Wednesday, August 06, 2008

Feel-good Religion

This seems to be a popular label to use among the real serious Christians out there. Is anyone else out there struck by the irony of this phrase?


Religion is neither good, nor does it feel good... But let's assume that feel-good religion did in fact exist and was in fact very wrong and dangerous. Does that mean that we should be preaching and living feel-bad religion?

10 comments:

SLW said...

:-)

Jamie said...

Ha! Our daughter's college friends taught her the term "PCC": Post Church Crappiness; that's feel bad religion! Grace in the Person of Christ is GOOD NEWS!:)

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

thankyou Jul for not scolding and a proper hi, and you have been so encouraging over the months.

Love your Communion song.

One key to the Communion is that on that very 1st occasion in John 15-17...it was an absolutely normal passover meal...as had been celebrated ever since leaving Egypt,just the same in every way...until....

..... Jesus broke through with one of His prophetic declarations...
he was breaking the unleavened bread as normal...but on the crunch of the bread...He said

THIS IS MY BODY.

Pow!!! the scales fell from the disciples eyes....Wow, they thought...This Is You!!!! Breaking your flesh for us....FOREVER.


The 2nd key is the context of this meal. John 15-17 is the most 3rd Level of all Jesus teaching. It was at the very extremity of what they could bear pre having the Holy Spirit breathed into them after His death, and then after that the Full Baptism in the Spirit in Acts 2.

So it is no surprise to me that now, as I believe we are starting to come into a time of 3rd Level teaching, that you should be getting more revelation on what the Breaking of Bread is really about!!!! One of the aspects of the 3rd level is Coming Into Unity.Losing our Name tags.Where we love one another from a pure heart, with the type of Love Ern Baxter taught us 30 years ago in a message called "Covenant Love" about David and Jonathan. I now know this message wasn't for then. It was to be a vision for us until now...the time that God is bringing His Church worldwide into now as we speak. I have just found the 2nd tape...I am now on the hunt for the first tape of his message...and will let Dan transcribe it.

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

Yesterday you said about your book on grace.

This is what I now believe. Believers need blitzing with the grace message....and you know why....because it is the proper start to walking in God.

It is Romans 3 - 5 with the lights turned on. It is these chapters with a bomb in it.

I'll give you a clue why we thought Maurice Smith in the mid 70s, just might be on to something when he started ministering grace. It's just as if God had to do this to dead ole Britain to flag Maurice up a bit. Guess what. Maurice Smith was born again on

OK you fill it in...
(He was to open up grace worldwide into the modern Body of Christ, remember....)got it?

Yup. He was born again on the 5th of May 1955...that's 5-5-55!!! Do you think God was saying something? Actually that was the title of his first book on grace.
---------------------------
but the grace message opens the door to go on in God...it gives us permission to enter what Norman Grubb calls the freefall of faith. It gives us the freedom to begin discovering what a grace version of Julie or Chris or Dan does...regardless of the opinion or permission of others...we can start to be real people.
===========================
But it is not the end...it is the start of then walking from Romans 5 through 6 and 7 to Chapter8.
It took me from the mid 70s to a decade later to begin entering fully into the next bits. At the moment Rob Rufus and I differ on this. But I am saying from my experience, just as Maurice writes in 20th Century Pilgrim, and Norman Grubb writes in all his books....Romans 3 to 8 are not chapters in a book, they are walkways or runways into getting the fulness of Christ to begin busting out of our entire lives.

There is a sequence, a Spirit time clock that begins the moment we discover "grace in truth", a timebomb inside us that has an inevitability about it...that can only be stopped if we harden our hearts in unbelief as it says in scripture...do not be like the Israelites but as long as the Promise of His rest remains, harden not your hearts as in the rebellion.... and sure as anything as we keep on keeping on, the inevitability of the reality of Romans 8 exploding in our whole environment comes closer and closer.

jul said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
jul said...

glad you liked that little snippet slw and rjw!

Thanks for commenting Chris! Welcome. I'm not familiar with Maurice Smith, are there any books still around? Also, just wanted to clarify for anyone who may not understand the significance of 5-5-55, that number represents grace right? Because the fifth letter of the hebrew alphabet means grace...

Just correct me if I'm wrong on that Chris, thanks!


Wow, I had to rewrite this comment, I made a significant typo heheh!

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

don't know about hebrew, but our Baptists told us 5 was the number of grace.6 the number of man.7 the number of rest.8 the number of new beginnings

GUESS what the date is today!

Chris Welch - 07000INTUNE said...

http://www.antiqbook.co.uk/boox/munn/411785.shtml are now selling the 1981 Maurice Smith book I recommennded to Shawna : 20th Century Pilgrim - A search for Identity.

Maurice affected virtually all the housegroup leaders in the 70s with his books "5-5-55 and Amazing Grace." Terry Virgo ran with it, so did Cj mahany for a while, ....now Rob Rufus

jul said...

"Since this is the fifth letter, its numerical value in Hebrew is "5." This letter represents the "grace" and "goodness" of YEHOVAH God poured out in His works. It represents His graciousness and love -- two of the preeminent characteristics of YEHOVAH God."

http://www.hope-of-israel.org/hay&vav.htm

This page explains why the number 5 signifies grace.

Thanks for the link to the Maurice Smith book.

Unknown said...

haha, that's great! Love it!