Taking Me As I Am

Taking Me As I Am

7/11/13

What a wonderful concept and feeling we as humans have to know that no matter what we have done in our lives God will accept us for who we are at any time.  As we can see throughout history, this concept has not always been adhered to by the Church and for many reasons humans have obliged the policy of acceptance by force, which is just as horrific a concept.  However, the enemy has played a huge part in this philosophy and it is in play even today.  Acceptance of people for who they are is one thing and it needs to be in practice on a continual basis but do the people that are in this condition changing towards a Godly lifestyle or are they still in the same place that they were upon entering the Church?

Once again our entertainment news is filled with the unofficial acceptance policies of western philosophy.  Sides and lines have been drawn on this issue and our societies are just waiting for further instructions on how to act, react and treat these modern “offenders.”  It has been a continual topic on our lips for almost a decade now and like any other movement we have people on all sides and each extreme of the subject.  While accepting a person for who they are is a great concept and it needs to be practiced in everyone, reality tells us that not everyone will agree with this policy.  It is also just as important that we understand where this belief is taking us and to what extent that it can have in our communities and churches.

It needs to be stated that many of our churches have fallen into this category of acceptance and that is a wonderful thing for them to do.  As one reads church history they will see that the Church has been one of the cruelest entities towards people that mankind has ever witnessed.  I am not going to go into details about this history but please understand that the Church has killed more people in the name of God than all of the secular wars put together and in my opinion this rings loud and clear that the Church has missed its mission statement.

I recently read an article from a woman who has been in church the majority of her life.  She understands the Bible and its meanings and actually what the Bible represents to her life.  She also stated in this article that she is a practicing lesbian and even though she sits in church every week and listens to the sermons that are taught to her, she feels no compelling desire to change her ways.  This lady struggles with the fact that she is a lesbian and coming from a lifetime of being in church understands the consequences of her lifestyle as well.  According to her she is still desires to be free from this part of her life and sincerely wishes that the Church would give her enough spiritual energy to defeat the attacks that are anchored within her spirit.  This lady also stated that she cringes when she hears the topic of homosexuality being spoken about within the church, yet after the condemnation speeches as she puts it, there is no explanation of how to defeat this part of her life.

This is the part about church that this lady struggles with is that she sits there every Sunday and no one is concerned with her or what she is going through.  Not even the pastor goes up to her and asks her about her life, happiness, family, or anything else that would initiate a real reason for her to reach out towards God.  In her eyes the church has accepted her life in secret and screams at her for the sin that she harbors within her yet is not willing to understand exactly what she is going through and to provide her with the real reasons for her struggles.

There is a huge controversy ongoing at one of our local churches.  I am not going to go into any long or detailed structure of what is transpiring but there are some issues that are common with the above paragraphs and part of the results of the current condition of this local church.  The subject matter is not what is commonplace here but it is the spiritual aspect of both situations that has its roots and if one part of the story comes from a large congregation from another portion of the country and is found in a small community in a totally different part of the country, there is a tie and this means that it has infiltrated the entire Church and it needs to be recognized and dealt with on both a personal and organizational level.

I have been in this community for over twenty years now and many of the young people that have been here all of their lives I have witnessed either their births or have been a part of their “medical” lives for their entire life.  I have watched these families grow and I have watched them depart into other parts of the country to attend college, get married, find work and many other opportunities that have been presented to them.  These all personal opportunities that these kids have accepted are wonderful and I am so proud that they have been given these opportunities.

At the same time as these personal opportunities have been presented I have also noticed a few things about their spiritual development as well, and this observation is what concerns me and one that I do not see as structurally sound.  I have heard and personally witnessed the spiritual heritage of this local church and when I read, hear or think about this heritage I cannot have any other feeling except of joy since this church has produced so many people into the ministry down through the decades of its history.  What a legacy for one church to have and I know that if I study more local histories of other churches I probably would find the same patterns of ministerial service.  But what about now and the present and future generations that is coming up?  This is the part of the story which concerns me and a recognition of mine that the Church ahs lost a part of her that if not found once again, will have dire consequences for the world.

