“ACTIVE RELIGION –INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?”
BY: J.FARRELL FISHER,MAY 5-6,2019
I HAVE A BOOK I’VE HAD FOR YEARS PUBLISHED IN 1972 ENTITLED “SIDE-SADDLE on the GOLDEN CALF” WHICH I READ & WAS CHALLENGED BY. BUT TODAY, AS THE LORD MOVED ON MY HEART & MIND RELATED TO A NEW TEACHING, I WONDERED IF, MAYBE, THE MESSAGE HE WAS BIRTHING IN ME SHOULD BE ENTITLED, “SIDE-SADDLE on the golden goat”!
BUT THEN HE CLEARLY SAID: ‘ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP’,AND ,“IS” A CLEAR DESCRIPTION OF FALLEN, SIN-INFESTED, UNBELIEVING,REBELS IN HEART, WHO MAY BE ‘RELIGIOUS’ BUT NOT RE-BORN THROUGH REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST’S “FINISHED WORK AT THE CROSS” & THE REALITY OF HIS EMPTY TOMB, AS HE MINISTERED FOR FORTY DAYS BEFORE HE ASCENDED INTO HEAVEN ENTHRONED NEXT TO GOD HIS FATHER! “ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?”
THERE ARE (!) “IMPOSSIBILITIES” IN ‘RELIGIOUS TRYING’, BECAUSE TRUE BIBLICAL FAITH IS TRUSTING, ALLOWING GOD TO BE HIMSELF IN YOU & THROUGH YOU! OF COURSE, THERE ‘IS’ THE FATALITY OF A RELIGIOUS MAN ATTEMPTING BUT NOT “ATONED FOR”,BECAUSE HE/SHE IS SO INDIFFERENT TO THE REVELATION OF HOLY SCRIPTURE!
YOU’LL HEAR MANY ‘RELIGIOUS ,OPINIONATED’, EVEN ‘SORELY CONCEITED INDIVIDUALS’ ‘VERY MUCH IN LOVE WITH THEIR RELIGIOUS SELVES’, THAT THEY ‘STRUT’ IN CHURCHES & THEIR NEIGHBORLY ACTIVITY OF TRYING TO “SAVE OTHERS” WHEN IN THE MIND & HEART & SPIRIT KNOW NOTHING ABOUT “BLOOD ATONEMENT”, OR “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST”, OR THE OLD SINFUL SELF GONE, WITHOUT EVER TAKING “THE SENTENCE OF DEATH TO SELF DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED IN & THROUGH THEIR MORTAL FLESH”!!!
“ACTIVE RELIGION?” ARE YOU AWARE THAT IN ALL NATURAL MEN & WOMEN, CHILDREN OR YOUTH, THERE IS AN INWARD STRONG URGE TO BE ACCEPTED, TO BE ‘SOMETHING’ SOMEBODY LIKES; OR, LIKE ‘RELIGIOUS ATTENDANCE’IMPERSONATING BUT NOT RELEASING CHRIST JESUS TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH THEM, BECAUSE ITS THEIR PRETENSE NOT HIS PRESENCE THROUGH THEM!
“ACTIVE RELIGION?” “FEELING RELIGIOUSLY ACCEPTABLE”,BUT NOT KNOWING: “CHRIST IN ME MY HOPE OF GLORY”! SUNDAY APPEARANCES APART FROM EVERY MOMENT OF EVERY DAY WATCHING CHRIST BE HIMSELF IN YOU & THROUGH YOU, EXTENDING HIS LIFE, EXPRESSING HIS LOVE, & PROVING HIS POWER? MAN’S INVOLVEMENT IN ‘RELIGIOUS ACTIVITIES’ IS NOT AN EXTENSION OF CHRIST’S LIFE, AN EXPRESSION OF HIS LOVE, OR THE PROOF OF HIS POWER – THAT ONLY OCCURS IN “BORN-AGAIN BELIEVERS WHO ARE ,TRULY,MENTALLY, SPIRITUALLY & HISTORICALLY PRESENTABLE, AS THOSE WHO WERE “CRUCIFIED WITH CHRIST”, & IN HIS RESURRECTION-PRESENCE, HE COMES IN TO “ABIDE, BEING HIMSELF”, AS “YOU” AS A NEW CHILD OF GOD, “TAKE THE SENTENCE OF DEATH DAILY THAT THE RESURRECTION LIFE OF CHRIST MAY BE MANIFESTED THROUGH YOUR MORTAL FLESH!”
