Obligation Cannot Stand Alone

All the ritual that many people were raised with has caused their dead and rote religion to slop over into their relationships.

When people do their "holy day of obligation" in order to win points with God and they were raised with this all their lives, they will treat their family and friend relationships the same way.

Everything will be done to manipulate God into blessing them for their deeds. There is no love in the heart of someone who does things out of obligation alone. An obligation is a good thing but it can not stand alone, it must be heavily peppered with love, honor, and dedication.

When the obligation is the only purpose for interactions then there is no love.

1 Corinthians 13:1-2 "1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a ringing gong or a clanging cymbal. 2If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have absolute faith so as to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.…"

There is nothing more ugly and hurtful than receiving a gift or action that was extended out of obligation.

Often these obligations done are to demonstrate "plausible deniability", in other words, they are done as proof they did something for you but what was missing was the necessary love that God requires for it to count as a righteous deed.

Matthew 6:1-2 "1 Be careful not to perform your righteous acts before men to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. 2 So when you give to the needy, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. Truly I tell you, they already have their full reward.…"

If any deed is ever done to prove self-righteousness to others it is a deed not counted in heaven.

In a chat with my husband this morning about his being raised as a Catholic, we discussed that he was raised deeply with "obligatory" thinking in which everything was done in rote and out of obligation rather than dedication and love.

I became a Catholic ignorantly at age 16 believing the church was just another Christian denomination. No one taught me it was not or warned me about its deceptions. The reason I believe I was not warned is that most of the superficial believers in protestant churches did not know the inner workings of the Catholic church so they had nothing to say to me about it.

Once I was involved in the rituals I began to see, over time, that the rituals were done to appease God and that all of this thinking was transferred to other human relationships too. No one became spiritually or emotionally close to anyone else. Every relationship was treated the way the Catholic treated God, which is superficially out of obligation.

There was superficial friendliness but there was no closeness or openness with one another. Just as there was no depth of love for God there was also no depth of love for anyone else. Everything in the religion was ritual just as everything in relationships was also ritual.

When we are trained to act a certain way all through our childhood it is only a work of Christ Who can expunge it from our thinking, from our ways of dealing with life.

I was raised in a family that only loved someone who measured up to their idea of good. There was no depth of love, no dedication nor was there kindness to anyone like me who needed to discuss things more deeply. No one listened, no one loved and no one cared. This is the condition of our world today. Everyone does what is right to them and becomes angry when someone comes along to discuss something different from their way of thinking.

Have you wondered why relationships are so superficial and strained today? The answer is that most people in these end times of apostasy and rebellion do not care about anyone but themselves.

2 Timothy 3:1-5
3 But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.
2 For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good, 4 treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these.

Do not allow the world in this state of hatred to cause you to become like them. How do we keep from being influenced by the world around us? We stay in the Word asking the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us every minute of every day.

We show love when we have to be around those who are wicked and we remove ourselves when the wicked attempt to goad us into angry responses.

The riots going on right now around the world are tools of the devil to cause others to do the same in retaliation of wrongs. Since the authorities will not deal properly with these rebels we must pray and remain distant to avoid being caught up ourselves.

We can speak the truth in love while walking away from those who refuse to hear it.

Matthew 10:14 "And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet."

Genesis 6:5-6 " 5 Then the LORD saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was altogether evil all the time. 6 And the LORD regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart.…"

We are returning to the days of Noah when no one had any love in their heart and everyone resisted the truth.

Do not let this discourage you, let it inform you, keeping your eyes fixated on Christ you will not be affected by those who walk in rebellion against God.

Hallelujah!