Unity in Action

068. UNITY IN ACTION IS THE RESPONSE TO THE APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE (2): THE RESPONSE OF THE REDEEMER

There was sin, oppression, injustice, and bondage everywhere. The world was in spiritual chaos. In a spiritual sense, the world had returned to a “primordial soup,” just like, in a physical sense, the conditions at the beginning of creation.

2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. Gen. 1: 2-3

In the beginning, energy was explosive and matter was in chaos, but the Spirit of God was moving. God spoke by the power of His logos, and matter formed and light came into the world.

Before Christ came, the earth was spiritually dark and without form. Satan was stalking about; God’s people were in bondage. In the beginning was the logos (John 1:1), which was the light of the world. There was chaos, but the Spirit of God was moving. The logos became flesh and was born into the world (John 1:14) to bring peace and order and justice and redemption.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it. John 1: 1-5

Into this world corrupted by oppression and injustice, of “I’ll do this to you ‘because I can,’” of further mistreatment of the disadvantaged - the sick, the poor, the widows, the fatherless -- the Anointed One, the Savior, the Price of Peace, Jesus Christ - God in the flesh as a human - was born on the earth in poverty. He who shall establish the Kingdom of the Throne of David for ever and ever is the One to bring order and peace to this world of chaos and sin.

He came to the people of God, and He brought peace, order, freedom, and power, and He came against oppression, injustice, sickness, and hunger. He fulfilled all prophecy about the Anointed One, the deliverer, the King, the Messiah for the people. But the people of God missed it (Acts 2:36). He was the light, but the light was unrecognized (John 1:1-4).

God’s people had become so self-centered that they considered they were the ones who were the poor victims -- oppressed and treated unjustly by those pagan uncircumcised Romans. The Jews thought that they were the ones who needed to be liberated; they were the ones who should be brought to power and glory by the Deliverer. Instead, the plot turned, and the Jewish leaders were identified as the ones exercising their humanly derived authority to oppress others, to treat widows and orphans unjustly, and to profane the temple of God -- just like the princes of the people had done hundreds of years before. They were told they had missed the intent that God had behind the Law, that they were hypocrites, that they didn’t understand the scripture or the power of God, and that they were bad shepherds.

An anointing was done for a special purpose. A king of Israel was anointed for the purpose of ruler over people to lead them into obedience to God’s commands, including being a champion for the poor and disadvantaged that their suffering might be improved and justice brought to their cause. But too often, these ordinary people were oppressed further. A priest was anointed for the purpose of being a representative for the people of Israel to God for sacrifice and temporary atonement and for faithfully delivering God’s words to the people and to the king. But, even this process was often taken over with corruption for selfish gain.

Jesus Christ received the final anointing, once and for all, in the fulfillment of prophecy about the kingdom that would never end. He carried this anointing both as King of the throne of David and as high priest for His people. This anointing completely addressed what had been fundamentally important to God since the beginning – spiritual and physical freedom from oppression and servitude imposed by Satan and reconciliation to Himself.

Luke described the drama associated with the occasion in chapter 4.

14 Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. 15 He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. 16 He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. And he stood up to read. 17 The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

18 “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, 19 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

20 Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, 21 and he began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

The prophecy in Isaiah that Jesus refers to is in Isaiah 61:1-2 (verses 1-3 below)

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners, 2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favorand the day of vengeance of our God, to comfort all who mourn, 3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion— to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of gladness instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

And in verse 8, God’s love for justice is reiterated:

8 “For I, the LORD, love justice; I hate robbery and iniquity.

And in Isaiah 6:10, “For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,” which perhaps could be associated with Romans 13:14, “… clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ.”

Jesus came into this world to address those physical outcomes of the spiritual war with the enemy – chaos, violence, injustice, poverty, captivity, cheating, taking advantage of one another – evil that always seemed to be around. But if all these things were prohibited by the Law, why were they such a perennial problem? Because, under the Old Covenant, the people of God were battling the enemy from out of their flesh, which is all they had, except for the supernatural external intervention of God in response to their worship and obedience to Him as a nation. But, in a spiritual war, they were on the enemy’s territory. The efforts of those under the Old Covenant were always eventually bound for failure, because when they sinned, they were condemned and the Law pointed out their flaws.

But, by God’s word, a promise was made of a new Law, written on the heart, and of a new power from within the person – a power of the Spirit of the Creator God. The battle for the souls of men could be won, and all of those evil results of the battle of the flesh – injustice, oppression, violence – could be overcome because the spiritual battle could be fought with spiritual armor. But how could this ever happen when man’s natural heart had been sinful since the Fall and when he stood continually condemned before the God of Righteousness and Holiness? Because of the work of the Redeemer.

Jesus went about His ministry, setting up the foundation for a new kingdom -- a spiritual kingdom with a physical presence on the earth -- a kingdom not of this world, but from out of heaven.

Immediately after His anointing, Jesus began to do the work as it had been prophesied. He cast out demons and healed the sick and preached the good news of the kingdom of God.

Luke 4: 40 When the sun was setting, the people brought to Jesus all who had various kinds of sickness, and laying his hands on each one, he healed them. 41 Moreover, demons came out of many people, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But he rebuked them and would not allow them to speak, because they knew he was the Christ. 42 At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. 43 But he said, “I must preach the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.” 44 And he kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. Luke 4:40-44

Jesus selected and called His disciples and began to show them how His anointing would be fulfilled.

Luke 6: 17 He went down with them and stood on a level place. A large crowd of his disciples was there and a great number of people from all over Judea, from Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. Those troubled by evil spirits were cured, 19 and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.

In Luke 7:36-50, Jesus’ disciples witnessed His feet being anointed with expensive perfume by a sinful woman, perhaps symbolizing an anointing from the very oppressed people that Jesus was bringing into spiritual freedom, as commissioned from His previous anointing by the Spirit.

In Luke 8, the disciples followed Jesus as He continued His anointed mission, accompanied by some of those who had experienced freedom from the oppression of the evil one.

After this, Jesus traveled about from one town and village to another, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom of God. The Twelve were with him, 2 and also some women who had been cured of evil spirits and diseases: Mary (called Magdalene) from whom seven demons had come out; 3Joanna the wife of Cuza, the manager of Herod’s household; Susanna; and many others. These women were helping to support them out of their own means.

Jesus continued to train His disciples, teaching them in parables and demonstrating His authority over the natural elements, disease, and death. Then, in Chapter 9, they are ready for a laboratory exercise to reinforce what they had learned. He commissioned them to do the works for which He had been anointed.

When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, 2 and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 6 So they set out and went from village to village, preaching the gospel and healing people everywhere. Luke 9: 1-2, 6

Afterwards, Jesus welcomed the crowds, spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed their diseases (Luke 9:11).

