Increase of Truth Looks like Error - Introductory Thoughts on "The Bible Made Impossible"

Next week I intend to begin going through Christian Smith's excellent book, "The Bible Made Impossible". Because it challenges the thinking of the average 20th century western evangelical, I want to introduce the book by sharing a bit about my personal journey of recent years.

The Lord has been breaking me out of some significant theological "boxes" that I was raised in and have functioned in most of my life. While on one hand, this has caused me to "tremble" at times, on the other hand, the fruit of it is of God:  I am loving God and others more than ever and have been experiencing a liberty in Jesus that I have not experienced before. And this is increasing the desire in me to know Him as He truly is and to help others know how unbelievably good He is!! This has been coming for a number of years, but I've been aware of a significant "growth spurt" in the past 2-3 years in mindset changes, and it keeps getting better and better. I'm discovering as never before that the gospel really is "good news", as the Lord strips away from my thinking the many "additives" that we as evangelicals have attached to the gospel. (These additives result in making it to not always be such good news after all).

One of the more recent paradigm shifts in me has been in relation to the Scriptures, and this book by Smith has been most helpful in this. Three things convinced me to get the book: first, I trusted the source that recommended it; second, when I read about Smith himself, he made clear that he is not a liberal theologian who is wanting to undermine Scripture; and third, when I saw that his main contention in the book is that God gave us Scriptures for the primary purpose of revealing His Son Jesus, I was hooked!! As I read this book, I experienced a wonderful liberty and inner release from some ways of thinking that set me up to be overly concerned about things that tended towards separating me from others who thought differently and that influenced my mindset about how God views people.

While the shifts that I am experiencing are causing me to see through different eyeglasses now than those of my parents/mentors/teachers and friends who are now present with the Lord, I have a hunch that they would agree with the changes because these changes are leading me to greater love and increasing desire to make known the Person of Jesus Who is, after all, what it's all about!

There is never a time when we stop changing and growing; more than we realize, we are all products of our generation and culture, and I believe we are given this lifetime to be continually renewed in our mind in Christ Jesus, which means letting go of former mindsets handed down to us and taking fuller and stronger hold of the Truth (Jesus). It must be in His light that we see light (Psalm 36:9); in other words, changing our ways of thinking needs to happen with and in Him or else it turns out to be simply change from one form of darkness to another, rather than moving from darkness into increasing Light.

The changing of mindsets is no easy thing; mindsets are strongholds that are not easily dismantled. This book challenges some modern western evangelical mindsets and it may prove difficult for some, but I encourage you to go through it with heart open to the Spirit of God and with the prayer that we could see light in His light. I have found that breaking out of a "box" in which I have felt secure can be scary and can feel so wrong, but when with one hand I hold the hand of Jesus and with the other hand I hold the hand of solid believers in the process, I come through into a new place of freedom and joy.

In no way does this diminish my gratitude for all that I have received from others throughout my life; the Lord knows what I have needed all along the way to get me where I am now, and there will be still more changes in my thinking in the years to come for as long as I live in this age.

I'll close with words from George MacDonald (the author who most influenced C.S. Lewis). He wrote the following to his father in the latter part of the 19th century. The context of the statement was his own journey of breaking out of the theological "boxes" of his time and the pain that accompanies doing so:

"Increase of Truth will always in greater or less degree look like error at first..."

Whom to Know is Life...

In light of our tradition of celebrating the birth of Jesus this week, I want to share a prayer poem with you, written in 1980:

Dear precious, tender holy Babe,
Who in Your mother's womb was made,
Find deep within this heart of mine
Seclusion sweet for birth divine.

Dear gentle, strong and perfect Man,
Who with Your Father one did stand,
Grant me a heart that runs to be
One in mind and will with Thee.

Dear humble, bleeding, spotless Lamb
Whose life true justice did demand,
Make me a heart that gladly yields
To death, that others may be healed.

Dear glorious, gracious triumphant King
Whose name alone makes heaven ring,
Plant deep inside this yielded heart
Sweet praise that never shall depart.

"This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you sent." John 17:3 (God's Word Translation)

Accessing the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge - Part 3

Taking up from where we left off last week, these are final thoughts on the topic of accessing the treasures of wisdom and knowledge that are hidden in Jesus, and a suggestion of where/how to grow in knowing and understanding Jesus, our Source.

If what I'm saying is true - that we can only operate and rule well in our assigned sphere of influence by drawing from the Person of Jesus (tree of life) as opposed to drawing from a "manual" (tree of knowledge of good and evil) - then I believe it's safe to conclude that good and godly rulership on our part is possible only through vital relationship with Him. As fallen people, we humans greatly prefer to get our wisdom and instructions from a manual than from a Person, especially since we don't know Him super well and are uncertain about His goodness at times; and even when convinced that He is good, we are uncertain about whether we can hear Him very well. It's much riskier to live by faith in a Person than by faith in a manual that we can touch and see and have some interpretive control over. But just as Jesus governed/judged/discerned in His assigned domain through relationship with His Father and NOT by what He could hear and see with His natural senses (Isaiah 11:2-4; John 5:17-23, 30...), so we must learn to rule by the same means if we want to be life-givers in the domain we've been given oversight of.

