Committed to Who?

In the culturally accepted church, people are encouraged to commit themselves to Christ, many have, only to find out after a time that what they really thought would be a commitment to Christ turned out to be a commitment to a certain belief system, a denominated theology and a system of codes and conduct that imprisons them behind bars of religious rules and regulations.

They find themselves tied to a religious system that is run by manipulative, controlling, money hungry professionals with personal agendas that has little to do with the gospel of Christ. Many pew-warmers in these systems, as well as the professional people who run them are ignorant of the gospel of grace that brings good news to the community of humanity through the community of the redeemed.

The performance based system they become trapped in is man-invented, man-ordained, man-led, man-fed, and run by deception and manipulation to control people to meet the need of the organization. A lot of their "God said" statements, are nothing more than "man-said" statements to give credence to their manipulations.

To question the practice, policies, programs, performance and preaching of these spiritual gurus within the accepted church culture does NOT mean you are not spiritual, in fact, it may mean that you are beginning to be spiritual and you think for yourself, and that is a threat to the man-led, performance-based system that imprisons you.

The line to cross from a motivating tone to a manipulating and controlling tone is narrow. Even though the cause may be honorable the use of suggestive coerciveness in speech or the use of pictures and videos to set the mood of guilt to move the listener gives them little choice as to their response, is coercion and manipulation.

That's where the line is crossed. Motivation becomes manipulation when we’ve limited the listener’s capacity to choose how she or he will answer to what it is they are hearing without feeling guilty or condemned. When the mood or the message is constructed such that the listener is persuaded to respond positively, he is subjected to manipulation.

Speakers manipulate by magnifying guilt, pressing fear, or hyping an idea beyond what it was built to bear. In each case, the listener is emotively pushed beyond what would be reasonable or what the listener would normally choose to do.

Many people in the system sense a dryness of spirit...that does not mean you have lost your spiritualness, nor does the dissatisfaction in your heart mean that you have lost your appetite for spiritual things. It may mean that you have finally awakened to the ingredients of the diet you are being fed because your soul is not receiving true gospel food and it hungers for the living bread that satisfies your hungered soul.

These symptoms are often God's way of drawing believers out of the poor diet of religious hog-wash to feed on the spiritual richness at the feet of Jesus so He can bring us to a satisfying, edifying relationship with Him and with the people around us.

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