God Thinking XIII - Break Away 2

"Receive God and experience His peace.

Generation to generation to generation two things happen: First the faith of one is revealed to another and second the false beliefs and faithlessness of one is revealed to another.

There is a process that takes place in each generation that each of you participate in, knowingly or unknowingly.  Each generation of: Clergy - Philosophers - Teachers - Politicians - Fathers & Mothers, rear its leaders and arms them with the most profound truths that they have experienced.

If the generation before you experienced the presence of God, their experiences can provide you with a strong foundation on which to build your faith. 

On the other hand, if the generation before you did not experience the presence of God, their experiences do little more than confuse you.

2 Timothy 2:15-16

“Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth.

V16 But shun profane and vain babbling: for they will increase unto more ungodliness.”

From the experiences of those before you religion is borne.  But, in and through your own experiences religion must be set aside:

if you are to go further than those before you

if you are to pick up the torch and represent the truth

if you are to commune with God and respond to God

if you are to hear the voice of God

if you are to be in what God is doing in your generation

You must set aside the religion of your predecessors in exchange for personal experience."

Note: The statement above is not meant to suggest that you should leave your church or your faith or that the better way is to go it alone.  To the contrary most personal relationships with God start in a church or synagogue is the response to the call from God for holiness which is purported by most main-line denominations.  The idea of "setting aside the religion of your predecessor in exchange for personal experience" is to remind you that your relationship with God is personal and that you cannot rely on the relationship of those before you for your own inner man to be fed and nurtured and for you to be assured of the call from God in your life. To be of real use in your church you must break away from the lemming effect, find your true worth through personal relationship with Jesus and then offer your services as one who has met the Lord.

Excerpt from God Thinking XIII Break Away by Keith C. Powell Copyright                                                       2015