How religious leaders use the Bible to rob you of your Direct Connection to God

When God created human kind, three words were uttered that would forever describe our nature. We were created in God's Image (literally shadow), in His Likeness (literally life-blood) and finally to have Dominion (literally cultivate) over God's creation of Earth. 

Now, let me ask you, how is it that we can connect with God? Some of us would say through Jesus right away. Others would refer to the Torah or yet still other books. Some would refer to religious bodies and so forth. And why would we answer in that way? For most of us, we would answer such things as we have been told. 

We all know we are created in His image (you've at least heard that from somewhere) but that is God's calling you to understand the most important privilege about being a human being - you were born to know God personally and directly with full assurance, confidence and love. 

This is astonishing to me because the Religious orders of the world including those who hold the Bible to be the Word of God, have robbed God of His Authority to connect with humanity and replaced it with their own. 

And what most innervates me are those who use the Bible as justification for doing this! Yes, they use the Bible to say that their authority is higher than God's Authority as the Author of the Bible and they say God gave them this authority... if you think about it, this makes no sense!

Deut 17:11 is given as an example of how God instructed us to listen to what the sages or elders say and do everything they say. This verse is the basis of how the Judaism that Jesus faced through the Pharisees and still exists today in the form of Orthodox Judaism exerts its authority over their followers. Through this verse they teach us that the teachings of the Rabbis through the Talmud is above the Torah and Jewish the Bible itself! They do this when it is in full view of any who will read that the verse actually relates to judicial matters, firstly and secondly is to be administered by Levitical priests, a priesthood that has been defunct for almost 2000 years! 

In Christianity, this takes happens in a particularly cynical way just as well. I have never been the type of person to call my pastor, 'pastor' or to refer to priests as 'priests', 'father' or any other title. Something from deep inside me shuddered at calling fellow humans names of things that I only see God as. I had rejected this pressure long before I knew of these oft-forgotten words of Christ;

“But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher, and you are all brothers. And do not call anyone on earth ‘father,’ for you have one Father, and he is in heaven. Nor are you to be called instructors, for you have one Instructor, the Messiah. The greatest among you will be your servant. For those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted. (Mat 23:8-12)

Some may argue about the pastor name, that Jesus didn't say don't call someone pastors, as pastorship is an office instituted by God in the Scriptures itself. Granted that we can refer to someone as a pastor, as a leader of a local congregation or assembly of believers that we may belong to but to keep on calling to them continuously, "Pastor Moe" and "Pastor Joe" and "Pastor Aziz"? This is merely tradition and a tradition that subtly undermines the Truth that the Lord is our Shepherd Eternal (Ps 23:1). Such traditions nourish a way of thinking that our spiritual connection with God should be principally through the guidance of another person, frail and human and drowning in humanity as ourselves.

The bottom line is giving such titles to men and women, especially in the church is very, very anti-Christ. It is precisely against the Spirit of Jesus Himself. Jesus who is the Word of God said it so clearly that God, the Creator, is our One and Single Teacher, Father, and Instructor. 

He called us to a brotherhood where none is above the other and each plays a vital and crucial role in the body of Christ (imagine going to a church where spiritual activity is found in everyone, according to each member's faith, maturity and gifts, operating in love, not their position in the church hierarchy, which is itself very unbiblical).

All these traditions are ways to manipulate the children of God into becoming ever dependent on the sons of men rather than the Spirit of God in us. 

This is why this promise in Jeremiah is such a beautiful witness to those who call themselves the people of the Book - the Christians and the Jews; but note that this is a promise made available to all peoples through Jesus Christ:

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jer 31:31-24)

Why is this verse so exciting? Because it is beckoning us to have a PERSONAL and DIRECT relationship to Him. He is saying in the days of the Old Covenant and speaking of it being flawed because the people (not Him) break their side of this covenant and that He is replacing it with one which can not be broken because in the New Covenant, our Sins are not only Forgiven, they are Forgotten! 

Very emphatically, God testifies saying He will be our teacher and we will obey His laws as they flow from our hearts. And surely enough, Jesus when He was about to be crucified, prayed for His disciples, that is all those who choose to follow Jesus, that we would be a people guided by the very Spirit of God Himself, where no one is above the other, but all of us are encouraging each other. (Ofcourse, to be clear, certainly there are those who are more mature and those who are not among the followers of Yeshua, nor am I saying that the body of Christ is without leaders and teachers and mentors, these are all very biblical concepts).

So do you desire this DIRECT and PERSONAL CONNECTION to GOD that is totally independent of man? Then I would encourage you to just simply and directly ask God to give you His Light. 

If you do not know if Jesus is the Truth, ask God to reveal the Truth.

If you do not know if the Bible is the Divinely Inspired Word of God, then ask Him to show you if it is or not.

If you believe in Jesus and the Divine Inspiration of the Bible but still somehow find yourself unable to go beyond what your leaders and friends say, then ask God to give you His Spirit so that His Spirit may teach you all things.

This is what Jesus came to do... to Redeem every son of Adam and daughter of Eve so that that we can all walk again with God, in the bonds of the Sweetest Fellowship of God and Humankind, between Your Father and you. 

Blessings to you all.

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. (Jesus of Nazereth in John 16:13)

But the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you, and you do not need that anyone teach you; but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things, and is true, and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him. (1 John 2:27)