So how do we grow in knowing this One in whom is hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge? I suggest the following as simple (though not necessarily easy) ingredients - none of these on their own is sufficient, and neither will they lead us to Jesus if we don't have a teachable spirit and obedient response to His leadings:

1. Scripture - God has already weighed in on who He is and what He is like in Christ in the Scripture, so some things about Him are already evident in His Word. However, we need to be aware that we all read His Word through biases (because of our fallenness and sin, woundedness, culture, upbringing, training, gender, personality, preferences, etc.). Healthy ways to approach the Scriptures:
• Look for Jesus in all of Scripture. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you search for the living Word when in the written Word. Jesus is THE theme of all of Scripture, and it must be understood in light of the revelation of Jesus. If something in the OT conflicts with what we see in Jesus, the NT revelation of God in Christ carries more weight.
• In community…until recent centuries, people knew the Scripture in community. One person read while the others listened. 
• (The book I'll be reviewing next, "The Bible Made Impossible", will deal at length with the topic of the Bible).
2. Prayer (personal and corporate) 
•   Develop your personal history with God in prayer. 
• Based on the Word of God
• Learn to listen to and hear the voice of God
• Obey what you believe you have heard from Him
• Seek out “corporate” prayer (2’s and 3’s praying together),  and particularly seek to know what God is like together.
3. Mature believers
• Seek out people with longer life experience (both in years and in vitality) in God and whose understanding of Him incorporates a broad range of views (in other words, someone who is able to receive truth from many sources and process it in Jesus).
• Look for those who are tracking with what God is doing in their generation – in other words, who are not "stuck in time".
• Books and blogs are a means of being mentored by good followers of Jesus; the ideal is to have a mentor "in the flesh" to process with.
4. Normal circumstances of life – be intentional about receiving God’s voice through those around you  (even those who don’t know Jesus) wherever you are, through the incidents of the day, in our afflictions and sufferings, in nature, etc. God is always speaking; the more often we turn to Him during the day, the more aware we become of His messages coming to us continually.

In summary - along with a teachable spirit and obedient responses, the critical ingredients to growing in the knowledge of Jesus (the tree of life) are:

• Prayerful reading of Scriptures (both personal and corporate)
• Listening prayer and meditation (both personal and corporate)
• Community of Jesus followers (including a mature mentor(s))
• Trust in God's voice as it comes to us in life circumstances

Accessing the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge, Part 2

This is a continuation of thoughts about our need to access wisdom and knowledge if we are to fulfill the mandate given us to "rule" in our assigned spheres of influence in this age. The apostle Paul says that in Jesus is hidden treasures of wisdom and knowlege (Col. 2:1-4):
"For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, [2] that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, [3] in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. [4] I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments." 

Notice that the Spirit through Paul says in Col. 2:3 that the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are hidden in Jesus, implying that it requires effort  in searching out the Person of Jesus in order to discover true understanding and knowledge and wisdom (Prov. 2 & 8).

Without putting forth the effort to seek and know Jesus, we are left subject to the confusion that comes from the unrelenting voices of this age (which began with the fall of man but have reached a fever pitch in our technological age).  This applies not only in the world but in the Church as well where there are countless voices giving opinions about every subject possible that we find mentioned in Scripture. Only by knowing Jesus (God’s Mystery) can we find God’s wisdom and knowledge, which transcends that which comes through the tree of knowledge of good and evil. (See James 3:13-18.)

There are endless topics that we need insight on in our stewardship of God's assignment for us in this life; there is seldom, if ever, a “one size fits all” answer for these matters (issues related to money, relationships, family, time management, job/vocation/calling, etc., etc.). Jesus, the tree of life, is the Source of all wisdom and knowledge. Only as we grow in living our lives in Him can we transcend the pettiness of ruling/judging based on “right and wrong" which comes through dependence on the tree of knowledge. In His years on earth, Jesus Himself is the best model of what it means to live and operate from a heavenly Source (Isaiah 11:3; John 5:17-23, 30…), rather than trust in His own understanding.

Next week I'll continue along these lines. Grace to you this week as together we grow in knowing and following Jesus!

Accessing the Treasures of Wisdom and Knowledge

In light of the recent posts I've shared related to the collapse of evangelicalism as we know it and in light of the accompanying search for God in the midst of the chaos and confusion resulting from this collapse, I thought I'd share some thoughts in the next couple of weeks on "accessing the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." This is a little different angle on things I've shared before.

Colossians 2:1-4  (ESV)

"For I want you to know how great a struggle I have for you and for those at Laodicea and for all who have not seen me face to face, [2] that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, to reach all the riches of full assurance of understanding and the knowledge of God's mystery, which is Christ, [3] in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. [4] I say this in order that no one may delude you with plausible arguments."  

Because of God’s desire for a Bride for His Son who would rule and reign with Him forever, He created humans according to His image; that image of God includes the capacity to rule. We humans are made to govern, and governing includes the need to judge people and situations.

Because knowledge is the grounds by which we rule in our given sphere, the gaining of knowledge is imperative to us. All of us have been given a sphere in which we have influence over someone else; the father and his family, the mother and the home and children, the man or woman at their job, a person and his or her friends, the "pastor" and the  flock, the government official and his realm, the king and his kingdom, etc. Knowing particular information gives us an upper hand and a sense that we can make good decisions and cause life to go the way we believe it should go. (For fallen humans, ruling is about controlling rather than about serving; therefore, access to knowledge is access to control.)

I believe the early chapters of Genesis give us insight into God's generous sharing of authority with humans and into His intentions for how humans would access the needed information to rule well. The enemy’s subtle slandering of God’s nature planted a seed of doubt in Adam and Eve’s trust in His willingness to share all the information they needed to govern well. Along with successfully creating a suspicion of God in Adam and Eve, the serpent pointed them in the direction of the tree of knowledge suggesting that here was a sure source of information they could count on! (After all, God’s instructions to NOT eat of that particular tree suggested that He was withholding needed information.)

There was nothing inherently evil about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It was created by God and was a way of knowing, but it was a way of knowing without intimacy, without relationship. The tree of life, however, was available and had no restrictions on eating from it.

Like our first parents, we have all decided that gaining of knowledge apart from relationship is a safer and more secure way and so have eaten of the forbidden fruit; in our fallenness, we are born suspicious of God’s intentions and so we all choose to operate on the basis of that which we can touch and see and control. In order to do a good job of “ruling” in our assigned sphere of influence, we want to be sure we’re getting all the information needed to do it well and thereby control our “world”. Trusting a Person that we have innate suspicions about is too risky.

