As I was sitting in the living room by myself this evening, an old quote from Karl Marx came to my mind.  "Religion is the opiate of the masses."... and... well... although I was at first scandalized he could say such a thing... I think there's more truth to that than godlessness! The man declared there was no God, which only proved him to be a fool... but what he also didn't know was that there is a very real, very warm, operative relationship with God Almighty that 'religion' does not come close to.  Not ANY religion.

How many religions are in the world?  I've no idea.. but what I have learned is that being religious and belonging to a church is not the same as being a part of the Body of Christ itself.  The body of Christ is made up of those who believe in His deity and Sovereignty... and yield their lives..."all thy heart, all thy soul, all thy mind and all thy strength... to His Lordship... and truly make Him King of their lives.

What I'm getting at is this: Religion works as a placebo for the real thing.  People get so terribly deceived into thinking that just because they are members of such and such church or religion, that God is satisfied with that, and also that they dare not attend a church for fear of displeasing the Lord. It hasn't been too long since a person we know who attends a church in our community said... "Well, I sure hope Jesus doesn't come back while you're not in church some Wednesday night!  You'll get left behind!"  Yeah... right!  And I might get a little wound up on this subject, so I'll just cut straight to the chase by telling you why we left the church we were attending a few years ago, even though we loved it, and loved the people, and they loved us.

We were attending faithfully.  Tithing joyfully. Members of a wonderful home group.  I sang in the choir, prophesied freely when the Spirit moved.  We loved our pastor so much we said to one another that we'd feel safe entrusting our entire lives to him!   We'd been asked to sponsor a home group for people who had divorce in their background... and also to teach a Sunday School class for the same kind of people.  Well... excuse me!  We saw it as a slur.  Like.. "Because you folks have sin in your past and are not worthy to teach anyone except others like you, we'll let you minister to them.  (Others that have leprosy!)  At this same time, our lives were becoming less, and less, and less prosperous financially!  So we asked the Lord why this was... and all He ever said was "Abrogate".  Abrogate?  What is that?  He just kept saying "Abrogate"... until I finally got a dictionary and learned that to abrogate is to turn loose... to get out... cut off!  Okay, so .... abrogate what, Lord?

Then he began saying to me, "Hegemony".... and I was just sure this was not the Lord Jesus speaking to me.  Surely there's no such word!  But I kept hearing it, then finally tried to find hegemony... Well, there's no such thing.  It has no "D" in it, but there was h-e-g-e-m-o-n-y... and that refers to  dominating leadership.  Such as 'having a king over us'... you see. A. Gramsci describes it as: "How the domination of one class over others is achieved by a combination of political and ideological  means.  Although political force—coercion—is always important, the role of ideology in winning the consent of the dominated classes may be even more significant.  The balance between coercion and consent will vary from society to society, the latter being more important in capitalist societies.

It finally came clear to us that we were being told to get out from under a dominating leadership (no matter how kind and benevolent) that would discriminate against people with certain sins in their past, even though God forgives and renews!  And He makes us clean and free to do His work wherever He chooses. So.. we obeyed... and months later we were given this little book called The Open Church" by James Rutz.. and when we prayed to find such a church we were immediately led to one.

Well, dear.  We loved this open church, and were content to be a part of it for more than a year...until... certain people who had more clout than others began to 'program' things.  They brought in politics. They showed signs of being terrified that I might speak in tongues while praying over the mic (which I did momentarily one day).. and it kept one young woman out of church for weeks. Gradually, instead of the Holy Spirit being allowed to minister through whomsoever He chose to minister through... this caution reigned.  And politics got a tighter hold. We could feel the strain of it, and one night when we were praying about many things in our living room, the Lord told us to "Change churches, change physicians, and change pharmacists... which He showed us how to do right away. It became very apparent, not only to us but to certain others, that this open church was running dry.

Then we were made able to get an immediate appointment with a physician we'd wanted for a long time, and voila! that happened.  Then the large mega pharmacy we were using showed signs of not giving a hoot about our questions, so we went back to our old favorite pharmacist friend from many years ago! He's much like a very caring doctor to us.

Now... about changing churches? Our affiliation with the Body of Christ never has changed, and never will.

The 'First Love' you speak of... the jealous God the Bible speaks of.. is the one and only and absolute Head of the only church we can 'belong to' and be a part of.  We run into fellow members of this wonderful Church every time we go to town; when some e-mails are shared with friends; and so on and so on.  We members of this Divine Body are hungry to know one another! And it has nothing to do with being members of an organized, man-dominated  so-called church.  Members of this wonderful Body love one another no matter what church affiliation they might have.... and being members of these so-called churches does not make anyone a member of His Body anymore than sitting in a garage makes anyone a car.

I think I've said about all I need to say for now. Whew!  I hope I don't come across as 'steamed up' as I feel right now.  LOL! I'm not angry... just full of the Holy Ghost and fire, you know?  And glory!