Defiled By A Yoga Mat

I have noticed Yoga classes being offered at many churches nowadays.  To which I marvel at the lack of discernment within entire congregations.  And when you point out that Yoga is, indeed, a legitimate system of worship that is part of the Hindu religion, people give excuses as to why they have reasoned within themselves that it's okay, rather than humbling themselves and considering any error on their part.  Among those excuses is the most prevalent, "I do it for exercise" or "I'm not worshipping anything while I do it."  But those are just illegitimate excuses to justify doing it.  Any reason to justify doing something that would even remotely grieve God, is an illegitimate excuse.  Quite often when Jesus taught something that people didn't want to accept, He would end His teaching with the phrase, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear" (Matt 11:15; 13:9,43; Mark 4:9,23; Luke 8:8; Rev 2:7,11; 36). Even Jesus knew that everyone wouldn't receive the truth of His message.

Something that much of the church seems unaware of, is God's very real contempt toward mixing religions.  Throughout the Old Testament, He refers to it as "harlotry" or spiritual adultery.  It is the very reason for which He destroyed His beloved Israel.  And because the God of the Old Testament is the same God of the New Testament, Paul tells us that how God dealt with Israel was written down as a warning to us: "Now these things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come." (1 Cor 10:11)

Over and over, God spoke through His prophets about Israel's idolatry and spiritual adultery: 

-"Look at the shrines on every hilltop. Is there any place you have not been defiled by your adultery with other gods? You sit like a prostitute beside the road waiting for a customer. You sit alone like a nomad in the desert. You have polluted the land with your prostitution and your wickedness." (Jer 3:2)
-"Their deeds will not allow them to return to their God. For a spirit of harlotry is within them and they do not know the LORD." (Hosea 5:4)
-"Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD, 'Because you have forgotten Me and cast Me behind your back, bear now the punishment of your lewdness and your harlotries.'" (Ezek 23:35)
-"These things will be done to you because you have played the harlot with the nations, because you have defiled yourself with their idols." (Ezek 23:30)

Much of the Mosaic Law was to symbolize Israel's separation from the other nations:

-"For is not the fact of your going with us the sign that I and this people have grace in your eyes, so that we, that is, I and your people, are separate from all the other people on the face of the earth?" (Ex 33:16)
-"You must keep the Israelites separate from things that make them unclean, so they will not die in their uncleanness for defiling my dwelling place, which is among them." (Lev 15:31)
-"Therefore, separate yourselves and be holy, because I am the LORD your God." (Lev 20:7)
-"But I have said to you, you will take their land and I will give it to you for your heritage, a land flowing with milk and honey: I am the Lord your God Who have made you separate from all other peoples." (Lev 20:24)

And this spiritual principle of the separateness of God's people carries over into the New Testament to be applied within Christianity today:
-"What agreement can exist between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be My people. Therefore come out from among them and be separate', says the Lord. 'Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you.'" (2 Cor 6:16,17)

-"You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons too; you cannot partake in the table of the Lord and the table of demons too." (1 Cor 10:21)

Because Western Christianity tends to have a very casual attitude about Christ, it has been inundated with Eastern Mysticism and even occult influences.  Western Christianity has become a very mixed religion.  However, God calls His church to be "without stain or wrinkle or any such blemish, but holy and blameless." (Eph 5:27); "..holy, unblemished, and blameless in His presence.." (Col 1:22); "make every effort to be found at peace with Him, without spot or blemish." (2 Pet 3:14); "..keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ," (1 Tim 6:14). 

We may have a casual attitude towards our salvation, but God does not:  "How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace?" (Heb 10:29); "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, in Whom you were sealed for the day of redemption." (Eph 4:30).

If God has a serious attitude toward holiness, then so should we:  "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." (Heb 12:14); "..But just as He Who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, because it has been written: 'You shall be holy, because I am holy.'" (1 Peter 1:15,16).

For an article that explains the spiritual aspect of Yoga far better than I ever could, I recommend you take the time to read:  The Spiritual Stretch Of Yoga 

"Salt is good, but if the salt loses its savor, with what will it be seasoned? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile, and it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear." (Luke 14:35)

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I also will reject you from being My priest. Since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children." (Hosea 4:6)

"For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the last state has become worse for them than the first." (2 Pet 2:20)

"Therefore, just as the Holy Spirit says: 'Today if you should hear His voice, do not harden your hearts, as you did in the rebellion, in the time of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers tried Me by testing Me, and for forty years saw My works. Therefore I was angry with that generation, and I said, "Their hearts always go astray, and they have not known My ways." So I swore on oath in My anger, "They shall never enter My rest."' See to it, brothers, that none of you has a wicked heart of unbelief that turns away from the living God. But encourage one another every day, while it is called today, so that not one of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin." (Heb 3:7-13)