The Reaping

The other day I heard a person talking about a local church in our area that claims to be a faith church. The pastor there prides himself on being a faith teacher. Ninety percent of the messages on CD that I have heard from that church center around USING faith to get material things, money and what an individual wants for himself. I have spoken to and know so many that have come from churches like this that have been used, taken advantage of by the leadership, raped by staff members, shunned, lied to by the leadership, controlled by the leadership, manipulated by the leadership...... the list of abuses for leadership's selfish and self centered gain goes on and on.

The popular sing song rhyme for the new year at this church is:

IN 2010 THE REAPING WILL NEVER END!!!!!

I feel sorry for many of these pastors, their families, and many who have foolishly followed their example of the treatment of others in the body of Christ. If the reaping has begun for them and will never end they are going to need God to have mercy on them!

It almost reminds me of Pharaoh who spoke his own judgement out of his mouth.

The Beginning of Faith

This is the first passage in the New Testament where the word "faith" is mentioned. How fitting that it is mentioned by Jesus.

Matthew 6:20-35 (King James Version)
20But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal:
21For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.
22The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.
23But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!
24No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
25Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?
26Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
27Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?
28And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin:
29And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
30Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?
31Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?
32(For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.
33But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
34Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.

It seems to me that in this passage, Jesus is telling us to "take no thought" for what we will eat, drink or wear. In the sentence where He mentions faith it is like if we think that we need to ask Him for these things then we don't have faith. Not that we should use our faith to ask for and attain these things. He is saying that God knows all our needs and if we seek first the kingdom of God then God will provide these things for us without us even thinking about them. He says that these things are what the Gentiles seek after.

The next passage where faith is mentioned again is by Jesus:

Matthew 8:5-11 (King James Version)
5And when Jesus was entered into Capernaum there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him,
6And saying, Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.
7And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him.
8The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.
9For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it.
10When Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.
11And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven.

Jesus marveled at this man's faith. He didn't feel the need to confess repeatedly, ask again repeatedly or figure out how to receive. He KNEW that what Jesus said would be done and he knew it even without Jesus being there.

Matthew 8:24-27 (King James Version)

24And, behold, there arose a great tempest in the sea, insomuch that the ship was covered with the waves: but he was asleep.
25And his disciples came to him, and awoke him, saying, Lord, save us: we perish.
26And he saith unto them, Why are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? Then he arose, and rebuked the winds and the sea; and there was a great calm.
27But the men marvelled, saying, What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him!

Here in this passage Jesus told the disciples that they had little faith. Maybe it was because they were so afraid of their circumstances and they didn't KNOW that He would take care of them. Whatever the reason, it had nothing to do with their material needs.

The next:

Matthew 9:2 (King James Version)
2And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy, lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.

In this passage, the people NEVER asked Jesus for anything. He SAW their faith and healed the man. Could it be because He saw that they KNEW that He would heal the man if they just brought him to Jesus.

This is just the start for me. I doubt that I will comment on every place in the New Testament where faith is mentioned and yet I might. I know that this seems to be the beginning of the truth that what I have been taught about faith is definitely false teaching.

What is Faith

For the past fifteen years, I have been deceiving myself by listening to teachers and preachers teaching the faith message. I neglected my responsibility to prove out what I heard by the Word of God and listened to the false teaching that faith was for me to use to get things for myself.

Whether it was for circumstances to change to my advantage or for material things that I wanted or needed. I foolishly believed that if I got things using my "faith" that I actually had faith. I have come to believe that faith actually has nothing to do with material things or circumstances that I want.

The word "faith" is used in the King James Version of the New Testament 231 times. In glancing through the passages that contain the word "faith", I found that I could not find any passage where we were instructed to use our faith for money, houses, clothes, jobs, or any material thing. I can't find where we were instructed to use our faith for the necessities of life or to get what we want. I have come to the conclusion that our faith is for furthering the kingdom of God, to help us live holy lives, to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ for our salvation, and to love others with the love of God.

My blog posts may not be so controversial for a while but I am going to satisfy the questions I have about all I have been taught for the last fifteen years. I think faith should provoke us to want to DO something FOR God not GET something FROM Him. So I am going to go through and actually READ every passage IN CONTEXT where faith is mentioned in the New Testament and see for myself what it is. Maybe then I will get back to my "first love". I remember it and can feel it tugging at me. I am determined to rediscover it.

Faith in Action

James 2:14-18 New International Version (NIV)
Faith and Deeds
14What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.
18But someone will say, "You have faith; I have deeds." Show me your faith without deeds, and I will show you my faith by what I do.

