The Lost Church

The Right Way
Look for the unpopular routes to heaven. There are many ways that everyone likes in seeking God’s favor—but they lead to your destruction. Sure, they’re popular, but they are also deadly. But the way to God’s blessing and life is so unacceptable that few will embrace it.
Christianity is not a straight path, it is a smorgasbord. There are as many "ways" and moralities within the broadest definition of Christendom as there are outside of Christianity. This isn’t just denominations, but there are many ways of understanding Jesus and salvation even within a particular denomination. Christianity is the largest world religion on the planet—the largest belief system. More people believe in Christianity than any other belief system that exists, that ever exists. But according to the founder of this faith, that is the biggest indication that there is something fundamentally wrong with Christianity. The belief system that Jesus himself founded, he said, would have few followers. By definition, the broadest concept of Christianity is just plain wrong.
Difference between a Guard Dog and a Wolf
Even so, there are teachers that look great, and are so charismatic, but they are false teachers, leading you away from God. They may look like well-groomed sheepdogs, but in reality they are wolves, seeking to fill their stomachs, not care for the sheep. How will you know the difference between a guard dog and a wolf? By their actions. How do you know if you’ve got an apple tree? If there are any apples on it. If there are peaches on it, it ain’t an apple tree. Even so, a good teacher does good things, but a false teacher does evil things. If an apple tree only bears rotten fruit, then you know there’s a problem with the tree. Even so, every teacher who does evil things is taken away from God's people and is judged. So you will know who are the good and bad teachers by what they do.
So what is wrong with Christianity? What would Jesus say is the biggest problem? He states it right off the bat—the leaders are the problem. Christianity has many teachers, many leaders, and most of them are wrong. Many of them are charismatic, almost all of them teach the Bible, they are all moral leaders and wise counselors. So what’s wrong? How can such wise and knowledgeable leaders get us going the wrong way? Simple, Jesus says, out of all of these great shepherds, we have many wolves. Most of the leaders of the church are not there for the people, but for their own benefit.
But how are we to tell the difference? How can we see the difference between a good sheepdog and a wolf whose only desire is to whet his own appetite? On the surface, they seem so similar. They are so hard to tell apart. But Jesus gave us a litmus test—he gave us one way to figure out who is who. He asks us to examine our leaders—not necessarily their teachings, nor necessarily their looks, nor necessarily their basis of authority. Rather, he asks us to look at their actions and words when they are not "on stage" so to speak. When they are out of the public eye, what do they do? What is their life about? We don’t necessarily need to see them praying all the time or reading their Bible. Rather we need to see if they are obedient to Jesus.
Is the leader that the church depends on actually living out the sermon on the mount or not? In their daily lives, is the leader of God’s church:
Is he or she accepting of persecution, or looking for revenge?
Is he or she making things right with those they have sinned against or saying they are doing nothing wrong?
Is he or she expressing hatred and insults through their speech?
Is he or she lusting after people they are not married to?
Is he or she planning on separating from their spouse?
Does he or she not take their word seriously, or keep their promises?
Is he or she rebellious against authority, or submissive?
Is he or she taking action to harm their enemy or loving their enemy and praying for those who hate them?
Is he or she religious for their own benefit, or are they sincerely acting for God?
Is he or she sacrificially giving to the poor or collecting more stuff for themselves?
Is he or she judging harshly or making decisions about others on the basis of mercy?
Is he or she acting for the benefit of others, or for themselves?
This is the test of Jesus. Frankly, most Christian leaders fail this test. Some of them even try to make excuses for not doing what Jesus’ said in their teaching. But there is no excuse. Jesus says that if anyone fails to obey Him, then they have no place being a leader in his church. There are so many leaders that need to step down. But they won’t. They want the prestige, they want the power, they want the money they get from being a leader of the church. And this is why the Christian church is so far from where Jesus wants it to be.
Saying and Doing
On the last day, there will be many who call me "Lord", but not all of them will enter God’s kingdom. Only the one who does God’s will has the opportunity to enter. Many will get my attention on the final day and say, "My Lord, didn’t I teach your word? And I prayed for people, and they were healed! And I was able to give them spiritual healing!" And I will make my final decision: "I never knew you. Get lost—you aren’t entering God’s kingdom. You are those who did what was evil in God’s sight."
