Tag: What the Bible says about manmade traditions and rituals

Bible Verse of The Day – 4-7-23

Colossians 3:3 (NKJV) 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

I find the phrase, “hidden with Christ in God”, extremely intriguing and comforting at the same time.

What is it about this phrase that carries so much weight. And what does it mean to us, as believers?

Let’s take a look and see what this phrase really means.

In order to fully understand it, we need to be sure to look at it in its proper context. This requires us to go back to chapter 2 and read what Paul was saying to the Colossian believers.

To summarize, he was reminding them that they were not required, nor was it wise, to follow traditions of men, rather than walking in the freedoms that Christ had died to pay for.

And as chapter 3 begins, he is telling them that if they have been raised with Christ (through new birth), they should “seek those things that are above” and to “set their mind on things above, not on things on the earth”.

It is only after reminding them of these things that Paul tells them that their “life is hidden with Christ in God”.

This phrase refers to the fact that, as believers, we have died with Christ.

Our lives are now hidden in Him as we have taken on this new identity as a child of God and lay down the things and the ways of this world.

He then encourages the Colossian believers, telling them that “when Christ appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory”.

Lastly, he tells them to “put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness”, indicating that these members(sins) must be laid down.

In exchange, we must “put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering, bearing with one another, and forgiving one another”.

It is clear that our old selves are to disappear, being hidden with Christ in God, giving way to the new man (or woman) and giving preference to Christ who bought us by His blood.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

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Bible Verse of The Day – 8-1-22

1 Peter 1:18 (NKJV) 18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers…

We recently released a video that taught about the importance of understanding what “incorruptible redemption” means to us as believers. The foundation for that video was the scripture above.

In this same scripture is another phrase that needs our attention; “aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers”.

What exactly is “aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers”?

Let’s dig in!

Our walk with God and our faith in Him should not be “aimless”, without purpose or done out of habit without knowing why we’re doing it.

Over the years, I have asked believers many, many times, “why do you do what you do in your walk with God?”.

This has been done not to question their faith or their salvation, but to try to nudge people and get them to think about why they do what they do.

Is it because they saw someone else do the same or something similar?

Is it because they read about it in a book?

Is it because they were taught to do so by their parents, or maybe a leader in their church?

Or is it something that was passed down from tradition?

These are all questions we need to ponder on and consider seriously.

Everything we do in our relationship with God should have purpose. It should be done because it means something.

If we pray a certain way because we heard someone else pray like that, it doesn’t mean as much as if we prayed the way the Holy Spirit leads us to do.

How about our worship? Do we worship God in a way that we have been taught by someone else? Do we mimic some popular musician or “worship leader”?

Again, these are all things we need to examine in our walk with God.

God wants our whole hearts. He wants our love and devotion to Him to be genuine, wholehearted and sincere, direct from our spirit to Him, not just a mimicry of someone else.

This is not to throw stones at anyone. We are all guilty of this to one degree or another at some point in our walk with God.

But let’s take this as a gentle reminder to make sure that everything we do is genuine, sincere and pure, not just a duplicate of someone else’s walk with God.

John 4:24 (NKJV) 24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

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Bible Verse of The Day – 7-13-22

Luke 6:6-7 (NKJV) 6 Now it happened on another Sabbath, also, that He entered the synagogue and taught. And a man was there whose right hand was withered. 7 So the scribes and Pharisees watched Him closely, whether He would heal on the Sabbath, that they might find an accusation against Him.

As I read this verse today, I was struck by the irony of what the Pharisees were doing; watching to see if Jesus would perform a miracle to heal someone on the Sabbath so they could try to trap Him.

This is religiosity at its best; ignoring a miracle to find fault in the One who performed the miracle.

You see, religious people will look right past something that God is doing in order to persecute whoever God is using to do it.

Why?

Because people who are religious, and have more regard for traditions and laws than they do for the truth, will always do whatever it takes to try to destroy anything and anyone who might expose the error of their ways.

And in the process, they will miss the miracles that are right in front of them that would lead them out of their bondage if they would only open their eyes long enough to allow themselves to see it.

This is something that’s very destructive even within the body of Christ. It’s also something that we need to be very careful to guard our hearts against, so we don’t unknowingly fall into it ourselves.

We obviously need to use God’s word as a guide and a measuring stick for everything that we see people do, and be careful to let God help us discern what we’re seeing.

Think about it! They had the Messiah standing right in front of them, but they failed to recognize Him because they would not allow themselves to.

How do we compare? How do we react to something that God is sending to us that may be wrapped in a different package than we were expecting?

This is very good food for thought. And it’s something we should all ponder on regularly, letting the Holy Spirit keep us alert and vigilant so we don’t become like the Pharisees and other religious leaders who did everything in their power to kill the Messiah they so desperately needed.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
49 N Lamplighters Walk
Hampstead, NC 28443

401-439-3780

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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Bible Verse of The Day – 6-16-21

Romans 14:5-6 (NKJV) 5 One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind. 6 He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it…

This is a very intriguing verse that lays bare many things. It also says a lot that many may find a bit hard to take.

God, in His infinite wisdom, created each of us uniquely. We all have different strengths and weaknesses as we grow in Him.

