10 We have an altar from which those who serve the tabernacle have no authority to eat. 11 For the bodies of those animals whose blood is brought into the holy places by the high priest as an offering for sin, are burned outside the camp. 12 Therefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered outside the gate. 13 So, let us go out to Him outside the camp, bearing His reproach. 14 For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the one to come. 15 Through Him then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess His name. 16 And do not neglect doing good and sharing, for with such sacrifices God is pleased. Hebrews 13:10-16 (LSB)
I have written much about “Christian Authenticity” and the fallacy of empty religiosity. I have done so because God delivered me from a very dreadful Christian walk several years ago in which I was just going through the motions of my religion, but there was no obedience or walk of repentance going on. I was depressed most of the time suffering from a form of PTSD from being in the blast zone when the Federal Center in OKC was bombed….
I was maintaining my walk through my own will power and was fast running out of gas when I was called by God to take a stand at our old church against a move by our pastor to allow it to be taken over by the Purpose Driven Paradigm. It was through that not so fun experience that my wife and I found ourselves churchless. At that time we were living in Johnson County Kansas. I was working in Lenexa, Kansas for a very large Hospital management group as their Database Administrator. We were far from home though since we were both from Oklahoma and most of our family and friends were still there. Over the next two or three years we looked for a new church, but it was very difficult. The Purpose Driven disease had taken over a large portion of the churches there. We attended a Sovereign Grace church for.a few years until the pastor left to become a chaplain at Texas A&M Medical school and hospitals. His replacement was selected by Sovereign Grace Ministries. He was very young and even though I liked him, we had issues. First, he knew about this blog and wanted to control it. Second, he demanded that my wife and I join a small group. We had tried two or three of them, but they were not anything like the small groups we have at our church we are part of now. No, we couldn’t do it. When he told me he wanted to control what I posted on this blog I smiled and told him that only God could control that. We left and never went back. From that Sunday until we moved back to Oklahoma in December 2012 we attended Mission Road Bible Church which was pastored by Rick Holland. The biggest problem for us there was that it was almost a 50 mile trip to and from our house to that church.