"David therefore departed from there and escaped to the cave of Adullam. And when his brothers and all his father's house heard it, they went down there to him. And everyone who was in distress, everyone who was in debt, and everyone who was discontented gathered to him. So he became captain over them. And there were about four hundred men with him." (1 Samuel 22:1-2)
I must admit to liking the way this chapter begins--with my name. That's right, I have the same name as the second king of Israel. That is about where the similarity ends. David had already become famous in Israel. As a youth he had slain Goliath and encouraged the Israelite army to rout the Philistines as a result. In his adult years he was so successful in battle that the nation sang of Saul slaying thousands and David tens of thousands. That did not make him the most popular fellow in Israel. Saul was the king and his ego would not let him be second to David. He tried to kill David in the palace with a spear. After David escaped that assasination attempt he ran away to the wilderness. Saul took his army and chased David and his men all over the wilderness for years. And we think we have bad days.
When we were prayerfully pondering leaving northern California, the Lord gave me a promise that I would grow in wisdom and knowledge and favor with God and man. Naturally I expected that to happen immediately. This is the age of instant communications in various media, one hour cleaners, and microwave popcorn after all. That was over twenty years ago.
I think some people like me. I think everyone should. I am a great guy. Just ask me. I am not perfect by any means. Please do not ask me to rate myself by any measure, on any scale. In comparison to the second king of Israel whose name I bear, I am a minus something. He sinned, I sin. Still, he was a man after God's own heart. I try. Thankfully, we are told in scripture that comparing ourselves one with another is not wise. (2 Corinthians 10:12)
David was in distress as recorded in the verses above. The king wanted him dead. His family gathered around him. Many who were discontented in one way or another gathered around him, four hundred of them. Some of them became David's mighty men. I got three so far. Really, three men who want to fight with me. They know who they are. There are probably more who just have not said so. My father is a little too old and he would not understand spiritual warfare anyway. I have brothers who understand and if push came to shove they would all be right there. And I have three men. They are kind of discontented with their lives. I used to be. I am not anymore. We are all going to battle this religious spirit together and we are going to win. Maybe some other people will join us. Maybe there will be 400 of us. It does not really matter how many there are. The victory is assured. Even now, in answer to our prayers, the Lord is stretching out His hand to banish the enemy.
Yesterday in church, during worship, the Holy Spirit told me to write a letter to three men and gave me the next four topics for this blog. This is the second one. I have already emailed the letter. When Jesus said His yoke is easy and his load is light (Matthew 11:29-30) He was not exaggerating. This is sweatless. God does the work. We follow His instructions. How could it be any easier? Oh, well, there is the whole thing about having to give up our own way to follow His. For the most part our way was not working out all that well anyway. Did I mention my three mighty men also got here the hard way. It did not take them quite as long as it took me, but hey, we are all walking the same way now. Thanks men. And thank all of you who have embraced this battle as if it were your own. Drop us a line sometime. We need you.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 28, 2009
More on Spirit vs. Soul
In The Church today we take for granted that if we are doing things that look spiritual they must be spiritual. Unfortunately soulical things look spiritual to the uninitiated, untrained or inexperienced. Those statements taken together may offend some. Should you be one who is offended by those simple facts, it is time for some introspection and perhaps some input from one who is farther along in spiritual life than you are. Just my thoughts on the matter. After all, that is the purpose of blogs in general. In this one, we answer to a higher authority. So while the thoughts may be ours, we hope they are directed by the Holy Spirit. Having said that, let us try and explain what we mean by the first two sentences.
Let us first examine our practice of worship. To give greater definition to that term, we are discussing the time during a church service when the primary activity is group singing, praise, and hopefully worship. Surely those are spiritual things? Wait a minute. Let us carefully consider our answer to that question.
We sing. People without Christ sing. Some of them sing very well. Are they performing a spiritual exercise when they sing? They cannot possibly be. Their spirits are yet dead in sin. Why then would we think our singing is a spiritual exercise when theirs is not? We would give you pause to think, but this format is not really conducive to that. You might want to consider the question before proceeding. The defining factor here is that when our singing comes out of our spirits, it is a spiritual activity. We cannot help you any more than that at this point.
Well then, what about praise? Surely praise is a spiritual activity? Let us answer that question with a question just for rhetorical effect. Have you ever given a compliment, or been complimented? That is the essence of praise. In praise we give glory, a compliment, to God for any of his various works that come to mind. The mind is part of the soul. We have likely all had people without Christ give us praise for something. They praise. We praise. One is not automatically a spiritual activity and the other not. Do not stop reading yet. It gets better--we hope.
Singing is not necessarily a spiritual activity and praise is not necessarily a spiritual activity. Worship, however, is always a spiritual activity. By definition, we can only worship in response to God calling forth worship from us, that is from our spirit. Our spirit links with God's Spirit and we communicate directly with Him. Sometimes this seems to be a random act of God, but we can learn to do it intentionally anytime we desire. A dear saint of God told me many years ago she was opposed to the idea that God was like a faucet we turn on when we want something. God is always on. We have to turn on our own spirit to commune with Him in worship.
The problem with saying that worship is always a spiritual exercise is that what passes for worship many times is really nothing more than us attempting, or wanting to worship. We never actually get past our soul into our spirit. Hence, we never actually worship. We do not accurately discern spiritual activities from soulical activities. We may think we are worshiping because someone has told us that what is going on is worship. We think we are doing what everyone else is doing so we must be worshipping. Most people do not understand that worship is one on one time with God, giving Him the glory due Him for being God. This can never be done corporately. We can sing and we can praise God together, but to move into real worship, we must come face to face with Almighty God and give voice to our spirit's yearning to worship. In worship we give glory to God for being God with all that incorporates. Of the items we are discussing, only worship incorporates spirit, soul, and body together in the same activity.
What we have been discussing so far is the vertical activity of worship. There is a horizontal, soulical activity we usually think of as being spiritual. We even often use the Greek word rather than the English word. Using the Greek word must make it spiritual. It is taken directly from the Bible after all. The word and the activity we are discussing is, of course, koinonia, the Greek word for fellowship. We have fellowship one with another. We do not really need to do the whole, people without Christ thing again do we?
Someone has defined koinonia as, "Any church gathering with food." That is a fanciful definition, but unfortunately not too far off the mark. Many churches consider any gathering outside the routine, scheduled services in the church building to be koinonia. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, our suspicion is that most believers have never experienced koinonia. Koinonia is one on one, face to face, spirit to spirit interaction with another believer. It gets interesting here because, unlike worship which is only one on one with the one God, we can have koinonia in groups. What passes for, and is usually called koinonia is often nothing more than friendly, soulical interaction. There is nothing wrong with friendly, soulical interaction. It just is not koinonia. When two or more people are gathered together in Jesus' name, He promised to be in their midst. (Matthew 18:20) When our spirits are tuned to Him, we are also linked to each other by the Holy Spirit. It is only at that point we have acheived koinonia.
Both worship and koinonia function as closed loops. The difference is that in worship the closed loop is God and each of us individually. In koinonia, the closed loop incorporates God and everyone else who is linked to him in the same place. The disciples in the upper room, waiting for the arrival on earth of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1) were said to be "in one accord". They were enjoying one another's fellowship in the presence of God. Think of the loop as coming from God, running through each of the believers in the room and returning to God. That is the essence of koinonia.
In summary, soulical activities often look like spiritual activities. We have given but two examples although those two incorporate our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with other people. In a sense, we might say those two activities include everything we can do. We need to be aware that simply because something may look spiritual does not necessarily mean it is. Of course we also need to learn to function in the spirit intentionally and often. The more our activities are spirit centered, the more abundant our life will be.
Let us first examine our practice of worship. To give greater definition to that term, we are discussing the time during a church service when the primary activity is group singing, praise, and hopefully worship. Surely those are spiritual things? Wait a minute. Let us carefully consider our answer to that question.
We sing. People without Christ sing. Some of them sing very well. Are they performing a spiritual exercise when they sing? They cannot possibly be. Their spirits are yet dead in sin. Why then would we think our singing is a spiritual exercise when theirs is not? We would give you pause to think, but this format is not really conducive to that. You might want to consider the question before proceeding. The defining factor here is that when our singing comes out of our spirits, it is a spiritual activity. We cannot help you any more than that at this point.
Well then, what about praise? Surely praise is a spiritual activity? Let us answer that question with a question just for rhetorical effect. Have you ever given a compliment, or been complimented? That is the essence of praise. In praise we give glory, a compliment, to God for any of his various works that come to mind. The mind is part of the soul. We have likely all had people without Christ give us praise for something. They praise. We praise. One is not automatically a spiritual activity and the other not. Do not stop reading yet. It gets better--we hope.
Singing is not necessarily a spiritual activity and praise is not necessarily a spiritual activity. Worship, however, is always a spiritual activity. By definition, we can only worship in response to God calling forth worship from us, that is from our spirit. Our spirit links with God's Spirit and we communicate directly with Him. Sometimes this seems to be a random act of God, but we can learn to do it intentionally anytime we desire. A dear saint of God told me many years ago she was opposed to the idea that God was like a faucet we turn on when we want something. God is always on. We have to turn on our own spirit to commune with Him in worship.
The problem with saying that worship is always a spiritual exercise is that what passes for worship many times is really nothing more than us attempting, or wanting to worship. We never actually get past our soul into our spirit. Hence, we never actually worship. We do not accurately discern spiritual activities from soulical activities. We may think we are worshiping because someone has told us that what is going on is worship. We think we are doing what everyone else is doing so we must be worshipping. Most people do not understand that worship is one on one time with God, giving Him the glory due Him for being God. This can never be done corporately. We can sing and we can praise God together, but to move into real worship, we must come face to face with Almighty God and give voice to our spirit's yearning to worship. In worship we give glory to God for being God with all that incorporates. Of the items we are discussing, only worship incorporates spirit, soul, and body together in the same activity.
What we have been discussing so far is the vertical activity of worship. There is a horizontal, soulical activity we usually think of as being spiritual. We even often use the Greek word rather than the English word. Using the Greek word must make it spiritual. It is taken directly from the Bible after all. The word and the activity we are discussing is, of course, koinonia, the Greek word for fellowship. We have fellowship one with another. We do not really need to do the whole, people without Christ thing again do we?
Someone has defined koinonia as, "Any church gathering with food." That is a fanciful definition, but unfortunately not too far off the mark. Many churches consider any gathering outside the routine, scheduled services in the church building to be koinonia. Nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, our suspicion is that most believers have never experienced koinonia. Koinonia is one on one, face to face, spirit to spirit interaction with another believer. It gets interesting here because, unlike worship which is only one on one with the one God, we can have koinonia in groups. What passes for, and is usually called koinonia is often nothing more than friendly, soulical interaction. There is nothing wrong with friendly, soulical interaction. It just is not koinonia. When two or more people are gathered together in Jesus' name, He promised to be in their midst. (Matthew 18:20) When our spirits are tuned to Him, we are also linked to each other by the Holy Spirit. It is only at that point we have acheived koinonia.
Both worship and koinonia function as closed loops. The difference is that in worship the closed loop is God and each of us individually. In koinonia, the closed loop incorporates God and everyone else who is linked to him in the same place. The disciples in the upper room, waiting for the arrival on earth of the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:1) were said to be "in one accord". They were enjoying one another's fellowship in the presence of God. Think of the loop as coming from God, running through each of the believers in the room and returning to God. That is the essence of koinonia.
In summary, soulical activities often look like spiritual activities. We have given but two examples although those two incorporate our vertical relationship with God and our horizontal relationship with other people. In a sense, we might say those two activities include everything we can do. We need to be aware that simply because something may look spiritual does not necessarily mean it is. Of course we also need to learn to function in the spirit intentionally and often. The more our activities are spirit centered, the more abundant our life will be.
A Sense of Destiny
Is it just me or is there something afoot in the spiritual realm? For the past couple or three weeks it seems every time I have the chance to ponder what is going on, I have a sense of something going on behind the scenes that I cannot quite put my finger on. It is as though something is approaching that will make an impact on the way things are in our lives. We pray it is something good and not something God will have to turn for good. Whichever way that goes, we know it will be an exciting, growth experience. Were we to take a guess, God is about to put the next step in place for our victory over the religious spirit we are battling.
Eight days ago there were two minor earthquakes in California in the same day. We say they were minor because neither of them caused any apparent damage and were not even considered newsworthy events. They were each in the 4 point range on the Richter Scale, but were in less populated areas. The only reason we even know about them is the first one hit almost exactly 5:30 AM and shook our bed. We looked it up on the internet and sure enough, it was the first of two that hit that day.
