Mechanics of Religion

If there was anyone in history who harnessed the success of the Industrial Revolution, it was Henry Ford. As a child growing up on a family farm, Ford had seen the benefits of automation. He witnessed how it increased production and the benefits it could have to mankind. During his childhood, he saw the beginnings of the John Deere company and tremendous advances made in agriculture. Railways and steam engines were making pathways across the country. Excitement was in the air with what mankind could achieve with mechanics and technology.

Henry Ford's mother died when he was 12 years old, and it had a profound effect on him. He left the farm at age 15 and went to work as a machinist in Detroit. It was providential, and he continued his career until being one of the top executives for Thomas Edison's company. He developed a strong friendship with Edison, and on the side began work on developing a gas powered vehicle. After various attempts, he realized that pricing was the main obstacle for his technology to be adapted by the general population. He made a partnership with John and Horace Dodge, who were respected machinists in Detroit, to develop a successful automation model that could increase the amount of vehicles produced in a day. They succeeded, and the model T soon became the vehicle that over half of Americans drove in those early days of the automobile.

The secret to Fords success was the mechanical structure and machinery that allowed him to mass produce a vehicle with precision, low cost and and consistency. Ford became an icon around the world and was respected by world leaders and business men alike. What Ford did was strategically utilize an industrial revolution that had been in the making for over 100 years. His concepts and principles are the basis for much of the commercial business success in America. The Mcdonald brothers took his ideas and forever changed the restaurant and food industry. Every area of our lives has been touched in one way or another by these developments. Computers, clothing, your drink at Starbucks and the apples at the grocery store are all processed through industrial mechanics that allow mass production to keep the cost low and output high. No generation in history has been as successful at this as we have been.

But there is a definite downside to all of this. This industrial and mechanical mindset has deeply affected the way our generation approaches life in general. Just take a walk at the bookstore and see the titles on the shelves. There are 5 steps to a better marriage, 12 ways to improve your sex life, 7 habits of highly effective people and the 9 ways to increase your financial security! We have an insatiable appetite for making things mechanical and increasing productivity. The problem with this might seem insignificant, but we need to consider how it has affected the way we approach life. Machines don't have a heart, they don't have a soul. They are lifeless, automated inventions made to accomplish goals and objectives and nothing else. I doubt that sounds bad to most of us, so let's look at it another way. We have a large tendancy to solve the problems in our marriages, our finances and our lives through mechanics rather than by caring for the heart and the soul. In contrast, Scripture is all about the heart, God is a God of the heart. Is it any wonder why our efforts have such little lasting impact?

This is the most critical issue for us as Christians to grasp and understand. We tend to form our doctrines, and our creeds, form our theories of what the Bible is all about without remembering that there is a Being behind it all with a heart and a mind. Our mechanical attempts at Christianity have resulted in a large modern industry that is able to be easily replicated, mass produced and highly respected. We have taken the message of God's unconditional love and grace and have broadcasted it across the globe with little respect or reference to the fact that there is a Being behind it that has the right to reject, grieve, be angry or act as He chooses. Certainly, God is the same yesterday, today and forever and although I am not promoting some irrational behavior on his part, I fear we have forgotten to remember that any reference to God must keep the reverence in place for the Being of God and not an Divine Automation residing in the Heavens. As much as Paul preached the grand Gospel of Grace and the deep love of the Lord, he made some very powerful arguments in Romans 9-11 that have brought a lot of confusion to theologians over the years.

In this portion of his writing, Paul was not arguing for an irrational God who seems to mysteriously hate or harden some while loving and prefer others. On the contrary, Paul was dealing with the mechanics of religion already creeping into the early church. There was a tendancy in some to develop a false sense of security by mechanising God. The Jews that he had been laboring so hard to convert were light years from knowing God because they were relying on mechanical frameworks of who God was but had no living relationship and intimacy with the Living Being of God. And already, some of the Gentiles were feeling a false security in salvation and despising the Jews. Paul argues for them to beware of the mechanics of religion because God is a live Being who can do whatever he wants.

Now obviously, the more we get to know someone the more we can predict how they will act and how they think. That is the direct outcome of genuine intimacy. But that is different from mechanics. Mechanics are not based on intimacy, they are not based in relationship, they are based on motives other than true love. To make this easier to digest, let's consider an illustration from marriage. Just consider that your spouse seems very interested in you. They schedule date nights with you every Tuesday, and during that time everything is programmed and set out. At 6:30 you go to dinner, at 8pm you walk in the park and at 10pm you go to bed. Every day they have 30 minutes to talk to you about important details in the morning. Everything is predictable in your relationship. But they have a notebook, documenting how you (male or female) acts, what you like and they reference it all the time. There is little passion, no spontenaity, and not surprisingly, you feel very alone and very unknown. Although all this activity is supposedly centered around you, your spouse doesn't know the secrets of your heart, they don't take the time to just listen to you, and they always seem to be in their own little world. This is a mechanised relationship.