God intended for Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life and thereby tap into His life, enjoying constant union with God in Christ, and out of that intimate relationship together in Christ to receive all that was needed for governing the domain they were given charge over. 

God’s intention has not changed. This age is internship training for governing in the age to come. We practice “rulership” now in the domain given us, and what we learn now will carry over into the next age. Accessing Jesus (the Tree of life), in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge, is critical for discovering the wisdom and knowledge needed for ruling well in this age. Our highest goal and priority now must be to grow in the intimate knowledge of God and to govern in our assigned sphere according to His wisdom and knowledge.

More on this next week...God bless you!

 

Jesus: The Purpose, Center and Interpretive Key to Scripture

I'm reading a book entitled "The Bible Made Impossible" by Christian Smith and am finding it very liberating for one who was raised in 20th century evangelicalism with a particular mindset related to the Scripture. http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_15?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=the+bible+made+impossible&sprefix=the+bible+made+ Although my mindset has been changing along these lines for some years now, this book is giving me language and confidence related to this topic. In this week's post I am sharing a portion from chapter 5 of this book which, for me, makes this book worth buying (though I must add that the entire book is wonderful...)!

The chapter title is "The Christocentric Hermeneutical Key", and it is the author's attempt to underscore that the primary purpose God has given us the Scriptures is to reveal Jesus (and not to do and say many other things we try to make the Bible do and say), and he hammers away at this relentlessly in this chapter. The following are portions from it:

"The purpose, center, and interpretive key to scripture is Jesus Christ...(Luke 24:44-48) Jesus opened the disciples' minds to truly understand the scriptures precisely so that they would see the (good news) of the gospel of Jesus Christ behind, in, and through all of scripture. If believers today want to rightly understand scripture, every narrative, every prayer, every proverb, every law, every Epistle needs likewise to be read and understood always and only in light of Jesus Christ and God reconciling the world to himself through him...

"...God's truest, highest, most important, most authoritative, and most compelling self-revelation is the God/Man Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Christ - not the Bible - who is the 'image of the invisible God.' (Col. 1:15)...The Bible is of course crucial for the Christian church and life. But it does not trump Jesus Christ as the true and final Word of God. The Bible is a secondary, subsidiary, functional, written word of God, the primary purpose of which is to mediate, to point us to, to give true testimony  about the living Jesus Christ..."

The author quotes Peter Enns who says of the Bible: "We believe not only that the Bible is the word of God, but that Christ himself is the word...The written word bears witness to the incarnate word, Christ...The Bible bears witness to Christ by Christ's design. He is over the Bible, beyond it, separate from it, even though the Bible is his word and thus bears witness to him. Christ is supreme, and it is in him, the embodied word, that the written word finds its unity."

A few more quotes from other authors that are in this chapter:

• John Stott: "Whenever we read the Bible, we must look for Christ. And we must go on looking until we see and until we believe."
• G.C. Berkouwer: "Every word about the God-breathed character of Scripture is meaningless if Holy Scripture is not understood as the witness concerning Christ."
• Geoffrey Bromiley: "...if we go primarily to see Christ (John 5:39), i.e., to learn what the Bible has to tell us about Him and our new life in Him, we shall be brought together at the one true center of the church and its unity." 
• Donald Bloesch: (Heb. 1:10) "The true or comprehensive picture of God's dealing with humanity is hidden from us until the text becomes for us a window to the light of the glory of God in Jesus Christ...The Bible comes alive when it is read in light of the cross of Christ..."

May the Spirit of the Living Word lead you to Him this week as you look into the written Word. Next week I will continue along this topic. God bless you!

God's Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 4

This is the 4th and final portion of the article, "The Coming Evangelical Collapse". Up to this point, the author (Michael Spencer) has discussed the following:

• "My Prediction" (about what's on the horizon for evangelicalism)
• "Why is This Going to Happen?"
• "What Will be Left?"

If you want to read the article in its entirety, here is the link: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts. As on the other 3 parts, I will underscore pieces of this for those who may want to skim over it: 

"Is all of this a bad thing?

Is the coming evangelical collapse entirely a bad thing? Or is there good that will come from this season of the evangelical story?

One of the most encouraging developments in recent evangelicalism is the conviction that something is very wrong. One voice that has been warning American evangelicals of serious problems is theologian Michael Horton. For more than 20 years, Horton has been warning that evangelicals have become something almost unrecognizable in the flow of Christian history. From the prophetic Made in America to the incredible In The Face of God to the most recent Christless Christianity, Horton has been saying that evangelicals are on the verge of theological/ecclesiastical disaster.

Horton’s diagnosis is not, however, the same diagnosis as we saw in the heyday of the culture war, i.e. that evangelicals must rise up and take political and cultural influence if America is to survive and guarantee freedom and blessing. Horton’s warning has been the abandonment of the most basic calling of the church: the preservation and communication of the essentials of the Gospel in the church itself.

The coming evangelical collapse will be, in my view, exactly what Horton has been warning us about for two decades. In that sense, there is something fundamentally healthy about accepting that, if the disease cannot be cured, then the symptoms need to run their course and we need to get to the next chapter. Evangelicalism doesn’t need a bailout. Much of it needs a funeral.  But not all; not by any means. In other words, the question is not so much what will be lost, but what is the condition of what remains? 

As I’ve said in the previous post in this series, what will be left will be 1) an evangelicalism greatly chastened in numbers, influence and resources, 2) a remaining majority of Charismatic-Pentecostal Christians faced with the opportunity to reform or become unrecognizable, 3) an invigorated minority of evangelicals committed to theology and church renewal, 4) a marginalized emerging and mainline community and 5) an evangelicalized segment of the other Christian communions.

Is it a good thing that denominations are going to become largely irrelevant? Only if the networks that replace them are able to marshall resources, training and vision to the mission field and into the planting and equipping of churches?

Is it a good thing that many marginal believers will depart, leaving evangelicalism with a more committed, serious core of followers? Possibly, if churches begin and continue the work of renewing serious church membership?

