Category: holiness standards | Page 23

There Are No Standard Standards

There are no standard standards. Though often touted as God’s rules or commands, people become perplexed when they go to another church within the same organization and find differences in these teachings. Though my experience with this involves the United Pentecostal Church, it happens in other organizations.

You may have simply visited another church and observed the differences or perhaps you switched churches and are a member at a new church. Maybe you have become involved in an online discussion group and notice vast differences. Same group, different churches….. and different standards? How can standards change from church to church within the same organization, when they are taught as originating with God and the Bible?

Something is taught as wrong in one, yet wrong and a sin at another, but OK in yet another. One teaches only skirts and dresses on women, another specifies how much below the knee they must be, and another allows pants underneath in cold weather. Pants? That abomination is allowed? I thought once an abomination, always an abomination? How can it be an abomination in one church and yet not considered such in the other?

One forbids members to own a television and yet says nothing about members watching YouTube videos on smart phones. Another states all non-religious movies are off limits but some pastors have DVD collections of the latest Hollywood films. One shouts that all jewelry is wrong, even wedding rings, and another allows rings, pins and brooches.

One says a woman shouldn’t cut her hair for any reason but it isn’t a sin and another says you lose protection for your family and are lost if you do. Some teach you can dye your hair and others claim it is a sin. One allows facial hair on men and another forbids it. One says no make-up at all, that you are a Jezebel, and another allows basic foundation and cover-up. One demands sleeve length to reach the wrist, another to the elbow and yet another is fine with it between the elbow and shoulder. And the list goes on….

Aargh! It is enough to make the head spin! How can so many with ‘the truth’ be teaching so many versions of these standards, especially when they state this is what God says. Is God confused? Does He change his mind all the time? Is something a sin in one area, but ten miles away it isn’t?

These are some of the questions people face when they encounter all the differences. It is no wonder that questioning the teachings often starts with standards. They are anything but standard in their churches. If they cannot agree among themselves and get these right, what else could they be teaching that is faulty?

She’s Got The Look (Of Salvation)

Several days ago, a United Pentecostal Church pastor posted this picture on Facebook for a large number of people to see. I was startled by the adolescent logic and erroneous message of this image.

According to the meme, the woman on the left, by the way she dresses, is Christian. The lady on the right, by the way she dresses, isn’t one.

I can’t help but wonder why some in Christianity have forgotten Jesus, and replaced all the virtues of a Christian with a blind emphasis on such things as standards, women’s uncut hair, and pastoral obedience. Teachings like these have resulted in the UPCI Articles of Faith as the organization’s “new” New Testament.

No doubt, some leaders have truly made the movement a form of “Christianity Without the Cross”.

“This is wrong.”

“That is wrong.”

“Do this.”

“Do that.”

“The church down the street is charismatic and teaches a false doctrine.”

“The church across town is full of lies.”

Does relationship even matter? Only if all of the pastoral rules are followed.

Hey – they do preach Jesus! I found Jesus in a UPCI church. At Christmas and Easter, the Gospel is usually pulled off the back shelf, dusted off, and is the gimmick of those seasonal services. The goal is still about indoctrination, first and foremost.

So, by looking at these two ladies, can you tell who the Christian is? Obviously, this one pastor believes he can…

Personally, I can’t see their hearts. I have absolutely no idea which one is the Christian. The lady on the left could be a taco thief, or even an axe murderer. The lady on the right may be a sweet person who is passionate believer who spends her Saturdays feeding the homeless.

It’s my belief that we aren’t really good at judging the hearts of people…or, a book by its cover. So, why spend so much time doing that exact thing? Dietrich Bonhoeffer once raised a great point in his book, The Cost of Discipleship: “Judging others makes us blind, whereas love is illuminating. By judging others we blind ourselves to our own evil and to the grace which others are just as entitled to as we are.”

Instead of judging people “saint” or “sinner” by only their looks, we should just extend a loving and warm welcome to all, and then allow the Holy Spirit and their relationship with God to dictate what they need.

Personally, that is how I strive to go about it. I have NO desire to play “God” in the life of anyone.

