I was a youth pastor and a Bible student in 1974 and 1975. I was fired for refusing to deny the Holy Spirit exists and works in the believers’ lives. I had the high school section of the ministry and with 165 kids was horribly out numbered. However, they were pretty solid kids (except for a few stoners) so it went really well most of the time.
Now there was a man named Wes whom was my mentor. He met with me every week and would just talk about what was on my mind. Very open. He had three daughters in my group, was headed for the Korean mission field and an awesome man of God. Now, when he came upon retirement, having already turned his retirement over the mission board, so as to be self funding in Korea, he learned the board had decided not to take him. Thank you very much for your generosity - now go away!
Of course, he now looked like an idiot and his wife divorced him. One of his girls decided heroin was better than reality and his son abandoned the family to join the army. What a disaster!
Ok weird tale. So, what is the point?
Well the girls all ended up at the XYZ Bible Center. The federal government stepped in and decertified the church about 1983 due to the -ummmm- practices which went on in the church. The pastor believed only he had the vision to tell you whom you should be married to, even if you were already married. Hundreds of families were rearranged with the expected impacts this has on youth. Only the pastor was worthy enough to sleep with your children once they reached 16, etc, etc, etc, etc. I think you can see the point here.
So hundreds of Christian families willingly followed this man straight into sin - and not a one of them would have followed him years earlier if they had known where he was leading them! But, just a little bit of untruth, spread across time and the demons came in for a feast on what should have been a Christian fellowship. Wes’s girls, fell for it hook line and sinker and they were every bit as strong in their faith as you or I. So I think you can see how gullible people really are! Jesus uses the picture of us being sheep because as a group we are just as dumb as them – we will follow anyone – if someone else is doing it first!
About the same time as all of this, Pastor XYZ arrives on the scene fresh from rehab for drug problems. Now, he is very charismatic - make no mistake the man is a great talker and manipulator (I can smell one a thousand miles away)! First he was sort of fringy. He made odd statements that sort of sounded right if you did not know your Bible but then again…..? Many of us were concerned but unsure.
His church grew by leaps and bounds; he taught you could be prosperous because God wanted the very best for you - always. People claimed to never have had a cavity because they were such good Christians. He said you could become a god, then explained that he meant like-a-god, because you were of the same essence as Christ. I found out that he was just following the teachings of a guy named Tillman - and I was already satisfied Tillman was a heretic. The local stations would have Pastor XYZ and his ilk on the air and I would call to tell them they were apostate to their faces - but no one cared enough to label them non-Christian - and so they prospered.
I know dozens of families whom are with Pastor XYZ to this day, some even deeply involved in his ministry. I am pretty sure they are Christian but I worry when I talk with their children and they tell me how uncomfortable they are with the environment in that church. I learned long ago children can be very perceptive - though they may have no knowledge to support their feelings. So something is mightily wrong there and I can only think of the scripture concerning the latter day church which has a form of godliness but denies the faith.
I wish you could have seen the church as it was 30 years ago - because you would be offended to compare what exists today with what existed back then. Yes, the faithful are still faithful but honestly I walk into any church and I wonder where they are coming from some days. Even my church, which I love, I watch the people singing the songs and ‘worshipping’ but do they read the words and think about what they mean? Do they understand that most of the songs used are approaching God from an understanding by man and do not recognizing Him for whom He is? God is neither a fuzzy bunny nor our friend, He is our creator, He is all powerful and yet He cares for us.
The point I am trying to make is God is not there for our personal enrichment and benefit (aka ‘never ending shopping list’ of prayer nor the ‘blab it and grab it’ crowd) but rather we exist for His glorification alone. So how do we do that? We are His living examples, our lives are supposed to reflect Him. Obviously we can not always be perfect and we mess up but often those mess ups are what tell people we are human and just like them. It is when we no longer are reflecting Him that Christianity gets into trouble. When we fail to have friends whom are not Christians, or we do not ‘live’ in the culture around us but isolate ourselves, then we are no longer serving Him.
Remember how Peter was praised by Jesus for observing whom He was and yet in the very next breath chided Peter for being a son of the devil? Why? Because Peter had reacted to a situation from the standpoint of man's understanding and not God's - and it was expected that he would not have reacted the way he did.
You can do the best job for God there ever was done but if God never called you to do it, you are just serving yourself. When you put your feelings and desires before what God has told you, you are serving yourself. No matter the ministry, no matter the benefit to others or the church, if God has not asked you to do it, you are wrong in supporting it. Be it helping to build a new church, going on a mission or just helping someone in your congregation - all are opportunities to serve yourself and not God.
Yes, I know this sounds odd. But, Christians can be misled too and do a great job of often times running ahead of God and then wondering where He is! Heaven’s, I've done this plenty in my life - that's why I know about it…..
Take an inventory of your life. Do you read a bunch of stuff about the Bible but not necessarily the Bible? Most ‘Christian’ books I have come to learn are actually quite worthless. I did not think so for a long time but eventually, I came to understand most authors have an agenda they want you to follow. Well, that is nice but maybe their understanding is not God's - even if they are Billy Graham (whom by the way has ‘authored’ some horribly incorrect works! Just pick up ‘his’ book Angels, if you don't believe me….quotations used because he really was not the author of it but took credit for it!).
Become a cynic; examine everything you are told with a microscope before you make it a part of your relationship with God. Always err on the side of safety - not what you are taught but what you can understand from the Bible and through prayer alone. You may find that your faith will be all the stronger for it but you will avoid the snake pits in your walk through life as well.
