Let the Church Be the Church

Facing the Lack of Moral Leadership Accountability in Christianity

Bobby E. Mills

• Publisher: Morgan James Publishing
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781614488767
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Church

An impassioned call for Christian churches to return to the values of service, love, and grace—and reject the twenty-first century gospel of material prosperity. The lack of accountability in Christian churches has rendered them powerless to meet the spiritual needs of humanity. America needs a renaissance of the human spirit, and the church must serve society by spreading God's love through the gospel. The twenty-first century gospel of material prosperity over spiritual prosperity, as proclaimed by some pastoral leaders, has no place in the Christian doctrine. This materialistic perspective has shaken the foundation of the church. Today's worship is full of pomp, circumstance, and emotionalism, but not a lot of the love, grace, and service that was exemplified by the life and teachings of Jesus. This book urges Christians to remember who started the church and what its most important values truly are. The greatest line item in a church's budget should be benevolence, not lavish pastoral lifestyles.

Chapter 1

GOD

God is God and besides Him there is none other.

Exodus 33:17

LET GOD BE GOD

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord: And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in thine heart: and thou shalt teach them diligently unto thy children, and shalt talk of them when thou sitteth in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou riseth up.

Deuteronomy 6:4–7

To be sure, what individuals think about God determines what they think about themselves, others, duty, responsibility, and most of all human destinies. There is a higher spiritual reality. Reality is not just what individuals see with their physical eyes. The Hebrew prophet Ezekiel declared that looking up he saw a big wheel in the middle of a wheel in the middle of a wheel. But after another look he saw a little bitty wheel in the midst of all the big wheels—it was the reality of God making all the big wheels go around.

Of course, some people actually disbelieve in God. Atheists are usually individuals who are in rebellion against some unworthy ideas about God. Every human being is confronted with one central life-changing question: who do you love more, the Giver or the gifts? For “Every good and perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17). Of course, the devil gives gifts too; however the devil's gifts are from the pit of hell because they are illusory. “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world, if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world” (1 John 2:15–16).

This is why what is God to some is the devil to others. Indeed, this is also why Job cried: “Oh, that I knew where I might find Him” (Job 23:3). While on the other hand the psalmist celebrates the inescapable presence of God through a poem:

O Lord, thou hast searched me, and known me. Thou knowest my down sitting and mine uprising, thou understandest my thoughts afar off. Thou compassest my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways. For there is not a word in my tongue, but, lo, O Lord, thou knowest it altogether. Thou hast beset me behind and before, and laid thine hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; It is too high. I cannot attain unto It. Wither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up Into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the utter most parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.

Psalm 139:1–10

GOD IS NOT CHAINED TO AN ALTAR

God is not localized; He travels with individuals and therefore reveals Himself universally. So every individual is without excuse.

The psalmist celebrates free will, freedom of mind that God gives to every individual soul. It goes without saying that this psalm is indeed cherished by children of God. Its truth has a cutting edge, a truth that is not proven by scientific logic but by positive interdependent living. Human beings were created to be in fellowship-partnership with God and with each other. The mind that seeks to escape from the reality of God always finds it impossible to do so, because God is the reality of absolute truth.

The absolute truth is that individuals did not give life to themselves. If that were the case—if individuals could create themselves—then most sane-minded people would not physically die but live in physical form forever. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not anything made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men” (John 1:1–3).

Who is God? What is reality? God is an axiomatic given, inherently untestable, and therefore God is not a problem to be solved but a spiritual force to be joined. God's wisdom is above humankind's knowledge and understanding. God's thoughts and ways are not like those of humanity. “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts” (Isa. 55:8–9).

The creation story tells the whole story. In order to escape God individuals must deny selfhood—that is, deny what is since individuals did not create themselves and cannot keep themselves from experiencing physical death. But they do not have to experience spiritual death. The devil can only exercise his gifts when he is able to get permission from a host-body since he is not omnipresent like God.

Eve gave the devil permission to exercise his gifts of deception, distortion, lies, trickery, and confusion. In order to work his will the devil must first get an individual to cut off his/her conscience from the reality of God, because God only deals with individuals through moral conscience. When individuals cut off conscience from God, they are without God. This is why the devil was able to exercise his gifts in the Garden of Eden through Eve. Therefore the church was corrupted and Jesus came to restore the church; the very gates of hell shall not prevail against God's soul salvation plan. In American society those who seek to escape from the reality of God are best described as truth-dodgers or lie-accommodators rather than ideological atheists.

