As I was in prayer today thanking God for the day, I also had to confess my sins, expressing with gratitude that God keeps teaching and training me. I also said that I chose to be a good student.

At that moment God flashed into my mind’s eye the great irony of that. I am beyond retirement age, with 3 university degrees and 2 professional certificates and I am still a pupil in the Saviour’s school learning the most difficult career with the most-required continuing education of any vocation in the world, namely, being a servant of the Most High God Almighty.

I have taught courses in 3 different seminaries and 2 Lay Schools and yet I am only barely qualified, with many provisos, to be a servant!

May I ever revel in being the least to point people to Creator God Who is the Most.

Not much wonder the Bible emphasizes humility and holiness over works and achievements.

“Yes, furthermore, I count everything as loss compared to the possession of the priceless privilege (the overwhelming preciousness, the surpassing worth, and supreme advantage) of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord and of progressively becoming more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him [of perceiving and recognizing and understanding Him more fully and clearly]. For His sake I have lost everything and consider it all to be mere rubbish (refuse, dregs), in order that I may win (gain) Christ (the Anointed One)” (Philippians 3:8 Amplified Bible, Classic Edition©).

People underestimate how they are manipulated and controlled by culture. I am not talking conspiracy theories here. I refer to the habits and customs that surround us and which we follow without thinking about even when they turn us into an anti-Christ. This cannot be overstated.

I will speak only of the Canadian culture here (though it is part of what is termed the “western culture”). We have the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. This particular cultural institution has become the foundational motivation for congregations that refuse to follow public health orders during the pandemic. Their claim is that they have freedom of religion in this document which means they are exempt from any law which they interpret to persecute their customary practice of religion. Notice that culture plays a double role in this fiasco.

The congregations are enveloped in a subculture that defines worship as meeting in a certain place at a certain time, and they define this further to be the primary definition of their identity. As prisoners of the wider culture of “rights” they use the secular laws to demand their religious laws as having priority over their responsibility for each other, inside and outside their circle.

This use of rights is entirely selfish. They refuse to see this because that would mean reviewing their subculture of privilege, that their right to act their way is superior to all other “rights”.

Jesus had the right to a fair trial, a right which was denied to the Christ. So did Jesus appeal the kangaroo court? Did Jesus whine on the cross about personal innocence and the injustice foisted upon the “Sinless One”?

No, because secular rights, won or argued in secular courts (or even religious courts) betrays an attitude of mastery or control instead of servanthood.

Here is the extreme example to verify the stand of the Bible (Matthew 5:40-41). Jesus taught that if someone sues you for your shirt, give them your coat also. If you are compelled by a military or civic power to carry a load for one mile, then carry it for two. “Love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44).

If a public health order suspends the “right” of congregations to meet en masse in their precious edifice, then the congregation should not only obey it, but over-obey it somehow.

Instead we have self-righteous religious fanatics demanding their “human” rights to reject the teaching of Jesus, deny their community responsibilities, publicly declare that they have superior rights to others in the culture and forfeit the role of serving in their arena of operation.

What is their justification to abandon what identifies people as followers of Jesus instead of self and culture? They are heroes (self-appointed, alas) who are fighting for the human rights of all religious and spiritual people! I don’t need that. “If God is for us, who can be against us” (Romans 8:31b).

Even if the fig tree does not bloom
and the vines have no grapes,
even if the olive tree fails to produce
and the fields yield no food,
even if the sheep pen is empty
and the stalls have no cattle—
even then,
I will be happy with the Lord.
I will truly find joy in God, who saves me.

(Habakkuk 3:17-18 God’s Word Translation©)

There is a practice among Christians that shows contempt for the teaching of God. It is widespread, insidious and undermines the most basic operation of the Realm of God on earth.

It is about holy space. Some denominations even have a ritual, using “holy elements” like water and oil, to sanctify land/soil before building an edifice to house a congregation of believers on it. When the building is completed it is referred to as “The House of God”.

This term comes from the Old Testament where King David gathers materials to construct, and King Solomon completes, The House of God in Jerusalem – The Temple. This was to become a permanent place to house the altar of sacrifices, replacing the Tent of Meeting which the Hebrews built in the wilderness during the Exodus.

Joshua 22 makes it abundantly clear how serious this was to be observed, namely having only one site for the offering of sacrifices – in Jerusalem. There would have been a civil war if the altar built on the east side of the Jordan River had, as was presumed wrongly by the Ten Tribes, been intended to compete with the one and only Holy Place where God dwells.

Jesus changed this, symbolized at the crucifixion, by the tearing of the curtain which separated the Holiest Place from the rest of the Temple.

Paul makes it abundantly clear that there is to be no holy place called “House of God” for the Church: “Don’t you know that your body is a temple that belongs to the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit, whom you received from God, lives in you. You don’t belong to yourselves. You were bought for a price. So bring glory to God in the way you use your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 God’s Word Translation©).

And what happened in The Temple? Sacrifices! Our role as “temples” Paul makes abundantly clear in Romans 12:1, “Brothers and sisters, in view of all we have just shared about God’s compassion, I encourage you to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, dedicated to God and pleasing to him. This kind of worship is appropriate for you.” (God’s Word Translation©)

When God’s people trade away faith in God for religious opinion, whether Israelites of old or self-declared heroes of today, God sends natural or political alarms to awaken them to their sin and bring them back to spiritual sanity.

Sometimes people respond humbly and repent, turning from the off-trail route to the highway to heaven. Other times they decide to find their own solution apart from trusting in Almighty God.

The Lord declares,
“How horrible it will be for those rebellious children.
They carry out plans, but not mine…
They pile sin on top of sin…
They look for shelter under Pharaoh’s protection
and look for refuge in Egypt’s shadow.
But Pharaoh’s protection will be their shame,
and the refuge in Egypt’s shadow will be their disgrace” (Isaiah 30:1-3 God’s Word Translation©).

In today’s terminology it would read, “They look for shelter in the Charter of Human Rights and look for refuge in their lawyers’ shadow.”

All I know is a Follower of Jesus will never use a secular court case to win a spiritual battle.