n) In the Scripture, believers are encouraged and guided to “unity” because only in unity, there is power. Every kingdom, organization or a house, which is divided against itself, will fall, it cannot stand, it is only the question of time (Mt. 12:25/ Mk. 3:25). Our body is an organism, living organism, and every part of it is connected to the nerve system, which functions from the head, where it has its headquarters and a directing base. In the Body of Christ, this nerve system is the Holy Spirit, which “feels” every cell of His Body, under­stands its situation and needs and leads it into the right direction and the right activity. This unity of the members of His Body about which the Scripture speaks is possible to attain ONLY when the members of His Body react positively, are responsible and obey every sign, every guidance of the Holy Spirit according to the Will of the Head – Christ. We say that this is impossible or unreachable. THE Lord says that this unity we can easily observe on our own body, which He created, so this unity is possible!

When our head commands our hand to pick up a pen and start writing what the head will dictate, no hand starts to speculate whether it is able to do it, whether it has time to do it now, nor will it start arguing with the head, nor will be too lazy to move, pick up the pen and wait for the dictation. True? This is the true Unity in the Spirit of God. But why our hand does not rebel against the head? Because it does not have its own will, which would be different than the will of our head. Our being, body, soul and spirit, has ONE LIFE and ONE WILL. That’s why we have no such problems in our body, which Christ has in His Body! The Church is His Body and He is Its Head (Eph. 1:22,23). This is the theory! The practice is that every believer has his own will and it is mostly AGAINST the Will of the Head! Could we at least for a moment imagine that every organ of our body, external and internal, would have its own will and our head would have to accept the decisions of the free will of every organ of our body in the same way that the Lord accepts the decisions of our free will? Our hand could thus say: I am not taking any pen and will not write any­thing, I have other work now. And our lungs could say: Next week, we are stopping to breath; we need to do maintenance. And the left leg could say: I am not continuing to walk with the right leg, it has offended me! Well, would we not get completely crazy in few minutes, if not seconds? Maybe now we will be able to understand Christ, what pro­blems He has with His Church, it means, with His Body (Rom. 12:4,5/ 1Cor. 12:12-27). Well, where are all these problems resolved effectively and permanently? On Calvary!… where our will is being subdued to the Will of Christ.

Today’s world and our flesh in all its forms and expressions make our spiritual unity abso­lut­ely impossible. Christians are affected in their judgments, criteria, concepts, compari­sons, methods, means, motives of their thinking, imaginations, humanistic persua­sions, in their logical conclusions, etc. Hence, they are affected and influenced by the “spirit of the world”, by “Adamic nature”. And in such situations the true spiritual union is ABSOLUTELY IMPOSSIBLE. The true Union of the Spirit has its birth on Calvary. The work of separation is, and shall be, done in us personally, in our houses, in our local churches and in Christ­ianity in general. Everything will be sifted as the Lord sifted the House of Israel (Amos 9:9) and every house, which remains divided – shall fall. Our “unity” is thus not our choice for without it we shall fall. How do we during our Christian life plan to fulfill the Word of God according to which we should be of one faith, one mind, one love? (Rom. 12:16/ 2Cor. 13:11/ Phil. 1:27 + 2:2/ 1Pet. 3:8) For that task, we must be of one Spirit. This is one of the basic signs of the Bride of Christ. The Bridegroom and the Bride will be of One Spirit, thus of one love and one mind. How do we stand on this field? Without an open heart, we can­not do any Word of God no matter how much biblical knowledge we may have!

o) You do not rebuke or chasten your son because his crying or pain brings you pleasure. Rebuke or chastening is a part of upbringing, discipline and it never is, or should never be something like angry vengeance, judgment, sanction, revenge or something similar. The Lord did not chastise Israel in the wilderness. Jesus was not chastised in the wild­er­ness. Even you are not chastised in the wilderness. Chastisement, as a part of upbringing and discipline, is on a much higher level than a punishment because the object, goal of chast­ise­ment and discipline is a moral fullness, experience, capacity and our ability to eternally live with God Almighty.

