Aspen first brought up this subject in another post. As this deals closely with successful spiritual warfare, I thought it would be timely to offer my thoughts on the subject as well. This post is a little lengthy but, imo, the subject matter is important enough to take the extra time. I hope you agree that this is something we all can work on together.
Church has taken on a new meaning with the advent of the internet. Many people who previously had no other opportunities for Christian fellowship without attending a church, now have the opportunity to fellowship with other believers from all over the world. This has had both positive and negative influences on the individual believer. Positive, in the sense that many Christians no longer feel as lonely and negative because having a faceless conflict with a person who believes differently than you leads to acting in a more unchristian like manner than you would do if you were speaking to the person face to face. When I am speaking of the church in this article, I’m not only speaking about the local body but the internet community as well.
The church of today has gotten jaded, complacent and selfish. We are all so involved in the day to day aspects of our lives in this world that we forget this world is not our permanent home. Our permanent home is in heaven. The unity of believers, outside of our personal reconciliation to God, is the major desire that God has for His church. He desires us to be one with each other as we are one in Jesus Christ and He is one with His heavenly Father. Unity is more than having the same goals or believing in the same doctrines. It goes much deeper than that. It is a life of self-sacrifice, lived out of a love and deep abiding respect for one another. We must accept the faults of our brothers and sisters in Christ and love them anyway and pray they overlook our faults in the same manner. We need to see each other the way God sees us as pure through the blood that was shed for us. The bible tells us to "be holy as God is holy". While we as individuals will never attain the holiness of God, it doesn’t change our responsibility to strive to live as holy as we can. The local church and individual believers are God’s ambassadors to this world. The church community will also never attain perfection until we reach heaven, but the church has the responsibility to be as close to heaven’s idea of perfection as we can be as a witness to the unbelievers of this world.
We do, however, need to realize that the church will not reach our potential through any efforts of a pastor. The Body of Christ, in its many venues, needs to desire it first. We, as the latter day church should be as different from the religious world as our first century contemporaries were different from those that continued in accepted Jewish practices. As in any new undertaking, there will be difficulties that cross our path as we struggle to be the type of body that God wants us to be. This goal will never be reached while we sit on our hands and wait for whatever new program the church leaders come up with. I have to admit that I see the role of pastor somewhat differently than is traditionally accepted. I see the role of pastor as being a spiritual step-father. He does not usually come from within the church body, but from outside, inheriting us through the acceptance of God’s leading and the local body’s desire to hire him. A pastor should take the time to learn about the people in the church and discover where we are in our spiritual maturity both as individuals and as the local body of Christ. Like a parent, he should lead and guide us to achieve the most of our spiritual potential, utilizing the spiritual gifts that we have all been given. We all grow in different stages, like a family with several children of various ages. The pastor must handle each person’s growth differently, allowing independence of the individual and the body as we mature. However, this is one area where the pastor typically fails. We as believers are not inspired to achieve independence.
What do I mean by that? Personally, I don’t expect from a pastor what we are typically used to believing their function should be. I don’t expect him to run the Sunday School dept., administrate, evangelize, teach or even deliver sermons. Those chores are what we as the body are supposed to do by utilizing our spiritual gifts. All I expect of a pastor is hours of prayer for his flock and personal involvement in our spiritual lives as mentors and wisdom and God’s leading when we get into situations that we can’t solve ourselves through prayer and study of God’s word. Do you want to know what one of the major excuses will be when we stand before God at the Bema Seat Judgment will be? "But the pastor whom you gave to lead us...". That’s right, we’ll be echoing the example of Adam when he said,..."but the woman thou gave to me...". We are all given a mind to read God’s word for ourselves and to pray and study, "to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling". It behooves us then to "be all that we can be" as members of God’s army. There may come a time when we are all called to be pastors or mentors to searching individuals in the latter days, when public church attendance may be outlawed! Are you ready for that responsibility? No!? Then get ready!
We wonder why our children have a tendency to leave the church as soon as they are old enough. I’ll tell you why! The church of today, as a rule, is boring and meaningless. Sure, there are special meetings where God pours out His Spirit among us or when we have been personally blessed, but don’t you think that should be the rule rather than the exception? If as a teenager, what the majority of them can expect is to be passive listeners, perhaps achieving SS teacher status for the next fifty years, I’d run screaming too. In fact I have, more than once! There is a growing segment of believers who no longer attend church for a variety of reasons. However, not being a member of a local church does not relieve you from the responsibilities you have as a member of God’s body universal.
