MHR-EP-2614 – The Greatest Tragedy #spiritualbutnotreligious

What is the real mission of your congregation?  IF we are spirits inside a human suit, our problems in relating begin when we focus more on the suit than the spirit inside!!! © Join us as we discuss meeting the true needs of the spirit inside each of us.#spiritualbutnotreligious #faithinaction #makingheavenreal 

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Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:01):
What would you say is the real mission of your
congregation?

SPEAKER_00 (00:06):
What if I told you that there's more to it?
That there are benefits andresources from heaven that are
available to help you in thislife, and you've never heard
about them?
Are you curious?
Well, join Gordon Merrill as hedigs deeper into making heaven
real in this life.

SPEAKER_01 (00:32):
Welcome back to Making Heaven Real.
Do you know there are noreligions and no denominations
mentioned in the Bible?
Both denominations and religionsare man-made.
As a result, that's basicallythe human part of us.
If you get back to the two wolfexample we've been talking

(00:55):
about.
That's the major reason we don'tdiscuss denominations or debate
them on making heaven real.
Remember back in, I think it wasepisode 2546, where we were
talking about people whoidentify as spiritual but not

(01:15):
religious.
People who are moving away frombrick and mortar churches,
moving away from organizedreligion, seems to be pointing

(01:36):
to the spirit side of things ofus as needing more.
If you remember our firstepisode at the very beginning
where we were talking about thebirth of this podcast, it all
was born out of a personal needof mine for anybody anywhere to

(02:02):
provide me a little supportduring my grief.
In my lifetime I was a part oftwo major denominations for an
extended period of time.
When my wife passed, nobody fromeither one offered any support,

(02:30):
any help, or any guidance.
Except for one person, and I'lltalk about that later.
So we're back to what is thefocus of your church or your
congregation or your group ofpeople that may meet regularly.

(02:58):
Listen to the words found inthis one song.
He was raised in church everySunday.
Memorize John three sixteen.
He could sing every verse ofamazing grace from heart and
tell you what a Christianbelieves.
He'd come through the door withhis Bible and sit on the very

(03:20):
same pew.
He was somebody looking thepart.
But the one thing nobody knewwas he was somebody who needed a
friend.
Oddly enough, that's a songwritten by Jason Cox that's
titled That Somebody Was Me.

(03:45):
Why do we, the human side of us,not strive to meet people where
they need for help from heaven,which is the spirit side of us?
Personally, just to give you anexample, I was raised in church.

(04:10):
I remember stories of beingevery Sunday in the nursery of
this church almost from the timeI was brought home from the
hospital.
Through the years as I wasgrowing up, I sang or tried to

(04:31):
sing in the choir.
I was somewhat the head of thebass section in the choir.
I was the chief usher onWednesday nights.
I was unofficially the studentleader of the youth group.
I was in church four times aweek, whether I needed to or
not.

(04:52):
Even as I grew up a little bit,I ended up working in religious
radio stations in all differentformats in many different
states.
Literally baptized into twodifferent denominations.
Had an officially sanctionedreligious wedding, traveled on

(05:14):
several religious pilgrimages.
Yet on the death of my wife, noone from either denomination
even wanted to be there for me,but one single person who is a
personal friend of both of us.

(05:40):
Any wonder why we have a suddenshift from churches or from
religion to spiritual but notreligious?
Probably because I have nolonger have someone to meet them
at their point of need.

(06:02):
Years ago when I was interestedin religious radio, back in the
eighties, tell you how old I am,there was a book written by
James Engel called What's GoneWrong with the Harvest.
I think that's one of the thingsthat we in the religious

(06:25):
community have not takenseriously.
If we just throw a message outthere and hope everybody throws
something against the wall andhope something sticks, it's not
going to take care of or meetanybody's need.
If we don't meet their need,they're not going to come back.

(07:04):
But had fallen on difficultdays, and the numbers were
dwindling, and they were down toonly five monks.
And they knew if somethingdidn't happen soon they would
disappear.
Kind of sounds like our trendtowards spiritual but not
religious.
The monastery was surrounded bya beautiful forest next to the
monastery.

(07:24):
Deep in the woods there was alittle hut in which lived a
rabbi.
He lived as a hermit all alone.
Wondering one day if the hermitmay be able to offer the monk
some advice, the abbot of themonastery decided to visit him.
The rabbi welcomed the abbot tohis hut.

(07:47):
When the abbot explained hispurpose, the rabbi could do all
he could do was commemcommiserate with him.
I know how it is, he said.
So the old abbot and the oldrabbi wept together, read some

(08:10):
scriptures together, and whenthe time came to leave, they
embraced each other, and theabbot said, Well, it's been a
wonderful visit and nice to meetyou after all these years, but
I've failed in my purposebecause there's no piece of
advice that you gave me thatwould save my dying aunt
monastery.
No, I am sorry, the rabbiresponded.

(08:33):
I have no advice to give.
The only thing I can tell you isthe Messiah is in you.
Couple key lines in that I thinkhave applied this in more ways

(08:54):
than one, but first of all, theproblem was identified that all
the spirit has gone out of thepeople and concluded with
Remember the Messiah is in you.
Do we show that?

(09:15):
Do we present that to others?
Do we actually make a genuineattempt to get to know everybody
that comes through our doors?
Everybody we come in contactwith, understand their
situation, try and figure outtheir need.

(09:44):
If not, then we understand whypeople are leaving churches and
religions and identifying asspiritual but not religious.

(10:04):
We're back to what's gone wrongwith the harvest.
When we are at our loneliness,we are still never, ever, really
alone.

(10:27):
And I kinda stole that last linefrom another song.
The words that part of the wordsof that song go, but we're
never, ever really alone.
Never by ourselves, neverwithout hope, never without

(10:49):
help.
We're never ever out of our ownor on our own.
Lauren Calley wrote that in hersong in the room.
Of course we know now that weare never ever really alone

(11:09):
because now we know that ourspirit team has always been with
us, always been ready to helpus, has always been looking out
for us, even when we wereunaware.
Remember the footprint story wetalked about recently?

(11:29):
When you look back and only sawone set of footprints, that's
when I was carrying you.
You'd be surprised if you goback and look at it how many
times in this lifetime insidethis life's plan, your spirit

(11:50):
team has carried you.
The one thing we know aboutscripture is Jesus was all about
example.
He led by example, he showed theway by example, he gave
illustrations as an example.

(12:12):
He didn't just sit inside achurch and wait people for
people to come in through thedoors.
When he encountered people, hedidn't profile anyone before
providing help and support.
Most importantly, he did notlook on the human of the person
in front of him.

(12:35):
He looked on the spirit.
If we are spirits inside a humansuit, our problems in relating
begin when we focus more on thesuit than the spirit inside.

(13:11):
If we as spirits ourselvesreturn to the eight C's of our
true selves and love all spiritslike Christ loved us and
commanded us to love, we forgetthe human suit and focus our
thoughts, love, intentions, andgrowth on everyone, no matter

(13:41):
their past, their free willchoices, or their human suit.
We then truly make heaven realto all spirits everywhere.

SPEAKER_00 (13:53):
We hope you learned something new about God's love
and his resources during ourtime together.
Please like and subscribe so youdon't miss out.
You can find our social medialinks and our contact info in
the show notes.
When you're commenting, pleasereference the episode number.
Join us next time as we againsearch out the ways of making

(14:14):
heaven real in this life withGordon Merrill.