Each persons walk with God is as individual as our fingerprints. I came from a denomination that produced for God Cookie cutter Christians. Christians, who looked alike, talked alike, dressed alike, and walked alike. This comes from several different things. First a gross misunderstanding of God and second a gross misunderstanding of what a Christian is!
A Christian is, or is at least supposed to be a spirit led individual. I am not just talking about a baptism or a “spiritual experience”, but being spirit led. We unfortunately relate Christianity to deeds of the flesh, or lack thereof. What a person wears… What a person says… What a person does… But Christ was very clear that it went way beyond the carnal that we tend to latch on to and beat each other down with. In fact the same laws that we know to be fulfilled yet try to base our lives and the lives of others around, Christ Himself did not adhere to… Jesus Christ, God manifest in flesh, a man who did not completely keep the church’s law yet knew no sin, understood that the things of the flesh were just that… fleshly things for which there would be forgiveness. There were weightier things to be dealt with, and these things He tackled item by item though the church of His age sought to kill Him, because carnally He did not line up to what the current church just knew in their hearts to be right.
If we as Christians would study Christ. Not just His words and actions, but the things that He did not say, or do, for instance in John chapter 8: 1-11, a woman caught in the very act of adultery was dragged out to the streets as the law (given by God) mandated her to be stoned. They were only doing what they had believe that God had instructed them to do through the pen of Moses. This was written letter in the “word of God”. To not comply was a disobedience to “Gods word”, and yet instead of picking up stones as He should have done, Jesus bends down and draws in the sand, no one knows what he placed in the sand, but we do know that Jesus taught a valuable lesson to those around accusing her, the law points to the carnal, but a spirit led individual will look beyond the letter, and understand that the spirit behind the letter boasts of our reconciliation with God.
You will find over and over again as Jesus crossed the path of others, His response was not what the church had expected it to be. Whether the infraction involved sex (as in the case of the woman at the well, and the woman caught in adultery), or theft (one of his own disciples being crooked tax collector, or outright denial ( as was the case with Peter) Jesus handled them all in a spirit of reconciliation. The only people that cause his open harsh rebuke were those poor church leaders of the day that wore their religion on their sleeves and looked down on all the others as less than themselves. Self righteousness was Christ only enemy, and this because, He alone was the revealed righteousness of God, and he came to us to bring the same! The church needed to know that they had no righteousness or holiness outside of Christ.
The sad part is that now some 2000 years later we are still in this same place. Looking to the God of the letter instead of the spirit behind it. The church is still dragging its believers out to center court to be stoned. We are still looking to the carnal to Identify with one another when the word tells us that
2Co 5:16 Therefore, from now on,
we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
2Co 5:17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
2Co 5:18 Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
2Co 5:19 that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
1Jo 4:1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
1Jo 4:2 By this you know the Spirit of God:
Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God,
1Jo 4:3 and every spirit that does not confess that[1] Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world.
1Jo 4:4 You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
It takes an act of the spirit of God to open your eyes even to the words shared with you above, so if you stand in disagreement with me, that is fine as It is God that is in control over what he reveals to you and I through His word. But as we are to regard no one according to the flesh, and every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, let us each be drawn to a common place, a place of reconciliation and love.
So regardless of sex, race, status, sexual orientation, let us not regard one another according to the flesh, but glorify God by walking in love which is the bond of perfection.
Col 3:14
So finally…
Gal 3:26 For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
Gal 3:27 For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.
Gal 3:28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
Linear Mode
