Exquisitly deceptive religion - Ruminating in the Word of God

The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing,
majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of
him and what came to my mind and heart in 1 Timothy 1:3-7,

"As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so
that you may command certain people not to teach false doctrines any
longer or to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. Such
things promote controversial speculations rather than advancing God's
work--which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes
from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith. Some have
departed from these and have turned to meaningless talk. They want to
be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking
about or what they so confidently affirm."

I call religion exquisitely deceptive, because it certainly is. It
often passes unnoticed as a counterfeit means to connect with God.
Paul calls on Timothy to confront those attempting to bring their
religious impulses into the fellowship. In this case, it seems the
Jewish pedigree was a fascination for them as well as the typical
development of dos-and-don'ts. We have had this bunch (sans the
genealogy) infiltrating the kingdom of God since the apostolic days
till our current day. There are so many folks today pushing their
religiosity on the rest of us, for the very same reason they did
during Timothy's day. They do it because they want to be "teachers of
the law", the ecclesiastical big boys who tell the rest of us what it
is we need to be doing. All the while "they do not know what they are
talking about or what they so confidently affirm." Obviously, what
they are so confident about fails to square with the straight forward
teaching of the Scriptures.

You know who these people are. They resort to the Scriptures, handling
it in such a way they arrive at their "distinctives", start new
denominations and fellowships where only they have the inside scoop.
They wave their lists "of the eight things (or whatever) we must do to
be saved." They teach the many things we need to do to earn God's love
and acceptance. A love and acceptance that is already ours through
faith, without the help of their religious demands. They ignore
apostolic teaching that affirms such things as "But now, by dying to
what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we
serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the
written code." Romans 7:6. However, they have all kinds of "written
code" that seeks to supplant the Holy Spirit's work in our lives and
reduce us from members of the Kingdom of God to mere members of their
religious group.

There is so much of this going on today, even under the disguise of
"truly following the Scriptures" as they misread, mis-interpret and
misunderstand what it is they are so confident about.

I hold in the highest regard those who have abandoned the hopeless
misdirection of the religious folks and have turned to Jesus Christ
unadulterated. Folks who study their Bibles without bringing their
theological "stuff" into it, to see what it really is the Lord has to
say. Folks who pray and rely on the Holy Spirit for illumination of
the true apostolic teachings found in their Bibles. Folks who have
discovered that our access to God and our communion with God is
founded and established through faith. Folks whose goal it is to serve
God in "love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere
faith."

Unfortunately, these are the very claims of those who would seek to
distract us from the truth. I am convinced very few people really
embrace Jesus Christ as Lord in their lives, an embrace of faith. It
is a pre-packaged Jesus Christ they embrace, a religious caricature of
our wonderful Savior that died for our sins, that made a way for us,
that freed us from the law and all religious claims.

May we all quit the religious stuff and get serious about the One who
loved us so much that he came and died a horrible death to pay for our
sins. May we find him and revere him who made a way for us into his
kingdom, his family. This is something that we can all do, and that we
can do every day! It just takes... faith!

Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share
what moved you about him from your Bible reading today. I'd love to
hear from you!

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Trevor Fisk

trevor.fisk@gmail.com