Fwd: That's Toppin' it.
naboth675
<naboth675@...> wrote:
Over the years I've heard some perversities of legalists who twist
what a relationship with Jesus is all about but this one I am going
to
share with you comes close to Toppin' it {excuse the pun}
My old pastor Ernie Toppin started to make a big issue every sermon
about prayer. It was his latest in a long line of dubious
revelations.
His preoccupation with prayer at that time was based on a philosophy
of fear {now why shouldn't that surprise me} He started to get more
and more extreme with this warning us that if we did not pray in the
mornings then Satan would wait for us round the corner with a big
stick to 'beat the bejesus out of us'. According to the prophet
Toppin
we needed to pray for at least five minutes every day to 'power
ourselves up'. If we didn't do this then we would be leaving our
homes
naked for the devil to molest us. He would mock us and run rings
around us.
What got me about this was that I thought prayer was primarily about
a
relationship with Jesus. Wasn't that what I had told new converts
and
people I had been witnessing to for the last several years? Now it's
about getting the power and spiritual warfare. Now there is a power
element to it all and a warfare element. I'm not saying that there
is
no truth to all that but think about it. What is the primary
motivation for prayer? How often did I actualy hear about
relationship
or praying because you love him? How about some sermons which
inspire
us to love Jesus and WANT to pray to him. What we got was mainly
duty,
fear, obligation, qualification for destiny and warfare.
Another problem with this ridiculous exageration is that when
converts
don't pray and the devil does not smash the living liver out of them
then they figure that they can get away with not praying at all.
Fear
no longer works with them. Fear is always the tool of the little man
who wants to have the control and authority of a big man. I have
heard
the 'power praying' of Toppin in morning prayer. He sounds
impressive
but that depends on if you are impressed with a big booming voice
and
king James oratory {I'm sure God is impressed anyway. lol}
Soon after all this he started making noise about morning prayer and
so we dragged ourselves out to pray on our own but under the same
roof. Please tell me what sense this makes. We all pray seperately
but
under the same roof. Why not pray at home. You save journey time and
you can pray longer or get a bit of extra sleep. I don't suppose it
occured to this man of prayer that God is everywhere and so we don't
have to be in the same place at the same time to pray. Anyway, he
seemed pleased to see me there.
Imagine basing your relationship with Jesus on fear. What kind of
relationship is that? Does this man have any idea what kind of
religion he is developing in his congregation?
regards...naboth675
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