R.M.C.O.G
Died in mid-1990’s!
Still Dead!

In 1993, I attended a small church here in Denver. They were growing. Soon they had a great opportunity to acquire a larger church that would meet their needs. We made the move. Most everyone came to the new church building.

The church continued to grow. I became a part of the ‘church’. I opened the church at 4 am for daily prayer meetings. We held all night prayer vigils. The pastor was personable. We were like a big family. Most of us were there whenever the doors were open. There were lots of potlucks, events, and stuff going on.

As one got closer to the inner workings of the church, the pastor and staff per se, it was clear to notice the dissention. The pastor was new of about 1-2 years whereas the music minister had been at the church for a decade or so and kind of felt like it was ‘his’ church’. Some of the congregation had been there for a long time and followed the music minister and the newer folks followed the pastor.

Of course, there were the group of folks that only attended on Sundays and maybe an occasional Sunday night that knew nothing about the disagreements and followed neither.

Eventually, after about 5 years I had enough of the factions, cliques, being told who I should listen to and why, all the gossip and nastiness. And these were all grown adults!

In 2000, I moved to Tennessee for a hiatus of hell. When I returned to Denver in 2005, I hooked up with an old friend who had been at that mentioned church for a very long time off and on. She suggested that if I was looking for a church again to come check them out. The pastor had moved… to Tennessee and the music minister had since left also. She was implying that the air from the old problems should be clearer.

I show up one Sunday morning. So… I am sitting there in the pew waiting for ‘church’ to start. (Doesn’t that sound funny!?) I start to visually peruse the place and think I am recognizing people. Some are quite noticeable while others I had to really think about. When my friend comes to sit down I start to ask her, ‘Is that so-and-so? And him and her… is that…?’ She laughs and replies yes to all. Wow.

The sad part is how I was able to recognize these folks. These die-hards had been at that church forever. They follow the church every time it moves and most stay with it even when the pastor changes.
Die-hards.

As I sat through that service, still looking about I realized some people that I recognized were not just die-hards. They were DEAD. Hush! Now don’t get all choked up and think of nasty things to comment to me about! I am not being harsh! Listen up!

Do you know how I recognized these people? They still looked the same. Forbid, I know what I looked like 12 years ago and what I looked like now. I had been through hell in those years and I ‘matured’. My hair was longer, cut differently, I had gained weight, gotten married, became a grandmother 3 times over and lots of other stuff.

These people had the same hairstyle, the same style clothes and still acted the same. I didn’t see a lot of maturity in their actions. It was so sad. There was no growth physically, emotionally or spiritually from what I could see on the outside in a few minutes of watching. That was sad.

But how many churches have the same thing going on? Folks get comfortable sitting in the same pew week after week getting to know the names of the four others that sit around them. They sing the same songs, eat the same potluck, shake the same hands and go home on time. Forbid that the Holy Ghost might want to get a word in edge-wise! They are so caught up in their religious behavior that they think they are Christians for doing their duty. And forbid, anyone tell them differently!

Can you imagine if I commented on the outfit they were wearing that I thought I recognized from the last time I saw them… 12 years ago!!! Croak! They would probably righteously hit me with their ‘sword’ or better yet ‘rebuke me’!

God wants our hearts. Not our actions. Not our duty. Not our rituals. Not our supercilious attendance to religious events! Our hearts! That is all. Period.

I came to the end of my rope this week with my grown daughter and grandkids living with me. It has been eleven very long, exhausting months. People rooted me on to ‘hang in there’ and ‘keep holding on!’ I decided I would rather let go of the rope and if I was lucky, I might fall in front of a Mac truck on the autobahn or into shark infested ocean waters. Now that sounded like fun!

My daughter’s lifestyle and mine clashed. Not because I am a Christ follower and she is not but because I directly oppose liars, cheaters, manipulating, dirty, lazy people that like to take advantage of everyone.

The religious term is fervent prayer. I was not fervently praying for her to get accepted into her own apartment… I was desperately crying, inwardly screaming and anxiously freaking out!! How religious was that? Wow!

