. I know that God does work in the midst of even the very worst of these bunkers. But I do believe that the error and the man made traditionalism and the King James only idolatry that is practiced in these dens of sanctimonious piety is deadly poison to sanctam ecclesiam catholicam; sanctorum communionem. (the holy catholic Church; the communion of saints)
Where am I at spiritually now?
That is the hardest thing about leaving the IFB bassinet, one has to start thinking for oneself. I was fortunate in that about the time I left the enfolding tentacles of the IFB, I broke my ankle. How was that fortunate? I was able to spend almost 6 months examining my worldview. I was able to take a long hard look at who I was in Christ, what I actually believed, why I believed it and I wrestled with several items that I had to abandon because there was no reason other than man-made traditionalism that I was holding to them. It’s much tougher than having someone spoon-feed you how you should act and think. But the realization that you are no longer performing according to someone else’s standards is very spiritually refreshing! Yes, there are often doubts and you find you might be out on a limb that you would not have climbed before… but the learning experience is so worth it.
In conclusion, I know that there are brothers and sisters in Christ who have a death grip on their comfortable religion and practices in the IFB bunkers which they live and breathe. But I have found so much fellowship with other brothers and sisters in Christ outside the bunker system that I could never go back into the cave to stay.
Read Full Post »