{"id":72,"date":"2019-10-30T19:14:07","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T01:14:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/randomchristianity.com\/?p=72"},"modified":"2019-10-30T19:14:07","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T01:14:07","slug":"you-will-know-them-by-their-fruits-matthew-716","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/30\/you-will-know-them-by-their-fruits-matthew-716\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;You will know them by their fruits&#8221; Matthew 7:16"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/fruit-e1572845434352.jpeg?w=275\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"145\" class=\"wp-image-145\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>For the majority of my life, my spiritual security rested upon a religious cruise ship and adhered to regulations that produced an inauthentic version of Christianity. Religion sells counterfeit Christianity by marketing the convenience of trusting others with our spiritual well being. A sort of, \u2018We\u2019ll point the ship in the right direction- all you have to do is remain on board and follow a few provided guidelines.\u2019 It\u2019s similar to bowling with gutter bumpers. Religious laws ensure that you remain within point range and will pledge that you hit at least some of the pins at the end of the alley. Unfortunately, religious spirituality can only judge the fruit of our efforts by observing actions and providing feedback as it relates to what fruit should look like. But, this dismisses the primary benefit of fruit- the property of essence, which can only be judged by He who is truly worthy of our focus and effort. Religious law produces a whole lot of inauthentic fruit that is crafted to look just like the real thing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why is it worth promoting fake\nfruit to the masses? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Power and monetary gain stand to be primary factors. Religion is big business and takes advantage of those who don\u2019t know the difference between false and authentic faith. \u201cReligion in the United States (alone) is worth $1.2tn a year, making it equivalent to the 15<sup>th<\/sup> largest national economy in the world&#8230;. and has a higher value than the combined revenues of the top 10 technology companies in the US, including Apple, Amazon and Google.\u201d (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2016\/sep\/15\/us-religion-worth-1-trillion-study-economy-apple-google\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"The Guardian (Sherwood), 2016. (opens in a new tab)\">The Guardian (Sherwood), 2016.<\/a>)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Furthermore, as seeing-is-believing organisms, religion infers\na sense of holy security. There is no doubt that authentic faith requires\ndiscipline and focus. Religion serves to relieve that burden by providing\nstep-by-step fool-resistant directives that mimic the actions of authentic\nChristianity without the hassle of learning to recognize and listen to the\ndistinctive purpose each of us can obtain by distinguishing and following our\nCreator\u2019s voice and heart. Where religion constructs the mold for the masses to\nsimply submit to on the outside, authentic faith allows the one true sculptor\nto chip away the impeding excess in order to enhance the purpose in each of us\nuniquely. Authentic faith demands no need to extinguish individuality for\ninclusion. Authentic faith renders religion inadequate to judge since each\nindividual carries a unique pattern, purpose, directive- which is why it must\nrely on outward appearance and actions. Religion produces a lot of impressive\nlooking fruit, but sacrifices the organic texture, flavor, nutrients, and aroma\nof fruit for streamlined production. Authenticity requires divine focus on God\noutside of cloned religious practice. For that, we must train and yield our\nfocus to know the voice of the Creator- or we will fall for anyone who claims\nauthenticity or true north. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>For the majority of my life, my spiritual security rested upon a religious cruise ship and adhered to regulations that produced an inauthentic version of Christianity. Religion sells counterfeit Christianity by marketing the convenience of trusting others with our spiritual&#8230; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/2019\/10\/30\/you-will-know-them-by-their-fruits-matthew-716\/\">Continue Reading &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":145,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/reclaiming-sunday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}