The sending out of the twelve, along with instructions and teaching about what to expect, is recorded in Matthew 10. In Matthew 11, Jesus’ responded to the question from the disciples of John about whether He was “the one to come,” by saying His evidence was that the anointing was being fulfilled.

After Jesus had finished instructing his twelve disciples, he went on from there to teach and preach in the towns of Galilee. 2 When John heard in prison what Christ was doing, he sent his disciples 3 to ask him, “Are you the one who was to come, or should we expect someone else?” 4Jesus replied, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: 5 The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” Matthew 11: 1-5

Later, in Luke 10, Jesus sent out 72 (or 70) disciples, two by two to heal the sick and say that the kingdom of God was near – similar responsibilities as when the 12 disciples were sent. Here, Jesus gave the instruction that is often the scripture calling those going to the mission field today.

“The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. Luke 10: 2-3

Jesus started fulfilling His anointing and instructed His 12 disciples in how to do the same, and then sent them out to practice. He then enlarged the number of participants to 72 and enlarged the responsibility infinitely greater by referring to the need for workers to go into the entire harvest field.

The responsibility for fulfilling the anointing upon Jesus was transferred to the 12 disciples, to the 72 disciples, and then spread to all the workers in the Lord’s harvest.

Jesus Christ received the anointing in Luke 4. Jesus trained and gave authority to His disciples to fulfill the anointing. On the Day of Pentecost, the anointing from the Spirit was transferred to the body of Christ, the church, the kingdom of God. Christians then carried the responsibility for the anointing of Christ when they were baptized within the Spirit into the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:13). The same exact process and responsibility exists today.

The church is the body of Christ on earth. The church must represent the truth of the good news to the world - the gospel of salvation and the gospel of the anointing. God takes care of the saving while the church take care of her anointing.

And that’s the church, the whole church, and nothing but the church, so help us, God.

069. UNITY IN ACTION IS THE RESPONSE TO THE APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE (3): BY THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH – THE CHURCH OF THE NEW TESTAMENT

Jesus Christ came into a world of sin, violence, selfishness, and chaos, and in the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, He brought a new order, a new kingdom, a new power for the righteousness of God, so that love, peace, unity, and order could be maintained. This new kingdom would have the light of the world, the truth of the word of God, and the power of the resurrection. This kingdom on earth would model the kingdom of God in heaven. Its citizens would be empowered to take up the same cause of righteousness that Jesus brought to the earth when He was anointed with the Spirit of God (Luke 4:18-19). This kingdom on earth, the church, would proclaim the good news of the gospel of freedom from sin and oppression, would battle against the enemy in the spiritual realm for the souls of people, and would correct injustice, poverty, and violence between people. The power behind the armament of the church was love, and by the power of the Holy Spirit in the church, evil in the world would be overcome by good.

Jesus carried out the plan to perfection. Jesus modeled how the anointing of the Spirit was to be done, and He trained His disciples, who would later carry the responsibility to the church, the kingdom of God, so the anointing could continue to be fulfilled for the remainder of time until Jesus comes again. He paved the way so that people could enter His church and become citizens of the kingdom of heaven on earth.

The citizens of this kingdom would voluntarily answer the call to submit to the King of the throne of David and they would be freed of sin before they entered this kingdom. The power of the Living God would be placed within them, and they would wage spiritual war against the enemy -- the prince of the air, the prince of darkness – coming against this enemy with the power of the Prince of Peace. Jesus would establish this kingdom, His church, and following His resurrection to glory He would reign over it, and the gates of hell would not be able to stand up under its offensive assault.

Satan had tried to snuff out the plan of redemption at its beginning. But the enemy had duped himself, and Satan had been caught “red-handed” and “red-faced.” Satan had lost the battle against the living body of Jesus Christ while He was on this earth. So, now, Satan had to gather his evil forces to war against the living body of Jesus Christ on earth, the church. So, the church began a spiritual battle against the forces of evil, but now, in contrast to those under the Old Covenant, the citizens of this kingdom had the implements of the armor of God powered by the Spirit of God dwelling in His church (Eph 2:22).

Therefore, the responsibility for fulfilling the anointing of Jesus falls to the church. As the Holy Spirit “fell upon” believers in Acts, so the anointing from the Holy Spirit should continue to “fall upon” the church today. The “manifestations” of the Spirit are love, peace, and unity within the body of Christ, so that the church can receive the power for freeing the oppressed, correcting injustice, and healing the sick, while proclaiming the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ to the entire world.

Many Jews who had traveled to Jerusalem had stayed in the city after the experience of Pentecost and continued the fellowship of believers. This created a need for basic living supplies, which the church sacrificially met. Believers in the newly established church in Jerusalem began selling their land and possessions in order to meet this need (Acts 2:44-47 and 4:32-37).

Acts 2:44 All the believers were together and had everything in common. 45 Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need. 46 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47 praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

Jay Guin has written several posts on the One-In-Jesus web site about the verses in Acts 2:44-47, “All things in Common” (vs 44-45) and “Having Favor of All the People” (vs 46-47). These posts add considerably to the discussion of the early church and its emphasis on taking care of the poor and needy.

The Jerusalem church distributed food to the widows, and when things were not being handled in the optimum way, the apostles saw to it that organizational problems were resolved and men were appointed to see that proper distribution was made (Acts 6:1-6).

God’s anointing of Jesus was mentioned in the prayer of the believers in Acts 4:23-31, and after that prayer they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

One of the reasons Cornelius was called “devout and God-fearing” was that he gave generously to the poor (Acts 10:2). When a famine affected the area, the Christians at Antioch gave to help those in Judea, and Paul and Barnabas took the gift to Jerusalem (Acts 11:27-30).

In Peter’s sermon to Cornelius’ household, he identified the spiritual battle as being between the power of the Holy Spirit from Jesus and the power of the devil, He also said that people were healed and delivered from the physical and spiritual suffering that resulted as outcomes from this battle.

“You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.

Peter also said repeated that Jesus had commissioned the apostles in Luke 24:47-48 and Acts 1:8 to preach to the people and testify.

“We are witnesses of everything he did in the country of the Jews and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree, but God raised him from the dead on the third day and caused him to be seen. He was not seen by all the people, but by witnesses whom God had already chosen—by us who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one whom God has appointed as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” Acts 10: 36-43

These are also the three categories Jesus gave in His prayer for unity in John 17. In verses 1-5, Jesus prayed forHimself that the Father would glorify Him as He has glorified the Father. [4] “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” In verses 6-19, Jesus prayed for his (to be) apostles, that God would protect them “so that they may be one” and protect them “from the evil one” as Jesus has “sent them into the world.” The apostles would be protected until they could get the authority of the Holy Spirit and the mission of Jesus established in the church. In verses 20-26, Jesus prayed for all believers (who would make up the church) that they might be in complete unity so that the world could see the love of the Father. The last verse indicates that the church would continue to make Jesus known and carry His mission (of unity, the gospel, and the anointing). “26 I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them.”

