h) The spiritual service to the Lord doesn’t include in itself only our earthly world and life, but, if it should have any success, it must also include our spiritual world and life. I repeat the sentence from point e), namely: Every circumstance, every event, every problem, every conflict has its roots in the spiritual world and NOT in our physical world! Therefore, if we ignore the spiritual world and the spiritual life in the believer, we will never be able to help him in his problems, the Holy Spirit will not show us the way, nor will He enable us to resolve the problem. Here, I must also point to the fact that a great and general problem in the Church and among believers is the existence of so called “intellectualism”. It is something that expresses the “wisdom of this world”, natural mind, natural reasoning and perception, natural thinking even persuasion that man is able to resolve life’s problems of believers by intellectual ways. Is this truly a real danger in today’s Church? Today, you can find this everywhere and the religious press is full of great efforts to resolve the problems of Christianity by human intellect, research, arguments, discussions, debates, ecumenism, theses, conferences, Christian philosophy, etc. This human effort is now expected to resolve spiritual problems! And not only that, but it should also bring human souls to their Salvation! There has never existed a bigger lie, deception and illusion than this! What intellect is able to build, intellect is also able to destroy.
There are too many of those that teach and preach with their natural abilities and on the basis of their metal understanding. But living proofs of that preached truth are not visible even in their own lives or in the lives of those that listen to them. On the contrary, there is a clearly visible difference between what they say, teach and preach and what they are in themselves, in their character. Many of such teachers and preachers desire to care for the “vineyards” of others, but their own vineyards are jungles. The ministry is not what we speak, but what we ARE! Otherwise, it is a pure hypocrisy though they might not be aware of it in themselves. The Lord Jesus hated hypocrisy and He judged hypocrites with serious consequences (Mt. chpt. 23). Too much of mental knowledge and emotions fogs up the spirit and keeps the heart closed. Quite often, believers in congregations or at other meetings get almost nothing into their spirit because they judge by their heads, principles or persuasions, prejudices or personal partiality or they are slaves of the religious system, which brought them up and now holds them tight in its grip. Spiritual counseling, directing or leading of believers with their manifold problems according to the Scripture exists only very sporadically where in the mouth (spirit) of two-three witnesses, every word could be established (2Cor. 13:1). “For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned” (Mt. 12:37). In His Body the Lord established also so called “joints”, which are dedicated to provide and cover all the needs of the body so it can grow and educate itself in love (Eph. 4:16). This includes the pastors, which are to oversee their flocks, not to rule over them or direct them according to their own plans and desires, but to be for them an example according to the Word of God (1Pet. 5:2,3).
And not only intellectualism, but “emotionalism” is also extensively used in the ministry to the Lord. At how many so called “services” powers of emotions are being used to stir human emotions, to rouse or even whip up either a great joy or sorrow and compassion in the believers “playing on violin”, or the need to help, to do something, aid financially, etc. Such carnal leaders work on believers until they make many time even hysteric promises, pledges and decisions. If you are able to do this skillfully and persuasively, you will gain not only your own congregation, but maybe other flocks of naïve Christians. To the Lord, however, these are repulsive, absolutely unacceptable and useless kinds of “ministry”. If we truly want to know what the true and pure Christianity really is, then the answer is simple: It is CHRIST and all that is in Him, and NOTHING what is not in Him!
i) The life of a true Christian begins with a miracle – a new birth from Heaven – and it continues on the basis of this miracle. Under the government of the Holy Spirit, we are not allowed to continue in our natural course. We are always “redirected” to the supernatural course! And we are being persistently shown that this supernatural course we can not possibly attain by what is in us, by our means, which are all natural. Because “That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit” (Jn. 3:6). Furthermore, we which were born of Heaven were not born of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but OF GOD (Jn. 1:13). Until what time will many religious leaders remain blind towards these clear facts of the Word of God and until what time will they keep trying to do the impossible through their natural abilities and means and lead also other believers towards this lunacy?
Apostle Paul was in the church in Corinth two years and he taught them probably daily. Then he left and wrote his first letter to them after five years. Hence, after seven years they were supposed to at least emerge from their “early spiritual childhood”. Is it normal that a seven years old boy would still appear as a little baby and even have such reasoning? Many, very many religious leaders are to this day like spiritual babies even having such spiritual reasoning, but they are playing religious and cause great spiritual damages in the whole Church. And they are not even aware that the Lord Jesus Christ – the Head of the Church – will judge and reward them for it since they damage and injure His Body (Mt. 16:22-27). Many do it out of ignorance, but many are like Alexander before whom believers should be attentive since these are doing evil with full conscience arrogantly refusing the words of Truth (2Tim. 4:14-15). We are in a school under the hand of God where we learn not ABOUT Christ, but “That I may know HIM (Personally) and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death” (Phil. 3:10). I have not yet met even one Christian, including myself, who would have graduated from that school. And those, about whom I know that they keep sitting behind these school-desks, I can count on the fingers of my two hands! The Lord is my Witness.
j) The prophetic ministry always included the most important point for the people of God: “Know the Lord”, since those, which dwelt in Jerusalem and their leaders did not know the Lord, nor did they perceive the voices of the prophets, which were read every Sabbath! (Acts 13:27) Are we able to perceive the truthful picture of this Word of God? Israel and their leaders did not know the Lord nor did they perceive the voices of the prophets, which were read every Sabbath, which means, about 1,600 times from the Birth of the Lord until His crucifixion. THIS IS THE SITUATION OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD. Take a believer sitting in the church for 33 years and hearing the same sermon 1,600 times; if he would still not have any idea what it says, would he not be considered a total lunatic? Do you really think that the situation today is any better? That the Lord will be blessing such people and impatiently waiting for their rapture to the Kingdom? How many believers are considering themselves wise, powerful or rich? The Lord tells them this: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches; But let him that glories, glory in this that he understandeth ME and KNOWETH ME…”(Jer. 9:23,24a). So, let us not glory that we have a mountain of information about Christ and can talk ABOUT Him long hours while we do not know His Personality at all.
Therefore, the Lord is not in haste to satisfy us, appease us, lull us or meet us in our situations and prayers and supplications, but He says “Wait…”, or He will say nothing and does not even give us any further explanation! This might be a rather hard test for our heartbroken soul. This might often bring us to a point where we are ready to give up this road, abandon everything and even start questioning our relationship with the Lord and His relationship with us! We may even begin to doubt our redemption, salvation and the whole Christianity!!! Why does the Lord allow this? Well, if we would only know! What the Lord follows with such an exhaustive process, by refusing our requests and petitions and expectations and hope, also by stretching the time into long delays, is but one thing – to deepen our faith and with it our KNOWLEDGE OF HIS PERSON. To gain what the immense part of His people Israel never had, and what today an immense part of His Church also does no have! When we do not know Him, He does not know us. And when we will stand behind the closed door and call His Name: “Lord, Lord, open to us”, He will tell us, the born-again Christians: “Verily I say unto you, I know you not” (Mt. 25:10-12).
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To be continued next week
brother Hanola
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