NO MORE LIES (eBook)

CHAPTER 1.
Church Blinders

I am from a church going family. My mother always took my sisters, and I to church every Sunday. My father, either didn’t go or belonged to a different church. My mother was who I, stayed closer to. I loved the whole church scene. Every church service was pretty much the same, but I didn’t realize until I was older, that things in our lives were supposed to change. The beginning of my adult life, I realized I still didn’t know what the Christian life was all about. The older I grew the less I attended church, but when I did go it was always the same, but everyone was older, and there were a few new faces. The church my mom and I went to from my teenage years to my early adulthood, was a different church than I attended when my children were young, but the same when it came to the preaching and teaching.

The things I learned at the churches, I attended were pretty much basic stuff all churches teach, or so I thought, like; Jesus is God’s son, if you sin you are going to hell, treat others right, do good and God will be good to you and if you wear pants, they will send you to hell. The emphasis was on doing right, and repenting, so you could go to heaven, instead of hell. The leaders mostly taught and preached from the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant fore-told of the New Covenant changes after Jesus, death on the cross. At my church, we studied Genealogy and memorized all the books of the Bible, and our children were taught to do the same.

Everyone at church dressed up for Easter, and we had dinners after special services, we dressed in certain colors on certain days, and sung songs like, 99 1/2 won’t do. I love to sing, so I was in the choir, and would get so excited when the choir was called up to sing. Everything was so good feeling. I felt such happiness at church, and it wasn’t until after I was married and had a family to care for, that I realized that good feeling was not enough. I was going through hell at home, and all I would hear at church is fast and pray. As I continued to go to church, from time to time, I would come home feeling worse, and wished I had stayed home on those days. I would hear the preacher say things like “ stop sleeping with sister Orange Juice, and Brother Koo-laid, sin is why you sick in your body, and nothing is going right in your life”. I heard this kind of teaching and preaching for years at this church. I would go home and wonder what sin I was committing, that was causing me to be sick in my body and causing all the hell I was going through. I would say” I’m sorry” to God over and over. I felt condemned to the point that I thought God was mad at me. The guilt of knowing I messed up would have me in tears for days and days. I learned that if I wasn’t good enough, no good would come to me, and I couldn’t have all the things the Bible says I can have. I tried to do right, so I could be right in the eyes of God.

Natural consequences for sin, has always been around. I will not say sin doesn’t have consequences, but by the preachers preaching on sin only, puts people in condemnation. The law was the ministry of condemnation. The law was to show what sin is, but it can’t save anyone. The church was built on lies (God spoke this to me). The leaders don’t tell the whole story, when preaching and teaching on sin only, which is misleading people. Even though Christians mess up, grace and mercy, covers them too. The focus at the churches I attended, was to scare people into getting saved, and keep them scared so they won’t go to hell, which causes fear of punishment. The preachers preach that overeating is a sin too, and sin is sin, so by their own admission, they are saying some of, them will suffer the consequences, and go to hell, like everyone else committing sin.

One day I was at work, and had the Tv on, and the Joyce Meyers Gospel Program was on, and she said” God is not mad at you, it’s the enemy (devil) that’s behind that trouble you are going through”. I stood there crying like a baby. Somewhere along the line, because of the sort of teaching and preaching at my church, I thought God was mad at me, that day I received revelation by the Holy Spirit bearing witness with my spirit, that what Joyce Meyers said was true, and that day I was set free from sin consciousness.

Sin Consciousness is functioning in a state where you are constantly aware of the sin you committed, and when we are like this, we talk about ourselves and others as unholy, weak and imperfect vessels. God wants us to live as though sin never existed. (Hebrews 10:1-2 NIV). The church I went to taught about sin so much, that all I really got out of it, is that I was a sinner, and the leaders were pure as the driven snow and never had any problem with sin. I would hear them say “ God will keep you if you want to be kept from sinning” I believe that’s true so why did they behave like the devil himself in church? didn’t they want to be kept? Everyone is struggling with something, but most people won’t admit it to anyone. The pretense of being holy can be kept up if you look and act the part, as was with the religious(self-righteous) leaders back in the day. I know everyone would love to be seen as perfect but we in ourselves are not perfect. I love how Jesus always showed up the religious (self-righteous) leaders in his day, by showing them they are not perfect either. I don’t fit into religious churches because I know I am not perfect and don’t try to be.

I began questioning the teaching and preaching at my church and others after I was set free from sin consciousness. The scripture in the Bible that says “ if your eyes offend pluck them out (Mark 9:47), if your hands offend, chop them off (Mark 9:43), I asked a lady at the church if we are really to do this, and she said “ yes. “ The problem with this is I don’t see anyone walking around missing body parts. The lady who said this was a leader at the church, and the pastor was always preaching on her because she was always in someone’s business. She should have chopped out her tongue because her mouth always offended. Years later I received revelation that what a Tv preacher said was the truth about those scriptures, he said “ Jesus was fulfilling the law as a prophet, his time to go to the cross was near and he knew the Jews would no longer be under the law of Moses (under the Old Covenant), but under grace and mercy “ (New Covenant). The Old Covenant was an agreement between God and Israel in the Old Testament. Jesus fulfilled the law and now everyone is under the New Covenant. Some of the religious leaders of today, don’t teach or preach like anything changed after Jesus went to the cross. Today church would be different if the leaders were under the New Testament (grace, and mercy), and we would have more unity in our churches. We as a people have just believed what the leaders said, because they are leaders and are supposed to know God, but when Jesus died on the cross the churches kept to performance- based religion. Jesus died over 2000 years ago, and none us were here then, and we Gentiles were never even under the law of Moses. The leaders at my church didn’t teach about the law, but knew to do good to get good, which is what the law of Moses (moral law) was all about. The focus should not be on us doing good to get good when it’s about Jesus alone. Jesus’s death was the bridge from the Old Covenant (law) to the New Covenant (grace and mercy), and he said things like” if you even look at a woman with lust you have already committed adultery with her, in your heart. What? but Jesus you know our eyes see. Jesus said this because he wanted to show that it is impossible to live by the law of Moses, and that they need a savior.

Jesus is the promised savior the Old Testament spoke of, and he fulfilled the requirements of the law, and now we are saved by grace through faith, and not the law. I was hardly a person who felt the need to dance in church, but this revelation made me want to breakdance. I usually stayed glued to my seat most of the time when the saints were dancing at church, and I didn’t usually feel what they felt. I remember asking God why people were always dancing around in church, and he said “ my spirit is bearing witness with their spirit, that what was said is the truth, I can imagine some dance in church just to be seen though. We all love good music with a beat that makes us want to dance, but to go home and not experience any transformation ever and just feel good at church is useless when it comes to Christianity. The black church is probably the most known for dancing. The music is in us. If being able to dance was a requirement to get to heaven, I know all of us would make it to heaven. I am telling on myself too because plenty of times though, I jumped around to the beat not feeling the spirit.

When it came to teaching, I had to go outside the church, to receive the right teaching, that’s how I found myself watching gospel programs, and started to grow in my Christian faith. I was so excited by what I’d learned, so the devil stayed busy trying to keep me in a place of shame because of my struggles. Some of the saints knew what I was going through, and they couldn’t understand why I was so happy. I learned the truth and it wasn’t even about me doing right. God says in his word, that he made me righteous when I received him (Romans 5:1). I still had sin, but I put my trust in God and haven’t regretted it to this day. The devil is a liar (John 10:10), he had me believing what the preacher said about trouble coming my way because of sin. The devil tried and tried to keep me in my shame to keep me in condemnation, but every revelation I received about God’s word made me want to know more....