Building up believers and the New Testament church

I Will Build My Church

Returning to God's Purpose

It doesn't take much to start a new movement, but to work and function within the church takes God and His direction. Any man can do what he wants to for God, but God wants to build us together into a habitation for Himself. The church does need revival--it needs to come back to what God intended at the beginning. The church, to be the church, must be what God wants, and directed by the Holy Spirit. To name a group a church does not make it the church. Only when you are in Christ and moving by the Spirit in God's purpose can God say you are His church. Too often we say we are the church when there is no witness in His Word--when we are not in God's order or under God's authority. We can submit to each other as long as we can do what we feel is right, and as long as the ones we submit to agree with our opinions about what God is doing. Most men moving on their own do not want God's limits on them, or they want to steal the glory from the Lord. But if we are going to be disciples of the Lord, we must lose all.

Communication being what it is today, it is easy for man to go beyond the course God has laid out for him. We might feel that what we have is so good, the whole world needs to know about it--but if we will instead be faithful in building as the Lord has given the ability, God's work will be strengthened and nurtured. There are no spiritual restraints on worldwide ministries; consequently they have done much damage to the sheep who were not grounded in God's Word. Far worse, the shepherds have not been spiritual enough to warn or give direction concerning much of the teaching of our day. This doesn't speak too highly of the spiritual leaders of our day. They are not grounded in the Word enough to lead the sheep. There is no vision, no revelation. The enemy comes in as an angel of light to deceive the sheep, and most leaders receive him with open arms and are deceived themselves as well.

The angel of light has brought in his own definition of love; thus we have something called "love" that falls very short of being the nature of God. The love that we see today doesn't warn or correct or discipline. Every group has its own definition of love. Where is the real laying down of our lives for each other? When we feel that love never "rocks the boat," or takes a stand for righteousness, we are in for trouble. Where is the strong stand against sin? Where are our standards? There seem to be no real convictions on anything. This can only be a result of no real relationship with the Lord. There is too much "head religion" rather than a life walked out in the power of the Spirit in the presence of the Lord.

Every one has his own special concept, all kinds of new expressions--kingdom living, discipleship, shepherding, etc. But these don't seem to be producing real holy living. Men talk about holy lives, but the teachings they follow make a place for sin. Some say that if you sin, "you lose your inheritance, but you are still on your way to heaven." Some have lost their reasoning. It is amazing to see how blind people can be when it comes to understanding the way God has made for us to walk in. No doubt there are many sincere souls, sincerely wrong.