Is it a good thing that the emerging church will fade into the irrelevance of the mainlines? If this leaves innovative, missionally minded, historically and confessionally orthodox churches to “emerge” in the place of the traditional church, yes. Yes, if it fundamentally changes the conversation from the maintenance of traditional churches to developing new and culturally appropriate churches.

Is it a good thing that Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority of evangelicals? Yes, if reformation can reach those churches and produce the kind of unity we see in Wesley and Lloyd-Jones; a unity where the cleavage between doctrine and spiritual gifts isn’t assumed.

The ascendency of Charismatic-Pentecostal influenced worship around the world can be a major positive for the evangelical movement if that development is joined with the calling, training and mentoring of leaders. If American churches come under more of the influence of the movement of the Spirit in Africa and Asia, this will be a good thing. (I recognize, btw, that all is not well overseas, but I do not believe that makes the help of Christians in other cultures a moot point.)

Will the evangelicalizing of Catholic and Orthodox communions be a good development? One can hope for greater unity and appreciation, but the history of these developments seems to be much more about a renewed vigor to “evangelize” Protestantism in the name of unity. For those communions, it’s a good development, but probably not for evangelicals themselves.

Will the coming evangelical collapse get evangelicals past the pragmatism and shallowness that has brought about its loss of substance and power? I tend to believe that even with large declines in numbers and an evidence “earthquake” of evangelical loyalty, the purveyors of the evangelical circus will be in full form, selling their wares as the promised solution to every church’s problems. I expect the landscape of megachurch vacuity to be around for a very long time. (I rejoice in those megachurches that fulfill their role as places of influence and resource for other ministries without insisting on imitation.)

Will the coming evangelical collapse shake loose the prosperity Gospel from its parasitical place on the evangelical body of Christ? We can all pray and hope that this will be so, but evidence from other similar periods is not encouraging. Coming to terms with the economic implications of the Gospel has proven particularly difficult for evangelicals. That’s not to say that American Christians aren’t generous….they are. It is to say that American Christians seldom seem to be able to separate their theology from an overall idea of personal affluence and success American style. Perhaps the time is coming that this entanglement will be challenged, especially in the lives of younger Christians.

But it is impossible to not be hopeful. As one commenter has already said, “Christianity loves a crumbling empire.” Christianity has flourished when it should have been exterminated. It has conquered when it was counted as defeated. Evangelicalism’s heyday is not the entirety of God’s plan. I think we can rejoice that in the ruins of the evangelical collapse new forms of Christian vitality and ministry will be born. New kinds of church structure, new uses of gifts, new ways to develop leaders and do the mission- all these will appear as the evangelical collapse occurs.

I expect to see a vital and growing house church movement. This cannot help but be good for an evangelicalism that has made buildings, paid staff and numbers its drugs for half a century.

I expect to see a substantial abandonment of the seminary system. How can a denomination ask its clergy to go into huge debt to be equipped for ordination or ministry? We all know that there are many options for education from much smaller schools to church based seminaries to internet schools to mentoring and apprenticing arrangements.

I hope that many IM readers will be part of the movement to create a new evangelicalism that learns from the past and listens more carefully to what God says about being his people in the midst of a powerful, idolatrous culture.

I’ll end this adventure in prognostication with the same confession I began with: I’m not a prophet. My view of evangelicalism is not authoritative or infallible. I am certainly wrong in some of these predictions and possibly right, even too conservative on others. But is there anyone who is observing evangelicalism in these times who does not sense that the future of our movement holds many dangers and much potential?"

God's Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 3

This is the third part of a lengthy article by Michael Spencer, expressing what he believed is coming for evangelicalism. For the first two parts, see the previous two posts; and for the article in its entirety, see http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts). I have underscored parts to catch the main points for the sake of those who may want to skim-read this:

"What will be left after the evangelical collapse?

a. An evangelicalism far from its historical and doctrinal core. Expect evangelicalism as a whole to look more and more like the pragmatic, therapeutic, church growth oriented megachurches that have defined success. The determination to follow in the methodological steps of numerically successful churches will be greater than ever. The result will be, in the main, a departure from doctrine to more and more emphasis on relevance, motivation and personal success….with the result being churches further compromised and weakened in their ability to pass on the faith.

b. An evangelicalized Catholicism and Orthodoxy. Two of the beneficiaries of the coming evangelical collapse will be the Roman Catholic and Orthodox communions. Evangelicals have been steadily entering these churches in recent decades and that trend will continue, with more media and publishing efforts aimed at the “conversion” of evangelicals to the Catholic and Orthodox ways of being Christian.

c. A small portion of evangelicalism will continue down the path of theological re-construction and recovery. Whether they be post-evangelicals working for a reinvigoration of evangelicalism along the lines of historic “Mere Christianity,” or theologically assertive young reformed pastors looking toward a second reformation, a small, but active and vocal portion of evangelicalism will work hard to rescue the evangelical movement from its demise by way of theological renewal.

This is an attractive, innovative and tireless community with outstanding media, publishing and leadership development. Nonetheless, I believe the coming evangelical collapse will not result in a second reformation, though it may result in benefits for many churches and the beginnings of new churches. 

d. I believe the emerging church will largely vanish from the evangelical landscape, becoming part of the small segment of progressive mainline Protestants that remain true to the liberal vision. I expect to continue hearing emerging leaders, seeing emerging conferences and receiving emerging books. I don’t believe this movement, however, is going to have much influence at all within future evangelicalism.  

e. Aggressively evangelistic fundamentalist churches will begin to disappear; they will exist only as a dying form of church. The Southern Baptist Convention will experience dramatic losses in the numbers of churches in the next 25 years. By 2050, the SBC will have half the number of churches it has today. The SBC will become “exhibit A” for the problems of evangelicalism, with fragmentation appearing everywhere and a loss of coherence on many fronts.

f. Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity will become the majority report in evangelicalism. Within that community, the battle for the future of evangelicalism will be fought by those who must decide whether their tradition will sink into the quicksand of heresy, relativism and confusion, or whether Charismatic-Pentecostalism can experience a reformation and renewal around Biblical authority, responsible leadership and a re-emergence of orthodoxy..