So the leaders of the church won’t step down when they really should. Well, I suppose that’s fine, no one can really make them. Well, one person can. That’s the head of all the church, Jesus himself. And Jesus is patient, even with leaders who in His name disobey Him. But if they refuse to repent, if they refuse to change their ways, then they will meet Jesus—face to face. And they will point out to Jesus all the good things they have done for Him. "Jesus, look at the cathedral I built for you! Jesus, look at the books I wrote for you! Jesus, look at the television specials I produced for you!"
Jesus, however, doesn’t care about any of these things. These things were insignificant. Jesus doesn’t want people’s talents or people-pleasing skills. Jesus wants their heart, their obedience. Jesus will turn to all of these leaders and says, "Who are you? You say you did all these things for me, but I never knew who you were." And Jesus will disown them before all the earth. All the leaders that ignored what Jesus said to do and did something else, they will all be rejected from the face of Jesus for all eternity.
Jesus made it clear that it isn’t enough to just call him "Lord" or "God". It isn’t enough to claim that Jesus is one’s savior. Words just don’t do it. They don’t indicate what anyone really believes. Our faith is not found by what doctrinal statement we sign. It is found by what we do.
Listening and Doing
Here’s my final story: Whoever has heard my teaching—from "How fortunate are the poor" to here—and puts these teachings into practice, they are the fortunate ones. These doers of the word are like a builder who establishes a level, solid, concrete foundation for his house. Floods came, earthquakes came, wind storms came—but nothing could destroy that building, because it was built not just on good theory, but good practice. However, there are many who have heard my teaching and then thinks, "Interesting ideas…" but never accomplishes any of it. That person is like the builder who has gone to school, read all the books, and then said, "Forget it, I’m building my house my way." So he decides sand is cheaper than concrete and who needs to go through all the effort for it to be level? And he builds his house. Let me tell you, the next flood, the next earthquake, the next wind storm—whatever disaster is next on the grid—and that house will fall so hard, you’d need a microscope to find the pieces. This isn’t just another sermon—it is your life and death. Please pay attention and do as I have said.
Jesus is saying this not just to teachers and Christian leaders. He is talking to all of us. He says that we have heard his whole sermon—Matthew 5 through 7. And now it is up to us. We have two choices. We can say, "Good sermon, Jesus" and be entertained by it and think pleasant thoughts about Jesus’ teaching. Or we can do it. We can pray to God and ask for strength to change our lives and do what it actually says.
This is the most important decision we will make in our lives. Deciding to be a Christian is nothing compared to this decision—will we commit to do what Jesus asked us to do or not? Will we allow God to change our lives from the inside out or not. If we do, we have much to gain—God’s whole kingdom. We will gain the resurrection from the dead. We will gain peace and eternal prosperity. We will gain the presence of God. We will gain freedom from our enemies.
But if we choose to listen to Jesus words and take it lightly… If we think that we can get away with not doing what Jesus says… if we thing that God will forgive us no matter how much we hurt other people… if we think that we can give Jesus praise and loving words and he will like us so much that he’ll forget the fact that we filled the lives of those around us with destruction… if we refuse to ingest and live out the Sermon on the Mount—then disaster will overtake us. Jesus is coming. Jesus will cleanse his church. And those who rejected the living out of his words will be thrown out of the church.
Please, it is not too late. Do what Jesus said. Do what Jesus is telling you to do right now. Surrender your life to obedience to Jesus. I know it is hard. This is why Jesus said it is a narrow way. Most people can’t even think about loving their enemies, keeping their promises, being faithful to their spouses, sacrificing for the poor, forgiving those who did them wrong. It seems so hard. And it is. But Jesus will give you his Holy Spirit to help you do it.
But first you have to surrender. First you need to be willing. First you have to repent from your sin. Are you willing to surrender yourself to living out Jesus’ life? Are you ready to confess your sin? Are you ready to love Jesus—not just with words, but with your whole life?
If you are, confess your sin to Him. Ask Him for His Holy Spirit. Read the Sermon on the Mount again. Go to everyone you have sinned against—if you can—and make it right with them. And pray for God to help you to be gentle, to judge with mercy, to always act in the benefit for others, to not be a hypocrite. And God’s kingdom will come to you now.

Do You Hear Voices?

