I've been thinking recently ever since I lived in Pensacola, FL of an analogy that has stuck with me ever since seeing something while there.

For those of you who don't me know-or at least not well-I am all about practical jokes. In fact, on a weekly basis one or two of my roommates were the victim of some kind of funny prank on my part, and usually with my third roommate's collaboration when we all lived together during my second year in Bible school. That easily was my funnest living arrangement or at least the house was the best house I've lived in.

We did it all-put pennies on Arian's ceiling fan so when he turned on his light they shot everywhere like bullets; we put all of our alarm clocks in Jeff's room and set them 20 minutes apart beginning at 3:30 am. You name it. I regret very little of them since they went over usually well and to the best of my knowledge I never crossed any lines or hurt anyone's feelings.

Anyway, these two roommates and I once went away with a classmate for the weekend, and he took us to a practical joke store in his hometown of Atlanta. I bought gum that gives the victim gas; gum that turns a person's mouth blue; and this powder-which was my favorite. It was some kind of polymer (plastic) that if you put it into someone's drink-coffee, water, juice, soda--you name it-it would solidify it in a matter of seconds. But here's the catch-you had to make sure the prank victim didn't try to drink it after that (which would be hard because it was solidified). With the added ingredient, the polymer had made the liquid undrinkable. The warning in the instructions actually used the word poisonous.

One time I put it in my roommate's water and he went to drink it and this solid almost jello-like blob fell out of his mug. I put some in a guy's sweet tea at our cell group one night, and after a long time he finally announced out loud when he discovered it that "there's something wrong with this sweet tea!" This went over great every time.

As simple of an illustration as this is to me, it is profound. You see, this plastic added an ingredient that 'preserved' the drink in its original form and would make it unable to be contaminated or go bad, but rendered it undrinkable.At the expense of preserving it permanently was the inability to do with the liquid what it was intended for-to drink. It made it no longer fresh. Yet in the Church, we add all sorts of ingredients to our spiritual lives that render the true refreshing of the Holy Spirit undrinkable for others and even ourselves.

"Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?"(Galatians 3:3b)

Like so many movements in church history, God was doing something, but when something was added to it by men, it no longer flowed or was drinkable. And by and large we've been content with our unnatural preservatives. Sometimes moves of God naturally waned and reached their usefulness, but men whose livelihoods or jobs depended on the move of God sought to preserve them out of their own selfish gain or survival or both.

To make this more applicable-take some groceries I've bought while overseas in other countries-especially Holland. I noticed that the expiration date on many products, but particularly dairy-is sooner than the expiration date on products I'd buy in North America. Why? The lack of preservatives. They may cause the product to last longer, but it lowers its quality and is in fact less healthy. Such is what I'm talking about on a spiritual level.

For example, somewhere along the line we added the ingredient to the Church that it's OK not to have faith for big things, therefore we don't see them and then find ways of explaining away the Bible passages that do talk about them-"the age of miracles are past" many say. "Sound doctrine" became more important than actually doing something with our doctrine. Even though the 'proper faith' that is commonly taught doesn't actually heal any sick or produce any tangible results.

I once talked on MSN with someone who described to me a discussion that happened in one of his classes in Bible school that week and it prompted him to observe the real reason Christians spend so much time arguing with others about why NOT to believe for miraculous or explaining away the gifts of the Spirit, is that we don't want to admit it is doubt and unbelief that causes us to form these doctrines. We don't want to admit that many of our doctrines are the fruit of our failures.

Somewhere along the way, we became happy with institution (I've heard the term "the impotency of institution") where we're more preoccupied with the programs, the institutionalisms and the denominationalisms-which are a form of self-preservation contrary to the death to self that comes in the cross of Christ--and neglected the organism of what a Body of believers is supposed to be by definition. Somewhere along the way, the poison of self-righteous religiousness was added, and sucked the life out of what issupposedto be Christianity. Not all are bound by this poisonous religion. But it has more pull in the Church as a whole than we're willing to admit.

There's lots of undrinkable elements to the body of Christ currently, and you can think of your own if you'd like to meditate on this further. Like sacred cows, "undrinkable elements" of Christianity include-if you notice it in your own thinking or just in "acceptable Christianity"--things that are commonly accepted as correct doctrines or practices, but yet do absolutely nobody any good whatsoever if you put it into practice.

If the dying world around us were to need our water, would they be able to drink it?