"Another Way"

[ Back to Articles ]

July 12, 2006

This is a day of ‘Release,’ a day of throwing off ‘Bondages’ of the past; a time of casting off the ‘Old Ways’…man’s expectations!

You have expected me to come in upon you in “One Way” but I come in “Another Way.”

You look for me to bless “Your Things,” but I move in a higher dimension, a more magnificent realm than you can imagine. Lift up your eyes, lift up your expectations. A new day has dawned…a new hour is here!

While the church in America sits and waits for God to bless programs and plans, God is moving in from a different direction and through another people.

Church history has proven, the ones who had the last visitation of God will persecute those in the next move. If this holds true, the “Charismatics” will be the first to deny any fresh move of God in the earth.

How could it happen? Very simple…spiritual pride!
The church in America is in for a rude awakening. It is not on the cutting edge as it once was. The sound of the Army of the Lord is coming from across the waters, from other lands and through other nationalities. The Body of Christ today is…multinational and multiracial.

In America we have become comfortable and religious. We celebrate pagan feast days, indulge in annual celebrations and pageantry, than wonder why God is not raising the dead on Sunday morning!
 
The Holy Spirit is speaking to the church in this hour… “Come out of idolatry and paganism”…..For you have spent enough time in the past doing what pagans choose to do—living in debauchery, lust, drunkenness, orgies, carousing and detestable idolatry” (NIV – I Peter 4:3). Many Christians do not want to suffer persecution because of the WORD. Excuses range from… “I like it;” “My family won’t understand;”  “My husband won’t change;” …to, “I have to please my children.” Some will never realize their ful potential in this life because they refuse to be led into “all TRUTH.” Ask yourself …. “What am I missing by refusing to walk in known truth?”

Can you imagine Jesus saying… “Boys, do we put up a Christmas tree year and deck the halls?” How can we who have been “called out of darkness” (the darkness of paganism) participate in such idolatrous practices?

A Christian named Tertullian, who lived in the third century, wrote… “By us, who are strangers to Sabbaths and new moons and festivals once acceptable to God, the Saturnalia, the feasts of January, the Bramalia and Matronalia, are now frequented. Gifts are carried to and fro, New Year’s Day presents are made with din and sports and banquets are celebrated with uproar. Oh, how much more faithful are the heathen to their religion, who take special care to adopt no solemnity from the Christians.”

Reverend Cotton Mather, a Puritan minister warned his congregation on Christmas day in 1712… “Can you, in your conscience, think that our holy Saviour is honored by long eating, hard drinking or rude reveling? By a mass fit for none but a Saturn or a Bacchus, or the night of a Mohammedan Ramadan? You cannot possibly think so! At the birth of our Saviour, “’A multitude of the heavenly host was heard praising God.’ Shall it be said, we take the time to please the hellish legions, and to do actions that have much more of hell than of heaven in them to celebrate?”

The days of His death and resurrection are carefully recorded, and almost universally observed.  Even the birthday of the church, the day of Pentecost is observed.  Scholars admit that the day of our Lord's birth cannot be determined.  It is agreed however, his birth OCCURRED either in early October near the Feast of Tabernacles or in the spring near the time of Passover.    One thing is sure however,  the festival called 'Christmas' celebrating  the winter solstice on December 25, was a pagan holiday long before the birth of Christ.

Does it really make a difference?  Pray about it.
The Greek word ecclesia, means…"called out ones." God has always called His people out of paganism and idolatry, and He does no less in our day.