Pastor Jack Hayford says that when there are things happening in the spritual realm, they are often accompanied by seisimic activity. It is as though the creation is in travail, groaning with birth pains. (Romans 8:22) For the time being, we are pondering the earthquakes and being attentive to what the Spirit is saying and doing. We all know spiritual insight is sometimes better than at other times. It seems like something is happening, but the what of that is still hidden. In the meantime, we must be about our Father's business as best we can.
It seems almost daily some kind of distraction comes along that seeks to change our direction. Some of those things are minor and some not so much so. Taking a day to attend meetings at headquarters is a minor, expected distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. I certainly did not do much blogging that day although I did get home with some new material as stated in the previous post. We also had two sets of out of town guests and two one-time functions to attend this week. Those are good things, the kinds of things that add the variety and spice to life. There was also the distraction of a friend being admitted to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after some kind of episode in which she trashed her apartment in the middle of the night. That kind of thing is not expected nor enjoyable. We have also been solicited for three business opportunities in the past few weeks. These are things that may or may not lead anywhere, but would definitely require some investment of time. We were close to losing our focus in each case and pursuing something that might have been good at the possible risk of not continuing to do what the Lord has called us to do.
I really never have liked the idea of destiny. It just sounds too much like someone has already planned out our destination and there is nothing we can do to avoid it. Where is the free will in that? I think I am learning that having a destiny is similar to a football player taking a kick off and trying to run it into the opposite end zone for a score. The goal is set before us. All we are trying to do is get there the best way we know how. Thankfully as Christians we do not have to get there the best way we know how. We have a coach high up in the sky, as it were, with a view of every obstacle to our success. It is He who can and will guide us moment by moment and step by step to our destiny. We have trouble seeing the goal line because of the monsters between us and it. (Still sticking with our football analogy here.) We have already shared in previous posts about some of the times we have been knocked off course. That is why it has taken so long for us to get to this place, wherever we actually are. The good news is, we are still standing! At this time we have a sense that our destiny is in the process of manifesting itself for good or for better. The battle is about to be joined in full force. We have been assured in our spirits of ultimate victory. It simply does not matter what comes between now and then. We are already winners. All of us are already winners. The battle set and we already know the outcome.
Eight days ago there were two minor earthquakes in California in the same day. We say they were minor because neither of them caused any apparent damage and were not even considered newsworthy events. They were each in the 4 point range on the Richter Scale, but were in less populated areas. The only reason we even know about them is the first one hit almost exactly 5:30 AM and shook our bed. We looked it up on the internet and sure enough, it was the first of two that hit that day.
Pastor Jack Hayford says that when there are things happening in the spritual realm, they are often accompanied by seisimic activity. It is as though the creation is in travail, groaning with birth pains. (Romans 8:22) For the time being, we are pondering the earthquakes and being attentive to what the Spirit is saying and doing. We all know spiritual insight is sometimes better than at other times. It seems like something is happening, but the what of that is still hidden. In the meantime, we must be about our Father's business as best we can.
It seems almost daily some kind of distraction comes along that seeks to change our direction. Some of those things are minor and some not so much so. Taking a day to attend meetings at headquarters is a minor, expected distraction, but a distraction nonetheless. I certainly did not do much blogging that day although I did get home with some new material as stated in the previous post. We also had two sets of out of town guests and two one-time functions to attend this week. Those are good things, the kinds of things that add the variety and spice to life. There was also the distraction of a friend being admitted to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation after some kind of episode in which she trashed her apartment in the middle of the night. That kind of thing is not expected nor enjoyable. We have also been solicited for three business opportunities in the past few weeks. These are things that may or may not lead anywhere, but would definitely require some investment of time. We were close to losing our focus in each case and pursuing something that might have been good at the possible risk of not continuing to do what the Lord has called us to do.
I really never have liked the idea of destiny. It just sounds too much like someone has already planned out our destination and there is nothing we can do to avoid it. Where is the free will in that? I think I am learning that having a destiny is similar to a football player taking a kick off and trying to run it into the opposite end zone for a score. The goal is set before us. All we are trying to do is get there the best way we know how. Thankfully as Christians we do not have to get there the best way we know how. We have a coach high up in the sky, as it were, with a view of every obstacle to our success. It is He who can and will guide us moment by moment and step by step to our destiny. We have trouble seeing the goal line because of the monsters between us and it. (Still sticking with our football analogy here.) We have already shared in previous posts about some of the times we have been knocked off course. That is why it has taken so long for us to get to this place, wherever we actually are. The good news is, we are still standing! At this time we have a sense that our destiny is in the process of manifesting itself for good or for better. The battle is about to be joined in full force. We have been assured in our spirits of ultimate victory. It simply does not matter what comes between now and then. We are already winners. All of us are already winners. The battle set and we already know the outcome.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Ordering of Events
I spent the day travelling to and from the headquarters of the Rescue Mission Alliance. For those of you who do not know, they are the folks who write me a couple paychecks each month. I am very thankful for my job. I may be even more thankful for my wife's job since she makes more money than I do, but that is another story. Usually once a month I go down there--to Oxnard, CA, the headquarters, for some kind of meeting. Today there were two of them so I saw lots of my fellow employees. I also learned a thing or two. Imagine that.
I have met a lot of great people since taking this position. And of course I never realized just how boring my life really was until I started working with people in recovery. I just want to say thank you. I am able to write this blog because they write me a couple checks each month. Thank you RMA!
The previous paragraph was something more than simple reminicenses. God always orders our lives according to His purposes. In fact, the Bible tells us, "...we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10) Sometimes we feel that our lives are a series of random events. However, it is clear from scripture that God not only knows what the events of our lives are, but He has prepared the works He wants us to do in advance. In that regard, He does what a football coach does in drawing up plays. He draws x's and o's on the board then draws the lines and directions to show what each of us is supposed to do as the play unfolds. For that reason, we must understand the things that come to us or against us, whether good or bad, all happen under the watchful eye of our loving Heavenly Father. If we can get that concept into our minds and from there to our spirits, we would live our lives entirely differently than we do. We would be free to do whatever God has for us to do at anytime without concerns about His care, guidance, protection, and provision. We would know in our spirits those things are already givens in the Kingdom of God. In fact it seems I have read something somewhere like not worrying about tomorrow because today has enough of its own problems.
Since, then, the course of our lives are ordered by God, it seems things should be going simply wonderfully all the time. Many of you know I am a classic introvert. People bug me sometimes. Yes, seriously. Sometimes I imagine how nice the commute would be to work if all y'all would just stay off the freeway. And if I stop to get a beverage at the local mini market will you please just pay with cash. Use exact change if you can. Oh, and you guys at the mission, (yes, staff too) sometimes I just need a little space and there really are a few things I cannot change anyway. I think I manage to deal with most people pretty well most of the time. In fact, most of you know I have made a concerted effort within the past few months to walk in love toward everybody. That does not mean I am going to quit being me. I can only please a few people a day. Maybe this is not your day.
Yes, I am making a point here. I am afraid it's another kind of an ugly one. I would apologize, but one of the things I learned today at the first meeting is that sometimes it is easier to be nice than to be honest. (So many things going through my head as I write that.) Along with the love walk, I have recently seen the importance of being honest. That story is too long to fit in this space, but somehow I know it is going to come up in the future, and probably sooner rather than later.
This blog and the spiritual warfare that initiated it are an unfolding revelation. Please, never make the mistake of thinking any of us have it all figured out. Heck, most of the time I'm surprised when I see the words come up on my monitor. Trust me, I am not that smart. If you see anything impressive in these pages, thank the Holy Spirit whom we hope is the real writer.
Ok so the point is, bad things are going to happen to good people. Often we bring them on ourselves through ignorance, stupidity, or rebellion. Sometimes they come by way of other men. (Deep breath, here is where it gets ugly.) Occasionally, those bad things come into our lives as a result of other people doing the wrong things toward us, or simply not doing the right things. Jesus said, "Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!" (Matthew 18:7) In other words, people are going to do the wrong things toward us sometimes. That is going to be between them and God. Those times give us the opportunity to work on our own love walk. Admittedly, it would have been better had they been walking love toward us, but for some reason they were not. That is going to be between them and God. Our responsibility is to continue to walk in love toward them. We have no doubt everyone reading this post has someone to forgive for something and, conversely, we all have things for which we need to ask forgiveness. God is gracious. In fact if you have been born again, He has already put those things under the blood of Jesus and will not bring them up again. We still need to deal with them by airing them out with the other party.
We would be remiss if we did not close this post with an invitation. Perhaps there are those of you out there who feel you have been offended, snubbed, insulted, or otherwise injured by something we have done--or did not do. We ask that you would make that known to us so that we can do whatever is possible to make it right. Maybe in reading some of this material you have come to realize we did not mean to do evil against you and have already found it in your heart to forgive us for it. Thank you. It would be very encouraging for us to hear about those things too.
I have met a lot of great people since taking this position. And of course I never realized just how boring my life really was until I started working with people in recovery. I just want to say thank you. I am able to write this blog because they write me a couple checks each month. Thank you RMA!
The previous paragraph was something more than simple reminicenses. God always orders our lives according to His purposes. In fact, the Bible tells us, "...we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them." (Ephesians 2:10) Sometimes we feel that our lives are a series of random events. However, it is clear from scripture that God not only knows what the events of our lives are, but He has prepared the works He wants us to do in advance. In that regard, He does what a football coach does in drawing up plays. He draws x's and o's on the board then draws the lines and directions to show what each of us is supposed to do as the play unfolds. For that reason, we must understand the things that come to us or against us, whether good or bad, all happen under the watchful eye of our loving Heavenly Father. If we can get that concept into our minds and from there to our spirits, we would live our lives entirely differently than we do. We would be free to do whatever God has for us to do at anytime without concerns about His care, guidance, protection, and provision. We would know in our spirits those things are already givens in the Kingdom of God. In fact it seems I have read something somewhere like not worrying about tomorrow because today has enough of its own problems.
Since, then, the course of our lives are ordered by God, it seems things should be going simply wonderfully all the time. Many of you know I am a classic introvert. People bug me sometimes. Yes, seriously. Sometimes I imagine how nice the commute would be to work if all y'all would just stay off the freeway. And if I stop to get a beverage at the local mini market will you please just pay with cash. Use exact change if you can. Oh, and you guys at the mission, (yes, staff too) sometimes I just need a little space and there really are a few things I cannot change anyway. I think I manage to deal with most people pretty well most of the time. In fact, most of you know I have made a concerted effort within the past few months to walk in love toward everybody. That does not mean I am going to quit being me. I can only please a few people a day. Maybe this is not your day.
Yes, I am making a point here. I am afraid it's another kind of an ugly one. I would apologize, but one of the things I learned today at the first meeting is that sometimes it is easier to be nice than to be honest. (So many things going through my head as I write that.) Along with the love walk, I have recently seen the importance of being honest. That story is too long to fit in this space, but somehow I know it is going to come up in the future, and probably sooner rather than later.
This blog and the spiritual warfare that initiated it are an unfolding revelation. Please, never make the mistake of thinking any of us have it all figured out. Heck, most of the time I'm surprised when I see the words come up on my monitor. Trust me, I am not that smart. If you see anything impressive in these pages, thank the Holy Spirit whom we hope is the real writer.
Ok so the point is, bad things are going to happen to good people. Often we bring them on ourselves through ignorance, stupidity, or rebellion. Sometimes they come by way of other men. (Deep breath, here is where it gets ugly.) Occasionally, those bad things come into our lives as a result of other people doing the wrong things toward us, or simply not doing the right things. Jesus said, "Woe to the world because of offenses! For offenses must come, but woe to that man by whom the offense comes!" (Matthew 18:7) In other words, people are going to do the wrong things toward us sometimes. That is going to be between them and God. Those times give us the opportunity to work on our own love walk. Admittedly, it would have been better had they been walking love toward us, but for some reason they were not. That is going to be between them and God. Our responsibility is to continue to walk in love toward them. We have no doubt everyone reading this post has someone to forgive for something and, conversely, we all have things for which we need to ask forgiveness. God is gracious. In fact if you have been born again, He has already put those things under the blood of Jesus and will not bring them up again. We still need to deal with them by airing them out with the other party.
We would be remiss if we did not close this post with an invitation. Perhaps there are those of you out there who feel you have been offended, snubbed, insulted, or otherwise injured by something we have done--or did not do. We ask that you would make that known to us so that we can do whatever is possible to make it right. Maybe in reading some of this material you have come to realize we did not mean to do evil against you and have already found it in your heart to forgive us for it. Thank you. It would be very encouraging for us to hear about those things too.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Where We Were is Where We Still Are
I had not really planned on writing this particular post at this time, but you know how that goes. Maybe you do not so without a lot of fanfare, just let me say the topics and the timing are, we hope, God given and Holy Spirit driven. By the way, we know more of you are reading the blog than have signed up as followers and we are very appreciative of your support. If you would like to make a comment, but not have it posted, you may do so any time. Simply add to your comment that you would like to have it not posted. We are counting on you to keep us balanced and toward the center as we continue this adventure into spiritual warfare. It is a new experience, but not a totally new one. As we said in an earlier post, the deception of being deceived is that we never know we are until we are freed from it. Should you see any deception, or think you do, please call it to our attention immediately and start praying about it so it can be removed.
