February 13, 2008
BFO
I just had a BFO…a blinding flash of the obvious. Today’s church philosophy is if you’re struggling with issues in your church and disagree with the leadership you’re encouraged to find another church down the street where you’ll be happy. While I continue to lament the loss of good solid mature Christians, it just dawned on me that when they leave they’re not leaving alone. They’re taking their indwelling Holy Spirit with them. Yikes! It’s no wonder churches are spiritually weak and anemic, we’ve sent the Holy Spirit packing!
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4 comments:
Dear Gail,
I couldn't agree with you more and it is SO scary to me. It leaves "Baby Christians" like me scratching our heads. I know my personal feeling as I had walked in the doors for the last 6-8 months was that the overwhelming power of the Holy Spirit is no longer overwhelming in that warm, comforting, drawing and powerful way. I feel heaviness and cold overtaking me. That's really the only way I can explain it. Sure, there have still been many individuals left that beam, because that is just who they are in Christ and I have definitely found myself drawn to them.
I have become more emaciated in this time and I am not doing my job to let my light shine for Him to the unbelievers around me. I know the church is not responsible for my personal relationship with the Lord, as John tells us in 1 John 2:27, "As for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as His anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit - just as it has taught you, remain in Him." I know I just need to be faithful in the Word and prayer each day, wanting to do only His will. However, Prov. 27:17 tells us that; "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."
At what point do we heed the warning Jesus has given to the Church in Ephesus where He says in Rev. 2:4-5, "Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love. Remember the height from which you have fallen! Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place." What questions do we need to ask ourselves here? Would God give His leaders visions that are SO different from what He puts on His anointed's hearts that we would all become so confused and isolated? Aren't we to be reaching out, not drawing our arms inward? Are some just being so different and “revolutionary” for the sake of being different?
What do we do with this BFO? If there is a congregation shrinking quickly and losing its anointed we have lost our effectiveness and those that we are trying to reach for the Lord just get lost in the shuffle. Not to mention the example that is being set. All the while, those that must make the hard choice to leave because we feel we can't make a difference are accused by the leadership of wanting our ears tickled and being unbelievers and not being right with the Lord and whatever other phrase they can come up with. We need to look at whether we are reaching anyone for Christ these days...are we seeing people baptized much anymore? I feel that is a huge indicator. Is there joy for the Lord or are we embarrassed?
Well, anyways, as there is a song that says..."I'm sorry Lord for thing I've made it, cause It's all about you, all about you Jesus". It's all about His Kingdom, His Righteousness and for His Glory.
Sister Anonymous
Sister Anonymous,
I have to tell you I love your name!
Many of us are asking the same questions you’ve asked. I too see baptism as being a huge indicator. If I remember correctly, in the past we averaged 80-100 baptisms a year. Although I don’t know for sure, it would not surprise me if baptisms for 2007 were in single digits.
Please don’t let cold and heaviness overtake you. Just as you are drawn to others, the Holy Spirit can draw others to you.
You describe yourself as a baby Christian, and yet you know that iron sharpens iron. Some people can’t tell the difference between iron and aluminum.
Gail
Gail;
-----Great BFO. In fact, that was so O it should have struck us years ago. But in reality, the Spirit is still at your church, in mass. Even in the leaders. It is just that the Spirit brings people to different levels of maturity having different gifts prepared for the others of the church. In the progression towards maturity, I believe there is a line crossed. It is the point at which the person has been renewed in attitudes and behaviors enough that the Holy Spirit’s work need be less upon correction of the personal soul, and more upon bringing forth fruit for the nourishment of the others. Maybe what you are noticing is that many who have crossed this line, and should be good feeders of the brethren, are leaving in horror of what their clearer, spiritual vision has actually seen done by the hands of the leaders. If more of them could be persuaded to stay and stand ground for the Lord, then maybe things might begin to grow.
-----And let me apologize for leaving. Personally, I so wanted to stay and engage the battle against the self-deceit being taught there. But I promised my wife and my Lord that Char and our family would be my first obligation. They needed to move to where the fruit was not of wax and plastic. Having been raised on a trout farm, I am somewhat like a fish - I can absorb my nutrients right out of the water if I have to. But they can’t. My daughters will be my second obligation in the Lord until they are adults. Char will be my first, until one of us proceeds the other going home.
