This Might Be It...

This might be the last post to this blog. Before you get too disappointed and whiney and start crying on me, let me explain.

It was over four years ago that I started writing this blog. The purpose was, and still is, to expose the workings of the religious spirit that has way too much influence over the churches in the Santa Maria valley. To this day, I am not sure there are more than a handful of people who believe that really is a problem. I think I have made the case pretty well and am not sure there is anything left to say. Besides that, everything has to come to an end sometime.

It does not really seem right to be writing about things that really are not important to me in order to make some money. On the other hand it does not seem right to write about what is important to make some money. Did you understand that? What is important to me is to open the minds of both Christians and non-Christians to all the possibilities of the Kingdom of God.

You see, I have had something happen to me lately that I do not quite understand. I had the Holy Spirit impress me to read the prophets. I will admit it has been quite awhile since I did that. I had not even completed reading Isaiah when I noticed my mind had changed about pretty much everything in my life. I am not sure anything really changed, but everything seemed better, like my whole life had somehow generally changed for the better. I am not going to go into detail, but literally everything in my life just seems to be falling into place and making sense. (Do not ask me to explain that because I am not really sure what I am talking about. I am just much more optimistic about God being in control.)

To summarize, this blog began as an expose' of a religious spirit, written for The Church in Santa Maria and, by extension, the whole Church. That reason now seems to have run it's course. My new perspective is that there are a lot of people who could have their lives changed by an encounter with Jesus. (Duh!) The problem is that most of them do not want to hear it at all.

I am currently in my second tour of counseling people with substance abuse problems in places where any form of "religious" discussion is taboo. The good news about that is the Holy Spirit always has a way of getting to them. As I have written before, "God's will does not always make sense initially, but it always makes sense ultimately."

This post was originally written to introduce a new venture in blogging. That did not work out the way I had hoped it would in the time frame I needed to have it happen. I am back to thinking about what to, whether to, and how to do something similar, but maybe not exactly the same. One, more time, if that did not make sense to you, no worries. I am not at all sure what it means either. Thanks for reading and God bless!

Competing Voices

We often have a problem distinguishing the voices we hear. We are not talking about your friends, mother, father, spouse, employer, etc. We are talking about voices that cannot be confined to any particular person, but may be combinations of some of those voices. That probably sounds a little confusing. Hopefully it will make more sense by the time we finish here.

I write a blog as you all know. Sometimes people make comments to posts on the blog. It is my decision to determine whether to post those comments, edit them, and/or respond to them. My decision is to publish all comments as they are written. (Although I have recently had to rethink that position because I seem to be getting spam comments of late. Any that appear to be spam will not be published.) There once was a dissenting voice to that decision. That voice was made up of multiple voices supposedly representing a multitude of voices. That voice gave me the option of taking down the whole blog or finding another local church with which to fellowship. I firmly believe the Holy Spirit directed the writing of this blog, and in fact, it was within the confines of that same, local church that I originally recognized the working of the religious spirit in this area. I assume you know which option I chose.

When confronted with the voice of man or the voice of the Holy Spirit, I feel confident most all of us would choose to follow the latter. We do have scriptural precedent for that, by the way. Acts chapter 5, starting at verse 17 tells the story of Peter and friends being told by a religious spirit (Yes, I know it was speaking through the high priest at the time.) to cease and desist from preaching the name of Jesus, healing people, casting out demons, and leading people to faith in Jesus as the Christ. (Loose paraphrase.) If you go back and look at that passage, you will notice an angel speaking to Peter, telling him what he should do. The voice of the angel is in direct dissent with that of the high priest. Recall that the high priest, at that time in history, had, to some measure, the power of life and death over the Jews. It was he and his associates that had convinced Pilate to crucify Jesus. Peter chose to listen to the voice of the angel rather than that of the high priest. The end result was the disciples received a spanking from the high priest and went on about their business, making thousands more disciples.

My motivational gift (Romans 12) is not encouragement. However, some have found encouragement from my life or my words from time to time. That is the way it should be when we are operating in God's kingdom.   Paul asks the question in 1 Corinthians 14:43, "How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation..." Whenever people gather together, Jesus is there to minister to them and to those they touch (Matthew 18:20). It does not matter what gifts they may or may not have. It is the Holy Spirit who is doing the work.

The purpose of this post is simply to encourage the author and the readers to consider what voices they may be listening to. Hopefully, the answer is the voice of God. The voice of God? How does one know if one is actually hearing the voice of God? This is one of those concepts that is so simple, we have made it much too difficult. It must agree with the written Word of God. Note, it is not that it must agree with what anyone else thinks the Word says, but rather what the Word actually says. If you do not understand that, 1 John 2:27 might help. If it does not, hit me up with a comment or an email to thechurchinsantamariaca@gmail.com. God bless.

Let Me Build My Kingdom First--Part 4.2

Sometimes I just do not understand what God is doing. (sic.) Somewhere in these pages I told the story of my telling a local pastor that God told me something. His response was that my hearing from God was of great concern to him. He then offered to pay for me to visit a Christian psychologist so we could find out why I thought I was hearing from God. What is wrong with that picture? Anyone who follows my teaching knows immediately. Psychologists, Christian or otherwise, practice (and I do mean practice) in the area of the soul. That dear readers is the essential problem with The Church in north America today. Not only do the leaders, (pastors, teachers, authors, etc.) operate all too often in the soulical realm, the rank and file members of The Church do not have the discernment to know it is happening. To be fair, neither do the people doing it realize they are. Oh wait, that is the problem that creates the problem. Or something like that.

(Now I am really baffled. That paragraph looks like it should be the first paragraph of the new post I already have a title for, but I am pretty sure it goes here. Oh well, we will forge ahead anyway and see where this goes.)

Humility is impossible when we are operating according to what we think is right. This is where it gets really dicey. That sounds completely counter-intuitive. We have to do what we think is right. It is just that our concepts of right and wrong have to be right. We have to have a standard against which to measure right and wrong. As Christians the only standard we can use is the Bible. We can quote our favorite people in the faith whether they be  G. Campbell Morgan, Watchman Nee, Jack Hayford, Bill Winston or whomever, but if we allow any one of them to be our authority for right and wrong we have slipped into wrong.

(Okay, I get it now. The title of the next post is "Competing Voices" which follows this very nicely. The teaching on the grace of God will have to wait a little longer.)

The prevailing thought within The Church today seems to be that bigger is better. Well, let me tell you, that is the prevailing thought in the world. If that is the best we can do as Christians we are in real trouble. Come to think of it, being in real trouble, and not recognizing it, is the whole purpose for this blog.

