Unmasking a Church in Denial by Ross Shultz - HTML preview

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 Where do I begin?

 

 First let me state that I’m not a complete nut, although  some might disagree, but I see the necessity to reveal to  others what God has opened my eyes to see. What’s  happening through religion is breaking the heart of those that  seek the Truth.

 

 This world is vastly different today than it was a mere fifty  years ago, and as I stated in an earlier book; what is now  called a high school graduate, was then, those few years back,  called a fifth grade education. We have evolved, and yes I  believe in evolution, but not the kind that believes that we  came from monkeys, but that our nature is evolving into  them. The disintegration of man and his morals, and his  inability to find true north, and that is, his true place in life,  has turned almost completely to his own knowledge and  strength, leaning upon his own understanding, leaving our  first Love for something that seems right, but certainly is a far  cry from it. God has become a mere symbol and the true fact  of His being is now almost totally dismissed. God is REAL,  ALIVE, and well ESTABLISHED on planet Earth, and despite our  lack of love and understanding of Him, He is our never  ceasing, always Loving God, the True God that loves us in  spite of ourselves. As you continue reading it will become  more evident that man, in himself, is totally incapable of  building any standard of worthiness that can, or will, meet  Gods’ approval. It is not our efforts, nor our finesse, not even  today’s technology that can impress our God with favor; that  comes but from faith; and our efforts, if anything, can only  hinder Him.

 

 Man and his “religion” has chased this man-made symbol  of God for centuries, and with few exceptions, has spiraled  down the food chain until we are nearing the group of  primates called monkeys. We have lost, or at least losing, as it  seems to me, the reality and closeness, and that special  offered relationship with our God, the Creator of all, and went  fumbling, if not whoring after our own little gods made after  our own image of the imagination.

 

 Today, there are few that teach that our God of Love, with  His unending Mercy and Grace is available to all, and yes I  mean all, if we could but look through these many so-called  doctrines that are preached differently on every street corner,  and find the hidden, (although it is not really hidden), TRUTH  that is ordained for all. HE, that is God, is willing, able, and  ready to reveal Himself to all that want eyes to see, and ears  to hear; He alone is God.

 

 As a ship plows forward through water, it leaves a wake, a  wake announcing its footprint across the path from which it  came. This thing that many call ‘church’ has also left a wake,  be it through our history books, or thru the effects of the  shrapnel that we can now see in its’ wake, has left a trail of  destruction, or at best, a track of confused lives; and what I’m  seeing saddens me. If those that preach from these man-built  pulpits were offering a life that Jesus heralded was available,  then, I suppose that these boxed-in buildings that sit on  nearly every street corner, would be overflowing. But in fact,  their numbers are dwindling every year because of their  ineffective habits of the understanding our God of Love,  Mercy and Grace, and it seems to me, that a wake-up  message is going out from every corner of the earth to call His  people out of ‘her’ and into His bosom. The messages being  preached and taught from these structured ‘churches’ are a  far-cry from that which Jesus gave us, for the God of Love is  always loving; He truly is. There is no separation, nor is there  any condemnation among the ‘good’ or ‘bad’, He is  continually about His business of loving us.

 

 We will, in the chapters ahead, take a strong, and some  may call harsh look at these counterfeits and monuments that  man has built unto himself and then, called it godliness. I will,  at times, come strongly against the established institutions,  doctrines, and structures that man has built through the  centuries, and then called it “church”. Those of you that  make your living in the clergy of “this thing called church”, we  be especially offended. My intension is not to come against  the people that are involved in these structures, but the  carnal use of their hands, thoughts and imaginations.

 

 Since Constantine assigned himself pope, in those early  days, and conquered all who wouldn’t follow his declarations,  the religious fables have run amuck, and since, virtually, there  was no written Word until the early 1600’S, it was easy to  preach any misled or self-serving doctrine; for who could  dispute it? The same rhetoric has been preached and taught  for so long, and by so many, that we as a people, have fallen  into that category of followers, for many also believe that the  junk taught (for the most part it is junk) is true, therefore  worthy of following a path that has thus far gone nowhere.

 

 Think about this; if we as a people didn’t have access to the  written word until 1610 when King James translated the first  writings, then all was completely dependent on whoever  stood in the highest platform and taught the people below.  This was power. The kind of power that man, in his own  strength, is not capable of resisting, therefore it subtly,  sometimes drastically, changed the ego of man to fit  whatever doctrine any particular person wanted to present.  Power corrupts, and this kind of absolute power, completely  corrupted many because of the inability of the common man  to dispute any doctrine for lack of evidence because the  written Word was not available. Therefore those that were in  charge taught, many times, the interpretation that stroked  their own empowered egos, without any confrontations.

 

 By the time the written Word was available, and then only  a few could afford it, many false doctrines had already been  deeply ingrained. They were, at times, challenged, but unless  the one protesting was in high places, little was ever achieved.  It was for the most part, deeply embedded into the  established religions, written in stone, so to speak, and too  much was at stake for any other understanding of the Word  to take root; or so they thought. God has always kept a  remnant, hidden behind the trees and under the rocks, in the  shadows, that sought and understood a purer Truth of the  Word of God. Men and women that could see thru the hype  or misinterpretations of those that presented themselves as  ‘in the know’. God has throughout every generation, revealed  Himself more thoroughly, to more than a few, about the  deeper mysteries of His Kingdom.

