A Recipe For Disaster
Like a recipe for disaster, some churches and parachurch
organizations today are emerging by
merging repetitive soulish music, excessive fasting, extensive sleep
deprivation and aberrant teachings into their regular programs and
activities.
The true bridal paradigm is about the Bride of Christ getting ready
for the Second Coming of Jesus. And the Bride is the Church of
Christ. Allegorically, Jesus is the Bridegroom and the Church is the
Bride. It is not about lovesick Christians trying to become the
brides of Christ! There is only one Bride. The Church of Christ!
Any truth, if taken to an extreme, can easily become a heresy. A profane and unholy bridal paradigm
arises because it goes overboard. It has a strong dominion
theology where they misinterpret the Word of God, and carry out
unwholesome activities. They interpret and perceive all Scriptures
as the relentless pursuit of a heavenly and lovesick Bridegroom
seeking for the bride of His heart desire. This is truly not the
gospel of Christ about a loving God redeeming a lost humanity.
They describe God to be in love, lovesick or having a ravished
heart. He is the great Lover with fire in His eyes for His bride. As
such, Christians must respond in a similar manner, and pray for
their love to be awakened and ravished by the love of the Bridegroom
etc. Overly romantic phrases are excessively and exaggeratedly used
to describe God’s love for us, and our love for God.
Their theology portrays a God who cannot find joy apart from us, and
will never be complete or satisfied without us. They even preach
that Jesus will finally return to earth when He cannot take it
any longer. These beliefs describe an adolescent and
uncontrollable
youth having puppy love, and not the agape, amazing, wonderful,
divine, longsuffering and sacrificial love of our Almighty God. Their God is
totally opposite from the God of the Bible.
Their
profane and corrupted bridal paradigm theology is often very sensual
and soulish as it emphasizes on having a physical and romantic
relationship with God. By extremely allegorizing the Song of
Solomon, they inevitably paint and promote a sensuous Jesus. All of
their language, their songs and their teachings include words such
as intimacy, ravished heart, and lovesickness. And their music goes on and on. Non-stop 24/7. Endlessly
repetitive, mesmerizing, mystical and hypnotic.
Matthew 6:7
And when you pray, do not use vain repetitions as
the heathen do. For they think that they will be heard for their
many words.
Just like the pagans do, these Christians keep reciting the same
prayers and singing the same phrases over and over again! They think
that their prayers are answered only by repeating them again and
again. They also think that God loves to listen to their repetitive
songs! But God is seeking for true worshipers Who will worship the
Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to
worship Him. Vain repetitions is simply not what God desires.
Ecclesiastes 5:1-7
1 Walk prudently when you go to the house of God;
and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools,
for they do not know that they do evil.
2 Do not be rash with your mouth,
And let not your heart utter anything hastily before God.
For God is in heaven, and you on earth;
Therefore let your words be few.
3 For a dream comes through much activity,
And a fool’s voice is known by his many words.
4 When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it;
For He has no pleasure in fools.
Pay what you have vowed—
5 Better not to vow than to vow and not pay.
6 Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the
messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at
your excuse and destroy the work of your hands?
7 For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is
also vanity. But fear God.
Praying without ceasing is both Biblical and recommended. Prayer is a
two way communication with God. We pray, and God hears. God speaks,
and we listen. Most of the time is spent waiting on the Lord,
walking and
talking with Him along the paths of life. But many have gone to the
extremes and adopted the contemplative prayer movement, focusing
on mysticism and contemplative spirituality rather than on
worshipping the Lord and interceding for others through prayers.
Contemplative prayer begins with a centering prayer whereby a
person focuses on a word and repeats that word over and over during the prayer time. Its purpose is to
empty and free the mind in order to empower oneself. It is like transcendental meditation
- a technique for detaching oneself
from anxiety and promoting harmony and self-realization by
meditation, repetition of a mantra, and other yogic practices,
propagated by some
gurus.
After the centering prayer, the person is to sit still, listen
for some guidance directly from God, and encounter His presence.
All is done to get a word after emptying the mind and claim it in faith!
Rather than humbling ourselves and submitting to the will of God,
the emphasis is now about feeling and experiencing God, claiming what is ours and letting our will
be done! These ecstatic practices of praying are
not Biblical, and thus not recommended.
Most of them have 24/7 prayer sessions in prayer rooms that
stretch into the wee hours of the night. They often practice extreme
forms of fasting and militant forms of praying. Frequently in trying to get
spiritually high, they do something that can easily get out of control,
resulting in unhealthy consequences. In 2009,
Lee Grady, an editor of Charisma Magazine, wrote this in an article
entitled
"Strange Fire In The House Of The Lord": "It won't be
long before we see some Christians having sexual experiences at the
altar."
There are essentially three actions available for Christians to obtain a proper and
Biblical picture of God and His relationship to the Church.
Firstly, by including all other metaphors
to describe the Church
and not just focusing only on one metaphor. The Church is called the Bride of
Christ, but that is not the only calling of the Church.
The Church is also called:
- the Body of Christ (1 Corinthians 12:27)
- the children of God (1 John 3:1)
- a wild olive tree (Romans 11:17)
- living stones (1 Peter 2:5)
- a chosen generation (1 Peter 2:9)
- a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9)
- a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9)
- God's own special people (1 Peter 2:9)
- the flock of God (1 Peter 5:2) and etc.
Any teachings that focus exclusively upon only one metaphor is
often out of balance. We cannot simply preoccupy ourselves upon one
metaphor to the neglect of the others. We cannot elevate one to the
place of primary position and importance, and forget the rest. In
the same manner, Jesus is the Bridegroom but He is also the Lord,
the King, the Saviour, the Shepherd etc. To focus only on Jesus
being the Bridegroom will easily get us off balance and off track.
Secondly, the metaphor of the Bride is used for the Church as a
whole, and is never used for an individual believer. The entire
church is the Bride of Christ. But some apostolic and prophetic
teachers choose to ignore this. Eventually, some Christians think
that they are the brides, and Jesus is their Bridegroom. They treat
Jesus as their personal boyfriend instead of their Lord and Saviour.
Quite inappropriate and totally not Biblically correct.
Thirdly, a metaphor is just a metaphor, not to be taken literally or
actualized
physically. We are called living stones. But we are not literally or
physically stones. We are called the lambs of God. But we are not
literally or physically lambs.
We are not the lionesses of Judah simply because Jesus is the Lion
of Judah. And Jesus is not a lion physically or literally. It is
just a metaphor. No amount of roaring can make a human being to
become a lion or lioness!
In conclusion, loving God is more than just being lovesick and
singing love songs to God without end. It is often done through our
love for others by giving to those who are poor and needy among us. If we do
not love our brothers and sisters whom we can see, how can we love
God whom we have not seen?
1 John 3:17
But whoever has this world’s goods, and sees his brother in need,
and shuts up his heart from him, how does the love of God
abide in him?
1 John 4:12
No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another,
God abides in us, and His love has been perfected
in us.
1 John 4:20
If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar;
for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how
can he love God whom he has not seen?
For those who are interested, please also read:
Bridal Paradigm
Written on: 11 May 2018