Morality or Miraculous?

As I continue to read of and listen to the pain of next generation believers, many desperately engaged in a personal deconstruction of the "faith of our fathers," their attempt at unlearning the religious "barnacles" that have attached to the foundational pylons of Christianity over the centuries, I too am beginning to question much of my own faith journey.

Oh, not the miraculous interventions and personal encounters with the Christ, but rather the teachings wrongfully extracted from Moses' garden story that diminishes my understanding of God's viewpoint of humans.

We are loved!

I am even wondering if the early institution we call "church" after a few centuries of diminished demonstration of the power transferred at Pentecost, capitalized on the canon of scripture to reinforce control by way of a threat of wrath, so easily contrived from words once inspired.

If there was wrath it was toward what sin had done to those created in the very image of God, however our failures in no way changed God's image of us.

Yet, our damaged image of ourselves, a mindset shift was the problem. God came searching for the fallen even in Moses's Genesis, as did the father of the Prodigal in Jesus's parable.

Perhaps a diminishing demonstration of the miraculous had created a need for credibility some three centuries after Pentecost, undermining the institutional church's attractiveness.

She by then as history records, had become entangled with political power players, and likely with that, a diminished demonstration of the gifts once so abundant within the Early Church, such as demonstrated by Peter in Acts 3:6, "Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have give I unto you, in the naked of Jesus stand up and walk!"

As well, enabled by of the institution's restrictions on access to scripture, doctrines of wrath were forged, only occcasionally escaped when transformational breakthroughs of grace were afforded.

Often those moments were met with the price of imprisonment or death for those willing to challenge the hierarchy of the church.

Through the Canon, we certainly have a secure historical attachment to Judaism, Abraham and Moses but have long lost the power Peter was able to demonstrate.

Perhaps in our human attempts at a common crede, one linked to the patriarchs, based upon words divinely inspired, we have deluded humanity from the Good News of the Gospels, substituting a wrath filled dogma, versus the wonderous, even miraculous flow of the Spirit that often occurs when one's mindset shifts and he/she becomes truly aware of who we were made to be, the Sons of God.

God becoming flesh in the man, Jesus was intended to demonstrate such a life, freeing others bound by religion, to do the same. Any sense of wrath toward us was surely laid to rest by the act of love demonstrated as Jesus, God in the flesh, layed down his life for mankind!

Even though Moses spoke of that very tree of life, back then attempting to right the mindset of Isreal's a position restored by the tree of life (his words), though in reality their position was never really lost, except when their minds were distracted from God's love and provision.

The Tabernacle, the sacrifices, the Temple were all Gods attempt at foretelling such a day when a sacrifice sufficient to restore our hearts and minds of any sense of lost alignment with our Creator.

The concept of sin was our own making, if not an illusion created by some fallen angel, a serpent as Moses envisioned in his attempt at describing our plight.

Though intended as an allegory, we have made it "science" and from that point built out a religion based on shame and sin, when all along the Father, as described by Christ himself was running after those most loved.

Religion is about living out a lie, based upon condemnation, when we are rightful heirs to an inheritance long held secure by love.

We are just now, as I have said before and history bears our, in another 500 years window, again coming to grips with a necessary and critical shift in our understanding, confronted with the mystery of choice.

Our alignment with Judaism was of historical significance only, for they too had drifted from the Presence once known to Abraham and Moses, even David.

The gospel was foretold in the Old Testament but never was the Old Testament a pattern for worship, once the sacrifice was fulfilled. The veil was torn intentionally, never to be restored, though the institution has attempted for centuries to hold up wrath as a means of control.

We were made for the miraculous and the institution has made it about morality. Even that is lost in us until we our minds are renewed by the Spirit.

Steve McVey offers a refreshing viewpoint throughout his book, Turning Tables, See the attached image, for an excerpt from a chapter entitled, "From Moral Living to Miraculous Living.

You are loved and nothing you can do will ever diminish that.