By listening to non-churched believers express themselves via chat rooms or communities, I’ve learned that many of them have a desire to be more greatly used by God. Maybe I’m just putting words to thoughts you’ve had as well. You attend church services religiously but something appears to be missing. Some quality that is hard to define or put into words. If what I have written stirs something in your spirit, then let the pastor know how you feel, if you have one. All I ask is that you not settle for less when more is attainable.
A house that is divided cannot stand. That is why unity on both a spiritual and physical level is necessary. When Satan comes with his army in the last days we must be able to stand against him and he will most likely attack from within, destroying unity wherever he finds it. Satan’s ultimate power of destruction comes when he tempts Christians to attack each other over minor issues. Many Christians wander around in their own little world believing that God won’t let anything harm them, but let me tell you brothers and sisters that God gave us an armor for a reason. The battle will not be an easy one even though God is at our side. Many of our Christian brethren will fall and be deceived because they felt they were impervious from the attacks of Satan. This is one of the reasons I believe it is important for believers to stop "having" church and start "being" the church. The army that is ready to defend itself, practices. Are we practicing for the battle? Do we have our sword in our hand and our armor on? From my observations, I don’t think we as the church universal are prepared to do much spiritual warfare.
It is not only important that we are ready to defend our faith, we must also know how to attack the enemy before he has a chance to strike. We should attack hard and with Godly purpose and determination. Our whole lives should have been spent preparing for the battle we are about to undertake. Many will die and precede us to heaven, but the question we should ask ourselves is, how will we die? Will we die victoriously fighting or cowering in defeat? The time for rest and relaxation is over and the time to make battle preparations has come. It is also important to remember that when one member of the body is wounded, we must join together in unity with them until they are fully restored. We are all one and are dependent on each other to perform the functions that God gave us. I may have spiritual gifts that you don’t have and you probably have gifts that I don’t have. We each have our individual experiences in different areas that make us unique to the body of Christ. When we unite ourselves in these areas under the cloak of humility and love for each other and the Lord, we become mightier as a whole than as individuals. It is by working harmoniously together that we are given the secrets of successful living. Spiritual maturity is always determined by our willingness to sacrifice our own desires for the interests of the kingdom or for the sake of others. The door that requires the greatest sacrifice to open will always take us to a higher spiritual level. There is no real courage if there is no real danger. As we have been wounded and healed on different levels, through those wounds we have the grace to help and heal others.
We are soldiers of the last battle. The OT and NT prophets saw the days we are in dimly, through prophetic visions. We have been given the great honor to live them. We are the final act of God’s history for this world, to influence the world in a positive manner. The writers of the NT and the believers are not our hope. We are their hope. There may be more to the scripture, "the first shall be last and the last shall be first", then we think. God is preparing a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us, but we must be ready to receive it. We must be preparing our skills to follow God’s leading wherever it may be. One thing is for sure, while we all pray for a revival to come, it will not come until the church is ready to handle it. It is possible that our churches will literally be flooded with hundreds of seekers, but will the local body be prepared to handle the onslaught. The pastor certainly can’t do it himself, nor should he be expected to. We must prepare ourselves to be light in the darkness, teachers of the lost, and guides in the way of the Lord. If a revival of this scale was to occur, could your church handle it? I’m not talking about the size of your building because where we worship is unimportant. We will be meeting in homes again, I guarantee it. I am talking about the servitude of the local church body. Are you ready to host an in-house church? If not, ask your pastor to start training the laity to perform this most important function. God is waiting for us to get ready for what is to come. How long will we keep Him waiting?
The church is now a shadow of what it once was and far from where we should be at this time in history. We must return to the cross! As the latter days church, we will not be greater than previous generations, but it will take more of His grace and power to accomplish more than the church in any other age had to accomplish. We will walk more in His power because we are part of His final representatives to the world. We must demonstrate His nature and ways as they have never been demonstrated before. "To whom much is given, much will be required". We are not to fall into the trap of asking ourselves, "How can God use me?" All we have to do is abide in Him and be willing. God is able to the greatest things with the plainest of tools, if we allow Him to. If "we will draw near to Him, he will draw near to us". It is within our power to decide how close we will be to God, He does not choose that for us. Never stop seeking more of God! The more confidence we lose in ourselves, the more power God will be able to trust us with. All of our failures will result from one thing, self-centeredness. Love does not seek its own glory. It is God’s glory that unifies. As we come together with those that are like-minded, God’s glory will be magnified and as His glory is magnified we will love each other more because we will see His glory in each other. As we prepare to march in His last days’ army, we will march under a great banner and we will all be able to sing that song, "His Banner Over Me Is Love".
