3 Ways Religion Destroys the Work of Christ

I want to be vivid, I am broken in heart, and crying in my spirit as I write these words. I am coming from a very deep and passionate place of praise to my Lord and Savior by which I write.

When I first met the Lord, I was passionate about Him. I ran with the greatest of speed. I devoured the Bible day and night. My goal was to read the Word of God 40 hours per week. I never reached my goal, however I read my Bible, sang praise songs and prayed daily for up to 10 hours, the average being 3.

Why am I telling you all this? I can promise you, it is not to say that I did anything right. It is not to say, you should do that too. I am only telling you this,  to prepare you for the reason I am writing today. This will be the most humiliating thing I have ever shared with you.

Seven years had passed as I had been chasing after God. My husband did not share the same passion that I had. He had been raised in a church and, I guess for the point of survival, was not willing to break the hardness around his heart to run anymore. Because he was not running at the same speed, I became disillusioned about our marriage. I wanted to be married to an “on-fire Christian”. I wanted to pastor a church, lead worship, pray for the sick, be an evangelist and go on mission trips. There was no sacrifice too high, to give to this great Lord, Jesus.

I did everything I knew how to do. I talked about God. I prayed that my husband would change. I talked to him about my passion and asked him to come on board. According to him, he was on board. I never see him read his Bible, pray or worship. I knew, based on the Word of God, when we love Him we obey Him. I did not see an obedient, on-fire, can’t-wait-to-please-God husband.

I can honestly say, my attitude about my husband became worse and worse with each day. As I became more radiant and passionate about Jesus, he remained the same, sometimes worse. I was going to ministry school, and I was part of an international ministry called Cleansing Stream Ministries. I had gone to one year of Bible college, and felt like a failure, because my husband did not share the same passion as I did.

I was at a Cleansing Stream Retreat, and at the retreat everyone worships and then receives prayer. They always pray against pride first, before any other category. When it was my turn for prayer, I told the person praying for me, that I needed a lot of prayer for this. That although my heart was pure for God, I struggled with always wanting to be right. They brought four people to pray for me. I stood there as four people prayed for me, and for a long time I felt no change. They would stop and ask, “Do you feel like you are free from this?” I said, “No!”