I remember in my former church the pastor proclaimed himself to be a faith teacher. He professed to have a great anointing in the faith area. On more that one occasion I heard him call his wonderful faith that he had perfected "BMW faith". He got all kinds of material things with his faith. His great BMW faith got him a BMW, houses, fine dinners, top of the line suits, top of the line shoes, jewelry for his wife, extravagant vacations, the best of everything. He encouraged and provoked his congregation to believe for the best of all material things. After all, he taught that if you had nice things, money and looked good that it would attract people to God and if you looked not so good that no one would be attracted to God. Of course there is not one place in the Bible that teaches this, but he was such a master manipulator that as he strung one scripture after another together, taken out of context, to form his wonderful faith doctrine , I bought it hook, line and sinker.

Never were we pushed or provoked to use our faith to reach out to the community, to reach the lost, to feed the hungry, or to help the needy. Our church did have a prison ministry but no outreach to the community unless there was gain in it for the church.

I went to Linn Park in downtown Birmingham last Sunday morning and I saw a man with GREAT FAITH for the first time. He arrived at the park before 7:00 a.m. and began to set up. He had a small trailer equipped to serve hot food. He pulled out his generator to power his speakers and sound system. He was not there to preach church. He was not there to teach faith. He was not there to take up and offering. He was there to tell people about the saving grace and the love of Jesus Christ. Jesus was not a part of his message. The name of Jesus was not thrown about as a way to get things. The message was Jesus and only Jesus. He came there for people who had nothing to give in return. He was there for the homeless, the forgotten, the ignored and the destitute. He came to tell them that Jesus loves them, that He died for them, that they are of value to God, that they were important. My former pastor referred to these type of people as "losers". This man looked on them as treasures. After he and the others who had chosen to come out in the cold on that Sunday morning had ministered to all who wanted to receive Jesus as their personal savior and all who wanted prayer, he opened up the window of his trailer and began to serve a hot meal to each individual.

I stood and watched with tears in my eyes and asked God to forgive me for all those wasted years that I allowed my selfishness and self centered thinking to put me in a position to believe a false doctrine that faith was all about getting things for myself and getting the good life for myself.

I could see this man in Heaven with a multitude coming up to him and thanking him for touching their lives for Jesus. I could see Jesus telling him that when he had done this unto the least of these, he had done it unto Jesus. I could see Jesus telling him, "Well done my good and faithful servant"

I don't think I will hear those words because I believed for a car, a house, a job, clothes or money. If I recall correctly I believe that Jesus told the multitudes to take no thought for these things, but seek first the kingdom of God and all these things would be added unto us. Maybe if all these things aren't being added unto us it has nothing to do with what we believe God for, maybe it has to do with us seeking after the wrong things.

Churches, Working Together or Dividing

In the church that I was a member for over a decade there was put forth and taught a mindset that I have never seen or heard of in any other church that I attended or visited. Members of this church were never to visit other churches unless they were out of town or attending something special with a family member at another church. If a member of my former church visited other churches because they wanted to and it was found out then they were looked upon as traitors. We were taught to look down on other churches because they were not as enlightened as our church and were not as excellent. The pastor professed to know all the truth and, according to him, was always right. Many times he pompously declared from the pulpit that he could wait till we all get to heaven so that Jesus could inform us all that he (the pastor) was right.

This church never joined itself with any other church in our area or city to help anyone or reach out to the community. At one time we had a luncheon with a speaker who was a self made multi-millionaire. The purpose of this guest speaker coming in was to help raise the vision of the people in the church so that they would all become more prosperous and hopefully rich. When a pastor of a neighboring church was invited to the luncheon by a church member the pastor of my former church wanted to know why this neighboring pastor had been invited because we were trying to build our church, not theirs. The pastor never had one good or encouraging thing to say about any other church in our city, on the contrary he constantly criticized other churches and pastors from the pulpit.

Recently, I was totally surprised at something that happened in the church that I have been attending lately. The regular drummer had to be out of town on Sunday morning. The drummer who usually fills in for him had to work. Sunday morning, as I sat in my seat, I recognized someone in the sanctuary that I know personally and I know is a regular attender of a church other than this church. As it became time for the service to begin this individual sat down behind the drums. He proceeded to play with the band and did an excellent job. When the music was over, he quietly made his way to the back of the church toward the door. The pastor stood up and recognized him for being such a blessing by filling in and playing the drums for us, thanked him for his willingness to help and wished him on his way as he went to attend the service at the church where he chooses to worship.