John said that Christians have the anointing of Jesus.

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.

Jesus gave one command and that was to love one another as He loved us. John said that true love was not just an acknowledgement of the love of Jesus, but an action based on that love. That action was meeting the material needs of brothers and sisters in Christ.

1 John 3:16 This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. 17 If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? 18 Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 19 This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence 20 whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

James says that “faith without works is dead” (James 2:26). Some like to quote this verse and then supply a list of works that someone else needs to do, including water baptism, as if faith alone doesn’t save. But James revealed the works he is talking about in the definition of “pure religion.”

Jas 1:27 Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

James does not say that faith is dead if not followed by an element of human doctrine, but faith is dead if it does not carry out the works of ministering to the physical needs of others.

James 2:5 Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? 6 But you have insulted the poor.

14 What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? 15 Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. 16 If one of you says to him, “Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed,” but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? 17 In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.

So how could someone say “Lord, Lord” without doing the will of the Father (Matt 7:21)? Perhaps this would be done by those who say they love Jesus but who do not do love by ministering to the physical needs of others.

Jesus said He came to the sick and the lost (Matt. 18:11,Luke 19:10), to those who needed a physician (Matt.9:12, Mark 2:17, Luke 5:31), to the underprivileged and neglected. There are many passages in the New Testament that are interpreted to be descriptions of the “end times” (Matt. 24; Revelation). But Jesus gave one clear description in Matthew 25:31-46.

31 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

The basis for the judgment and separation between sheep and goats was how people in need were treated – water for the thirsty, food for the hungry, clothing for those in need, lodging for the homeless, help for the imprisoned and oppressed, ministry to the sick – those areas identified in His anointing and identified throughout the Old Testament.

The criteria for being counted among the sheep were not the number of sermons delivered, the number of vision objectives met, the average attendance last month, the amplitude of the guitars, the number of water baptisms, how many went to the church retreat this year, or much of anything else that organized religion today seems to think is so important that is needs to be measured.

The New Testament church took this anointing from Jesus very seriously. The apostles took that cue from walking with Jesus, because Jesus took it seriously as the anointing from the Father.

Since first established 2000 years ago, the church has been commissioned by the anointing of Jesus to be responsible for correcting all the oppression, poverty, injustice, suffering, and physical need in the world, over all the earth, every country, every nation, every person. Looking at that amount of responsibility in the natural, the whole idea seems unreasonable; and from the standpoint of a church that is operating out of the natural/fleshly mode characterized by weakness, chaos, and division, it is not only unreasonable, it is impossible.

The body of Christ -- whole, not fragmented -- must be operating in the unity of the Spirit to fulfill the anointing received from the Lord Jesus Christ. Otherwise, instead of the church "maintaining the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," Satan can maintain his oppression, injustice, sickness, and sin in the world.

How is the spiritual battle going? What seems to be dominant in the world today - love, peace, and unity or oppression, injustice, and sin? Who is doing something about that? What happened? Did everyone miss the assignment? Let's not listen to the voices of those who claim that the works of the Holy Spirit died out after the first century and do not exist today. The assignment still exists today, why would God cut off the power to fulfill the anointing? Those who say the power ceased do not understand the magnitude of their assignment.

070. UNITY IN ACTION IS THE RESPONSE TO THE APOSTLES’ DOCTRINE (4): BY THE KINGDOM OF GOD ON EARTH – THE CHURCH OF THE 21^ST CENTURY

The works prepared in advance have not been finished.

Unity in the body of Christ is based on the same thing today as it was when the church was established 2000 years ago. The authority for the church was passed from Jesus to those whom he had personally chosen – His apostles. The apostles taught as Jesus had taught them and as led and prompted by the Holy Spirit in sermons and messages considered collectively as “the apostles’ doctrine” (Acts 2:42). The doctrine upon which unity in the church was based was the gospel message that Jesus Christ was Savior and Lord.

But salvation through Christ was not the end, it was the beginning of a new life and of a new set of operating instructions – do the work that God had prepared in advance (Eph 2:10). This work is summed up in the anointing of Jesus by the Spirit of the Lord (Luke 4:18-19). Unity of mind and purpose is therefore not based on just theory or ideology; it is action focused toward a goal that has been mandated by the Lord, Himself. The will of the Father is not to only say, “Lord, Lord,” but it is to do the Lord’s work. The Lord’s work is so huge that it can only be done by a united church with the fullness of the Holy Spirit dwelling inside.

So, is it really reasonable to say that the church, the body of Christ, has the responsibility for correcting all the injustice, all the oppression, all the spiritual diseases, all the spiritual and physical bondage, all the physical hardships inflicted by the devil (often working through another human or group of humans), even physical sickness – all those categories included under the anointing of Jesus (Luke 4:18-19) – over the entire world?

The church has the anointing. What other answer is there?

Jesus said to do it. Jesus said to preach the gospel to the world. The gospel is the good news. Preaching the good news to the poor was part of the anointing of Jesus. It’s clear from the response of the early church and the passages in 1 John and James given in the previous post that love is expressed as actively ministering to those in physical need. Peter identified the problem as being oppressed from the power of the devil (Acts 10:38). So what is it? -- Deliverance from the bondage of sin or deliverance from the bondage and injustice of oppression? It’s both, because both are related to the battle between good and evil. That’s why Paul used a battle term in saying that we are to “overcome evil with good” (Rom 12:21). God has not “done away” with the world. The church is supposed to overcome it. Jesus overcame the world (John 16:33) and sent the power for the church to continue overcoming (1 John 2:13-14).

It is top priority with God. Is deliverance from oppression and sin a priority with God? It is presented as a top priority through the scripture, from the start to the end. The apostle and the church took it as a priority. Is there anything different today? Jesus made a statement in Mark 14:7, “The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me” (also Matt. 26:11, John 12:8). Some have tried to make this statement into a slam on the poor, but this is a truth that is part of the plan of God -- that there will always be a challenge from the evil one for the church to deal with – a challenge so great that it cannot be accomplished without the church being in unity of mind and purpose.

How else can it be done? Correct poverty, injustice, oppression, sickness, sin and the bondage of the enemy for every person over the entire world? Who would stand a chance of doing that? How about Social Security and Medicare? How about a government bailout? How about the Buffett/ Gates/ FtKnox/ FedReserve Foundation? How about any other national government – North Korea? Iran? Russia? England? These governments can’t do it in their own countries, much less the whole world. Well, maybe if the church helped the government. You mean as in, “Separation of Church and State?” If it came to deciding between maintaining atheism or the church and government working together to feed the poor, which would have the ACLU’s support?

