church

Be the Church

Sep 20, 2021

There is a difference between true spirituality and man-made religion. Religion is used to impose judgment, shame, and irrationality, often prevents critical thinking and promotes confusion. Jesus's mission was not to establish another religion, but to re-establish God's relationship with humanity, emphasizing the Kingdom of God as an inner spiritual experience rather than an external religious institution. This article also addresses issues like the influences of Roman Catholic Jesuits and paganism on modern Christianity, the perceived dangers of a government-church union as prophesied in Revelations, and the importance of living by faith rather than religious anxiety and self-righteousness. It calls for a return to the principles and lifestyle modeled in the Book of Acts, emphasizing community, love, and a personal walk with God over institutional structures. The article concludes by emphasizing the importance of a personal relationship with God over religious practices and doctrines.

True spirituality (religion) that is pure in the eyes of our Father God is to make a difference in the lives of the orphans, and widows in their troubles, and to refuse to be corrupted by the world’s values. (James 1:27, TPT)

Man-made religion can be like a “double edged sword” that you can either harm others or yourself with burdensome rules, judgment, shame, superiority, pride, irrationality. Man-made religion promotes confusion (Mystery Babylon), prevents critical thinking.

True spirituality is being all you are created for rational, honest, creative, loving, true while still honoring God and His image in yourself and others. It starts with inner-transformation and personal responsibility toward self and God.

Jesus did not come to this earth to establish another religion. He came to re-establish God’s relationship with you. Jesus came preaching “The Kingdom of Heaven”; not “a denomination or church. The Kingdom of God is inside of your heart and in the midst of us!.

To grow in your faith, it’s more important that you spend time with Jesus in prayer, fasting, MEDITATION, reading the Bible than just being BUSY. Showing compassion in goood works is a result of personal intimacy with Jesus.

It’s not about religion, creeds, rules, being busy with performance-driven anxiety, denominations, but about experiencing new SPIRITUAL (CONSCIOUS) LIFE. As Jesus Christ of Nazareth came as God in human form died on the cross and rose again, we who believe, must die to selfish sinful nature to have the life of Christ. To eat of the tree of life is to overcome the world through living faith in Christ.

What’s Wrong With Religion?

The reality is that worldly systems of thought are corrupted by a Satanic agenda. Lucifer is in competition over Jesus for the throne. We are all caught in this controversy where Satan wants to steal worship from God.

“…worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.” (Rev 14:6-7)

Roman Catholic Influences

Much of modern Christianity is corrupted by paganism and Catholic traditions. Much of modern Christianity is full of man-made traditions with origins in the Catholic church (Constantine in 327AD, new age theology, Calvin, Augustine paganized Christianity and created a state religion which caused Christianity to loose much of its zeal which is why state and religion should be separate).

From the 4th century, due to pressure from culture, Christianity accepted many pagan festivals (Christmas, Easter), images (Saturn, Sun, Cross), idols’s names into the Church. The same god or gods were worshipped that pagans worshiped were also included in Christianity with different names. “All gods are only different powers of the sun” (quoted by James Bonwick, Egyptian Belief and Modern Thought).

When Constantine united paganism with Christianity and made it a state religion, true Christianity lost it’s power and became mixed with the culture. It is not good whenever the church seeks to control the government or the government controls the church, they must stay separate.

Example of pagan and cultural influences:

Idol worship of pagan names and symbols.
Sun and Saturn worship. It is possible that the reason why sun-worship is actually Saturn worship is because in Genesis 1, God made the earth desolate due to Lucifer’s rebellion who could have made Saturn his seat of the universe. It’s clear sun worship is actually Satanic worship.
Greek mystery religions practiced counterfeit tongues and prophesied.
Seeks political control
Moral superiority, self-righteousness vs caring for the good of others

Pagan (Mystery Babylon) Influences

Many Christians today are in an automatic “lazy” mindset where they they think just showing up in church listening to a sermon once a week is enough to prove they are Christians. This is not what God had intended for humanity. Being a follower of God is not about going to church every week, it’s about being conscious of God’s Spirit every day.

“Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven…” (Acts 7:42)

All paganism is putting man above God (essentially what the beast in the end-times is).
Greek pagans also prophesied, spoke in tongues. This is why the Corinthian church was so immature with fornication and such. Paul had to reconcile Christians coming from paganism. His ultimate plea was to love in 1 Cor 13. meaning godly character is more important than gifts.
Originated in Nimrod (Nimrod means “let us rebel”) building the tower of Babel. Every ancient religion is influenced by Nimrod.
All American holidays (Easter, Christmas) are pagan.
Almost all symbols, structures are pagan and sun/saturn worship oriented. Including obelisks, crosses, statues.
Lawlessness: lack of love others (selfless compassion) and selfishness
Focus on humanism agenda (earth worship, social justice)
Traditions, rituals
Focused on rules, morals, ethics, and self-righteousness
Focus on church membership and attendance.
Man-made hierarchy structure of titles. Separation between lay people and leaders.
Tax-exempt 503c1 status which gives the government power of the church.
For profit preachers (like televangelists)
Focus on salvation only (going to heaven is enough).
Encourages weakness (just submit to your leaders instead of the authority of Christ within)

Revelation and the Anti-Christ

The anti-christ will need a church-government union to rule. So, the the Anti-Christ’s rule will be a religious rule.
The anti-christ will work miracles of healings, deliverance. This is why following miracles is dangerous. True religion always focused on selfless charity, godliness, not money grabbing ego driven magic shows.

A Government-church union must exist for the Anti-Christ to rule. The false church will have great power, miracles, signs, wonders and will look very much like the true church. Both will be preaching Jesus, love, unity and claim they have the truth. Deception is very subtle. The false church will have a government sponsorship and will preach a false gospel of man-made rules, morals, “social justice” that leads to self-righteousness. Jesus, love, unity on truth are good things, but not when it’s mixed with humanism (man-first religion/ethics). It’s very easy to see that this church/religion could be the Roman Catholic church and it’s traditions or Conservative Christian 501c3 churches.

Live by the Law of Faith

We can easily get addicted to shame, guilt, emotional highs, or even lows, self pity, self-centered faith. Be rational. Be yourself. Let God be God.

What is religious anxiety and how do you deal with it? Religious anxiety would be living a life of devotion to God out of following rules, 10 commandments, obligations to attend church, having an achievement mentality, being so full of your own self-righteousness that you have the right to judge others.

The problem with human nature is not just sin but self-righteousness and the need to justify ourselves, be right all the time, criticize others and feel bad about ourselves so we invent religion.

Jesus’s ministry was to put an end to our own delusions of self-righteousness that we have no reason to judge ourselves or anyone else anymore. Salvation is a free gift by Christ’s faithfulness, there is no boasting or condemnation. It only makes sense when you realize there is only one man, one faith, one righteousness, one baptism, the last Adam, Christ. There is only love consciousness. Truth is experiencing God through logic (logos)! Jesus Christ came to undo the religious mindset of trying to achieve anything, obey laws or obligations out of earning what God has always promised as a free gift, salvation. Jesus did not come to create denominations, religions, laws that no one can keep or force you to go to church every week. No! These things produce anxiety when they come from a performance driven mindset. They also produce shame, guilt, self-condemnation and judgement on ourselves because we always fall short of God’s standards.

Do you know that God loves you! He loved you before you were born! He loves you because He is love! The solution to religious anxiety is the freedom from following the law of the Holy Spirit.

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” (Gal 5;22)

The law of the Spirit of God says that love is enough! What is this kind of love? Love is compassion in action, love suffers innocently. Love gives expecting nothing in return. Love is a response to the sacrificial lifestyle Jesus demonstrated in His life, death and resurrection. This is true freedom, to live out of the desires of a new heart born from above by the Spirit! Live by the law of faith, instead of traditions of men.

“for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23)

This really means that God, like a loving parent to His children, ultimately desires that we simply trust Him, by responding to His Word (Promises).

FAITH is AN ACT based on a PROMISE sustained by HOPE (Confident Expectation)!

Jesus Christ’s Focus Was On The Kingdom Of God

Grace, unmerited favor, you can’t earn it, it is given and so therefore we are not to be like the Pharisee (extreme religious conservatives of that day). You see they were not simply keepers of the law, they were inventors of new laws and do not seek to set captives free (Matthew 23). They were not simply cultural traditionalist, they counted on the traditions to set them free (Mark 7). They were not lovers of the Lord but lovers of themselves and lovers of how they looked in the eyes of other people (Matthew 23, Matthew 21, Mark 12). These things are all true and for the most part they are also true of all false religions, all false converts, those who make a confession of faith without being born again. This can even be the case of those who have repented and then set out on a journey to try harder, to do better, to live by some code of conduct that is a struggle but an improvement over their previous code of conduct.