I would find myself at all hours of the day and night saying, ‘Lord, she has to get accepted into that apartment!’ Then I would add, ‘please?’ Please? Well, while I am at it why don’t I say, ‘pretty please?’ or ‘with chocolate syrup and honey nuts?’

Does God really care if we say please? Are there any recorded ‘pleases’ in the Bible? Did God, Jesus, Paul, Jeremiah, Job or any others ever say please for something? Can you imagine as the people go to the temple with their offering they hand the animal to the priest and say, ‘Can you please sacrifice this on behalf of my family?’

I am not trying to rude or obstinate. Do the kids in the African village say ‘please’ when they ask for their food or bedding? It is the voice of the privileged people in the dignified countries that teach their children from birth to say please and thank you.

If God is no respecter of people then he doesn’t NOT hear my prayers if I forgot to be polite and add please at the beginning or end of the prayer.God see’s my heart. That is all God see’s. That’s all he wants to see. Our hearts. Our words, the order they are spoken and the inflections used have no bearing on how he hears. He only hears the heart.

My daughter did get the apartment. (Longer story but that was a miracle!!) I ran around telling everyone, ‘There is a God!!!’ I wasn’t necessarily being facetious. I was starting to wonder.

After all, I no longer attend the religious function most Christians call ‘church’. I am also not bound to the bible as my rulebook. I no longer honor the traditional tithe or ‘guilt offerings’. I am learning to see and be viewed by my savior through the eyes and heart of pure grace. (NOT as a license to sin!) I am jumping out of the religious box that Christians have built as a memorial to their God. I am continually searching for ways to let my God out of any contraptions I have placed him in while I was dutifully following all the instructions of my past pastors and teacher of faith.

For some of you reading this you might think God forbid! He shouldn’t answer any of her prayers even if she does add ‘please’ one hundred times! She must have secret sin in her life! She is doing all the things my pastor said I would die a spiritual death if I tried! Doesn’t she know she is opposing God? Doesn’t she know what the bible says about that stuff??

Yes. I know exactly what it says. Do you my friend know what it really says about performing all these religious, ritualistic, obligatory functions? He just wants your heart. Not your performance. Get to know his heart alone. And let him know yours.

We have all heard the story about Mary and Martha. We have heard the story about Lazarus being brought back from the dead by Jesus. Last night I read the stories with a bit of a different twist.

I have been in the institutionalized church for 27 years. I have heard every version of these stories preached by many a preacher, teacher, pastor, or anyone else that wanted to tell it their way.

The premise of the story is that there was a little town called Bethany where Mary and her sister Martha lived. A man named Lazarus, who was possibly their brother, dies.

John 11:5 says, ‘Now Jesus loved Martha, and her sister, and Lazarus’.

The words ‘love’ and ‘loved’ occur about 400 times in the Bible. Wow! God loves me! We hear it sung as children’s hymns and songs. We see everywhere in our church buildings where it’s read on banners, posters, cards, bulletins, etc., ‘John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life’.

I obviously ‘knew’ God loved me. Wow.

Last night while reading an eBook by Frank Viola, (can be downloaded at http://www.ptmin.org/bethany.pdf) I read a verse as if for the first time. I know it was far from the first time but it gently jumped out and pricked my heart.

John 11 tells the account of Jesus getting word that Lazarus was dead. Jesus says in verse 11, ‘Our friend Lazarus is asleep. I must go wake him’. (My translation.) In verse 32 Mary comes to meet Jesus and falls at his feet saying, if you were here he would not have died. Verse 33: When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled.

It’s not about Jesus not getting upset with her for accusing him of allowing her brother Lazarus to die. If you notice, Mary is always at Jesus’ feet. The place of servant hood and humility. Jesus knows Mary’s heart. And when he see’s her fall at his feet, broken in pain for the death of her brother… he didn’t give her a cute cliché of a promise, or give her a positive thinking quote, he didn’t try to prove his power to her by conjuring up all sorts of throaty rebukes to the devil.

He gently asked where the body was.

John 11:35 He wept.

