This article is going to be much more direct than others I have written on this topic of legalism. It is not meant to be harmful, but rather my hope is to jolt you into reality so you can take a closer look at the motions you may be going through without realizing what you’re doing. I simply want to draw your attention to spending your spiritual time wisely. I’ll cover four things in this article, the Preaching/Teaching(Pulpit), the Pew, the Bible, and your Spiritual Diet. I’m not going to use any scripture quoting in this article and it’s for a reason. This article is my opinion based on experience and I want you to hear from the Lord directly. Far too many people believe twisted scriptures because of how they are weaved into sermons. I want to show you that you can think for yourself.

There certainly are times when a sermon might truly impact your outlook on life, however, if your church attendance time has come to the point where you spend your ‘pew time’ doodling on the bulletin or writing your shopping list, then you are wasting your time in the pew and wasting the seat for someone else who really wants to be there. Do you think that obligating yourself to church attendance is needed to get through the week? If all you’re doing in the pew is making a shopping list or judging another person’s attire or hair do, then you’re not “really” there and that should be a clear indicator to you that you’re only there out of obligation or to keep up appearances.

You’re wasting your time.

If you’re not truly there to hear what the speaker has to say, then plan your time better. God put you here so you could enjoy life and not everyone has to sit under a motivational speaker every single week. Would you to go the movies to make your shopping list? Would you drive to the camp ground only to sit in your car the whole time?

Lets use this time to go through a few things to help put our religious time into a better perspective.

I’m not opposed to church attendance or fellowship activities. So please don’t let your fear get the best of you when I present the facts about sitting in the pew being a waste of time for some people. I’m not going to tell you to “pay attention” to something you’re flat out not interested in.

Time is a valuable form of commerce. Are we being good stewards of the spiritual time we have, when giving it to religious practices? Every second you spend in the pew, in front of the pulpit, and reading your Bible is being paid for with your time. We are to “redeem the time” in our spiritual journey. Are we being wise with that time?

Lets take the bull by the horns, shall we?

The church speaker is not the ONLY person in your life who hears from God. YOU hear from God throughout the week. You have FULL access to the Divine without a public speaker. We are NOT living in a time when only the speaker hears from God and you have to sit in the pew to get the message. The pulpit is not a gum ball machine that dispenses fortunes stamped on it. You don’t have to hope that the preacher has ‘just what you need’ and you have no need to worry yourself about not ‘getting the message’. When the Divine wants to speak to you, He will. With or without a speaker.

To the preachers, if you think that you need to work hard to prepare a sermon that feeds everyone equally and you feel the pressure to present the ‘message of God’ or you will fail Him (or the people) then you need to seriously get over yourself. You’re an important person to God and your loved ones for other reasons than your preaching. You aren’t the Savior of the people, so get rid of that yoke and enjoy life with your loved ones. Preparing a message to share with your local gathering should be enjoyable. If the people aren’t listening or interested, it’s not about you. If you think it is, then you might have a problem with vanity.

Some preachers will tell the people that they shouldn’t miss church service because “you might miss the ONE message that could change your life.” That is HOGWASH! When the Divine wants to speak to you a ‘message that will change your life’, HE WILL! He will do so no matter where you are and no matter what you’re doing. How dare any preacher think he’s “all that” that the Divine can’t POSSIBLY get His message across to you without the pulpit.

If you want to go to church, use the time wisely.

Why are you there? We already covered the fact that you can hear from the Divine yourself without a public speaker, so why do you go? Do you enjoy the people? Is the fellowship the highlight of your Sunday morning, but the preaching is honestly just not interesting to you? Then maybe you might want to re-examine your fellowship time. Consider going early to fellowship, then go for a walk around the property during preaching. That is the time when most of the congregation is inside and the property is quiet. That might be just what you need, some quiet time for listening to the Divine. I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing being alone in the quiet outdoors does for my spiritual walk with the Divine. I’ll share more about redeeming that quiet time in another article, but lets continue to get some more perspective on what time you are wasting.

To the preachers, if you think the people MUST be in “your” service and you quake at the thought of them walking out of the preaching time to be alone with the Divine (or even to go home early to watch a football game), then you have some major control issues. The people are free to come and go and if they feel the need to depart from the service during the preaching time, they are free to do so. Do not judge them! Do not take it personally. It’s not about you, it’s about them and their personal journey in life.

So you arrive early to hang out with your friends and you come back at the close of the service to hang out some more and maybe go out for lunch together. Do you know that MUCH of fellowship time is where we REALLY get ministered to? It’s the small group times of open fellowship and dialogue that becomes intimate. The church service is a formality that rarely becomes intimate. Everyone is required to sit quietly while one person has the microphone. If you are at a time in your life where you need instruction like that, then fabulous. But for right now I’m talking about the times when people are not mentally or spiritually there, even though their bodies are present.

Now lets move into the next part of your spiritual journey to be better stewards of, Bible reading.

I can’t tell you how many people have expressed their utter boredom with reading the Bible. It becomes a chore to many people, some don’t understand a word they are reading, and some folks feel like God is going to curse them if they don’t get their 20 minutes in each day. I used to feel just like that. There is nothing worse about reading the Bible than reading it just go to through the motions and not get anything out of it. We’re wasting our time!

