This is the third in a series of steps I took in my spiritual journey. I pray you gain tremendous insight into the spirit realm as I take you through the years on the journey that would, one day, end at the throne of God.
I kept wondering over and over and over again, “What is my place in the world?” and “Where do I really belong?” And, to be completely blunt, like many others, I still feel that way on occasion. There are some things that are so deeply entrenched, yet so right-under-our-nose, that we wonder if we will ever conquer them. These are the great discoveries we are asked to make. No matter what happens and how things transpire, we trust in Jesus and He makes all things right in His way and in His time. Hallelujah!
Photo by Aron Visuals via Unsplash
As I continued on my journey, I discovered various belief systems that really just didn’t appeal to me in any meaningful way because they did not stand up to even a modicum of scrutiny — Rastafarianism, Rosicrucianism (Gnosticism), Taoism, Buddhism, Sikhism, and Zoroastrianism. As I reconsider this time of my life, it’s becoming abundantly clear that God gave me a level of spiritual discernment — do we all have it? If we do, many of us don’t use it. Willful ignorance is the worst kind of self-deception.
At this point in my life, you might remember from my first post in this series, that I deliberately left the Bible last because I had preconceived notions that, as I eventually came to discover, were based on lies. So, we can agree that false preconceived notions are partly to blame, but not fully, for my desire to embark on this journey. I didn’t want to be a pastor, so I had to figure out something to do with my spiritual ‘inquisitivity’ while I tried to keep God at bay. What would life be like if we all just cut the pretense and got real with God and everyone else? I guess we’d call that “Heaven on Earth.” But here we are…
“One day, as I was battling demons of heaviness and depression, I was given a remarkable revelation, ‘the vast majority of people are profoundly spiritually ignorant.’”
But we don’t have to remain profoundly spiritually ignorant! Thank you, Lord! As James wrote, “If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you,” and Jesus said, “Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, and knock and the door shall be opened to you. In Jeremiah 29:13, God remarks, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” If God has stated that we can connect with Him so easily, what is it that prevents billions of people from knowing the truth and getting to know Him? The disconnect between knowing the truth and believing lies is the desire to know the truth and not settling for lies. Ignorance is no excuse.
“The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.”
There are wicked people whose job is to suppress the truth (fake news reporters, wicked music groups, truth-deficient “educators,” self-promoting religious leaders, bribe-taking politicians, etc.) so we might embrace their lies and reject the truth! We must never settle for less than the whole truth while helping the truth haters who want to remove the truth from the public square come to know the truth.
“They will do such things because they have not known the Father or me.”
Why is it there are so many people who make no claim to Jesus as their Lord and Savior? We can safely conclude they are not seeking Him with all their heart and are accepting lies in lieu of the truth. I had just completed a series of very easy knockdowns of paganistic religions and various silly world views that added up to nothing but diversions and exercises in futile pseudo-philosophy because they were nothing but re-packaged religiosity not done as well as their better-established, plagiarized counterparts.
Philosophy
When exploring the world’s philosophers, whether it was Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Confucius, or Nietzsche, it made no difference: all the philosophies in the world added up fell miserably short of making a Stairway to Heaven. Humanism can never sufficiently open the human mind because it’s limited to the scope of mankind being the greatest ascension of a molecules-to-monkeys delirium. Pontius Pilate asked Jesus the question all philosophers have asked, “What is truth?” as he spoke face-to-face with The Truth Himself! Pilate would have been educated on the best of Roman philosophy and he belches out such a question in the face of the One who created the human mind with a capacity for logic and reason in the first place!
Profoundly … spiritually … ignorant.
If you discount the very presence of “an intelligent designer” out of hand, you have already failed to seek the truth. You cannot seek the truth for real unless you abandon ALL presuppositions and preconceived notions and start with a completely blank whiteboard. How could any conclusions be based in the reality and truth unless you first start at the correct beginning?
Image by Gianni Crestani from Pixabay
“The School of Athens” painted by the Italian Renaissance painter Raphael.
In regards to philosophies and their authors, I have arrived at the conclusion of the matter: they all strive to present mankind as a confused mass of bone and sinew struggling to discover what it means to be human while simultaneously fighting the forces of smug and ostentatious gods (that strangely act like sinful humans), the forces of nature, or each other. Philosophies of humanistic morality and ethics often borderline on grandiosity and religiosity while possessing no power to transform a sinful person into a moral person let alone free that person from the actual problem: spiritual bondage.
Telling someone they need to “think positive” in the face of a demonic attack is not empowering. Positive mindfulness is as helpful at binding and casting out demons as gargoyles are at fending them off!
Photo by Viktor Forgacs on Unsplash
I have concluded that much of sinful life is the vain seeking of methods of satisfying our fleshly desires and frittering away time as many of us evidently think we have far too much of it, yet many people claim they ‘don’t have enough time.’ If not having enough time was the case, how do you explain the average TV usage of 7 hours a day and the popularity of games like Tetris, Candy Crush, computer Solitaire, and Angry Birds through the years while the Bible goes largely unread and many people rarely ever pray? Three things: 1.) many people are content with their status quo 2.) obsessed with being distracted/entertained and 3.) they do not place a high value on spiritual matters.
Many people even attend church as a means of checking a box in a weekly to-do list while their faithless deeds during the week go un-checked … or as I like to say, they hit the time clock and warm a pew seat to try and impress God and get Brownie points. Whatever happened to the awareness of the despicable nature of our sins and the fear of God’s wrath? It could be that wolf-in-sheep’s-clothing preachers keep teaching ‘unlimited grace’ and ‘you cannot lose your salvation’ from the pulpit.
When you discovered God (as He revealed Himself), what did you discover? How did He reveal Himself to you? I imagine that you were imperceptibly experiencing His love and grace far before you ever knew who He was and how He would reveal Himself. What did you learn about Him in that moment that turned your life in the right direction? It was most likely His kindness displayed in some fashion. Throughout this journey, I can safely say the kindness He extended to me in the pit of Hell served as the baseline of my understanding of His character.
I realize right now that, in that time of my journey, as I systematically eliminated the fakes, pretenders, and also-rans, I was guided along by the current of a stream I hadn’t known I was in. The process was just too well-orchestrated and formatted for a loose cannon like me. The experiences I had and the ones I was having each step of the way continued to drive me onward and upward. As I consider what was happening on a deeper level, I can see how God was propelling me through turbulent waters of paganism and philosophy into what would become the final leg of this journey.
I was constantly disappointed and stunned to discover how many of the world’s religions and philosophies had nothing to do with actually providing direction and guidance on how one should properly seek God, but served as distractions. Moreover, I concluded that because of their obvious lack of wisdom, understanding, and direction they exist solely to serve the devil and steer those seeking the truth off-course.
“Can the blind lead the blind? Will they not both fall into a pit? The student is not above the teacher, but everyone who is fully trained will be like their teacher.”
Prayer
Father God, I thank you for the daily guidance You give me. You are faithfully helping me get to where You want me to go, yet I still find that I seek my own way and even resist You for no apparent reason except to stubbornly go my way. Please forgive me and, in Jesus’ name, release me from any bondage or soul ties between myself and (any religions you came out of) and help me to stay on the path of righteousness. Just as You have done for Pastor Michael, I ask that You would guide and empower me so I can know the truth so I can live my life according to Your morality and ethics and also see what makes the false things false. I want to know You so well that even if I did not have a Bible, I could know who I am no matter what comes at me and how I should respond to any situation. Help me live by the truth and make me a fortress of truth and faith in You. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
Thanks to Jamie Bay and Unsplash for the use of the banner photo.