This is a spiritual battle, and it will not be won with weapons of the natural realm. Human governments and institutions operate out of the natural, out of the flesh, because that’s where they are located and that is what they serve. They serve themselves. They fight to maintain their existence and self interest. They will only go so far in any combat against evil before falling into incompleteness or failure. It takes an entity using the spiritual armor of God to defeat the powers of darkness in the spiritual realms. There is no other source other than the power of the Holy Spirit living in the church.

The church, in preparation for being the bride of Christ, has already accepted the anointing. Too late; it’s a done deal! The church says, in the words of Isaiah 6:8 --

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

What does this mean for all the people in the different religious organizations who can’t agree with each other’s doctrine?

The risk of private interpretations that “locally define” the body of Christ

“Does this mean I’m personally responsible for the oppression in North Korea and the prisoners in Somalia and the sickness in the Sudan in addition to spreading the gospel of the kingdom of heaven in Russia? Does this mean that the congregation I attend is responsible for correcting all this? There’s no way!”

First of all, it is the church that is responsible, and, second, yes, it is an impossible task for one person or their congregation. That is why it will take the entire body of Christ, all over the earth working together in unity, to fulfill this responsibility.

However, there a condition under which a person or a group of people might be held responsible by God for the whole earth. And they, themselves, with their own doctrine, hold the answer to that question. Any person or any group of people, by name or by assumption or by doctrine, who claims that they and only they make up the body of Christ, claiming that the lines of fellowship of the saved stop at their defined boundaries, claiming that only those specific people who have complied with their doctrinal requirements are saved, are also claiming the responsibility for fulfilling the anointing of Jesus in the entire world. How could they possibly say other people are teaching error unless they go and teach it correctly, themselves? Everywhere, all over the world. God will hold each person and each group, who say that they are representing Christ, accountable for what they say and teach.

Just making up an example – a fairly specific one just for purpose of clarity. Let’s say that there is a Christian organization composed of members holding an unbending doctrinal requirement that, in their opinion, restricts the admission of an unbeliever into the church. What requirement must be satisfied? – could be the absolute necessity of immersion in water by human hands for salvation, of certain physical outward manifestations of the Spirit, the necessity of going through some protocol of liturgical confession, anything like that. Those people who have complied with this requirement are saved and approved for fellowship within the Lord’s church, and those people who have not done this requirement are eternally lost, outside the church, are of the world, and are subjects for evangelism by the real truth. It doesn’t matter what the doctrinal restriction is, what matters is that the group has some sort of entry gate placed before salvation in addition to faith in Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord -- and their restriction narrows down the definition of the body of Christ to their doctrinal group.

Any group of people who defines themselves as the church based on a doctrine other than or in addition to Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord also defines themselves as the only ones who are qualified to fulfill the anointing of Jesus to the entire earth; and they will either do it or else they will answer to God for having not done it. God will hold people and groups of people accountable for their definition of who is in the church and who is not. If a group is thousands of years old and if they have 800 million members all over the globe and if they say only they are the body of Christ, they better get busy, because they are responsible for the rest of the people in the world. If a group is hundreds of years old and if they have 300,000 members in various sized congregations located here and there and if they say the body of Christ ends at their doctrinal border, they had better think some more, because God will call them to account for the bondage and oppression and injustice, physical and spiritual, of every person all over the world.

Think about it. This is not a concept that has been given much thought. The church is responsible for the anointing. If any group, whether small or large, claims that only they are the church, then they are accepting the responsibility for fulfilling, by themselves, the anointing of Jesus to the world. They can deny that fact until Jesus comes again, but, like it or not, they have said they take the anointing and they will be judged by Matthew 25.

What if there a lot of small groups? God couldn’t hold them all responsible for the same thing. That’s physical human mathematical thinking. God will hold each group responsible for what they claim to be the truth and how they represent Jesus Christ. If each group represents the idol of its doctrine as the means for salvation, then each group will be accountable for what they have said and claimed. By their self-imposed doctrinal limits, each group has divided up the body of Jesus Christ over requirements of human origin, and with each division the ability to receive the power of the Spirit is lessened and the power to fulfill the anointing of Jesus to the world is reduced. The job of the anointing is so huge that it will require the body of Christ -- whole, united, working together, one in mind and purpose, all over the world, helping and edifying and strengthening and encouraging one another for the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ – to fulfill the anointing of Jesus.

So, in view of this, how important is it for the church to “maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace?”

“Well, we do a pretty good job of getting along within our group of 24 people making up the church, just as long as those people over there don’t come over here and try to mess things up.” Okay, church, let’s see now, everybody have their plane ticket? You’re going to Russia; you’re going to Japan; you’re going to Somalia; you’re going to New Guinea, you’re going to the person living next door. What? You’ve not even talked to them? What do you mean, you’ve been too busy debating about whether or not (_____) is necessary for salvation?

So, where are we?

Has the anointing of Jesus been fulfilled by the church? Has injustice, oppression, or bondage decreased or increased as the world’s population has increased over the last 2000 years? Are the gates of hell in sight, yet? Are the stormtroopers ready? What do you mean, “They’re in the back arguing with each other over who has the greatest hermeneutic?”

This is not a popular message. It’s a scary message. But it’s not nearly as scary as it will be when Jesus comes for His bride and she has contracted an autoimmune disease, made antibodies against herself, and carved herself into 20,000 pieces that have “dismembered” one another.

071. MR. SAMSON MEETS THE BARBER AT CHURCH

The church has received the anointing of Jesus (Luke 4:18-19). Like it or not; deny it or accept it; the church has it. It is not the privilege of office; it is not the rank of authority. It is the strength of servanthood and obedience. It is tapping into the greatest power in or out of the universe; it is bringing everything into submission upon the name of Jesus Christ and upon the power and within the will of the Father. It is coming against the ruler of this world, the prince of the air, the evil power of principalities, of Satan, of demonic spirits, and every other power of evil in the spiritual realms.

Satan’s ploys are clear. The scripture identifies them. But Satan is the master masquerader, the best liar, giving the most convincing misrepresentation of the truth. “God did not surely say that you have the anointing. Just take it easy. Take the iced tea plunge. But just keep all those other people out of your swimming pool. They might contaminate your water. Protect it from them. They’re not like you.”

