Gimmie Yoga, a Burger
and Fries
Gimmie Yoga, a Burger
and Fries
By
Ray Gano
This
week I had yet another new shock to the system. While standing in
line to order a Number 3 meal at the local McDonalds®, I noticed
an interesting new promotion that is taking place. They now have
Adult Happy Meal. This is pretty cool because the kids always got
some pretty neat toys. The adult meal also comes with a prize, but
I was kind of shocked when I found out what it is… a DVD on Yoga.
Well on my
bag for my Big Mac®, I found a handy URL telling me more about this
and I checked it out.
Here is what
they say…
15 Minutes of Sane
area of focus – flexibility, stress relief, balance or strength.
(1)
The eastern
thought of New Age mentality is not only entering the burger joints
of
Christian
yoga - the marriage of the
ancient practice of exercise, breathing techniques and meditation
with Christian spirituality - is exploding in popularity. Organizations
that certify Christian yoga instructors are seeing an increase in
enrollment, and classes with an openly Christian focus are popping
up in churches and studios across the country.
Christian yoga is also
a thriving business. Boon will release a Holy Yoga DVD set later
this year that has already been picked up for distribution by the
Home Shopping Network and QVC. Yahweh Yoga plans to franchise throughout
the Valley, co-founder DeAnna Smothers said. (2)
It amazes
me today that so many New Age /eastern occultist practices are entering
the church today under so many guises, and you know what; it isn’t
very hard either. All you have to do is slap the word “Christian”
on it and WHAMMO, its gotta be good and right with God, because
it’s “CHRISTIAN”
I have been
reading many of the sites that promote Christian yoga and they fight
tooth and nail to make yoga seem ok.
The Outstretched philosophy
is simple: we believe God will bless our sincere efforts at deepening
a relationship with Him. He wants our fellowship and appreciates
creative approaches to seeking His face. This is why Outstretched
is dedicated to a Christ-centered pursuit of physical healing and
spiritual growth through a practice of yoga.
This Christian approach to yoga simply allows us to combine these
two essential goals: becoming physically healthy and spiritually
healthy. We become more spiritually healthy through the yoga practice
by calming our minds and quieting ourselves to the point that we
can tune out the world's frequency and tune into God's frequency.
(3)
So
what is Yoga?
You can do
more research on the origins of Yoga, and they all say the same
thing. It is a Hindu religious practice and is one of the ORTHODOX
systems of Indian thought known as Darsana. In this research you
will not find Moses bringing the practice down from a mountain top
no matter how hard you look. Yoga is an eastern religion. These
people pushing some sort of Christian form are strongly deceived.
East
and West
Isa 2:6 For You have abandoned Your
people, the house of Jacob, Because they are filled with influences
from the east, And they are soothsayers like the Philistines, And
they strike bargains with the children of foreigners.
It is interesting
to do a study on east vs. west. Because the sun rises in the east
and light is often used as a metaphor for divine revelation, it
is usually understood that God dwells in the east. But when you
do a study on this, the east always represents the world, exile
and turning away from God.
The Hebrew
word for “east” is qedum which literally means “faceward” or “frontward.”
Qedem, literally, "before";
for in describing the points of the compass the person faced the
E. or sunrise (Greek anatolee, the E.), which was thus before or
in front of him; the S. was on his right, and so is called in Hebrew
"the right hand"; the N. was on his left, and so is called in Hebrew
"the left hand." Job_23:8-9, "forward," i.e. eastward; "backward,"
i.e. westward; "on the left hand," i.e. to the N.; "on the right
hand," i.e. in the S. So the Hindus call the E. para, "before ";
the W. apara, "behind "; the S. doschina, "the right hand"; the
N. bama, "the left." Mizrach, "the sunrise," is used when the E.
is distinguished from the W. (5)
In Gen 2:8
we read that God planted the garden “toward the east in
Gen 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden
toward the east, in
This means
that God’s presence was specifically located in the western part
of the Garden and when he drove man out from before his face was
in an eastwardly direction.