Who would have ever thought that this could happen! Members of the body of Christ, from two different churches in the same area, working together and helping each other with no jealousy, criticism or envy. What a blessing it was! Christians from different churches working together to further the cause of Christ and not their own importance or agenda.

The spirit of separation and division is not of God. He desires His children to work together and help each other. Not separate themselves from other Christians because they don't go to the same church.

A pastor who seeks to divide his congregation from the rest of the body of Christ is operating out of a spirit of fear, pride and selfishness. Fear is the opposite of faith. Without faith it is impossible to please God. God hates pride. A true christian is not selfish.

If you are in a church where the pastor promotes division from the members of the body of Christ who do not attend your church and not unity he is in direct contradiction of the Bible. Find a church where the pastor operates out of a heart of love and not selfishness. Find a true pastor after God's own heart, and quit listening to one who pulls you away from the heart of your Heavenly Father.

The Drunkard and the Glutton

In the King James version of the Bible the term "drunkard" is used 5 times. Twice it is used in the same sentence with the term "glutton" and once it is used in the same sentence with the term "fornicator". In all 3 of these sentences the glutton and the fornicator are equal to the drunkard.

In these verses that I mentioned, Deut. 21:20, Prov. 23:21, and1Cor. 5:11, the drunkard, the glutton and the fornicator are pointed to as someone who will come to poverty, should be stoned to death as a rebellious son, or someone believers should not even eat with.

In reading these verses the twisted mentality of the leadership of my former church appalls me.

I remember at one time when I was a youth worker a young adult was disqualified from participating in the youth band because he had been seen in a restaurant ordering an alcoholic drink with his dinner. He was not drunk nor was he a drunkard. Just because he was seen ordering and drinking this one drink he was instantly "unfit" for the "excellence" we put forth in ministry. Yet people who were extremely fat to the point of being obese were brought in to minister from the pulpit. There were extremely fat people who led praise and worship and who were youth workers and children's church workers. A man involved in fornication was left on staff until he left town and was still endorsed by the pastor of the church to minister to youth at a youth camp.

How can the leadership of a church pull out the sections of the Bible he wants to use and completely ignore the rest. He can do it when his church is a business to him. He can do it when he is not a pastor after God's own heart. He can do it when his parishioners represent dollar signs instead of the body of Christ. He can do it when he and his family are his number one priority and not the work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this instance a person who loved God was denied the use of his gift to serve God because the church leadership was more interested in an image that what was right. The Bible does not say there is anything wrong with a drink, it says it is wrong to be drunk.

In the other instance a man who was known to be involved in sexual sin was left in a ministry position and on staff. The Bible says not to even eat with a fornicator, much less leave him in ministry.

I'm not saying that I would never eat with a glutton, drunkard or a fornicator. I know that we live under grace and there is forgiveness and restoration for the repentant. The fact is that the qualification to be involved in any ministry area at my former church was that you support the pastor and his family one hundred percent. Right or wrong, whether you agreed with them or not, your total support was mandatory or they found a way to keep you in the rejected group till they found a way to get rid of you.

Beware of the red flags. Don't make excused for a pastor who is ignoring and twisting things in the Bible because he is a good speaker, supposedly "anointed", puts on a good image, or seems to have it all. If it seems too good to be true...... IT IS.

Never Leave Your Man of God

In my former church we were constantly taught that one of the most important things about our christian walk was to have a "man of God" to sit under and to "speak into our lives". Now it was very important also NEVER to LEAVE your "man of God" if you wanted to experience God's richest and best in your life.

In the New Testament, the phrase "man of God" is only mentioned two times. In second Timothy 3:16 the term "man of God" is referring to believers being equipped for every good work. In first Timothy 6:11, Paul is telling Timothy that as a man of God he should flee the things of the world and pursue righteousness.

Not one place in the New Testament is the church taught that they are to focus on ONE "man of God" to lead and guide them and speak into their lives. We have the Holy Spirit on the inside of us to lead and guide us into all truth. We are Jesus' sheep and we follow His voice.

This man made doctrine on "needing" a "man of God" to pledge our allegiance and support and financial gifts to has been put together by men who call themselves pastors and prophets in order to gain financial wealth, material gifts and keep their supporters under their control.

The body of Christ needs to wake up and realize who they are in Christ and realize that God speaks to each and every on of us. He is perfectly capable of leading, guiding, protecting and blessing us without a go-between to tell us what He wants or is saying.

We need to get out from under the control of these manipulative, greedy, materialistic imitations of pastors and find some true pastors with a pastor's heart to hook up with and DO the work of the ministry.