The Big Picture--A Global Experience

We are now into our 4th week of breaking down the blog posted on January 7^th.  Over the past 3 weeks we have looked at:

• How God’s thoughts and ways differ from our thoughts and ways, 
• What do we think about when trials and tribulations come,
• How is God using trials and tribulations to speak to us, and
• Asking God to show us how to silence our own thoughts and to hear the Spirit when we are challenged with difficult people, challenging situations, trials, and tribulations.
• A deeper understanding of what “truth” sets us free,
• How our emotional responses reveal the sin in our hearts,
• How this “heart sin” is heavy, burdensome, and contrary to our design,
• How this “heart sin” reveals the very nature of the bondage we are in, and
• We cannot be Christ’s while in bondage to sin (Satan’s slave).
• The purpose of life and God’s plan for our personal salvation,
• Why God created Satan knowing what would happen,
• Coming to understand that in our pride to “have no master” we fall prey to Satan’s temptations as he uses this desire “to be like God” to make us his slave,
• Understand that life as Satan’s slave is unfulfilling, empty, and painful where as it leads to a hunger and thirst that will never be satisfied,
• Satisfaction comes as we embrace God and His ways, give Him the authority to be our master, and serve Him doing life His way, and
• This brings us spiritual freedom as we come into harmony with the nature of how He created us to be.

Today we are going to take the following two aspects of our personal journey and apply the same principals to humanity and religion:

• The relationship between our pride and our desire to “be just like God”, and
•  How God’s plan uses Satan to reveal this to us, humble us, and lead us to accepting God as our master for our ultimate freedom from Satan’s bondage.

Dear God, help us to understand what you are attempting to communicate to us through the processes of this world and how the following questions help us come to understand You and Your ways as we never have before:

1. As we contemplate the “mission” of the various religions of the world, what do we see that they believe they can bring about?
2. What do they believe must take place for their “mission” to be accomplished?
3. Have we ever heard anyone say that “if everyone believed like I do we would have peace on earth?”
4. Don’t we believe that if everyone saw good and evil the same way we do we could have utopia?
5. What does the bible tell us about “who will bring salvation?”
6. Isn’t “religion” another form of buying Satan’s lie “if you know the difference between good and evil you can be just like God”?

This reveals one of the greatest aspects of the global experience.  Deep within us we all have a desire to be a part of what is good, we want to play our part in bringing God’s plan of salvation into being, we want to be a part of the progression toward that utopic society; but we want to do it our way.  Satan uses our attachment to comfort, luxury, power, sexuality, self-righteousness,……. to blind us to our inability to be just like God, look just like God, or do what only God can do.  Making it really simple; if we are not capable of looking like Christ individually, how could we ever think we are capable of looking like Him cumulatively?  Let’s take a moment and look at some various religious groups and consider the pride aspect of how they believe God will use them, just like they are, to bring about what only He can accomplish.  What do we see as the “pride” aspect within each group?

1. The anti-religion “religion” (belief that if it were not for religion we could have peace), 
2. Atheism (no ultimate truth, no God),
3. Religions of the mind (self-awareness),
4. Religions of definition (defined standards of righteousness),
5. Religions of faith (believing),
6. Pagan beliefs (worship of creation, heavenly hosts, other gods), and
7. Others as they don’t fit into the above.

Here is a quick overview of what I see as some basic concepts regarding the revelation of pride in each:

1. Claims that doing away with “organized religions” will not bring about utopia for many reasons including the fact that evil, selfishness, and self-righteousness are not the result of organized religion.  The foundation of this religion is a self-righteous view of blaming others for its inability to accomplish its mission (utopia),
2. Same as above plus a total denial of God.  This is a statement of “we define our own truth, we are our own masters”.  It neglects to realize the conflict found in oppossing views of truth found within the embracing of each person being given the latitude to define what truth is,
3. Claims that humans are capable of personal transformation and purification necessary to bridge gap between man and God.  Interestingly enough this is based on coming to a point of ultimate humility.  I would define ultimate humility as accepting we can never bridge the gap between man and God.  The concept itself proves itself to be futile and pride based.
4. The legalistic approach to “ultimate truth” fails because:
1. Those imposing it are not capable of living to the standards,
2. Ultimate truth required for utopia is beyond human understanding and as such cannot be written, spoken, or taught.  It must be experienced, understood, and embraced.
3. It is pride that leads us to believe that we understand truth well enough to teach it to the point it will be embraced and lived by others.  It is pride that leads us to believe that we can teach others well enough to protect them from their own need to experience pain, suffering, and failure.  It is pride that leads us to believe that our teachings can replace God’s plan of bringing humanity into an understanding of what simply cannot be taught by man’s words, books, or love.  In other words, we believe we are capable of teaching others what only God can reveal to them.
4. It is our pride that judges others in their inability to learn from us as we hold them responsible for the pain and suffering God is bringing about in His plan of salvation.
5. In its purest form this is truth.  It embraces God as savior, it embraces His truths, it embraces His Spirit, it embraces His plan, and it embraces His ways.  However, as it is demonstrated, lived out, and conducted it falls short as we argue over what we believe to be “required” ignoring what is a gift, and embracing flesh based lies.  We do this because we like our lives like they are and we grasp hold of any teachings that support our view of “good and evil” so that we don’t have to change or “sacrifice”.  This leads us back to a “works based mentality” which lands us in a life demonstrating a religious belief that is represented more by one of the other “religious” categories than what we claim.  Those living this religious understanding day by day, moment by moment are non-existent (including me).  It is pride that blinds us to this reality.
6. A turning from the God of creation to the things He created.  In the light of understanding of a higher power there is a refusal to accept one God, one path, one way.  It is pride that says “I can’t accept that the God that created me would only have one way to Him”.  Going further down the rabbit hole would lead us to a total worship of the things of this earth and fully embracing Satan as a master believing His promises over God’s.

The truth is that if we apply the same concepts of our personal journey to that of the global experience we find the same required results.  Cumulative people groups called religions having common beliefs must come to understand that even in their common goal, common desire, and common vision they are no more capable of bringing salvation to the earth than each of us individually.  This is our cumulative humility.  We must come to understand, that even as a groups, we are still prone to Satan’s lies and his deception.  Our humility comes when we come to understand that cumulatively we have allowed Satan to manipulate Christianity into the mold of the other religions that trust in the power of man more than the power of God, that deny Satan and his influence over us, that embrace the ways of this world under false teachings, and that has set a mission to accomplish what only God is capable.

Let’s take a minute and go back to looking at the various religious groupings one more time:

• The anti-religion “religion” (belief that if it were not for religion we could have peace),
• Atheism (no ultimate truth, no God),
• Religions of the mind (self-awareness),
• Religions of definition (defined standards of righteousness),
• Religions of faith (believing),
• Pagan beliefs (worship of creation, heavenly hosts, other gods), and
• Others as they don’t fit into the above.

As we scan back over the list while being totally honest with ourselves: 

1. Which of the above people groups would we say show the greatest visible representation of “freedom” in their personal lives and within the lives of their communities?  (Consider freedom to be free from gossip, harsh words, divorce, rebellion among their youth, factions, disputes within the body, addictions, immorality, materialism, self-justification, anger, ….).
2. Is there a difference between looking “free” and “looking Christ like”?
3. Where would you fit into the list?
4. Where would your family fit into the list?
5. Where would your church fit into the list?
6. Where do you see Christianity fitting into the list?

Can we let what we are feeling right now be our humility?  Do we have to wait for God’s plan to come to full fruition before we allow ourselves to look at this for the truth that it is?  Do we have to wait for God to do what He has to do before we are willing to see what it is that we must see? 

 “As for Me, this is My covenant with them,” says the LORD: “My Spirit which is upon you, and My words which I have put in your mouth shall not depart from your mouth, nor from the mouth of your offspring, nor from the mouth of your offspring's offspring,” says the LORD, “from now and forever.” Isaiah 59:21.

Can we accept that God is telling US about a covenant He will make with the hurt and lost of the world?  How does it make us feel to understand that this is a covenant that will be established in the future?  Why would God have to issue such a covenant? Why will He have to tell us how He is going to change US as a part of this covenant with THEM?

Dear God, please open up our hearts, minds, and souls to come to understand where the religions we have come to trust are in bondage.  Dear God show us where we have picked our “religion” based on our own fleshly desires and what we are comfortable as defining as “righteous and holy”.  Dear God please help us to see the destiny of what we represent and help us break free so that we may properly represent you and enjoy being one with you.  Dear God, help us to experience life as You so desire for us to experience it…..in harmony with how You created us, in harmony with You.