September 14, 15, and 16, 2001 a group of us had set aside the weekend to have Mario Murillo come and minister to all who would come together in a united effort to proclaim the Gospel to the Santa Maria valley. We were attending the church that was spearheading the effort. Actually that church was the leading church due largely to the fact that two of the men in that congregation were the prime movers behind the event. That church had probably 110 people in regular attendance at the time making it certainly not the smallest church in the area, but nowhere near the largest. These two men and the volunteer corps they put together had invested countless hours and thousands of dollars to make the meetings happen.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ministry of Mario Murillo, he is a dynamic servant of God who ministers according to Pentecostal doctrine. He is Nicaraguan by ancestry. You can find out about him at http://www.mariomurillo.com/. He is, by our witness, spirit led in his life and ministry. However, like anyone who has a heart to do great things for God, he has been a victim of all sorts of malfeasance over the years. He as been attacked mostly from within the church at large. That leads us toward what happened when he came to Santa Maria.
In the pre-planning for the event, there were the typical fundraising, prayer meetings, and volunteer sign ups. Notably, there were very few churches represented in any of those efforts. It is not surprising that non-Pentecostal churches would not be thrilled to have a dynamic, Pentecostal minister hold a citywide meeting. Of special note, however, were that members of the two largest Pentecostal churches in town staying away by the hundreds.
It is not our purpose or our intent to criticize churches or their pastors. Our purpose is simply to expose the lack of unity and more of the workings of the religious spirit that rules here. One has to wonder why Mario could not get the support of the local churches who would, or should have, agreed with pretty much everything he preached those days. Or would they? I read something recently about not knowing one is deceived until we are freed from it. Now see, this is getting ugly again because we really have limited options as to why fellow laborers for Jesus would not welcome a man of Mario's stature, ministry ability and spiritual insight. Should we go on to point them out, we could be construed to be casting stones and of not walking in love toward them as perhaps they were not toward Mario. I am pretty sure one of the manifestations of a religious spirit is that those in authority will do anything to retain their power. Case in point, John 11:48 where the High Priest says, "If we leave him (Jesus) alone...the Romans will come and take away...our place..." (parentheses mine).
Mario was disappointed by the small turnout for his meeting and stayed just two of the three days he had planned. I remarked to the men who planned and funded the event that at least we had learned where we were at that time. Sitting here today, I have little confidence that anything has changed in that regard. I would love to be wrong about that, but the Holy Spirit is telling me that, were we to try something like that again now, the result would be very similar.
Some of us are sensing in our spirits that a very faint breeze is beginning to blow. Did you know we felt two earthquakes this past weekend? The Bible says the whole creation is groaning and laboring, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. (Romans 8:18-22) There are other, more localized things happening too. We are pondering them and how we should respond. Please pray for wisdom. We have been in training for this time entirely too long to lose our focus now. There has lately been a huge temptation to do the good things rather than the right things. It seems as though one thing after another comes along to try and throw us off course. So far so good, but challenges loom that we have not even identified. We really do solicit your prayers. Thank you for your support.
September 14, 15, and 16, 2001 a group of us had set aside the weekend to have Mario Murillo come and minister to all who would come together in a united effort to proclaim the Gospel to the Santa Maria valley. We were attending the church that was spearheading the effort. Actually that church was the leading church due largely to the fact that two of the men in that congregation were the prime movers behind the event. That church had probably 110 people in regular attendance at the time making it certainly not the smallest church in the area, but nowhere near the largest. These two men and the volunteer corps they put together had invested countless hours and thousands of dollars to make the meetings happen.
For those of you unfamiliar with the ministry of Mario Murillo, he is a dynamic servant of God who ministers according to Pentecostal doctrine. He is Nicaraguan by ancestry. You can find out about him at http://www.mariomurillo.com/. He is, by our witness, spirit led in his life and ministry. However, like anyone who has a heart to do great things for God, he has been a victim of all sorts of malfeasance over the years. He as been attacked mostly from within the church at large. That leads us toward what happened when he came to Santa Maria.
In the pre-planning for the event, there were the typical fundraising, prayer meetings, and volunteer sign ups. Notably, there were very few churches represented in any of those efforts. It is not surprising that non-Pentecostal churches would not be thrilled to have a dynamic, Pentecostal minister hold a citywide meeting. Of special note, however, were that members of the two largest Pentecostal churches in town staying away by the hundreds.
It is not our purpose or our intent to criticize churches or their pastors. Our purpose is simply to expose the lack of unity and more of the workings of the religious spirit that rules here. One has to wonder why Mario could not get the support of the local churches who would, or should have, agreed with pretty much everything he preached those days. Or would they? I read something recently about not knowing one is deceived until we are freed from it. Now see, this is getting ugly again because we really have limited options as to why fellow laborers for Jesus would not welcome a man of Mario's stature, ministry ability and spiritual insight. Should we go on to point them out, we could be construed to be casting stones and of not walking in love toward them as perhaps they were not toward Mario. I am pretty sure one of the manifestations of a religious spirit is that those in authority will do anything to retain their power. Case in point, John 11:48 where the High Priest says, "If we leave him (Jesus) alone...the Romans will come and take away...our place..." (parentheses mine).
Mario was disappointed by the small turnout for his meeting and stayed just two of the three days he had planned. I remarked to the men who planned and funded the event that at least we had learned where we were at that time. Sitting here today, I have little confidence that anything has changed in that regard. I would love to be wrong about that, but the Holy Spirit is telling me that, were we to try something like that again now, the result would be very similar.
Some of us are sensing in our spirits that a very faint breeze is beginning to blow. Did you know we felt two earthquakes this past weekend? The Bible says the whole creation is groaning and laboring, waiting for the sons of God to be revealed. (Romans 8:18-22) There are other, more localized things happening too. We are pondering them and how we should respond. Please pray for wisdom. We have been in training for this time entirely too long to lose our focus now. There has lately been a huge temptation to do the good things rather than the right things. It seems as though one thing after another comes along to try and throw us off course. So far so good, but challenges loom that we have not even identified. We really do solicit your prayers. Thank you for your support.
Friday, June 19, 2009
The Pillar and Ground of the Truth
...I write so that you may know how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. (1 Timothy 3:15)
The phrase we are interested in from this instruction of Paul to Timothy is "the pillar and ground of the truth". Before we deal with that however, let us take a few moments to be clear about what Paul is saying here. He is using the term house of God here not in terms of a physical building, but rather as Peter used it in his letter (1 Peter 2:5) to indicate the building made up of living stones, which are those people who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This group of people is what he calls by three different phrases in this one verse. He calls us variously, the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of the truth.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the origin of the word from which we get church, it comes from a compound Greek word that means called out. It indicates a group of people who are called out from among a larger group of people to become a people in their own right. They govern and take care of themselves so the group is seen to be different than the larger group from which it came. It is unfortunate that in today's society it is difficult to tell the Christians from the non-Christians Monday through Saturday. The sexual mores of society are fairly commonly accepted by those who call themselves Christians. The divorce rate among Christian couples is within a percentage point or two of their non-Christian counterparts when last we heard. Modern society has made serious inroads into the pulling down of Biblical morality amongst church attendees. The main reason behind these unfortunate statistics is that the church is not always careful to be the house of God, The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
When I was studying social science in college those many years ago, there were endless discussions as to whether truth is relative or absolute. Those of us who have been born of the Spirit know that truth comes from God alone. Therefore, truth is absolute. One person's truth is by definition every other person's truth or it is not truth at all. There are no more exceptions to this than there are to any of the various scientific laws. God put all those laws into effect and they are not going to change.
Scripture tells us that The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Pillars hold things up. Things rest on the ground. What Paul is saying here is that The Church holds up the truth. The truth rests on and is resident in The Church. Incidentally, the word translated ground in this verse is translated foundation in other Bible translations. The reason for his discussion is that since The Church holds up and upholds the truth, it is the purview and responsibility of The Church to stand for the truth. Herein lies the problem, we cannot even decide amongst ourselves what is truth. Each individual church group thinks they have the truth. The truth is that none of them does. It is The Church, get it, The WHOLE Church that is the pillar and ground of the truth. It is everyone who has made Jesus Christ Lord of his or her life that comprises The Church. This truth is denied in practice by all churches everywhere. (Did I say that out loud?) Yes, all churches everywhere deny the truth that they are nothing more than a part of the whole by their very practices.
Suppose Jesus were to walk into a church service where you attend on any given Sunday morning or whenever your main service is. Now wait, that's not fair because He probably is not going to do that. He could, but that is not His usual modus operandi. So then let us suppose the Holy Spirit sends someone into that church during a service. We are talking about a legitimate God sent minister. God sent him. Perhaps he is a prophet or just has a prophetic word. Perhaps he has been sent with something the church needs. It could be anything. Most churches would not receive that person and allow him to speak publicly or approach the platform. Of course we know that could be dangerous in so very many ways. Besides, God is a God of order and does not operate that way. Surely he would call the pastor to let him know he is sending someone. Wouldn't He? What real excuse could we possibly have for not receiving a prophet? Jesus said if we receive a prophet because he is a prophet or a righteous man because he is a righteous man, we will share in his reward. (Matthew 10:41)
The problem with bottling up truth in any particular church or denomination, other than the fact that it cannot be done anyway, is that it excludes everyone else. Besides all the other churches, there are so many disenfranchised Christians around nowadays. Many of them have been unwelcomed (That is artistic license for someone who was once welcomed and is no longer.) by the churches they were a part of for any number of supposed wrongs. Need I say, this is simply another working of the religious spirit? I am being charitable when I say that. The only other option is that these people have been unwelcomed because they challenged or otherwise irritated the pastor and he was unable to walk in love toward them so he told them they were no longer welcome. Oh gee that hurts! We could give you a list of people who have been victims of that exact situation. We have talked to some of them who have said they probably will never attend a church, any church, again.
The essence of this message simply put is, The Church is the sum of all its parts. Many, perhaps most, of those parts attend local gatherings on something of a regular basis. However, there are lots of other parts in onesies and twosies out there who are disenfranchised and therefore never get to be part of the truth dialogue. They have something to say, but more than that, when they are not heard we all miss out on what it is God has given them to contribute.
The phrase we are interested in from this instruction of Paul to Timothy is "the pillar and ground of the truth". Before we deal with that however, let us take a few moments to be clear about what Paul is saying here. He is using the term house of God here not in terms of a physical building, but rather as Peter used it in his letter (1 Peter 2:5) to indicate the building made up of living stones, which are those people who have received Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. This group of people is what he calls by three different phrases in this one verse. He calls us variously, the house of God, the church of the living God, and the pillar and ground of the truth.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the origin of the word from which we get church, it comes from a compound Greek word that means called out. It indicates a group of people who are called out from among a larger group of people to become a people in their own right. They govern and take care of themselves so the group is seen to be different than the larger group from which it came. It is unfortunate that in today's society it is difficult to tell the Christians from the non-Christians Monday through Saturday. The sexual mores of society are fairly commonly accepted by those who call themselves Christians. The divorce rate among Christian couples is within a percentage point or two of their non-Christian counterparts when last we heard. Modern society has made serious inroads into the pulling down of Biblical morality amongst church attendees. The main reason behind these unfortunate statistics is that the church is not always careful to be the house of God, The Church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
When I was studying social science in college those many years ago, there were endless discussions as to whether truth is relative or absolute. Those of us who have been born of the Spirit know that truth comes from God alone. Therefore, truth is absolute. One person's truth is by definition every other person's truth or it is not truth at all. There are no more exceptions to this than there are to any of the various scientific laws. God put all those laws into effect and they are not going to change.
Scripture tells us that The Church is the pillar and ground of the truth. Pillars hold things up. Things rest on the ground. What Paul is saying here is that The Church holds up the truth. The truth rests on and is resident in The Church. Incidentally, the word translated ground in this verse is translated foundation in other Bible translations. The reason for his discussion is that since The Church holds up and upholds the truth, it is the purview and responsibility of The Church to stand for the truth. Herein lies the problem, we cannot even decide amongst ourselves what is truth. Each individual church group thinks they have the truth. The truth is that none of them does. It is The Church, get it, The WHOLE Church that is the pillar and ground of the truth. It is everyone who has made Jesus Christ Lord of his or her life that comprises The Church. This truth is denied in practice by all churches everywhere. (Did I say that out loud?) Yes, all churches everywhere deny the truth that they are nothing more than a part of the whole by their very practices.
