For those of you that have settled in with a religious mode, or those of you that have spent a lifetime in the world of religious activity, will find some type of comfort with the unity of these brands of playing church, but, will also find it difficult in allowing your relationship with God to prosper to the level of His REST. I have found that religion has been a hindrance to a fulfilling relationship with our Lord, because methods seem to go around the same circles over and over again.
The formulas that man invented when he decided to place his carnal offerings into a system, and then call it ‘church’, was the beginning of the end, at least to what God had set up through His son Jesus. The Church, (Ekklesia), is a called out person or people, one that has turned from this world of rituals, habits, man made doctrines, and a sense of belonging to a system that is the creation of fleshly man. When God spoke in Revelations 18:4 and said to “come out of her My people”, He was speaking to Babylon, which is any system that is the invention of man, which certainly this ‘thing called church’ is.
At the risk of editorializing; when our priority is on folks with great jobs, those that can sing with talent, have an ability to hold the attention of an audience, the rich and famous, or any other number of skills that this world has called vital, then we have ceased to please God at the expense of pleasing ourselves. When we think that education, medicine, strength to climb high places, or even thinking that our mind can carry us through, places us again in that Babylonian spirit, thus furthering each from the REST of God. The REST has been placed in every man, in his heart; but to find that REST, the world and all its’ so called glory, has to be shut out.
We really are caught betwixt and between, caught between two worlds; one hand tell us one thing, and the other hand saying something completely different. “You must choose this day whom you shall follow.” The Love of God we can never get away from, but the Life of God in each is another story.
