Some even decided to move away from any intimacy with God all together.
Yet, others have chosen to stay incarcerated, stuck in the chains and shackles of religion embracing its sorcery, the deception and defrauding of the open Truth.
Stuck.
The damage is real.
Essentially we grow up being taught that God is an almighty God, a jealous God with power to do as He pleases. He is a God who strikes down the sinful and careless, the ungodly and unwary, the weak and fool-hearted, the fickle and faint … He even visits those whose fathers and grandfathers committed atrocities and transgressions or any kind of irregular behavior.
He is a tyrant God who ruthlessly persecutes those people who are against him. You have to do as He says or face the full might of His brunt.
Transgress one dot of his law and you are toast.
I grew up like this. Every Sunday they would read the ten commandments in church to make you feel guilty and ashamed of what you might have done during the week. After that they would collect your tithes and offerings where you could show your remorse.
They would make you leave the church with a stern warning to be good because God is watching you.
Religion in power-play mode … the weapon of the devil … used right there in church!
Religion, the mankind control game …
Over the years Jesus presented Himself and His Father to me differently.
My family and I got to know Abba from a place of intimacy, a very different picture in contrast to what religion paints.
In fact, it was a direct opposite from what I was brainwashed into growing up and believed well into adulthood.
We got to know Jesus, Yah'shua, as a person.
Jesus is Life itself.
Pure Grace with nothing added.
Whether we (or the so-called church) care to admit it or not. The truth does not change. It takes nothing away from that truth.
Religion, on the other hand, is a killer.
And some of the advocates of religion are blissfully ignorant, innocently shunning the truth in the name of honoring those who walked the path before them and taught them.
In the “church” I grew up in, we were never taught about the character and heart of the Father the way Jesus had revealed Him. We were never taught that God is always good and that there exists no hint of evil even close to Him. We were never taught that there is another who comes to steal, kill and destroy - the devil. Instead whenever anything went wrong, we were told it's Gods will and bigger plan.
Equally, we were never told that we ought to be taught by the Teacher Himself, the Holy Spirit who abides. In fact, this truth was willfully and (to me) maliciously hidden from all those who attended the rites and rituals of this wicket doctrine, the congregation of those who sought to control.
Don’t get me wrong. I do not have an issue with the people (the real church). My main issue is with the doctrine, concoctions and traditions created by man since ages ago that came because of his own agenda and ignorance which progressed and mutated into various forms of religion over time, branching out into the permutations we know today that bound and shackled the beloved of God.
Yes, I have an issue with that!
And many others, some will never admit it, have the same issue.
But there is light.
There is a living Hope.
A Person, quite contrary to him portrayed by the church I grew up in.
One Who lives inside.
Love Himself.
If we’d let Him and listen, it is the most liberating and love-bearing experience ever, exposing the lie for what it is.
(P.S. I have not quoted any Bible verses here. Why? Because the Bible is the written Word. Jesus is the living Word within. The one testifies about the Other, not the other way around. Should we choose to receive, proper discernment will come … It is not difficult. It is rest.)
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