Someone once said, “When you judge others, you do not define them, you define yourself.”

Regarding the pastor who posted this, his own post defines him. In his eyes, if you’re female, you have to dress like the lady on the left to be considered a Christian.

Extreme Christianity is dangerous. It’s taking a good thing, and turning it into a cult. In extreme Christianity, the focus isn’t about faith, hope, and love – it’s anywhere but there!

I wonder if it was issues like this that caused Mahatma Gandhi to say, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.”

When Christians go to the extreme, they aren’t focused on Christ anymore. They have Him and His Gospel shut up in the back closet, collecting dust. They are so unlike Christ.

How sad.

Look at Christ’s own words, written in Matthew 7: 1-2:

“Do not judge so that you will not be judged. For by the standard you judge you will be judged, and the measure you use will be the measure you receive.”

Are those not humbling words?

I hope and pray to encourage the UPCI minister who places so much emphasis in issues of dress and standards.

Friend, have some faith in God! We don’t need to tell people how to live. That’s His job. Let’s make our focus building relationships between individuals and God. We need Jesus for that! Not dress codes, vain rules, or a hungry desire to make others obedient unto a leader. Let’s show everyone the type of love seen in John 3:16, the type of love Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians 13.

It’s the love that changes us and makes us more like Him! You can do it! Refocus your heart and mind on Jesus!

As for everyone else, just remember, if salvation was built upon our images, then we would all be in trouble, because we all have flaws. The spirit of the world wants us to become so engrossed with looking right…That we forgot that the most important thing is where your heart is.

Rejoice in the Lord, always. I will say it again, rejoice!!!!! (Philippians 4:4)

Key verse to remember: 1st Samuel 16:7 – “But the Lord said to Samuel, “Don’t be impressed by his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. God does not view things the way men do. People look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Judgmental

I recently did a search to see Susan Boyle perform her first time on Britains Got Talent. When Susan Boyle walked out onto the stage everyone from the judges to the audience was skeptical. She was frumpy, a bit silly, and said she wanted to be like a particular female singer (can’t remember the name) and everyone snickered. Then the music cued and she opened her mouth and eyes opened wide and mouths dropped to the floor. She sang I Dreamed a Dream – it was her dream to be a professional singer.

It reminds one of other stories like Beauty and the Beast or more likely The Ugly Duckling. Perhaps Susan has not transformed into the usual beautiful princess in the world’s view, but her voice is absolutely beautiful. She has done six albums and bought a 300,000 pound house (not sure how that translates to US dollars).

I said all that to say that being in an Apostolic church where everyone is judged by how we dressed and what church we attended it makes one pause. I once looked out the window at work and saw a boy with blue hair. I forget exactly what I said but a coworker/supervisor walked by and said, “Now, now.” It caught me off guard as I thought anyone else would agree with me. I was probably thinking “Blue haired people go to Hell.”

What is that saying “don’t judge a book by its cover?” I know I have seen many things since my exodus from that church that I would have been judging by its cover. But what is inside? Underneath? Did we ever see the beauty and kindness of a person because they did not look like us?

When someone would get the Holy Ghost we then began measuring the women by how long their hair was getting and their pants changed to dresses/skirts. The men only had to shave off mustaches and beards if they had them and cover up tattoos with long sleeves. We had to have them conform to our standards in order to not judge them.

Below is that first video of frumpy Susan showing everyone that you just can’t judge by what you first see.

Living for God should not be so hard

Why is it so hard to worship God or have any kind of walk with Him?

I ran across a statement similar to this not long ago, I forget where.

The church I was in, when I was first there, seemed to be fun and I had no idea that worship could be so much fun. But then…but then. We had to be there (in church) as it was a requirement. Didn’t we love God enough? We had to shout and dance and cavort. Didn’t we love God? We had to be there at social functions like a pot luck – 100% attendance for the whole church. Saturday morning visitation in the freezing cold and wind in winter and the hot (95 at 10 am) humid mornings in summer. It was another requirement. After all, didn’t we love God?

