Religious Dysfunction

They will keep up the outward appearance of religion but will have rejected the inner power of it. 2 Timothy 3:5

In a list of warnings of what to watch out for in the final days, Paul list this type of person to Timothy, the person who says they are a Christian but rejects the inner power of it. This does not mean they don’t have the will power to do it, just the opposite it means they have misunderstood faith as being about will power. We live in a world where this truth has impacted everyone. Christianity has in many ways become about maintaining the appearance of religion, but where is the transformative power, where are the healings, where are the completely and radically different people who love peace, justice, and mercy. I wish I could say I am one of those people, but I have spent so much of my life living under the lie that so much of this is about will power and me doing things, under the lie that miracles and healings don’t really happen any more, worst of all I have lived under the lie that the American dream is a Christian one. The anointing that Jesus received by the Holy Spirit, the anointing his followers received on Pentecost, where is this in our modern world. We talk about call, and our walk, but what about the anointing power of the Holy Spirit. God’s kingdom does not overcome the kingdom of darkness by good doctrine, or intellectual conversion. The kingdom is come when the power of God comes upon us and we are anointed into the kingdom Jesus inaugurated, which is a kingdom that values the poor, that heals the sick, and absolutely transforms humanity into new creation. I read the following paragraph today and it really hit me, I don’t know where I stand on healings and baptism of the Holy Spirit, but I know that the church has lost its voice in our culture because people have the outward appearance of religion but deny the inner power of it.

“Much of our preaching has to do with ‘sin management,’ but how many times do we hear that we need to pray for the transformation that can only be accomplished through the power of the Holy Spirit and not just through our own efforts? Without this hidden but real power, we cannot fulfill Christ’s great commandment – loving as He loved, which is characterized by loving our enemies.” Francis MacNutt The nearly Perfect Crime: How The Church Almost Killed The Ministry of Healing