Coming Up For Air
The Body Of Christ is waking up
Many years ago I had a job where I worked on tanker ships in the Puget Sound. This job had me traveling back and forth as an independent third party representative overseeing the transfer petroleum products. Often times I dealt with the captain, senior officers and crew, and then had to turn around and deal with the local refinery. It was tough, as it often absorbed a large chunk of your life working 60+ hour weeks on a 24/7 on call basis.
When I started, the senior field inspector passed along a bit of advice that I never forgot. “In this job you going to build a reputation, even if you don’t intend to. It’s up to you to decided what that reputation is going to be.”
In the last few months and years various high level Charismatic leaders secret lives have become public in a big way. Some have shattered their own reputation like candy glass on a movie set. Others have suffered serious cracks and some currently seem to have stepped into the shadows for self protection.
But what of the regular Body of Christ?
Well some groups have become very public like the IHOP crowd. They have raised their banners high for different reasons as they currently walk through the process of exposure and pain. Meanwhile those in the Bethel and Morningstar camps wait, feeling increasingly uneasy as issues on the horizon march closer. These are issues that some of them have seen in dreams, visions or whispered to them by co-works. Other’s take up a Polly Anna attitude, they pick their flowers on the hillside of the mountain, and tent their rose gardens of ignorance, pretending that none of this is real.
Just as people are being forced to wake up to depths of evil in the government, as they watch the after effects of the Trump trial. So to, people are waking up in the Spiritual realm as each new layer of the onion gets pealed back in the Charismatic. Some people wonder why the most current revival that happened with the Methodists at Ashbury and not at some Charismatic meeting. My answer is simple, God rebuked us.
“Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.” Matthew 7:15-20
Essentially God grabbed hold of the cloak that was covering everything, threw it back for the Body to see, and God’s rebuke of leadership manifested in the actions of the Body. Hidden things soon became public and in a way he forced a Matthew 18 process on the whole Body by displaying the sinner before us all. Generally revivals over the last couple of centuries happened as each new wave emerged on the Christian landscape. These outpourings became the foundational roots of so many denominations and as a result the new always seems to replace the older, but not this time.
In stepping back to an older form, God made a clear statement as He prioritized two key things in this revival, His Presence and Holiness. These are things that in Charismatic we diluted with the Hyper-grace mentality and teachings, and the spiritual fruit of that tree is now falling off the vine.
As a person who grew up on a farm with sheep and 200 plus fruit trees. I know what it means when large amounts of fruit fall to the ground. Bees come in swarms, eating the fruit for the sugar. The ground sometimes is literally humming with bee activity and you fear to get close. If you have been in the Charismatic for any length of time then hopefully you understand the symbolism I am painting here. What I am saying is that when the spiritual fruit is bad, witches gather and the occult is in control.
Foundation
“By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as a wise builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should build with care.” 1 Corinthians 3:10
If you have ever laid cement or did any construction work of any kind then you will understand the importance of foundation. The wrong one will cause problems, sometimes the issue will take years to manifest. Unless your dealing with cut and finished stone for a foundation, the rocks you use will have edges. Symbolically in scripture we are sometime referred to as stone’s and our issues often prevent others from getting close.
This is where mortar comes in, binding two rocks together that would not normally fit. This is something that can spiritually take place in the environment of community under the Lord. Legalism is like a stone wall that someone forgot to add mortar to. With no grace present even a minor earthquake or a strong wind, the wall will come tumbling down.
On the other hand Hypergrace does the opposite in some ways. A wall so filled with mortar does not stand the test of time. It will crack, it will crumble as weather, insects and eventually rodents find their way into the foundation. This is part of the foundation leaders like Rick Joyner and others laid in the Charismatic. The cracks are here, the rodents are moving in and no one wants to live in mouse filled home. The reality is, the right mix between stone and mortar will last a very long time.
Reputation
In our modern culture business and ministries are always looking at the data. Analyzing, theorizing and making their plans. One of the things I quickly learned writing reports on petroleum ships is that the numbers can show you many things. And that numbers can be used to lie to you if one person with holds key facts. In the church realm, this often happens when leaders fail to look at the bigger picture and only focus in on a narrow set of data.
Case in point, so many ministries are pulling inward now days. They are sticking their fingers in their ears and not considering the larger moves taking place in the Body of Christ. Below are two humorous examples that can be found online.
Regardless if you find this imagery that some IHOP people created funny or offensive, you must consider two things.
The view of Spiritual Leadership is changing. We are now transitioning from a position of automatic acceptance because of their perceived title or position to a position that respect must be earned before given by the Body.
The grace for public leaders blunders is now growing very thin. Now I fully understand that everyone does something stupid in a public forum from time to time like Kris Vallotton whose actions may hint at a larger problem. But there are those like Dr. Brown who consistent historical actions suggest a disturbing pattern.
Other disturbing patterns emerge in leadership as there core worship shifts from God to things like money as in the case of ex-vice president Dave Yarnes. Pride, arrogance, deception, and insubordination all take root forcing leadership to pull the plug on employment. “For rebellion is like the sin of divination, and arrogance like the evil of idolatry.” 1 Samuel 15:23. The fact is once arrogance takes root, then your love of Jesus shifts in your soul as it is replaced with the idol of yourself as you believe your own press.
We now stand a a Ezekiel 34 moment in the Body, everything is shifting, changing. The reality is everything in the Charismatic desperately needs a major reset. The wall needs to come down, the stones need to be cleaned and reset. And accountability and transparency must become apart of the normal operations of the Body of Christ. For to long key leaders have yearned for their place in the spotlight, only to carve out there own piece of the Kingdom of God for themselves. These sub-kingdoms are an offense to the King, and fly in the face of true Apostolic ministry. Consider what Paul said of his own ministry in Colossians 1:28 “ He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ.” Paul did not say, “We proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all fine sounding words, so that we may bring everyone into alignment as good little followers within our ministry.”
Paul served at the pleasure of the King to present every man complete in Christ. Modern ministry serves a religious system, under the mindset of servitude to the leaders headship. Few ponder what it means to be complete in Christ, that would be because the whole concept is alien to modern christianity. “Complete or fully mature” is not about servitude but becoming fully mature to carry on the works of Christ. Modern Christianity promotes the opposite, keeping all men in an unending cycle of activity without maturity.
Our view of things must change. Ministry as I have explained in my book must come as a byproduct from the overflow of our spiritual life. That life will grow best in the garden of a healthy spiritual community. It is that garden that is struggling to be free now inside of you.
