Jer. 17:9 π Mt. 24:4 π Mk. 7:21-23 π Jn. 4:24 π Jn. 14:15 π Jn. 14:21 π Jn. 14:23-24 π Jn. 15:10 π Jn. 16:13 π 2 Ths. 2:9-12 π Heb. 11:6 π 1 Jn. 5:2-3 π 2 Jn. 6 π Rev. 22:14-16
You cannot practice anything you know to be a lie and possibly believe that you are worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
Truth, and practicing the truth, is going to be an important aspect of living a truly redeemed life in the last days. When Jesus was asked what would be the sign of His return and of the end of the age, the first words out of His mouth were, "Take heed that no one deceives you." ( Mt. 24:4; top )
Paul wrote that before Christ would return there would be an apostasia, a great falling away from the faith. He goes on to say, "The coming of the lawless one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness." ( 2 Ths. 2:9-12; top ) Loving the truth is a condition of being saved. Without it you will be condemned along with all the other unrighteous people of the world.
John wrote, "Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city [the new Jerusalem]. But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie." ( Rev. 22:14-15; top ) If you love and practice a lie, you have no right to the tree of life! How much plainer can this be said?
For several years now, I have been speaking long and loud about the "church" lies - so long perhaps that some might wonder if my guitar has only one string. The "church" lies are fairly obvious to anyone who has received revelation about churchianity. These revelations include recognizing the spiritual enmity between the "church" and the ekklesia. Ekklesia needs every believer to be a priest of God - "church" needs only the "pastors" and the professional staff to fulfill that role. Ekklesia recognizes how the "church" building robs the resources of any ekklesia caught in its web and how that same building focuses the attention on the man or men who stand between the people and God. The "church" building is architecturally designed to give a false impression of who God is and it is filled with furniture taken directly from pagan temples. "Church," as it is practiced today, has no basis in Scripture. Rather it is the spirit of antichrist's best deception in its war against the ekklesia.
But also as one who has been overseas and witnessed firsthand a different culture, I also stand as a witness and declare that our impatient, superficial, materialistic American culture is another source of the lies that we practice. Television, movies, sports, incessant radio, books, the internet, bars, dance halls, arcades and casinos all team together to provide distractions away from the truly important things in life. Tobacco, nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, marijuana, cocaine and a host of other drugs are available to alter our ability to deal with reality. For those who have received revelation about how the rest of the world lives, the American lifestyle is easily recognized as the abomination that it really is. Most obvious would be the $3 billion annual expenditure for "Christian" jewelry and paraphenalia! But certainly not excluded is the way that, on average, we, as average Americans, eat almost 75% more than our body needs while others in the world starve. We, that is professing Christians, will work long hours so that we can spend inordinate amounts of money on toys and games (which most often end up collecting dust in a closet or being sold for a pittance at a garage sale) and we spend little or no time on our knees alone in our prayer closet. Our priorities are completely skewed as the American culture is merely the latest avenue built up in Vanity Fair (see John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress).
But the lies are deeper than that - they lie buried in the depths of our soul. Wherever sin has had a corrupting influence on our lives, there is planted in the fertile soil of our soul a lie. Jesus said, "For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man." ( Mk. 7:21-23; top )
God spoke to Jeremiah and said, "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" ( Jer. 17:9; top )
But it is not enough to know that there are lies buried within our hearts. We must know that the Spirit of truth is here to lead us into all truth. ( Jn. 16:13; top ) To do that, He must lead us out of each and every lie that exerts influence upon our lives.
And here is also another area where the "church" has done great damage to the ekklesia. In the "church's" push for methods and programs, the need for every believer to walk according to the Spirit of God has gotten set aside. Many "church" leaders don't want their flock to hear the Holy Spirit for themselves - those leaders would instantly be out of a secure job and would have to have faith to rely on God and not on the donations of the sheep. Many "church" leaders, knowing that they have done nothing to bring their listeners to spiritual maturity, don't trust their flock with enough liberty to exercise their rightful place and authority in the Spirit anyway. Yet it still remains the truth that the highest priority in every believer's life is to hear the voice of God for himself.
One of the most uncertain of places in life is that time of being between the "church" and the ekklesia. Through God's grace, one has become spiritually mature enough to recognize and forsake the abominable deceptions of the "church" but has not yet had his senses trained sufficiently to really grasp what the ekklesia is all about. Often one feels guilty for not attending "church," with all its visible and tangible pretenses of obeying God, while at the same time he is overwhelmed at the seeming impossibility of walking after an invisible God. Hearing the Holy Spirit - which requires both the cultivation of the inner ear's ability to hear the Holy Spirit as well as fellowship with other mature believers who can confirm or challenge what the new listener thinks he's heard - is a way of life. It is not something that is done immediately. God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. ( Heb. 11:6; top )
A.W. Tozer coined a phrase that captures the essence of this idea: God tells the man who cares. The man who cares will invest his time and resources into the pursuit of the thing for which he cares. And the man who pursues God relentlessly and without personal compromise will be the one whom God reveals Himself to. But for those who have only a few minutes a day (at best) or who allow other enticements to distract them away from the pursuit of God, it is only another lie to say that these people love God.
Jesus said, "If you love Me, keep My commandments. He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him. If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words; and the word which you hear is not Mine but the Father's who sent Me. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father's commandments and abide in His love." ( Jn. 14:15 , 21 , 23-24 ; 15:10; top )
John wrote, "By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome." ( 1 Jn. 5:2-3 ) And, "This is love, that we walk according to His commandments. This is the commandment, that as you have heard from the beginning, you should walk in it." ( 2 Jn. 6; top )
It is too plainly set forth in Scripture that those who care about God must obey Him. Anything else is simply another lie.
Jesus said it so plainly to the Samaritan woman: "God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth." ( Jn. 4:24; top ) How dare we carelessly change this fundamental, foundational truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ and expect to experience a true relationship with Him?
Some of the deepest lies that need rooted out of our hearts are the religious lies. We tell our self that we can simply know what the Bible says and that will be enough. We tell our self that ministering to strangers while we ignore and neglect our wives, husbands or children is God's way. We tell our self that I can worship God any way I want to and He will be pleased. We tell our self that so long as I obey God some of the time I can do what I want with the rest of my time or the remainder of my attitudes. We tell our self that the critical things we hear about "church" and culture are true, but they really apply to those people over there who are worse in their practices than I am in mine.
No! A thousand times no! These are deceptions sprung on the unwary Christian by the enemy of your soul! The most "harmless" and "innocent" of lies may be the very ones that will do the most damage to you for they may begin in you that process of hardening your heart against the voice of the Holy Spirit.
Let it be firmly covenanted in your spirit and in your soul that from this day forward, as the Spirit reveals the truth to you, by His grace, you will walk only in the light of truth. Anything less is a deception that places you back within the realms of being your own god, setting your own rules and reaping your own consequences.
You cannot practice anything you know to be a lie and possibly believe that you are worshiping God in spirit and in truth.
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