Suppose Jesus were to walk into a church service where you attend on any given Sunday morning or whenever your main service is. Now wait, that's not fair because He probably is not going to do that. He could, but that is not His usual modus operandi. So then let us suppose the Holy Spirit sends someone into that church during a service. We are talking about a legitimate God sent minister. God sent him. Perhaps he is a prophet or just has a prophetic word. Perhaps he has been sent with something the church needs. It could be anything. Most churches would not receive that person and allow him to speak publicly or approach the platform. Of course we know that could be dangerous in so very many ways. Besides, God is a God of order and does not operate that way. Surely he would call the pastor to let him know he is sending someone. Wouldn't He? What real excuse could we possibly have for not receiving a prophet? Jesus said if we receive a prophet because he is a prophet or a righteous man because he is a righteous man, we will share in his reward. (Matthew 10:41)
The problem with bottling up truth in any particular church or denomination, other than the fact that it cannot be done anyway, is that it excludes everyone else. Besides all the other churches, there are so many disenfranchised Christians around nowadays. Many of them have been unwelcomed (That is artistic license for someone who was once welcomed and is no longer.) by the churches they were a part of for any number of supposed wrongs. Need I say, this is simply another working of the religious spirit? I am being charitable when I say that. The only other option is that these people have been unwelcomed because they challenged or otherwise irritated the pastor and he was unable to walk in love toward them so he told them they were no longer welcome. Oh gee that hurts! We could give you a list of people who have been victims of that exact situation. We have talked to some of them who have said they probably will never attend a church, any church, again.
The essence of this message simply put is, The Church is the sum of all its parts. Many, perhaps most, of those parts attend local gatherings on something of a regular basis. However, there are lots of other parts in onesies and twosies out there who are disenfranchised and therefore never get to be part of the truth dialogue. They have something to say, but more than that, when they are not heard we all miss out on what it is God has given them to contribute.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Thank You
Often times when I am a guest speaker at a church or other kind of meeting where I am teaching, I begin by saying, "The opinions expressed by this speaker are not necessarly those of the staff or management of this church." As noted in an earlier post, I can be a smart aleck in virtually any situation. However, I do not really say that to be a smark aleck. If you are a regular reader of this blog, you already know I do not teach the same things the same way a lot of other people do. That may even be why you are still reading.
We know there are people who will attempt to make this whole exercise sound like some sort of vendetta or grudge session saying it is sardonic, sarcastic, or insincere. We do expect a lot of what is written here to rankle some people, but that is not the reason we are writing it. In fact it took all those experiences to bring us to the place of understanding where the real battle in the Santa Maria valley lies. This is really a thank you to all those people. There is not a perfect person among us, but God manages to use us all in spite of that--or maybe because of it. We will feel free to cast stones when we have arrived at perfection ourselves. At this point we do not even see any reason to begin to limber up our arms.
Every once in awhile it is nice to remember people who do nice or kind things to help us along our way. Above and beyond that, it is a good thing to have what has often been called "an attitude of gratitude" for what we have. From a Biblical perspective, regardless of what things come into our lives, they have all come through the hand of God. He weighs and measures the things that come into each of our lives so we never have to deal with anything beyond our ability. We actually came to believe that through the constant teaching of a former pastor. That seemed to be one area we were never quite able to come to grips with--why do things sometimes seem to work against us when we think we are doing the best we can. We now realize those trials only come to show us there is still room for some improvement in our lives. God is still taking care of everything that concerns us. However, when we do things we should not, or do not do things we should, we give the devil legal authority to do whatever he wants in our lives--and that is never in our best interests. He only comes to "...steal, kill, and destroy." (John 10:10)
We have been very careful not to mention people by name for the most part whether what they have done could be considered to be positive or negative. This is intentional and the basic reason for that deserves a little explanation with regard to our topic of thanks. Because nothing comes into our lives without God's permission, nothing that has come should be considered bad per se. Obviously, each of us can point to things in our lives we wish had worked out differently than they did. Most often those things seem to be results of our own bad actions or decisions--try as we might to make them someone else's fault. There have been times in our lives when other people could have done something to help us and did not. There have been other times when some people doing nothing would have worked out better for us. Yet, regardless of what anyone else did or did not do, God had our back as is said in the current vernacular. That is the modern term for what God promised through Isaiah, "...For the Lord will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rear guard." (Isaiah 52:12) God has your back. God has had our back throughout the course of our years and so to those who sought to do us evil or simply did not do the good you could have, thank you. Your actions have made us what we are and have brought us to the place we are now. Never before have we felt so confident were are exactly where we should be in our lives, doing exactly what we should be doing.
There is a large and growing group of people out there who are cheering our efforts here. Some of you have become followers of the blog, some have made comments on the blog, via email, on the phone or in person. To each and everyone of you a great big THANK YOU! Of course we have no real idea of who all might be reading the blog, but please consider this a thank you to you as well for your interest in what we are doing. God bless.
We know there are people who will attempt to make this whole exercise sound like some sort of vendetta or grudge session saying it is sardonic, sarcastic, or insincere. We do expect a lot of what is written here to rankle some people, but that is not the reason we are writing it. In fact it took all those experiences to bring us to the place of understanding where the real battle in the Santa Maria valley lies. This is really a thank you to all those people. There is not a perfect person among us, but God manages to use us all in spite of that--or maybe because of it. We will feel free to cast stones when we have arrived at perfection ourselves. At this point we do not even see any reason to begin to limber up our arms.
Every once in awhile it is nice to remember people who do nice or kind things to help us along our way. Above and beyond that, it is a good thing to have what has often been called "an attitude of gratitude" for what we have. From a Biblical perspective, regardless of what things come into our lives, they have all come through the hand of God. He weighs and measures the things that come into each of our lives so we never have to deal with anything beyond our ability. We actually came to believe that through the constant teaching of a former pastor. That seemed to be one area we were never quite able to come to grips with--why do things sometimes seem to work against us when we think we are doing the best we can. We now realize those trials only come to show us there is still room for some improvement in our lives. God is still taking care of everything that concerns us. However, when we do things we should not, or do not do things we should, we give the devil legal authority to do whatever he wants in our lives--and that is never in our best interests. He only comes to "...steal, kill, and destroy." (John 10:10)
We have been very careful not to mention people by name for the most part whether what they have done could be considered to be positive or negative. This is intentional and the basic reason for that deserves a little explanation with regard to our topic of thanks. Because nothing comes into our lives without God's permission, nothing that has come should be considered bad per se. Obviously, each of us can point to things in our lives we wish had worked out differently than they did. Most often those things seem to be results of our own bad actions or decisions--try as we might to make them someone else's fault. There have been times in our lives when other people could have done something to help us and did not. There have been other times when some people doing nothing would have worked out better for us. Yet, regardless of what anyone else did or did not do, God had our back as is said in the current vernacular. That is the modern term for what God promised through Isaiah, "...For the Lord will go before you, And the God of Israel will be your rear guard." (Isaiah 52:12) God has your back. God has had our back throughout the course of our years and so to those who sought to do us evil or simply did not do the good you could have, thank you. Your actions have made us what we are and have brought us to the place we are now. Never before have we felt so confident were are exactly where we should be in our lives, doing exactly what we should be doing.
There is a large and growing group of people out there who are cheering our efforts here. Some of you have become followers of the blog, some have made comments on the blog, via email, on the phone or in person. To each and everyone of you a great big THANK YOU! Of course we have no real idea of who all might be reading the blog, but please consider this a thank you to you as well for your interest in what we are doing. God bless.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Image of God--The Ability to Create
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1:1) God originally created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. He literally spoke them into existence with the words of His mouth. He went on from there to create everything else by the same method. He rested on the seventh day and that is as far as the Genesis account goes. In fact, God has never stopped creating. His work of creation continues to the present time except that now the work is carried on by His Spirit through The Church. The thing that trips us up when we try to understand exactly how all this creative process is accomplished is that we cannot comprehend with our minds the concept of a being who was not created. We can know it with our spirit, but still not completely understand it with our minds. That is the way it is with many things of the kindgom of God. Given that we cannot understand it, we have 2 choices, we either believe it or we do not. For the purposes of this writing (not to mention our firmly held convictions) we have chosen to believe. The larger problem here is whether we are soul centered or spirit centered. If this concept has to make sense to our finite, human minds we are soul centered. If, instead, we can believe it without it making sense simply because we believe the Bible to be the word of God, we are spirit centered. Faith is a function of the spirit, not of the soul. That almost sounds overly simplistic, but the fact is we can only believe what we cannot process from the world with our spirit.
The Greek language of the New Testament has two words for "know". One of them means to come to know, or to learn. The other indicates a knowing without having learned. We understand the first to be a knowing in the mind (soul) while the second is to know in the spirit. We know on the basis of scripture that God is (Hebrews 11:6) and that he created what we see out of things we do not see (Hebrews 11:3)
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27) In this verse, man means mankind, male and female. God was able to reproduce beings in his image by himself. A man needs a woman to reproduce beings in his image.
The Greek language of the New Testament has two words for "know". One of them means to come to know, or to learn. The other indicates a knowing without having learned. We understand the first to be a knowing in the mind (soul) while the second is to know in the spirit. We know on the basis of scripture that God is (Hebrews 11:6) and that he created what we see out of things we do not see (Hebrews 11:3)
So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. (Genesis 1:27) In this verse, man means mankind, male and female. God was able to reproduce beings in his image by himself. A man needs a woman to reproduce beings in his image.
I will never forget the birth of our first child. I had never seen a baby being born, at least not outside a reproduction on film in a high school physiology classroom. So there I was, watching the scene unfold when the next thing I knew there were two people laying on the delivery table where there had been only one mere minutes before. I realized in a very real sense, we had created another human life. More precisely, we had reproduced a human life and we had created a new, spiritual being. We had not created something from nothing as only God can do, but we had used his creative ability to reproduce after our own kind.
When man creates something, he has to have raw material with which to work. We create songs from pre-existing notes. We create various forms of artwork and functional products out of various materials. We create blogs out of known words and ideas. Sometimes we even become surprised when we write something we did not know we knew. This is the Holy Spirit interjecting his creative ability into our activities. We are able to do all these because God created us to be creative beings.
Let's tie this one up by going back to the beginning where God spoke all things into existence. Since God created all things by speaking words that had creative power, and since we are created in His image, it should occur to us that our words are more powerful than we have ever thought. We know how words affect us. Words can affect us positively or negatively. A word fitly spoken, the Bible says, "...is like apples of gold in settings of silver. (Proverbs 25:11) Words can cut and tear at our psyche and self image. Depending on who speaks the words to us, they can affect us for years to come or even throughout the remainder of our days. It is not a stretch to get from there to understanding there is creative power in our spirit inspired, spirit driven words. When we speak the words God puts into our spirits, we set events in motion that we ordinarly do not see or comprehend. Sometimes God is gracious and shows us the results of speaking those words. (Or perhaps in some cases He is gracious in not showing us that?) For the most part, however, we believe by faith God is answering our words with his own actions to bring about what we spoke. He promises that his word will not return void, but will accomplish the things he sent it forth to accomplish. (Isaiah 55:11) The fact we have so often overlooked in that equation is that we get to be His partners when we speak His words. His words, even though spoken by us are still His words. Speak the word!Sunday, June 14, 2009
The Image of God--Spirit, Soul, Body
This could easily be part 5 of "The Workings of a Religious Spirit" because one of those workings is the inability to distinguish between the works of the spirit and the works of the soul. It seems better to use a couple posts to discuss what it means to be created in the image of God. Most of what we have learned about the distinctions between spirit and soul we learned from the great Chinese theologian, Nee Tu-sheng who ministered in China before and after that country's fall into communism. For greater detail and greater insight, we highly recommend his book, The Spiritual Man which is now available in one volume. The book is written under his more famous pen name of Watchman Nee.
There are whole segments of the evangelical church that believe man is bipartite (two parts), having a corporeal (flesh) part and an incorporeal (not flesh) part. This understanding is not incorrect, it is simply incomplete. Anyone who cannot understand this simple truth from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12 will probably not understand our explanation either. Our incorporeal part is really two parts, spirit (the part of us that connects us to God) and soul (mind, emotions, and will). We really have three parts to us just as God has, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, this is at least a part of what it means to be created in the image of God. The reason for this misconception is largely historically, bad teaching, but there is more to it.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, they chose their will over God's will. The result was their souls came between their spirits and God's spirit which effectively meant their spirits died. They were unable to connect properly with God's spirit due to interference from the soul. They passed that condition down to the rest of the human race. The end result for us is that we are born natural men who cannot understand the things of God. They are foolishness to us. (1 Corinthians 1:18) This is why Jesus told Nicodemus we must be born again in order to see (perceive, understand) the kingdom of God. (John 3:3) Being born again returns our spirits and souls to the proper attitude (double meaning intended) so that we are able once again to have individual, direct contact with God through our spirit. It is usually better to move from a known area to an unknown area when attempting to understand something, so before we discuss the spirit, let us detail the workings of its worldly counterpart, the body.