The body of Christ will not fulfill the anointing of Jesus as long as it is in division. Satan seems to understand that connection better than Christians, because strife, chaos, and division are his most effective weapons against the church. If there are people in prison, the penal authority doesn’t want them to get too friendly or to get too organized, they might get unified and do something. Keep the prisoners isolated in cells. Let them out occasionally to have a little social interaction, but get them back in their separate cells. Sound like the church? Keep them isolated from one another so the gangs won’t get too large, let them out every Sunday to meet together and socialize, then put them back in their own isolated compartments. Are we in a prison under a law of legalism and indifference and competitiveness?

The power for the church comes from the unity within the body. Division destroys power and weakens the church. The next few posts look at the areas of unity, division, Holy Spirit power, the power of Satan, and the consequences of the choices that the church makes.

Amen, Brother Samson! Preach It!

The story of Samson, one of the judges of Israel, is told in Chapters 13-16 of the book of Judges. The Lord had given Samson great strength with which to fight the Philistines, who were oppressing Israel at the time. Samson’s strength, however, was tied to one act of obedience before God which was part of a Nazirite vow – his hair would never be cut. If his hair were to be cut, his superhuman strength would leave. On multiple occasions, the Spirit of the Lord would come upon Samson and he would do something that required incredible strength, often times inflicting heavy casualty losses on the Philistines. One of the more interesting examples was when he killed a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey (Judges 15:15-17). Samson’s demise started when he told his wife, Delilah, a Philistine, the secret of his strength. When his hair was cut, his strength left, and he was even unaware of it. When he woke from his sleep to fight, he only had the strength of a natural man, not the strength of God. He went out to battle the enemy in his usual self-confidence; and only when he was easily overcome by the enemy did he realize that he was without the Spirit of the Lord. He walked right into it -- must have been a real shocker. The Philistines put out his eyes, imprisoned him, and used him for entertainment, but at the end of the show, Samson brought the house down (Judges 17:30).

In this analogy, the person of Samson represents the church, called by God to operate offensively against the forces of evil in the world, called by God to deliver the people from the oppression of the enemy, empowered by the Spirit of the Lord to go to battle with strength beyond human ability, specially commissioned by a Nazirite vow, the anointing of the Lord Jesus Christ. While Samson operated with the Spirit of the Lord, he was offensively undefeatable. Jesus said that the gates of hell would not withstand the offensive charge of the church (Matt. 16:18). Samson tore out the doors, posts, and bar of the Gaza city gate, lifted them to his shoulders, and carried them to the top of a hill (Judges 16:3).

Delilah represents the operation of the sinful nature from within the church. Delilah’s faithfulness was to the Philistines first and not as a wife to Samson. She nagged and corrupted him to reveal his source of power from the Lord, and she then revealed her true nature and separated Samson from the power. She introduced division upon the body of Samson. She was an “insider,” but a foreign spy with allegiance to a kingdom not of God. She carried significant influence because she appealed to Samson’s human (fleshly) nature. When given the opportunity, she invited the forces of the enemy to come in and take over.

Samson’s strength represents the power of the Holy Spirit residing within the church. Samson’s strength was sourced from the outside, from the Spirit of the Lord coming upon him (Judges 14:19, 15:14, 16:13). The church’s strength resides within (Eph. 2:22), but its influence and flame can be quenched (1 Thess. 5:19).

Samson’s Nazirite vow, represents the obedience of the church to the commands of Jesus, to love one another, and to fulfill His anointing. Samson was set apart for God (Judges 13:5); the church is set apart for God – sanctified (Eph. 5:26).

Samson’s uncut hair represents the unity of the body – the necessity of all parts of the body to be joined together and working under one mind and command. The hand doesn’t say, “I don’t need the hair.” The hair doesn’t say, “I don’t need the eyes.” In Samson’s case, when the enemy cut the hair, his eyes were blinded. If one part of the body is compromised, all the parts suffer (1 Cor 12:26).

The Philistines represent the opposing world, the forces of the enemy, bent on bringing injustice and oppression upon all people. But they showed their “class.” They were so “of the world” that they weren’t spiritually discerning enough to “put two and two together” and realize that Samson’s hair was growing back while he was in prison. Duh! They were too busy celebrating over their carnal victory to observe the source of Samson’s power was returning. They paid big time for that little oversight.

How is the story of Samson related to the body of Christ, the kingdom of God on earth, the church?

When parts of the body of Christ fight, compete, criticize, castigate, complain, debate, condemn each other, throwing the church into chaos, confusion, strife, and division, the power of the Holy Spirit is also weakened and divided. Every time that a part of the church takes its eyes off of Jesus and divides from another part of the body, another snip of Samson’s hair is cut off.

Instead of the body working together with a power like Samson, the church assumes the role of the barber.

Today, there are individual church groups, each of which draws the boundaries of the kingdom around their own church membership. “We have King Jesus.” “No you don’t, we do!” “You just think you do!” It’s like there are fragments of the body of Christ strewn everywhere. What is this -- a war zone??

“For God was pleased to have all of his fullness dwell in him” Col. 1:19. Was the body of Christ divided when He was on the earth? Not even a bone was broken (John 19:36) -- why should that be so significant? It proves that the body of Christ was not divided. All of the fullness of God dwelled in the undivided physical body of Christ when He was on this earth. What has happened to God’s fullness that was in the church when it was first founded?

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and strangers, but fellow citizens with God’s people and also members of his household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit.” Eph. 2: 19-22

The fullness of God dwelled in the undivided physical body of Christ on earth 2000 years ago; the fullness of God dwells by His Spirit in the undivided physical body of Christ on earth today. What happens to the power of the Holy Spirit within the church if the body of Christ divides itself up?

[This is not rocket science.]

The church is like Samson, with the superhuman strength to overcome the enemy and to storm the gates of hell and break them down. But the church has taken a Nazirite vow - the church will keep its eyes and attention of the anointing of Jesus and not cut up His body, represented in this analogy by cutting off Samson’s hair. But every time that the church divides and competing groups form, another lock of hair is cut off. Every time that Christians argue over disputable matters and elevate their opinions over unity in the body of Christ, hairs are split and yanked out. Every Sunday, when Christians worship God using their own private channel which in their opinion is the better than anyone else’s or the only valid one, they are taking Samson to see the barber. Samson forsakes his vow and enslaves himself to the control of the flesh. Delilah cut off his hair, and Samson was divided; his power was gone. As the church allows more of the values of the world to come in, as the church competes and judges and separates within itself, as the church sells itself to the control of the fleshly nature, the church becomes further divided – not only between groups, but also divided internally between the control of the Spirit and the influence of the world.

