Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Date: October 24, 2014 07:52AM
LampSchmamp – I mean this kindly, I think your comment illustrates the real point I was trying to make and that is after contact with TLWF, belief in God, or any enemy of God for that matter, often disappears. Out of the many ex-members I’ve had contact with, only a few even want anything to do with God again – even though at one time He was the driving passion of their life. It certainly is not limited to TLWF – any religious system that wounds people’s hearts has the same affect. A person that has been betrayed in a marriage often has a difficult time opening their heart and learning to love and trust again. It’s a very normal response. It doesn't mean marriage as an institution is bad – there's just bad people who are married. There are also life-giving marriages. Unfortunately, spiritual abuse can be even more damaging to our hearts than divorce. Fortunately, God heals hearts.
In my journey, I honestly thought John and then G&M were God’s voice and God was just messed up. Next, He didn’t exist at all and my intellect became God - which I needed to give myself some sense of stability – along with a couple of years of shrink time with someone whose only criteria was that they could not be a Christian. Later, I discovered the Jesus I had been taught about in TLWF and other Christian denominations, was not Jesus at all, but a man-made version that people used to serve their own purposes. It was very scary to have all my false security blankets stripped away. Finally, I ended up full circle back to Jesus and just reading and applying his words for myself. That’s where my healing really started to gain traction. It was something he said to do in the first place but for whatever reason I was unable to hear at the time.
Christians have been trying for generations to convince the world – and maybe more often themselves – that there is a God who loves them. There is a very unique treasure in Jesus’ words that is found in no other place. Very few religions teach that you are to love and pray for your enemies. If you are willing to give it a try, your heart will begin to feel how He loves you. If you forgive others, your heart will begin to understand how He forgives you. If you give to others who cannot repay you, you will begin to understand how He gives to you. If you serve others, you begin to understand that the Creator of the universe is also a servant. If you are faithful when others are not, you begin to sense His faithfulness. If you care for the least that nobody else is paying attention to, your heart begins to fill with light. And on and on it goes. Funny thing about Jesus’ teaching is that it is 180 degrees opposite of what our intellect thinks is true and yet it works so amazingly – something religion is unable to do - work.
It’s been a while since I blamed Satan for attacking my finances after I ran up my credit card debt or blamed demonic assault for a headache after a night of too much alcohol. However, it might be good to re-examine the enemy coming as an “angel of light” to “kill, steal and destroy”. With all the dead and dying in the wake of religion, perhaps there really is an enemy at work. Jesus seems to think there is. Religious leaders have always had a rough time with Jesus – he takes away their positions and makes them servants, which after all is the greatest position in the kingdom.