Relationship is better than Religion Part 2

Yesterday someone replied to my statement "relationship is better than religion."  Their reply was: 

"We have to be careful not to confuse being 'saved from religion' with 'freedom to please ourselves' above pleasing God. God's people need more time in His house, not less time."

I couldnt agree more with this statement!  The bible clearly says that we cannot let Gods grace and mercy be a free ticket to do what we want. Romans 6:15 We can never get to the point where we cause ourselves harm, or cause ourselves to be weakened by sin and the world.  The bible says we are in the world, but not OF the world. John 17:14-19  But the fact that we are here means that there will always be something attacking us, and or something tempting us to do wrong, to please ourselves.  Being a christian = denying ourselves things that are not good for us.

With that being said, what is not good for you might be okay for me, and what is okay for me might be no good for you.  This is where RELIGION ties in.  THIS is where it begins to come in and choke out the creativeness and freedom that Gods grace, mercy, and salvation gives.  Why would God save you from the world, just to bind you up and tie you down to rules and regulations that make you feel inadequate and unworthy?  YES, we ARE unworthy of his grace and mercy, but God doesnt want us to live with that mindset.  This idea of "well if this is sin for me then it must be for you too"  is religion at its purest.  Forcing convictions of your own onto other people is spiritual death for them!  When this happens they try to be someone they are not, living with convictions that are not their own.  When you, churches, denominations, organizations do that, its asking the person to carry a weight that they were never meant to carry.  God says that HE would never place anything on us more than we could bear. 1 Corinthians 10:13  He never told us to do it, because when WE place weights on ourselves, then they burden us down and discourage.

Christianity was never ment to be HARD, or discouraging.  It was never ment to be a constant battle.  Its really quite simple.  WE make it hard, we get discouraged, we pick battles to fight that were never ment to even be out on the battlefield.  Yes, the word says that the way to heaven is narrow and few be the ones who find it, but the word also says my yoke is easy and my burden is light! Matthew 7:13-14, Matthew 11:30

God, Jesus, The Holy Spirit, Faith, Miracles were never ment to be hoarded up and kept inside the church walls.  WE are the church!  John Mark McMillan has a song that says I am a Temple:

Deep inside me
There's this burning
That just won't let me go
You are my fire
You are my righteousness
You are my rock in roll

I wish I could fit you
Down inside my chest God
I wish I could swallow you whole
I'd wrap you up
In a blanket of my skin
And you could call my body home

I am a temple
My body is a temple
I am a temple

So what if I'm not worthy
You make me clean

I can't get over how quickly you recover
The pieces of my heart as they shatter
Cause in your hands I am
More than just a brand new man
And all my falling down now
Its just don't matter

I am a temple
My body is a temple
I am a temple

So what if I'm not worthy
You make me clean

WE are the church, we are a living, breathing, moving, LIVING testimony for Jesus Christ.  People see you everyday and when they see you, they are seeing a small sample of the church, of Jesus, of God.  They see how he restores you!  They see how he lives and breaths in you.  Religion KILLS this!  When people look into a religious life, all they see are rules!  You cant do this, you cant do that, you cant say this, you cant wear that, you cant go here, you cant be seen with them.

These people with Religious mindsets are the same people who wanted JESUS dead!  Because he came and did things that were against the grain.  He proved them wrong, he said no its doenst have to be done like that, watch me do it like THIS!  Luke 15:2, Matthew 12:14

GOD IS A CREATIVE GOD!  Dont hinder his creativity in you by thinking you have to follow at set of MAN MADE RULES!  Follow his WORD, THE BIBLE.  What it says, do it!  Its that simple!

Following the word/Jesus is relationship, following man is religion.

Relationship is better than Religion Part 1

Last night, I was reading through status updates on facebook and came across one that said something to the sort of this:  "One of our preachers said that the rock band Stryper shaped his faith, well no rock band shaped my faith only Jesus Christ."  My response back was:  "This may not have ministered to you, but that doesn't mean that it doesn't minister to other people.  God is a creative being, dont put him in a box"  These are not the exact words of the post, only what I can remember.  I was on my ipod at the time, had I been on my laptop I would have copied and pasted the entire conversation for everyone to read and decide for themselves, but the poster of this status promptly deleted the entire debate from his facebook page after all was said and done. 

My response was promptly met by a total of 27 posts in about an hour on the subject of "HOLY LIVING" and how rock music was degrading.  One woman even went as far to say that "satan worshipers worship satan while listening to christian rock, they don't have to listen to the words because the music is enough."  Um, the bible says at the name of Jesus Hell trembles, so apparently this is not a fact.... This same woman also stated "would Jesus listen to that kind of music?  I THINK NOT!"  My reply to that comment was, oh, its good to know that you are so close to God that you would know what kind of music HE would listen to.