It is about a covenant relationship based on trust and faithfullness, without the relationship with our creator through Jesus Christ we could not know the law of liberty, we would have no authority over our sin, we would not be born once of flesh only to die to flesh and be born of spirit. This is the relationship, it is God calling us to be His and our acceptance of His work that makes us His and once we are His we cannot be unchanged.

The Book of Acts Gives Us God’s Model For God’s People

The book of Acts provides a useful insight in peeling back the layers of tradition, showing the origins of much that we today call “church” is really just a community of believers living life together under the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Acts (of the Holy Spirit) is God’s model for His church in every generation and culture (because neither God nor His Bible ever changes). The Apostles simply practiced the life style and doctrine that Jesus taught them. This model goes beyond the community concept found in chapters 2 and 3, the model includes the entire book of Acts.

The book of Acts is more than a history lesson or doctrinal teaching, it is a Holy Spirit inspired life style. Restoring that which the Apostles established will require a restoration process of repentance and reformation.

For all that Martin Luther restored and reformed, he did not bring this reformation…this Apostolic life style called “The Way” throughout the book of Acts. Remember this. The full title for this book is ‘the Acts of the Apostles.’ But a better title would be…The Acts of the Holy Spirit in the church Jesus founded. This Christian life style MUST work in every culture and century to be valid. Since these are of the Holy Spirit and since the Holy Spirit is with (in) each of us today, we can accept this Christian model (lifestyle) as being applicable in our (any) culture today. The glorious Bride of Christ tends not to meet in ‘cathedrals’. She does not shut herself away from the world behind four walls. She is out amongst the poor and needy – preaching the pure gospel, helping the widows, praying for the sick. Just like Jesus was not hidden away, she is not hidden away. The church was born in the open air. She was born in “Solomon’s Porch”. She was born in the ‘Courtyard of the Gentiles’. The Bible says that the early church in Jerusalem met every day in the huge temple courtyard – a massive open-air space about the size of five football fields. There were “porticos” all around the edge – and “Solomon’s Porch” was the one where the apostles would stand and preach. Where do you think all those miracles were done? Where do you think the ‘Gate Beautiful’ was – where the lame man was healed? Where do you think Jesus drove out the money-changers? Where do you think Jesus Himself preached when He was in Jerusalem? -In the ‘Courtyard of the Gentiles’.

The early church was an “open air” church and a “house meeting” church. There was no such thing as ‘cathedrals’ or church buildings for centuries. She fed the widows, she clothed the orphans, she preached a pure gospel to the poor. She did miracles in the open air. -Andrew Strom Quote From His 9/10/2010 Newsletter Revival School

Kingdom Life in Original Christianity

Book of Acts paints a picture of house churches, communities where revival was a normal event and everyone had their needs met. Does your life look like the Book of Acts?

The early church knew that Jesus lived inside of them. The message of early Christians is Christ living in you and us living by His life. Christ is LIVING PRESENCE. Christ in you the HOPE of GLORY was the purpose of the early church. They practiced this by meeting together in community as an outflow to their personal life. Their thought life was Christ centered. Jesus is central.

Marks of the early church include:

COMMUNITY: people met together over a meal
Community over individuality.
LOVE: Everyone had their needs met. Lawfulness. Love as Jesus loved is the last commandment.
LIFE: Life in Christ was the focus (not the cross, rules, government tyranny).
POWER.
Focus on inheriting the Kingdom, not just salvation
Focused on personal walk with God (prayer, Bible reading, meditation).
There was no titles, structures.
The oldest Bible, the ethopic Bible had 88 books not 66!
Christ’s death and resurrection alone is the basis of unity.
Everyone is trained to be a fighter and conqueror. Fight to stand with Christ (not physically or politically) but consciously and spiritually fighting against lies with truth. Jesus said the Kingdom suffers violence. We must stand for our freedom in Christ.
Priesthood of every believer: there is no separation between lay people and leaders. Everyone is a leader actively using their spiritual gifts.
Jesus never mentions the church as an organized corporation. He always spoke of the Kingdom of God. What is the Kingdom of God? It is the physical body of God where Christ is the head and we are the body. It means living all of life out of God. Jesus also spoke of salvation as believing in Him as the fulfillment of the Law (10 commandments) but never dismissing the law as something we can ignore, being obedient to His commands.
Jesus healed to prove he was God and because He had compassion on others. God still heals today.

