Category: Oneness Pentecostal | Page 57

Foundations

I was raised Disciples of Christ (Christian). When I was nine, I repented and asked Jesus into my heart, and my life changed radically, especially in one way. I had been an angry child, so I started praying that Jesus would teach me to love. When I prayed this way, God would “hug me big, inside out”- my heart would be filled with love and joy in those moments of prayer. I kept this time very private. To my knowledge no one knew what had prompted the changes in my life. (They were just very thankful something had changed!)

For the next few years there were times I was closer to God and times I wasn’t, but He was always there. At 15, I was baptized. (Mom didn’t believe in child baptism, so my request had been denied for several years.) At 18, I began attending a Pentecostal church. There, they taught that there was more for me. God has more for everyone, so this was an easy concept to grasp. Soon after starting to attend there, I was baptized in Jesus name and filled with the Holy Ghost. The pastor took us to ecumenical meetings, and I attended Baptist Bible studies and Disciples of Christ youth fellowships. We fellowshipped other churches and called their members Christians. I never heard anyone at church downplay their experiences.

A few years later, a new pastor came into my life. He taught that no one who had not repented, been baptized in Jesus’ name, and received the Holy Ghost was saved. Had the teaching been that a person isn’t saved if they were taught Jesus’ name baptism and rejected it, I could have almost accepted it. But this new teaching was difficult to swallow; my earlier experiences were too real and life changing to doubt. Even more difficult for me to grasp was his teaching that other Pentecostals with fewer standards were also hell bound. Was my former pastor unsaved because he wore a watch, didn’t follow some other standard, or fellowshipped Trinitarians? Was I unsaved because I had skirts with slits in them? I couldn’t accept that, but stayed anyway.

One night, an evangelist came. He preached that night that if a hand is cut off from the body, the hand would die, but the body wouldn’t. Maybe the hand was diseased or injured. Sometimes the body needed to cut a part off to survive. If it did, the part that was cut off would die. There was no way for a hand to live apart from the body- it couldn’t be grafted onto another body, and it couldn’t be grafted back into the body it had been cut off from for very long after the blood supply stopped. Therefore, if the pastor cut a person out of the church, that person would be condemned, cut off from the blood of Jesus.

Very shortly after that disturbing message, my pastor got up and preached that a person was going to leave soon, and would almost immediately cut their hair and wear pants. He said everyone would be surprised who it was, but that it would happen. After church that night, he called me at home and told me to never come back, that I was expelled.

These three events combined disturbed and grieved me deeply, especially in light of the first message about the severed hand. I didn’t backslide, but instead started attending a different church. And I continued to wrestle with the two messages and the expulsion. Though I finally explained my expulsion to my new pastor, I never told anyone about the severed hand sermon.

This summer, an evangelist preached the remedy. He preached about the foundation:

2 Timothy 2:19 Nevertheless the foundation of God standeth sure…

1 Corinthians 3
11 For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
12 Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
13 Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
14 If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
15 If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.

Hebrews 6:1 Therefore leaving the principles of the doctrine of Christ, let us go on unto perfection; not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works, and of faith toward God…

The evangelist continued by saying that the foundation of our salvation is Jesus. No one can shake our salvation (foundation) because our foundation was completed by Him, the master builder. We build on this foundation, and others build on it, poorly or well, and it is what we build that will be tried. But the foundation will remain sure. We cannot destroy the foundation by building on it. We cannot so easily lose salvation. The foundation is sure.

And the blood is sure. The blood can’t be stopped. At Calvary, the soldiers didn’t break Jesus’ legs like they did the thieves’. The prophecy was that not one bone of him should be broken. Why? Because the marrow in the bones produces the blood. If a bone is broken, the production of blood might be stopped or hindered in that area. But His bones were not broken. There is not one thing the devil or anyone else can do to stop the blood. We are saved by the blood, and it can’t be stopped. It can’t be hindered in our lives. Our foundation is sure in Him.

Romans 8
38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come,
39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We and others build what they will in our lives by our words and deeds. These things will be tried by fire. But the foundation will not be tried- it was built by the master builder. Our foundation, our salvation, is sure in Jesus. There is nothing anyone can do to cut us off from Him.

Will All of You Please Give It a Rest, Already!