I know that I do. Some voices I want to hear, but others I do not. Some voices are for my benefit and the benefit of my relationship with God. But other voices are trying to tear me down, trying to destroy me. Perhaps you might think that I’m schizophrenic. Perhaps you might think that I need to go to a psychiatrist. But Jesus also heard these voices—so did Peter, Elijah, Moses, Abraham and many others. Anyone who has a connection with the spirit world hears voices. A lot of people do. Some of them are on drugs, some of them are very religious, some of them really are crazy. Many of these voices are a way for us to connect with the spirit world.
But we need to understand something important about the spirit world: it is not all good. Some people are impressed just because they have had a connection with the spirit world. They think that they are important because they have had a vision, or because they have seen an angel, or because they hear a voice that claims to be from God. But what many people do not understand is that the spirit world is fraught with danger. It is filled with beings who will deceive humans and attempt to destroy them. In order to make sense of one and another, we need to have clear discernment.
Various voices
We all hear voices everyday. We will often have discussions with ourselves, debating different sides of a decision we need to make, or different moral points of view. Certainly, not all of these voices are from the spirit world. Some are just from our own head, and some are from other people. It requires great wisdom and discernment to distinguish between voices. It also takes time and persistence to figure out who is who. Below are some of the voices that I deal with and they are sometimes difficult to tell them apart from one another. Some guidelines are given that help me to distinguish one voice from another.
The Flesh—The "flesh" is a term in the Bible for the natural human desires we all have. Hunger, sexual desire, anger, insecurity, significance—these are all a part of our lives, and they play a big part of what we want and do not want. However, we need to remember that our desire is just one part of who we are and what we think is ultimately important. There are many other voices that speak to us, trying to convince us to act in their ways. The voice of "the flesh" is interested in self-gratification, and that as quickly as possible. We need to recognize the voice of the Flesh, but also we need to set these desires aside if it is not ultimately in our best interest.
Delusion—Delusion is simple confusion, our minds in chaos. We may try to make sense of things, but our conclusions are not reasonable to anyone else—often not even ourselves. Although people diagnosed as "mentally ill" are commonly seen as deluded, yet everyone deals with a certain amount of delusion sometimes. Often we have to swallow our pride and ask some one else if what we are thinking makes sense. If it does not, then our delusional thoughts we just need to set aside. And if delusion is persistent in our lives, then we will need to ignore it as soon as we recognize it. Ignoring it does not make the delusion go away—but it makes it ineffective in our lives.
The World—The World is society and all the organization of it—governments, corporations, churches, schools, families, peers, etc. All of the "building blocks" of society is what might be called "the World". The World may seem on the surface to be something outside of you, and yet it has its voices in our heads trying to tell us what to do. Our "mother’s" voice may be telling us what we should do for the family. Our "boss’" voice may tell us what to do for the company. And we may have a "patriotic" voice telling us what to do for our country—and on and on. The World has it’s own idea of morality and significance that may be good for you or may not. But the World is distinguished by telling us what we need to do for the group, the organization, the society. We need to do what is right and proper for the group that we feel a part of—this is what the voices of the World are telling us. However, the Bible tells us that we should separate ourselves from the World. We should recognize that God’s morality and the world’s morality come from a different source, and listening to the World and obeying it will ultimately lead to separation from God and our destruction, though it may seem seductively moral.
Evil Spirits—There are a whole variety of spirits in the spirit world that is interested in only one thing—destroying us. These spirits will talk to us, and they make so much sense and they are so convincing that we could meet our needs (the Flesh) or society’s needs (the World), if only we would make some small compromises with God… We all have some basic notions of what is right and wrong that come from God. The evil spirits want us to destroy ourselves by disobeying God and so making it right for God to destroy us. If we worship any God apart from the true God, or if we deliberately ignore the right God wants us to do, then we are threatening our very life. God destroys the rebellious, and evil spirits want to make us rebellious. So evil spirits will try to convince us to worship untrue gods. They will try to spur us on with fear and judging others. They will accuse us, trying to convince us that we are separated from God and that we can never return to Him. And evil spirits will, if they can, try to convince us to do things that will destroy us—making stupid choices or committing suicide. If an evil spirit is speaking to you and trying to attack you—or if it is trying to seduce you into doing evil—then you must tell the spirits to get lost. Don’t be shy—speak against them and let them know that they are not welcome. Basically, tell them to go away.