For most Christians this is the way God is approached. They have prayer time and it is all about them, they have a lot of Christian activity and have their little list on who God is and what he likes and hates. There is a little box God fits into and when they are presented with something that doesn't meet that criteria, they have little time or interest in examining it. They are not into a living and growing relationship, their life is not a progression of understanding God and knowing him, they already feel they know who he is and they are off doing their own thing. Paul argues and says, wait a minute here. You Gentiles can not be arrogant, and you Jews can not be arrogant. Don't approach God with your little box of who he is. Remember that he is a Being, and if he wants to make an example of someone like Pharoah, then he will do it. If he wants to reject Esau before he ever made it out of the womb, because he knew what Esau would turn out to be, who are you to argue with him about it? And he makes the very crucial statement in Romans 9:16 "It does not, therefore, depend on human desire or effort, but on God’s mercy."

In the end, all of our mechanics are really about our ability to control God. We love to make sure we have the upper hand on him to tell him what he can and can't do. Leaving God alone to be a Being with a mind of his own and the power to accomplish anything he wants, even if it offends our minds, is frightening to most of us. But this is where love generates trust. We must not only, as the writer of Hebrews says in Hebrews 11:4 'believe that God exists, but that he rewards those who seek him'. In the end, Christianity is not just about knowing God exists, but that he reveals himself to those who seek to genuinely know him. He rewards those who want to have intimacy with him. Faith, therefore, necessitates intimacy. Faith leads us to intimacy. Unbelief hides in the mechanics of religion and never knows the Creator on an intimate and personal level.

For the first time in world history we have mega-churches across the globe, Christian television stations, radio stations and publications. And although there is nothing wrong with mechanics in and of themselves, the moment they cease to become a tool to promote and glorify the Being of God, and nurture an environment of intimacy with him, is the moment we are in danger of another Gospel and may well be serving another god. In fact, that is end result of the mechanics of religion if they loose the heart of God. We will end up serving a god of our imagination rather than serving the true God whom we know, truly and intimately know.

This scenario existed in Jesus day in the Jewish religious system. The Pharisees were experts in mechanics. And as you read the Gospels, the interactions between Jesus and this mechanical mindset are nearly offensive. It cannot be understood or appreciated unless you first grasp the danger of the machine that existed from these mechanics. When I think of this, it reminds me of the movie Terminator. We seem to have a fascination with machines that get out of control and turn against the human race. Perhaps we should ask why we enjoy these movies. I believe it is because all of us have had some experience with this in principle. We face the government machine, the religious machine, the education machine and so on. We feel these institutions that were developed for our benefit and good have lost any heart and soul. When we watch a movie like this there is something in us that resonates with the fear of lifeless and heartless machinery.

But I believe no one feels this way more than God! He is the Designer and Author of Christianity, how awful it must be to watch it become a machine that removes him all together. When Jesus confronts the Pharisees and religious leaders of his day there was something inherent in the conversation that made them not understand each other. Jesus was frustrated and angry at the machine which had lost his heart and yet claimed to know him. They were angry at Jesus for distrupting the mechanics of their systemized religion. And we see it continually play out during his 3 1/2 years of ministry until the climactic moment when the machine coldly and brutally killed the very Son of God himself. And yet, it couldn't conquer love. Jesus prevails.

But as his disciples watched the interactions between Jesus and the religious leaders of his day, how confusing this must have been. All of their lives they had been taught to revere and follow these leaders. And suddenly, Jesus is turning everything upside down and he is doing it to get the people back to the heart of God. Jesus seemingly spoke in cryptic language and this puzzled the disciples, and when they asked him about it, Jesus replied, “The knowledge of the secrets of the kingdom of God has been given to you, but to others I speak in parables, so that, ‘though seeing, they may not see; though hearing, they may not understand.’" That is code language to the disciples that Jesus was using parables to filter out those run by the mechanics of religion from those who had a tender heart and wanted to truly have intimacy with him. He makes it clear at the end of this interaction with them, "But the seed on good soil stands for those with a noble and good heart, who hear the word, retain it, and by persevering produce a crop." The parables expose the heart of the issue on God's heart, they get straight to the principle. Those driven by the mechanics of religion are frustrated at the lack of clarity and seeming ambiguity laid out in them. They are puzzled because they wanted the 5 steps and doctrinal treatise on the subject to test and grill Jesus and where he stood on issues. Be he eluded their attempts by speaking the heart language that only those with teachable hearts and a desire for intimacy could understand.

