Many people dissatisfied with “same-old-same-old” church services, have turned to mystical practices. They have replaced the clanging of church bells with the tinkling of wind chimes, the Cross with crystals, and “signs following” with astrological star-signs.
Humanists, on the other hand, view Man as his own god. They are rationalistic rather than intuitive, materialistic rather than spiritual. So-called New Age people — pagans, really — regard themselves as spiritual rather than religious. ‘Greenies’, who are also pagans at heart, favour sacrificial living as long as that doesn’t mean personal sacrifice on their part.
The Cross of Jesus Christ and his soon coming Kingdom is the Church’s message to this world, and many who seek genuine spirituality are drawn by curiosity to the real Jesus, and fit well into churches where spirituality develops through ongoing encounters with the Lord.
The New Age isn’t really new—it began 2000 years ago when the veil of the Temple at Jerusalem was torn from top to bottom—the sign from God that the Old Age of religion was over, and a new age of Christian spirituality had begun. The blood of Jesus secured God’s forgiveness for all who believe in and confess him as the Son of God (Hebrews 4:16). Old Age religion died when Jesus was crucified and it was then that the real New Age began.
Fifty days later on the Day of Pentecost, the authentic New Age Ascended Master, the Lord Jesus, received from his Father and poured out the Holy Spirit on his waiting disciples (Acts 2:4 & 33). They were the first Pentecostals! They received the authentic Spirit of the New Age, and when they did, old rituals and religious dead works were replaced by irrepressible joy, spontaneous praise, and irresistible faith!
Jesus had said that “the new wine”—the Spirit of God—would require “new wineskins”—new receivers able contain the dynamic of its power. The new wine of Pentecost would have burst through the old wineskins, but the Holy Spirit in those newly “born again” believers preserved the new wine of the Holy Spirit in the new wineskin of the New Creation. The new wine was too dynamic for the old wineskins.
So, what’s it to be: authentic, New Testament spirituality or ritualistic, legalistic religion? They don’t go together, so it’s not possible to combine the two in authentic Christianity.