Concluding Reservations part 2

This is a continuation from part 1 posted previously.

So what am I to do now? What am I to learn and how am I to relate, not only with these people but in my interpretation of what I have observed when I talk with others about it? I do not want to be self-righteous in any way or feel superior because I can see their short-comings in theology. I very much want to have the Spirit of Jesus in how I view these people and I want to acknowledge the work that appears to be from God producing whatever fruits are legitimate in their lives. I don't believe I have the discernment to sort through which fruit is from God and which is from subtle legalism which does bother me to some extent. And part of that is because I still have not finished by own maturing process that would give me the required ability for really wise discernment. I can only depend on the promptings of the Holy Spirit who is able to differentiate between the bones and the marrow.

But what I need myself most of all is a fresh infusion of life and intimacy with Jesus in my own soul and spirit. I feel that living this close to people who demonstrate compelling “Christianity” whom I should not condemn but with whom I cannot fully agree has somehow left me a little confused and feeling empty. It has stirred up old feelings of fear, guilt-motivation and intimidation so familiar to me from institutions that I have lived in in the past. I now need a deeper reassurance of the truths that God has been bringing to my attention at much deeper levels in my own heart. What I really want is the genuine experience that is only approximated by the wonderful results I am seeing in this community. I really believe that when the real deal shows up, that as effective and compelling as these people's lives are, the truth and glory that will fill the whole earth foretold in Revelation 18 will make this look like infant babbling. This is a start in the right direction in some respects but there is far more power if it was carried out in the pure atmosphere of complete doctrinal truth but free from all fear or force.

Something I noticed last night in their answers to my questions was the fact that they believe the sharing of all things practiced by the early church was a requirement imposed by the apostles. That confirmed my earlier instincts that these communities are employing elements not found in the true model because they believe it is not possible to accomplish without the use of some degree of control. It is the ingredient of control that warns me that this is not yet the genuine. That is one of the truths that has been coming much more clear to me over the past few months and is one of the tests that my heart applies to any model or church or person to see if it is valid and of God or has the diluting ingredients mixed in that will weaken it in some way. Anytime I detect fear and control being subscribed to as legitimate means of accomplishing the work of God my heart goes into high alert and warns me that all is not right here. God has a much better plan and I need to keep searching while learning whatever can be gleaned from the present.

When I asked about a person's freedom to see things differently in the Bible than what the church passes down I was told that everyone always has perfect freedom. But they went on to explain that freedom means they are free to either submit to the collective body and beliefs of the church or they are free to disagree and take their life back into their own hands and away from Jesus. What is becoming clear is that, like the Catholic church, they believe the authority of the church preempts the personal relationship and conscience of the individual in spiritual matters.

Sadly, it looks like overall to me that they are actually attempting to put together some of the very same formulas for religion that have already been used by the very groups that they claim have failed God in the past and that they believe are replaced by their “nation”. They believe that they must develop holiness in their lives to a point that will allow the Messiah to return and set up His reign on earth. This is exactly the beliefs of the Jews in the time of Christ and is precisely why they rejected Jesus when He appeared as the Son of God. Jesus did not fit their criteria for religion and did not have the same agenda for power-sharing as they had. Nor did He share their interpretations of the religious words like “holiness”, “righteousness” or what it means to keep the law of God. This is the great burden of much of Paul's writings as he tried to expose the impossibility of achieving our own righteousness instead of trusting fully in God's righteousness.

The second formula they are trying to use has already been refined and practiced for hundreds of years by the Catholic church and many other Protestant churches, again without real success in pleasing God. They apparently believe that the only way to keep people together in unity and fellowship is to carefully restrict and control the minds and hearts of every member of the body from the head of the church. They only allow the leadership to think “outside the box” or to search for truth and seem to believe that anyone else in the organization cannot be allowed to listen directly to the leading of the Holy Spirit. They are afraid that to trust God to coordinate and facilitate the unity of His body will result in fracturing and disharmony and would undermine all that they have spent years to build up.

This is just the same kind of thinking that underlies the doctrine of the Catholic church that only the Pope is qualified to correctly interpret Scriptures and his views must be considered as priority above anyone else's ideas or teachings. This was refined and enforced so strongly during the dark ages that most people were not even allowed to touch or read the Bible for themselves on pain of death. But controlling and restricting access to the Spirit of God and the Throne of Grace is a tragic violation of the individual freedom that God demands as the right of every person He created and for anyone to violate that freedom and take away those rights is a crime against heaven itself.

I believe that it is only when people are so filled with a real revelation of the love of God for them personally that they will spontaneously devote all of their inferior possessions and relationships in love. Then will be seen the real demonstration of the true body of Christ. I believe that when the Holy Spirit is trusted to draw all men to the same Jesus and the same picture of God, when Jesus and an intimate connection with Him becomes the centerpiece instead of doctrines filtered through men before being passed on to others, then we will see the real thing, the real demonstration of purity, love and power the way Jesus revealed it in His life here on earth. We will see what real servant leadership looks like in place of control over others. We will see love and affection for one another and for our enemies that is totally spontaneous and unstoppable. We will see the real glory of God in the revelation of His character of humility, compassion and self-forgetful service flowing from hearts burning with the same passion that drives all of the heavenly hosts and emanates from the throne of God. There will be no need for restrictions and control to produce true righteousness, it will flow from hearts filled with the same Holy Fire that has burned away all selfishness and fear. There will be no desire to rule over others and rise to a dominate place of power for it will be understood that real power in the kingdom of Heaven is only found in totally humble, selfless service and unconditional love for everyone within our sphere.

While the doctrines should not be used as the attracting feature to draw people to Christ, the doctrines do become the underlying driving and determining factors in what the results will look like as worked out in the life. One reason all the churches are so powerless in my opinion is because of the mixed ideas about God still clung to in their doctrines or implied in some of their teachings. And the reason the 12 Tribes are not producing even more compelling attractiveness for God is because of the same problem, though from different doctrines in some cases.

What I am holding out for is a much deeper heart transformation than what is happening within this religion. Because they employ the use of apparently a heavy hierarchy in their model of governance and base their authority on a mixture of Scriptures and men's desire for control, the results they are producing while on the surface very good are inferior to what God really wants to accomplish. I do not believe that selfless giving can ever be a legitimate requirement externally imposed, it must be a natural fruit of a total rearrangement of priorities and values due to a very personal and intimate connection with the heart of God directly by each individual involved.

When men try to use alternative means of producing the symptoms described in the Acts believers than what really motivated those believers, they may be able to produce very good-looking results but it will always be far short of the deeper results of genuine heart-work from exposure to the real truth about God. God's glory is far greater than the imagined glory in the minds of the people in this church or any other other church I know of. These people believe that their glory will be found in ruling over others in God's kingdom. They believe that it is their job to put all of God's enemies under His footstool before Jesus can return. But they are trying to do things that God has never asked men to do. They are insisting that grace is given in response to obedience instead of in order to obey. This comes from typical misinterpretations of religious words prevalent throughout Christianity. Until we get a better grasp on the real meaning of the words we extract from the Bible we will continue to come up with external, man-produced ideas of what God's plans really are.