The Truth About our Lives, our Loves and our God

The gospel (good news) of Jesus Christ, who is fully God and fully man, has been lost in man's religions. Through the ages, it ("it" meaning the true apostolic Christianity, not "it" the bible) has been twisted, corrupted, watered-down, used as a weapon for the gain and plunder of kingdoms, and paganized. And today, religion is the largest stumbling block of people coming to know Jesus as their personal Savior and in developing a deep, personal intimacy with their maker. Because for the majority of people living today, their version of God is based on their personal expriences with religion, not with Jesus. They have unwittingly formed a god in their own image, or in the image of the current cultural temperature today. Their god has been reduced to a weak, disconnected, self-serving, opinionated, puny remanent of what he truly is. It's no wonder why this god has been deemed by millions unworthy of worshiping.

 And so, when faced with worshiping their puny god versus aligning themselves with the marketing message of the day that speaks in unison of self-empowerment, self-discovery and self-entitlement, and most of all, winning; it's a no-brainer. And in doing so, they have subconsciously replaced "He" with "I". Society tells us that happiness is one payday away, one promotion away, one new car away, one winning lottery ticket away. Convinced that status and winning is the ultimate goal, we shape our world in this image, teach it in our schools and playgrounds and corporate meetings (and sometimes our pulpits), and live out our lives believing that this is all their is. We've (society has) traded tradition for new age solutions, cashed in our morality for self-indulgence under the guise of "tolerance" and "equality", mortgaged our marriages for Internet porn, and degraded the purity of love to mean sex. We don't care anymore about our neighbors; we care about survival of the fittest, god eat dog, winner takes all. We've lost sight of integrity, commitment and accountability and replaced it with greed, but hey, that's capitalism!! We've traded our families for our careers, worked harder, gotten less only to lose most or all of it anyway by the selfish actions of greediest among us. Our relationships are in ruin, our homes broken, and our kids, (many) without a father (cause he's never around) and a mother (cause she's too busy being the man of the house to be a mom - or vice versa), are being raised by pop culture and entertainment. And in the name of progress we've surrendered our right to live in the fullness of God's plan for each of our lives. Why?

Because we really don't know what the truth is. We know enough about religion and the bible to sabotage our own well-being and happiness. We've all heard "God is love"; but our version of love has been degraded to the point that it's unrecognizable. And we've made our god as small as we are, which makes it impossible to comprehend that his capacity to love is infinitely greater than ours. We've heard, "Jesus died on the cross for my sins"; but we either don't acknowledge our sin or don't even see it, let alone have a personal revelation of why he gave his life or what that even means. We grasp and cling to our crappy hope (borrowed from Dr. Kelly Flanagan) because we don't have a vision for the real, breath taking, deep burning hope that comes from the truest and purest form of love ever in existence - the love of God. Many of us have some semblance of a grasp on (or have at least heard of) the commandments in the bible, but see them as outdated, unreasonable restrictions on our self-entitlement, rather than the freedom bringers they are. Let's take a deeper look, shall we?

The first commandment says to love God, our Father, with all of our heart, all of our mind, and all of our soul and to worship only him. We've already established that our society promotes a culture of self, and the assumption is that by doing so we can grow and accomplish and succeed and become great. In our broken world, it only makes sense that when everything around us is going to hell in a hand-basket, that focusing on our wants, our needs, our desires, our fulfillment will help us attain what we seek. Strength. Power. Honor. Intimacy. Beauty. Fascination. Inspiration. Impact. Love. Those are the things we long for, in one variation or another. But what if, by putting ourselves first, we actually prevent ourselves from attaining these in their fullest measure? If I told you that by giving up your own right to use your strength to your advantage, that doing so would give you access to the greatest source of strength in existence, how would you respond? If I said that by giving up our desire to seek power in this age, we will inherit a position of authority even above the angels in the next, would you consider it? If I told you that by lifting up others in every circumstance, higher than yourself, that you would receive the highest honor as a reward, would that motivate you? If I said that the highest levels of pleasure, intimacy and love you've ever experienced were available to you, but not through conventional means, would you seek them out? If I told you that your desire to be beautiful and to look upon beauty as well as to be fascinated and inspired were longings purposefully woven into our beings - that they aren't sinful - and that it's actually God's plan and purpose for us to experience those to their fullest, but in ways different than how we satisfy them now, would you stop at nothing to receive them in greater measure? All of these and more are true; the problem is, nothing you've experienced in your life thus far has convinced you they could be true so there's no vision for them; thus, no real push or desire to seek them out. And without real, breath taking, deep burning hope, we'll never see it, believe it, reach for it.

So where are you now? I'd say just about anyone over the age of 25 has either been through a divorce or a relationship breakup. Our hearts are broken, our hope, weary. You may have one or two or a whole bunch of things going for you - but I can say with absolution that without experiencing the things I've talked about here, without going deep into the knowledge of God, that driving feeling inside of you, that thirst and hunger for something more will never subside. You can never be satisfied to the fullest possible extent (in this age) in any longing that you have, unless you seek to satisfy it with and through God. But you have a choice today to lay aside your preconceived notions, your prejudices and misconceptions and choose to hope in the possibility that there is truth in what I say, and seek it. How bad do you want it? To the level at which you pursue these will be the level in which you receive them. If you half-heartedly go after them, you'll receive half-hearted results. But if you burn with desire for something more, something better in your life, and seek these out like gold and diamonds - go deep in the word of God - the rewards are unlimited and will exceed every expectation. See, the bible isn't meant to be read and understood intellectually, but requires supernatural revelation of its meaning through the power of the Holy Spirit, whose purpose is to reveal the heart of God to you. Whether you've ever read the bible or not, if you haven't felt the word come alive inside of you, if you haven't been stirred in your deep emotions to the point that it awakens a hunger you never knew you had, then you're not going deep. He will reveal himself to you in the measure in which you seek him out. You have to treat it like any other relationship - you have to talk to him, find out things about him, get to know what's important to him, ask him questions, but most of all - spend time with him. The fullness of all of your relationships - friends, family, spouse, kids - all depends on the fullness of this one relationship. It changes everything.