Be Like Me

The boldest people you will ever meet are those who know themselves well. They aren't perfect and they don't try to pretend they are. They have gotten to know themselves, their strengths and weaknesses, their beauty and their ugliness and they live in the boldness of that knowledge. The weakest people you will ever meet are the pretenders; the ones that work so hard not to know themselves. They avoid seeing their ugliness and they never want to admit their weaknesses. They pretend to be strong all the time.

However, life isn't always about being bold in our knowledge of self. This kind of boldness is not going to get you very far and will probably still leave you pretty messed up. You see, we are a busted creation and nothing we do will ever amount to very much. We need another ingredient added. It is not enough to know self. We have to know self but the greater ingredient is knowing Jesus. In fact, it is in knowing Jesus that we realize we are not a lost cause. We realize the greatest part about knowing self is that we know that we can't do it on our own, that we need Jesus. Those who pretend will never realize they need Jesus because they are never willing to deal with their imperfections.

It is in this sense, of knowing self and knowing how much Jesus has done in him, that allows Paul to say quite plainly:

I plead with you, brothers, become like me, for I became like you. (Galatians 4:12)

This is not like some Hollywood star saying, "Hey, copy me". It is not like some millionaire that everyone studies to see how they too can become so rich. This is a man who was forced to face his own ugliness, embrace the truth of it, and then become broken so Jesus could put him back together.

Paul was not a success according to this world but he was becoming a spiritual success. He wanted everyone to become like him, in his love for Jesus and in his dedicated and faithful service. Paul was a bold and fearless man, but not by any strength or ability he had but because of the relationship he had with Jesus Christ. Paul was no dummy and he had all the tools to become rich and successful according to this world but his only desire was to be obedient to Jesus Christ.

All of us have been called to this same boldness but the boldness begins when we realize how far short we have fallen from God's grace. When we realize how much we need Jesus and then realize everything Jesus has done for us, we gain a great boldness. We are able to realize that if God gave us his very best what good thing would he hold back from us. He has given us everything and nothing is a barrier to us. Our boldness is found in our faith just as it was found in Paul's. We trust every word ever spoken by God, every promise ever given, every teaching and instruction laid out by Jesus. We trust the direction of the Spirit and believe we are equipped and empowered (anointed) to do what Jesus told us to do.

All of us should be found in that place of being able to say "become like me" when we refer to our faith and relationship with Jesus. If we can't then we need to realize the truth of it and take steps to correct our luke-warmness. Live boldly in Jesus my friend.

Understanding The Existence Of Two Churches Is Vital

It is a shame that our society and culture has such a strong pull on us, but it is nothing new. For centuries the Church has been pushed, pulled, and shaped by society. Certainly the Church was a major influence on society for centuries but we have to consider who was leading the Church and what was influencing them. For centuries the Church was used and abused by people who saw her as an opportunity to have power over people. It is a wonder that she has arrived to this day with still a notion to her own identity. But then again, she was not born of man's thinking but of the Spirit of God. No matter what man might try to do with her, the Spirit will always preserve the Church.

From the very beginning the Church was different from man's society and culture. She was not born out of any ideas of the age and she was never meant to be shaped by a changing philosophies or a shifting societal value system. The Church has always meant to be a beacon of light in a darkened world. She has not been there to try to control people but to influence the "sick and dying" of this age to turn to Jesus for "healing". We are not the movers and makers of man's politics but the voice calling out of the wilderness, that Jesus is the answer for everything. The message of God remains the same, it does not change as society changes. Hell does not suddenly disappear because it is out of favour. Jesus does not suddenly become one way out of many because of a multi-cultural society. Accept it or reject it, Jesus is the only way to the Father. That is at the heart of the message of the Church.

Some people might be surprised to hear, after all these years of fighting for equal rights, that the Church held out equal rights to everyone from the very beginning. Remember I am talking about the Spirit led Church, not the abomination that some called the Church. Read the Word of God and understand the relationship within the Body of Christ:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Galatians 3:26-29)

There it is. We need no other argument nor any other plea. You and I are one in Jesus Christ. Neither our age, gender, height, size, colour of skin, level of education or anything else matters. The only thing that matters is our faith and because of that faith you and I are on equal footing, cherished and loved by our Father.