 

 Example: cleanliness is next to godliness……… Can you  imagine how many still today believe this to be true? Yes,  God wants to clean the inside of man, and to fill him with  something besides dead-mans’-bones, but our scriptures have  not mentioned, even once, of Jesus washing His hands before  He ate. This cleanliness saying, along with many others, is just  silly, and represents some egotistical so-called leader’s  evaluation; it’s not what God is concerned about. Or how  about this one; God helps them that helps themselves? Our  God of mercy and love seems to help those of us because we  can’t help our self. Without bothering you with the many well  established fables, let’s take a closer look at what God wants  from those that are called by His name.

 

 2nd Chronicles 7:14 says; “If my people, who are called by  My name, will humble themselves, and pray, and will seek my  face, and turn from their wickedness; then I will hear from  Heaven, and forgive their sins and heal their land.” Our land  is our life, and what’s around it. If you want to take this to  mean country, that’s ok, but it’s more personal than that. Yes  it’s true that God is the God of all, but He is also the God of  one; me, and since your reading this; you. God is very  personal, and His relationships are not really with countries,  but individuals, therefore the land that He speaks of is you  and me; our life. Sometimes the scriptures use the word  ‘house’ to mean the same thing, but in this instance He is  telling each of us as individuals, and especially those that are  called by His name, to eliminate our pride, pray, and seek His  face, (which is that desire to have a personal relationship with  Him), and turn from our wickedness. Wickedness is anything  of the flesh, for God is Spirit, and we must worship Him in  Spirit. Therefore anything the hands can do, or the mind can  invent, or any place our carnal feet can take us, our fleshly  eyes and ears can give us, and so-on, falls under the category  of wickedness; at least from a spiritual level.

 

 Let’s talk about the word ‘sin’ for just a brief moment, in an  upcoming chapter we’ll explain much more about it, but right  now we’ll just scan over the word ‘sin’. Sin means to miss the  mark, or to have a debt, it is virtually the same meaning as  ‘wickedness. Sin occurs when our eyes, our life, our heart, are  not fixed upon God. We all sin, and all have fallen short, this  is a fact, our carnal flesh wars against the spirit, and the Spirit  also against the flesh, but to have that aforementioned  healing, we have to shed the flesh; and if it weren’t for Grace  no flesh would be rescued.

 

 Now, I said all that to say this; when man adds to, or takes  away from anything that God has put together, such as the  institutions built by the flesh of man, ‘this thing called church’,  then we have fallen from the purpose of His creation of a  relationship between Himself and man; we have sinned, or  rather missed the mark, or still owe Him a debt.

 

 What God has put together, let no man put asunder.  Generally this is taken as speaking of the marriage of husband  and wife, but the truer esoteric meaning is our undivided  relationship with the Father. What God desired and created  us for, was a relationship with Him, not the relationship of the  structured institution that man has imagined, and then  created from his mind; but a united fellowship with Him; a  marriage. He wants that union between the spirit of man and  Himself, that, as was with Adam, we would walk with Him.

 

 Adam also took his eyes off his Creator, and placed them  upon the fruit of His creation, and his senses got the best of  him, his soul won-out, and he partook of the flesh; mankind  fell. And that also is what we are doing, with our money- making schemes to make a living by selling Jesus.

 

 God seeks with man an intimate closeness with him; that is  his spirit, and by His Grace will heal our ‘land’ and forgive us  of our ‘debt’.

 

 Now I ask; why are we, the children of God, so complacent,  so compromising, to allow these centuries old religious  confusions to continue? In reality, God deals with us men and  women on a one-on-one basis, and seldom by the masses;  therefore the time is ripe, with all the obvious signs set in  order for man to come to himself, present his humble heart,  to change the way he thinks, and turn from our ways, our  wicked ways, and allow Him His discernible rein in each of our  lives. Man is not in charge, but I do believe that when our  thinking changes from the works of our hands to the spiritual  foundations of our Father, it will have to change.

 

 Man as a whole is so proud of his achievements, his  technologies, the monuments that he’s built, that the ‘tree of  knowledge of good and evil’ is daily fertilized, watered and  nurtured to the point that man is losing, if not lost himself in  this realm of unreality. Jesus came to heal the blind, deaf,  and mute, and it’s ever-so true today, that if we could stop  long enough to consider Jesus, and understand that He’s  already considered us; that His children would wake-up, for  we are the blind, deaf and mute. A call is being sent out by  God through His remnant, all over the world, a trumpet is  sounding to wake up, and turn around a people that will trust  and seek his face; which is beautiful from any angle you that  look at Him from, and to follow the Christ of God in a  relationship that is not based on our deeds, nor from the  strict set of standards that man continues to burden us with;  our land will be healed.

 

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