I'm Abandoning A Christianity

I am abandoning a Christianity. Heck of a way to start a post on a Christian website, isn't it?

What I’ve just said is the same as saying, “I am leaving behind a specific type of religion.” It is rather surprising how much an indirect article can change the entire meaning of a sentence. I am being disingenuous and facetious and I am doing it for two reasons. One, to test people’s reading comprehension and two, to bait them into my line of thinking….to make themselves think. People are generally lazy thinkers or do not think at all. The professors were correct, 80% of people do not know how to think critically and the end result is a nation of emotional dolts that react to how they feel rather than rationally reacting having actually thought and reasoned.

As it has been said before, the only way people become truly prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks (1 Pet. 3:15) is by wrestling personally with the questions. By wrestling personally with the problems our God allows us to learn something we didn’t know we could learn:  Empathy. Sometimes our questions will not have answers acceptable to us. That is why God is God and we are merely human. We may even become jaded and disenchanted with life and God Himself. They are what I call the “days in the crucible”. You’ll just have to sit in there and roast. We saw them in Job. We saw them in Jeramiah. We saw them in Habakkuk.

I am leaving primarily a Christianity of works and effort. I am leaving behind a Christianity of legalism that says I have to be this way or that what because someone either doesn’t see the analogy of Scripture or principles of Scripture or they are taking isolated pieces of Scripture and forming doctrines around them (similar to Cessationism, paedobaptism, Apostolic succession on Matthew 16:18). I’m leaving behind a Christianity that says I need to accept only freewill or hard determinism. I am leaving behind clichés and grouped Christianity that treats some people as outcasts while it treats others with preference. I am leaving behind a Christianity that is more concerned with how I’ve said something (polished rhetoric) rather than what I’ve said (the Gospel). I’m leaving behind a Christianity that turns a blind eye to 3000 poor people 10 miles away to take missions trips to 10 people 3000 miles away. I am leaving a Christianity whose priorities have been inverted and turned on their head.

I am leaving a Christianity that performs worship to entertain men not for God's glory. I am leaving a Christianity that promulgates men’s traditions but fails to preach the Gospel (the same thing the Roman Catholic Church has done for centuries). I am leaving a Christianity that is more concerned with how men feel but not how God feels about men. I am leaving a Christianity that has made man’s business of God worship or who have brought a business into the church like the money changers in the Temple. I am leaving behind a church that is being shaped too much by the culture and does not affect the culture near enough like a city on a hill.

So yes, I’m leaving a Christianity. The same one no other true believer cares for either. The overtly critical and judgmental Christianity that does not firmly plant its measure of godliness and holiness in the word of God, prayer and meditation on God. The one that views personal preference and personal opinion over God’s will. The one that makes an idol of their own estimations rather than doing what is biblically correct. I'm leaving a Christianity that seeks to be served rather than actually serve.

I’m leaving a Christianity that has me often asking for forgiveness while I wage a war between self-righteousness and unearned grace. Leaving a Christianity that oscillates between the rules of my kingdom and the commandments of the King. A Christianity that says it is in the Kingdom but is in overt rebellion against its King. I choose to walk away from living for my own glory and instead I chose to be consumed by the glory of God.

I will not be leaving these versions of Christianity alone. I will be led by the King. He has told me that I am to avoid these Christianitys.

2 John 1:9-11 ~ Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works.

1 John 4:1-3 ~ Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.

The King, has welcomed me to his kingdom and it is the true Christianity. You know, the one in the Bible? The Christianity that houses the true Church. The one that everyone seems to feel the need to improve upon to make it more relevant and modern? The church that is supposedly so far behind the times that it is close to becoming extinct even though the Bible says Jesus would build it and not even the gates of Hell would not prevail against it. God does not need my help, he asks me for it so that it shapes me into what He wants me to be.

In the end this is not so much a choice as it is a battle. We are called to discern and distinguish when we are being led astray by false teachings. We are not to sit idly by while others who are Bible illiterate derail true Christianity and trick and deceive people into following other forms of false Christianity and other Christ’s that are nothing more than spiritual chimera and lies. We are to tear down anything that exalts itself against the knowledge of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 10:3-4).

I am leaving a Christianity because Jesus essentially told me to.

Mark 7:5-13 ~ And the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not walk according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” And he said to them, “Well did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written, “This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.” You leave the commandment of God and hold to the tradition of men.” And he said to them, “You have a fine way of rejecting the commandment of God in order to establish your tradition! For Moses said, ‘Honor your father and your mother’; and, ‘Whoever reviles father or mother must surely die.’ But you say, ‘If a man tells his father or his mother, “Whatever you would have gained from me is Corban” (that is, given to God) - then you no longer permit him to do anything for his father or mother, thus making void the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And many such things you do.”

Traditions of men, therefore false teaching make void or negate the word of God. By making void the word of God it is satanic and therefore needs to be avoided. I should avoid it. I should leave it.

For these reasons and more I am not just leaving a Christianity, I am leaving a few Christianities. All of them false. The world and its false ideas and twisted ideologies battle for control of our hearts and minds. All of the false ideologies vie for the single spot reserved for the One True Christianity that exalts the One True God. The place that only One is capable of occupying. Thrones were made for only One to sit in. Crowns will reside on only one Head. We shall have no other gods before God. It wasn’t a request, it was a command, an imperative. It is imperative that we obey and see the truth. By freeing ourselves from the false images of false Christianities and images of false Christs we free our souls to see God for who He really is.

So...this isn't really like running away from home from the one I love. It is more like running away from an abusive stranger that didn’t belong in the family to begin with. We are not wards of false religion. We are children of the One True God.

I’m packing my bags and hitting the road. How ‘bout you?