Now if we examine the history of the Church we will discover all kinds of things that happened that came against this very simple truth found in the Word of God. But remember, there is the Church that is shaped by the thinking of man, by the practices of our society, and then there is the true Church, led and controlled by the Holy Spirit, whose members live by every word found in the Word of God. These are those who refuse to be swayed by society and who hold out these truths as divine. I think many people would be shocked to discover the real truth if they could just get past the marketed version of the Church of this age. Many think they are living by the Word but in reality they are living by man's opinion of that truth. People need to read and study the Word for themselves.

Many of us are victims of the influence our society has on the Church and of our own selfishness. The Word says no but our society says yes. We find some arguments of why the Word doesn't really mean what it says so we can do what we want to do. I have done it. I have made major decisions, wrong decisions based on what society finds acceptable but the Word of God guides against. Most of us have. We have to stop and get back to the Word and study it for ourselves. We have to stop excusing it away and make the hard decisions. We have to stop watering down what the Church is, what she represents and the cost of being a stone in her walls. We are the Church, born of the Spirit, based on the Word, saved by our Lord and loved by our Father. Society has nothing on us as we give our hearts and minds entirely to Jesus. Be influenced by the Spirit and Word and refuse the pull of our dying society.

I No Longer Belong To This World And It's Foolishness

I wish I could convince people that we are different, that we are suppose to be different. It seems in this age we hate to be different from our neighbour and just try to fit in, not wanting to cause any trouble at all. We just want to live our life anonymously, without anyone taking note. There are those who try to stand out in our society but they do it through rebellion and for selfish reasons. But to find people who stand out from the norm because of God's righteousness, his power and because they believe they are part of a rescue team, is a hard thing to do. We are different and the sooner we accept that the better this world will be for it.

To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to be a new creation. You are no longer controlled by your sin nature but instead by the righteousness of God. This means that you live the way God has created you to live; to love everyone, to consider others more important than yourself, to be generous toward others, to always seek the good of others, to share the good news of Jesus Christ with anyone who will listen. It is due to this righteousness, to the love of Christ that we are compelled to warn people of their destruction and to show them the rescue plan. There is another difference as well, a big one: We are possessed by the Spirit of God and are filled by the resurrection power.

We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. (1 Corinthians 2:12)

This is the thing we need to be absolutely sure of, that we are not possessed by the spirit of the world but by the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God works to change us into the character of Jesus; the spirit of the world moves us away from the character of Jesus. The Spirit of God causes the priority of others to rise up over ourselves, but the spirit of the world lifts us up ahead of anyone else. There are huge differences but one of the greatest advantages is that we begin to understand spiritual matters. We understand what God has freely given us. Our entire language begins to change:

This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. (1 Corinthians 2:13)

This is what I find so frustrating, when the leaders in the Church try to guide by the wisdom of this world. They get some caught up in their "knowledge" and the "wisdom" they have been taught in their great institutions of education, so that they fall into the trap of treating the Church like an institution of this world. The Church is not of this world, she was not birthed by this world, she does not operate according to the wisdom of this world and man has no part with her. However, the new creation does and the new creation is birthed by the Spirit as was the Church.

There is no amount of teaching, learning or education that can come close to what the Spirit reveals to us. You could study the Word until Jesus returns but if you do not have the Spirit and if the Spirit is not teaching you, you will have gained nothing. Spiritual truths can only be grasped and understood by those possessed by the Spirit because only the Spirit gives understanding:

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. (1 Corinthians 2:14) 

I will not listen to what the world has to say about spiritual truths because they have nothing to add to my understanding. They are the dark who have never seen the light trying to explain to the light what the light looks like. Ridiculous! On top of that we must test the spirit when it comes to the teaching we submit ourselves to in the Church. I am not referring to the false prophets but of those who teach with carnal minds, who do not have the Spirit and are forced to teach from their flesh, their human knowledge. There are a lot of confused people who do not even realize they are confused, leading a bunch of other confused people, and they are all happy in the process. These are the ones who make it their business to teach against the Word of God and who want everyone to fit in, conform to our society. They teach homosexuality is okay, that abortion is appropriate, that Muslims are no different than Christians and we really don't need to worry about hell because , even if it does exist, God's love would not allow it. Wake up people, they are calling Jesus a liar. Do you hear me? A liar!