I have so much to say on this subject that this blog would be to long, so I think Im going to break it up into a couple.  So here goes part 1

First of all, I don't even like Stryper.  I think their song "To Hell with the Devil" is hilarious, and pretty corny, but the fact is that they were trying to be a light in a dark world.  These people who attacked me on the post last night said things like "you have to find their music in the ROCK section!"  My response to that is THANK GOD ITS IN THE ROCK SECTION.  Why do people not get that?  Can they not take a minute to stop and think, okay, sinners listen to rock.  This band talks about God, they have a scripture on the front of their album.  A sinner buys the album, because its in the rock section, sinner takes album home, sinner listens to album, sinner hears about a man named Jesus, sinner wonders who this Jesus is, sinner see's a verse on the cover, sinner gets out a bible to read what the verse is.  HOLY COW.  Just from a stryper album being in the rock section at a music store, someone who may have never otherwise even known about Jesus or the bible has now been introduced to Christianity, the seed has been planted.  Im not saying this happens with every person who listens to stryper, but this is just and example of how GOD can use ANYTHING.

These people last night went on and on about being holy and how this was unacceptable, I cant even remember all the things that were said, but I dont understand how someone can be SO close minded.  God doesn't need us to make him holy or unholy.  HE IS HOLY.  We may do things that doesn't honor his holiness, but we can never make him any less holy by the actions we do.  God can use ANYTHING to minister to people.  Why is that so hard to understand, he is GOD!!!  He IS holy, so why are you putting limits on him?  Why do you put him in a box?  Why do you say that only Southern Gospel music is the "right music?"  Southern Gospel is good, and it ministers to certian people, but so does other things.  

Let me tell you something, southern gospel music has more hypocrites than we care to know about.  They are human just like us.  If God can use Kirk Talley, a man who wrote anointed songs in the middle of a struggle with homosexuality, then why do we rebuke a rock band who is trying to reach the lost?  You have sang his songs in your church Im sure and didnt think a thing about it yet you condemn young people to hell when they worship in their own way.  The thing is you say this music is the devils music, but yet there are similarities in secular music and "church" music....

Here are some examples to prove my point:  The following clip is a sample of Old western saloon piano music:



Now, the following is a clip of a hymn of the church....do you hear any similarities?



WHAT?!  OUR CHURCH STYLE OF PIANO PLAYING CAME FROM BAR MUSIC?!  WHAT?!  ARE YOU KIDDING ME?  WE HAVE DEFILED THE CHURCH FOR ALL THESE YEARS THEN!!!
Can I scream a little bit?  WHAT     IS     THE    DIFFERENCE??????  Between THAT and having CHRISTIAN ROCK AND SECULAR ROCK?  What is the difference?  I'll tell you the difference.... THERE IS NONE!!!!  The difference between any genre of christian music and secular music has and always will be THE MESSAGE... and the message, JESUS, is what destroys the yolks, JESUS is what sets people free!

I said all this to say... people with this mindset have pure RELIGION.... RELIGION tells you that God cannot minister to other people through secular media, RELATIONSHIP with God tells you that ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE THROUGH HIM AND HE IS POWERFUL AND HOLY AND HE CAN DO ALL THINGS!!!!!  THROUGH ANYONE HE WANTS TO!  HE USES SINNERS TO COMPLETE HIS PLANS!  Look at his disciples!  Look at them, they were a mess, they were sinners!

Nathan sent me this scripture today that goes perfectly with this subject, and I will end on this note...

(and I've put several versions for the ones who dont believe in more relevant and easier to understand versions of the bible)

Matthew 9:11-12 (King James Version)

 ¹¹And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?
 ¹²But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.

Matthew 9:11-12 (New International Version)

¹¹When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"
 ¹²On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.

Matthew 9:11-12 (The Message)

 ^10-11Later when Jesus was eating supper at Matthew's house with his close followers, a lot of disreputable characters came and joined them. When the Pharisees saw him keeping this kind of company, they had a fit, and lit into Jesus' followers. "What kind of example is this from your Teacher, acting cozy with crooks and riffraff?"
 ^12-13Jesus, overhearing, shot back, "Who needs a doctor: the healthy or the sick? Go figure out what this Scripture means: 'I'm after mercy, not religion.' I'm here to invite outsiders, not coddle insiders."