We are either about building the Kingdom of God or we are about building our own kingdoms--always. The truly humble man or woman has come to realize that when he or she works at building God's Kingdom, God gets busy building his or her kingdom so that person will have the treasures to bring out of his or her storehouse to meet the needs of others. We all have something someone else needs. Humility dictates we offer it to them without regard to whether they receive it or not.

"...Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old." Matthew 13:52

God bless!

Let Me Build My Kindgom First, Part 4

Sometimes, as people, we tend to leave things unfinished. This happens for any number of reasons. We get busy with something else and never get back to what we were doing. Children and husbands are especially good at this one. Perhaps we simply procrastinate. We think we will get to it, or back to it, but we just do not. Something like that happened to this post. Let us just say, I was not ready to write it when I wrote the first three installments in this series over a year ago. Hopefully I am now and it will make some kind of sense to you readers. God has a tendency to put things on hold until we are ready for the next step. He is always ready to take us to new levels of understanding, insight, and revelation, but He is never going to push us beyond what we are able or open to receive.

We have been going through the fourth chapter of James' epistle on Saturday evenings. Some version of fellowship has been more important lately so it seems to be taking the whole teaching time to get through just a couple verses on any given evening. That is just as well, since the book of James can be pretty intense. He does not mince words in pointing out our shortcomings. Pardon me if I am simply slower than you are, but I recently realized I had always thought James was writing to someone else. I mean, how could "adulterers and adulteresses" in verse 4 apply to me? Then it gets worse.

But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: "God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble." (vs. 6) There is a lot of teaching going around of late on the subject of grace. In fact, the other post I did not finish over a year ago is on that subject. Some of the teaching on grace going around is good, some very good and some not so good. More on that in the next post--or at least the one I intend to finish soon. For the purposes of this post, we simply want to point out that it is the humble who receive the grace of God. That, of course, begs the question of who the humble are who would be eligible to receive that grace; what is it that qualifies one to receive grace? And I would be remiss were I not to ask, "Is it my lack of humility that is blocking more of God's grace in my life?" (Do not be too quick to answer that question for me.)

I am a very blessed person by most people's standards. I have a wonderful, and growing family and circle of friends, good health, plenty of "things", and all my daily needs are met. Were those standards, God's full measure of grace, I must be a model of humility. Except I am not. I still say and do things I should not. I am too quick to point out the shortcomings of others. I have even been known to mutter foul language under my breath when things are not going as I would like them to. (True and something of an embarrassing confession.)

It is probably best here to just make the point and let you all decide the truth of it for yourselves. Here it is. Ready? Drum-roll please. There is more grace available than we have ever imagined, but we are not seeing it because we have a skewed idea of what humility is.

Well, the Holy Spirit will not let me write any more on this post. I am assuming that is because there is too much more to say. So I am going to hit the publish button--after the "preview" and probably the "check spelling" and "edit" buttons. Then on to part 4.2 and we will see what happens. See you there. God bless!

Same Blog, Different Post

It seemed like a long time since I had written in this space. That was confirmed when I logged in and saw the previous post was written over two months ago. The interesting thing about that is there has not been much complaint from people who have read this blog in the past. I may be over-analyzing things, but that would lead me to believe either, no one is reading it anymore, or the readers are simply not being vocal about my recent lack of writing anything in this space. I believe I will go with the latter concept and feel better about myself.

Lately I have not been feeling so good about myself. I started a new, part-time job, working with people who have run afoul of the law for driving under the influence of one intoxicating substance or another, usually alcohol. That has solved any financial stress, but I am once again into a situation in which people are forced to come see me. I always prefer it when people want to see me. Maybe I am simply hoping for too much.

In any event, it is sometime shortly after 5:00 AM on a Sunday morning, when most, sane people should be asleep and I am watching words appear on my computer screen in hopes that I can later publish them for someone who cares. I know it's a God thing because even I do not do this, at this time, by choice. I do not even do this blog by choice. Not really. If I did, I probably would have taken it down a couple years ago when it became a point of contention between the elders in the church I was attending and me. My only guess there is that it was time for me to leave that church and they figured it out before I did. I still do not understand it, but, if you are reading this, you likely think this blog is more important than what men might say about it. I will only partially, grudgingly agree. There was a time when I thought I might have written the last post. It crossed my mind at the time that the blog might morph into something more of a teaching kind of thing than a lonely voice in the wilderness, as it were. It now begins to look as though that is not the case.

All that is to say, I have been a little distracted with some of the affairs of life that I thought might have been sorted out by now. There are still some that seem to be unresolved, but perhaps this post serves to get things going in the right direction again. I noticed at log in that there have been 5900 odd page views over the whole time this blog has existed. I know most of them are not mine so thank you if you continue to read what is posted here. I now expect to be writing a little more often, whatever that means. Then next post should have more substantive content, but we shall see about that. In the meantime, pray for me if I come to mind. God bless!

Outside Influences

I may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but sometimes I do realize when things happen in such a way that only God could have been behind them. In those situations, I am always reminded of a definition of "coincidence" I saw many years ago. Coincidence is when God performs a miracle and chooses to remain anonymous.

Yesterday two different emails came into my in-box from unrelated, but high-profile men of God. (Well, the emails came from the same person, but the articles they contained were from those two men.) They had the common thread of being from men who love The Church, the body of Christ, but who are also objective enough to see that the manifestation of the The Church in 2013 is not a perfect Church, "...not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing..." (Ephesians 5:27) Of course these men were speaking to The Church generally, but we must see their words as applicable to the smaller part of the body here.

Os Hillman writes, "In the early church there was an emphasis on developing a heart toward God. This was the Hebraic way...Loss of intimacy with God has been...a result of the influence of the Greek spirit. The primary focus has been teaching and discipleship instead of the development of a personal and intimate relationship with God. This has resulted in a form of religion, but one without power."

Jack Hayford writes, "We're within frightening reach of being able to grow bigger churches while failing to grow bigger people. We are increasingly tooled and trained in technology and management techniques, better resourced with music and media effects, and better housed and staged for added consumer appeal...Amid our heavyweight enterprises at refining style, we are growing weak in substance."

Thankfully it does not take a genius to see these two mighty men of God are asking questions about how The Church is and how it should be. Do they recognize what they are describing are observable affects of religious spirits at work within The Church? Of course, we cannot answer for them, but knowing one of them personally and the other through his writings I feel comfortable saying they both know the truth of Ephesians 6:12, "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." If you are not willing to take my word for it, perhaps you can take their word for it. We are locked in spiritual battle that will likely affect The Church until Jesus returns. At present it is not perfect, but we can make a difference once we recognize the real enemy and fight it wherever we find it. God bless!