* some excerpts taken from "The Final Quest" by Mark Juyner.
Church has taken on a new meaning with the advent of the internet. Many people who previously had no other opportunities for Christian fellowship without attending a church, now have the opportunity to fellowship with other believers from all over the world. This has had both positive and negative influences on the individual believer. Positive, in the sense that many Christians no longer feel as lonely and negative because having a faceless conflict with a person who believes differently than you leads to acting in a more unchristian like manner than you would do if you were speaking to the person face to face. When I am speaking of the church in this article, I’m not only speaking about the local body but the internet community as well.
The church of today has gotten jaded, complacent and selfish. We are all so involved in the day to day aspects of our lives in this world that we forget this world is not our permanent home. Our permanent home is in heaven. The unity of believers, outside of our personal reconciliation to God, is the major desire that God has for His church. He desires us to be one with each other as we are one in Jesus Christ and He is one with His heavenly Father. Unity is more than having the same goals or believing in the same doctrines. It goes much deeper than that. It is a life of self-sacrifice, lived out of a love and deep abiding respect for one another. We must accept the faults of our brothers and sisters in Christ and love them anyway and pray they overlook our faults in the same manner. We need to see each other the way God sees us as pure through the blood that was shed for us. The bible tells us to "be holy as God is holy". While we as individuals will never attain the holiness of God, it doesn’t change our responsibility to strive to live as holy as we can. The local church and individual believers are God’s ambassadors to this world. The church community will also never attain perfection until we reach heaven, but the church has the responsibility to be as close to heaven’s idea of perfection as we can be as a witness to the unbelievers of this world.
We do, however, need to realize that the church will not reach our potential through any efforts of a pastor. The Body of Christ, in its many venues, needs to desire it first. We, as the latter day church should be as different from the religious world as our first century contemporaries were different from those that continued in accepted Jewish practices. As in any new undertaking, there will be difficulties that cross our path as we struggle to be the type of body that God wants us to be. This goal will never be reached while we sit on our hands and wait for whatever new program the church leaders come up with. I have to admit that I see the role of pastor somewhat differently than is traditionally accepted. I see the role of pastor as being a spiritual step-father. He does not usually come from within the church body, but from outside, inheriting us through the acceptance of God’s leading and the local body’s desire to hire him. A pastor should take the time to learn about the people in the church and discover where we are in our spiritual maturity both as individuals and as the local body of Christ. Like a parent, he should lead and guide us to achieve the most of our spiritual potential, utilizing the spiritual gifts that we have all been given. We all grow in different stages, like a family with several children of various ages. The pastor must handle each person’s growth differently, allowing independence of the individual and the body as we mature. However, this is one area where the pastor typically fails. We as believers are not inspired to achieve independence.
What do I mean by that? Personally, I don’t expect from a pastor what we are typically used to believing their function should be. I don’t expect him to run the Sunday School dept., administrate, evangelize, teach or even deliver sermons. Those chores are what we as the body are supposed to do by utilizing our spiritual gifts. All I expect of a pastor is hours of prayer for his flock and personal involvement in our spiritual lives as mentors and wisdom and God’s leading when we get into situations that we can’t solve ourselves through prayer and study of God’s word. Do you want to know what one of the major excuses will be when we stand before God at the Bema Seat Judgment will be? "But the pastor whom you gave to lead us...". That’s right, we’ll be echoing the example of Adam when he said,..."but the woman thou gave to me...". We are all given a mind to read God’s word for ourselves and to pray and study, "to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling". It behooves us then to "be all that we can be" as members of God’s army. There may come a time when we are all called to be pastors or mentors to searching individuals in the latter days, when public church attendance may be outlawed! Are you ready for that responsibility? No!? Then get ready!
We wonder why our children have a tendency to leave the church as soon as they are old enough. I’ll tell you why! The church of today, as a rule, is boring and meaningless. Sure, there are special meetings where God pours out His Spirit among us or when we have been personally blessed, but don’t you think that should be the rule rather than the exception? If as a teenager, what the majority of them can expect is to be passive listeners, perhaps achieving SS teacher status for the next fifty years, I’d run screaming too. In fact I have, more than once! There is a growing segment of believers who no longer attend church for a variety of reasons. However, not being a member of a local church does not relieve you from the responsibilities you have as a member of God’s body universal.