God is the Maker (Creator) of all things. God demands righteousness and He desires our worship and praise. Because, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked, even mine enemies and my foes, came upon me to eat up my flesh, they stumbled and fell” (Ps. 27:1–2). Furthermore, “I will bless the Lord at all times: his praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make her boast in the Lord: the humble shall hear thereof, and be glad” (Ps. 34:1–2). Moreover, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked” (Ps. 91:7–8). Therefore, God's delight is in our obedience to His will. Self-righteousness is devilish, because “For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Rom. 5:19).

“What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound? God forbid. How shall we, that are dead to sin, live any longer therein” (Rom. 6:1–2)? All leaders both spiritual as well as political should heed God's warning: “For the leaders of this people cause them to err; and they that are led of them are destroyed. Therefore, the Lord shall have no joy in their young men, neither shall have mercy on their fatherless and widows; for everyone is a hypocrite and an evildoer, and every mouth speaketh folly. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still” (Isa. 9:16–17).

Even in the midst of profound wickedness God's desire is human restoration. Jesus says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matt. 11:28–30). The Jesus way is the only way because it is God's divine salvation plan for His children. “For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacketh these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and hath forgotten that he was purged from his old sins” (2 Pet. 1:8–9).

“Praise ye the Lord. Blessed is the man that feareth the Lord that delighteth greatly in his commandments. His seed shall be mighty upon the earth: the generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house: and his righteousness endureth forever” (Ps. 112:1–4).

God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is the Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; and he hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, and And him, though he be not far from every one of us. For in him we live, and move and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, for we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man's device. And the times of this Ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men everywhere to repent; because he hath appointed a day, in which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man he hath ordained whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.

Acts 17:24–31

There are three important ideas embodied in this passage of Scripture. Foremost is the idea that individuals must worship God with their minds (human will and conscience), and of course just as important is the idea that the earth is humankind's natural habitat. Our souls are housed in our minds. Let the mind that was in Christ Jesus be also in you, which in turn is the mind of God. But, more importantly, the perfection of God is clearly expressed in the fact that God has no physical needs because He is perfect in love. The needy invariably become the greedy. God confronts every individual with this ultimate question: who do you love more, the Giver or the gift? Individuals who have enormous needs are rarely ever satisfied. Neediness engenders insecurity and insecurity creates the need to exploit others.

Self-control and self-discipline are indeed difficult character traits to acquire (God, of course, is completely self-sufficient). In my opinion, to learn to rely totally upon one's own spirit force is paradoxically to learn to rely on the Spirit of God. That is, the power within. Jesus always referred to the Kingdom of God being within, rather than without. Hence, to know the power of self is to know the power of God. Again, in my opinion direct knowledge of self is indirect knowledge of God. Unfortunately, most individuals culturally learn to deal with self negatively because they learn to define themselves by external characteristics (categories) rather than internal moral character traits, and consequently they deal with God negatively. Self is the enemy.

The essential character of God is freedom. God is not an authoritarian dictator of human will, or mindset. God's vision is for all to behold: “look up with the eyes of your mind, not your physical eyes, and indeed you will see a higher reality.” Without a doubt, reality has two dimensions: (1) reality as appearance and (2) reality as truth—it is what it is. In many situations perception is greater than the truth. However, things are not always what they seem to be. Everything that looks like gold is not gold: all gold does not glitter. Even unpolished diamonds do not glitter. There are many diamonds in the rough. Therefore, reality is not always appearance. The story of Ezekiel's experience with a wheel in the middle of a wheel is an applicable analogy of the reality of God (Ezek. 1:16–21).

It is easier for an individual to believe a lie than the truth because a lie only requires belief-rhetoric, but an individual has to work to discover the truth. Truth is what it is, because God is who He is all by Himself. Absolute truth and God are synonymous. With God it is about faith, not physical sight. Hence, God is the author and finisher of goodness and the devil enlists humans to help him become the author and finisher of evil and confusion. Human failures are not God's failures: God can do anything but fail. Without a doubt, positive fear of God is wisdom and of course to abandon evil is understanding. “Wise men lay up knowledge: but the mouth of the foolish is near destruction” (Prov. 10:14).