Who I Am

Author's note:  It was eleven months ago, more or less, that I started this post. The balance just would not seem to come. I am leaving it as it was and finishing it. As a result, since it is not in chronological order, it may seem a little disjointed at least at the beginning. Thankfully, all you faithful readers of this blog are also intelligent enough to re-order as necessary and fill in the blanks.

As I wrote at the end of the previous post, it might have been awhile until there was another one. I just have to get on the same page with the Holy Spirit--and sooner would be better.

It is not difficult to imagine people reading many of the posts to this blog, especially the last two and asking themselves, "Who does he think he is?" It seems like it might be a good idea to answer that question. I know the answer to the question and many of my friends do as well. Here it is for the rest of you.

I am pretty sure they would not mind, as long as I give them credit, so I am going to let the recording group, Casting Crowns begin to help answer the question at hand.

I am a flower quickly fading
Here today and gone tomorrow
A wave tossed in the ocean
Vapor in the wind

Still You hear me when I'm calling
Lord You catch me when I'm falling
And You've told me who I am
I am Yours

Not because of who I am
But because of what You've done
Not because of what I've done
But because of who You are
I am Yours. Whom shall I fear, 'cause I am Yours.

I am nobody really. Then again I am somebody because somebody had to call our attention to the workings of a religious spirit--whether we listened or not. Now God is on record and we are responsible. Somebody had to do it and nobody else did. I will admit to possibly having delusions of granduer thinking that some of this blog could be turned into a book someday. Judging by the numbers of people reading the posts such a book might well sell twenty copies. Okay so it was not my best idea ever.

With that said, the blog is turning a corner (subject to change of course) to becoming more of...hmmm. It looks as though the blog is going to take a more practical turn. We will be doing a little more teaching, but our focus will be on countering the religious spirit through our actions. (I have no idea what I am writing about now, so I guess we will all find out together.) What I can tell you is, that at my age, one would think I should know a lot more than I do. What can I say? When I know it, you will know it because God has given us, "...this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us." (2 Corinthians 4:7) Some of us are just older dirt than others, and those who are have a responsibility to pass along what we have learned. I am taking that responsibility perhaps just a little more seriously and personally now. God bless!

Still More on the Religious Spirit--Part 2

I am feeling a little provoked by a comment to this blog this morning. That is not a bad thing. Maybe it gets me back to something I should have done--in fact thought I would have done--several weeks ago. If you read the last post, it likely seemed incomplete. It seemed the same to me as well. I had thought there would be a follow-up and explanation sooner than this. Today I moderated a comment, which you can read, asking whether the next installment were coming soon. It is.

Did you take any time at all to meditate on the verses from James? They were chapter 3 verses 13 through 18 if you want to take a second look. To rehearse just a bit, the phrases "meekness of wisdom" and "bitter envy and self-seeking" from verses 13 and 14 are set in juxtaposition with one another meaning one or the other is our state. This applies to each and every one of us and to everything we do. To be as simple and straightforward as possible, we do everything from one of those two motivations. We are either acting in wisdom, which meekness tells us is not our own, but is from above, or our motivation is self-seeking. James even strengthens self-seeking by telling us that comes from bitter envy. If that does not initiate an "ouch" in your spirit, well, you might want to spend a little more time thinking about it.

I am fairly confident that I have never actually met a person who does absolutely everything in meekness of wisdom. I will give something like a shout out to the late Rev. Dale Holford. He is a great man and I still miss him being here on earth for me to talk with on occasion. He was in his late seventies when we had several conversations about people who acted out of self-seeking. He gave me some eternal perspective, which I, of course, did not fully appreciate at the time. The thing about a person who operates in the meekness of wisdom is that he or she is meek enough to understand the wisdom does not come from them and also too meek to tell you that. (Were this a Psalm, there would be a "Selah" there.) It is hard to find people like that.

In juxtaposition, finding people who are self-seeking is not difficult at all. They are literally everywhere. Of course I have to be very careful with my examples lest I become convicted myself. However, since this blog is really about the religious spirit, it might be best to take our examples from it's activities. (Whew, I was afraid I was writing myself into a corner there.) Okay, I am just going to tell you how I was first affected by a religious spirit, before I had any idea what it was. It was a lot of years ago and is going to be new information to most of you. Give me a little grace please.

Eugene Ryan was my speech teacher at Hancock College in the early 1970s. I really did not like the man at first. In fact I tried to change teachers, but was not able to do so. Today, I credit "Old Man Ryan" as he once referred to himself, for whatever ability I have to teach, preach, and speak as well as I do. He was a stickler for proper grammar, pronunciation, enunciation, and even posture during our classroom speeches. He taught me a lot and I found out during the two classes I had with him that I was more at ease doing public speaking than many of the other students were. That translated well to Bible college and homiletics classes. By and by I found that I really enjoyed people telling me how good I was at it. I mean I enjoyed it to the point that receiving the accolades became more important than teaching people how to live better lives--which, after all, is the point of sermonizing. I trust I have said enough that you understand the point? If not, then let me say, it was more important to me to be thought well of than to have lives changed by what I was doing.

This is getting a little longer than it probably should be so to sum up as briefly as possible, when we do things because they make us feel good, we are in danger of participating in what James called, "earthly, sensual, demonic" wisdom. (Think religious spirit.) We may be able to revisit this concept in the future, but if you can handle one more counter-intuitive thought, operating in the "meekness of wisdom" will make you feel good. That good feeling will come from the spirit rather than the soul. When we get to that point, literally everything in our lives will ascend on a heavenly trajectory. God bless!

