Today’s church culture is no longer a unique experience. The culture of the world has crept in and continues to dominate. Instead of being dominated by Biblical directives, it has become dominated by the culture of society. Pop culture and ethnic culture have long taken over. Today’s church has given over to the domination of intellectual preaching rather than preaching the Word of God. In today’s church, even the worship has become likened to a rock concert with dark lighting and dry ice. This is gathering together to appease a conscience dominated by the soul. This is NOT a Bible directed church. This is not worship accepted by God. The Holy Spirit is not in charge in these churches.
Modern church history can show us why we’ve left the comforts of the Comforter. We’ve had many examples of those who led great Holy Spirit filled churches only to be swept away by the deception of their own carnal lusts. The Bible warns us of such leaders. They misled many and will answer to the Lord Jesus for it. But if we focus on these bad examples we will be misled to believing that the Holy Spirit’s work today as in the Book of Acts is no longer appointed for us today. That’s what the enemy wants us to think because the enemy wants to weaken every church. Most churches have become so accustomed to operating independently of the Holy Spirit that they’ve become dead churches. There may be many in attendance but these churches are spiritually dead and can not spiritually feed. It’s systemically imbedded into today’s church culture and is counter-productive to building a strong Spirit-led culture.
There are many complaints about why many Christians won’t attend church but narrow it down to one thing: no one obeys the Bible’s instructions on how to build and maintain the culture. If you are a pastor, you should take heed here because answering to Jesus at the end will be very disappointing for you if you don’t. God ensured we would not be left without the appropriate aids: His Holy Spirit and His Word and they both always agree. If God spoke the world into existence, He certainly does not need our help in directing us on how to build His church. God knew what He was doing when He started His church, we don’t need to second guess Him. Many complaints are: 1) people aren’t friendly; 2) it’s just a social club; 3) too much politics; 4) no teaching and preaching; and 5) too controlling.
Every truly spiritually successful church chooses to allow the Holy Spirit to be in charge and manifest his gifts and fruits. That is the common core of God’s marketing program for His church. Remember, it’s His church. It centers around God and not us. We shouldn’t waste our time in a church where the Holy Spirit is not in charge. Because we’ve had bad examples of leadership in what’s known as the full-gospel churches, does not mean we should abandon God’s blueprint to build His church. First and foremost we must remember the following:
The Holy Spirit MUST be in charge. This idea is very scary to many because of the abuses we’ve had in the pulpit. The answer is simply this: test the spirits. The rule of thumb is that the Holy Spirit and the Word agree. Always – no exceptions. It’s how they agree where even the most seasoned in the Word can even become confused. Suffice it to say that they agree in both spiritual gifts and the spiritual fruits. For example: if it’s the Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts are operating, they will manifest in agreement with the spiritual fruits of love, joy, peace, meekness, temperance, against such there is no law. They will manifest in humility, not pride or self-promotion. The gifts of the Holy Spirit will manifest in love, rather than haughtiness and showmanship to provoke competition. Many will definitely be disappointed at the judgment seat of Christ when the reality of well they really didn’t run their churches hits them. They had program after program but the Holy Spirit was never in charge because they thought they knew better than the ways instructed in the Bible. They show a huge lack of respect with communion, preach like entertainers or philosophers and the gifts are not allowed to operate. They lived by their own interpretation of Jesus’ standards and not by Jesus’ standards. I assure you, these leaders are in for a big shock. Especially if they rapture comes and their are not considered by Jesus as “worthy to escape the things to come.” The best example we can find in the scriptures of the Holy Spirit’s leading is in the second chapter of Acts. The Holy Spirit added to their numbers as they cultivated and maintained a culture of love, compassion, humility and giving. The culture was wrapped in humility, mercy and truth.
The Holy Spirit MUST Lead You to be There. The Bible tells us that in order to be called ‘sons of God’ we must be led by the Holy Spirit. It is His ministry on this earth to LEAD us, not the other way around. If we don’t attend where HE leads, then we’re simply wasting our time and at the judgment seat of Christ, where the church gets judged we’ll get our rewards given or removed and be informed as to why. Why waste our time if we’re only getting burned up straw in the end? Our rewards last for eternity and everyone will know what our rewards are and why. When the Holy Spirit leads you to a church you are spiritually fed and you must pray for the leadership while you’re there. If you don’t pray for the leadership while you’re there you won’t get the most while you’re there.
NO Servant is Greater than His Master. Jesus said that which is to say, all things have order and we can’t escape it. This world was formed in an order and it’s a universal law that no one seeking a successful church can afford to ignore. I have seen more arrogance and ignorance in congregations due to the failure to heed this warning. To put it in common terms, if you want to be closer to God, you’ll never exceed the pulpit level no matter who you are which is why you need to pay special attention to who is in the pulpit because all things flow downward. This is the flow of grace ordained by God and the reason why you should always pray for your ministers and those in leadership. If you see someone in the leadership failing in an area then you should be praying for that person and you’ll see the manifestation of those prayers. If you continue in prayer and intercession and do not see the changes, then you wait until the Holy Spirit releases you to leave.
By Their FRUITS You Will Know Them. By their FRUITS – NOT THEIR GIFTS. So many have been misled by this one point alone. They’re looking for the manifestation of God’s power in their lives and are not giving heed to this warning made by Jesus himself. By their fruits of love, joy, peace, meekness, patience, temperance, faith. Paying attention to the points listed above you must remember that a leader God appoints to be in ministry must first have the fruits and character to obtain and remain in that position. Many people, unfortunately, endeavor to be a minister but they’re not ministry material that God would appoint. They self-appointed with motives of self-promotion founded in an identity crisis. It’s very sad but true. Remember, hurting people hurt people and unless you’re healed from your wounds you won’t help anyone because you’re not whole yourself. Only Jesus by the Holy Spirit truly heals any mental or emotional wound. We all have them, but we need to move on in order to become of sound mind that we can minister and rightly divide the Word of truth.
Although there is no such thing as the perfect church, the church’s purpose is to perfect us in Christ and that perfecting needs to be supported by paying attention to the biggest directive of all from Jesus which is the Golden Rule of doing unto others as we would have done unto us. If we don’t conduct our churches according to the highest directive then we’ll have nothing but a suspicious, selfish, prideful, competitive and self-promoting culture which is a huge waste of time for everybody.
Above all, never attend a church where you are not welcomed. You can’t force people to like you. And, as long as you have done nothing to provoke their rejection, then take Jesus’ instruction He gave to His disciples which is to “shake the dust off your feet” to those who reject you. Never stay in an environment unless Jesus specifically instructs you to do so to provide His witness and to intercede. He sometimes does that, but not to babies in Christ because they don’t have the discernment on how to deal with these types of situations. Jesus sends His mature Christians to these groups. He is patient with them just as He is patient with you. The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth. We must be willing and obedient to His leading.
If you’re looking for a church because you know you can’t maneuver as a lone ranger in Christ, pray this prayer: Lord Jesus, help me to walk strong with you. Help me to know my own limitations and weaknesses and not be focused on the weakness of others so I can be a strong and mature witness for you. Help me to allow your perfect love to cast out all fear of others and not look to the left or to the right and compare myself or judge my brothers and sisters. You protect and provide for me. Please lead me to the church you want me to be in and help me walk in love and operate within the directives you have us in your Word. I thank you that you hear me when I call out to you, Lord. In your name I pray – amen.
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