Last summer I watched with interest all the odd happenings at Lakeland, Florida. I hunger for the LORD's Presence and understand that we ALL do. Christians, regular church-goers, think that they may "sense" GOD's Presence when they engage in emotional worship-music participation.
I attended a gathering of Christians where the band started chanting. They worked themselves and the audience into a frenzy - it reminded me of the rock shows I used to attend. It also reminded me of what I have seen in other large gatherings (religious or not) - mob frenzy. What distinguished the secular from the supposed holy? Nothing, sadly. Both groups sought emotional experience that made them "feel good".
I confess when I once played in a worship band, I also experienced an extraordinary joy. I felt I was the only person there, just me telling my ABBA how much I adored HIM. At times I observed my abuser "perform" to receive admiration, weep because he convinced himself he was a special conduit of GOD's power given to the congregation. And at home he used words that tried to destroy his wife, murderous intent to make her feel as badly and unloved as he felt.
There were many things I learned at St. Clements. There were many honest, SPIRIT-filled, godly people there. There were also many who did what they thought you should do in a white-bread, rich, Episcopal church. For many, including the family of the adulteress my ex had dallied with, it was just a fancy Country Club. Go there, sing in the choir, get your kids involved in programs, hubby can lead the acolytes, pay your club dues - and make connections. But when it got down to looking at the sin that consumed them, to ask forgiveness, to REPENT, oh that was just too hard-hitting! When I asked that we all meet to face the past, to come clean; and that my husband ask the offended husband to forgive him for taking his wife and the children's mother away - that was just rude of me! Guess Jesus would have been considered rude with HIS words as well, so I am in good company. The adulteress told her children to no longer speak to me rather than telling them she was sorry she had abandoned them as she fulfilled her own lustful desires. She could never again look me in the eye, although that is not what I wanted. I wanted to embrace her as my sister who also was forgiven of her sins and washed clean by Jesus' Blood.
And when I asked the elders for help to understand why the person I lived with hated me so, I was told I was to submit, to not provoke his anger by things I may say to "cause" his outburst. I was victimized first by him and then by the church elders as they stood in his camp and pointed their finger at the woman who "pretended to be so sweet" (exact quote).
It is an amazing experience to be washed clean in Jesus' Blood. No, you don't "feel good", like so many church-goers think you should. You are on your knees, faced with the horrid truth of your sins, knowing that you deserve nothing but death, but that you are the Beloved of the LORD. HE came to give HIS life for you, wretched creature that you are. And no matter what, HE STILL LOVES YOU!!!!! Any other message are the clever lies of the devil, whispered in your head or screamed at you from a son-of-cain. I repented of what I had done - incidents I had pushed so far back into my memory I truly didn't remember - and as I wept, alone in my room on the floor, I have never felt such mercy, such grace, such forgiveness. Such absolute, unconditional, amazing love. At that point, my sin was removed as far as the east is from the west. And nothing the accuser/abuser ever said to me again convinced me otherwise.
