Have you ever been in church surrounded by a bunch of believers and the pastor starts his sermon and you feel like you are alone in the room with just him and he is talking just to you? That's not really the pastor, that's the holy spirit talking to you through the pastor. What if I told you that you could have that same feeling without stepping into a church or listening to another pastor again for the rest of your life?
You see you don't need all of that in order to feel close to the holy spirit. You just need to still yourself and connect. Sometimes a song speaks to you, or the wind or sometimes when you are working out you feel elevated. There are so many times that you are connecting with your Maker or have the opportunity to do so and you don't do it. Maybe you don't even realize you can, but I'm telling you that you can. You don't have to go to church and you don't have to be surrounded by a bunch of believers and you don't need a pastor who is probably as flawed as you are in order for you to connect to God. Imagine what would happen if word got out that this was possible???
I don't take many things at face value. I research things. I do my due diligence. I try to get differing opinions on things, I don't just settle for someone else's word. I want to know that I've done all I could to find the truth. The real answers. Not just what some well-meaning person thought I needed or wanted to hear or learn. I guess that's probably why I hated school so much. I just couldn't understand why in the world all that stupid stuff mattered. Math I could understand. I use math. English of course, but the rest of it? YUK!
So I guess when it comes to worship I can't just take someone's word for what I should be doing. Why should I listen to how someone else is interpreting scriptures? How do I know their interpretation is right? Its the same reason I research from a lot of different translations of the bible. I want to see how more than one person interpreted those words, not just one or two.
The bible is a book of lessons; a guide for how we should live our lives. But its not even written in English so to trust that this text was translated properly and taught properly in so many different seminary schools is dangerous. And the fact is that it is so much easier to sit in the pews of the THOUSANDS of churches in this country and do nothing but daydream and think that you've done your part or your own due diligence. I'm telling you that you are wrong.
A few years ago I posted something on Facebook about drinking. A former friend of mine responded saying he couldn't believe I was a Christian and drank and gave me about 10 scriptures that backed up his statement. So I researched them. I looked at the entire passage before and after every single passage and it was easy to see why he would jump to conclusions thinking that the bible says not to drink, but it was equally easy to see why those same passages had nothing to do with drinking at all. I responded with a very long winded dissertation pretty much telling him that gluttony too was a sin according to many of those same scriptures and he was overweight, but that was completely lost on him.
I think we need to reinvent worship. I think we need to find ways to connect to Christ regardless of where we are and I think we need to stop putting the responsibility of our salvation on another human being and simply seek out our Maker. Every day. Not just Sundays. Not just Easter and Christmas and not just when you are at your lowest point and have no where to turn. God deserves so much more than all of that. Seek out the real truth in the scriptures and don't just blindly follow along because everyone else does it. It is a much more difficult path to take, but nothing in life that is worthwhile ever comes easy. Why should this?
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