Religion & Philosophy Will Not Give You A Personal Relationship With God

The creator (GOD) provided a way for mankind to know him personally. But mankind rejects this way because it does not suit their desires and wants. “The Way” that God provides is considered inconvenient and difficult because the average person does not want to walk the hard road when they can easily choose the easy path in life instead. The sad part is that for the sake of cruising life’s easy road, they are missing out on getting to know their creator and experiencing his awesome Peace, Joy, Love and Power in their lives. They also miss out on an eternity with God in heaven when they die.

We must be born again to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. That is the miraculous work of regeneration performed by the Holy Spirit of God. When we receive Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and repent from our sins, The Holy Spirit comes to live within us and He reveals the truth of God’s written word to us. He also renews our minds and changes our hearts to become more like Jesus as we live for Jesus Christ and serve Him.

Being “Born Again” IS NOT a religion! It is an experience that God wants all who desire to know and serve Him to encounter.

Because The Holy Spirit lives in us once we are born again, we become living temples of Almighty God!

In the Old Covenant of the old testament, the Holy Spirit lived in the Arch of the Covenant which was kept in the Holy of Holies of the the Temple and was maintained by the Levite priests. The Levite priesthood high priests were the only ones who could touch the Arch of the Covenant. Anyone else dared to do so would die. Now The same Holy Spirit lives in the followers of Jesus Christ (Christians).

There is 1 (One) God who created the universe and everything in the universe. Each person of God has a specific purpose and role. GOD THE FATHER, GOD THE SON & GOD THE HOLY SPIRIT. The wonderful news about this is that God indeed does have a body, and that body is human and will one day dwell with humanity - heaven on earth!

RELIGION VS RELATIONSHIP

Religion	Relationship with God
I obey the rules so that I am accepted by god.	Through God’s grace and mercy I am accepted and I want to obey His commands.
My motivation to attend church services and participate in my religion are based on fear, obligation & inseaunity.	My motivation to continually pray, study the Word of God, worship God, fellowship with my brothers and sisters in the faith are based on gratefulness, admiration, joy & love.
When things do not go the way I want them to, I get angry at god or oneself based on the belief that anyone who is good deserves comfortable life without major issues or problems.	When things do not go the way I want them to, I struggle with the circumstances. But I know that all that happens is for a reason and that God is there by my side to strengthen me so I can persevere through it all.
I am committed and pledge allegiance to my religion because it is the basis of my life philosophy and defines my identity.	I am a servant of God and a follower of Jesus Christ and I identify with my brothers and sisters who believe the same. God’s word in the Holy Bible defines who I am.

Further Resources on Building Kingdom Community

No one is above the possibility of Lucifer’s deception (pride of man)! Followers of God in the end-times are not called to seek political or religious affiliation but to love His church (body not building) as Jesus loves. Keep your eyes open, stay informed and aware.

God’s Agenda

The ultimate plan for creation is so that God can have children, a body, and Christ can have His bride. This is the good news that we get to enjoy fellowship with God through Christ, being His body. This plan goes beyond all things and into eternity. This is the focus for all of life: God seeks a body to dwell in. It’s not a building, institution or political party.

God is light. Light is a particle and wavelength. How can light be both a particle (always stable, immovable) and wavelength (always moving)? It’s a mystery that goes beyond quantum physics but it proves that no image can define God because God is presence. It’s God’s presence that matters in our lives, not ceremony or laws.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth is the closest we will ever get to the Heavenly Father. The bottom line is, organization religion is not required for your name to be written in the book of life. A personal relationship with Christ and a public expression (starting with confession of the death and resurrection of Jesus, repentance from sin, baptism and fellowship) are essentials.
Turn from pagan practices like symbol, sun worship and idolatry. Be aware of them and don’t practice them.
Love others: give to the poor. Help others, be a witness.
Love God. Love yourself as God loves you. Know that the love of the Father for the Son is the same love is for you!
Love Truth over experience: the revealed scriptures. Know the word in order to recall it. (See Your Face, O Lord, I Seek)
Talk to God everyday. Focus on quality quiet time with God (reading, praying, praising God) over traditions.

Simplistic, minimalist: religion is complicated. Why not just take God’s word for what it says. Read the word and act on it, just do it. Live it out, practice truth. Stop waiting for something to happen, just act on what you already know, go out and influence people for God.

Remember, religion says you are never enough. God says you are enough, God is enough. God’s grace is sufficient.