God—Finally, we can hear God. God has true messengers, called angels; and he has his perfect representative, called Jesus; and he has his power living within Jesus’ people, called the Holy Spirit. God desires us to live for him, and he wants to give us significance, and life, and security and peace. He alone wants our well being AND knows how to give it to us. Sometimes God tells us what we don’t want to hear—he says difficult things. Sometimes God makes amazing promises that are hard to believe—but he expects us to believe him anyway. And God talks to us. Everyday. He tells us how he loves us. He tells us how to be right with him. He tells us what we need to do. We can recognize God’s voice because it is the same as his Son, Jesus. Jesus is the one who best represents God and the Spirit Jesus sends among us is the voice of God that we hear through Jesus. Thus, if we know Jesus’ voice—the things he would say—then we know what God sounds like. And it is God’s voice alone that we should always obey, and always listen to.
It is not easy to hear God’s voice. We have all these other voices in our heads—all of them telling us what to do. Some of these voices are loud, and some demand our attention. God doesn’t often do that. If we want to hear God, we have to go out of our way to do it. We need to take time to listen to him, and to tell all the other voices to shut up. We need to specifically listen to God and to focus on him. He is not always dramatic, and he doesn’t always speak right when we want him to. But if we are to listen to God, then we must ask Him to reveal Himself. And he will—if we ask, we will receive God.

Giving Purity A Facelift

Purity is a necessary, but neglected, part of our spiritual lives. Jesus said that without purity we cannot see God. Without purity, no one can be in God’s presence or even be heard by God. The impure cannot abide in God’s presence, nor will their prayers be heard—except for a prayer requesting purity. The spirit world cannot accept any but the most pure, the most clean things. Any gifts to God must be pure, and this includes our words, our actions, our intentions and our very lives.
Today, purity is no longer considered a benefit. When we think of "purity" we think of chastity belts, frowning aged faces and strict people wearing black hats with a buckle on it. To be pure is to be fundamentalist, to be a disciplinarian, to be judging, and to probably be a hypocrite. Purity in ancient times used to be something desirable, but we have so many negative images associated with purity that even if we love God we probably don’t want to spend much time considering it.
It is time for purity to have a makeover. Not that we need to change what purity means in some Orwellian fashion, but that we need to forcefully steal purity back from the judging and hypocrites. To do this, we must first understand what purity is, what God intended it to be:
Pure focus on God
Because most people understand that God is forgiving and merciful, they put their relationship with God on a low gear, low intensity. Although they feel that their relationship with God could be improved in some vague way, they know that God will overlook their faults and just be glad that they think of him at all. However, God is not content with a casual relationship. God wants us to have a mind that is purely on Him and His desires. God doesn’t need casual friends, he has billions of those. God is looking for a faithful spouse, a best friend, a lifelong companion. God asks for people to be completely surrendered to Him and to His ways.
Pure actions of holiness
The only time we use "holy" it seems is in the phrase "holier than thou". Holiness is either considered a divine prerogative or a façade someone puts on to make themselves seem better than they really are. But God told his people to be holy, to be holy as He is holy. This doesn’t mean that God is wanting his people to look down their noses on others who are not holy. Rather, holiness is a gift that we receive from God to be a people that is distinctly divine, not a card to play to stomp on others. Holiness is simply having religious, sexual, relational, and even clothing differences that distinguish us from "normal" society. But holiness isn’t something we just make up—the holiness code is something given to us from God. God commanded his people to not insult each other, to be faithful to our spouses in action and mind, to follow God’s sexual ethics, to keep our promises, to not get drunk, to not worship images, to do our religious actions in private at times. To be pure is to follow God’s code of holiness, even if others do something different.
Pure intentions of love
Purity, however, is not just a matter of action and devotion but of intent. To be pure is not just in relation to God and his desires, but to others and their needs as well. To be pure, we need to be more than holy. Purity is also an act of love, an act of caring for those around us. Part of God’s holiness code is to "love your neighbor as yourself." If, in our holiness, we attack or condemn others then we have forsaken our holiness. Purity is keeping in mind the weaknesses and misunderstandings of those around us, swallowing our revulsion of their impurity and caring for them as best we can.
