The Golden Calf…
A lot of Christians suffer from what I call “The Golden Calf” mentality,
Golden Calf mentality is the the process of objectifying anything that is has a spiritual value. A really troublesome behavior that I consistently see is people that repeatedly grab on to the latest concept in spirituality and make that their only focus, applying this “concept” in every imaginable way. If you remember the story of the Golden Calf it tends to not make much sense. the Israelites had just seen God perform amazing miracles. Only a few days after Moses disappears up in the mountains before the people are bored. They can’t really wrap their heads around this “bodiless god” thing and so they beg Aaron to make them an “object” to call “GOD” something to focus on. It was just too hard to worship … without having a “some Thing” to worship!
Fast forward to today… we are still doing the same thing. We have a building that we use to worship, I know you have heard “Don’t do that! your in church! for goodness sakes!” or “I can’t beleive they did that in Church!” The idea being that the church building is a holy place and should be treated with respect. The act of representing an abstraction as a physical thing is called Objectification. As humans we tend to attach significance to objects or places when they are associated with abstract or intangible ideas. The problem with that is when we only choose to think of God once a week then we objectify the location that we go to think about him. It doesn’t take long for us to deduct that if we are going somewhere to worship God then that must be where he is… (do you see the faulty logic here?) we then go even further and feel like we need to go to the place where we always worship God so that we can feel at peace, or hear better, or get filled up, etc. . Finally we end up showing up at a location and we have completely taught ourselves that “this is where God lives, and I come here to worship him” ultimately sealing him off from the rest of our daily lives.
It even gets worse when you bring up the subject of the Holy Spirit, and the gifts of the spirit. People are naturally attracted to the supernatural, unfortunately since we don’t completely understand the supernatural and because it is a bit intangible and abstract we immediately objectify any person, place or object that seems to be identified with supernatural qualities… even worse we make imaginary boxes and organize these intangible ideas.
here are some examples
- People learning to avoid taking responsibility for their actions and calling them ”a spirit of (fill in the blank)”
- Worship services that seek to generate a “feeling” of “holiness” and people that have to be coaxed into “feeling” the Holy Spirit move.
- People that flinch or reel when someone of supposed “Stature” walks into the room. claiming to feel the “spirit”
- walking into a building and saying… “the spirit is here”
- praying and saying “Holy Spirit come”
The problem that I have with these situations is the process of using each one to promote a false sense of spirituality. Each of these situations generates “The Emperors New Clothes” behavior, people mimic their spiritual leaders antics so that they can seem equally spiritual- or too just avoid the stigma of seeming so carnally minded that they don’t sense anything. Do you see the danger in that? The danger is that even spiritual leaders can be fooled into hype by other peers that seek to promote their level of spirituality. If you are a christian the Holy Spirit is inside you!.. He doesn’t need to go “here” or “There” If there is anywhere that you should feel the Holy Spirit it is “INSIDE!” Everytime the Holy Spirit interacted with saints the bible says, ”then (Name) being filled with the Holy Spirit (action that they performed)” What does that tell you… It doesn’t come! its there! this is not an “empty, full , empty full” scenario this is a constant state! you dont “CHARGE Up” and then deliver the power… you are filled. and you “being filled with the Holy Spirit” can live just as fully as anyone in the book of Acts!
Oddly because we are so used to fixating on the physical it is almost impossible for us in this idolatrous age to sort out “Reality” from “Perception” but imagine for a moment that you lose your hearing and sight, when would you “feel” the presence of the Holy Spirit? no music, no moving speeches, no touching visuals to prod you into feeling “Holy” It is time for us to be honest, to be sober, and to be above reproach. If you don’t feel anything then say you don’t. It doesn’t make you less spiritual, It makes you honest! And many times people that are sucked in by the hype start feeling a little foolish, and your honesty gives them perspective.
Look …this is not me pointing at how you act and saying that YOU are idolatrous, I am saying that we all need to look at our actions and determine if we are creating our own Golden Calf so that we can worship God
The point is to BE REAL don’t ACT REAL. there is a very visible difference.
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