The stakes in Charismatic-Pentecostal Christianity are very high. It has become a worldwide missions phenomenon, and it has become a community carrying the most virulent and destructive heresies and errors in evangelicalism. The next 15-25 years will be crucial for this community. I am hopeful, but not optimistic. I see and hear little from this community’s younger leadership that indicates there is anything close to a real recognition of the problems they face.

g. A hope for all of evangelicalism is a “rescue mission” from the world Christian community. If all of evangelicalism could see the kind of renewal that has happened in conservative Anglicanism through the Anglican Mission in America and other mission efforts, much good would be done. It is time for missionaries to come to America from Asia and Africa. Will they come? Will they be able to bring to our culture a more vital form of Christianity? I do not know, but I hope and pray that such an effort happens and succeeds.

At present, most of evangelicalism is not prepared to accept pastors and leadership from outside our culture. Yet there can be little doubt that within our western culture there is very little evidence of an evangelicalism that can diagnose and repair itself.

h. A vast number of parachurch ministries are going to become far less influential, and many will vanish. The same will likely be true from everything from Christian media to publishing. This will throw what remains of evangelicalism back on the local church, and that moves us to my last post, a consideration of whether this collapse is a good or bad thing.

i. I believe that the missionary sending agencies of evangelicalism will survive the coming collapse, but will be greatly weakened by significant decreases in the giving base. It is time for mission strategies among evangelicals to change, and it is long past time for westerners to use their resources to strengthen work within a nation and not to just send Americans to the mission fields."


Next: "Is All of this a Good or Bad Thing?"

God's Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 2

The following is part of an article by Michael Spencer concerning what he understood is coming for the evangelical movement. Because of the length of the article, I'm sharing it in several parts. This is part 2 (see last week's blog for the first part along with introductory comments). Underlining is done by me. (For any who may want to read the article in its entirety now, here's the link: http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/the-original-coming-evangelical-collapse-posts)


"Why Is This Going To Happen?
1) Evangelicals have identified their movement with the culture war and with political conservatism. This was a mistake that will have brutal consequences. They are not only going to suffer in losing causes, they will be blamed as the primary movers of those causes. Evangelicals will become synonymous with those who oppose the direction of the culture in the next several decades. That opposition will be increasingly viewed as a threat, and there will be increasing pressure to consider evangelicals bad for America, bad for education, bad for children and bad for society...The coming evangelical collapse will come about, largely, because our investment in moral, social and political issues has depleted our resources and exposed our weaknesses. We’re going to find out that being against gay marriage and rhetorically pro-life (yes, that’s what I said) will not make up for the fact that massive majorities of evangelicals can’t articulate the Gospel with any coherence and are believing in a cause more than a faith.

2) Evangelicals have failed to pass on to our young people the evangelical Christian faith in an orthodox form that can take root and survive the secular onslaught. In what must be the most ironic of all possible factors, an evangelical culture that has spent billions on youth ministers, Christian music, Christian publishing and Christian media has produced an entire burgeoning culture of young Christians who know next to nothing about their own faith except how they feel about it. Our young people have deep beliefs about the culture war, but do not know why they should obey scripture, the essentials of theology or the experience of spiritual discipline and community. Coming generations of Christians are going to be monumentally ignorant and unprepared for culture-wide pressures that they will endure.
Do not be deceived by conferences or movements that are theological in nature. These are a tiny minority of evangelicalism. A strong core of evangelical beliefs is not present in most of our young people, and will be less present in the future. 

3) Evangelical churches have now passed into a three part chapter: 1) mega-churches that are consumer driven, 2) churches that are dying and 3) new churches whose future is dependent on a large number of factors. I believe most of these new churches will fail, and the ones that do survive will not be able to continue evangelicalism at anything resembling its current influence. Denominations will shrink, even vanish, while fewer and fewer evangelical churches will survive and thrive. Our numbers, our churches and our influence are going to dramatically decrease in the next 10-15 years. And they will be replaced by an evangelical landscape that will be chaotic and largely irrelevant.

4) Despite some very successful developments in the last 25 years, Christian education has not produced a product that can hold the line in the rising tide of secularism. The ingrown, self-evaluated ghetto of evangelicalism has used its educational system primarily to staff its own needs and talk to itself. I believe Christian schools always have a mission in our culture, but I am skeptical that they can produce any sort of effect that will make any difference. Millions of Christian school graduates are going to walk away from the faith and the church. There are many outstanding schools and outstanding graduates, but as I have said before, these are going to be the exceptions that won’t alter the coming reality. Christian schools are going to suffer greatly in this collapse.

5) The deterioration and collapse of the evangelical core will eventually weaken the missional-compassionate work of the evangelical movement. The inevitable confrontation between cultural secularism and the religious faith at the core of evangelical efforts to “do good” is rapidly approaching. We will soon see that the good that evangelicals want to do will be viewed as bad by so many, that much of that work will not be done. Look for evangelical ministries to take on a less and less distinctively Christian face in order to survive.

6) Much of this collapse will come in areas of the country where evangelicals imagine themselves strong. In actual fact, the historic loyalties of the Bible belt will soon be replaced by a de-church culture where religion has meaning as history, not as a vital reality. At the core of this collapse will be the inability to pass on, to our children, a vital evangelical confidence in the Bible and the importance of the faith.

7) A major aspect of this collapse will happen because money will not be flowing towards evangelicalism in the same way as before. The passing of the denominationally loyal, very generous “greatest generation” and the arrival of the Boomers as the backbone of evangelicalism will signal a major shift in evangelical finances, and that shift will continue into a steep drop and the inevitable results for schools, churches, missions, ministries and salaries."