Three Is One
To be pure is not any one of these three, but the whole. If one loves God with all of his heart and does everything he can to live rightly, but displays anger and disdain to those around him, then he is not pure. If one loves everyone around them and she does so because of her love for God, but she rejects a part of God’s holiness code for herself, then she is not pure. If one decides to live among the Amish, for example, and truly cares for everyone and lives according to their community code as a good way of life, but has little true devotion for God, then he is not pure. Purity is living for God, living according to God’s ways and living in love—all three without exception. Without all three aspects of purity, one will not be welcomed into the presence of God.
Purity of heart
The most difficult part of purity, however, is our minds. We all know that purity is not just a matter of action, but a matter of the heart. Mind you, one’s actions must be pure in order to be pure, but if one’s heart is not pure, then no matter how many pure actions one does, purity is beyond our reach.
The relationship between intent and action is complicated. One can do some actions, especially in public, and not have the intent behind it. But, ultimately, all of our true intentions come out in our actions. And we are so good at deceiving ourselves, often we do not know our true intentions at all, for our actions deceived everyone, even ourselves. So, if we desire to be pure, how can we truly know that we have achieved purity?
There are certain actions that indicate our true intentions, beyond our conscious desires. Here are a few areas we can examine to see our true intention:
Money—What we do with our money is an often unexamined area of our lives. We think of money to meet our needs, but God’s purity requires us to use our money to build God’s kingdom, for holiness and in care for others. Are we using our money in purity or impurity?
Eyes—What we do with our eyes is a small action, almost unseen by most people. But what we look at often indicates what we are most interested in, and our interest can show our intention. What do we look at regularly that we may not notice?
Careless words—When we don’t mean to be saying anything, really, what do we say? Do we express hidden insults or impure desires? Do we indicate our separation of God? What do our careless words show about our true intentions?
Secret actions—We all have actions that no other human can see. If we think that these hidden actions are insignificant, we might not have a deep relationship with God. Or if our hidden actions are unholy or unloving and we do not repent of them, it is an indication that we are not pure, acceptable before God.
Sacrifice—Everyone has to make tough choices in our lives. Some things have to be sacrificed in certain contexts in order to accomplish the greater good. What we allow to be sacrificed and what we give our sacrifice for indicates the priorities in our lives. If we are to live before God, then we would never sacrifice our relationship to God, our holiness to live before God or our concern and help of others. What do we sacrifice and what do we retain?
Achieving purity
Purity may seem like an uphill battle. To a certain degree, it is. Purity is not easy, and much in our human nature screams against our participation in the spirit world. This is why our flesh and the Spirit are not in communion, but battle one another. But this does not mean that purity is impossible. Many people have achieved it and God longs to have relationship with people. To obtain purity, we must do five things:
Commitment—We must make a lifelong commitment to God. This commitment is often done by being baptized in Jesus or committing oneself to him for one’s whole life. But unless we commit to something, we will never know what it really means or how to accomplish it. The first step to purity is to commit to it. We can pray like this: "Lord Jesus, I commit myself to you and to your ways. I want to be in relationship with God all of my life, without exception."
Longing— Not only do we commit to it, but we must desire it with our whole heart. If we just think that purity is a nice thing that we want to do sometimes, then we will never accomplish it. We must eat, drink, live and sleep purity. We must work on having it be a deep part of our lives.
Prayer—We cannot accomplish purity on our own. It is humanly impossible. But God can make us pure before Him through his divine effort. To gain God’s help, we must ask. Pray this: "Father, I want to be pure before you, but I cannot do it on my own. Please help be to be pure through the power of your Spirit. Help me to desire that purity and live in it all the time."
Separation—There are many things that are driving us to be impure. There are things that tempt us to go away from God, to be unholy to be apathetic to others. If something doesn’t effect you, it doesn’t matter. But if something drives you away from God, if someone causes hatred in you, then it is time to separate from that thing or person. Whatever makes us apathetic or lustful or separated from God, we need to have nothing to do with it.
Community—There are people who know about purity and can live it out. These people love God, live righteously, but isn’t holier than thou, and they are deeply concerned about others. Hang out with these people, learn how they do what they do and try to be like them. These are the people who can teach purity because they learned it from God and others who are pure. Do you see people who meet the three criteria of purity? Then be with them, in this way you will achieve purity yourself.