Monday, May 03, 2010

Spiritual Schizophrenia


Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by abnormalities in the perception or expression of reality. In the body of Christ, many believers suffer from this spiritual mental disorder and the signs and symptoms depending on the individual, a person suspected with spiritual schizophrenia may experience the following conditions:-

“Sometimes God is angry with them, while sometimes He is happy with them.”
“Sometimes He bless them, but sometimes He curses them.”
“Sometimes God cares for them, and they do not know why, sometimes He leaves them.”
”Sometimes they feel like He wants them to rest, and sometimes He just wants them to labour!”
“Today, He prospers them, hallelujah , but tomorrow, God may give them poverty to humble them…”
“Today, He may heals them, but tomorrow, He may give them a disease to teach them a lesson.”
"Today, He forgives all their sin. Tomorrow, they are responsible for all their wrong doings.”
“They must make every effort to tithe so that God will not curse them…”

Welcome to a Schizophrenic Church!

If you are sitting under such a ministry, you are actually allowing yourselves to live under two types of covenant i.e. the Old Covenant of law and the New Covenant of grace. This kind of church environment allows a mixture of law and grace in their preaching. This kind of mixture is causing the congregations to "torn between two lovers (Mr. Law and Mr. Grace), feeling like a fool..." The obvious evidence of this Schizophrenic influence is that, they have failed to put Christ and His finished work as their center focus. 

In this kind of man centered environment, believers are led to believe that sometimes God is good to them and sometimes God may not be good to them. This insecurity is not from God but from the preacher himself. His spiritual Schizophrenia allows the religious spirit to nullify the power of the cross and blind them from seeing the dynamic power of God.  The obvious sign of this belief is that, they are more concerned with their own behavior. They believe that their behavior can determine the blessings of God. You do good, you get good, you do bad, you get beat. 

This kind of belief system is no different to any other religions at all. Please do not continue to humiliate our Lord Jesus and what He had done for us at the Cross.

The New Covenant was cut with the Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but they deny this Blood and anchor their faith on the covenant that was cut with the blood of bull and goat. In the Old Covenant, God said: “You shall not, you shall not, you shall not…” and He demanded our behavior and righteousness. But in the New Covenant, God said: “I will, I will, I will…”  because God demanded Jesus’ behavior. In this Covenant of Grace, God lavished His own righteousness as a gift to those who believed in Jesus. 

According to the Apostle Paul (the Apostle of grace to the Gentile), this Schizophrenic message is not a Gospel/Good News at all. For the same reason, he was astonished that the Galatians were so quickly deserting the One who called them by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different Gospel, which is really no Gospel at all (the Schizophrenic kind of message). With this Schizophrenic kind of message, some people are actually throwing the listeners into confusion and are trying to pervert the Gospel of Christ. He prayed that God would punish anyone who preaches anything different from his message, the message of Grace! He was so concerned that it did not matter if that person was one of his people or an angel from heaven.  Paul had said it before, and he would say it again. Indeed he hoped God would punish anyone who preaches anything different from what you have already believed. Remember we are all called to live by grace through faith...

Why was Paul so angry to pronounce a double curse over those who preaches a different gospel? I don't think we need to be a rocket scientist to understand that this kind of Schizophrenic message is actually leading people to seek their own righteousness. When anyone attempt to be justified by law, they have been alienated from Christ and they have indeed, fallen away from grace. 

For our heavenly Father had chose us in Christ before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. In love, He predestined us to be adopted as His sons through Jesus Christ in accordance with His pleasure and will, to the praise of his glorious grace, which He has freely given us in the One He loves. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding. And he made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ. 

My friend, this is what the Bible means "For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ". The message of Grace is the truth and the truth can set you free. This Grace message is the Gospel that Apostle Paul defended with all his heart. This Gospel of Grace can heal you from your spiritual Schizophrenia!

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