Working Together in Power
As christians with a deep faith in Jesus Christ we all have the desire to stay on the path of discipleship and not stray away to the one or the other side. I belive that this deisre is the one thing that unites and at the same time devides the body of christ in this day and age.
All christians long to live a deep and powerful life rooted in a close connection with the holy spirit.
All christians want otheres to have those revelations about god that transformed their lives.
All christians wish that our brothers and sisters will not be led astray through false teaching.
When I talk with people who burn passionately for Jesus from different denominations I observe that all of them have those desires.
At the same time I observe that there are a lot of people who, with great concern, seem to almost enjoy pointing out all the wrong teachings in other peoples theology to the point that they get the feeling that only those who have the same revelations as them are the ones who are saved.
I discovered that tendency in my own life when the holy spirit revealed some amazing things about God and me and the relationship between us. I started to think that maybe certain people who are living devout christian lives for years might not even be saved because I can't see the joy and excitement in their eyes which those revelations caused in me.
Most of the time the accusation towards the “others” is, that their faith is to shallow. That they “don't get it” or that there is no depth in their faith.
The funny part though is, that those accusations come from and go into all kind of directions. The charismatics accuse the catholics of shallow traditional faith while the catholics accuse the charismatics of shallow emotional faith whilst the protestants are accused by both partys of liberalism and accuse catholics and charismatics of beeing ignorant towards the society.
And at the same time different submovements accuse eachother of all kind of theological errors.
The bottom line is that everybody thinks that the others are wrong and they are right because they don't want to loose the power of their confession.
Considering that the revelation we have about God is only a tiny part of who God really is, it is an absolute arrogance to say that the one part the holy spirit revealed to our group is the one and only part and that only whoever understands this part will be saved.
We all are supposed to be missionaries. We all are supposed to be worshippers. We all are supposed to be prayerwarriors. We all are supposed to be lovers of Jesus. We all are supposed to be speaking in tongues. We all are supposed to heal the sick. We We all are supposed to have the fear of the lord. We all are supposed to have the joy of the lord. We all are supposed to have an understanding of the spiritual world. We all are supposed to love the outcast, the poor, the orphans and the widdows. We all are supposed to be interested in politics, buisness, education, arts, etc. We all are supposed to have a deep relationship with the Lord. I agree with all of that.
And the amazing thing is that the holy spirit gives different people different revelations, different passions, different strengths so that we as the body of christ have to learn humility in order to work together and learn from eachother and so fulfill the purpose he has given us as the body of christ, which is to be a picture of who God is. It is Gods way of uniting his body and teaching us love and humilty so that we may be one as the father and the son are one. And that through this the love that we have for eachother will show the world that we are the disciples of Jesus. When we start to fill up the gaps that devide us with genuine interest for the way our brothers and sisters of the different denominations live their faith we will see the depth in their faith and start to learn from eachother and in the end will not lose but gain power. Because still the greatest power that exists in the universe is the display of who God is. LOVE.