Still More on the Religious Spirit

I have a few fans, probably not enough to have to take off my shoes to count them. That is unless one counts persons related to me by blood or marriage. Most of them seem to be more or less on my side most of the time. Then we get into some impressive numbers. I tell you that because a couple of those few fans refuse to let me go to seed. They insist I continue doing some of the things I used to do before I became distracted with the things of life. That said, I have no idea where we were in this blog and without re-reading major portions of it, I may very well repeat myself, just so you know. However, speaking of repeating myself, that might do us all some good.
If you are like me, you rarely find much to disagree with in these writings. To be sure, you may be challenged or perhaps even offended. At my age, I am fairly confident that I am not the one doing the offending. If you do not understand that concept, you are likely also affected with the Laodicean spirit (Revelation 3:14-22, but especially see verse 17). Hey, I am not writing this to make friends. As I said, I already have a handful. My disclaimer, of course is, if the shoe fits you can always throw a fit before accepting the fact that your feet need the extra support. (If anyone understands that, please leave a comment. It is intentionally oblique--I think.) Seriously folks, I have a good imagination, but some of this stuff surprises me when I read it.
So, more about the religious spirit. Occasionally I have a flash of revelation and sometimes my mind is still sharp enough to grasp it. For those of you who think there is no longer revelation given, get over it. We do not have time for a Greek lesson here, but there are two words translated, "knowledge" in the New Testament. One of them means things we have learned, or experiential knowledge. The other is things we simply know. The latter speaks of things given directly by the Holy Spirit. To be clear, if you did not learn a thing, but you know it, it came to you by revelation. Hopefully your revelation comes from the Holy Spirit and not from what Yoda would call, "The dark side of the force."
James 3:13-18 are often, incorrectly lumped together with the previous verses in the chapter. However, if one looks closely, the thought changes so the end of the chapter stands alone.
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. 16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. 17 But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. 18 Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
A pastor friend once told me that he felt impressed to preach from the book of James in his Sunday morning service. The message just would not seem to come. By Saturday he was almost in a panic because he still was not sure how to formulate his sermon for the following day. He walked onto the platform Sunday morning and suddenly realized all he was supposed to do was read the text as his sermon. He explained that he knew preaching from James would offend people because they would be convicted about their thoughts, actions, and lifestyles. He had no desire to offend anyone.
A wonderful thing about the Word of God is that it does not need any help to convict people. In fact Hebrews 4:12 tells us the Word of God is a sword that separates spirit and soul. Depending on one's perspective, it is either very freeing to have the spirit liberated from the soul or very painful to have soul trying to function without the spirit. That is to say, I am not going to give any further commentary on the passage from James above, at least not now. Meditate it if you dare. Pay careful attention to the phrases, "meekness of wisdom" and "bitter envy and self-seeking." Those are either or propositions. We all fall into one of those categories. Put on the shoe that fits and determine if you need a new pair. God willing, the next installment will not be so long in coming. God bless!

Let Me Build My Kindgom First, Part 3

"So he said, 'I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build greater, and there I will store all my crops and my goods." (Luke 12:18)

What is wrong with this picture? This man seems to be making a good business decision given that God had blessed him with such abundance he had no place to store it. The problem is, nothing in the teachings of Jesus indicate we are ever to store things on earth. In fact, to the contrary, we are told, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth..." (Matthew 6:19) This is why the only scriptural mentions of a storehouse are in the Old Testament--well, except when Jesus teaches the birds do not have one. (Luke 12:24) The whole concept of the storehouse is largely misunderstood to be a place where things are brought and stored for sometime in the future. The storehouse of Malachi is actually the pantry for the people who have need of the things stored there, first for the full-time ministers, the Priests and Levites. By God's word the Isrealites were to care for each other as, and also strangers among them as needs arose. Note that the storehouse received "things", the offerings of food and goods that were used in worship. The monetary offerings were taken to the treasury rather than the storehouse. This is just another scriptural teaching that has become polluted and diluted down through the Church age.

If the previous concept has not caused enough of a rub in your theology, consider Ephesians 4:12 which tells us succinctly what the job of the "professional clergy" is. Their sole responsibility is, "...equipping the saints for the work of the ministry."  What is the salary these professional clergy men and women are to receive? (No answer is forthcoming here. Since this is Easter week, if you go on a search and find the answer let us know.) God's intention is that every Christian be working full-time in the ministry regardless of his or her occupation. To be sure, the workman is worthy of his wages. (1 Timothy 5:18) Would it not be better to, "Let him who is taught the word share in all good things with him who teaches."?

Although we would be loathe to admit it, we usually consider kingdom building here on earth to consist of lands and buildings supported by hundreds and thousands of people who bring their freewill offerings to those buildings on the appointed days to be used primarily for the maintenance of those buildings and to pay the salaries and benefits of those who work there full-time. Before you argue with that statement ask yourself who was the last person you heard say it is about people, not buildings, from a small building. We do buildings like almost any earthly business does. Do we not? (This is getting ugly.)

Admittedly, much of what is being done in and by churches needs to be done to fulfill the great commission of Matthew 28:19, "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." Church buildings do provide places for the necessary services to congregations and communities such as facilitating worship, fellowship, and teaching. They can be used as bases for sending ministers out to do their work, feeding the poor, housing the homeless, and providing emergency relief. Even in that partial listing we see that most churches do not do all those things.

In his 1986 book, Biblical Eldership, Alexander Strauch suggests a church with minimal paid staff--and no professional clergy. Shortly after the book was published, a pastor friend confided in me that he wanted to throw the book across the room when he first read it. In contrast, about the same time, I also met a man who attended a church which decided Mr. Strauch was onto something and was staffed by volunteer clergymen. To each his own, as the saying goes.

The nagging and uncomfortable question remains as to whether we, as The Church, are building the kingdom of God or building something for ourselves? We could go on and on and on and... We will not, knowing that some will chew on these concepts and some will discard them out of hand. Some will wonder as to our intention in pointing them out. That is the intention--to point them out. Period. God bless.

Let Me Build My Kingdom First, Part 2

"But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." (Matthew 6:33) It seems like such a simple concept, which is probably why most of us do not give it a lot of thought. After all, does that not just mean to put God first when we make our decisions? In some sense perhaps it does. We do have to decide what we are going to do. However, if you read my last few sentences carefully, you noticed the phrase, "we make our decisions."  In order to do that properly we would have to understand the entire plan of God for our lives. How would that even be possible? In fact, we are not to be making our decisions. If you have had as many of your decisions go wrong as I have you may have come to realize there is a lot of responsibility in doing so. Have you ever thought, "I just wish someone else would tell me what to do?" If that is you, I have some great news for you!

So what does it mean to seek God's kingdom first? Simply put, it means that His business is more important than our business. Jesus said He only did what He saw the Father doing. (John 5:19) Jesus understood that He had to put God's kingdom above and before anything else--including Himself and His desires. He was God in human flesh. He came to be our example of how to live and by extension, how to seek the kingdom of God first. We cannot do any less if we expect to see God's kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. (Matthew 6:10)

Possibly the best example we see in the Bible, outside Jesus Himself, of seeking the kingdom of God first is recorded in the Old Testament. It is an excellent example of the rewards of putting God's business above one's own business. In 1 Kings 3, we have a record of a conversation between God and King Solomon. You can read the account in 1 Kings 3:5-14 if you need the refresher, but space does not allow us to reprint the whole passage here.