Our bodies really only have one primary function. While it is true they house the spirit and soul during our earthly pilgrimage, their real function is to give us contact with the world. By world, of course, we mean the physical world, everything that can be perceived with the physical senses. Our bodies were created to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell this world. Were we in a different world with a different atmosphere, different light spectrum, different gravity, etc., our bodies would be ideally suited to that world. We might say the body is situated so that it receives input from this world. This information is then relayed to the soul where we process it according to what we think (mind) about it, how we feel (emotions) about it, and what we will do (will) about it. We then send that information from the soul back to the body to act on it. This is the whole of what the natural man does. The man who has been born again, however, has another factor to consider when evaluating input from the world.
The spirit is the God part of man. When it is working properly, the spirit keeps us in constant and direct contact with God. Our spirit has only this one function, communion with God. Like the body, our spirit takes in information, but the only information it receives is from God. Do not be confused here. Evil spirits do not work in our spirit. Their playground is our soul. It is in the mind and emotions they do their evil work. In fact, one of their primary methods is to attempt to convince us the entire spiritual world is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. To be a little more complete, there are also demons that affect our bodies, but we are outside the scope of this teaching.
The information our spirit receives from God is then sent to the soul for processing. We determine what we think about it, how we feel about it, and what we are going to do about it. That sounds hauntingly familiar. The problem is, even after we are born again and our spirit is functioning properly, we do not always know whether the information in our soul came through our body or our spirit. We also cannot ever discount demonic influences in the soul. Once we have processed the information we have received we decide what we will do about it. Primarily there are two options--do something or do nothing. Doing nothing is the easiest of the two choices, unless the information truly came through our spirit to do something. Then doing nothing becomes a very uncomfortable choice. If we decide to do something, we formulate what it is we want to do and send that information from the soul to the body to take action.
We could almost call this next item a mystery since a mystery in the New Testament is something that was heretofore hidden, but has now been revealed to us who operate in the spirit. The mystery that has been revealed is that Jesus is the body part of God, if you will. His earthly body was just like ours, but his resurrection body is different. However, put your thinking cap on, because while Jesus is now in the heavenly throne room in his resurrection body, he also left his body behind to continue his work on earth. We are Jesus' body on earth. He works through us. Of course he can intercede in any circumstance at anytime without our help, but when he does that, on the earth side we call it a miracle. In heaven, God works the same way we work. Wait, reverse that. On earth, we work the same way God works in heaven. He receives information from the world, processes that information, and acts on it. When he chooses to act via his body, that is us. We do the work. That is our job. We were created in the image of God to be his body on earth, to do his works. If that does not make you want to treat yourself (and other Christians) will a great deal more respect, there is not much else we can say to you about it.
There are whole segments of the evangelical church that believe man is bipartite (two parts), having a corporeal (flesh) part and an incorporeal (not flesh) part. This understanding is not incorrect, it is simply incomplete. Anyone who cannot understand this simple truth from 1 Thessalonians 5:23 and Hebrews 4:12 will probably not understand our explanation either. Our incorporeal part is really two parts, spirit (the part of us that connects us to God) and soul (mind, emotions, and will). We really have three parts to us just as God has, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thus, this is at least a part of what it means to be created in the image of God. The reason for this misconception is largely historically, bad teaching, but there is more to it.
When Adam and Eve sinned in the garden of Eden, they chose their will over God's will. The result was their souls came between their spirits and God's spirit which effectively meant their spirits died. They were unable to connect properly with God's spirit due to interference from the soul. They passed that condition down to the rest of the human race. The end result for us is that we are born natural men who cannot understand the things of God. They are foolishness to us. (1 Corinthians 1:18) This is why Jesus told Nicodemus we must be born again in order to see (perceive, understand) the kingdom of God. (John 3:3) Being born again returns our spirits and souls to the proper attitude (double meaning intended) so that we are able once again to have individual, direct contact with God through our spirit. It is usually better to move from a known area to an unknown area when attempting to understand something, so before we discuss the spirit, let us detail the workings of its worldly counterpart, the body.
Our bodies really only have one primary function. While it is true they house the spirit and soul during our earthly pilgrimage, their real function is to give us contact with the world. By world, of course, we mean the physical world, everything that can be perceived with the physical senses. Our bodies were created to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell this world. Were we in a different world with a different atmosphere, different light spectrum, different gravity, etc., our bodies would be ideally suited to that world. We might say the body is situated so that it receives input from this world. This information is then relayed to the soul where we process it according to what we think (mind) about it, how we feel (emotions) about it, and what we will do (will) about it. We then send that information from the soul back to the body to act on it. This is the whole of what the natural man does. The man who has been born again, however, has another factor to consider when evaluating input from the world.
The spirit is the God part of man. When it is working properly, the spirit keeps us in constant and direct contact with God. Our spirit has only this one function, communion with God. Like the body, our spirit takes in information, but the only information it receives is from God. Do not be confused here. Evil spirits do not work in our spirit. Their playground is our soul. It is in the mind and emotions they do their evil work. In fact, one of their primary methods is to attempt to convince us the entire spiritual world is nothing more than a figment of our imagination. To be a little more complete, there are also demons that affect our bodies, but we are outside the scope of this teaching.
The information our spirit receives from God is then sent to the soul for processing. We determine what we think about it, how we feel about it, and what we are going to do about it. That sounds hauntingly familiar. The problem is, even after we are born again and our spirit is functioning properly, we do not always know whether the information in our soul came through our body or our spirit. We also cannot ever discount demonic influences in the soul. Once we have processed the information we have received we decide what we will do about it. Primarily there are two options--do something or do nothing. Doing nothing is the easiest of the two choices, unless the information truly came through our spirit to do something. Then doing nothing becomes a very uncomfortable choice. If we decide to do something, we formulate what it is we want to do and send that information from the soul to the body to take action.
We could almost call this next item a mystery since a mystery in the New Testament is something that was heretofore hidden, but has now been revealed to us who operate in the spirit. The mystery that has been revealed is that Jesus is the body part of God, if you will. His earthly body was just like ours, but his resurrection body is different. However, put your thinking cap on, because while Jesus is now in the heavenly throne room in his resurrection body, he also left his body behind to continue his work on earth. We are Jesus' body on earth. He works through us. Of course he can intercede in any circumstance at anytime without our help, but when he does that, on the earth side we call it a miracle. In heaven, God works the same way we work. Wait, reverse that. On earth, we work the same way God works in heaven. He receives information from the world, processes that information, and acts on it. When he chooses to act via his body, that is us. We do the work. That is our job. We were created in the image of God to be his body on earth, to do his works. If that does not make you want to treat yourself (and other Christians) will a great deal more respect, there is not much else we can say to you about it.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 4
I do not really want to write this post. I am not at all sure I can pull it off without sounding overly harsh. Then again, the people reading this blog primarily fall into two camps. For the most part you will give us a fair hearing. We appreciate that and take it as a sacred charge to only be writing the truth as we understand it. The other group is reading with a critical eye because they think we are writing about them. They cannot afford to be wrong in matters of faith and practice so they have to find fault with the writing or the writer. Regardless of which camp you belong to, may we assure you, this is not about you. If, however, you should feel uncomfortable with yourself over anything you read here, we suggest you seek the Lord to find the real reason for your discomfort.
"Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth..." (2 Timothy 3:8) There were religious spirits working even in Egypt thousands of years ago. Moses had to deal with them. The magicians and sorcerers of Pharaoh's court had religion bottled up and packaged for their greatest good. When he should have been letting God's people leave Egypt, Pharaoh hardened his heart because his religious leaders convinced him Moses was not part of the religious elite. That was true. Moses was coming in the name of I Am to set God's people free from their bondage to the Egyptians. God always comes to set his people free from bondage. He is working on that in the Santa Maria valley right now.
Let us be precise about what was going on. Perhaps we will see a parallel or even two between the religious spirit Moses confronted and the one we are facing. The religion of Egypt was controlled by a group the Bible calls magicians and sorcerers. This is done lest we be confused about who is the good guy in this historical account. Jannes and Jambres are traditionally thought to be the leaders of these magicians and sorcerers. By way of their magic arts, this group was able to convince Pharaoh they were the ones to whom were given the power of God in the nation of Egypt. Along comes Moses telling them I Am has sent me to tell you to let Israel go. Pharaoh had to ask who is this I Am, and who is Moses, and why would he let the unpaid laborers who were building the infrastructure of Egypt simply leave.
Moses had a word from God. Pharaoh had a country that needed cheap labor. Jannes and Jambres had a religious structure that garnered its power by being a closed system that maintained the status quo. They resisted the truth. We know the end of the story. God had to finally destroy Egypt and kill the firstborn in all their houses before Pharaoh was willing to send the Hebrews away. Even then he had second thoughts and went after them with his whole army. Again, we know the end of that story. The words of warning for us follow immediately, "but they will progress no further for their folly will be manifest to all..." (vs. 9) Religious leaders who perpetuate a closed religious system hit a glass ceiling. They do not understand why they are not making any more progress than they are. It is clear from these verses the reason is they resist the truth. The problem, as we know, is they cannot see the truth because they are blinded by a religious spirit.
There are lots of other places we could go in talking about the workings of religious spirits, and perhaps we will reprise this series in the future, but there are other things we would like to teach that might fill in some blanks first. Stick with us for one more manifestation of a religious spirit and we will move onto something more fun.
"...who suppose that godliness is a means of gain..." (1 Timothy 6:5) Many people reading those words will doubtless think we are about to indict the word of faith teachers. In truth we probably have less of an axe to grind with most of them then with certain other groups. In fact most of them seem to be outside the influence of religious spirits so they are of no concern in this case. The reason our minds go there is because we have mostly been taught that the gain Paul is talking about here is strictly, or at least primarily, financial.
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the heretical Scientology cult (guess how we feel about Scientology) is purported to have said the best way to make a lot of money is to start a religion. He then went on to prove his hypothesis by becoming a wealthy man. We have never found there to be a great deal of money in the business of religion, but perhaps that is because we were never very good at it. In any event, gain cannot be seen as simply dollars in the bank or the worldly things money can buy. It is actually better summed up as "more". This deception of a religious spirit thinks more is better, more money, more people, more buildings, more buses, more books authored, more Cd's distributed, etc. Hear me on this, there is nothing wrong with any of that--unless it leads to arrogance, which it certainly can. A byproduct of doing the right things before God is his material blessing. Therefore, we cannot simply look at a person's material substance and judge whether he is being influenced by a religious spirit. A person who is so influenced will, probably sooner than later, give himself away. Just as a gambler with a tell, this person will brag, as humbly as he can, about the people he ministers to, the money his ministry generates, or the building project he is planning. There will be a smugness about him that cannot be explained away simply as a personality trait. Did we mention he is not very good at receiving counsel from anyone who has not reached his level? That is all we are going to say about that. We could give examples, but we will not--at least not in the blog.
"Now as Jannes and Jambres resisted Moses, so do these also resist the truth..." (2 Timothy 3:8) There were religious spirits working even in Egypt thousands of years ago. Moses had to deal with them. The magicians and sorcerers of Pharaoh's court had religion bottled up and packaged for their greatest good. When he should have been letting God's people leave Egypt, Pharaoh hardened his heart because his religious leaders convinced him Moses was not part of the religious elite. That was true. Moses was coming in the name of I Am to set God's people free from their bondage to the Egyptians. God always comes to set his people free from bondage. He is working on that in the Santa Maria valley right now.
Let us be precise about what was going on. Perhaps we will see a parallel or even two between the religious spirit Moses confronted and the one we are facing. The religion of Egypt was controlled by a group the Bible calls magicians and sorcerers. This is done lest we be confused about who is the good guy in this historical account. Jannes and Jambres are traditionally thought to be the leaders of these magicians and sorcerers. By way of their magic arts, this group was able to convince Pharaoh they were the ones to whom were given the power of God in the nation of Egypt. Along comes Moses telling them I Am has sent me to tell you to let Israel go. Pharaoh had to ask who is this I Am, and who is Moses, and why would he let the unpaid laborers who were building the infrastructure of Egypt simply leave.
Moses had a word from God. Pharaoh had a country that needed cheap labor. Jannes and Jambres had a religious structure that garnered its power by being a closed system that maintained the status quo. They resisted the truth. We know the end of the story. God had to finally destroy Egypt and kill the firstborn in all their houses before Pharaoh was willing to send the Hebrews away. Even then he had second thoughts and went after them with his whole army. Again, we know the end of that story. The words of warning for us follow immediately, "but they will progress no further for their folly will be manifest to all..." (vs. 9) Religious leaders who perpetuate a closed religious system hit a glass ceiling. They do not understand why they are not making any more progress than they are. It is clear from these verses the reason is they resist the truth. The problem, as we know, is they cannot see the truth because they are blinded by a religious spirit.