This is exactly how my stepdad has felt about many of the conflicting, unhealthy spiritual influences that have played a role in his life. Having had prior unhealthy Baptist and United Pentecostal Church experiences was bad enough, but to have had people pushing these beliefs on him all at once made things even worse for a time.

My stepdad’s mother was very pushy about her particular beliefs to the extent that she thought she could dictate where he went to church and what he had to do to express his commitment to Christ. Her constant harping on him to start attending an “approved” (IOW, Baptist, or Pentecostal) church every Sunday lead to him being very put off on the idea of attendance that persisted for a long time.

My stepdad refused to attend any church for a long time and was fervently believing that every single one, without exception, was a cult. During this time, his daughter and son-in-law got caught up in the UPC with their family. The combination of his mother’s constant nagging whenever she got him on the phone and his daughter’s new-found enthusiasm for the UPC was like throwing gasoline on a wildfire.

The family members of my stepdad that were in the UPC made life very difficult for him for a while. Get-togethers were often a bit of a trial because they simply couldn’t refrain from interjecting their preaching at every chance. When my stepdad’s younger son got caught up in it for a while, it was a question of whether he or my stepdad’s son-in-law was worse with bashing other groups and trying to usurp Jon’s position as head of the household whenever they were invited over.

Another unhealthy influence was one of my stepdad’s aunts, who is close to him in age and was like a sister to him as a kid. Even though she lives in the Houston area, she would visit Odessa from time to see family or friends still living here, and her visits would always include heavy pressure to attend a UPC service with her. Unfortunately, at this point, he hadn’t gotten to where he would just politely decline.

Things with the UPC members in his family finally came to a head after my stepdad’s mother died. When he was having to deal with arranging the funeral, clearing out her house, and dealing with some other bad things going on at the same time, his aunt did something downright hurtful – she told him that if he didn’t join the UPC, she would have nothing further to do with him.

Ironically, after all the turmoil he went through with his kids over their UPC involvement, they ended up leaving the group of their own choice. He has no contact with them due to some non-related issues that arose afterward. My stepdad would finally start taking some “baby steps” towards recovery from spiritual abuse, but it’s been a long time coming. There will be more on that in the next post.

I think, in retrospect, a lot of my stepdad’s conflicts over religion with family members had to do with a lack of boundaries. His mother never respected anyone’s boundaries and tried to find ways around them when they were set. His kids and son-in-law, likewise, also had no respect for boundaries.

When religious differences are sharp, boundaries that you enforce are essential. If you won’t attend their church under any circumstances, they need to hear a polite but firm “No.” No waffling, no non-committal, vague answers. When discussions of religion become a problem, they must know that that subject is off the table.

While boundaries don’t always fix things, they can help make a world of difference for your own peace of mind.

Informational post on speaking in tongues #9

This is just a little informational post on the subject of speaking in tongues, shared as some food for thought. This addresses the doctrine of ‘initial evidence’ as taught by the United Pentecostal Church.

If speaking in tongues is the initial evidence of receiving the Spirit (I am speaking of Oneness Pentecostal teachings here), then why do so many also expect continued evidence after one initially speaks in tongues? (Note: I know that all Apostolics do not practice or believe the above in regard to the necessity of ongoing tongues.)

As mentioned in a prior post, we never see again that those who spoke in tongues in Acts 2, 10 & 19 ever did it a second time. And yet many proponents of this teaching not only expect to see this happen initially, but also expect to see its regular continued use.

How many have been told to ‘pray through’ after doing something wrong or seemingly wrong or if you left their church for awhile? To these people, ‘pray through’ means to pray until tongues come again. They want proof that God’s Spirit is yet inside you. Maybe you need it yourself, too. There is no faith at all in this, proof is demanded. It is as if some believe God’s Spirit regularly hops in and out of believers.

Not only is there the thought to ‘pray through’ to tongues, there can also be things said from the pulpit like, “If you haven’t spoken in tongues in the past week (month, etc.), you had better check yourself!” Why? Where is faith? Do believers lose God so easily? Is God’s Spirit so fickle that at the slightest wrong, He up and leaves?

Things like these and more mean that the teaching is not simply initial evidence. It is really initial AND ongoing evidence to them. They have a need for a sign that they, and others, are still okay with God. This is not walking by faith or standing on God’s promise to never leave, nor forsake, believers.

