The Separation of Church and Christ

Let’s get right down to it. 

The bible says the righteous are bold as a lion. It says true apostles do not peddle the word of God to please men (2 Corinthians 2:17), but speak what they are given by the Spirit, for the glory of God. With that scripture burning in my spirit, so I share the following.

The problem with modern Christianity is that it does not challenge its disciples.

Jesus bequeathed a challenge that only His true followers obey: ‘Take up your cross and follow Me.’ (Matthew 16:24). This goes along with ‘Die to yourself that you might live for Christ’ (Galatians 2:20).

The challenge, when taken up, results in the promise of everlasting life.

Come and suffer and be rewarded in heaven for eternity.

Most Christians today do not want to hear the message of the cross—because they do not want to have to take up their own cross. They do not want to be challenged. Modern Christianity (the fluff that is being peddled in countless churches across the land, and the self-involved palaver being lived) is a religion that vows to satisfy all it followers’ earthly desires.

How has our religion been transformed from one of faith in God to one of worship of the self?

The problem stems from a growing spiritual lassitude. Our spiritual teachers are no longer properly leading us, and so we do not grow in our knowledge of God. Some of our teachers are even the devils’ dupes. In their lust for fame and greed for money, they have allowed themselves to become seduced by Satan, and have become false teachers, or Pharisees at best. They are the ones peddling the Word of God. They are the ones who preach to satisfy itching ears (2 Timothy 4:3).

And they are failing us.

Over 100 years ago Charles Sheldon summed up this problem by writing: ‘Our Christianity loves its ease and comfort too well to take up anything so rough and heavy as a cross.’

Where Jesus told us to take up our cross and follow Him, the Christianity of today ignores—or bypasses—the cross, and instead tells us how to improve ourselves, so that we might have everything we want (to satisfy our fleshly desires). It places importance on physical comforts, on the ease of the flesh, whereas Jesus emphasized the crucial need for His followers to look not on the things of the earth (Colossians 3:2). We are to concern ourselves with tending to eternal souls, and not so much on achieving all our worldly dreams.

(Ambition is good, but beware the source and destination of your ambition.)

 

Modern Christianity uses terms like ‘Progressive’ and ‘Corporate’.

Like placebo’s, these cleverly selected pills are (1) easy to swallow and (2) don’t really mean anything at all; they are designed to hide what they actually imply.

Progressive seems to imply an improvement on an established order. That’s good, right? Well, in most cases, sure. But what it really means when applied to our belief system is an overhaul of what the World Council of Churches considers an outmoded version of our faith.

Likewise Corporate seems to refer innocently to a united faith. What it really implies is a separation of church and Christ. After all, the only way to unite disparate faiths is to push Jesus Christ out of our religion—because He brought a sword, to make clear the dividing line between what is righteous and what is wicked, who is His and who is not (Matthew 10:34-36).

Let that sink in.

The World Council of Churches is the modern Roman Catholic Church, in that much like the RCC did for centuries until Martin Luther exposed its corruption and false ways, the WCC now tells churches across the world what to teach. And what it tells pastors and leaders to teach often has very little to do with the will of our heavenly Father.

Rare is the message on Jesus Christ and Him crucified heard in church today.

Why is that?

It is because the mention of the cross is a reminder of our fallen nature. It is a reminder that we are such sinners that we needed our God Himself to come to earth in the form of a man and sacrifice Himself to satisfy an impossible sin-debt. This is why ‘sin’ has become an unmentionable word in many churches. Christians don’t want to hear how we need someone else to save us. Most Christians today just want to hear how they have the power within themselves to improve and save themselves.

Instead of spiritual leaders today we have life-coaches.

The commission of the WCC (which is to unite all religions to create one worldwide faith, whether it admits it as such or not) has driven it to absorb the (Buddhist) belief that mankind can achieve perfection in this world. And so understanding the problem of human existence and the pursuit of personal perfection has become the Christian mission statement, our de-facto religion. Indeed, modern Christian church ‘services’ more closely resemble life-improvement seminars than devotionals and worshiping congregations or old school fire-and-brimstone revival meetings.

The Message, leading to our salvation and therefore the glory of God, is no longer the purpose of Christian churches. Instead their purpose is to bring in the numbers so that revenues will increase; they do this by:

·         Adopting secular musical styles to appeal to unbelievers

·         Compromising core Christian tenets of faith

·         Watering down scripture to make it go down easier for potential financial sources

·         Limiting mention of our Redeemer Jesus Christ

·         Avoiding all mention of the power and grace of the Holy Spirit

·         Teaching a god that is both without will and tolerant of sin (which people today call 'being progressive')

·         Exalting the power of ‘self’ to make people feel powerful and self-sufficient

Why did Jesus Christ come in the flesh?

He came to seek and to save that which was lost, and to make clear the line between saved and unsaved. He did this because He first loved us. To remove Him from church (by ignoring Him and failing to acknowledge His purpose for our lives) is to destroy the reason for church. I love Him, because He first loved me. I know this, and meditate on Matthew 10:16—that we should be ‘wise as serpents, harmless as doves.’

Remember, sufficiency comes not from our own inner strength, but from His grace entirely. ‘And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work’ (2 Corinthians 9:8). Trust your pastor at your own risk. Better to turn to scripture and seek God's guidance there.