DAY 12: Christ over Fake Supernatural Quick Fixes

 

DAY 12

Reflections on Ephesians: DAY 1/ DAY 2 / DAY 3 / DAY 4 / DAY 5 / DAY 6

Reflections on Philippians: DAY 7 / DAY 8 / DAY 9 / DAY 10

Reflections on Colossians: DAY 11

Worship Meditation: In Christ Alone (My Hope is Found) by Adrienne Liesching, Geoff Moore & The Distance and I Will Give You Praise (Only You) by David Butterbaugh

Reading: Colossians 2 

Let your roots grow down into Him, and let your lives be built on Him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness. Colossians 2:7

People are forever searching for answers to fill a void. To satisfy an emptiness. To fight off a seemingly permanent feeling of despair. In fact, people will spend hundreds of thousands, maybe even more, to find that solution. That "cure." That "thing that will make everything okay and peaceful." 

In short, people will pursue anything and everything, except somehow, they don't pursue Jesus Christ. Why?

I will attempt to answer this later on, but I can relate to them because I myself have been in that place once. Story on this later on in the post. 

There are so many factors and layers to this particular issue and I will not attempt to get to the bottom of it. Instead, what I aim to do with this little piece is offer a simple, doable, long-lasting, satisfying solution - Being rooted and established in your faith in Jesus Christ. 

"But why does that sound so corny? Give me something that sounds intellectual and mind-blowing! I don't want to be religious. I want to be spiritual."

Ever heard someone say that statement before? "I'm not religious. I'm spiritual." 

I'm not here to mock that statement, because I myself have said it before. Now, however, I personally feel that it was naive of me back then to think so. One thing we need to realize from the get-go though is yes - EVERYTHING IS SPIRITUAL. So in a sense, wanting to be spiritual is not a bad thing. But to take away religion from it? Well, that's where it can get a bit problematic. 

Anytime you take Christ away from the equation, you'll never get the peace you so badly long for. 

But, to be fair as well to this side of the spectrum, we will also try to address here the legalistic part of religion. Which also in a sense, takes away Christ from the equation. Tricky? Stay with me as I simultaneously pray and write this in the exact way that the Holy Spirit is leading me to. 

In Colossians 2:8, Paul says here: Don't let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from spiritual powers of the world rather than from Christ. As we have established in our study on Colossians 1, Christ is SUPREME. He is the Source, He is the Answer, He is the Beginning, the Creator, the Preserver, the Visible Image of an Invisible God. Anything that presents something similar but does not include Him in the equation is a counterfeit. 

In verses 9-10 he continues, For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body. So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority. 

The ERV version goes, And because you belong to Christ, you are complete, having everything you need.  

"But I go to church. Why do I still feel incomplete?"

Going to church is not enough. Are you rooted in Christ? Are you built up in Christ? Are you established in the faith?

To be rooted in Christ means, Jesus Christ is your source. The roots of a tree provide nourishment to the tree. Do your roots come from Christ? Is He the One you have chosen to nourish you? Or are you getting nourishment from sources that will rot your roots? 

To be built up in Christ means as you grow, it is Christ shaping you and forming you. The way a building is built all depends on the team building it. Is the power of Jesus Christ the one constructing you and shaping your future? 

To be established in the faith is to know firmly with all your heart where your faith rests upon. This can only be nurtured when you hear and meditate on His word ~ for faith only comes by hearing and hearing the Word of God. 

The way to experience Christ's completeness in you is to make sure that all three are in. 

This now brings me back to my first question: Why will people pursue anything and everything except Jesus Christ? Because they are not willing to pay the price to be rooted, built, and established in Christ. 

Many people look for quick, supernatural fixes. The Counterfeits can truly provide that, but what we fail to see is that The Counterfeits' powers do not come from Christ (Who has unlimited resources), and so as quickly as the fix comes, quickly it goes as well. And worse, what many do not know is that when you tap into the powers of practices that are outside of Christ, it will just keep opening doors and portals for them to have power over you. 

And trust me, anything that is not from Christ will never operate in love.  

THAT ONE TIME I EXPERIMENTED ON SUPERNATURAL FIXES OUTSIDE OF CHRIST

There was a time when I knew that I was going through a bad season of anxiety. I would always wake up at 5AM gasping for breath, panicking, heart palpitating, crying until I can find relief. The relief would never come so I would just shower and go to work. Office hours started at 8:30am but I would be in by 7am. The heart palpitations would not go away until it would somehow die down at 4pm. Then I would fall asleep early maybe 9pm so that I would stop thinking, and the next day at 5am, the whole cycle would start again.

This was my life for 6 months. It was unbearable. I stopped drinking coffee to stop the palpitations but I knew it was more psychological than physical. I didn't have enough knowledge on spiritual and supernatural things yet, and I wasn't rooted, built, and established in the faith as well. So I did what any person struggling with anxiety did ~ not tell anyone and googled how I could get rid of it. 

There were apps. There were breathing techniques. There were other things too. I tried all of them, except Jesus. Finally, my search led me to this "Healing Place." 

I went there for two nights where they had me doing all of these exercises and rituals that really gave me immediate calming results! I even made a friend there who traveled all the way from Australia. He retired, got depressed, and got divorced, and in his misery, found the Healing Place too. We were on different kinds of diets and it made me feel good. When I left, I felt like a new person. I even made some significant lifestyle changes! This was it, I thought. My anxiety was gone. I was cured. 

I continued with some of the practices, but thankfully, I was still going to church and slowly easing back into reading the Bible. I was doing both. I didn't realize that I was already worshipping two masters. I really did not know. I had absolutely no idea. Like I said, I was naive. 

By the grace of God, He allowed me to have an open conversation with my dad about everything I did. I was so innocently telling him about all the exercises and rituals of my healing journey and he was just quietly listening. At some point, he started asking me, "How is your sleep?" It was then that I realized that, indeed my anxiety was gone, but now I had insomnia. I shared that with him too. And then he gently corrected me and told me that it was best if I pursued a healing journey with Christ, and not with anything else because they can only offer a counterfeit version of what Christ can offer, which is a long-lasting peace. 

I have since renounced all those things when I saw that real victory only comes from Christ. I am grateful that this was already covered by the blood of the Lamb. In vv 12 to 13 of Colossians 2, Paul shares about how we were once dead because of our sins. But because of the love of Jesus, we were buried with Him when we were baptized and raised to new life ~ because we trust in the mighty power of God who raised Christ from the dead.

That is the power that we should surrender to! Because all those other powers? Those counterfeits? Christ has already conquered them!

In Colossians 2:15, 

In this way, He disarmed the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by His victory over them on the cross. 

Why subscribe to the powers of a defeated foe when you can be united with The Victor?

Of course, this also addresses legalism. Christ dying on the cross also trumps any legalistic practices. Remember as well that no religious practice can save you! Religion helps us tremendously in our faith journey, but it is not the practice itself that will save you. A relationship with Jesus Christ is the goal. You can go through all the motions, and if your faith is in the practice and not in God, then it defeats the whole purpose. 

Let us both be religious and spiritual, never taking Jesus out from both equations. 

PRAYER: Father God, we thank You for Your word and Your daily reminders. We pray that our roots will grow down into Jesus, and our lives will be built on Him. Thank You that our faith will grow strong in the truth You have taught us. Deliver us from fake supernatural quick fixes that will just further open doors in our lives for evil to enter. We renounce all practices and rituals that are not from You, Oh God. We are sorry and we repent for engaging in these things. We release it from our soul and we ask the precious blood of Christ to cleanse it off of our lives. In Jesus Mighty Name we pray, Amen.