Individuals seek to “relativize” the truth in order to deny the authority of God over life. The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, and all that dwell therein. Of course, many societies seek to institutionalize lies—that is lock the truth out of their institutional structures and social processes in order to exploit certain individuals. Indeed, the “dereliction” god-complex of some individuals causes them to deny the existence of absolute truth. Playing God is a dangerous game, but this is precisely what is wrong with some people, trying to become something they can never be: Godlike but not God. Therefore individuals should be what they are in God, not seek to play God.

Truth defines and a lie(s) deludes and creates confusion. To accept absolute truth then is to accept the centrality of God's will and therefore to accept egalitarianism rather than authoritarianism. There are no gods on earth, only finite human beings; Godlike but not God. “But the Lord is the true God; He is the living God, and an everlasting king: at his wrath the earth shall tremble, and the nations shall not be able to abide his indignation. Thus shall ye say unto them, the gods that have not made the heavens and the earth, even they shall perish from the earth, and from under these heavens. He hath made the earth by his power, he hath established the world by his wisdom, and hath stretched out the heavens by his discretion” (Jer. 10:10–12).

God is the primal energy source from which everything in the universe derives energy for life. The human body is formed, like all other material bodies, of electrons and atoms. These electrons and atoms are in perpetual motion and are governed by invisible yet definite universal laws. Indeed, everything in the universe operates according to cyclical principles. Material manifestations are projections of primal energy (God), the invisible source of all power. For example, the paper that this book is printed on was an invisible idea before it was a material manifestation. God is a spiritual source of power, and of course His kingdom is a spiritual kingdom, not a material kingdom.

God's kingdom does not come in and of itself. God's kingdom is about humankind's inner spirit toward self and neighbor. The decline of the idea of God as a moral absolute in American society has produced the privatization (individuation) and commercialization of Christianity. Whatever else religion/Christianity is, it is foremost a group phenomenon. Individuals attend churches as families and groups and, more importantly, they worship as a group. However, an individual must experience the reality of God individually but most of all come to know God in the pardoning and forgiveness of his or her sins.

To be sure, moral bankruptcy engenders a despair of intellectual integrity and moral character; and of course despair creates a sense of hopelessness. There is a striking contradiction between what God is and what we as Americans are becoming, what God demands and what we choose to do, and most of all, God's spiritual church and humankind's institutional Christian church. Of course, the world will always stand at attention for those who have maturity of spiritual purpose and a positive vision direction for the future.

God is not some kitchen shelf of illusions about life that blinds individuals to truth and ultimate reality. God is the only unifying force in the world as it is or the world as it shall be, because God is absolute truth. Hence, God is not Santa Claus; He is a rational ontological spiritual being, logical to the nth degree. God does not give blessings (gifts) and expect nothing in return. God is LIFE. Religion is a way of life, and therefore God is not a negative crutch but a positive force for positive self-talk. Every individual is born into this world as God's truth, not another individual's lie. To be what we are in Christ (righteousness) then is the real challenge in human existence. Therefore, truth is a powerful defense system. To learn to consistently rule over one's own spirit is the essence of creative religious living. Great then is the individual who consciously kills the self of today in order that he/she might live today, tomorrow, and spiritually forever.

Conceptually, the Judeo-Christian idea of God is in radical opposition to twenty-first-century institutional Christian practices. In the Old Testament God is the only hero, the Lawgiver. He travels with individuals because He is not chained to a sacred altar or housed in a physical temple, tent, or twenty-first-century mega-church sanctuary. God is rational and logical. The harmony in nature expresses the rationality and harmony of God. Without a doubt, the institutional practices of twenty-first-century Christian churches are radically different from what God demands as expressed in the precepts, teachings, and examples of Jesus Christ.

Deuteronomy 8:11 warns us against forgetting God. “Beware that thou forget not the Lord thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command this day.” Therefore, fear of God is the beginning of knowledge, but fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord; and in his law doth he mediate day and night. And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. The ungodly are not so: but are like the chaff which the wind driveth away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

Psalm 1:1–5

God's fourfold foundational plan is His absolute truth about the meaning of human existence and His divine soul-salvation plan. Of course, for a moment the devil threw a monkey wrench in the salvation plan.

In Genesis 1:27–28 God gives the fourfold positional foundation for humankind to experience heaven on earth, or godly living: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, an...