By listening to non-churched believers express themselves via chat rooms or communities, I’ve learned that many of them have a desire to be more greatly used by God. Maybe I’m just putting words to thoughts you’ve had as well. You attend church services religiously but something appears to be missing. Some quality that is hard to define or put into words. If what I have written stirs something in your spirit, then let the pastor know how you feel, if you have one. All I ask is that you not settle for less when more is attainable.
A house that is divided cannot stand. That is why unity on both a spiritual and physical level is necessary. When Satan comes with his army in the last days we must be able to stand against him and he will most likely attack from within, destroying unity wherever he finds it. Satan’s ultimate power of destruction comes when he tempts Christians to attack each other over minor issues. Many Christians wander around in their own little world believing that God won’t let anything harm them, but let me tell you brothers and sisters that God gave us an armor for a reason. The battle will not be an easy one even though God is at our side. Many of our Christian brethren will fall and be deceived because they felt they were impervious from the attacks of Satan. This is one of the reasons I believe it is important for believers to stop "having" church and start "being" the church. The army that is ready to defend itself, practices. Are we practicing for the battle? Do we have our sword in our hand and our armor on? From my observations, I don’t think we as the church universal are prepared to do much spiritual warfare.
It is not only important that we are ready to defend our faith, we must also know how to attack the enemy before he has a chance to strike. We should attack hard and with Godly purpose and determination. Our whole lives should have been spent preparing for the battle we are about to undertake. Many will die and precede us to heaven, but the question we should ask ourselves is, how will we die? Will we die victoriously fighting or cowering in defeat? The time for rest and relaxation is over and the time to make battle preparations has come. It is also important to remember that when one member of the body is wounded, we must join together in unity with them until they are fully restored. We are all one and are dependent on each other to perform the functions that God gave us. I may have spiritual gifts that you don’t have and you probably have gifts that I don’t have. We each have our individual experiences in different areas that make us unique to the body of Christ. When we unite ourselves in these areas under the cloak of humility and love for each other and the Lord, we become mightier as a whole than as individuals. It is by working harmoniously together that we are given the secrets of successful living. Spiritual maturity is always determined by our willingness to sacrifice our own desires for the interests of the kingdom or for the sake of others. The door that requires the greatest sacrifice to open will always take us to a higher spiritual level. There is no real courage if there is no real danger. As we have been wounded and healed on different levels, through those wounds we have the grace to help and heal others.
We are soldiers of the last battle. The OT and NT prophets saw the days we are in dimly, through prophetic visions. We have been given the great honor to live them. We are the final act of God’s history for this world, to influence the world in a positive manner. The writers of the NT and the believers are not our hope. We are their hope. There may be more to the scripture, "the first shall be last and the last shall be first", then we think. God is preparing a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon us, but we must be ready to receive it. We must be preparing our skills to follow God’s leading wherever it may be. One thing is for sure, while we all pray for a revival to come, it will not come until the church is ready to handle it. It is possible that our churches will literally be flooded with hundreds of seekers, but will the local body be prepared to handle the onslaught. The pastor certainly can’t do it himself, nor should he be expected to. We must prepare ourselves to be light in the darkness, teachers of the lost, and guides in the way of the Lord. If a revival of this scale was to occur, could your church handle it? I’m not talking about the size of your building because where we worship is unimportant. We will be meeting in homes again, I guarantee it. I am talking about the servitude of the local church body. Are you ready to host an in-house church? If not, ask your pastor to start training the laity to perform this most important function. God is waiting for us to get ready for what is to come. How long will we keep Him waiting?
The church is now a shadow of what it once was and far from where we should be at this time in history. We must return to the cross! As the latter days church, we will not be greater than previous generations, but it will take more of His grace and power to accomplish more than the church in any other age had to accomplish. We will walk more in His power because we are part of His final representatives to the world. We must demonstrate His nature and ways as they have never been demonstrated before. "To whom much is given, much will be required". We are not to fall into the trap of asking ourselves, "How can God use me?" All we have to do is abide in Him and be willing. God is able to the greatest things with the plainest of tools, if we allow Him to. If "we will draw near to Him, he will draw near to us". It is within our power to decide how close we will be to God, He does not choose that for us. Never stop seeking more of God! The more confidence we lose in ourselves, the more power God will be able to trust us with. All of our failures will result from one thing, self-centeredness. Love does not seek its own glory. It is God’s glory that unifies. As we come together with those that are like-minded, God’s glory will be magnified and as His glory is magnified we will love each other more because we will see His glory in each other. As we prepare to march in His last days’ army, we will march under a great banner and we will all be able to sing that song, "His Banner Over Me Is Love".
* some excerpts taken from "The Final Quest" by Mark Juyner.