I have noticed over the past few years of the youth that are attending these local churches and how they have conducted their personal activities within their schools, their sports and other general public appearances and attitudes concerning their lives.  It grieves me that when I recognize these kids in public they really do not standout from the world nor do they portray a Godly or spiritual image to their friends.  Yet, they grace the presence of their respective youth groups on a regular basis and try to attend, and be seen, at these groups to satisfy their spiritual gratification.

When I have talked to these kids I have always asked them a common question and that is how did your youth service go?  I have asked my own kids this same question and what I find interesting is that even if I personally know these kids or not, all of them reply with basically the same answer and it goes something along these lines.  Yes we had a great service and I could not believe who actually showed up tonight….We played a really gross or cool game before service started and we had to do……Peter, Tammy, Kim and Sue were all talking about…..

So after all of these answers are given, I then ask them one other question which usually I get basically the same answer from these kids as well.  The 2nd question goes something like this.  What was the sermon about and what did you receive from it?  While I receive a fifteen minute answer to my first question about how the youth group went the majority of the time I receive approximately a thirty second explanation that states the following:  I have no idea of what the sermon actually said and that I did not learn one spiritual thing during service.

In this I turned to my own daughter and asked her a few more in depth questions concerning her youth group.  The answers I received while did not shock me because I was expecting something according to my thoughts, but they did enlighten me on a few more facts that I have noticed within the attitudes of the churches around here which if thee small churches have this attitude so do the larger churches as well.  And this attitude is that there is no fire within the church anymore and that people do not wish to change their lives and move towards God any longer, or that the Church has stopped teaching and preaching the truth about God, His Kingdom, our enemy and what all of them combined along with the role that we play in this war actually mean.  And to be honest, I believe that people still want to know God and have a genuine desire to change their lives but because the church would rather feed them coffee and doughnuts and make them feel good this longing to change within their spirits will quickly fade if the Church does not change herself.

An interesting tidbit before I proceed.  I find it intriguing that the enemy attacks and uses people in the same manner when it comes to churches and their spiritual conditions.  For centuries the Church has thrived and boasted on how large of a congregation or following that it has.  While it is a good thing to have many people in church it is not the size of the church that matters only the individual person within that church and what this individual is being fed from the pulpits.  If the enemy attacks people in small communities and in large cities by using the same methods, this means that the size of the church really does not matter and is only a superficial condition that even our enemy ignores.  It all boils down to two people and the Holy Spirit that matters and if the minister is not listening and preaching the true Word and the person sitting in the pew is not willing to listen and to “go” then the Holy Spirit cannot do His job throughout the world and the enemy wins.

This all reverts back to the idea of acceptance.  If a person walks into a youth group and takes a quick glance around the room, gym, or sanctuary that person can quickly ascertain what the general direction of that youth group is headed.  It is not just the dress and physical appearance of the kids but the attitudes that they portray and how they look at the unknown person that is observing them.  This type of function is a direct link to what is within their hearts and what is actually important to their lives while they are in youth and representatives of that youth group.

If the youth group displays this type of spiritual disorganization then according to the laws of spiritual covering the adult covering is in the same shape, organization and belief.  There might be some friction between the youth and the adults but this is normal but in the cases that I have noticed there are none which means that the spirits are in unison and not butting heads so to speak.  The recognition of the level of spiritual authority may be acknowledged, recognized and talked about but it seems like that is all it is, just talk.

As I stated above the concept of acceptance is a great concept and I am so thrilled that the Church has finally opened their eyes concerning this issue.  However, where is the awareness of the spirit from the people within the church that draws them to these new people in order to provide guidance for them?  New people in the church do not know much about God or the entire principals that govern the spiritual world, so why isn’t the church taking the initiative in completing this basic command of “go”.  This tells me that the church while they allow these hurting and suffering people within their walls, the congregations have no clue of how to respond to their needs and this means that the spiritual condition of the church is asleep itself and busy relaxing in front of the coffee stand in the foyer.

The concept of accepting people for who they are is what the church was designed for and it is the policy of the founder of the Church, which is Jesus Christ, demonstrated this mission to its utmost.  However while Jesus went to His enemies in the world He did not stop there by walking away and just accepting them for who they were and what condition they were in at that moment.  He went and died for them and took that extra step in order that they may understand their importance in the world and to realize their own personal worth to the Creator of every living thing.  It is the living experience of Christ and what He did, all of what He did, that should be the representation that we share to the world. 

