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Making the Right Decision

For years I’ve wondered how to know the will of God. We were told to seek God’s will, to pray and fast and study the Word, and hope we got it right. So “the Will” always seemed just out of reach.

Today I ran into a different version of the will of God, and liked it a lot. I stopped in to see a minister friend (non-Pentecostal) today. He knows some of my situation and asked how I was doing. We chatted for awhile. Then he asked, “So how do you feel about things now?” I asked what he meant and he said about leaving church. My answer? Happy. His response surprised me but it sure made sense. He said that was good, because if we are happy with a decision even after it is acted on, that generally means it was the right decision to have made.

Peace. Happiness. Joy. Some of the most elusive feelings in all of humanity, and yet in doing something totally “wrong” (leaving my church), I’ve felt them all. Not for leaving, no. I loved being in a Pentecostal church, and miss it. I don’t miss being Pentecostal, because I can be Pentecostal whether fellowshipping with a particular body or not, and I don’t miss my church, with its myriad problems, because it wasn’t really mine. No- I miss the ideal of church that was preached and portrayed as possible over the years.

So did I do the right thing in leaving? I wake up in the morning looking forward to the day. I enjoy going to church and am curious what the preacher will have to say. I’m coming to a place where I want to pray and read the Bible again, after several years of feeling prayer and Bible reading were only tasks to complete- and often troubling ones, at that. Now maybe those times can become a personal commitment and special interaction with my Father. They can mean what they should again. Did I do the right thing? I smile more, laugh often, feel more rested and relaxed, and enjoy life more fully. I notice people more readily, and find them smiling back at me. I haven’t denied my faith, but rather sense that it is deepening.

Yes, I did the right thing.

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.

Tithing Food Stamp Money

Through the years I have heard reports of pastors demanding people to tithe on the food stamp/assistance money they receive from the government. This came up in one of our support groups again yesterday and I decided to blog about it.

Many churches demand that people tithe if they wish to be a member. Some demand it whether or not you officially join a church. Many claim one is robbing God if they do not pay the church or the pastor 10% of their income. (Some pastors claim the tithe all belongs to them and separate offerings go to the church.) The church tithe today is nothing like the biblical tithe and isn’t given to the same people, but I will stop at that since it is not the subject of this writing.

Those who are eligible for food stamps/assistance are on limited incomes. No one should be requesting these people to tithe on their food stamps. Is a pastor taking food out of your mouth, and the mouths of your family members? It is ILLEGAL. Did you get that pastors and church members? Depending on the amount of money involved, it is either a misdemeanor or a FELONY to use the food stamp money belonging to someone else. It was not issued to you, Pastor. You were not approved to receive the funds or the food which those funds purchase. Asking or demanding people to tithe on food stamps is encouraging people to help you commit a crime. You are jeopardizing their benefits. Demanding such, under penalty of the loss of salvation or a curse from God is despicable.

This has happened in Oneness Pentecostal and other type churches. A man named David has alleged that the late L.E. Westberg, a United Pentecostal Church minister and pastor, required it. (“Church members on government assistance was required to pay tithes on food stamps Darlene would prepare a list of food she liked and the members would have to pick it up.”)

If the pastor of your church has demanded such from you, DO NOT use those funds for the pastor by purchasing food items for him/her. If you have been doing this, STOP IMMEDIATELY. Do not allow the pastor to use your food stamps or card. Do not accept a list of items that the pastor or their spouse demands you to purchase for them with those funds. You do not owe the pastor or church one penny of that money.

Report any such pastor to the appropriate Office of Inspector General (OIG), USDA, as they investigate criminal violations of the Food Stamp Act. This PDF file will give you the proper address to send a complaint. Please do not give any pastor a pass on this. Even if you did not give in to the demand, others probably have. If a pastor is that bad off, then he/she should apply for their own food assistance.

A religious group is currently in trouble for taking food stamp money from its members. If your pastor requires this of you and others, he/she could be next and should be. It is not a matter of religious freedom- it is called breaking the law and greed.

Edited later to add: Thank you to Suzanne Calulu at Patheos.com and all those on Facebook, Google and Twitter for helping to spread the word!

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.