Next: "What Will Be Left?"

God Heart for His People - The Coming Evangelical Collapse, Part 1

As I shared last week, I'll be quoting from others' writings for a few weeks on the topic of where I believe God is taking His people in these critical days. Today and for the next weeks I'll be sharing an article by Michael Spencer on the coming collapse of evangelicalism as we know it. Because of the length of the article, I'll break it into several sections. While I may not agree with the author on every point, I believe the he is sending an important message for us. The prophetic voice has never been a popular voice in the history of God's people but is very important to prepare us for the shaking that God must do among His own for the sake of His name among the nations, so I encourage you to read with a prayerful heart.

"Part 1 - The Coming Evangelical Collapse: My Prediction
     I believe that we are on the verge- within 10 years- of a major collapse of evangelical Christianity; a collapse that will follow the deterioration of the mainline Protestant world and that will fundamentally alter the religious and cultural environment in the West. I believe this evangelical collapse will happen with astonishing statistical speed; that within two generations of where we are now evangelicalism will be a house deserted of half its current occupants, leaving in its wake nothing that can revitalize evangelicals to their former “glory.”
     The party is almost over for evangelicals; a party that’s been going strong since the beginning of the “Protestant” 20th century. We are soon going to be living in a very secular and religiously antagonistic 21st century in a culture that will be between 25-30% non-religious.
     This collapse, will, I believe, herald the arrival of an anti-Christian chapter of the post-Christian west and will change the way tens of millions of people see the entire realm of religion. Intolerance of Christianity will rise to levels many of us have not believed possible in our lifetimes, and public policy will become particularly hostile towards evangelical Christianity, increasingly seeing it as the opponent of the good of individuals and society.
     The response of evangelicals to this new environment will be a revisiting of the same rhetoric and reactions we’ve seen since the beginnings of the current culture war in the 1980s. The difference will be that millions of evangelicals will quit: quit their churches, quit their adherence to evangelical distinctives and quit resisting the rising tide of the culture.
     Many who will leave evangelicalism will leave for no religious affiliation at all. Others will leave for an atheistic or agnostic secularism, with a strong personal rejection of Christian belief and Christian influence. Many of our children and grandchildren are going to abandon ship, and many will do so saying “good riddance.”
     This collapse will cause the end of thousands of ministries. The high profile of Christian media will be reduced, if not eliminated. Hundreds of thousands of students, pastors, religious workers, missionaries and persons employed by ministries and churches will be unemployed or employed elsewhere. [ ]. Visible, active evangelical ministries will be reduced to a small percentage of their current size and effort.
     Nothing will reanimate evangelicalism to its previous levels of size and influence. The end of evangelicalism as we know it is close; far closer than most of us will admit.
     My prediction has nothing to do with a loss of eschatological optimism. Far from it. I’m convinced the grace and mission of God will reach to the ends of the earth. But I am not optimistic about evangelicalism, and I do not believe any of the apparently lively forms of evangelicalism today are going to be the answer. In fact, one dimension of this collapse, as I will deal with in the next post, is the bizarre scenario of what will remain when evangelicals have gone into decline.
     I fully expect that my children, before they are 40, will see evangelicalism at far less than half its current size and rapidly declining. They will see a very, very different culture as far as evangelicalism is concerned.
     I hope someone is going to start preparing for what is going to be an evangelical dark age."

(Next week I'll continue with Spencer's article in which he writes about what has caused this decline. Blessings on you this week!)

God's Heart for His People

I'm increasingly aware and troubled by how much my mindset as an evangelical believer has been shaped by the individualistic bent of the western culture. The 20th century is known for the rise of evangelicalism and while there are certainly some positive elements to evangelicalism, there are some serious deficits in the way we think about God and His Kingdom.

With this is mind, I plan to quote from a couple of sources along the lines of this topic in the next weeks. Some of this material may be controversial, especially for those of us who have spent most our years "swimming" in evangelical waters. We are uneasy and uncomfortable with thinking outside of the evangelical box...but I believe God's heart for His people is for much more than we have experienced, so I share this with the prayer that many hearts will be prepared for the coming of what could be the greatest "upheaval" the Church has experienced in her history. We may not know what this will look like yet, but we can be awake and aware when things are shaking badly and thereby be of help to many believers who will be completely disoriented by the shaking.

This week I'm quoting a portion from Hal Miller:

“Christianity is culturally relevant when it offers a qualitatively different society. Jesus called it “the kingdom of God.” Paul saw its first outlines in the gathered disciples of Jesus, and so he called them ekklesia – we translate it “church”- a Greek word denoting citizens assembled to attend to their common project, their city.

The evangelicals missed this. Evangelicalism sought to transform people and so transform the world. They did not see that something might be missing from this vision, something their assumption of American individualism would hide from them. The true Christian vision is to transform people, transforming them into a people, and so transform the world.

The evangelicals missed that middle term. They could not see the church as a foretaste of the new society; it was a club for the new individuals. The evangelicals simply dressed American individualism in Christian clothing. They ended up with new isolated individuals, but in the old society. Since their expression of Christianity did not take form as a new society, it quickly became culturally irrelevant, even though it was admirably culturally open.

To be culturally relevant, Christianity must offer an alternative. God has indeed chosen to deal with persons as individuals- in this the evangelicals were right. Yet they are not simply individuals; they become members of a social reality called ekklesia, which is the entering wedge of the new society of God’s making.

Too often, for example, we assume that evangelism involves the simple aggregation of more and more new individuals. If enough people are “born again,” the world’s problems will diminish...

The Christian calling requires being reconciled with God, to be sure. But it also requires being a new, reconciling society characterized by forgiveness, acceptance, and responsibility in a common task- a society qualitatively different from its culture, yet engaged with it. Little gatherings of Christians for worship and mutual help in being disciples become the seeds of God’s coming new society.
Such a new society will be culturally relevant because it springs from God’s movement among God’s people. The persons who make up this new society live their faith in the face of day-to-day problems that they share with the world around them. They face the same questions as unbelievers: finding joy and meaning in work, living at peace both personally and globally, raising responsible and compassionate children. And in facing those questions, Christian faith becomes relevant even for unbelievers.