I hear and read about many people saying that we need to be more like Jesus and go out and reach the poor and this is true.  But what frustrates me is that these people who are saying this and wondering why we are doing this process stop right here and mention nothing further about the mission that they evidently believe in.  Reaching out to the poor and needy is a great policy to have and promote, but if you do not finish the mission it means absolutely nothing to them and in the case of the Church if you accept people hurting from the world and do not share with them the spiritual concepts of what they are fighting against you are doing the exact same thing for them which is nothing.

Our enemy does not care if a person is in church or not, and our enemy will go as far as to open the door for you and sit and drink coffee with you in the pews.  It is the spiritual concept and meaning to our lives that matters if our enemy is either opening the door for you at church or if he is trying his best to distract you from attending or living a separated life through Christ.  Church really, really think about this and come to the realization that the patterns that we have allowed into our lives are not what God has planned for our lives.  It is the spiritual battles that we need to be aware of and we need to understand that each one of us face these battles every second of our lives.  It is of dire importance that when new people come into our church doors that they are not accompanied by our enemy but welcomed by people who care and understand what these hurting people are fighting against.

I understand that many ministers, deacons, and even long time church attendees will not take kindly to this article, if they even read it that is not the point.  This topic needs to be addressed throughout every denomination that has ever been created.  This topic is a good one but the Church needs to understand that we cannot just stop with accepting these people in our doors we need to witness to them and to provide them with the answers that they are looking for and longing to receive.  We shall not win any people to God if we do not put this concept into continual practice even though our church numbers may swell to over 10,000 per congregation.

Accepting people for who they are is a must but allowing them to stay accepted in the condition that drew them to their desire for inner change is not acceptable.  The kingdom concept of life occurs on two sides only with no intermingling possible.  These people realize this battle within their lives but do not understand what is actually at stake and what is going on inside them.  It is the responsibility of the Church not to just bring them into the fold but to teach them, not condemn them, about the spirit and how it affects their lives.

If the Church accepts this philosophy of truth without numbers and begins to once again to complete the mission that our founder established, I guarantee that when you ask the kids within the youth group or the adult members of any church the questions that I have asked, you would hear a response about how exciting the church is and how much they have learned about God and what He is doing in people’s lives instead of Paul, Sally and Sue said this about….

Further proof that acceptance without God being the center of that process is actually told in the Bible.  As of this current time there are many forms of government throughout the world and still these secular forms of laws cannot agree on a plan to bring everyone together.  As time progresses, some of these current governments and ideas will merge together in order to better mankind, including the acceptance of more groups of “outsiders” into the collective fold; this method will too fail as long as God is omitted from the equation.  Humans will eventually try the one world government system and proclaim that this form of leadership has all the answers, but as has been foretold this method will omit God and will cause the deaths of no doubt millions of people.  No acceptance policy shall ever come to pass and complete what it is designed to do and include everyone in the world as long as God is not present at its centerpiece.  We humans are taught that history is a boring subject and that we should not pay attention to what has occurred over the years but to focus on where we are now and where are headed.  What a dangerous indoctrination that will lead to sure destruction because if one looks back at history we can conclude that humans have never been fully accepted no matter where they traveled, so why would humans believe anything different about themselves for the future?

If a church is not in some type of constant spiritual turmoil and battle, then someone needs to begin to ask what is going on within the church that makes us immune to this condition.  Then we must realize our ways and turn back to God and allow Him to search out the laziness and the incomplete influences that we have accepted as truth within our lives.  God promises us restoration if we allow Him to work through our lives.  The restoration process will hurt a bit but at the same time we will understand that our lives are being cleansed of worldly possessions that hinder our spiritual vitality.  Once a church accepts these aspects of Kingdom, the Church will thrive in a manner to which Jesus’ actions will be portrayed and not man’s ambitions to impress.  God desires to live within our lives and to have a direct relationship with us at all times, but this shall not happen until we accept God’s spirit back into our churches and lives.  And remember that if we choose not to allow God this access once again, the enemy will continue his march and bring nothing but utter confusion and destruction to mankind.

DLB