I cannot help thinking criticisms about others at the gatherings

This is quite normal, is it not? It is not the same as comparing ourselves to others. Instead, we somehow transform ourself into some omniscient judge who is perfect in knowing perfection. It is a strange attitude when describe overtly, but it is quite dangerous.

The other thing we do in order to create this situation is extend our sphere of influence beyond its established boundaries. We are each given legitimate boundaries within which we can judge without evoking the wrath of God for starting to encroach on His territory of being the all-knowing Judge of all. He is not jealous for this, but we are injuring people when we try to do something for which we lack the capabilities.

There is a difference between knowing that we should not criticize others in our hearts and actually being able to refrain from doing so, and herein lies the rub. When we are sitting in church noticing all the blemishes, what can we do to stop these thoughts?

If you take the Protestant approach to church then you can remind yourself that the church is full of redeemed saints who are heaven bound. They are not yet perfect and some of them might get a little confused along the way, but Christ is with them in as much as they are willing to be with Him, and even sometimes when their hearts are somewhere else. The point is to look at how much more good there is in the people than augmenting the blemishes that disturb you.

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Required Reading

The following is required reading for any serious seeker, but especially for any serious Christian.

James Houston's The Transforming Power of Prayer, In Pursuit of Happiness, and The Heart's Desire. They form a fine trilogy on the life of the searching soul and the Christian faith (not associated with any specific denomination, but grounded firmly and broadly in the Christian heritage). These books will challenge anyone who doesn't rush through them or gloss over them, but approaches them personally, examining themselves through the challenges posed therein.

I'm just finishing the trilogy for maybe the fifth time. Every couple of years I come back to these and read them. There is a depth not found elsewhere outside of the the Christian classics and the Bible itself.

Holy Spirit Ransomed to Pastors

Holy Spirit Found in Area Man's Basement made me laugh as well as scratch my head. At first I wondered why these various ministers to whom he tried to ransom the Holy Spirit did not contact the authorities to verify whether the man was taking his meds or not. But by the end it appeared to be more a story of fiction than insanity. I now wonder how many headlines are built likewise about religious leaders. I've just browsed through more failings of spiritual leaders in the Christian churches.

We must remember that being a religious leader does NOT mean you are more like Jesus. That's unfortunate that we cannot have leaders like Him today. Perhaps the fault starts with us though, for failing to take Paul's command seriously to pray for our leaders. It would be nothing short of fantastic if our leaders could have the Holy Spirit in the way that Jesus did. Of course, that is exactly what He, John the Batist and Paul all promised.

Remember this as Pentecost arrives! Pray for your leaders and look for the Holy Spirit!

I feel like I am expected to perform when I go to a service, especially during worship

This may or may not be an apparent issue at church in your culture, but it might manifest itself in another nefarious way. American churches are populated with people who feel a pressure to perform, while personally rejecting that pressure. So there is a second layer of pressure in the battle to reject the very pressure they themselves feel and do not understand why they feel. Consequently, much time is wasted in a worship service for the individual as they attempt mind maneuvers to avoid this pressure. Not only do they not want to appear to others as if they were performing, but they also do not want others to see them even trying to get to a place of not feeling the need to perform. There must be no external trace of this struggle - which introduces a whole other pressure. It is quite complicated for an American to worship in church.

This performance, though, can take a different form in a different culture. For example, you might be highly self-conscious about what you do while in the church building, such as whether you wear a hat or not, whether you wear jeans or slacks, how your hair looks, if you are sniffling, how to hold your hands or where to place your gloves and even how loudly you are reciting or singing. You might feel like you must behave specific ways for those who see you and who you know. This is a way of performing as well.

In one sense, we feel this pressure whenever we go to public places. At school we must behave certain ways and other ways are unacceptable. When we are at work there are even stricter social guidelines about our dress and behavior. We also have to actually perform there for our boss and co-workers. In a government office we must behave ourselves and address them with appropriate respect. So we see that this social pressure is quite normal.

We feel the pressure in church, though church really should be a friendlier and more natural place. However, there is the question of how much of the atmosphere and social arrangement should impart a feeling of holiness to the visitor. Yet, this kind of holiness is rather superficial, though awe-inspiring. Holiness should be felt from the Holy Spirit's presence rather than any tricks of social behavior we adhere to. It is not the social behavior that is a problem, but the pretense of holiness that we instill in these mannerisms.


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It is one more commitment in my already overly busy schedule

There are two mistakes we make that lead us down this pathway in life. The first is to prioritize based on goals we have set utilizing our internal educational resources, but ignoring our spiritual life. The second is to quit believing that the devil is a real spiritual being who wants to keep you away from God's love. Together, these two mistakes prevent us from entering God's true rest, which is given to those whom He loves. For those whom He loves He works in their hearts to do what He loves. Yet, He respects us and never forces us to do what we do not want to. Otherwise, we would not be able to love. Freedom is a necessary context for love, but the proper use of freedom is the true expression of love.

I will deal with the second one first, regarding the devil. We may think that the devil is just some fairy tale made up to scare little children into being good, but the devil is portrayed in many religions. In the Christian faith the devil was not a late development of theology. In fact, the devil appears at the beginning of the oldest writing we have in the Bible, the book of Job.

He comes to God and persuades Him to let him test Job's faith. The devil appears at the end of the Bible as well, in the book of Revelation. The archangel Michael and the angels in heaven war with the devil and his angels who are rebelling. The devil loses and he and his angels are cast down to the earth. They are angry and decide to make war with the saints of God, here it means those who trust Jesus, as the book says.

These are elements that occur in the invisible, spiritual realm of existence. Keep in mind what Shakespeare penned in Hamlet after one of his characters saw the ghost of a dead relative, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophies..." Also, remember that there are some things that we cannot see that we believe in based on what we have been told, like love, trust, belief, etc... However, I am afraid we interpret these terms in our imagination to mean the actions or the immediate feelings themselves and lose the real essence of them, which can only be seen over a longer period of time in our lives. Yet why do we not believe so easily in the devil? There is no doubt the ancients believed. Although he does not figure significantly throughout the Bible, there are particular passages that reveal his importance with regards to the Christian's walk with God. Try reading Ephesians chapter 6 and then tell me that the devil does not really exist, if you are really a Christian who believes what the Bible says.

This brings us to the first point concerning prioritizing. Our priorities reflect that we are actually atheists in our trust, even if we believe God exists. What I mean is that the real battle is not about whether God exists. The book of James tells us that even the demons believe He exists and shudder at the fact. If demons believe and we do not then we look like real fools, do we not? There is no serious question about whether God exists, but about what He is like and what His intentions are toward us. This is what the devil, in the form of the serpent (see Revelation for the equivalence that is made between the Serpent, the devil and the dragon) first argued with Eve in the Garden of Eden (see Genesis).

The real question is whether we trust Him or not. The demons were lied to by Satan when they were angels in heaven and convinced to quit trusting God. This turned their hearts away from Him and they made their priorities to reflect a rebellion against God. Now they are wandering the earth as lost beings, angry andwicked, with one main priority: to harm those who trust God. We must set our priorities to reflect and reinforce the trust we have in God before it is too late and that trust withers away.