“ACTIVE RELIGION? ‘TRYING’ OR “TRUSTING”? SELF-DETERMINED OR SAVIOR-GRACED? ‘ATTEMPTING’ OR “ATONED THROUGH THE BLOOD OF THE LAMB”, NEW-BORN, & SOVEREIGNLY,WILLINGLY,LIVING IN YOUR HEART AS HEAVEN’S KINGDOM-RULER IN REPENTANT, OBEDIENT HEARTS, GUIDED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT WHO GLORIFIES CHRIST IN YOU AGAIN & AGAIN & AGAIN!! IN WATCHMAN NEE’S BOOK, “THE SPIRITUAL MAN”, (PUBLISHED BY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP PUBLISHERS,INC., NEW YORK,1968) ON PAGE 43 NEE WROTE: “THE MAN GOD FASHIONED WAS NOTABLY DIFFERENT FROM ALL OTHER CREATED BEINGS. MAN POSSESSED A SPIRIT SIMILAR TO THAT OF THE ANGELS & AT THE SAME TIME HAD A SOUL RESEMBLING THAT OF THE LOWER ANIMALS. WHEN GOD CREATED MAN HE GAVE HIM A PERFECT FREEDOM. HE DID NOT MAKE MAN AN AUTOMATON, CONTROLLED AUTOMATICALLY BY GOD’S WILL. THIS IS EVIDENT IN GENESIS 2 AT THE TIME GOD INSTRUCTED THE ORIGINAL MAN WHAT FRUIT HE COULD EAT &WHAT NOT. THE MAN GOD CREATED ‘WAS NOT’ A MACHINE RUN BY GOD:INSTEAD HE HAD PERFECT FREEDOM OF CHOICE. IF HE CHOSE TO OBEY GOD, HE COULD; IF HE DECIDED TO REBEL AGAINST GOD, HE COULD DO THAT TOO. MAN HAD IN HIS POSSESSION A SOVEREIGNTY BY WHICH HE COULD EXERCISE HIS VOLITION IN CHOOSING TO OBEY OR DISOBEY. THIS IS A MOST IMPORTANT POINT, FOR WE MUST REALIZE THAT IN OUR SPIRITUAL LIFE GOD NEVER DEPRIVES US OF OUR FREEDOM. UNLESS WE ACTIVELY COOPERATE, GOD WILL NOT UNDERTAKE ANYTHING FOR US. NEITHER GOD NOR THE DEVIL CAN DO ANY WORK WITHOUT FIRST OBTAINING OUR CONSENT, FOR MAN’S WILL IS FREE.” WOW! DOUBLE-WOW!” AND, “FREE TO CHOOSE”, HISTORIC MAN CHOSE ‘HIS WORLD, HIS FLESH-SIN-NATURE, HIS DECEIVED MIND, “THANKS TO SATAN”, AND FELL AWAY FROM HOLY GOD, THEN IN NEED OF RECONCILIATION THROUGH THE “LAMB’S BLOOD ATONEMENT”, BIRTHED UPON REPENTANCE TOWARD GOD & FAITH IN CHRIST’S FINISHED WORK AT THE CROSS,&, HE/SHE IS THEN BORN-AGAIN, INFILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, & LED ON THE PATH OF TRUE RIGHTEOUSNESS TO HONOR THE SAVIOR & LORD!!
“ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP?” SADLY IN MANY ‘RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES’ THERE IS THE FATALITY OF ‘FAITHLESS MEN’S INDIFFERENT ATTITUDE & MIND-SET’ TOWARD HOLY GOD &ALSO TOWARD THE LORD JESUS CHRIST, BELIEVING WITH THEIR MINDS, BUT VOID OF “CALVARY,BLOOD -BOUGHT-HEARTS”! ‘RELIGIOUS MIND-SETS’,AWARE OF THEIR ‘WEAKNESSES’, TRY TO IMPROVE WHAT HOLY GOD CRUCIFIED AS CHRIST JESUS, ON THE CROSS, SUFFERING & DYING, CARRIED MAN’S SIN-NATURE, TO WASH IT AWAY BY HIS OWN BLOOD, DYING, BUT BEING RESURRECTED BY HOLY FATHER TO GIVE REPENTANT SONS & DAUGHTERS NEW IDENTITIES!!
‘ANTSY RELIGIOUS PARTICIPANTS BIRTH ITCHY MINDS & FLESHLY WILLS IN THEIR STRONGEST DECEPTIVE,BLINDING, EMBARASSING IDEAS’ OF “DOING MY BEST FOR GOD”, AS THEY YIELD COLD, ICY, DEAD MINDS & HEARTS, WILLFULLY ‘PERFORMING’ BUT NOT IN “GRACED LIVING OF LIVES” THAT ARE “TEMPLES” WHERE THE LORD HIMSELF RESIDES TO BE HIMSELF THROUGH ONE’S AVAILABILITY FOR HIM, NOT THEM, WHO THEN WILLFULLY WATCH AS THE LORD MANIFESTS HIS PRESENCE AS THE “LIGHT” THAT OPENS ‘DARKENED HEARTS, MINDS, LIVING SOULISHLY’!!
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, IN HIS WRITING “LACON”,(Vol.1,25),WROTE: “MEN WILL WRANGLE FOR RELIGION; WRITE FOR IT; FIGHT FOR IT; DIE FOR IT; ANYTHING BUT – LIVE FOR IT.” TRUE FAITH IS NOT ‘RELIGIOUS EXPRESSION’, BUT “REDEMPTIVE FAITH” IS WHAT ONE IS ASSURED OF BY THE “RESIDENT JESUS”, PRESENT,PRESIDING, PRESENTING, & PERFECTING THE TRULY REPENTANT, TRUSTING SOUL THAT LONGS FOR THE SPIRIT OF CHRIST IN THEM, FOR THEM, & BEING HIMSELF THROUGH THEM! (ARE YOU “RESTING” IN REDEMPTIVE FAITH IN THE “BLESSED ASSURANCE OF CHRIST”?
IN MY OLD “AMERICAN HYMNAL”( PUBLISHED IN 1933 BY BROADMAN PRESS, NASHVILLE,TENN.) IS A HYMN ENTITLED “BLESSED ASSURANCE”. IT SAYS:
“BLESSED ASSURANCE, JESUS IS MINE!OH,WHAT A FORETASTE OF GLORY DIVINE! HEIR OF SALVATION, PURCHASE OF GOD,BORN OF HIS SPIRIT,WASHED IN HIS BLOOD.
PERFECT SUBMISSION,PERFECT DELIGHT, VISIONS OF RAPTURE NOW BURST ON MY SIGHT; ANGELS DESCENDING,BRING FROM ABOVE ECHOES OF MERCY,WHISPERS OF LOVE.
PERFECT SUBMISSION, ALL IS AT REST, I IN MY SAVIOR AM HAPPY &BLEST; WATCHING & WAITING, LOOKING (WITHIN), FILLED WITH HIS GOODNESS, LOST IN HIS LOVE.