Wow. It says the Jews were amazed and said, ‘Behold how he loved him!’ They were amazed that he had such a love for this man. Jesus calls Lazarus his friend and then shows those around his greatest love by wanting to free him from his snares.

Jesus saw that Mary and Martha’s heart was broken and… he wept.

The scriptures have always said that he loved us and cared about all our problems but when I read that all of a sudden, it came alive! He cares about my marriage, my broken heart, my situations at home; he cares about things that are breaking my heart.

Wow.

John 11:41-43 And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me. And when he thus had spoken, he cried with a loud voice, Lazarus, come forth.

I have to trust that God knows my Lazarus and will be able to raise it from the dead!

Each day as I lay my head down to nap or sleep for the night I sigh and wonder why I must live in my aloneness of having a husband that doesn’t love me. I am saddened by the distance between us and cry to God to help me understand why I must live daily in such solitude. I wonder why my husband as a man does not desire me as a woman. What went wrong? Why the great chasm between us? Will it ever end? Will it stop? Will it go away? Or am I left to wonder these things every time I try to lay down and rest my weary soul?

This is a repost from something I received. If you have a heart towards Jesus, this should touch you.

Ruth went to her mailbox and there was only one letter. She picked it up and looked at it before opening, but then she looked at the envelope again. There was no stamp, no postmark, only her name and address.

She read the letter:

Dear Ruth: I`m going to be in your neighborhood Saturday afternoon and I'd like to stop by for a visit.
Love Always,
Jesus

Her hands were shaking as she placed the letter on the table.

"Why would the Lord want to visit me? I'm nobody special.I don't have anything to offer." With that thought, Ruth remembered her empty kitchen cabinets.

"Oh my goodness, I really don't have anything to offer. I'll have to run down to the store and buy something for dinner."

She reached for her purse and counted out its contents. Five dollars and forty cents. Well, I can get some bread and cold cuts, at least. She threw on her coat and hurried out the door.

A loaf of French bread, a half-pound of sliced turkey, and a carton of milk...leaving Ruth with grand total twelve cents to last her until Monday. Nonetheless, she felt good as she headed home, her meager offerings tucked under her arm.

"Hey lady, can you help us, lady?"

Ruth had been so absorbed in her dinner plans; she hadn't even noticed two figures huddled in the alley way. A man and a woman, both of them dressed inlittle more than rags.

"Look lady, I ain't got a job, ya know, and my wife and I have been living out here on the street, and, well, now it's getting cold and we're getting kinda hungry and, well, if you could help us lady, we'd really appreciate it."

Ruth looked at them both. They were dirty, they smelled bad and frankly, she was certain that they could get some kind of work if they really wanted to.

"Sir, I'd like to help you, but I'm a poor woman myself. All I have is a few cold cuts and some bread, and I'm having an important guest for dinner tonight and I was planning on serving that to Him."

"Yeah, well, okay lady, I understand. Thanks anyway."

The man put his arm around the woman's shoulders, turned and headed back into the alley. As she watched them leave, Ruth felt a familiar twinge in her heart.

"Sir, wait!" The couple stopped and turned as she ran down the alley after them.

"Look, why don't you take this food. I'll figure out something else to serve my guest."

She handed the man her grocery bag.

"Thank you lady. Thank you very much!"

"Yes, thank you!" It was the man's wife, and Ruth could see now that she was shivering.

"You know, I've got another coat at home. Here, why don't you take this one?"

Ruth unbuttoned her jacket and slipped it over the woman's shoulders. Then smiling, she turned and walked back to the street...without her coat and with nothing to serve her guest.

"Thank you lady! Thank you very much!"

Ruth was chilled by the time she reached her front door, and worried too.The Lord was coming to visit and she didn't have anything to offer Him. She fumbled through her purse for the door key. But as she did, she noticed another envelope in her mailbox.

"That's odd. The mailman doesn't usually come twice in one day".

Dear Ruth: It was so good to see you again. Thank you for the lovely meal. And thank you, too, for the beautiful coat.
Love Always,
Jesus

The air was still cold, but even without her coat, Ruth no longer noticed.