One of my personal favorite ways Jesus did this, although it was not with a parable, is the interaction with the woman caught in adultery. The wisdom and mastery at which Jesus dealt with the situation amazes me. Consider the setting, the religious leaders were trying to trap Jesus in some theologican error. Sound familiar? Theology is a very easy place for the mechanics of religion to loose any sense of the heart. And although theology is crucial for the knowledge of God, it can never be separated from the desire for intimacy. When it is, is looses all heart and becomes a machine that destroys intimacy rather than nurtures and inspires it. Notice in this story that Jesus sat down to teach the people - he was there to reveal the heart of God to people. But others were driven by hatred and malice and tried to use theology as their weapon. We read in John 8:2-11,

"At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach them. The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?” They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.

But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground. At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. 10 Jesus straightened up and asked her, “Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?”“No one, sir,” she said.

“Then neither do I condemn you,” Jesus declared. “Go now and leave your life of sin.”

The mastery is that Jesus had the ability and the option of conceding by making a very clear and unmistakable doctrinal treatise on adultery and even divorce. And yet, he stoops down and starts drawing in the dirt. At this moment, I believe Jesus was talking with his Father about what to do. That is the first thing we should see. Jesus was opening his heart to hear from the Father, and not just launching into a doctrinal lecture. If he was going to make an example out of this woman, than he was going to make sure it was the Fathers directive for him.

Instead, he begins to see in the hearts of those standing around the very same core sin. A few of those standing around were presumably guilty of lust, while others committing immorality of their own. The lesson the Father wanted to give was that of mercy, not of justice. Both are equally valid, but only in a genuine and intimate relationship with the Father could Jesus know what to say at that time and in that situation. Intimacy has to involve some level of unpredictability and spontaneity to exist. After all, if two people are to be exposing themselves wholly and fully to the other, to be known and embraced, can that always be predictable? Can we really have intimacy without a fairly consistent measure of the unknown? Isn't the issue of discovery one of finding what is unknown? Intimacy is the art of knowing and being known and that involves a deep level of unpredictability and adaptability. Intimacy requires a growth partner who is willing to grow with that person and adapt to their growth, and to the knowledge of the other person. It is here that selflessness and self denial are so crucial in the area of intimacy. The more we are pushing for our own agenda and our own interests, the more removed we become from the ability to have functional intimacy at all. Intimacy requires adaptability and spontaneity as they are the signs of life in the relationship.

Jesus was all about the heart. The entire Sermon on the Mount was not a moral expose on the way people should live, but an expose of the way God looks at the heart. It beautifully portrays the way we tend to hide behind actions, mindsets and mechanics while it boldly calls us back to the heart of the matter. Intimacy can only take place at the heart level. God isn't looking for mass production, increased productivity in the church or Christianity to dominate the globe as chief objectives. That is probably offensive, but that is a totally true statement. God is looking for intimacy with mankind, he is longing for connection with us. Those things are only valid as fruitful overflow from genuine intimacy. He can only have that when we surrender to him at a heart level and when we continue to keep our hearts tender with him. The truth is, our hearts are just like soil. There is a reason Jesus used this analogy. The mechanics of religion overwork the soil of our hearts into hardened clay. God's Word has little impact, our fruitfulness becomes something other than intimacy. We look fruitful in mass activity and mass production but we are barren of the fruitfulness of intimacy that God really longs for. In the end, the only measurement that God will use to determine our fruitfulness is the measurement of intimacy. And intimacy can only flourish in the tender soil of the heart.

In college, I took a class on Agriculture, a true sign I grew up in the farm country of the Midwest. In that class, I was given an assignment to write a paper on dirt! I am a writer, but wondered how on earth I was going to do that. What on earth could I possible say about dirt? I completed the assignment, and titled it 'From the Dust of the Ground'. What I learned from researching that paper amazed me - dirt is not a lifeless object, or at least it is not supposed to be! Dirt is full of micro-organisms that determine the fruitfulness of the soil. Earthworms keep the soil most by breaking it up and digesting it and then, you guessed it, excreting it! But overworking the soil with machines, pesticides and chemicals can easily kill the micro-organisms not to mention decimate the earthworm population. When this happens, the soil becomes hardened clay - lifeless soil.

Our hearts are to be tenderized by God's love for us. His Word is to be life-giving fertilizer to our hearts and the process of sanctification and the work of the Holy Spirit break up the hard clay of our hearts and make it tender, moist and prize soil. Mechanics cannot be the facilitator of this, only real and living genuine intimacy with him can do it.

