Churches of Christ are paying a huge penalty---unfathomable---for the false doctrine evolving from a couple of centuries back regarding the cessation of Holy Spirit activity among common believers. When the debate was over, the Spirit was fundamentally eliminated except for reading of Him in the Word....the Word He inspired to teach of His activity.
He revealed through the writers He inspired that He could be quenched. He has been.
All that is left once this amputation is fulfilled is for man to engineer his own plot and maneuver his own trail without the leadership of the living God....literally. Mystery yields to explanation and power succumbs to loves me/loves me not kids' play.
Ceased. Yeah, that was our word to our young leaders? Ceased? Over? God's done? No more uncontrollable and unmonitorable participation of the Spirit God? God has brought us into a lower-keyed Age where His resolute glory, the church, is a rather subdued and even a stiff non-participant doing our best to get by from closing prayer to the next opening prayer? This is what we are to expect of His bride? Arthritic timidity?
And we are to believe this? The God who could part seas or walk on them? The God who could sling a pebble into the forehead of the G-Bully or transform a Pebble into a church leader? Done. Ceased.
We are now to read the Bible, pass the exams, and go do nothing but basically stand with our behavior clipboards at the church door and determine whom we are to fellowship and which ones we do later decide to disfellowship....for we are all about right and wrong?
Except....for the gullible wrong we took in through hoodwinkery which stole the Residential God from our midst. Yes, big voices with persuasive influence successfully shielded us from those villains (?) who would wish to make us believe God actually and actively operates among His people? How dare someone be so...so...naive as us to believe such?
Notice....we pay a costly and heavy price for buying into this brotherhoodwinkery. The Holy Spirit desires to work with and among us today. Period.
Those big voices haven't been easy to push against. But pushing must be done. We are hungrier than ever to see our Lively God take center stage in a world filled with egos and dead-end philosophies. This includes our egos and dead-ends.
Awaken and remain awakened to a truth that has been awaiting in the Word to just be believed....the Holy Spirit of God awaits to release His power in the inner man that we might understand we are to live in the fullness of God so that He can do more than we can ever dream according that power that resides and operates directly in us....Eph. 3:14-21.
The penalty of failing to let Him work among us....leaves us to try the work on our own. Big penalty.
4 comments:
Amen, Terry! And I love that word "brotherhoodwinkery!"
You are so right was in my head, and the word verification that popped up seconds after for leaving a commment was, irght. Is that a coincidence, or maybe, a Holy Spirit signal?
Your comments reminded me of the age-old power struggles and the ego involved in getting your way to control other people (taking or applying scripture way-out of context or stretching it to support whatever), and to what extremes they are willing to go. Or, the childish worrying about what everyone else is doing, but not yourself, and satisfaction in getting your way.
People lose focus on who we are worshipping and focus on each other, like He is not even there. I believe people, purposely, distract themselves with other things, so that they can ignore the Spirit, which may want them to do something they don't want to do. j
Terry, Thank you so much for presenting this post in such a clear manner. This is a 'bull's eye' concerning the stance of many 'door checkers'. It's a shame that the Spirit was not taught to so many...thankfully many are doing their best to tell the story of the Spirit and what it's doing in lives...don't stop telling it like it is...you're speaking up...keep on!
Amen, Mr. Rush. Have you ever read Francis Chan's book Forgotten God, about how the church has done just that with the Holy Spirit...forgotten Him. It's good stuff.
http://www.forgottengod.com/book.htm
Jay
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