How many times have we thought or been taught…if you sin, you’ll incur Gods wrath and anger. God will punish your behaviour…you better fear Him and live holy or you’ll reap the penalty from God! - ( Quote taken from a great article by Wayne Duncan )
This statement rings true, but is often brought across even more subtle and creeps into the hearts of the believers and cripples them. I have never heard christians refute the fact that we are saved by grace and not by our own works and that our sins are covered by the blood of Jesus. Where I have found the biggest problem is once the person is saved, they are made to feel that they need to outwork their salvation in their own effort trying to obey the laws of God, when in fact we are dead to the law. The believers are made to believe that if they want to now approach God they need to make sure they are holy, when they actually are holy since Christ made them holy. The believers are placed under performance indicators by their leaders and are constantly being assessed and corrected when they don’t match up to the standards set by the leaders.
Another sad truth is that Christians are made to believe that they can access the anointing through works/ performance. I have heard from a friend that it was preached in his church that if you want to see cancers healed then you need to spend hours in Gods presence, this is a lie, yet this is what gets preached in churches. There is no biblical evidence to back up such a statement and this places the believer under a works based lifestyle ( law ) and makes them feel condemned for not being able live up to such high expectations.
Many leaders will say they don’t preach law, and while they might not preach old covenant law outright from the pulpit, by not preaching grace they are keeping their people confused, so they neither preach law nor grace, which is actually a mixture, and this is “no Gospel at all”. I believe that some leaders do this out of lack of revelation or ignorance, yet some do it knowingly, this breads control.
They become police instead of fathers. Police are always on the lookout for those who are not obeying the law and very quick to strike them ( often explained by them as holding you accountable, when in fact it is control masking itself as accountability, it is not true accountability ). Fathers allow their children to make mistakes and don’t wait for them to fail, and when mistakes are made they still give them more opportunities. Police who masquerade claiming to be fathers keep the believers in a place of confusion, they don’t preach law outright but they also don’t preach pure grace, thus placing the expectation on their people that they need to live striving to obey the law or else, when in fact they are wanting the people to obey them, to fulfill their vision so that their church is built and they look good.
Too many churches are crippled by this and they very rarely experience the freedom of living in the glory of God and partnering with the Holy Spirit, they are introspective egg shell walkers, afraid to move at all for fear of the police. Fathers will discipline their children but they do it graciously, not crushing them, they honour their children and want to bring them through into freedom. A real father doesn’t have to keep telling the people he is a father because he is recognized as one by his actions.
Let us bring freedom to Gods people by helping them to lift their eyes to see their position in Christ and thus encourage them to launch into greater things with God.
God Bless
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