It is no accident that the first commandment is to love the Lord our God with ALL of our HEART. We find over and over again, throughout Scripture, a picture of the Lord appealing to the heart of men and women. The central message of the Gospel is one to the heart of men and women. And we see the evidence of this in Acts 2:37 with the first example of the preaching of the Gospel. We read "when the people heard this (the Gospel message), they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, 'brothers, what shall we do?'" Christianity is all about the heart - it is the business of God's heart to man and mens heart to God. We read in Romans 10:10 "For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth you confess and are saved." The point is that no confession is valid if the heart is not touched and changed. Faith in God can only come in the heart of a man or a woman. And where it resides it will produce the fruit of intimate relationship with God in way or another. James made this same argument in James 2:14-26. He makes the case that faith has to have expression. Love has to have expression to the one it desires. It is impossible to have faith in God and not desire a real and intimate relationship with him. Faith drives you to intimacy. In 1 Corinthians 13 Paul lays out the eloquent passage on what love is and he finishes with verse 13 "and now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." Faith produces hope and hope expresses itself through love. Love is the greatest of these because it is the ultimate expression of them.

We find in the Laodicean Church, yet another example of this. Here was a church that looked very fruitful, very productive and very wealthy in spiritual things. But Jesus says in Revelation 3:15 'I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other. So, because you are lukewarm - neither hot nor cold - I am about to spit you out of my mouth'. So there is no mistake the Greek wording used here is of intense projectile vomitting. It is the violent rejection of something you have tasted of. And Jesus had tasted of their 'fruitfulness' and he was ready to vomit it out. The reason is simple - their hearts were indifferent. The sense here is that fresh hot water has a purpose and life, fresh water has a purpose and life, but lukewarm water is stagnant water that has no life and is easily overtaken by algae and bacteria. The Roman era Jesus walked around in had done mind-boggling feats with bringing fresh water to cities. They were known for their hot baths and their cold fresh water for drinking. Those Jesus addressed this letter to, would understand what he was saying. Stagnant water is dangerous water and toxic - it is void of life and of no useful purpose.

These were 'good' people in the eyes of the world, religious people. They seemed to be moral and were mass producing christian activity. And yet, the heart was dreadfully far from the Lord. This church had mastered the mechanics of religion. With hardened clay for a heart, they forged ahead with their religious activity. And the entire thing made the Lord violently sick to his stomach. They lacked any usefulness to the Lord because the only way we can be useful to the Lord as Christians is to be in intimate fellowship with him. We can be busy with Christian activity but if it is not birthed in intimate fellowship with him, it will be of little use to him. God desires intimacy and this church was oblivious to that.

That is a very real and accurate interpretation of what was going on. Everything looked good on the outside. Their own assessment was that they were successful. God's assessment was they were failing at Christianity for this simple reason - they had neglected the heart. They had neglected their own hearts and they had neglected God's heart. I believe that although these were real letters to real churches at the time, the applications carry down for certain generations through history. And I have no hesitation to say that our generation has perhaps embodied this more than even they did in their age! And yet, we notice the Lord's tender appeal in vs 19-22 with some of the most outstanding promises to any of the churches mentioned in this section. Those promises are:
1. If we will hear the message and open the door (of our hearts) Jesus will come in and have fellowship with him. That is what he is wanting first and foremost, and that is the reason he mentions that first. He wants to feast with us and us with him.
2. If we will overcome, he will give the right to sit with him on his throne. This speaks of the deepest level of intimacy. No King shares his throne. Even the King's wife has to sit on her own throne next to him. But here, Jesus says if we will overcome the apostasy surrounding us, we will sit WITH him, on his throne. The first promise is about him coming to have intimacy with us. The second promise is about us going to have intimacy with him eternally. This passage is far deeper and involved than just authority and power. All that is true, but that is only true because we have such intimacy with him. Jesus is promising special intimacy during our day, in the face of wanting to vomit at the mechanics of religion. His heart is aching and yearning for fellowship on earth right now - and if we will abandon our hearts to him - the rewards are beyond comprehension. (Romans 8:17)

Today, a line of demarcation is being drawn in the sands of earth. Jesus is warning that we will either be violently rejected or have such deep and faithful intimacy with him that he will actually let us rule on his throne with him. It is a black and white picture - we are either on one side or the other. The parable of the ten virgins is the same story, just a different setting. The entire church age today has largely fallen asleep. Sleep speaks of death. We are dead, our hearts are asleep. They are hardened clay overrun by the mechanics of religion. The call of the Bridegroom is going out - Jesus is coming soon. There has been a general awakening going on to the hour we are living in. But drowsiness persists across the church. Some are realizing the oil of intimacy is not there. They have not cultivated intimacy with Christ. They have depended on the mechanics of religion to carry them through. And now, all of a sudden, as the darkness covers the earth, they look around for others to fulfill that void in their lamps. They realize that those who have cultivated intimacy with God are awake, vibrant and strong in the spirit. But intimacy with Jesus doesn't come easy - not when your heart is hardened clay. As Charles Finney used to preach - breaking up the fallow ground of the heart is a process.

