The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 3

I just realized I do not really want to deal with this whole list in any kind of detail. I guess I can do that. After all, it is my blog. Well, ok so it is really Jesus' blog, but I am writing it. At this point I believe I have His permission to hit some of the high points and leave some of the others undone for the time being.

"having a form of godliness, but denying its power." (vs. 5) A form of godliness means what we see only looks like godliness. It is not true godliness. What does godliness look like anyway? Is it men in suits with white shirts and ties and women in long dresses with tresses to match? Oh gosh, I hope not. I do have a few white shirts, but they are leftovers from the brokerage business, not the religion business. Maybe it is a church service where everyone gets a little crazy in praise, moves around, (kind of like dancing) and gets really LOUD? I certainly would not say the people so attired or so inspired are not godly, but the New Testament is replete with references to the fact that our godliness comes from within. Adam and Eve were clothed in light before the fall. That light came from the inside and shone outward just as a bird's feathers or an animal's fur comes from the inside and grows outward. When we depend on external factors to determine godliness, we are instead meeting the definition of religion.

There is no power in religion. We have already talked about this. Religion is a set of rules made by man. There are two different words translated power in the New Testament. I will spare you the Greek writing and even the transliterations. The first word is probably what comes to mind when we think of the word power. It is the ability to accomplish something. That can range anywhere from the power of a tornado to tear up everything in its path to our ability to pick up a straight pin we see laying on the floor. The other word for power is better translated authority. It is the God-given, and usually man delegated, authority to accomplish a purpose. One of the best scriptural examples (and a personal favorite) of how the two concepts work together actually comes from the Old Testament. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a duel of sorts on mount Carmel. As you recall the story recorded in 1 Kings 18:16-39, Elijah challenged King Ahab to call all his prophets (Yes, his prophets.) together on Mount Carmel. Ahab practiced a form of godliness sans the power. You can read the story. The point is Elijah had the authority to call down fire from heaven, but God provided the power and sent the lightening. I have to add a personal note here. Verse 17 of this account records Ahab asking Elijah, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" The Holy Spirit asked me that question when I first encountered the religious spirit in the Santa Maria Valley over 20 years ago. I do not know if you have ever shared a laugh with the Holy Spirit, but we definitely chuckled over that one, or maybe I chuckled and he just smiled.

We gave a couple examples of what a form of godliness looks like earlier. We have not discussed what denying its power means. We must understand that no Christian (we hope) actually expresses a denial of God's power. In fact, various groups such as many Presbyterians and most Southern Baptists accord virtually all power to God to accomplish anything. What is more often done, and even this is done ignorantly, is to omit the power of God. Whole groups of evangelical Christians have doctrinally removed the Holy Spirit from doing much of anything in these last days. The problem with this position is really very simple, or at least it seems so to me. Jesus said, "...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me..." (Acts 1:8) We can easily see the power to be witnesses comes with the Holy Spirit. This is the ability to be witnesses. Did they not already have the ability to be witnesses? They were, after all, witnesses of the things Jesus said and did. A witness testifies, tells what he knows. That is the easy part. The difficult part is who the witness is telling. In this case, the disciples would be witnessing to virtually everyone, but always more or less under the watchful eye of the Pharisees and Saducees, the religious powers that be at the time. There is always a twofold problem in telling someone who has authority in an area anything. First, one needs to be certain of the facts. Secondly, one must have the courage to actually challenge the authorities. The disciples had the facts. They were witnesses, but the Holy Spirit gave them the courage, the ability, to confront the error of the religious leaders. The error, we know, was not so much theological as that they were being influenced by a religious spirit. The whole purpose of our exercise here is to demonstrate the underlying reason for the error. It is not about deciding who is right and who is wrong. God knows, and we know, any of us can be wrong at any given time. I sincerely doubt there is anyone who is wrong about everything or right about everything. A religious spirit will not allow a person outside it's closed circle to be right if that person disagrees with the group inside the circle. Likewise, the people inside the circle are always right whenever they disagree with people outside the circle. I once left a local church after just a few weeks when I realized I could never be right if I disagreed with the pastor. I am sorry, but I believe I am right sometimes. I am going to assume that since you are reading this, you agree.

How did we get here from there? We were discussing the power source, if you will, the Holy Spirit. There are some powerless people, church fellowships, and whole denominations because they do not understand the present working of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it was good for him to go away because the Holy Spirit could not come until he left. (John 16:7) This is a shockingly simple revelation that many people have either overlooked or simply never thought much about. Each person of the Godhead has his own time for ministry on the earth. In those times, or dispensations (not talking dispensational theology here) we see only one of the persons of the Godhead doing the main work on earth. God the Father worked until Jesus began his ministry. Jesus worked for a brief period of time as a man and when he left, he sent the Holy Spirit to continue his work until he comes back again. Do not let that be so simple it confounds you.

Most of us have seen the bumper sticker that reads, "Know Jesus Know Peace, No Jesus No Peace". It is a clever concept and certainly true. However, it is equally true to say, "Have Holy Spirit Have Power, No Holy Spirit No Power." We are, after all, spiritual beings clothed in flesh. Flesh has its own limitations and no source of real power without the Holy Spirit. There are many more people attempting to minister for God in their own power, the power of the soul (mind, emotions and will) than we would like to believe. Many more of us frequently lapse back into our minds when we miss what the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate to us through our spirits. How much farther ahead we would be were we to not do anything at all until we knew what the Holy Spirit is telling us.