Quotes from Today's Readings

Jesus Christ, the Way -- Avoiding the Ditches
When Aquila and Priscilla explained to Apollos "the way of God" (Acts 18:26), they did not explain the path, the road, the procedure, the plan of God. They explained to him Jesus

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Jesus is the way to be man as God intends man to be, the way to do what God wants to be and to do in us.

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There can be no act of God apart from His Being. He always acts "in character" and does what He does because He is who He is. His doing is the dynamic expression of His Being. Christianity is always and only the dynamic expression of the life of Jesus Christ in the Christian, individually and collectively.

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Notice that the epistemological and experiential religionists are both dealing with a static object, an "it" which they seek to figure out and work out, or feel and experience in order to merge with. Jesus Christ is not an "it," an object. He is the personal dynamic of God.

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The gospel is not essentially information or experience. The gospel is Jesus Christ! He is the "good news."


God Hates Religion
It is the propensity of man to formulate religion to take that which is of the invisible God and attempt to make it visible, tangible and controllable.

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Religion is essentially idolatry. Men worship their man-made formations and structures their ideological idols formed in the concrete of inflexible minds.

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Men can form idols out of wood or stone in an attempt to represent God, or they can formulate ideological idols (belief-systems, doctrinal definitions, theological theses).

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We reduce God to fit within our mental "box," then we nail it shut, construct our creed, and absolutely affirm that we have God figured out. We have reduced God to no bigger than our cranial cavity.

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People want a sense of meaning, a sense of purpose, a sense of belonging, a sense of identity, a reason to be. These are God-given desires. Religion offers a false-fulfillment of these desires.

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Religion fosters a fixation, a compulsion, an obsession, an addiction to religious activities, explaining the absolute necessity to be thus engaged in the activities in order to please God, and for the good of the whole


The Anomaly of Christianity
Christian functionality is one hundred and eighty degrees contrary to the natural order, the status quo, the normative pattern, the accepted logic, the general rule, the common expectation of man. Christianity "does not fit" with the world-system.

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But what does natural man do? He tries to impose God's order upon the natural order in religion. He attempts to impose so-called Christian or spiritual "principles" upon the world by legalistic imperatives and activist legislation. The divine dynamic of Christianity cannot be forced upon or forced into the world-system. It will not fit! It is not just paradoxical to the world; it is a totally different reality.

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Natural, self-oriented man does not know what to do if he cannot figure it out, define it, organize it, control it (as "god" over it). So he sets out to define the undefinable, to explain the inexplicable; and thus to "incorporate" such into another denomination complete with orthodox creedal formulation. Man's carefully delineated orthodoxy is always challenged by God's heterodox ways, which will not conform to man's plans. "The ways of God are past finding out" (Romans 10:33).

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We try to systematize thought and thus create doctrine and systematic theology. We try to systematize behavior and thus create ethics and morality. We try to systematize interpersonal relationships and thus create organizational models and institutions. Christianity cannot be systematized! Christianity is the living dynamic of the Life of Jesus Christ and such infinite spiritual reality cannot be systematized by the finite mind of man.

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What we observe everywhere within the misnomer of "Christian religion" is the abundance of "how-to..." formulas informing us "how to" make Christianity "fit" within the world-system. As the square peg is forced into the round hole the corners are peeled off to make it fit. But you no longer have Christianity; merely human attempts at proceduralized religion trying to force Christianity to fit into a sinful, human world-system.

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Three particular areas of such religious proceduralization are (1) Doctrinal definition (2) Behavioral standards (3) Institutional polity and policy. Christianity is not a belief-system. Christianity is not an ethical system. Christianity is not an institutional system. But the world-system will always try to systematize Christianity into such man-made systems. Fundamentalists create precision of doctrine. Moralists and legalists create ethical behavior guidelines. Management specialists create functional institutions which they call "churches."

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Whenever man tries to take Christianity and "screw it down tight" in human understanding in order to "get a handle on it," you can be sure he is no longer dealing with Christianity. Christianity is alive with the Spirit of Christ living and functioning in receptive individuals, and cannot be contained in man-made parameters, thus to be manipulated by man.

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To try to encapsulate Christianity within doctrinal, behavioral or institutional definition, thinking that such will preserve and ensure its survival is ludicrous.

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Precise doctrinal definition may fine-tune fundamentalism, but it does not facilitate Christianity. Precise behavioral guidelines make for moralistic legalism, but such is not Christianity. Precise institutional models define organizational authority structures, but they do not facilitate the function of the Church of Jesus Christ.

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The recognition of the anomaly of Christianity should keep Christians focused upon the person and Life of Jesus Christ, the sufficiency of the function of His Life presently even when "the going gets tough" (cf. I Peter), and the continuum of the function of His Life in the perfect context of the heavenly realm.

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Despite the perfection of the One who lives in us, and the complete sufficiency of His life in all situations, He is still an anomaly in the contextualization of this sinful world-system. He was an anomaly during his incarnated redemptive mission here on earth, and the unacceptability of that anomaly caused the authorities to demand His crucifixion. The continued anomaly of Christianity is no more acceptable today. Despite man's attempts to avoid, explain away or gloss over the anomaly of Christianity, it remains just that.


The Dangers of Meetings
A Christianity anchored in meetings as its foundation for or expression of life will become performance based and focused. Performance based in our expectations of what those meetings should achieve, and therefore performance focused in our expectations of the people attending those meetings.

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Ultimately, meetings will become our definition of the Christian life which results in agenda taking priority over relationships - worse, even defining relationships.

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Last but not least, we become meeting focused instead of Christ focused. Our goal becomes "church" - which again is unbiblical - and we become perpetrators of a third kingdom upon the earth, The Kingdom of Church which is a hindrance to The Kingdom of God and powerless against The Kingdom of This World.

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If you mean business with God, you can’t find your identity in anything but Jesus. That will progressively cost you your life. By that I mean it will cause you to have to lay down your search for identity in ANYTHING other than Him. That includes, meetings, ministry, peer groups, leaders, messages or causes, traditions……anything. ESPECIALLY RELIGIOUS!

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Compare how many times the bible tells us to meet with one another with the number of times it tells us to love one another. And perhaps even more critically, check out the number of times Jesus told us to have meetings with the number of times He told us to love one another. Which one do you think we should be majoring on?