THIS IS MY STORY,THIS IS MY SONG,PRAISING MY SAVIOR ALL THE DAY LONG;THIS IS MY STORY, THIS IS MY SONG, PRAISING MY SAVIOR ALL THE DAY LONG.”
MEN WITH ‘RELIGION’ DO SO IN THE ABSENCE OF THE SOVEREIGNTY OF GOD THAT UNVEILS THEIR ‘RELIGIOUS PRETENSE’, WHILE MEN WITH A HOLY SPIRIT-BIRTHED RELATIONSHIP LIVE AVOWING & AFFIRMING “THANKSGIVING” FOR THE CHRIST “IN THEM” THAT ETERALLY ABIDES, THANKING HIM FOR BEING HIMSELF THROUGH THEM DAILY,YES, EVEN MOMENT BY MOMENT!
AGAIN,SAME “THE AMERICAN HYMNAL”,(P.43),IS A HYMN BY MAY WHITTLE MOODY ENTITLED “MOMENT BY MOMENT”. IT SAYS: “DYING WITH JESUS, BY DEATH RECKONED MINE; LIVING WITH JESUS, A NEW LIFE DIVINE; LOOKING TO JESUS TILL GLORY SHINES, MOMENT BY MOMENT, O LORD, I AM THINE.
NEVER A TRIAL THAT HE IS NOT THERE, NEVER A BURDEN THAT HE DOES NOT BEAR; NEVER A SORROW THAT HE DOES NOT SHARE, MOMENT BY MOMENT, I’M UNDER HIS CARE.
NEVER A HEARTACHE, & NEVER A GROAN, NEVER A TEAR-DROP & NEVER A MOAN; NEVER A DANGER, BUT THERE ON THE THRONE, MOMENT BY MOMENT HE THINKS OF HIS OWN.
NEVER A WEAKNESS THAT HE DOES NOT FEEL, NEVER A SICKNESS THAT HE CANNOT HEAL; MOMENT BY MOMENT, IN WOE OR IN WEAL, JESUS, MY SAVIOR,ABIDES WITH ME STILL.
MOMENT BY MOMENT I’M KEPT IN HIS LOVE; MOMENT BY MOMENT I’VE LIFE FROM ABOVE; LOOKING TO JESUS TILL GLORY DOES SHINE; MOMENT BY MOMENT, O LORD, I AM THINE.”
AND YOU “LOOK WITHIN” – NOT OUT & UP, HOPING YOU CAN BREAK THROUGH CLOUDS & DARKNESS & OPPOSITION TO FINALLY “SEE HIM”- “NO!” “CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY!” “CHRIST THROUGH YOU CONFRONTING ANY ENEMY OF HIS THAT WOULD WANT TO BRING YOU & HIM DOWN!” JESUS IS “VICTOR” OVER THE LAWS OF SIN & DEATH! JESUS IS “VICTOR” OVER SATAN & HIS DEMON ARMIES!
IN ROMANS 8:29-39,THERE IS TEACHING WITH A REVELATION SO ENRICHING & INSPIRING TRUE SERVANTS OF CHRIST. PAUL SAYS:
“FOR WHOM GOD FOREKNEW, HE ALSO PREDESTINED OR PREDETERMINED TO BE CONFORMED TO THE IMAGE (EXACT LIKENESS!) OF HIS SON, THAT HE MIGHT BE THE FIRSTBORN AMONG MANY BRETHREN.
MOREOVER WHOM HE PREDESTINED, THEM HE ALSO CALLED:& WHOM HE CALLED,THEM HE ALSO JUSTIFIED (“JUST-AS-IF-THEY’D-NEVER-SINNED”!):& WHOM HE JUSTIFIED, THEM HE ALSO GLORIFIED.
WHAT SHALL WE SAY THEN TO THESE THINGS? IF GOD BE FOR US, WHO CAN BE AGAINST US? HE THAT SPARED NOT HIS OWN SON, BUT DELIVERED HIM UP FOR US ALL, HOW SHALL HE NOT WITH HIM ALSO FREELY GIVE US ALL THINGS?