Even today, the Lord teaches us through temptations and seductions from the devil him­self; trough his pressures, wiles and tricks He is teaching us the way of life. We learn the mysteries of the way of spiritual life so He could establish us as servants to His people in all questions of His Life against which the Devil fights so furiously and tries to quench It. The Lord Jesus was also tempted in the wilderness and the three main temptations are de­scribed in Matthew 4:1-10. These were not just ordinary temptations, but they went to the core of Jesus’ spirit, soul and conscience and were extremely dangerous as touching their consequences for Jesus, for us and for our Salvation! Satan tried to get Jesus by the same weapons and tricks by which he also got the first Adam (and Eve) and thus he certainly hoped that he can get Jesus as well. Man cannot put himself into the situation of Jesus and into the depth of Satan’s temptations. The second temptation is in verses 5-7 where Satan tries to take the ground from under the feet of Jesus by citing the Word of God and basing his trick upon It. The Lord’s answer was unequivocal and for us it means that we should NEVER doubt the faithfulness of God and “experiment” with God in this way. Why?

It seems that we can never get beyond the possibilities where we will never question the faithfulness of God! This means that from time to time all the evidence about His faithful­ness, presence, about fulfilling His promises, being aware of our precarious or dangerous situation, about His willingness to help when we ask Him and hope in it, that all such evi­dence suddenly DISAPPEARS and the Lord also “disappears from the horizon”! Everything in the area of our human consciousness, in the comprehension of our soul in ourselves also DISAPPEARS. Even the understanding and consciousness of others around us through whom we might get some trust, self-confidence, assurance, be strengthened, upheld, pro­tected, sustained… this also DISAPPEARS and we feel like left in a wilderness… alone… as a pole in a fence! We know that wilderness is a desert, dry, barren and desolate place where death is never too far. And when we go through such experiences of a wilder­ness, there is never too far even asking ourselves, or complain to others, about the faithfulness of God! To begin to have doubts, suspicions, uncertainty even anger or bitterness towards God, Who suddenly “does not hear, does not see, does not care about my situation, my life”. Which God abandoned me and does not care how it will be with me and where will I end up. How extremely difficult it is for our humanity to remain standing on faith, which we had during the “good old days before wilderness”, or turn to the Word of God (Hab. 3:17,18) and quote it with confidence and joy.

We all know quite well that to trust God and stand on His faithfulness is simple and easy when everything goes “smoothly”, when we have no problems, difficulties or have in our situation nothing to worry about. However, whenever our situation suddenly changes, our confidence may “evaporate” quite easily. The Almighty, All-knowing and Graceful God ceases to be worthy of our confidence! Such a thought may not get into our head, but such a situation may happen in our soul. What is almost unbelievable is how Our Lord reacts to that. You see, He is in no way surprised by our loss of confidence in Him. He was expecting it! And when on top of that we start sinning through stupid thoughts (Pr. 24:9), stupid words (Mt. 12:35-37) or stupid decisions, He is not alarmed. On the contrary, He PREFERS that we would SIN and later see our sins and do repentances and are changed in our spirit, than if we would not sin and remain persuaded in ourselves that we are right­eous, clean, spotless and do not need in ourselves any change! This way we come to a spiritual state where our confidence in the Lord becomes permanent and unshakeable whether we have any problems or do not have, whether we have difficulties and pains or do not have, whether we are exposed to unrighteousness or not, whether our emotions and desires are satisfied or they are not, whether some calamity happened to us or did not happen to us, whether we gained what we wanted or did not gain, whether we are disappointed or are rejoicing, etc. Because WE NOW KNOW AND EXPERIENCED THAT WHEN THE LORD DOES NOT ALLOW SOMETHING TO HAPPEN TO US, THEN IT CAN NEVER HAPPEN TO US! AND WHEN HE ALLOWS IT, THEN IT IS ONLY AND ABSOLUTELY FOR OUR GOOD (Rim. 8:28)… even if it does not appear that way.

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To be continued next week

brother Hanola

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