God appeared to Solomon in a dream. Do not let that be a problem to you. Remember, the Holy Spirit had very limited ministry during that period of history. God told Solomon to ask Him for whatever he wanted. Whatever he wanted? Read it for yourself. There are no limits in God's instruction. God almost seemed surprised--and definitely pleased--when Solomon asked for an understanding heart and discernment to judge the people rather than asking anything for himself. God said he gave Solomon what he asked and because he had not asked for anything for himself, He also gave him riches and honor. In fact, the passage is very clear that God made Solomon the wisest, most discerning, and the wealthiest man in the world. Solomon put God's business first and everything else he could have wanted was added to him as well. If it worked in the Old Testament, it will work for us now even better. So how do we do that?

I am coming to understand how God wants me to put His kingdom first. First, He wants me to ask Him what I should be doing before I make decisions. We are not going to bother God by asking what His will is in any given situation. Secondly, it means listening for the direction and guidance of the Holy Spirit all the time. These are things we should be doing intentionally, but often sort of back into. Even when we get it wrong--or do not get it at all--God causes all things to work together for our good. (Romans 8:28) I got a little lesson about that just hours before I sat down to write this. I was walking to the store. About a block from home, I had to turn back. Trust me. I had to, but it would be in bad taste to tell you why. When I finished at home the thought came that I was delayed for a reason. When I got to the store, a friend I have seen only a couple times in the past several years was there. He had forgotten his wallet and needed $1.00. I was able to give him one. We also exchanged some information that might be important. Had I not been delayed, I would not have seen him.

The things above are a few of the things I have come to understand about putting God's kingdom first. I trust and believe that as I get better at that, there will be many, many things added to me as well. I have no idea what that means exactly, but it is going to be good. What I cannot tell you is what you should be doing to put God's kingdom first. I am quite certain none of us thinks I am the Holy Spirit. Seek God and follow His directions. If you just do not hear anything, open the manual (Bible). His whole will is revealed right there. God bless!

Let Me Build My Kingdom First, Part 1

This is my confession. We have to start here so everyone knows I am not simply casting stones.

I just ended a five-day fast. Praise God! (Both for the five-days and for the end of it.) Anyone who knows me knows about the only thing I have ever gotten out of fasting is hungry. I am what some have called a "slow faster." For about the past two years I have stuck to the only diet plan that has ever really helped me lose weight. I made it up myself, but it is not copyrighted so you can use it too. It is really quite simple. Cut down on sugar intake. Then only eat when you are hungry and quit eating when you are satisfied. It worked for me to the tune of about twenty pounds over that time. It also enabled me to eat just one hearty meal a day and something more like snacks three or for times a day and feel satisfied. That is just to say, going from there to a total fast is not as difficult as if one were eating three square meals a day. However, unaccustomed as I am to fasting, and advancing in years, it still hurt by the third day--and did not get any better. I did learn some things and broke a bondage or two which is the purpose of this series of posts.

Jesus told us to, "Seek first the kingdom of God..." (Matthew 6:33) That is the subtitle of the next post, but we should start thinking about it now because it really is the essence of the entire series. I am going to guess that most of us are in the boat together in that we have no earthly conception of what it means to seek God's kingdom first. Now, before you get outraged by that statement, take a breath and tell yourself what it means. selah If you were able to do that, you are not in the boat with us. You can stop reading now if you want to. You might still want to read the next post, however.

Like most of you, I have read Jesus' words about seeking God's kindgom first many times and have heard several teachings on them over the years. In fact, I would probably say I thought I was seeking God's kingdom first. After all, I go to church every week (sometimes my wife makes me) and I give more than ten percent of my income to Christian ministries. I even do daily devotions and am reading a chronological Bible that will get me through the whole Bible in a year. What else can I do?

Seeking God's kingdom is not a matter of what we do. Although who we are is of the utmost importance to God, it is not even about that. It is a matter of priorities. Some readers were just hit with a jolt of revelation. That is what happened to me as well a couple nights ago. How have we (I) missed things like that? When we are told to seek something first, that indicates the top of a priority list. That in turn indicates there are other things which must not be at the top of the priority list--like everything else.

My confession is that I am a soul-first individual and I have only just realized it. In worldly terms we would say I was ignorant. Spiritually speaking, we would say I was deceived. Of course I would like to put all that in the past tense--and hopefully will be able to do that soon. The soul-first individual says to God, when confronted with the words of Jesus we are discussing, "Let me build my kindgom first." He does not usually even say "please."

See if any of the following quotes correlate with your experience:
"I have to finish my education first."
"I have to get a job first."
"I have to get married first."
"I have to have some money first."
Now again, if you are not guilty of any of those things you may stop reading. Where are your priorities? It was the last one that got me. Of course, then again, I have all the others, sort of.

If this has been as much fun for you as it has for me, look forward to doing it again soon. Part 2 coming up. God bless.

The Religious Spirit is the Spirit of the Law, Part 2

It is amazing that anyone could believe there is not a religious spirit over the Santa Maria valley. We have talked with many people over the years who have spiritually discerned the presence of a religious spirit. Evil spirits are masters of disguise, but one does not even need spiritual discernment to know the church in the Santa Maria valley is not The Church God intends for it to be. We are coming up woefully short of God's best. Let me be as fair as I know how here. Maybe the church is being The Church somewhere in this valley. Please do not keep it a secret any longer. Let us know where you are. (Read the rest of the post and use it as a checklist before making that claim.)


Some mistake the religious spirit for a controlling spirit. Certainly the religious spirit exhibits many forms of control. We have frequently written about that in these pages. The best way to distinguish the two is probably to say that a controlling spirit works through people to control other people whereas a religious spirit works through religious systems to accomplish the same end. In both situations, the end result is to coerce the rank-and-file to do what the leadership thinks they ought to do. That has more in common with law than grace. In the context of the church, this eliminates the possibility of the church truly being Holy Spirit led. The Holy Spirit does not check with the powers that be in the church before He moves. In fact, it seems the Holy Spirit takes great delight in surprising people--in a good way of course.


It just occurred to me that many of you readers have no idea what the Church is supposed to look like. In which case, you might be inclined to think the church in Santa Maria is doing as well as can be expected. Let us ask ourselves a few questions to see how we measure up against scripture.