-----The honor I give to my commitment to them is what the Spirit uses to generate my character. Therefore I believe in commitment to the Word, and to what it says about treating one another. I do not obey the Word perfectly, I confess, but I do as broadly as I can. And although the Word speaks of obeying the leaders, their authority is definitely placed lower than its authority. But I am no longer allowed to stand within your church and speak of the simple truths the Word of God presents. So I am very thankful to you, faithful sister, for the avenue you have presented the Lord that I use to speak to your church about Scriptural truths. And I pray that my voice will become lost in a flood of other voices also having grown across the line in the Spirit, being ready to now rightly handle the Word of God, and lovingly recognize all of their brothers and sisters including the few the leaders favor.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
Sister Anonymous;
-----You question your maturity in the Lord and His fruit is bursting from your branches. You are what that church needs. Your heart is humble enough to understand that you will not arrive at the point of completed spiritual growth until the Lord Himself has made you perfect on that day. Therefore your search for the refinement of the truth within your heart does not stop. Its looking is through the eyes of humility, and its lamp is the Word. You speak of yourself as a “Baby Christian.” But I read in your writing the voice of young, strong maturity.
-----Years ago, the leaders at your church turned its focus entirely upon the Great Commission. They claimed that was the way to build up the church.. And who can deny that the Great Commission is the directive for the church? After all, Jesus came seeking the lost, and the Book of Acts documents Paul‘s missionary work. But pretty much the rest of epistles of the New Testament, many of Jesus’ discussions with His disciples, and what I call the Great Omission - Jesus’ statement to Peter, “Feed my sheep,” all deny that the Great Commission is the focus of the church. Being Christ’s Holy Bride, the Holy Temple of God, is the focus of the church.
----Peter said, “…you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ,” (I Pet 2:5). Paul and Peter both acknowledged that the Holy Spirit gifted different people with different gifts of service within that spiritual house. Therefore the spiritual sacrifices are not all the same. Some you have may have to do more with the Great Commission, some others have may have to do more with the feeding of the sheep. And like Paul said to the Corinthians, “If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be?” (I Cor 12:17). If the whole body were a foot for the carrying of the gospel, where would the pouring of the water be? But the leaders of your church have tried to make all of the arms, and elbows, and ears, and knees, and hands, and necks, and eyes, and tongues, and all the other parts the Holy Spirit Himself supplied to the body turn into feet. They try to make the body one giant foot! As a result, verified by the lack of baptisms Gail referenced, the only thing the giant foot has been able to accomplish is to step all over those who know, or even sense, that things should be different.
-----One of the men who helped secretly spy out your church for this change in the late 1990’s professes to read through the New Testament once a month. Now, he may actually be doing this. But I would certainly think the exposing of one’s self that many times over and over to the breadth of it would certainly lead to the realization of how much the New Testament deals with the way we treat one another and serve one another. When Paul speaks of those God gave to be apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers, it was, “to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Eph 4:11-13). So then why must the church be so bothered about only reaching out to the lost when we are called to live by the Spirit and produce the fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Fruit is not produced to rot on the vine. It is produced to be eaten. The consumption of love, joy, peace, etc. by those in the church as it is produced by those in the church gives the body the metabolism it needs to generate the warmth and lift the weight of the world off of each other. You perceive the lack of this living process and feel the weight not lifted and the cold not warmed. It is not that the Great Commission is unimportant, it is that the foot needs more body, and the vines need more fruit.
-----So grow the fruit and make it available to each one next to you. Continue your search for truth and wisdom and be part of the sharpening process that naturally shapes each living stone into a fit with its neighboring stone for the beauty and strength of the walls of the Holy Temple. Become a little like the trout, and absorb some of the nourishment you need from the water. But do not give up. The people there need you. You are evidence that God has not given up on that congregation. He continues to produce within it those who are crossing the line from being straightened for the fit to producing fruit for the service. Gail also is evidence of this. And what we know and are willing to boldly speak, many more are perceiving now. They will also become bold as the Lord raises them to be more willing voices. I will keep referring to Malachi 3:16, because it is written.
-----God has blessed you, Sister Anonymous. God bless you more. And I look forward to reading more of your thoughts.
Love in the Lord,
Steve Corey
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