They feared the Lord, but served other gods

Part I  Why there should be no Yoga for Christians

Take care that you be not ensnared to follow them, after they have been destroyed before you, and that you do not inquire about their gods, saying, ‘How did these nations serve their gods? —that I also may do the same.’ Deuteronomy 12:30

It is not common for me to print anything controversial, I would rather get the attention of individuals with Christian content, over flash and drama. So please understand that this is not typical of the message that I normally give. However, I am constantly seeing the growth of the acceptance of many Christians to the practices of Yoga without any understanding of the spiritual significance.

Because this is so deep a subject I will need to extend it over three or maybe even four blogs. That being so this blog serves only to show that Yoga as innocent as it seems is more than jus stretching and exercise in fact Yoga is  a full flagged religion and should be treated as one not as some exercise in stretching. But as an exercise in paganism.

How the Yogi define Yoga

In order that I address Yoga in the best light I will not define Yoga, nor anything else I will get all my information about yoga from a yoga site and provide the links so that you may read it in dept yourself.

When trying to define Yoga I used a number of sites to see how they defined themselves however when it came to Yoga I noticed that some sited did not have a way of defining themselves and other had removed the definition page.  This immediately put me on guard on about the very meaning of the world Yoga.

The Yoga Lunchbox defines “Asana” (physical postures or stretching) are the tools of Yoga. And Yoga is where self-realization ( enlightenment) is the place where the fluctuation of the mind have mostly stilled and you no longer identify with any remaining fluctuations or thoughts.

This is not spiritual mumble jumble I we take out time it will make clear the points that Yoga is a religion. And God does not  share his glory.

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Can We Practice Yogic Posture and Not be Worshiping Pagan gods?

When I bring to their attention that Yoga is a religion, the most common retort is “I’m not using it for spiritual reasons” The implication is “because I love Jesus I can do Asana ( the posture’s of Yoga) and not be tripped up by it.

But      2 Kings 17:33 says “they feared the Lord, but also served other gods”

Or they will retort “Even when I do these things “I’m not serving other gods”

But.     1 Corinthians 10:12 (ISV) “Therefore, whoever thinks he is standing securely should watch out so he doesn't fall. 

But more importantly just because you can do it is not enough, it is the esample you provide for the new Christian that will make him strong or cause him to fall.

But..    1 Corinthians 8:13 “therefore, if food makes my brother stumble, I will never eat meat, least I make my brother stumble”

Is Yoga Simply Exercise?

In a response to an interview with the New York Times called “Hindu Group Stirs a Debate Over Yoga’s Soul” Hindu American Foundation (HAF) identified what it views as two serious misconceptions about yoga that are widespread in the West.

1.     The first misconception is that Yoga is about physical exercise and stretching only. This is the view that his held by 99% of the Christians the practice Yoga. However, a group based in the understanding of what Yoga is says that Yoga is not about physical exercise and stretching. If this is so what else is yoga about?

2.     The second misconception is that Yoga can be dissociated from Hinduism.  What this means is Yoga is absolutely a religion since Hinduism is a religion if we believe what HAF says. However, their concern was retorted by New Age author Deepak Chopra who defended that Yoga from his perspective is more on the realm of consciousness, or spirituality then Hinduism.

I think two important points that we need to address is this, neither HAF or Chopra disagree that Yoga is more than physical exercise and stretching. How much more seems to be the main issue they have. Is Yoga directly associated with Hinduism or is it simply an application of our own spirituality?

·       If it is directly associated with Hinduism than the Christian is saying, either the Bible is wrong in dissuading us against practicing other religions (Deuteronomy 12:30, 1 Corinthians 10:20) or the bible is correct and Christ is not Lord over his life, because he openly chooses not to give up what the scripture say we should abstain from.

·       If as New Age author Deepak Chopra says, Yoga is not associated with Hinduism, but is more about the realm of consciousness and spirituality the we must ask ourselves what kind of spirit is it?  The bible clearly teaches that every spirit is not of God. So my question is how could Jesus give us a statement of exclusivity, “no man come unto the father but through me” John 14:6 that we can reach a spiritual place with God without him? Just because it seems innocent does not mean it is of God.

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Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world. ² By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God, ³ and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already.1 John 4:1-3

The second thing we need to address is that Yoga is by it own definition a religion and God does not  share his glory. On these two points alone, I rest my argument against Christians practicing Yoga, but there are many more forthcoming this blog was only to establish Yoga as a religion.

⁶ I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— ⁷ not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.⁸ But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. ⁹ As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. ¹⁰ For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant[a] of Christ Galatians 1:6-10

What we have to remember is while we are doing the downward dog on the physical, that because of our spiritual ignorance we aren’t giving ourselves the shaft down there in the spiritual.

Your brother in Christ
TCharves FireSpeaks

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Lost in the Temple of God

And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, “I have found the Book of the Law in the house of the Lord.” 2 Kings 22:8

At 18 years old king Josiah being zealous for the Lord recognizes that the temple of the Lord had become run down and had not been taken care of many years. There had been 34 kings in Israel and Judah since the Day that King Solomon erected the Temple to the Lord but all but four put the things of God on the back burner. These kings had taken on the ways of the world, full of greed and self-promotion, egotistic behaviors, seeking after perversions and idol worshipers, rather than worshipping God.  And even though they lived in the midst of God’s kingdom on earth, they all miserably failed to walk in the ways of God.  the scripture tells us they did “evil in the sight of the Lord”

King “Josiah” because of his love for the Lord had the most difficult time of fixing what had been the failure of many kings and over 470 years of neglect to the temple.So he said to the scribe tell the high priest Hilkiah (whose name means near to God,) that God house is not looking like the house worthy of God, We need to clean it up, you get some contractors in there, and sweep it down, build and  repair, and get it in a way that looks acceptable to God.

And while they were cleaning, and fixing, and building and shining Hilkiah found a book, but not just any book, it was the book of God’s covenant with Israel. Then Hilkiah read it to the scribe,  Shaphan, and told him to take it back and read it to the King, and the words of the book so moved Josiah that revival broke out in all of Judah. 

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But the question we should ponder is how did they lose the book of God’s covenant in the temple of God?  But more Importantly, have we lost the book of God covenant in our temple.

The scripture tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:19 that our body is the temple in which God dwells. The scripture says that God has written his law in our hearts, and minds. And it is there that we must find them. However, many of us just like the people of Judah have misplaced the word of God in our lives, we have gotten overwhelmed with the things of this world to the point where we don’t even know where the word of God is.  

Even Christians today have become so preoccupied with the things of this world, so motivated by greed and self-promotion, and egotistic behaviors, passionately seeking after perversions and worshiping our new car, or new house, or anything that we can attain, rather than worshipping God, that we are no longer a peculiar people, that God requires us to be. In fact, if seen by the outside world, we would look more like the evil kings, than the good kings. For though we claim to have Jesus as Lord we still do that which seemed right in our own eyes. 

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Even though everyone claims to want a revival in this world, it seems like there is no revival forthcoming. And the main reason is that we are seeking a revival of the outside world when we must first have a revival in our own temple; before there will be a restoration o FireSpeaksf God’s kingdom we have got to find the lost book of our own temple.

Your Brother in Christ

TCharves FireSpeaks

Don't forget to check out my
YouTube Channel