Do we love one another and demonstrate that love so that people know we are disciples of Jesus? (John 13:35) One need not look far in this valley to find people who are hurting because they have been abused by leaders in one church or another. Strike one! Do we see signs following those who believe to the extent people are being physically healed wherever they go? (Mark 16:18) Oh, we do see healings, but it seems to be more accidental than intentional most of the time. Call that strike two. Is the Lord adding to the church daily? (Acts 2:47) Maybe. Does the church have all things in common? (Acts 2:44) Oh please, The Church gets together once a year, one Thursday in May for the national day of prayer. We all fit into the smaller exhibit hall at the Fair Park. That is the best we do. Strike three!

To say it plainly, we have a long way to go if we want to truly be The Church Jesus came to save from an enemy who seeks only to steal and to kill and to destroy. (John 10:10) Never mind even getting to the last part of the verse and having an abundant life. We know people who would say they have an abundant life. Most of those people are meeting in rented buildings or buildings with mortgages on them. Some do better, but they still have to ask for special offerings for special needs. Moses had to stop the people from bringing gifts for the building of the tabernacle.

There is still room for improvement. There will always be room for improvement while we live on the earth. Do not allow the enemy of our souls to deceive you any longer into thinking what you see in this valley is as good as can be expected. God is able to do exceeding, abundantly above all we can ask or even think. (Ephesians 3:20) We have a long way to go. We just have to get out of our own way and quit trying to be the Holy Spirit to other people, telling them what they should and should not be doing. Do what you are supposed to do! If we can just get out of our own way and do that, we will be amazed by what God will do.

The Religious Spirit is the Spirit of the Law, Part 1

Each new post now seems as though it might be the last in this blog--at least for the time being. Perhaps the church elder who said we have not done a very good job of raising awareness of the religious spirit in the Santa Maria valley was right after all. There are just 16 followers of the blog, although more than that read it from time to time. Our Facebook group, Sunrise Ministries, has 27 members, but several of them have only a curious interest in what we are doing. In any event, we have been faithful to our calling, and we are not quite done.

If memory serves, Colossians 2 has been referred to in these pages, but we did not get as far as verse 21 which reads, "Do not touch, do not taste, do not handle." That is one of those verses of scripture that make little sense out of context. Space does not permit us to do the exegetical teaching on the whole chapter which would take us into Chapter 3, so we are simply going to cut to the lesson and give a few examples of how we have seen this worked out in some local churches. We do recommend Colossians as a good read for those of you who might be interested. (Yes, that was written tongue in cheek.)

Over the course of the 23+ years we have lived in this valley on this tour, we have been part of five different churches for varying amounts of time.  At the first one we were, not so politely, shown the door. The last one we were more politely asked to not come back. The other three we left on mostly amicable terms. Recently, we have been attending a church outside the valley.

Those of you you know us might guess what churches these are, but do keep in mind you would only be making educated guesses. I have actually had to defend a church after I published an uncharitable comment and a person wrongly guessed which church it was. The intent has never been to detract from any church or ministry--only to point out the workings of the religious spirit in the valley. With that said, we can go on.

We were shown the door at a church because of a conflict over elders. We said variously that women cannot be elders, that elders do not judge prophecies, and that pastors do not choose elders who disagree with them. That last statement seems to be self-evident. The first two are found verbatim in scripture (1 Corinthians 14:29, Titus 1:5-6). The pastor and church council did not see it that way.

We were asked to not return to a church because this blog was "disturbing" to the pastor and elders of the church. This was also where one of the elders is the one mentioned in the first line of this post. That was seriously the primary reason given for their request although we were told the pastor was hurt by another writer's comment that was posted to this blog. In this case he correctly surmised the commenter was referring to him. Even then, it seemed we could have stayed had we agreed to take the whole blog off the internet. I wonder who (what spirit) could possibly have been behind that request? Maybe we actually did raise the awareness of the working of a religious spirit.

I was not told this would be a two-part post when I got up early to write it. I might have lobbied harder for more sleep. So much for this being the last post to the blog. Now I have add to the title and say, To be continued...

A Crushing Revelation

I received a crushing revelation this week. I found out I am not perfect. Those of you who know me very well understand that is not an easy thing for me to admit. I have always known it, but I usually do my very best to keep most of the things secret that might give me away. This week, however, a crushing reminder that I have done things in the past I ought not to have done came on stage and I had to work through how I felt about that. I am possibly more than a little embarrassed looking back at some of the things I have thought, said, and acted out in some cases. No, I am not going to confess them here. That has already been done and I do not do them any longer. In case that was not quite clear, the point is not that I have sinned. The point is those sins are in the past. It is kind of like being on the right side of, "Don't ask, don't tell."

One of the things I already knew is that people's memories are much longer than God's. This is especially true of those who would make themselves our enemies. The clear teaching of scripture is that our response to our sin should be to confess it, repent of it, and leave it at the cross of Jesus. Do not ask me about, or wait for me to confess, any of those things. It is an insult to the blood of Jesus and to His completed work in our lives to rehearse our forgiven sins.

There are those who think it a noble endeavor to discuss their past sins as a way of giving glory to God for what He has done. I think the theological word for that is translated "baloney." We give God glory by living a life that is pleasing to Him. That is what grace is all about. God gives us the ability, in spite of ourselves, to live the life He wants us to live, free from the sins of our past.

I once made the mistake of telling my daughter about what a great work God had done in the life of a man I was introducing to her. I mentioned, without detail, that he had been anything but a Christian when I had first met him years before. He took me aside and told me, not so politely, that he did not need to have me remind anyone of his past. That was a decade ago and writing this, I now understand the truth of what he was telling me.

Before we leave this subject, it is also an insult--on multiple levels--to rehearse the sins of anyone else. Our primary commandment as New Testament believers is to love God. (Matthew 22:37) The second commandment is to love our neighbors as ourselves (Matthew 22:39) Love covers a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8) All have sinned.(Romans 3:23) There are no sins that are worse than any others. Once we have confessed (told God we understand) our sins and repented (turned away from them) God forgets them (Hebrews 8:12)

Yes, I am crushed, just as all the other grapes in the Master's vineyard--crushed that the fragrance and the flavor of new wine might flow forth to a world that so desperately needs it. I am not perfect, but I am doing my best. I trust you are too. God bless!

His Part--Our Part

"For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."  (Ephesians 2:8-9)

As regular readers know, these verses were brought to our attention by Mr. or Ms. Anonymous in a comment a few posts back. Although we do not often comment on comments, we did on that one. It is always a welcomed experience when we hear something from the Holy Spirit and it is almost immediately confirmed by someone else who heard the same thing. What follows is an expanded version of what we believe God is trying to tell us with these verses.

