Paralyising thoughts

If there is one thing that I have learned over the years it is this. "I know a lot less about God than I thought I did" We all try to pigeon hole God into a frame that "Suits" our franchise and moulds Him into a tidy form that we can understand (Hear; Manipulate (or so we think) into a form that we like. It is in many ways making God in our image. Which really is kinda like "God in the hand of angry sinners". What do I mean by that. Well take for example how we think God sees sin, everyone of us whether we believe it or not grade our idea of Sin. For some homosexuality is horrible and how can anyone be a Christian and live that lifestyle and yet we "The Elect" choose to gossip about the very subject and gladly condemn that person to hell. While we in our self righteous cocoon judge while fully being aware that we are told not to do that very thing, and while still judging the sexual orientation of a brother we may have a multitude of irrational behaviour at home ranging from addictions to badly treating a spouse or an anger issue that no one but the family know about. But these things in our lives although not liked by us are allowable while the things we find abhorrent are used to discriminate against anyone else. Our perspectives are all skewed by our upbringing and as we are told categorically in scripture;

2Co 10:12 We would not dare put ourselves in the same class with or compare ourselves to those who recommend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves to themselves, they show how foolish they are.

It’s this point of comparison that Jesus railed against, he never referred to anyone in the bible as a sinner, he made ways for people to enter the kingdom while the church is seen today as a body that finds ways to lock people out of heaven, by telling what we must change. Categorically Jesus was only ever against anyone when they took on an attitude that told or inferred to anyone that they were not attaining to a standard that they had made.

Mat 15:7 You hypocrites! How well did Isaiah prophesy of you when he said, Mat 15:8 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Mat 15:9 Their worship of me is empty, because they teach human rules as doctrines.'"

and again

Mat 23:13 "How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You shut the door to the kingdom of heaven in people's faces. You don't go in yourselves, and you don't allow those who are trying to enter to go in.

Mat 23:27 "How terrible it will be for you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead people's bones and every kind of impurity.

Mat 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you look righteous to people, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

Over and over Jesus confronts the issue at hand which was implied or plainly said by the Pharisees in particular and that was that "We have made it and you have to work to get here" This kind of Pharisaical attitude was the one thing that Jesus was against. He despised the implications that this placed in people’s hearts, and the reality is that He HAS qualified us and yet our concepts and mind game keep us out of the kingdom. Allow yourself to be honest with yourself right now what in your mind have you raised up as a standard for people to keep them out of the Kingdom by your reckoning. Was it their sexual orientation, their lifestyle language behaviour? Or do you hold yourself at a distance from the kingdom because of the shame of your past? Its time to let go and live in the true freedom of the sons of God. judging no-one by the flesh and living by the rule of the Spirit of life that has set us free from the law of death. There alone is a reason to celebrate and love him.

Well they are some of my thoughts Pastor Rob.