If you are squeamish in your will or gentle in your thoughts, or you have made an idol out of homeschooling, this post might not be for you. Feel free to opt-out, because this one makes me cranky.
There is still time to turn back, even for those who write with me.
Dear Josh Harris,
Your legalism shipwrecked you.
This is why I cannot stand side hugs. As I work with people with parts, I understand some people need to. But people who side hug because of a religious spirit, or a fear to cause seine to stumble, this is what that spirit has done to make Evangelicals even more nutty.
To my audience,
If you place your faith in homeschooling or this or that rather than placing your faith in Christ.
If you don’t have the ovaries or the testicles to raise your kids…
If you don’t have the chutzpah to school your kids in the way Father tells you to, even if that means sending them to public school, or private school, or homeschooling them, then you are embracing a religious spirit.
The religious spirit is NOT merely embracing an expression of faith that is not charismatic or pentecostal, because I guarantee you there are people who are spirit-filled embracing a religious spirit. Worship this way, do deliverance this way, speak in to uves or prophesy this way.
The fivefold ministry is RIFE with a religious spirit.
The religious spirit is not the spirit of the Pharisees, nor is it merely a judgmental spirit.
No, no, no.
The religious spirit is the spirit that gets you to do Anything except the ONE THING Jesus told you to do.
It has nothing to do with crunchy legalism or Spirit-filled, charismatic freedom or rolling down the aisles or swinging from the chandeliers.
It is engaging in ANY behavior as a display or a show of expression of your devotion to G-d that is anything but the one thing the L-rd freaking told you to do.
Your capacity to be an apostle or a Prophet or a bishop or a pastor or a rabbi or a supporter or detractor of national Israel does not impress me.
Your willingness to do the one thing Jesus told you to do is what impresses me.
Hook up to that one thing G-d told you to do, rather than emphasizing prophesy or to gues or the apostolic or the gifts or this or that.
And when G-d says “send your kids to public school”, send them to public school.
And when he says “homeschool them” homeschool them.
And when he says “go on a date with thus-and-so” go on a date with thus-and-so.
Or when he says take your kids and enroll them in Sace Camp, then do that.
My counsel to you is don’t flame out like Josh did.
This is now how G-d wants us to live, by flaming out.
Or wearing out.
Maria Woodworth Etter said, “it’s better to wear out for Jesus than rust out.”
Wrong!
It is better to be hot and then cold by turns and flowing and doing the dance between hot and cold so you can be useful in this season and to the next season.
Just my take.
Run with Him. Bless your kids according to their design.
And on this topic, Rachel Stephens was right.
Our job was always to embrace a faith that impacts the world and touches our kids. The Principle of Responsibility. Do the one or two things by your kids that leaves them dangerous in the world rather than milquetoast.