In Gen 3:24
we read that God placed cherubim at “the east of the garden of Eden”
to prevent man fro returning west to the tree of life.
The placement
of the tabernacle and the temple were also on an east – west setting.
To enter into the holy of holies or come into the presence of God
you entered from the east, going and facing west.
To travel
eastward is to travel in the direction of exile and away from God.
Is it not strange that we refer to the mysteries religions as religions
of the east? East is the direction of idolatry, exile and away from
God.
In Ezekiel
8:16 we read the following:
Eze 8:16 And he brought me into the
inner court of the LORD's house, and, behold, at the door of the
temple of the LORD, between the porch and the altar, were about
five and twenty men, with their backs toward the temple of the LORD,
and their faces toward the east; and they worshiped the sun toward
the east.
These men
have their backs toward the temple and their faces toward the east.
They purposefully turned their backs on God and with intent they
faced eastward toward the sun; thus the way of false worship.
Here is how
Albert Barnes Notes on the Bible state it.
In the temple the seat
of the Divine Majesty was at the west, appointed for this very purpose,
to guard against the idolatrous adoration of the rising sun. Therefore
the idolatrous priests must in worshipping the false sun-god turn
their backs upon the True. The worship of the heavenly bodies was
one of the earliest forms of idolatry Job 31:26-27 and was expressly
forbidden in the Law Deu 17:3. (6)
What we are
seeing in our churches is a turning away from the west and the holiness
of the Lord and turning towards the false teaching and deception
of the east.
In order
to understand where New Agers / eastern occultists are coming from
we must understand the heart of the movement. It is pretty simple
to sum up. The god of the New Age / eastern occultism is one where
all is god and all is one. So not only are we part of the all, the
New Agers / eastern occultists believe that we are also god. It
is a form of monism and pantheism all rolled up into a nice anything
goes package. So with that said; god is good and bad, light and
dark, male and female, salt and pepper. The New Age god is an impersonal
god, that is because every rock, stick, flower, bug, person sitting
next to you is all part of god and is god.
The God of
the Bible though is a loving caring personal God. He sent his son
Jesus to die on the cross for us and to atone for our sins.
Here is what
God’s Word says…
Joh 3:16 For God so loved the world,
that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in
him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
I would encourage
you to not delay in receiving Christ as you Savior today if you
have not already done so. He died for your sins, and rose from the
dead. He offers you eternal life, but that's your choice to make.
I hope you will consider doing that today.
Sinners
Prayer:
If you are
a Christian, but have fallen away from the Lord, come back to Him.
Our Heavenly Father is a good and loving Father. Just ask and commune
with Him. You see, He never left your side, we just left Him. Reach
out and renew your relationship with Jesus Christ our Savior today.
I also ask
that if you know someone who would benefit from this article, please
freely share it with them. You can print out a copy of this article
at http://www.prophezine.com. If
you are an owner of a website, please feel free to post this article
to your site. I also ask that you do not edit this document in anyway
by adding to or taking away from.
If I can
be of any help in answering any questions, please contact me at ray.gano@prophezine.com
About
the Author:
Ray &
Tracye Gano are the Executive Directors of Prophezine. Prophezine
deals with Bible Prophecy and World Events from a Pre-trib, pre-millennial,
dispensationalist stand point. They currently serve close to 20,000+
(and growing) people world wide with a weekly newsletter, daily
news updates, community based website and internet radio show. Please
visit Prophezine by going to http://www.prophezine.com
Endnotes
1
- http://mcdonalds3.promotions.com/yourselffitness/page.do?page=yoga.html
2- http://www.azcentral.com/community/ahwatukee/articles/0928ar-christianyoga28-ON.html#
3- http://www.christianyoga.us/home.htm
4
- http://www.omshop.com/aboutyoga_origin.asp
5
– Fausett’s Bible Dictionary
6-
Barnes Notes on the Bible