"Those heretical teachers go to great lengths to flatter you, but their motives are rotten. They want to shut you out of the free world of God's grace so that you will always depend on them for approval and direction, making them feel important.
Chapter 5:1-6
Christ has set us free to live a free life. So take your stand! Never again let anyone put a harness of slavery on you.
I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ's hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.
I suspect you would never intend this, but this is what happens. When you attempt to live by your own religious plans and projects, you are cut off from Christ, you fall out of grace. Meanwhile we expectantly wait for a satisfying relationship with the Spirit. For in Christ, neither our most conscientious religion nor disregard of religion amounts to anything. What matters is something far more interior: faith expressed in love."
I’m not sure if I can make my point any clearer than this. Think about it. What is your first inclination when confronted by a person that wants to know about what you believe? Mine was to invite them to my church service. How odd. I’m not comfortable enough to express the love, the freedom and the passion that Jesus clearly showed to me to another person. Instead, I’ll invite him/her to an organized religion that possibly can put on an exciting show and have the pastor say the right, emotional moving, words that will get them to walk down the aisle to the song “Just as I am”, sobbing at the arousing drama being played on the stage. Yup!! That’s the Jesus I know. Thanks, but I’d rather stick with the “faith expressed in love” than go with anything else.
I attended a Catholic Wedding Mass this weekend. I was filled with rage. The kind that made me want to flip over the tables and beat the shit out of those that took my Father’s Love and made it into a pathetic spectacle. The whole building was full of spiritual slaves whose main focus was to pay attention to what ever the man wearing a white costume would say (he had a chair that was remarkably similar to a throne) and repeat a stupid line that made no sense whatsoever. There was no rejoicing, excitement, wonder or anything else that one might experience when knowing my Father. There were a lot of frowns. Most of those that attended were looking as if they lost their puppy that their mom got them for Christmas. Just because its tradition means that they have missed the light for centuries.
posted by Tera @ 10:07 AM
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