THE RIGHTEOUS ALTERNATIVE TO COMMERCIAL RELIGION
Think about what your life would be like if there were no professional clergy, if there were no denominations, no churches, no synagogues, no mission organizations and missionaries, no religious publications, no traveling teachers, prophets, evangelists, apostles and so on. If you are in a corporate environment (church, para-church ministry, missions, etc,) for which religion or some kind of spiritual activity or purpose is the reason for existing, you would need to find or create a new way to make a living.

Just finding a job might be hard enough, but you might find it even harder to learn how to integrate your spiritual life with your business life. Would you still feel like you are serving GOD and fulfilling your calling to be a priest if you are not in professional ministry? Would working at a job like everyone else satisfy your need for income, ego and reputation as a spiritual person? What do you do if you feel that God has called you to some kind of full-time ministry but you are also convinced that religion is commerce and that religion is sin? How do you do that without earning a living from that ministry to which you believe you are called?

To find the righteous alternative to commercial religion we need look no further than Jesus and the apostle Paul for models. Neither of these earned their income from their ministry work. They are perfect examples of New Covenant disciples.

STUDY TIP: See Money and Ministry In the New Testament.

In the case of Paul, we know that he worked as a tent-maker to earn his living. And we know that he also did much good spiritual work and considerable traveling. If God could make it all work for Paul, He can make it work for anyone.

Before you abandon your ministry, you have no idea what that new life might look like. It is a scary thing to give up a profession and all the income and status that goes with it for the sake of who knows what. But, if you can trust God for a big thing like salvation, it should be relatively easy to trust him for a living. Right? Furthermore, it must be said that if you cannot trust God to provide for you without being in professional ministry, you should not be in ministry at all because your faith is weak. With weak faith like that, how can you possibly hope to teach anyone else to trust God?

To that statement some will say, “Wait a minute! I trust God every day for income that comes into my ministry.” And to that we say: “That was before you knew how God felt about mixing business and ministry.”

So what does the righteous alternative to religion look like? The answer is: It is impossible to predict. That is where the faith and trust comes in.

Whether you are in the professional clergy or a lay person, one thing that can be said about your new life is that you will go from being highly visible to invisible.

People who recreated in God’s image will be content with the following realities of their new life: