Christians: Turn from Yoga & Turn to Christ

May 4, 2006

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

Feeling stressed? Try Yoga. It helps relax the mind and rejuvenate the body and spirit. Plus, it's great for improving flexibility.

Your exclusive McDonald's® Yourself!Fitness® Yoga DVD offers four different 15 minute workouts to help improve your mood and your energy level. You can customize your Yoga workout by choosing a language, difficulty level and your 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 America, but it has made a strong entrenchment in a place not as suspecting… our churches today.

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?

The word YOGA means UNION, the union of the physical self with the spiritual self, a tricky concept to grasp. Yoga is one of the six fundamental systems of Indian thought collectively known as Darsana, it has it's origins in pre Vedic times, the oldest record of Indian culture and in the view of some considered sources, believed to have arisen at the beginning of human civilization itself.

It was not until 200 B.C. (There is uncertainty surrounding this date) that it was organized into a system in the classic treatise The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali which, though only a brief text of ten pages, managed to embody the essence of practical wisdom, bearing witness to Patanjali's transcendence. (4)

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 Eden.”

Gen 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. (NASB)

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 ageres / 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.

Rom 3:23 For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;

Rev 3:20 Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.

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:

Father in Heaven, I know that I am a sinner in need of a savior. I need your forgiveness through Jesus Christ who died on the cross just for me to cover the sins that I have committed against you. Please forgive me of my sins and come into my heart. I want to live for you Lord Jesus and from this day forward be known as a Child of God. Thank you for forgiving my sins and coming into my life, in Jesus’ wonderful name. Amen

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 (AT) prophezine (DOT) 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

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