Replies

This pastor mentions the Lord’s warning about the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches making Christians unfruitful.

He also mentions the words from John instructing us not to love this world, or the things of this world, for if we do, the love of the Father is not in us.

These are passages from God’s Word that have largely been regarded as gibberish in the church of our time and place.
Overall this church tends to ignore them and other passages like them, such as that if we have the Lord, then we should be content to have just the bare essentials of food and clothing, in order to satisfy “itching ears.”

So many churches and organizations are turning into businesses. Many are big businesses. When the “gay marriage” ruling came from the Supreme Court, I checked the Twitter responses of some “major” pastors. Rick Warren just conveniently happened to be across the world, in the Philippines, I believe, and never responded to it as far as I could see. Charles Stanley’s account tweeted something about an “opportunity” to go along on a cruise with him.

The church and Christian organizations in our country are so much about being businesses, and providing the trappings of upper middle class lives to the people working in them. And the worldly values of “success,” education and intellectual arrogance have already taken root there too. An example of that is Andy Stanley saying now that it’s ridiculous, intellectually-speaking, to defend the whole Bible.

The modern world is at odds with Christianity in so many ways that Christians are always under that much pressure to make peace with Satan, even though there is no peace with him. The modern economy is dominated by corporations where people have to think and believe alike, and children are sent to government schools so they’ll fit into this world.

But despite some protestations, the church here seems to largely go along with the world’s coercion. That may partly be in order to get along, but perhaps also because the church likes what the world has to offer. The church is to be God’s ambassador, like a foreigner coming to a land that’s not his home, but isn’t to take up the life of the natives, even in order to “relate.”

Paul wrote about becoming like others in order to win some souls to Christ, but it’s clear he didn’t mean to disregard other things that he and the other apostles wrote in order to do so.

The Bible’s answer on what we’re to do is to die to ourselves. Wherever our hearts are set on anything of this world, we’re to allow God to change our hearts. When we do this, we come to see that what we thought was so wonderful was really destructive sin and death, and truly unsatisfying to our souls.

In the case of “Fifty Shades of Grey,” it has so much appeal, even to some avowed Christian women, because the world’s way of looking at things, the “self-evident,” “natural” way which has taken God’s revealed truth out of the picture, is how even the church looks at things. It’s what even the church here takes as reality.

So the church has come to believe, as the world preaches, that life is about doing your work, which is a dirty word, so you can be your own Santa Claus to yourself as an adult. So you can ask yourself, “what pleasure can a I do for myself next?”

So even Christians run around looking to schedule their next enjoyment, whether it’s something on Netflix, or where to eat, where to go on vacation, or the next cultural event, hobby, or sports event. The point of “leisure time” is to spend it on oneself, lavishing something on oneself, and being unproductive. Getting a “break” from God even seems to be a part of it. One Christian woman I knew years ago, a woman very involved in the church and who believed orthodox doctrines such as that the Bible is God’s inspired, inerrant Word and that gay marriage was wrong, said that watching “Desperate Housewives” was just a “guilty pleasure.”

By the pursuit of “happiness,” though, according to the world’s beliefs and directions, instead of submitting to God’s will, people, including so many Christians, find unhappiness. They find emptiness and pain and agony in their souls, and then they try as a “remedy” to double-down on living for themselves.

But there is no real happiness where there is no remembrance of God and His will. If Christians spiritually feed on the world’s rebellion, then they are what they eat. Christians can certainly watch or listen to just about anything, and there might be reason to, just like police have to see and hear a lot of horrendous things they wouldn’t want to if given the choice, if it’s for the sake of serving God’s kingdom and they don’t set their hearts on those things. That means standing on God’s truth. Something is evil if it rejects God, no matter how much “good” it might have in it, or seems to have in it. It’s merely borrowing and exploiting some goodness that’s come from God in order to ensnare people and destroy them.

Instead of being in what the world seeks, “escapes,” real happiness is found in allowing God to put us through painful changes, including taking away from us worldly things we happen to have our hearts set on, and “working” for the Lord. That’s our purpose, and when we get away from it, we feel without purpose and empty.

This isn’t about a false “works” salvation or “legalism,” but is truly all about us and real happiness! It’s about God our personal Creator knowing best what will truly fulfill us and make us happy, if we will let Him, walking by faith and not by sight. The thought of always working for His kingdom apparently seems oppressive to much of the church here these days, but again that’s because of the world’s rebellion against the Lord. When there is something that means a great deal to us, we are willing either to do a great deal of “work,” even painful work, and endure punishment, to get it, or the very work itself might be a pleasure to us (perhaps a sport we play or a hobby we have).

So why should we think that being subject to God’s will at all times is oppressive, or “legalism,” and we can’t be happy if we are. Heaven itself is God’s kingdom, and we can believe that there we along with everyone and everything else will be subject to Him at all times and in all places, yet we will have perfect happiness.