If we were not jumping around during song service we were not worshiping. Sometimes the altar calls went to 11 pm. Most of us had jobs we had to go to Monday morning (and Tuesday through Friday too). And get up at 5 am to go to the church to pray before going to work. And then the revivals. One year we were having so many revivals I was nearly exhausted but that didn’t matter. Didn’t we love God?

Then there were the standards of dress and hair. Don’t cut your hair. Don’t even trim off one split end. Don’t even pull out the hard knot, pick it out gently (obviously said by men who had short hair). Skirts down to the ankle. A lot of the young women liked the “pencil” skirts and shuffled along. I sometimes hoped there was not an emergency where they had to RUN out of the church to save their lives. Splits in skirts had to be sewn down to the hem line. (Then one day the Pastor said we could sew them down to 4 inches below the knee which helped some). Sleeves down to the wrist. In our hot Kansas summers we could wear sleeves to just below the elbow. It was still too hot.

If you cut your hair you lose power. If you wore your skirt and sleeves too short someone was bound to be lusting after your knees and elbows. Give a Bible study or go to the “Bad Place.” Speak in tongues every single day so you know you still have the Holy Ghost. Pray an hour a day, everyday. Invite someone to church – oh the contests, we had to see who’d bring the most visitors! Read the Bible through every year.

The list just went on and on. I had lost sight of my Jesus. I did not like what I was becoming – judgmental about those who did not come to our church, the one with the Truth. No other church had the truth like we did. I remember sitting on the pew for awhile, thinking, “Where is Jesus? Where have they put Him?”

At one time, I was told salvation is so easy (pre-Pentecost days): Just believe on the Lord, He is savior and He died on the cross. The cross had all but disappeared. Like Fudge’s book: Christianity Without the Cross. Where had the simplicity of salvation gone? Why was it so complicated?

It was man’s rules that dimmed the hope of salvation and grace. Man’s rules that tried to keep people in control and in a church building. We were told God only lives here in this place. And we believed all this.

I don’t read my Bible every day now. But sometimes I pick it up and read a bit and it seems to mean more than when I rushed to read x chapters every night and felt guilty if I missed a few days reading.

Why should we feel so guilty if we didn’t follow all the rules? Why should we feel ashamed? Jesus did not preach that. Paul did not preach that. The Bible does not teach us to be/feel that way. Jesus really got onto the Pharisees about all their rules and regulations. Why do we need all that?

We don’t. Building a relationship with anyone should not be contingent on rules and regulations And so it goes with God. He loves us unconditionally. No conditions except that we worship him only and know that Jesus is the one who paid the ultimate price. That is why He said “It is Finished” and died.

I only hope and pray that those who are still following so many rules will see the light in Jesus and stop all the nonsense.

Some new favorite quotes

I loved Rich Mullins’ music. Tonight I found one of his old concert videos on YouTube. Some of the the things he said really floored me. So tonight I’m quoting:

I know vengeance is mine saith the Lord. I just want to be about the Lord’s business. …Proof-texting is a very dangerous thing. I think if we were given the scriptures, it was not so we could prove that we’re right about everything. If we were given the scriptures, it was to humble us into realizing that God is right and the rest of us are just guessing.

He went on to say that one of his favorite verses is “whatever you’ve done to the least of these my brethren, you’ve done to me.” He said he believed God has a special place in His heart for the poor, the weak, the oppressed, the small and the insignificant.

https://www.youtube.com/vQnFU5JvuWY

Well, I’ve posted the link… (the link is no longer available) I can’t do it justice. He was killed in a car accident within about a year of this video, and he was one of my favorite artists.

The rest of this is just me talking for the fun of it…

I finally got some songs uploaded to MP3 today. Mary has finally caught up to within a decade of current technology! Almost, anyway. Guess I need to find a TV and DVD to be really caught up, but a computer has all I really want for technology.

I’m guessing most people at church now know, either through gossip or pulpit, that I’ve left. Not one call. And I’m OK with that now. And finding myself less cautious online with letting people know where and who I am… which I haven’t totally decided is a good thing or not, so I’m trying to be less cautious but still careful. Life’s just too good to live intimidated and scared of every shadow or possible situation that could happen. I’d rather rejoice.