Imagine a group of people gathering to help each other in the common task of seeing God’s kingdom incarnated in their work, in their families, in their towns, in their world, in their midst, and (rather than only) in their individual lives. This gathering is ekklesia. It will be relevant to its world because it lives the life of the kingdom in the world, not apart from it.”

...Under Construction...Thanks for Your Patience!

Proverbs 4:18 has always been a favorite for me: "The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn, shining ever brighter till the full light of day." The implication to the reality that there is increasing light on my journey in God until the full day is that there are still shadows on the path. Remembering this helps me realize that although the light is growing daily, there is yet more to understand about Him and His ways and thoughts. It also causes me to know that I unwittingly do or say things that reflect the shadows that are still there, and consequently I do and say things that irritate and/or offend others.

So this week I want to pause and say "thank you" to the many spiritual siblings (young and old) God has given me who have exercised and continue to exercise amazing patience with me, some more than others by virtue of having lived with me longer and/or having worked with me. I know there have been many times in my life when I thought I saw things very clearly only to realize later that I had been stumbling in half-light and injuring others in the process.

One of my sisters was reading me a story last week of how Ruth Bell Graham decided what she wanted written on her tombstone. One day she was painstakingly driving through a lot of road repair work, and along the way were signs to the effect that the road was "under construction". When she finally reached the end of the road work, there was a sign that said: "End of construction. Thanks for your patience!" That's what she asked to have on her tombstone, and her family did as she asked. What a great epitaph!

But while I am still living in this present age, I want to say to those of you who have borne patiently with me till now: "I am still under construction... thanks for your patience!!" Your patience with me is a reflection of the long-suffering heart of God, and I am very grateful!

Hotel or Prison?

We American believers have been unconsciously and profoundly affected by what this nation's early leaders put in the Declaration of Independence. It has shaped our mindset to such a point that we assume that what is written there is biblical. There are parts that have some biblical truth to them but not all; and even those parts that may have biblical overtones to them, are mixed with the mind of the world, the flesh and the devil.

One idea in the Declaration of Independence is that all men have the "inalienable right" to pursue happiness. I believe this has set us up to think the opposite of what Scripture tells us about our life in this age. And while we who follow Jesus would say that we agree with Jesus and the apostles, we are not aware that the impact of our national beginnings is deeply embedded in us so that in spite of all the promises in the New Testament of suffering and persecution, we still have a subconscious belief that we have a right to be happy, and therefore, when things are difficult, we are confused or offended.

This doesn't mean that we are meant to like suffering or that we intentionally go out looking to suffer; but our mindset related to what we expect in this age will greatly impact our response to suffering when it does come (and it will). God has a future prepared for us of utter joy and peace and satisfaction that will last forever, so He's not ashamed to put us through a thorough preparation now so that we will be fit for the age to come. Because of the fall and the entrance of sin into humanity's story, one of the primary ways of being prepared comes through suffering.

C.S. Lewis puts it like this: "If you think of this world as a place intended simply for our happiness, you find it quite intolerable: think of it as a place of training and correction and it's not so bad. Imagine a set of people all living in the same building. Half of them think it is a hotel, the other half think it is a prison. Those who think it a hotel might regard it as quite intolerable, and those who thought it was a prison might decide that it was really surprisingly comfortable. So that what seems the ugly doctrine is one that comforts and strengthens you in the end. The people who try to hold an optimistic view of this world would become pessimists; the people who hold a pretty stern view of it become optimistic."

Many of us (myself included) need a renewing of our minds concerning how we view this age. The Declaration of Independence tells us we should see this age as a "hotel" while the Scripture indicates that we should view it as a "prison". With the scriptural mindset, the kindnesses and goodness of the Lord shines more brightly in this "prison" and our hearts are empowered to bear the suffering with hope and understanding.

Some Scriptures to meditate on along these lines are: Matt. 5:11,12; 5:43-48; John 15:20; Acts 5:41; Rom. 8:17; II Cor. 1:6; II Cor. 4:17,18; I Thes. 3:4; I Pet. 2:20; 3:14; 3:17; 4:13; 4:19; 4:1; 5:10; Rom. 5:3; II Tim. 1:8; Rom. 8:18; 8:35; Phil. 3:10; Col. 1:24; II Tim. 3:11,12...

A Safer Subject - Part 2

The safer subject of the unstoppable, unrelenting, unfailing, never-ending love of God that I wrote about last week can only be understood in the cross of His Son, Jesus. In the sacrificial offering of Himself on our behalf, God in Christ has made clear that He is for us at whatever cost to Himself!

As C.S. Lewis says, God's love for us sinners is a much more secure ground to stand on than our love for Him which, though real, fluctuates at times; therefore we can only find our hearts anchored in peace as we contemplate His love rather than ours.

Because of our fallenness, we are severely bent towards contemplating just about everything else but His love, so it is only a mighty work of the Spirit in our lives that empowers us to look at Him. So how do we contemplate God and His love?

First, ask the Spirit of Jesus to strengthen the 'yes' in your spirit toward His love so that the proneness toward not believing His goodness and love is corrected with each 'yes.'

Then study the cross by simply taking time to read and/or listen to the portions in Scripture about Jesus' death and resurrection (the Gospels and Isaiah 53, etc.). See yourself and your sin and the sins of others against you in Him as He died. Ask the Lord to help you understand your personal role in His crucifixion and death so that you get a glimpse of Your value to Him (Rom.5:8 "God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.").

And finally, learn to contemplate His love in all of life; ask the Spirit to help you see the daily little comments or incidents or events through the lens of the cross. Develop the ability to see the love and affection of the Father coming at you constantly, even in the difficulties which come sifted through His deep desire for you and for your ultimate well-being in Him.

