"Friend deceives friend, and no one speaks the truth. They have taught their tongues to lie." Jeremiah 9:5 (NIV)
"They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator ---who is forever praised. Amen." Romans 1:25 (NIV)
Genesis 2:7 tells us that man was created from the dust of the earth. In all of the created world, this is the first thing that God finds in conflict with His plan. He gives to Adam the right to chose a suitable companion to offset the unbalance, but nothing was found suitable enough. So, He didn't scoop up some more dirt to make a suitable companion (helper). He causes Adam to sleep deeply and woman was fashioned from the rib of man. Fashioned, not made.....shaped in deliberate fashion from the first human, Adam, instead of all of the created world and things within it. The Potter shaped with deliberate care, woman, to give balance to man.
We have become worshippers of ourselves; it is all an individual path to God's glory, there is no absolute truth. We have ceased to look at what we do, but rather simply ask "Is it possible to do it and how?" We look at what we can get out of our understanding of God instead of realizing that we cannot understand God completely outside of Heaven. We define God according to human standards and then argue when those incomplete standards come into conflict with the Bible.
We seek to clarify within denominational walls what the 'true' meaning of the text instead of understanding that the text clarifies itself to us. It is too easy to trace the contextual and root words of the Biblical narrative in today's society, but too often...we just don't want to take the time. We'll let someone else do the work for us and hence, we become Lutheran, Catholic, Protestant, or Emergent.
Or we create a totally separate and false religion designed to answer those questions that burn within our hearts and we don't like the biblical answer to. We worship our cars, our homes, our TVs, and our bank accounts. Created things that belong not to us, but to the Creator Himself. And, as the Church has retreated from that truth as it has come against the wall of the society that it is supposed to serve.
The Church has become a friend that deceives a friend; the congregation it harbors. It has taught itself that it can modify and reduce the harsh truth of the Gospel into a more societally accepting version "just to get them in the door." The Church is more concerned about being a 'friend' to everyone and every thing, from the seekers to the unbiblically living 'Christians' that file in and out of their doors (funding their salvation with hefty tithing) and the 'global warming' cries of human supremancy led science to God is 'love and only love' mentality of proclaiming homosexuality is a environmental or genetical error that must be accepted because God wants all of humanity saved.
We lie and tell ourselves that we know God, and since we do...we can name what we want and He has promised to deliver...or else we'll just get it ourselves. We define the standards that we live by....that aren't too difficult for us to follow.
We seek the answers to our existence and seek the balance that was upset by the sin in the Garden. We've become a society that has devalued life to the point where we ignore the murder of unborn children because they are inconvenient. Even to the point where we justify the murder in cases of rape and incest. After all, 'it' was born from sin. Problem with that is that we all were born from sin. Should we, as a moralistic society, commit genocide?
We proclaim that God makes mistakes; after all, it's not the homosexuals fault they feel attraction towards another of the same sex. They were born that way, science PROVES it. Or the hidden homosexuality of gender error....where a man was born a woman or visa versa. We are imminently qualified to make that decision of what sexual identity we should have been born with....those chromosomes were mixed up during the formation process.
We declare that men aren't supposed to be the "head" of the household because men have once again surrendered it to society as a whole to define them. Of course, men will sweep the truth of what they are supposed to be under the carpet. Headship in the household isn't a dictatorship but performed with biblical love, rooted in the Word, and under the directorship of God characterized by selfless intimacy (opening themselves to another in areas that they let no one else into). Men don't want to claim the Biblical role of priest, prophet, protector, and provider because that might 'demean' women and force themselves to a higher standard.
Women don't want to follow the biblical standard of 'helpmate' because it is demeaning and not promotional of equality. After all, it was a cultural thing that defined the Biblical standard and not an equal and balanced design. Women aren't supposed to be submissive as we are told in Ephesians 5:22 ff. Of course, the word is taken totally out of its true origins….Woman are to be voluntarily submissive, placing themselves under the 'position' of another, and is only regarding the 'ranking' of the biblical order rather than establishing value. Men and Women are created equally…wonderfully and fearfully made.
You may think I'm speaking from a place of authority, I'm not. I am chief sinner amongst sinners in this regard; subjecting myself to my own authority too often and allowing God in only when things are pretty good. I am my worst enemy, the old man who is chief agent of the enemy camp. I have convinced myself that all that is 'wrong' with my world is mine to fix and control.
I don't have the gumpson to speak with the authority required to back the words I've written here. They are standards higher than myself and a struggle that I put effort into to achieve even a near miss in their truth. I may write what God puts on my heart to write, but often it is for my own growth and no one else's. I am first to claim imperfection and last to claim humility.
As I grow closer in the walk with God, I realize that I am totally and helplessly in a tail spin. I cannot even control the navigation of my vessel in the storm tossed seas of this life and the world that commands it. I am subject to the whims of things I cannot control and usually screw up the things I think I have control over.
And if I willingly submit to that realization, then I can gain some spiritual guidance from the Creator Himself. I can realize that there is control and it is in the best of hands, the One and True King. I can measure peace that withstands the broken reality of a world gone wrong and find joy in the realization of the designed perfection that lies waiting for the King's return.
And, no matter the tides or the sea state of my life, I will gain headway under the captaincy of the King to that destination.
Simply: In giving up my life, I gain it.
Not too terribly PC in today's world.
But then, humanity is under the delusion that they know what's best for the world and its inhabitants. They feel that they have the right, coming from primitive ooze, to proclaim what is best for everyone upon the globe surface. They have gained the right to be GODS.
A look back upon the history of the Jewish nation of Israel and the secular history of this entire world proves that we are still in a state of denial.
We can't do anything.
We aren't worthy of anything.
We aren't GODS.
We're just lost children in the woods, trying to follow our own breadcrumbs home.
Why don't we just follow the guy with the map?
It is there.....in the Bible.
I am nervous about posting this today. I've struggled to make it as unoffensive as possible and keep erasing what I corrected. Maybe I'm too intolerant, maybe I'm being too critical. Maybe.
You can take it or leave it. I speak what I feel God has laid upon my heart to write. For myself. And anyone else called to listen.
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