Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Bible Study Community!
The Body of Christ that we call the “Church” is a special place. It is diverse, international, unpredictable, sometimes dynamic, vibrant, bombastic, often timid, controversial, overly religious and most assuredly FULL OF UNSCRIPTURAL TRADITION AND ERROR. It consists of an ongoing remnant of True believers, some folks self-identifying as Christians who are not born again, a bunch of local churches in many different denominations, associations, etc. and a veritable host of non-church counseling and service ministries like this one. And, based on several particular scriptures it is often referred to as the Bride of Christ (for example Ephesians 5:27 and Revelation 21:2).
The main assignment of this entire CHURCH is to make as many true disciples as possible in among ALL the nations on earth (Matthew 28:19). The word “disciple” in the Bible is defined as a follower who is a student. And, according to what Scripture actually says, there are three main components in the process of making those true disciples: 1) preaching the Gospel to all creation in order to lead non-believers to salvation, 2) teaching student-believers to observe all of the things that Jesus has commanded, and 3) for believers to remain faithful in the pursuit of His Word (Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:20 and John 8:31). The Bible also actually says that the Holy Spirit will be the One teaching these disciples ALL things, guiding them into all truth and disclosing to them what is to come in the future (John 14:26, 16:13). He is the One actually doing the real teaching, not the Church.
What then does the Church do? We preach the Gospel and we provide a certain amount of insight that we like to call “teaching” which is only good enough to encourage and facilitate the connecting of disciples to the actual and more thorough/accurate/inciteful teaching of the Holy Spirit. And even though God has gifted to the Church apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the purpose of making and equipping student-disciples (Ephesians 4:11-12), they too are just working to connect disciples to the Master Teacher.
Another thing the Bible actually says is that those five special equipping-people will be with us until the Church attains unity of faith which as of yet hasn’t happened. So, those five folks are all still with us even though some of our Body groups persist in teaching antiquated tradition that actually contradicts what the Holy Spirit is trying to teach. If you tell me, for example, that the apostle gift disappeared after the first century along with a bunch of the Gifts (empowerments) of the Holy Spirit that Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians, Chapters 12 and 14, then you are teaching Church-tradition that isn’t clearly supported by Scripture.
Understanding the Father’s Will
It has never been God’s intention for believers to depend on the preaching they hear at the local church for their Word-knowledge. For one thing the local church doesn’t have enough time to preach and teach the sufficiency of what we need to hear. Also, we human teachers are flawed and only know part of what you/we need to learn. Nevertheless, a high percentage of the Church today, probably more than half, limit their exposure to the Word of God to a one-hour (or less) per week sermon plus maybe the sporadic reading of a few Psalms and verses that isn’t really devoted to learning and understanding. They think that’s enough Word contact to make them a Christian disciple and a significant number of them still calling themselves Christians have even less contact approaching none at all.
My guess is that most people who regularly read this newsletter are in the fifty percent that are pursuing the Word and trying to be true disciples under the Lordship of Christ. I’m so glad for you that you are growing in the Word and in Lordship. Unfortunately, there are many others who are professing to be Christians that think the Word of God can be interpreted to mean anything they want it to be. But Truth has only one correct interpretation even if we are unable or unwilling to understand and take hold of it. In fact, the Church today as I defined it in the first paragraph of this article, contains a lot of people who say they are Christians but have opted out of developing a true relationship with the Father in preference for a relationship with the world. According to Scripture, many of them will one day tell Jesus they were Christians but He will deny them as He shows them the way to the eternal Lake of Fire (Revelation 20:15). Here are the verses that concern me about so many people in our contemporary Church:
Matthew 7:21-23 = Not everyone who says to Me “Lord, Lord,” will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, “Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?” And then I will declare to them, “I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.”
Everything that Jesus warns us about here hinges on believers doing the will of the Father. But how do we know His will if we don’t pursue the related understanding of it as portrayed in His Word? Where do we find the commandments and principles and values that make up the WILL of the Father if we don’t ourselves go and look for them in the Word of God? A lot of people say they went to the front of a local church when they were young and said a Sinner’s Prayer. Is that the will of the Father? They got baptized at some point, maybe sprinkled with water as an infant. Was that the will of the Father? If I am using the Name of Jesus to perform miracles, how can it be that I missed the will of the Father?
A lot of people in the Church today are not able to answer these questions. So, let’s review what Scripture actually says so we can know enough to warn others:
John 3:3 = Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God…unless one is born…of the Spirit, he cannot see the Kingdom of God.
Romans 10:9 = If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved…
John 6:40 = For this is the will of My Father, that everyone who beholds the Son and believes in Him will have eternal life, and I Myself will raise him up on the last day.
This is the will of the Father: that we believe in Jesus and that He was raised from the dead so that we too can be raised from the dead into eternal life. We then choose to come under His authority which is what happens when we make Him our LORD. In other words, He becomes our master and we give Him our lives to do with as He pleases. Jesus cannot become your Savior without also being your Lord.
And then finally, we need to be able to say out loud so others can hear us that we have given our hearts to Jesus. It’s not about the works we do like prophesying or casting out demons or performing miracles that makes us Christians or saves us or gives us eternal life. It’s about faith and believing and trusting and submission and at least desiring to not do things that the Father doesn’t like. He is not holding our sins against us (Romans 5:13) but out of love and gratitude for the things He has done for us, we willingly lay down our lives and take on the life of Jesus so that we can live with God forever .
This is not the article I originally intended to write today. It seems the Holy Spirit took it in a really unexpected direction and that there is someone reading it who really, really needed its message.
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