When united, the body of Christ has the fullness of God, who dwells in the church (holy temple) by His Spirit. When the body of Christ divides itself up, it also divides the power of the Holy Spirit to operate against a spiritual enemy. The outcomes of battles in the spiritual realms determine outcomes in the physical realms -- in society, in a culture, in governments, in fulfilling the mission (assignment, anointing, prepared works) of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This power has been given to dwell in the church so that she may grow more and more into the perfect and complete knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. As the church operates as one body, it gets stronger and stronger and its members grow more and more into the image of the invisible God. Evil is present, but the church overcomes evil with good (Rom. 12:21). “Overcome” is the product of a successful battle campaign. “Overcome” evil doesn’t necessarily mean to actively eradicate and stamp out evil. It also means to “smother it,” to generate so much good that evil dies from lack of nutrition, to “swamp it out.” The church cannot generate that much good while squandering resources with infighting between body fragments.

The church must fight using spiritual power and spiritual armament to overcome; if the church operates out of the natural, it will fail. That is all according to God’s plan to make the church grow in power and into Christ by operating out of the Spirit and not the flesh (as will be discussed in a later post).

Peace is much more than the lack of conflict, peace is how conflict is handled through love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ to the glory of God. In the same way, unity is much more than the lack of division. Unity is the result of a choice to act in love and peace instead of in hate and division. Groups of Christians who settle into a benign neglect of one another may not be squandering resources fighting and competing between themselves, but they are missing the power of the Holy Spirit that comes from all parts of the body actively working together in singleness of mind and purpose. That is unity of the Spirit, and that unity is what is necessary in order to storm the gates of Hell.

072. UNDERSTANDING OUR COMMONALITY IN CEREBRAL PROCESSING AS A STEP TOWARD UNITY

News flash! People have the same basic mechanism that programs their thinking, choices, decisions, and behavior.

The content of the present. At any given moment, we are static composites of two dynamic processes in time – where we have “come from” in the past and where we are “headed” in the future. Time passes, the future becomes the present, and the present becomes the past. Our present is filled with residues of everything from pride over past accomplishments to grief, even self-blame, over past mistakes (so categorized in retrospect). Our present is also filled with anticipation of the future, with emotions ranging from excitement to fear, from confidence to doubt, and from ambition to excel to a target of mediocrity. All of these things, and many more, flux as time passes from the future through the present to the past at a speed perceived as slow when young of age and alarmingly fast when one is older. We as humans are different in the details of the exact constitution of our present thinking, but this process of formation by experience is basically the same for us all.

The conscious and subconscious mind. The present is composed of factual information for which we have conscious recall, methods of thinking and evaluating, past opinions and conclusions about events, and impressions about how experiences have turned out, either positive or negative. Coupled to the conscious mind is the subconscious mind that has a more subtle but possibly even greater influence on our thinking in the present. It is in the subconscious that the most pronounced memories are stored of the feelings about past experiences – memories that are consciously latent but are ready to wave a flag of pleasantness or unpleasantness about a past event that will form a reflex or default emotional reaction to a similar event in the present. Memories are functionally organized like layers, with the depth of the memory determined by its recency and its relative emotional intensity, and with the upper layers having the prime accessibility to the conscious. It’s impressive how much of our positive or negative reaction to something in the present comes from a prior conditioning instilled during early childhood years. In some respects, it is almost as though we spend all of adulthood overcoming what was programmed into us as a child. Sobering to think about as a parent.

These emotional reflex responses to events have physiological counterparts. A reflex thought producing a fear or anger response in a situation can cause release of “fight or flight” hormones such as adrenaline or release of cortisol as a stress-related hormone, as well as many others. Some of these will have immediate effects on heart, brain, and metabolism as well as more chronic effects, which, with repeated occurrences over time, can have deleterious effects on health.

Conditioned from Adam. We each came into this world by natural birth from physical chemical materials (“dust”). As such, we were born with the “sin nature” of Adam -- whether that means born sinful, original sin, starting off unsaved, or unaccountable for sin is a “Velcro topic” and, fortunately, is of little relevance here. The fact is that each person starts off in this world having a natural proclivity toward sin because of the original sin of Adam. Over time, development, teaching, and experience a child learns how to make decisions that have a basis of morality, of a sense of right from wrong and good from bad, and a sense of the consequences of reward and punishment. But the “first impulse thought,” the “default” basic reflex mode of thinking and decision making, “the first response,” and the unmodified resulting behavior will always start from “the flesh” as long as we are physical beings on this earth. The intensity of the behavior to a given stimulus varies from person to person depending on their past experiences which form a person’s “conditioned response.”

Past conditioning and reconditioning. This past conditioning has a heavy influence over as much as 90% of our thinking in the present – at least the “first” reaction or thought that comes into our mind. Although those subconscious reflex thoughts are almost always part of our human nature, we may have learned from experience to not allow that initial reaction to control our present thinking about a situation because the outcome is not good.

Many types of “reconditioning” can alter to some extent our human natural reaction to situations. One type of reconditioning is “emergency situation rehearsal.” All possible situations, scenarios and “what if’s” that can be thought of are created to practice a previously “well thought out” response which has been shown to have the best outcome. In this way, corrective action can be taken before the adrenaline level goes up and the increase in heart rate and blood pressure override everything. For instance, astronauts, jet fighter pilots, Navy Seals, (some of many examples) are trained by repetitive trial experiences to react to emergency situations in a “best case response” which has been rehearsed so many times that it becomes “the dominant reflex.” Perhaps on a less exciting scale, a plumber might look at a leaky pipe joint and immediately think “Teflon tape,” whereas the average nonfixit person’s thinking might be seized up by “Oh, no! There’s going to be a flood, and the guests will be here any minute! Awwwwgh!!”

Another type of “reconditioning” occurs when, over a period of time, a person learns to “catch” a negative thought “mid-brain-flight” and consciously substitute a more positive and productive one in its place. Although this self-help approach is of some use in improving one’s thinking, conscious control only goes so far in attempting to override the subconscious – it may not “purge” the natural thinking, but only suppress it, so that the negative thought keeps coming back and back again. This might be similar to when one tries to tell himself that he is going to stop hiccupping. Just about the time he thinks it will work, he relaxes, opens his mouth to speak, and the loudest hiccup of all escapes.

God provides the best way. In a previous post, it was discussed how God had “His best” for us; and a part of God’s best is our being transformed by the Holy Spirit into the likeness of Christ, who is the image of the invisible God (Col. 1:15). This transformation process begins when one is born again of the Spirit (John 3:1-11), regenerated into a new creation (2 Cor. 5:17). The Holy Spirit doesn’t try to retrain the old sinful nature. There is a new nature that the Holy Spirit transforms; a new self renewed in knowledge in the image of the creator (Col. 3:10); a new self that is created to be like God (Eph. 4:24). This is a new type of “thought catch” than that attempted using the natural process. The natural process trying to correct the bad and bless the good is like having an internal “conflict of interest.” In the spiritual process, the old has gone and the new has come (2 Cor. 5:17). Every thought is held captive and brought into obedience to Christ (2 Cor. 10:5).