These verses from Ephesians 2 are so familiar to most Christians that any further expansion of them could be tiring or redundant. Most of us heard them beginning at our own born-again experience and have repeated them to people we were witnessing to since that time.

There is one point in these verses that is usually missed. We tend to think the word "saved" refers exclusively to being born-again. If you did not think that, you can still be part of "we." This can be an act of patience for you as the rest of us catch up. One of the things this author enjoys most about writing is he learns so much during the process--and from the comments that are made later.

As we began to say, being saved only starts when we are born-again. A quick study of the Greek grammar here shows us that the word "saved" in these verses is from a verb that literally means, to be delivered from any and all suffering and judgement. (The dictionary definition would take more room than we have here.) Furthermore, the tense shows us this action was completed at some point in the past. Putting that all together, we see that sometime ago, all suffering and judgement were eliminated from us. Where there is no judgement, the grace of God has free reign to accomplish His works. Although it was the death of Jesus on the cross that made it possible, this happened for each of us individually when we activated grace by an act of faith. That act, of course, was making Jesus Lord of our lives. I can see you are not all as excited about this as I am. Wait, you get more.

"He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32)

The grace that drew us to God and compelled us to make Jesus our Lord, began to work salvation in our lives at that very moment. It is the same grace we activate every time we believe what God is telling us to do, and act on it. We cannot simply verbalize that we believe a thing and not do something in response to that belief. (James 2:18) When we really believe anything, we act on it. That is the way human beings are wired, if you will.

Having been born-again, we find things are different than they were before. We think differently. We act differently. We begin to understand our lives are not the same anymore. No matter what comes against us, the grace of God helps us through it. That is salvation at work in our lives. Whatever we need is included in our salvation and provided by His grace. Our part is to simply believe--then act on what He tells us to do.

Perhaps the Lord is speaking something to you right now. Demonstrate your faith by acting on it, whatever it is. Just as salvation came to your house when you made Jesus Lord of your life, salvation will come to your house to meet your every need. God bless you as you do!

Change Your Mind

I have a friend I do not play chess with anymore. Truth be told we only played one time, over two decades ago. That was enough for me. I thought the game was going well. I knew he was smarter than I am, but I was holding my own. Tom moved a piece and announced, "Check Mate." As I said we do not play anymore. It is not so much that I mind losing (God knows I have done enough of it to accept that it happens.), it was just crushing to think I could play with someone smarter and technically better than I was at the game and then have reality come crashing down on me.

My  mother-in-law gave me a word from the Lord around the same time I had played that game of chess. As I recall, her exact words were, "David, the devil is setting a trap for your soul." Okay, thanks Carolyn. That was about it--until the devil blind-sided me within the next month and knocked my life sideways. Bad news for him though: I'm baaaaaaack. I am not playing with him anymore either. (Starting today I hope.)

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I saw a couple friends who go back to high school days or thereabouts, visited with a more recent friend over Starbucks, and talked an online friend out of committing suicide. Other than that it was pretty uneventful. In case you're wondering, there were a couple minor setbacks, but we are not talking about them. Life happens.

Life happens whether we are paying attention or not. Life happens while we are doing the things we think we have to do, the things we want to do, and the things we do when we are not even thinking. The friends I met with yesterday were all between 55 and 60 years of age. Where did those years go? My children are mostly over 30 now. My babies are having babies. When did that happen?

In my personal opinion, at this point in my life, the most difficult thing the Lord ever asks anyone to do is "Take no thought for tomorrow."(Matthew 6:34) Some of you are ahead of me in this so please be patient. This is one area in which I have not gained the rest of God. (Hebrews 4)

There is a video of a sermon streaming into my ear-buds as this is being written. It is a fairly long sermon. The point is that when we carry our own cares we have made ourselves the source of our supply. The speaker claims that is the essence of pride. I donno, it sounds pretty American, self-sufficient to me.

I got my first job when I was sixteen because there was not enough money in the household to stretch as far as it needed to. Well, not as far as I wanted it to anyway. One of the things I did with my first paycheck was to go have my hair cut by a professional. Mom really tried, but she never did get very good at it. I think the artistic bent in the family, such as it is, comes from the other side.

I paid my way through college. The Lord had to make me quit two jobs while I was there. (You all know I am a slow learner.) Then He gave me the perfect job--at exactly the right time--so I did not run out of money before I ran out of school bills.

I used to be a world-class worrier; not so much anymore. Now I only worry when an occasion arises and only on days that end in "y." One last thought. I am going to claim this one is from the Holy Spirit. It came so naturally to my mind it almost seemed like I might have made it up. Here it is. It is ridiculous to believe God will suddenly stop providing for all our needs.

Apparently the point here is to get us thinking about these things because this is the end. God bless!

God Uses the Stupid Things

Perhaps the most stupid bumper sticker I ever saw, with the possible exception of the one that reads, "Bumper Sticker" is the one that reads, "Everywhere I Go, There I Am." Well duh. At least that is what I used to think.

Yesterday, I took the day off. I left on a personal road trip early in the morning and returned a little before bedtime. I was feeling as though my life had run into a dead end. As I shared that with my loving wife, she suggested I get out of Santa Maria for a road trip (three times). She knows I usually return from those times in a better frame of mind.

I had one mission the Lord wanted me to accomplish in Santa Barbara so I headed south. Having accomplished that, I continued south. My mind was running over a few of the people I knew in Ventura. The name of a pastor came to mind. As I thought about it, it has been almost exactly 34 years since we had seen each other. He lost his wife of 40+ years to cancer this year. I ended up stopping by his house and we talked and prayed together for half an hour or so.

Since I had no agenda and no timetable, I could head any direction from there. Well, I would not have gone very far west since Ventura is a beach city (for those of you in other parts of the world). State Highway 33 heads north from Ventura, through Ojai and down to connect with Highway 166 between Cuyama and Maricopa. From Ojai it is a lonely, winding, desertish road that heads up to Pine Mountain pass just over 5,000 feet above sea level before heading down to the thriving metropolis of Ventucopa, population 92--according to the sign on the highway.

Somewhere between the mountain pass and Ventucopa, it dawned on me that it did not really matter where I went, I would still be there. I did not even have time to get the "Well duh" out when the following thought rushed in. Nothing is ever going to be right until I am right.

The reason I even needed the road trip is because I had been a little self-absorbed. I felt as though my life had hit a dead end. What I had long wanted to do is not working at this point. Without that working, I did not see how God is going to accomplish any greater good through my life. It mostly seems like I am just spinning my wheels. My real problem at the time was, I could not even find anyone else to blame.