There are lots of other places we could go in talking about the workings of religious spirits, and perhaps we will reprise this series in the future, but there are other things we would like to teach that might fill in some blanks first. Stick with us for one more manifestation of a religious spirit and we will move onto something more fun.
"...who suppose that godliness is a means of gain..." (1 Timothy 6:5) Many people reading those words will doubtless think we are about to indict the word of faith teachers. In truth we probably have less of an axe to grind with most of them then with certain other groups. In fact most of them seem to be outside the influence of religious spirits so they are of no concern in this case. The reason our minds go there is because we have mostly been taught that the gain Paul is talking about here is strictly, or at least primarily, financial.
L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of the heretical Scientology cult (guess how we feel about Scientology) is purported to have said the best way to make a lot of money is to start a religion. He then went on to prove his hypothesis by becoming a wealthy man. We have never found there to be a great deal of money in the business of religion, but perhaps that is because we were never very good at it. In any event, gain cannot be seen as simply dollars in the bank or the worldly things money can buy. It is actually better summed up as "more". This deception of a religious spirit thinks more is better, more money, more people, more buildings, more buses, more books authored, more Cd's distributed, etc. Hear me on this, there is nothing wrong with any of that--unless it leads to arrogance, which it certainly can. A byproduct of doing the right things before God is his material blessing. Therefore, we cannot simply look at a person's material substance and judge whether he is being influenced by a religious spirit. A person who is so influenced will, probably sooner than later, give himself away. Just as a gambler with a tell, this person will brag, as humbly as he can, about the people he ministers to, the money his ministry generates, or the building project he is planning. There will be a smugness about him that cannot be explained away simply as a personality trait. Did we mention he is not very good at receiving counsel from anyone who has not reached his level? That is all we are going to say about that. We could give examples, but we will not--at least not in the blog.
Thursday, June 11, 2009
The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 3
I just realized I do not really want to deal with this whole list in any kind of detail. I guess I can do that. After all, it is my blog. Well, ok so it is really Jesus' blog, but I am writing it. At this point I believe I have His permission to hit some of the high points and leave some of the others undone for the time being.
"having a form of godliness, but denying its power." (vs. 5) A form of godliness means what we see only looks like godliness. It is not true godliness. What does godliness look like anyway? Is it men in suits with white shirts and ties and women in long dresses with tresses to match? Oh gosh, I hope not. I do have a few white shirts, but they are leftovers from the brokerage business, not the religion business. Maybe it is a church service where everyone gets a little crazy in praise, moves around, (kind of like dancing) and gets really LOUD? I certainly would not say the people so attired or so inspired are not godly, but the New Testament is replete with references to the fact that our godliness comes from within. Adam and Eve were clothed in light before the fall. That light came from the inside and shone outward just as a bird's feathers or an animal's fur comes from the inside and grows outward. When we depend on external factors to determine godliness, we are instead meeting the definition of religion.
There is no power in religion. We have already talked about this. Religion is a set of rules made by man. There are two different words translated power in the New Testament. I will spare you the Greek writing and even the transliterations. The first word is probably what comes to mind when we think of the word power. It is the ability to accomplish something. That can range anywhere from the power of a tornado to tear up everything in its path to our ability to pick up a straight pin we see laying on the floor. The other word for power is better translated authority. It is the God-given, and usually man delegated, authority to accomplish a purpose. One of the best scriptural examples (and a personal favorite) of how the two concepts work together actually comes from the Old Testament. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a duel of sorts on mount Carmel. As you recall the story recorded in 1 Kings 18:16-39, Elijah challenged King Ahab to call all his prophets (Yes, his prophets.) together on Mount Carmel. Ahab practiced a form of godliness sans the power. You can read the story. The point is Elijah had the authority to call down fire from heaven, but God provided the power and sent the lightening. I have to add a personal note here. Verse 17 of this account records Ahab asking Elijah, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" The Holy Spirit asked me that question when I first encountered the religious spirit in the Santa Maria Valley over 20 years ago. I do not know if you have ever shared a laugh with the Holy Spirit, but we definitely chuckled over that one, or maybe I chuckled and he just smiled.
We gave a couple examples of what a form of godliness looks like earlier. We have not discussed what denying its power means. We must understand that no Christian (we hope) actually expresses a denial of God's power. In fact, various groups such as many Presbyterians and most Southern Baptists accord virtually all power to God to accomplish anything. What is more often done, and even this is done ignorantly, is to omit the power of God. Whole groups of evangelical Christians have doctrinally removed the Holy Spirit from doing much of anything in these last days. The problem with this position is really very simple, or at least it seems so to me. Jesus said, "...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me..." (Acts 1:8) We can easily see the power to be witnesses comes with the Holy Spirit. This is the ability to be witnesses. Did they not already have the ability to be witnesses? They were, after all, witnesses of the things Jesus said and did. A witness testifies, tells what he knows. That is the easy part. The difficult part is who the witness is telling. In this case, the disciples would be witnessing to virtually everyone, but always more or less under the watchful eye of the Pharisees and Saducees, the religious powers that be at the time. There is always a twofold problem in telling someone who has authority in an area anything. First, one needs to be certain of the facts. Secondly, one must have the courage to actually challenge the authorities. The disciples had the facts. They were witnesses, but the Holy Spirit gave them the courage, the ability, to confront the error of the religious leaders. The error, we know, was not so much theological as that they were being influenced by a religious spirit. The whole purpose of our exercise here is to demonstrate the underlying reason for the error. It is not about deciding who is right and who is wrong. God knows, and we know, any of us can be wrong at any given time. I sincerely doubt there is anyone who is wrong about everything or right about everything. A religious spirit will not allow a person outside it's closed circle to be right if that person disagrees with the group inside the circle. Likewise, the people inside the circle are always right whenever they disagree with people outside the circle. I once left a local church after just a few weeks when I realized I could never be right if I disagreed with the pastor. I am sorry, but I believe I am right sometimes. I am going to assume that since you are reading this, you agree.
How did we get here from there? We were discussing the power source, if you will, the Holy Spirit. There are some powerless people, church fellowships, and whole denominations because they do not understand the present working of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it was good for him to go away because the Holy Spirit could not come until he left. (John 16:7) This is a shockingly simple revelation that many people have either overlooked or simply never thought much about. Each person of the Godhead has his own time for ministry on the earth. In those times, or dispensations (not talking dispensational theology here) we see only one of the persons of the Godhead doing the main work on earth. God the Father worked until Jesus began his ministry. Jesus worked for a brief period of time as a man and when he left, he sent the Holy Spirit to continue his work until he comes back again. Do not let that be so simple it confounds you.
Most of us have seen the bumper sticker that reads, "Know Jesus Know Peace, No Jesus No Peace". It is a clever concept and certainly true. However, it is equally true to say, "Have Holy Spirit Have Power, No Holy Spirit No Power." We are, after all, spiritual beings clothed in flesh. Flesh has its own limitations and no source of real power without the Holy Spirit. There are many more people attempting to minister for God in their own power, the power of the soul (mind, emotions and will) than we would like to believe. Many more of us frequently lapse back into our minds when we miss what the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate to us through our spirits. How much farther ahead we would be were we to not do anything at all until we knew what the Holy Spirit is telling us.
"having a form of godliness, but denying its power." (vs. 5) A form of godliness means what we see only looks like godliness. It is not true godliness. What does godliness look like anyway? Is it men in suits with white shirts and ties and women in long dresses with tresses to match? Oh gosh, I hope not. I do have a few white shirts, but they are leftovers from the brokerage business, not the religion business. Maybe it is a church service where everyone gets a little crazy in praise, moves around, (kind of like dancing) and gets really LOUD? I certainly would not say the people so attired or so inspired are not godly, but the New Testament is replete with references to the fact that our godliness comes from within. Adam and Eve were clothed in light before the fall. That light came from the inside and shone outward just as a bird's feathers or an animal's fur comes from the inside and grows outward. When we depend on external factors to determine godliness, we are instead meeting the definition of religion.
There is no power in religion. We have already talked about this. Religion is a set of rules made by man. There are two different words translated power in the New Testament. I will spare you the Greek writing and even the transliterations. The first word is probably what comes to mind when we think of the word power. It is the ability to accomplish something. That can range anywhere from the power of a tornado to tear up everything in its path to our ability to pick up a straight pin we see laying on the floor. The other word for power is better translated authority. It is the God-given, and usually man delegated, authority to accomplish a purpose. One of the best scriptural examples (and a personal favorite) of how the two concepts work together actually comes from the Old Testament. Elijah challenges the prophets of Baal to a duel of sorts on mount Carmel. As you recall the story recorded in 1 Kings 18:16-39, Elijah challenged King Ahab to call all his prophets (Yes, his prophets.) together on Mount Carmel. Ahab practiced a form of godliness sans the power. You can read the story. The point is Elijah had the authority to call down fire from heaven, but God provided the power and sent the lightening. I have to add a personal note here. Verse 17 of this account records Ahab asking Elijah, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" The Holy Spirit asked me that question when I first encountered the religious spirit in the Santa Maria Valley over 20 years ago. I do not know if you have ever shared a laugh with the Holy Spirit, but we definitely chuckled over that one, or maybe I chuckled and he just smiled.
We gave a couple examples of what a form of godliness looks like earlier. We have not discussed what denying its power means. We must understand that no Christian (we hope) actually expresses a denial of God's power. In fact, various groups such as many Presbyterians and most Southern Baptists accord virtually all power to God to accomplish anything. What is more often done, and even this is done ignorantly, is to omit the power of God. Whole groups of evangelical Christians have doctrinally removed the Holy Spirit from doing much of anything in these last days. The problem with this position is really very simple, or at least it seems so to me. Jesus said, "...you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to me..." (Acts 1:8) We can easily see the power to be witnesses comes with the Holy Spirit. This is the ability to be witnesses. Did they not already have the ability to be witnesses? They were, after all, witnesses of the things Jesus said and did. A witness testifies, tells what he knows. That is the easy part. The difficult part is who the witness is telling. In this case, the disciples would be witnessing to virtually everyone, but always more or less under the watchful eye of the Pharisees and Saducees, the religious powers that be at the time. There is always a twofold problem in telling someone who has authority in an area anything. First, one needs to be certain of the facts. Secondly, one must have the courage to actually challenge the authorities. The disciples had the facts. They were witnesses, but the Holy Spirit gave them the courage, the ability, to confront the error of the religious leaders. The error, we know, was not so much theological as that they were being influenced by a religious spirit. The whole purpose of our exercise here is to demonstrate the underlying reason for the error. It is not about deciding who is right and who is wrong. God knows, and we know, any of us can be wrong at any given time. I sincerely doubt there is anyone who is wrong about everything or right about everything. A religious spirit will not allow a person outside it's closed circle to be right if that person disagrees with the group inside the circle. Likewise, the people inside the circle are always right whenever they disagree with people outside the circle. I once left a local church after just a few weeks when I realized I could never be right if I disagreed with the pastor. I am sorry, but I believe I am right sometimes. I am going to assume that since you are reading this, you agree.
How did we get here from there? We were discussing the power source, if you will, the Holy Spirit. There are some powerless people, church fellowships, and whole denominations because they do not understand the present working of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said it was good for him to go away because the Holy Spirit could not come until he left. (John 16:7) This is a shockingly simple revelation that many people have either overlooked or simply never thought much about. Each person of the Godhead has his own time for ministry on the earth. In those times, or dispensations (not talking dispensational theology here) we see only one of the persons of the Godhead doing the main work on earth. God the Father worked until Jesus began his ministry. Jesus worked for a brief period of time as a man and when he left, he sent the Holy Spirit to continue his work until he comes back again. Do not let that be so simple it confounds you.
Most of us have seen the bumper sticker that reads, "Know Jesus Know Peace, No Jesus No Peace". It is a clever concept and certainly true. However, it is equally true to say, "Have Holy Spirit Have Power, No Holy Spirit No Power." We are, after all, spiritual beings clothed in flesh. Flesh has its own limitations and no source of real power without the Holy Spirit. There are many more people attempting to minister for God in their own power, the power of the soul (mind, emotions and will) than we would like to believe. Many more of us frequently lapse back into our minds when we miss what the Holy Spirit is trying to communicate to us through our spirits. How much farther ahead we would be were we to not do anything at all until we knew what the Holy Spirit is telling us.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 2
They speak lies in hypocrisy and their consciences are seared. (1 Timothy 4:2) As you may have already noticed, the further we delve into the workings of a religious spirit, the more nuances we discover. The people who manifest these particular symptoms are not by nature this way. That is, by the new nature given to them by Jesus Christ they are not this way. They have been seduced into believing a lie themselves. In some cases it was as simple as believing their own press. They become legends in their own minds (read as soul). They likely minister to lots of people or lots and lots of people and are loved by the people to whom they minister. Perhaps the most charitable thing we can say about them is, had they not been influenced by a religious spirit, they would be practically perfect in every way. It occurs to me there is a corollary between a minister so affected and the apostle Paul in dealing with his thorn in the flesh. He says plainly that the thorn was a "messenger of Satan". (2 Corinthians ) That is a digression we will certainly deal with in a future post. Here is the rub. These men and women so affected are intelligent, attractive, charismatic, schooled, and principled individuals who want nothing more than to do their best work for God in extending his kingdom. However, they have been deceived into speaking lies and becoming hypocrites whose consciences have been seared by continuing in the lies.