We have many similarities in processing. Everyone who has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them is going through this process throughout life on this earth, as the old nature of sin is crucified away and the new nature of the Spirit takes its place. People have different rates of exchange, based on a multitude of variables. Everyone has many things in their past to overcome in order to expand the work of the Spirit in their lives, and most of the time those past things are different between people. In the overall process, we are the same, in the specific details of the process, we are different.

So, why can’t just cut each other some slack? Have you ever wished that someone would just understand your particular situation, cut you a little slack in the line, consider all the things you are dealing with, and stop judging you irresponsibly? Have you ever wished that someone would get over being all mad about something so you could have a reasonable conversation about forgiveness and getting along? “If they just could realize that I been through this and this, they wouldn’t be so harsh in their criticism of me. I’d talk to them, but they wouldn’t listen.”

If anyone has these types of thoughts, wishing others would be more understanding, is it possible that others are wishing the same thing for themselves, just with some different details of description? Is it possible that one person is making harsh unfair assumptions about another person, who is also making the same judgments about the first person – all the while both persons are wishing to themselves that the other one would be more understanding of their personal situation and cut them a break?

Going from individuals to application to a group of individuals, to a congregation, to the church

Characteristics of interactions and attitudes between people also function in similar manner between groups of people, because people tend to associate with others who are similar.

Expand this lack of understanding from between individuals to between groups within a congregation. “Well, they think this. If you do this, they will so that and probably leave.” Now we are describing a congregation in conflict. Expand that further to conflict between different congregations, between different denominations, between different religious groups – Catholic, Protestant, non-denominational, whatever. Expand that further across countries and soon we are talking about the universal body of Christ -- Christians not talking to one another but talking about one another - “knowing” what everyone else thinks - “knowing” what their attitude is, and “adjusting” my attitude to compensate for their attitude, which I “know” about without having to ask, and which I also “know” is wrong and not scripturally authorized. How do I know that? My group’s hermeneutic.

How does this tangled mess of non-communication, self-righteous justification, and prideful unforgiveness fit into “treat your neighbor as you want to be treated,” “love one another as I have loved you,” “forgive, as God through Christ has forgiven you,” “judge not that you do not be judged yourself,” “you wicked and unmerciful servant; I forgave you this huge debt and you couldn’t forgive this tiny one?”

Unity, anyone? So what promotes unity (Eph. 4:3)? The bond of peace. What does sowing in peace produce? A harvest of righteousness. What is righteousness? The definition lies in the character of God – who we have been created to become like (Eph. 4:24). How can we become like God – how can the church – how can individual Christians – when we maintain judgmental attitudes about other Christians – attitudes that are derived from out of the old sinful nature from which God has cleansed us and given us a new birth. Why do we as individuals and collectively as the church want to hold onto the sinful nature, like Linus refusing to give up his blanket?

How can we justify that in our minds? We do it by surrounding ourselves with like-thinking people who have and harbor the same judgments and attitudes – so that everyone can reinforce everyone else that “everybody I know thinks this way, and we all say that it is okay.” Uniformity in error is not unity in the Spirit.

Has anyone checked their church mail today? “You have mail.” God has sent us some letters. But each church reads their letters with a special set of glasses that filter out the meaning of about 20% of the message – sometimes a different percent, sometimes a different content of the percent. The glasses have a name, they are the latest and greatest, they have bouncy springs in the ear pieces; they have special coatings to filter out certain types of light that we think to be harmful to our sensitive spiritual eyes. Everything about the glasses is “natural” – oh, and it’s “organic” and environmentally friendly, too – at least friendly to our own local doctrinal environment. One special coating is the PS coating (pride/arrogance); another is the GS1 coating (greed/selfish ambition), and other is the GS2 coating (gossip/slander), and others are available on order. The brand of the glasses is “Idol.” And, on the SuperBowl half-time 60 second ad, a little man with a sneaky red face says, “You want this……don’t you?”

These special coatings filter out to varying degrees love for one another as expressed in service, acceptance, and forgiveness. They filter out a real appreciation of the cost of our redemption, the blood of God’s Son Jesus Christ, an understanding of the price paid for God’s gift of grace – grace so we can be freed from sin and unencumbered to pursue righteousness and the control of the Spirit.

Division, anyone? So division in the body of Christ not only robs the church of Holy Spirit power, it also forms smaller separate groups that progressively have isolated themselves in their self-developed doctrine. These same groups determine the maximum doctrinal variation to be tolerated to continue in “good standing” and patrol the borders of their doctrinal purity and discipline in some form those who disagree too much – with discipline being anything from public disapproval to just a social shunning of the outcast. Perhaps this situation is analogous to the two dimensional appearance of a spiral galaxy in a continuous swirl slinging off gas and stars that have the least gravitational attraction to the center mass, or, in the case of a hurricane, the lowest barometric pressure.

The natural (organic?) church. So, do we in the church understand that when we value the control of our patented and branded doctrinal control over unity in the body of Christ that we are patterning the working organization of our congregation after nature – after the flesh – and that we will subject ourselves, and our fragment of the church, to the consequences of the natural laws that God set up at creation? Of particular consequence are the laws of thermodynamics, which bring about a lot of “what you sow is what you reap” fallout in the church.

We are controlled by the flesh when we make unloving and unjustified judgments about one another. Groups, congregations, denominations, the church operate the same way, and by so doing, place themselves under the dominion of natural law. Enforced uniformity can be comforting and reassuring on a small enough group level, but it is not unity of the Spirit and it is not unity within the body of Christ.

James 4:10 Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up. 11 Brothers, do not slander one another. Anyone who speaks against his brother or judges him speaks against the law and judges it. When you judge the law, you are not keeping it, but sitting in judgment on it. 12 There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the one who is able to save and destroy. But you—who are you to judge your neighbor?

Rom 15: 5 May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, 6 so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 7 Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.

Phil. 2:2 ….being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.

Judgmental and unforgiving and other unChrist-like attitudes between groups as parts of the body of Christ are no different in principle than these attitudes between individual Christians. It’s just sin on a bigger scale with more devastating consequences for the church for which Jesus died.

Is the world becoming more like the church, or is the church becoming more like the world? How much of the standard of the world has the church absorbed?

James 5:9 Don’t grumble against each other, brothers, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!

073. TRYING TO KEEP THE UNITY OF THE SPIRIT IN THE CHAOS OF THE WORLD

Just a little review.