It is time to rise up in the Spirit, to stop conforming to this world, to stop trying to bring peace when Jesus said there would be division because of him, and start living the life God called us to so that Jesus would be lifted up and people would be rescued. It's not easy but Jesus warned us it wouldn't be. However, it is just for a short time that we must face this kind of suffering as the world hates us because soon we will be with Jesus in glory. Come on my friends, live the life you were saved to live, life in the Spirit of God.

Let Us Keep In Step With The Spirit

Sometimes I worry that with all our vision and planning in the Church we are sending the wrong message to our youth. Scripture makes it clear that we are to be attached to nothing in this place. We who are controlled by the Spirit should have the freedom to come and go as the wind. We are to take our direction from the Spirit, sometimes through visions and dreams and other times from what the Spirit lays on our heart through the Word. Too often  we move ahead with plans because they seem good and reasonable. Good and reasonable does not mean they are the will of God. I can do a lot of good things in my flesh, powerful things, great things but good, powerful and great are not always what God desires. Sometimes he wants simple and steady.

For too long we have taken our lead, even submitted ourselves to the the teachings of men and women who have fashioned the Church after business principles. This has led to some success in numerical growth but in the Kingdom we are not interested in such growth if there is no spiritual growth to accompany it. As a people of the Spirit of God we can fully understand the psalmist as he wrote:

He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High 
   will rest in the shadow of the Almighty. 
I will say of the LORD, “He is my refuge and my fortress,    my God, in whom I trust.” (Psalm 91:1-2)

That is the experience that we live every day, or at least we should. Instead we have large segments of the Church that look no different from the world as people are overwhelmed by fear, worry and anxiety which leads to physical and mental illnesses. The only thing I can conclude is that we are doing this wrong. God is who he is but are we who we are suppose to be? First of all it might help if we took our counsel from the Word of God and the Holy Spirit instead of the wisdom of man:

Stop trusting in man, 
   who has but a breath in his nostrils. Of what account is he? (Isaiah 2:22)

You should read the context of that message from the prophet Isaiah, you may find it interesting. It is the mistake that the people made when they wanted Moses to be between them and God and again when Israel wanted a man-king instead of allowing God to be their king. We are always wanting to put someone between us and God. That is exactly how the Church ended up with clergy whereas we were called into a direct relationship with Jesus in the context of the Body of Christ. (read 1 Corinthians 12).

Our problem now is that we are trusting people to interpret God's Word and teach it to us. Yes, some have been called for this purpose but we have also been given the Holy Spirit as our teacher so we can know the Word directly, to know whether what is taught is of God or man. We have been given apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to keep us on track but we in turn must have enough of the Word and be in the Spirit to know if what is preached is correct. It sometimes happens that it goes wrong. Wrong people with wrong motivations end up in wrong positions of spiritual authority. They are not to be confused with men of God who are sincere in their calling and teaching but who on occasion may speak a lesser teaching only because of their lack of maturity. Isaiah warned again:

Woe to those who call evil good 
   and good evil, 
who put darkness for light 
   and light for darkness, 
who put bitter for sweet    and sweet for bitter. (Isaiah 5:20)

A teacher of the Word must chiefly desire to remain humble and empty of self, self opinion, self direction, self wisdom. Too easily a little bit of knowledge puffs up:

We know that we all possess knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. (1 Corinthians 8:1)

We must be careful every day that we remain in submission to the Holy Spirit, that we do not think too highly of ourselves, that we do not allow our calling to become our god:

Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes    and clever in their own sight. (Isaiah 5:21)

It is never about us and always about Jesus. Our knowledge and wisdom amounts to nothing in comparison to the riches we find in Jesus Christ. We must make sure that we are not using God's Word for our own agenda, that it is his truths we are speaking and not our own opinion. We can't allow fickle popularity to become a sign of God's approval. Success does not make it right and failure does not make it wrong. All things must be according to God's will for God's glory. That is the biggest thing we need to keep in mind: none of the glory belongs to us and all of the glory belongs to God. Let's make sure we are living by the Spirit of God, the will of God and not by our own feeble goals and wisdom.

Speaking In Tongues Is Different From Speaking Different Languages

It is amazing how we make the Word say something different from it's intention when we either can't accept it or don't understand it. It's bad to do that when we are just an ordinary person but it is far worse when we are suppose to be Bible scholars. When we don't understand something we should not try to explain it away but ask God for better insight.

We are picking up where we left off in 1 Corinthians. We last dealt with 1 Corinthians 13, when Paul explained how it is possible to function as the Body of Christ. Now he is moving into dealing with some trouble spots. One of those areas was speaking in tongues.

I want to make it clear that I do not have a Pentecostal background. I was baptized by the Spirit at the age of 19 without understanding what I had experienced. My whole life has been a journey of discovery as God has led me from pillar to post, teaching me what it is to live by the Spirit. I had no personal experience with tongues until 10 years ago. I never had a problem with tongues but then again I had never hung out with anyone who spoke in tongues. However, I accepted what the Bible had to say about it.

I realize that certain parts of Scripture refer to different languages when it talks about speaking in different tongues but I disagree with the publishers of my Bible when they say that this is what is being referred to in 1 Corinthians 14. This passage makes no sense if we consider the reference to tongues here to be different languages. Just look at the context:

For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God. Indeed, no one understands him; he utters mysteries with his spirit. (v. 2)

There were many different languages being spoken at this time in history but Paul was writing to an educated people who spoke and understood many different languages. There were many languages at this time in history but they were not beyond understanding. How does speaking another language in a multi-cultural age make it that we are speaking to God and not to man? Do I need to speak French in order to express mysteries with my spirit? Not at all. There is a heavenly language that many are gifted with, that expresses what we cannot express with words. In this tongue we are not speaking to man but to God. It is our spirit speaking the deeper things to God's Spirit, things we cannot express in an other manner.

He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself. (v. 4)

The only purpose of the spiritual gift of tongues is to allow individuals to express themselves to God. It edifies the person, and there is nothing wrong with that because we need that in our relationship with God. To me it is a complete mystery but I know enough to accept that such expression and communication with God increases my relationship with him. When I has expressed myself in tongues I know that I have expressed things beyond words and God has responded in a marvelous manner. However, my speaking in tongues holds no value for anyone else. It is a "God and me" thing. Me speaking french does not edify me. It is a language that I use to communicate with people who speak french.

For this reason anyone who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret what he says. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. (vv. 13-14)

If I didn't know what I was saying in French and had to pray that I would understand enough to interpret for people, there is a problem. It is a rather useless spiritual gift to have the ability to speak a language I did not understand to a people who did not understand that language. If we are talking about a supernatural ability to learn different languages then those of you who do speak a second language know that your mind is fully engaged in the process. Even if it was a supernatural ability to communicate in a foreign language, why would God have us do that as we pray? How does me praying in French edify me? To put that kind of interpretation of tongues on this passage makes no sense whatsoever.

All this to avoid what people do not understand. If we don't understand something then just say we don't understand. Don't twist the meaning of Scripture to make it more acceptable to your limited thinking. There is a heavenly language that has been given to many believers for the purpose of prayer, to express to God what our words are too limited to express. There was an abuse of this going on in Corinth and Paul needed to set them straight on the matter. Understanding that we have been given this edifying gift we will consider this passage tomorrow to see where this wonderful spiritual gift fits in.