Could it be that Jesus was warning his coming would happen so quickly that even though people realized this, they wouldn't have time to change? Or could it be that, like Saul, these people just can't seem to break up the hardened ground of their hearts, even if they have time? I don't have the answer to that, but the reality is, many in the mechanics of religion are going to be rejected for one simple reason - their hearts are not in true and genuine intimacy and fellowship with Jesus. Proverbs 4:23 gives us the clear warning we need to heed in our day, 'Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.' The condition of our hearts is of central importance in this day. And everything from society to media are militating against it. In the same teaching that Jesus was giving about the Ten Virgins, the Bags of Gold and the Sheep and the Goats, Jesus spoke this chilling prophecy 'Because of the increase of wickedness, the love of most will grow cold...' The love growing cold is speaking of the condition of the heart. He is saying that the hearts of most will be hardened. Either hardened by rejecting Christ or hardened in the mechanics of religion - the difference is of little importance. Fellowship with Jesus, intimacy with Christ and communion with God become lost.

We read of the early church that in the beginning, "they met with glad and sincere hearts," Acts 2:46. First they were cut to the heart (Acts 2:37), then they met with glad and sincere hearts! The heart was first exposed as hardened dry clay, and they realized the pain and trauma they had caused God's heart! Repenting with that as the core reality, they believed in Jesus work of Atonement in their hearts and were justified (Romans 10:10), and being born again and having changed hearts (John 3:3) they now had glad and sincere hearts (Acts 2:46). See the progression of the heart from hardened clay to tender soil? But they can not stop here. And that is where so much confusion comes in. This is the start of a new relationship. This is the passionate and lively engagement of God to men and women, the romance has just begun!

Twice in Ephesians, Paul uses terminology that portrays the Holy Spirit as the engagement ring. In Ephesians 1:13-14 we read, "And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed (in your heart), you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory." Now when a woman gets an engagement ring, what does she do? She just stares at it over and over all day and in the middle of the night she feels it and is comforted that this man really loves her. She cherishes it and polishes it and it gives her hope that their wedding day is soon to come.

The Holy Spirit is our comforter, and he leads us to intimacy with God. He facilitates intimacy with God, and he empowers us with faith, hope and love when we are weak and weary. And the Holy Spirit doesn't want us gawking at him or his works, he wants us to gaze at Jesus! He leads us to be captured with Jesus, to marvel at the love of God the Father. But his purpose does not end there - he works in our lives through the process of sanctification - preparing us for our Wedding Day with Jesus. All of this is marvelous, and something we will look at in more detail. But we have a responsibility with that.

The second reference in Ephesians is in chapter 4:30 'And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.' Notice the emotional component here - grieving. We grieve at a death, we grieve at broken intimacy, we grieve at pain in our heart. The warning here is to be careful - we are in relationship with God and we have the very real possibility to grieve the Holy Spirit. When we are grieved, we pull away, and I believe that is the caution here. Grieving the Holy Spirit causes him to pull back from our lives. Simply put, I believe most of the time when the Holy Spirit is grieved it is primarily from broken intimacy. We shouldn't be living on eggshells, but we must not be careless or indifferent either. The primary place that intimacy is broken is when we violate our conscience or his direct leading. We are ever to remember that we are in a living and real relationship with a real and living God. Our actions have an affect on him. Surely, we are in Christ, and our righteousness can only come from him and through him.

In Philipians 3:8-11 we read of Pauls drive and desire for intimacy with Christ, "What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead." Paul yearned for a greater and greater intimacy with the Lord and it was the supreme desire of his life. But notice, he coupled intimacy with God with having the righteousness of Christ. The two are inseparable. Once we are born again, we have only one fear - and that is breaking intimacy and fellowship with him. That is the tenor of Scripture.

I presume that most reading this book have fallen deeply in love at sometime in your life. And at that moment, your largest fear was probably loosing intimacy and relationship with them. And so it is with God. The true believer, who has been born again and has a transformation of the heart, can hardly bear the thought of being seperated or living apart from God.