The eight posts on this blog since Christmas 2011, have been building on the subject of unity in the body of Christ. The intent has been to show upon what unity should be founded and then to show how the church is falling short because of the adoption of worldly standards and thinking. One post dealt with things that have been false objects of unity, and the next post dealt with the real basis of unity as shown by the early church, which was theapostles’ doctrine that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord. The next four posts dealt with a unity in the church that is based on a common action to which the church has been called to do -- fulfill the anointing of Jesus to the entire world (Luke 4:18-19). [Unity in Action is the Response to the Apostles’ Doctrine – (1) What Type of Response? (2) The Response of the Redeemer, (3) The Response of the N.T. Church, (4) The Response of the 21^stCentury Church]. The next post, pointing to the relation between power and unity, compared the loss of power from division in the church today to the loss of strength when the body of Samson and his hair suffered a division.

In the previous post, “Understanding our Commonality in Cerebral Processing as a Step towards Unity,” it was said that humans were all created to be products of our personal background and our past experiences. Since these experiences are different between people, we all, in the present, view things through different filters and from different perspectives. We should expect that differences in opinion or perception would occur between different people. But when these differences involve scriptural interpretations and doctrinal details, somehow an intolerable situation develops, and we have to defend our correct position against someone else’s erroneous position. But, instead of dividing over “disputable matters,” why can’t we cut each other a break and understand that since we have a commonality in our processing to get to our present thinking, we should be in unity over that similarity instead of magnifying the difference in the details of each person’s outcome. But, instead of showing understanding of one another, Christians have enjoined groups of people who think similarly enough to barely tolerate one another and who seem to have more “unity” by being against “those people over there” than true unity based upon Jesus Christ.

Could it be -- worldly standards of operation within the church?

Is the church that Jesus died for united as one body in accordance with His prayer in John 17? If there are examples of unity between Christians with diversity, is that the “expected norm” worldwide or is that an unusual local situation? One after another, reviews, interviews, and polls reveal that the world generally perceives the church and Christians as being argumentative, self-righteous, and hypocritical. In some cases, this is a function of the enemy convincing people to resist the conviction of the Holy Spirit and to instead blame and vilify Christians and the church – just as Jesus said would happen (John 15:18-19; 16:1-3). However, Peter said that some bad treatment is undeserved, but that some is deserved because of evil conduct (1 Peter 2:20). Do any of the world’s accusations against the church result as a natural consequence of the church operating out of the flesh instead of out of the Spirit? “The flesh” is the same as “the natural” which is an operation of thinking, attitudes, and behavior that are humanly derived instead of Spirit-led. It is the church being influenced by worldly thinking and infiltrated by worldly standards? Sowing to the Spirit reaps life; sowing to the flesh reaps death and corruption (Rom. 8:12-14). That prophecy is valid for individuals, and it is valid for the church at any level of organization.

Can the church be described in political terms?

“Religion and politics don’t mix.” Why has it been said, “Two things you don’t talk about are religion and politics.” Are they classically contentious topics? Do people have trouble discussing these topics in a civil manner? Do people carry so many preformed opinions about these topics that they can’t hear a different viewpoint without getting upset or argumentative? Is this the way to spoil the fun at an office party or a Sunday school class fellowship? If so, shouldn’t that seem odd, since both of these areas are supposed to be somehow devoted to the common good -- the welfare of the church or the best interest of the country?

“Well, these are just important topics, and people have already thought about them a lot and have had teaching and training and experience in these areas. These areas are a part of a belief system that people maintain and so their views are something close to their hearts.” So does that mean that their views are higher or better than the common good? Does it mean their ideas are the only correct ones, and any different views are opposed to what is right, and therefore these notions must be discredited?

Does this mean there are a lot of similarities between people’s political position and their religion? Is there similarity between a political party and the church? Can Christians from different denominations act toward one in a manner similar to that seen and heard from Democrats and Republicans?

We become frustrated and impatient with members of Congress who raise the flag of platitudes of “doing what’s good for the country” and of “working together” and of “making progress” and then don’t come close to doing that, even while claiming that they do. Each party tries to blame the other for being the problem, all the while planning ways to get themselves ahead at the other’s expense and even sabotaging the success of the other if at all possible. One thing that just about everyone will agree on is that our country is in a mess. But it’s all those other people’s fault.

The universal church, taken together as the body of Christ, can behave more like the world than set an example of peace, unity and forgiveness to the world. The world’s approach can be easily observed in the political antics in Congress as well as those vying for the Republican nomination to run for President. No matter what one's political view might be, it is quite apparent that each side is bent on self-advantage and blaming the other. One wonders if the immobility that is produced isn't viewed by the politicians as being good (as we ordinary citizens might think it was very bad) because that just affords another opportunity to blame the other party. This Presidential election is typical in that it shows the incumbent party just playing it cool and waiting as the non-incumbent party divides itself into pieces by the candidates biting and devouring one another. By the time the election attacks are finally over, the voters are sick of the issues, sick of the candidates, and even sick of the entire process. Christians can express their righteous disgust at the political mess and then turn around and do the same thing in the church. And some people are sour on the church for those reasons.

So, how is the church different? Who is affecting whom here? Is the church being a model of unity and cooperation to the politicians, or is political behavior invading the church? Which one is supposed to have the guidance and power of the Holy Spirit – the political system or the church? Where has happened to that Holy Spirit influence?

Bill Moyers recently said, “…. our country is in a mess, and our politics are not making it better. The problems seem insurmountable. But as the ship of state is sinking, the crew is at each other’s throats, too busy fighting to plug the holes and pump out the water. And everything’s been made rotten by the toxic rancor and demonizing that have shredded civil discourse and devastated our ability to govern ourselves. Just look at the ugliness of the election campaign. So we’re left with paralysis, dysfunction, and a whole lot of rage.”

Sounds like a lot of rhetoric going on, complete with blame, finger pointing, name calling, and faultfinding. Does this diatribe apply only to our government or also to our churches? Are the standard operating procedures considered acceptable by the church more like that described in the New Testament or more like the standards of government? Which one is being infiltrated by the other?

This is not a fun trip to take – trying to point out areas of deficiency in our religious institutions. But this is one of the blessings of freedom (as long as we have it) -- to point out, to reveal, to discuss, to think, and to disagree. We do have that advantage going for us.

The approach we will take to discuss this sensitive topic is to present studies from psychologists and sociologists concerning the characterization of our society today, principally in the United States, to explain why our political system, in particular, has become so dysfunctional. It is actually part of a natural cycle and consequence of the evolution of humanistic thinking and values. The problem should become apparent when it is obvious that the description of our human society also fits the church all too well.

The information source will mainly be from an interview between Bill Moyers and Jonathan Haidt televised on February 5, 2012.