WHO SHALL LAY ANY THING TO THE CHARGE OF GOD’S ELECT? IT IS GOD THAT JUSTIFIES. WHO IS HE THAT C ONDEMNS?IT IS CHRIST THAT DIED,YEA RATHER, THAT IS RISEN AGAIN, WHO IS EVEN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, WHO ALSO MAKES INTERCESSION FOR US.
WHO SHALL SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF CHRIST? SHALL TRIBULATION, OR DISTRESS , OR PERSECUTION, OR FAMINE OR NAKEDNESS, OR PERIL, OR SWORD? NO, IN ALL THESE THINGS WE “ARE” MORE THAN CONQUERORS THROUG H HIM THAT LOVED US.
FOR I AM PERSUADED, THAT NEITHER DEATH, NOR LIFE, NOR ANGELS, NOR PRINCIPALITIES, NOR POWERS, NOR THINGS PRESENT, NOR THINGS TO COME, NOR HEIG HT, NOR DEPTH, NOR ANY OTHER CRE ATURE, SHALL BE ABLE TO SEPARATE US FROM THE LOVE OF GOD, WHICH IS IN CHRIST JESUS OUR LORD.” I CLOSE WITH ANOTHER HYMN THAT SAYS:
HAIL TO THE BRIGHTNESS OF ZION’S GLAD MORNING! JOY TO THE LANDS THAT IN DARKNESS HAVE LAIN! HUSHED BE THE ACCENTS OF SORROW & MOURNING; ZION IN TRIUMPH BEGINS HER GLAD REIGN.
HAIL TO THE BRIGHTNESS OF ZION’S GLAD MORNING! LONG BY THE PROPHETS OF ISRAEL FORETOLD! HAIL TO THE MILLIONS FROM BONDAGE RETURNING, GENTILES & JEWS THE BLEST VISION BEHOLD!
LO! IN THE DESERT RICH FLOWERS ARE SPRINGING, STREAMS EVER COPIOUS ARE GLIDING ALONG; LOUD FROM THE MOUNTAIN-TOPS ECHOES ARE RINGING, WASTES RISE IN VERD UE & MINGLE IN SONG.
SEE, FROM ALL LANDS – FROM THE ISLES OF THE OCEAN,-PRAISE TO JEHOVAH ASCENDING ON HIGH; FALLEN ARE THE ENGINES OF WAR &COMMOTION, SHOUTS OF SALVATION ARE RENDING THE SKY.”
IN “THE ‘SKY’ OF YOUR LIFE-ARE THERE GLORIES TO GOD”? IS IT FOR YOU: “ACTIVE RELIGION – INACTIVE RELATIONSHIP”? OR, IN YOU, IS IT: “ATONING FAITH THROUGH THE SHED BLOOD OF CHRIST BIRTHING HIS ETERNAL LIFE IN YOU, & GIFTED BY GOD WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT, IS THE HOLY SPIRIT GLORIFYING CHRIST THROUGH YOU”?
DON’T YOU WONDER AT TIMES ? “IN THE ABSENCE OF TRUE FAITH, ARE MEN STILL ESTABLISHING ‘RELIGIONS’, & AFTER A PERIOD OF TIME REALIZE: “THIS ISN’T ‘GOD’S GARDEN OF TRUE FAITH! I’M IN A ‘GORILLA CAGE’?” AND THAT’S NOT GOOD!” WHY NOT FORSAKE YOUR ‘GORILLA CAGE’ & THROUGH TRUE REPENTANCE & FAITH ALLOW JESUS HIS ESTABLISHMENT OF YOUR LIFE AS HIS HOLY TEMPLE WHERE HE ABIDES, REACHING OUT THROUGH YOU TO TOUCH YOUR WORLD WITH HIS “AMAZING GRACE”?