He works with us to fix (correct) those weaknesses. But as He is doing so, He gives us grace, since we are works in progress.

In the verses above, Paul is addressing the fact that some Jewish believers still felt the need to observe the Sabbath, since it was part of their “previous life” with God.

It was hard for them to shake their traditions, since they still didn’t fully comprehend that Jesus had fulfilled the law, thereby releasing them from the requirements of the law.

Paul’s concern was that believers would scorn each other, or judge each other, based on whether they observed the Sabbath (or other holy days) or not.

He went on to explain that whether a person observes a specific holy day or not isn’t important. What’s important is honoring God in what we do every day.

So, if a person still felt convicted within themselves to observe the Sabbath, then by all means, do it.

But if a person (more than likely a gentile) felt no conviction to observe the Sabbath (or other holy days), then the Jew who still observed it had no business looking down at the person who didn’t observe it.

Likewise, the person who felt no conviction, and therefore didn’t observe it, had no business mocking or scorning the one who chose to observe it.

Each person had to follow their own convictions based on their level of maturity as a believer.

With that said, it’s important that we understand that God’s goal for us all is to reach a level of maturity where we understand His word enough to see that tradition is much less important than His desires for us to grow as a believer.

Once we do that, we will understand that He comes first in all things, and that doing things just because that’s the way we’ve always done them can sometimes put us at odds with what He wants us to do.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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Bible Verse of The Day – 10-19-20

Mark 7:9 (NKJV) 9 He said to them, “All too well you reject the commandment of God, that you may keep your tradition.

Traditions can be very powerful in many ways.

Many families are steeped in tradition. They carry out certain acts year after year because that’s what they have been shown to do. They may not even know why. They just know that it’s always been that way.

This may not be bad or good. But it shows how prone to tradition human beings are.

The same can be said for the church; the bride of Christ.

She does things in a certain way, time, after time, after time, and most times not even stopping to think about, wonder or question why. She just does it because that’s the way it’s always been done.

Jesus had a few things to say about this.

The scribes and pharisees asked Jesus why His disciples didn’t follow the tradition of washing their hands before eating. This wasn’t viewed as a sanitary issue. They knew very little about germs and bacteria back then.

The scribes and pharisees were more concerned with the fact that the disciples weren’t keeping tradition itself.

When Jesus addressed the scribes and pharisees, He was quick to turn things around and point right back at them, exposing their hearts, and the lack of discipline on their end.

He rebuked them for being the hypocrites that they were, telling them plainly that they rejected (set aside, denied, abandoned) the commandment of God in favor of their man-made traditions.

And let’s be clear; it wasn’t so much the tradition itself that Jesus reprimanded them for. It was the condition of their hearts. They did what they did simply because they had been told to do so, and they had been doing it for centuries without ever questioning it.

And where do we, the bride of Christ, stand today with our traditions? Do we do what we do simply because it’s what we have been shown or told to do, or maybe because we have seen others do it?

Do we say certain things that we have heard others say, without stopping to question the validity of it, or the scriptural accuracy of it?

These are all things that are super important; Things we should all ponder and seek God about.

For if we say or do things simply out of rote or habit, where is the true love of God or the obedience to Him in any of it?

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

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Bible Verse of The Day – 7-21-19

Please click to watch the video now.The Traditions of MenGreetings in the name of Jesus. 

Traditions can run deep in our lives, including some traditions that impact our walk with God. 

In today’s video, The Traditions of Men, we discuss this and help bring some clarity and understanding as to why we do so many of the things we do without even thinking about them. 

We hope you will take a few minutes to watch it. 

Please click here to watch the video now. 

Enjoy your day. 

Sincerely in Christ, 

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie 

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808 

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page. 

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Bible Verse of The Day – 4-8-15

Galatians 6:15 (NKJV) 15 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but a new creation.

There are so many things that try to get between us and our salvation.

Man has so many ideas about how we should connect with God and interact with Him.

We have to wear certain kinds of clothing, have a certain kind of haircut and maybe even listen to certain kinds of music.

And some may even go so far as to say that we have to attend a certain type of church, or we’re not Christians at all.

In Christ, there is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither black nor white. There is neither Baptist, nor Church of God, Lutheran, Methodist, Southern Baptist, Catholic, Presbyterian or any other kind of label we might choose to put on ourselves.

There is Christ or there is nothing.

As humans, we have driven a wedge between God and those who need Him. We have widened the gap between God and man, instead of bridging it.

We need God’s help to fix this.

The good news is that it’s never too late to start and never too late to make things right.

Church, the time is now! The day is upon us when we need to seek God like we have never sought Him before and ask Him to help us fix the mess we’ve made of His body.

And then, we let Him start with us, by showing us where we’ve built gaps instead of bridging the gap.

Today is the day.

Pastor Curt & Pastor Ellie

Seven Seas Ministries
P.O. Box 272
Bradford, RI 02808

401-315-0902

If you know someone who will enjoy this or be encouraged by it, please feel free to share it with them!

To have the Bible Verse of The Day delivered to your inbox each day, please Click Here and then enter your email address in the box near the upper left corner of the page.

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