Preachers, don’t get upset with me for saying this. Seriously now… reading the Bible is not a magical spell book that must be read in order to have your day go better. Millions of people have read the Bible faithfully only to have ROTTEN days and very tragic things happen to them. It’s not the Bible reading time that gets us through each day, it’s our faith and interaction with the Divine that does that. In the early days of the church, people didn’t have a Bible and their faith multiplied in leaps and bounds. I’m not knocking the Bible, I read it, study it, and memorize passages of scripture, but we need to have a healthier perspective on why we read the Bible in the first place. We don’t want the Bible to be a creation that is worshiped more than the Creator himself.

Furthermore, maybe some preachers aren’t aware of this, but the Bible has become an idol to many people. What does a person do to break out of that “going through the motions” Bible reading time and how do they stop idolizing the Bible as if it’s a golden calf to be worshiped?

We know that a medicinal fast is good for the body every now and then. Sometimes an entertainment fast is good for a family to reconnect. It’s ok to fast from the Bible. Seriously folks, The Living Word is dwelling within you. He knows your every thought, He can speak to you through nature, the stars, and through the Spirit within. Maybe this example will make you think deeper. My daughter has her learner’s permit for driving. She has spent countless hours studying for that written exam, but unless she puts that book down and actually gets behind the wheel, then she remains a student and not a driver. Will she need to study that handbook religiously for the rest of her life or simply refer back to it every now and then when she has a question? Do you have a copy of your state’s driver’s handbook in your car or on your bedside table? Do you get the picture?

Put the Bible down for a few days. Your life is not going to end because you don’t read the Bible. The Bible is not the Savior. The Savior lives within you and walks with you daily and he doesn’t leave your side if you miss reading the Bible. How do you know you understand what you have read unless you live your life by faith? You can study all about tightrope walking, but unless you get up that ladder and actually step out by faith, you’ll never be considered a real tightrope walker.

Christians spend so much time in church, in the pew, listening to the pulpit, reading their Bibles, memorizing passages and hymns, but their actions don’t reveal that they even know how to live in the Kingdom. Imagine yourself in heaven and the King of Kings approaches you, will you tell him, “Pardon me, Jesus. I have about 15 more minutes of Bible reading to do, I’ll be right with you.”

Reading the stories and instruction of the Bible is a wonderful thing, it’s mysteriously beautiful and I love reading and studying the Bible, but the Living Word is in your presence daily. If you want to spend time with him, do so!

There are other ways you can redeem your spiritual time in studying and prayer, but I’ll share about that another time.

Lets move on to one more thing, your religious diet. Have you been in a church where the pastor forbids you to read anything outside their denomination? Have you been told that listening to KLOVE is demonic and that preaching tapes from a non-denominational church will infect your spiritual life? You might be subjecting yourself to some serious junk food from leaders who tell you such things. Preachers like that seem to think that there’s no possible way for you to be spiritually fed outside of their denominational control. They’re force feeding you. Do you still let your mommy come over, put a bib on you, and spoon feed you mashed chicken and rice? It’s time to get out that steak knife and feed yourself.

We aren’t meant to remain on milk for the rest of our lives. Milk is good, has nutrients, and is refreshing, but there’s not much substance in it. Maybe you’re afraid that you’ll “eat” something “toxic”. In the United States, every package of food has a nutrition label on it. Some ingredients we don’t recognize, much less pronounce them. But you still eat it, assuming the FDA knows what they’re doing. We have come to trust the FDA and the Government to tell us what is safe to eat, while Cancer an Autism is on the rise. Hmm how ’bout that! If we have never listened to or read spiritual food from any other ‘pastor approved sources’ then how do we know that we are being fed properly? You may think that you know because you read your Bible, but if you read the Bible while being force fed from one perspective then you have never had your beliefs challenged and put through the fire. Every denomination thinks they have it more correct than any others. We need to stop assuming that our religious ‘FDA’ of yesteryear knew what they were doing .

Let your beliefs be challenged, put through the fire, and see if they can stand up under serious testing. If you’re afraid to do this, then you’re not walking by faith yet. If your pastors forbid you from doing this, then they are controlling you and fearful that their beliefs may fail the test and what kind of belief is it that people would fear don’t really stack up? Their fear of you questioning their long held traditions reveals that they haven’t truly tested their beliefs either.

Just because an interpretation has been passed down through the ages, held to religiously, and even died for, does not make it a true interpretation. That can NOT be the test of what is true. Even Extremist Muslims die for their interpretations of their holy book, does that make their beliefs true? Some religious lineages claim they “must be the right one” since their “trail of blood” spans through the centuries. If that was a true test then Witchcraft surely must be the “more correct faith”. Some people believe that the most supreme of creation is the better lineage based on who was persecuted more, if that were the test then Blacks would be the supreme beings. Some believe that those who have been held back and subdued the most are the greatest and if that was a true test, then that might be the women. Do you see where I’m going with this? These are not true tests of our faith. In fact, I think these things are ample evidence that our society is still very much bigoted and vain.

There’s so much more I could go into, but this shall be enough for today. If you want to participate in religious and spiritual practices, then don’t waste that time. Use your time wisely and enjoy life! He didn’t come to bring you a more solid religious practice, he came to give you life and that you would live it abundantly.