Think about it. If tongues are indeed ‘initial evidence,’ why then is there such a push for the necessity of continuing to speak in tongues, especially when it is never found in scripture? When did you ever read Paul pressing believers to ‘pray through’ again till they spoke in tongues? When did Peter ever teach that if you haven’t spoken in tongues in a month that you’d better find out what is wrong? These doctrines are not taught, or seen as examples, in the Bible.

So, I say tell it like it really is. They don’t mean just initial evidence—they really mean initial AND ongoing evidence throughout your entire walk with God.

Shopping

Don’t know how to title this. Today was the first day since leaving church that I went shopping at a time and in a place where I would probably meet people from church. What an odd situation! Where before when I shopped I felt I needed to watch for people to witness to, today all I had to do is smile! I smiled because I wanted the Apostolics to know I wasn’t ashamed or sad about leaving. I smiled because I was simply happy to be out. And because I got some really good deals.

Generally when I went out as an Apostolic, I didn’t notice people around me. Today I did. I heard their conversations and I saw how people interacted. No one in the store was Apostolic at first. Then a whole bunch showed up at once. One walked by me repeatedly, talking loudly on her cell, “In Jesus name!” “Uh-huh! My, my! Momma, you gotta come by later!” “Oooh, sis!” “God bless!” She seemed so dramatic and rude. She pushed by people, and walked around and around people without ever acknowledging them.

On the other side of the store, I heard two sisters talking. I had almost walked up to them without seeing who they were, but then they got pretty loud. I looked closer- sure enough, Apostolics! Another few walked past without acknowledging me (or anyone else). Several of them would have previously considered themselves my friends. Today I was embarrassed for them.

As I prepared to leave, one of the Apostolics came up to me. I doubt she knows I’ve quit, but whether she does or doesn’t, she quietly talked to me about this and that item, smiled and wished me a good day.

I wonder if any of them know that their unfriendliness while I was in was part of the first clue that I should leave? I wonder how many ‘backsliders‘ they have pushed away in rudeness when they could have done the Christian thing and reached out in love? How many ‘sinners’ in that store saw them today more as I did, as embarrassing, loud, and inconsiderate? How many people hear their coded cell phone talk and turn away in disgust, while they actually think all their “Jesus name!” “God bless!” on their cells or in person is a form of witnessing or “not being ashamed of Jesus?”

I haven’t seen that many Pentecostals in one place since I left. It was sad to see them all together today, not because they rejected me but because they were projecting a totally wrong image of themselves to the ‘world’ they talk so grandly about winning. And I’m convinced they felt they were doing the right thing, or had no idea that there might be a better way.

To my former church family

I know that some people from my former church would misunderstand some of what I’ve written. Please at least read this entry, if you ever think you’ve found me here.

For everyone else who might read, if you find yourself in a good place, be thankful. If you have been hurt, there is a place you can find strength and healing. You are not alone.

It grieves me that people from my former church would think I ‘backslid.’ There is nothing in my past to go back to, so in leaving, I can’t have ‘backslid.’ It disturbs me that you (former church family) can’t know what happened that required me to leave, but if I were to tell you I would quite possibly hurt you. That isn’t my intent, so I’ve chosen not to discuss what happened.

If anyone from my former church reads these and knows who I am, please understand, I don’t want to put any doubts in your minds. These blogs are to help put faith back in my mind, not to put doubt in yours. So if any of you from my former church are reading, please understand that I love you and I love God. I didn’t want to leave your church, but I didn’t have another option that would allow me to keep my integrity.

I wrote a farewell letter but never sent it to some of my closest friends in church. If any of you happen to read this and think you know who I am, please read it and consider what I’ve said:

There isn’t an easy way to say this, but I have to say goodbye. I’ve wept to consider leaving good people like you. I wanted to say goodbye personally, but doing that could cause conflict for you. I can’t say why I’m leaving, but please understand- I didn’t feel there was any other choice.

Your kindness, thoughtfulness, smiles, and encouragement have meant a lot to me. Thank you. I’ve been told several times that my only reasons for staying were carnal ones. That’s not true. I stayed here because of my faith in God, and because of a few good friends like you. Just because I stop coming to a certain building doesn’t mean the end of our friendship in my eyes.

Please understand that whether we can talk and visit or not, I am grateful for the good memories we share. I know leaving will cause you conflict and heartache- I know, because it has caused me conflict and heartache too. I wish I could have stayed, but I want you to know that my line and door are always open. I still consider you friends, I will always remember you with love.

~Mary