I must give a bit of anecdotal evidence here in hopes of adding some clarity. If you have followed this blog from the beginning or have caught up on past posts you know that we have dealt with various ministers who we finally realized were being affected by a religious spirit. In one particular instance, we had been asked to leave a church. Several years later, I was personally invited to return to fellowship there. I declined the invitation because I did not sense anything had really changed in the intervening years. Apparently, the pastor must have really wanted our family to return for whatever reason because he called my wife a few weeks later to reiterate to her that we would indeed be welcomed back. This pastor was also acquainted with my brother in law. At some point in or around that period of time, the pastor told my brother in law that he had opened the door for us to return. About six months later as I recall the time frame, I had occasion to speak with a denomination official who had some authority over that church. I told him the pastor and I had made our peace and that we had been welcomed back. In a follow up conversation, the official told me the pastor had said he had never said we would be allowed to return to that church. He actually said it three separate times to three different people. This could be a totally confounding situation unless one knows this pastor to be a pathological liar who cannot differentiate fact from fiction. I believe he honestly thought he had told everyone the truth. I cannot explain how that happened except to say he was blinded by a spirit into speaking a lie. That lie became a hypocritical display because he was saying one thing to one person and something different to another. I do not doubt that were he to read this post, he would not even recognize himself as the person who did what I have just described. In that case, it would be evident his conscience is seared to the point he could not accept the possibility these were actually his actions. I should add a caveat here. My best guess is the pastor will continue in this condition until the religious spirit is removed and his eyes are opened to see the truth. Why would I say that? I know this pastor. I do not believe him to be a liar. I think he would be as aghast as you are to be reading this and wondering how this kind of situation can take place in the household of God.
I must give a bit of anecdotal evidence here in hopes of adding some clarity. If you have followed this blog from the beginning or have caught up on past posts you know that we have dealt with various ministers who we finally realized were being affected by a religious spirit. In one particular instance, we had been asked to leave a church. Several years later, I was personally invited to return to fellowship there. I declined the invitation because I did not sense anything had really changed in the intervening years. Apparently, the pastor must have really wanted our family to return for whatever reason because he called my wife a few weeks later to reiterate to her that we would indeed be welcomed back. This pastor was also acquainted with my brother in law. At some point in or around that period of time, the pastor told my brother in law that he had opened the door for us to return. About six months later as I recall the time frame, I had occasion to speak with a denomination official who had some authority over that church. I told him the pastor and I had made our peace and that we had been welcomed back. In a follow up conversation, the official told me the pastor had said he had never said we would be allowed to return to that church. He actually said it three separate times to three different people. This could be a totally confounding situation unless one knows this pastor to be a pathological liar who cannot differentiate fact from fiction. I believe he honestly thought he had told everyone the truth. I cannot explain how that happened except to say he was blinded by a spirit into speaking a lie. That lie became a hypocritical display because he was saying one thing to one person and something different to another. I do not doubt that were he to read this post, he would not even recognize himself as the person who did what I have just described. In that case, it would be evident his conscience is seared to the point he could not accept the possibility these were actually his actions. I should add a caveat here. My best guess is the pastor will continue in this condition until the religious spirit is removed and his eyes are opened to see the truth. Why would I say that? I know this pastor. I do not believe him to be a liar. I think he would be as aghast as you are to be reading this and wondering how this kind of situation can take place in the household of God.
They will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy (vs. 2) unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good (vs 3) lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (vs 4) having a form of godliness, but denying its power (vs 5).
Take a deep breath. Here we go. We have already dealt with people who become inflated with their accomplishments supposing they have worked them by their own abilities. They put themselves first place. Oh no, not before God certainly, at least that is what they think. There really is not any way I know of to soften this other than to tell you about my personal epiphany regarding this this truth. Perhaps I should simply call it what it was, a convicting event by the Holy Spirit. This was many years ago so I am long since finished beating myself up about the attitude I held. Besides, I have also decided I am not that much different in this regard than you are.
I teach. That's what I do. I love to teach. In order for me to teach, someone has to learn. I love to see people learn. I love it when the lights go on and those I am teaching really understand. One day (as I said, it has been awhile now) I was thinking about just how much I enjoyed being in front of a crowd teaching. If you have seen me teach live, you know I can add a little humor and occasionally a flourish of showmanship. As I was thinking about all this the Holy Spirit spoke to my spirit. He said, "You know you really enjoy being in the limelight and being the center of attention even more than you enjoy teaching anything of value." OUCH! Hey, I just realized I do not really enjoy that kind of limelight anymore at this point in my life. Perhaps that is progress?
Now that we have a little better idea of what this listing is all about, we can easily see the real problem. More is better and God becomes a means to an end. The end in this case is getting what is important to us regardless of how it might affect anyone else. It is all about us. We want more money, we want to be proud of ourselves and boast about our accomplishments. I am not all that good at math, but the way I add those things, it appears we are giving ourselves credit for what God has done. With one more mathematical function that might just add up to the definition of blasphemy, i.e., taking credit to oneself for something God has done.
I do not know about you, but I am almost feeling like I need a shower after reading the rest of the list. Nevertheless, if we press on we may be able to finish this message sometime before Jesus comes back. So what about "...unholy, (vs. 2). Sounds to me like all those are violations of the second greatest commandment, "Love your neighbor as you love yourself." (Luke 10:27) Oh, but we were not talking about sin per se. We were talking about the affect of a religious spirit causing these kinds of things to be done. Unholy is obviously the opposite of holy which essentially means to "keep separate". There should be no discrimination of any sort in the church facilities. This is actually a federal law, by the way. Because virtually all churches have 501(c)(3) income tax exemptions from the federal government, they are required by law not to discriminate. Surely I am not the only person who has ever been told I am not welcome in a particular church. (Churches are exempt from having to become a 501(c)(3) corporation and they can still be tax exempt. Send an email or post a comment if you would like more information.) The point is, we let politics creep into the church in so many ways we do not even realize. When the church acts like a worldly institution have we not become unholy?
This post is quickly becoming unwieldy. On to Part 3.
Monday, June 8, 2009
The Workings of a Religious Spirit, Part 1
We have already noted we can learn much about the workings of a religious spirit by observing how they reacted to the ministry of Jesus and we have looked at a couple examples. There are many other things Jesus said that demonstrated he knew the religious leaders of his time were being influenced by religious spirits. We will deal with them in a later posting. It is interesting that the New Testament is full of the manifestations of religious spirits, but if one has never dealt with a religious spirit, they appear to be generic warnings of things to beware of or avoid all together. Some of these we will look at in a little more detail as Paul spent a considerable amount of precious space in the Pastoral Epistles dealing with religious spirits. He did not identify them as such by name, but the manifestations are unmistakable to the discerning spirit.
Perhaps a small warning is in order as we move through this list. Everyone will find they have been influenced by a religious spirit to a larger or smaller degree. It is inevitable that when a spirit controls a geographical region, virtually everyone who spends any amount of time in that area will be affected either directly or indirectly. When you see yourself in any of the examples to follow the appropriate response would not be to become angry with his writer (remember, we do not fight flesh and blood). The appropriate response would be to immediately confess and repent. Confession places the actions we have done in ignorant agreement with the spirit to be placed under the blood of Jesus. They are literally blotted out by the blood and become as though they had never happened. Step two would be to repent--turn away from any agreement with the spirit to never revisit those actions.
I Timothy 4 and 2 Timothy 3 read like listings of the manifestations of a religious spirit. Let us look at the two lists and then break them down separately to see how the religious spirit manifests. They depart from the faith and give heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons (4:1). They speak lies in hypocrisy and their consciences are seared (vs. 2). These pairs of manifestations go together as we will explain directly. In his second letter to Timothy, chapter 3, Paul continues his list. They will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy (vs. 2) unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good (vs 3) lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God (vs 4) having a form of godliness, but denying its power (vs 5). Paul then takes a break from his listing to tell Timothy how to deal with this spirit before continuing. He says to preach the word and to be ready all the time to convince, rebuke, and exhort with patience and teaching (4:2). The list continues, they will not endure sound doctrine, but will find their own teachers to tell them what they want to hear (vs. 3) because they turn away from the truth (vs. 4). As you can see, portions of this list are duplicated so we will not need to deal with every one of them individually.
They depart from the faith. This is not an apostasy from Christianity per se, but rather a departure from the true faith, or what we call orthodox Christianity. Perhaps at this point we should ask, "Who determines what is orthodox Christian doctrine?" The answer is very simple and taken directly from scripture. It is the genuine faith. Paul encourages Timothy to stir it up (2 Timothy 1:6). It is resident in every born again believer. It has been passed down from generation to generation, from person to person, teacher to student, parent to child always overseen by God himself. Ok, but how do we know we have this genuine faith and not an adulterated version perpetuated by a religious spirit? Jesus promised, "...when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth..." (John 16:13). Why then are some deceived and some not? Everyone is deceived to a greater or lesser extent. However, when one is aware of that possibility and acknowledges it, the Holy Spirit will move him or her out of the darkness and into the light.A person opens himself to deception, "...when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed." (James 1:14) When our desires are first for God and his kingdom righteousness we are less likely to be deceived at all and our stay in deception will be greatly shortened. To say it another way, we become deceived when we operate in our soul (mind, emotions and will). The antidote is to live in the spirit. The soul, whether redeemed or not, is the devil's playground until it comes into submission to the spirit. So why do people and even church leaders, find it so difficult to do that? Everyone finds it difficult because it is contrary to the sin nature we are all born with and we have precious few examples nowadays of anyone doing it right. Church leaders have a double dip deception dilemma in that the demons of hell work overtime to distract and neutralize them from their main task which, as we know is, "...the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry..." (Ephesians 4:12)
Head's up. This is important. Church leaders are far and away more likely to be seduced by a religious spirit because it takes the slightest detour into the soul to set up the deception. The instant a church leader begins to think he or she is accomplishing anything of value because of his or her education, experience, intellect or general, intrinsic ability--never mind the fact they actually have an acknowledged position in the church--WHOOSH! (That's the sound of that person being sucked into the vortex of deception.)
We certainly did not get far into the list of the workings of the religious spirit in this installment. Watch for Part 2 soon. God bless, and pray for your pastor, teacher, or other minister.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
We Have Identified the Enemy
The spiritual battle we are fighting in the Santa Maria valley is against a religious spirit. It would be a good idea then to understand the manifestations of a religious spirit so we can recognize them. Before we get ahead of ourselves, there are probably those of you out there wondering how we know it is a religious spirit at all. That is a totally fair question. The answer is really twofold because we know spirits by witnessing their manifestations and understanding what we are seeing. We also know spirits by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us to lead us into all truth. The Holy Spirit, witnessing to our own spirit has made it clear we are indeed battling a religious spirit. It was one of those aha moments when that happened. We had been seeing the manifestations of the religious spirit for years, but had not understood that what we were seeing were in fact those manifestations. Let me explain further.
It was a religious spirit that Jesus confronted in his dealings with the church authorities during his earthly ministry. The Pharisees and the Sadducee's had become the religious authority at the time. Although the two groups disagreed on some doctrinal issues they nevertheless created a closed fellowship of religious leaders. While we could give detailed accounts from the Gospels of the kind of things they did, it would not be an efficient use of time and space to go into many of those here. To cite just two examples of what was going on let us remember the man who was born blind whom Jesus healed, and from Luke 13, the woman who had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years and could not stand up straight. In the first example from John chapter 9, Jesus healed a man who was blind from birth. Jesus violated the religious rules because he performed that healing on the Sabbath. Note these were rules made by man, well intentioned, but misguided. The parents of the formerly blind man would not talk to the religious leaders about the healing because the religious leaders believed Jesus to be a fraud. The parents were afraid if they challenged the powers that be, they would be put out of the synagogue. We see the religious leaders caring more about the observance of the Sabbath than about a blind man being healed. We also see people being afraid to speak out against the religious leaders for fear of being removed from fellowship. In the second example we also see a healing done on the Sabbath. The synagogue ruler objected saying there were six days to be healed, and the Sabbath was for rest. Jesus called this man a hypocrite for taking care of his animals on the Sabbath and trying to prevent a woman being healed simply because it was the Sabbath. It is doubtful this man considered the possibility he was being a hypocrite since he was following the religious law as he understood it. Could this be anything other than the deception of a religious spirit?
