Are you a living contradiction: Do your traditions portray your beliefs?
Sometimes we are held in bondage by our traditions, religious mindsets, or the family traditions we have grown up with that are not in line with the Bible or our beliefs.
When we became a believer our life was destined for change. Believe it or not change happens if we want it or not. We are born; we grow old (hopefully), and then die. From the beginning of life we begin our change. Some call that growth. Yet others have a hard time when they reach the age of 30 or 50 and so on. I remember our daughter Lori telling me she did not want to grow up. She did not want to have the responsibility that adults have! Interesting for a ten year old to say, yet at that age she knew she did not have a choice and she would have to CHANGE!
Today I am speaking of spiritually change. When a caterpillar becomes a butterfly it is called metamorphous! What a change! It is similar to what God does to us. He causes a death to the old to bring forth something new.
If you live in New England you can watch the trees change! The turning color of the leaves is called photosynthesis. They begin as buds, turn to green leaves, and then end the process by changing to the multicolored leaves ultimately dying leaving the tree barren until spring.
Change for Christians involves the hunger and longing we have for His Presence, His Love more than we have ever had before!
Contradiction occurs in our lives when our internal man presses forward to into God’s loving embrace and our old man continues in the same traditions and lifestyle it always had. Our mind can become paralyzed because of the traditions we confess oral. There is always a contradiction when we obtain new revelation in Christ Jesus. The revelation we obtain causes us to want CHANGE. With revelation we create a new TRADITION! We give up our old customs of culture and beliefs, surrender to the Lord and He leads us in a new life, a new way of living, and a new way of celebrating life. Therefore, our traditions should reflect the Word. Unfortunately most of our traditions are a contradiction to our New Life in Christ.
I wonder how much of what has been orally passed on through our generations has caused us to believe error—a contradiction to the Living Word. How much of what we believe today is an exaggerated truth that became unbiblical?
The way we "traditionally worship" has been passed down through the generations, and even though I changed my idea of worship over the years a lot of what I do is out of tradition. How about you? Is it Biblical or traditional? If we really stop and ponder this point, we can surmise that many areas of our life are carved out by tradition. In this Christmas season, I am reminded of how we celebrated Christmas as Children and then how we changed tradition to fit our own blended family.
As our children grew, it was tradition at Thanksgiving dinner that we would all say what we were thankful for. Now I think of those things each day! Is it tradition for you to attend Sunday service to receive from the preacher? Or is it now tradition to sit at the Lord’s feet yourself? Unfortunately, this is a mindset for most of the Church - many sit in the pew and allow another person to hear from God for them, rather than hear daily for themselves. There you have it – another tradition!
Today however, I am breaking OUT from tradition. I believe we can have church any day of the week - because we are the Church! I am not advocating that we stop attending worship on a weekly basis, but rather break out of tradition and have "church" every day. How can we do this? By worshiping God every day and acknowledging Him in our hearts on a daily basis. Our hearts must be intimately involved in worship - or else it is simply tradition. Again, it is a HEART issue. If our hearts are not engaged, then our worship becomes religious tradition. And when we attend a church service our hearts and minds need to be engaged.
I want to encourage you today to break out of the tradition of man and enter into the presence of the Lord. Enter into His tradition. If we were engaged with the heart of Christ, we would witness more and more of His presence supernaturally manifested in the world in which we live!
Let's look at Mark 7:6, 7, and 13 to better understand how Jesus felt concerning religious tradition:
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: "'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are but rules taught by men.' …Thus you nullify the word of God by your tradition that you have handed down. And you do many things like that." (NIV)In other words, a relationship with God that is only through tradition can be hazardous and can hold us in bondage!
Be Prepared for Controversy and Contradiction.
Get ready for a shaking. Our mindsets concerning God and Church are going to be confronted by Heaven. The more we pray for His perfect will to be established, the more our traditions will be challenged to CHANGE.