Sometime I might yet write the book, "The 8 Faces of Pride." The Holy Spirit gave me that title over twenty years ago. I still do not even know what all eight of them are. One of them, however, is what Charles Shoemake at LIFE Bible College taught me many years ago as, "the pride of the worm." That is the one represented in the previous paragraph. We might sum it up as, "It is all about poor me." I have no doubt some of you had already counted the "I, me, and mys" in that paragraph and figured it out so that is for the rest of us.

To wrap this up, as I was whining to the Lord about the dead end that was all I could see, He reminded me of Jeremiah 29:11, "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." I was still meditating on that when I arrived home. I opened my email to see a message with a sermon attached entitled, "God Has a Plan for You." The first person to mount the platform after worship at church this morning started what she had to say by quoting Matthew 6:25, "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?" Does anyone else see a pattern here? It only takes me two or three times hearing the same thing in different ways to get a message. Well, that is usually all it takes. I will let you know when this all resolves. God bless. 

I Might Be Onto Something Here

I am not quite prepared to say, "Eureka" or claim to have had an epiphany yet. I am still scratching at it, praying about it, meditating on it. As always you can let me know what you think via comments to this post. They always get published, unedited, in their entirety. Drumroll please.

The reason the grace of God often is not at work in our lives is that we do not let it work. That is it. Simple really. In order for grace to work in our lives we must yield to it, allow it the chance to work. To the contrary, the human condition, the sin nature, the needing to have things be happening all the time, compels us to circumvent the working of grace by getting involved  in and aborting the process.

A good friend of mine has been heard to refer to Christians' desire for things to happen as "microwave Christianity." That goes right along with, "God give me patience, and give it to me now." That is not the way it works. Gaining patience is a process. First there is the tribulation, then the patience. (Romans 5:1-5)

There was a television commercial when I was a child (that is long enough ago that most of you will not remember it) that asserted, "Paul Masson will sell no wine before its time." Ecclesiastes 3:1 tells us, "To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven." Just as wine takes time to ferment and attain its full body and flavor, grace works little by little in accomplishing God's purposes in and through His people.

Just as Jesus performed His first miracle at the wedding in Cana of Galilee when He changed water into wine, (John 2:1-11) God is able to cause His grace to work instantaneously. In fact, many times it looks to the observer as though grace came upon someone quickly. That is because the observer does not know when the process began or how long it actually took. Someone remarked to Kenneth Copeland that his ministry had taken off overnight. His response was that if that were true, it was the longest night in recorded history.

One does not have to read far into new reports or watch very much television news to know there are a lot of people experiencing greater tribulation than they ever have. We consider that a bad thing for the most part, but ponder this: if tribulation does indeed work patience, with the ultimate result being a greater hope in God, is not tribulation a good thing? That is not to say we should enjoy tribulation (sorry James).

Tribulation comes because we are not who God wants us to be. The proper attitude would be to embrace the tribulation that we are involved in to discover what the lessons are. That is no small task. We do have the Word of God and the fellowship of the saints to assist with that. Often when we cannot see what God is doing in our lives, others can. We typically pray the wrong prayers. We ask God to shorten the tribulation rather than asking Him to give us the grace to see the situation as it is and to make the necessary course corrections. When we have done that, the tribulation has worked correctly. We want to cut the process, but cutting the process also means we do not learn the lesson.

Please be encouraged to, "...let patience have its perfect work..." (James 1:4) God bless!

What Ever Happened to Expository Preaching

"For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Hebrews 4:12)  

Granted it was a long time ago when we attended Bible college. At that time, we were told in homiletics class, approximately 80% of preaching should be expository. Expository preaching broadly means to expound or explain the meaning of Bible verses. We were taught and encouraged to study the Bible in such a way as to be able to understand and teach the meanings of the verses under consideration according to their original intent. To that end we took basic Hebrew and Greek classes and studied the scriptures diligently. Expository preaching was, we were told, to be preferred to either textual or topical sermons.

We are at a loss to remember the last expository sermon we heard. This is not an indictment against any particular church as we have been to many different churches recently. Expository preaching seems to have been lost in the race to be relevant somewhere in the past few decades. In the church's haste to be relevant in society, we seem to have lost sight of the concept that the Bible has been and is always relevant. "All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (2 Timothy 3:16) Speaking of Timothy, he was told to, "Preach the word..." (2 Timothy 4:2), not "Tell the people what you think."

The mode du jour for preaching seems to be the topical sermon. The preacher chooses a topic, from daily life or from the Bible, and searches out other Bible verses to validate his or her opinion on the topic at hand. Interestingly, we have had weeks when the Holy Spirit has put things together in such a way, that we have heard a recurring theme several times in the same week. These occurrences have come via Sunday sermons, Bible studies, morning devotionals, and materials that have been given to us personally. That kind of thing cannot be all bad. So what is the big deal about expository preaching if the Holy Spirit is weaving together topics that Christians should know? Were our college professors wrong? Perhaps expository preaching has simply run it's course and is no longer relevant?

Review the scripture verses in italics above. Now let us look at what they do NOT say. Neither of them says anything remotely resembling "The word of the Sunday morning speaker, small group leader or Bible study teacher." Nor do they include writers of devotionals, books about the Bible, etc. God is the sole author of truth. Any truth that is spoken, written or taught is simply a reiteration of His truth.
It probably would not be so bad that we have done away with expository preaching, but most churches have also done away with Sunday School and have replaced Bible studies with "fellowship groups" under whatever name they have chosen for them. Not having either of those times of teaching the Bible has created a generation of Christians that is largely ignorant of basic, Bible doctrines (teachings) and their application to daily life. As a result, there is little sound, consistent doctrine throughout the church. Many Christians believe anything they hear from a pulpit on Sunday morning because they to not have the understanding and discernment to know whether the preacher is telling them the truth.

Most all preachers endeavor to tell the truth, and even go to the Bible to validate their version of it. A large percentage of the time they are correct, but the times they are not could mean the difference between spirit and soul, truth and error, life and death, heaven and hell. (Sorry to be quite so blunt there.) This is why Christians generally do no better at living the zoe, the God kind of life, than do unbelievers. That is also why The Church in Santa Maria has failed to recognize the insidious affects of the religious spirit that rules in this valley. As Pastor Jack Hayford has often said, "A diluted Gospel has produced deluded Christians."

I am guessing I probably get a C for effort in shortening these posts. Still some room for improvement there. I am working on improving that mark and still saying everything I am hearing. God bless!