Admittedly there is some difference between Jesus and us, but when we deal with spiritual beings, the same rules apply as they did for Jesus during his earthly pilgrimage. He came to earth to be the perfect example of a man. In his life and in his ministry he showed us exactly how to live and work the works of God on earth. In our current situation, we have a direct example of what we should be doing. This is where it gets a little tricky. Jesus confronted the religious spirit by continuing with the works God had given him to do in spite of the preconceptions and misconceptions of the religious leaders. He literally demonstrated for them how things were supposed to work. When they balked, he then taught them the truth. Being under the influence of a deceiving spirit, they were not always able to understand what they were seeing or hearing. Some of them did understand and one of them, Nicodemus, sought Jesus out for more teaching. Some will listen, some will not. Some will hear. Some can not. Our only responsibility it to continue doing the work we are given to do day by day.
We cannot possibly say it often enough, "...we do not wrestle against flesh and blood..." (Ephesians 6:12) We will have more to say about this in the next post. If we allow this battle to become personal, against individuals, we lose our ability to walk in love toward that person. To be certain, they will make it personal. This is yet another indication they are operating under the influence of the religious spirit. The spirit will convince them we are the enemy and/or that we are of no importance whatsoever. Here again the soul deceived by this spirit is 180 degrees off truth. Everyone is important to God and should be to us as well.
The famous atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair is often credited with the saying, "The church is the only army that shoots it's wounded." If she did indeed coin the phrase, how sad that it was someone far outside The Church who had to show us the error of our ways. Perhaps because she was an atheist or perhaps simply due to our own sinful nature, her words most often fall on deaf ears as we forget the admonition of Galatians 5:15, "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!" Please let us not do that. Rather let us walk in love toward one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ.
It was a religious spirit that Jesus confronted in his dealings with the church authorities during his earthly ministry. The Pharisees and the Sadducee's had become the religious authority at the time. Although the two groups disagreed on some doctrinal issues they nevertheless created a closed fellowship of religious leaders. While we could give detailed accounts from the Gospels of the kind of things they did, it would not be an efficient use of time and space to go into many of those here. To cite just two examples of what was going on let us remember the man who was born blind whom Jesus healed, and from Luke 13, the woman who had a spirit of infirmity for 18 years and could not stand up straight. In the first example from John chapter 9, Jesus healed a man who was blind from birth. Jesus violated the religious rules because he performed that healing on the Sabbath. Note these were rules made by man, well intentioned, but misguided. The parents of the formerly blind man would not talk to the religious leaders about the healing because the religious leaders believed Jesus to be a fraud. The parents were afraid if they challenged the powers that be, they would be put out of the synagogue. We see the religious leaders caring more about the observance of the Sabbath than about a blind man being healed. We also see people being afraid to speak out against the religious leaders for fear of being removed from fellowship. In the second example we also see a healing done on the Sabbath. The synagogue ruler objected saying there were six days to be healed, and the Sabbath was for rest. Jesus called this man a hypocrite for taking care of his animals on the Sabbath and trying to prevent a woman being healed simply because it was the Sabbath. It is doubtful this man considered the possibility he was being a hypocrite since he was following the religious law as he understood it. Could this be anything other than the deception of a religious spirit?
Admittedly there is some difference between Jesus and us, but when we deal with spiritual beings, the same rules apply as they did for Jesus during his earthly pilgrimage. He came to earth to be the perfect example of a man. In his life and in his ministry he showed us exactly how to live and work the works of God on earth. In our current situation, we have a direct example of what we should be doing. This is where it gets a little tricky. Jesus confronted the religious spirit by continuing with the works God had given him to do in spite of the preconceptions and misconceptions of the religious leaders. He literally demonstrated for them how things were supposed to work. When they balked, he then taught them the truth. Being under the influence of a deceiving spirit, they were not always able to understand what they were seeing or hearing. Some of them did understand and one of them, Nicodemus, sought Jesus out for more teaching. Some will listen, some will not. Some will hear. Some can not. Our only responsibility it to continue doing the work we are given to do day by day.
We cannot possibly say it often enough, "...we do not wrestle against flesh and blood..." (Ephesians 6:12) We will have more to say about this in the next post. If we allow this battle to become personal, against individuals, we lose our ability to walk in love toward that person. To be certain, they will make it personal. This is yet another indication they are operating under the influence of the religious spirit. The spirit will convince them we are the enemy and/or that we are of no importance whatsoever. Here again the soul deceived by this spirit is 180 degrees off truth. Everyone is important to God and should be to us as well.
The famous atheist, Madalyn Murray O'Hair is often credited with the saying, "The church is the only army that shoots it's wounded." If she did indeed coin the phrase, how sad that it was someone far outside The Church who had to show us the error of our ways. Perhaps because she was an atheist or perhaps simply due to our own sinful nature, her words most often fall on deaf ears as we forget the admonition of Galatians 5:15, "But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!" Please let us not do that. Rather let us walk in love toward one another, bearing one another's burdens, and so fulfilling the law of Christ.
Monday, June 1, 2009
Grasp the Concept of This Battle
Spiritual warfare, generally speaking, is carried out by The Church against spiritual forces. If we accept the premise set forth in the previous post, our battleground is the land and the people in the area of our battle. That is not to say the land is the problem or the people are the problem. Remember, "...we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." (Ephesians 6:12) Demons stake out their territory and work their mischief in the area they control and on anyone who comes into that area. Our case in point is the demoniac of Gadara who is mentioned in all three of the synoptic Gospels.
There is no course one can take called Demonology 101 as far as we know. Even spiritual warfare courses and texts only go so far and will never be able to accurately identify the spiritual problems unique to any geographical area. The Bible has surprisingly little to say about demonic spirits. There are over 300 references to angels in the Bible, but fewer than fifty unique references to demons or evil spirits. Most of those spirits are not identified by name. We will only be able to know what kind of spirit we are battling as the Holy Spirit gives discernment, knowledge, and wisdom. It is therefore imperative that we are Holy Spirit led and spirit focused whenever we engage in spiritual battle.
The purpose of this blog is not to do any kind of detailed teaching on various Biblical subjects. It may evolve into that in time, but for now, our purpose in this writing is to recruit soldiers and keep them apprised of the different aspects of the battle. Again, if you are not located in or around the Santa Maria valley, please consider yourself a vital part of this fight. There is no limit to what God can do through your prayers from wherever they come. Think of yourself as an Air Force or missile battery commander. Send the airplanes for air support or send a ballistic missile or cruise missile into the area with targeted prayer. I know some of you reading this are now, if you were not already, thinking I have totally lost it. I must be making this stuff up. Listen folks, I am neither that creative nor that intelligent. I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet. I teach. I tend a few sheep and I sow a few seeds. I am simply a man who received a commission from God for this battle. I am under orders from the Lord Jesus Christ to take this battle to the enemy and I am doing it as best I know how.
Without a complete rehash of earlier posts, let us be reminded that we are dealing with a religious spirit that has taken this valley in its grip and held it for at least twenty years. During the course of that time it has allowed just enough effective work to be done by the churches in the valley to make it appear they are being successful in evangelism and discipleship. In truth, that is not the case. There is so much more that could be done if the churches and pastors would cooperate and if The Church were not so fragmented.
There are those who think more church buildings and congregations in an area are a good thing. That is true to some extent, but a physical plant has a cost to establish and maintain whether it houses a congregation of fifty or several hundred. The devil likes to divide us and will use anything to drive wedges between us. We need the fellowship of the saints. When we understand the concept of "church" in the New Testament, it is closer to the small group concept that has enabled the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea to grow to over 830,000 members and become the largest church in the world as of this writing. That church meets as a whole on the weekends and fills a stadium-sized building many times over. The real work of the ministry is done in the small groups meeting in homes, businesses, and public places. The major difference between Yoido and the New Testament church is that there were no places in that early church where thousands of people could ever come together for celebrations of praise and worship. They simply met from house to house.
The real problem is that we have the whole concept of "church" messed up in so many ways that what we see now only vaguely resembles what Jesus Christ came to give his life to start. I would be delighted to tell you what it should look like, but as I sit here today, typing this message into the computer, I really do not quite know. Yoido is a good example even if the entire congregation were hundreds rather and hundreds of thousands. I must admit, I do take some solace in knowing it is not my job right now to pastor a church. I already told you what my job is. I do pastor a few men--and some of their family members from time to time. I do that within a corporate structure which bears little resemblance to a church as we think of it. Recently I have been asked on an almost weekly basis why I do not start a church. Been there, done that. I am not opposed to doing it again, but that is not what Jesus is saying to me right now. Thank you Jesus.
I know what I am to be about now. I had lost my vision for some of that for awhile. I felt like God had put me on the shelf. In fact he had. When I mentioned this to him in prayer perhaps three years ago, I felt a peace that I was where God wanted me to be. I knew there were people on the front lines who would need to be reinforced. For those of you who have carried the battle in the past, thank you. I am down from the shelf now and ready to do my part as the Lord leads.
There is no course one can take called Demonology 101 as far as we know. Even spiritual warfare courses and texts only go so far and will never be able to accurately identify the spiritual problems unique to any geographical area. The Bible has surprisingly little to say about demonic spirits. There are over 300 references to angels in the Bible, but fewer than fifty unique references to demons or evil spirits. Most of those spirits are not identified by name. We will only be able to know what kind of spirit we are battling as the Holy Spirit gives discernment, knowledge, and wisdom. It is therefore imperative that we are Holy Spirit led and spirit focused whenever we engage in spiritual battle.
The purpose of this blog is not to do any kind of detailed teaching on various Biblical subjects. It may evolve into that in time, but for now, our purpose in this writing is to recruit soldiers and keep them apprised of the different aspects of the battle. Again, if you are not located in or around the Santa Maria valley, please consider yourself a vital part of this fight. There is no limit to what God can do through your prayers from wherever they come. Think of yourself as an Air Force or missile battery commander. Send the airplanes for air support or send a ballistic missile or cruise missile into the area with targeted prayer. I know some of you reading this are now, if you were not already, thinking I have totally lost it. I must be making this stuff up. Listen folks, I am neither that creative nor that intelligent. I am not a prophet or the son of a prophet. I teach. I tend a few sheep and I sow a few seeds. I am simply a man who received a commission from God for this battle. I am under orders from the Lord Jesus Christ to take this battle to the enemy and I am doing it as best I know how.
Without a complete rehash of earlier posts, let us be reminded that we are dealing with a religious spirit that has taken this valley in its grip and held it for at least twenty years. During the course of that time it has allowed just enough effective work to be done by the churches in the valley to make it appear they are being successful in evangelism and discipleship. In truth, that is not the case. There is so much more that could be done if the churches and pastors would cooperate and if The Church were not so fragmented.
There are those who think more church buildings and congregations in an area are a good thing. That is true to some extent, but a physical plant has a cost to establish and maintain whether it houses a congregation of fifty or several hundred. The devil likes to divide us and will use anything to drive wedges between us. We need the fellowship of the saints. When we understand the concept of "church" in the New Testament, it is closer to the small group concept that has enabled the Yoido Full Gospel Church in Seoul, Korea to grow to over 830,000 members and become the largest church in the world as of this writing. That church meets as a whole on the weekends and fills a stadium-sized building many times over. The real work of the ministry is done in the small groups meeting in homes, businesses, and public places. The major difference between Yoido and the New Testament church is that there were no places in that early church where thousands of people could ever come together for celebrations of praise and worship. They simply met from house to house.
The real problem is that we have the whole concept of "church" messed up in so many ways that what we see now only vaguely resembles what Jesus Christ came to give his life to start. I would be delighted to tell you what it should look like, but as I sit here today, typing this message into the computer, I really do not quite know. Yoido is a good example even if the entire congregation were hundreds rather and hundreds of thousands. I must admit, I do take some solace in knowing it is not my job right now to pastor a church. I already told you what my job is. I do pastor a few men--and some of their family members from time to time. I do that within a corporate structure which bears little resemblance to a church as we think of it. Recently I have been asked on an almost weekly basis why I do not start a church. Been there, done that. I am not opposed to doing it again, but that is not what Jesus is saying to me right now. Thank you Jesus.
I know what I am to be about now. I had lost my vision for some of that for awhile. I felt like God had put me on the shelf. In fact he had. When I mentioned this to him in prayer perhaps three years ago, I felt a peace that I was where God wanted me to be. I knew there were people on the front lines who would need to be reinforced. For those of you who have carried the battle in the past, thank you. I am down from the shelf now and ready to do my part as the Lord leads.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)