As we think/contemplate on this "safer subject" and drink deeply of that well, the overflow of His love will spill out onto Him and others!

Grace and peace to you this week in Him!

A Safer Subject: The Unstoppable, Unrelenting, Unfailing, Never-ending Love of God

This week I want to share a short story from my life of some years ago that was a pivotal moment in my growth in understanding what God is like. While I certainly knew the love of God in my life before this, the revelation of His love for me in this particular moment hit me unlike ever before and it set me on a path that I've been on ever since.

I had gotten sick just before leaving on a flight for Mexico City, and I got worse in the following days after arriving there. One night the pain in my body reached a point where I wasn't sure if I'd make it through the night. As I lay in bed hardly able to move at all and feeling like I might die, everything became clear and black and white to me; I sensed the Lord asking me, "Nita, what is the one thing you are most sure about?" Without hesitating, I answered, "...that I love You, Lord."

I sensed that He was pleased with that answer but He responded with this: "That's good but there is something more important, and that is that I love you!" In that moment the eyes of my heart were opened to the reality that what is most trustworthy and sure is the unstoppable, unrelenting, unfailing, never-ending love of my heavenly Father.

C.S. Lewis says, "On the whole, God’s love for us is a much safer subject to think about than our love for Him." The apostle John says that we love Him because He loved us first. Our love for Him is real but it is His UNSTOPPABLE, UNRELENTING, UNFAILING, NEVER-ENDING love for us upon which we must rest and build our lives or else we are left with the burden of religion.

God bless you and show you His love...next week I'll share more on this.

Release of the Spirit - Ch. 10: Two Very Different Ways

This is the final chapter of Watchman Nee's book, "The Release of the Spirit," in which he summarizes his teaching by saying that there are two very different ways of help before us:

• "There is a way that seemeth right" - this is help received from the outside, through the mind, by doctrine and its exposition.
• God's way - spirit touching spirit. "Instead of having our mentality developed or acquiring a storehouse of knowledge, it is by this means of contact that our spiritual life is built up...this alone is the way of having our spirit edified or built up."

 Nee emphasizes what he mentions in the previous chapter, which is that true edification is not a question of learning doctrine but of spirit touching spirit. Because of this, you can hear the same teaching more than once and be built up in God when it comes through a broken vessel because being edified is not mere accumulating of information but being touched by the spirit of the preacher or teacher of the Word.

Besides that, when the minister of the Word is broken, he will not only help the hearers but will himself be helped! I have experienced this over and over again while ministering to others - receiving refreshment and revelation myself.

"The question is not how powerful is the spirit but have the spirits touched each other? It is this touching of spirits which revives and builds one up. What a necessity then for the outward man (the soul life) to be broken." 

Nee raises two good questions as he concludes this book:

1. "Should we try to stop any fleshly action we recognize or must we wait passively until greater light comes from the Holy Spirit who is the Doer of the work?"  He illustrates this by saying, "I may lose my temper with people, but I keep it under control; yet this does not make me gentle. So long as the negative is struggling for recognition, I should resist it without letup. Nevertheless, I should not pretend to possess the positive." In other words, I should make the effort to contain the negative action or reaction (i.e.,fleshly anger) while praying and trusting the Spirit to do His work in me of inner transformation unto the positive virtue (i.e., gentleness). It's important to recognize that although I may succeed in controlling the outer action, that doesn't mean I possess the inner reality. "One who unwittingly possesses a counterfeit defrauds others as well as himself. As counterfeit behavior multiplies, the person himself comes to believe that such is his real self."
2. "Some are naturally endowed with such a virtue as gentleness; is there a difference between natural gentleness and the gentleness that comes through discipline (of the Spirit)?"  Nee points out that "all that is natural is independent of the spirit while all that comes through the discipline of the Holy Spirit is under the spirit's control." As Nee has said throughout this book, if the natural strengths of the soul aren't brought under the control of the spirit, then those strengths are actually a hindrance to the flow of the life of Jesus out through us to the world. This applies to natural virtues that appear very good in themselves. If they are not dealt with by God, they control us. If a person is naturally gentle and hasn't been broken, then he will not be able to lay that aside and be firm when the Lord is requiring that in a given situation.  (As a young missionary who was given the responsibility to oversee younger interns many years ago, I went through the Lord's "dealing" with some natural virtues in me that needed to be brought under His leadership and lordship. He asked me to take action contrary to what I would have naturally done, and although it was painful, it reaped a lot in me related to understanding God's ways.)

Nee gives one final admonition with which I will close: "Having stressed the importance of the outward man being broken, let us be careful lest we try to effect this artificially."

Amen! Lord, again thank You that You are so good at what You do and that You love us thoroughly and unconditionally through all of Your dealings with us. We praise You in Jesus' name!

Release of the Spirit - Ch. 9: Meekness in Brokenness

In this short chapter, Nee presents the qualities of meekness that characterize the man or woman of God who has gone through the breaking work of God.

He begins the chapter by saying that God's work is tailor-made for each of His servants. Because He knows well what our strong points are, He knows how to deal with those and at what pace. As Nee has repeated many times in this book, the goal of the Spirit is to "wound the self (soul) life", not to destroy the God-given soul but to bring it under His loving Lordship.

The affliction will vary with the person  but the result "is a producing of a broken will. We are all naturally obstinate. This stubborn will is supported by our thoughts, opinions, self-love, affection, or cleverness...a common feature marks those who have been enlightened and disciplined - they become meek...Formerly we could afford to be obstinate because we were like a house well supported by many pillars. As God removes the pillars one after another, the house is bound to collapse."

Qualities of Meekness

• Approachable - easy to talk to and a person quick to confess sin; this is because his outward shell has been broken and he is not defensive, not trying to protect his natural life.
• Sensitive - alert to his environment because his spirit is in touch with the spirit of his brothers and sisters; he can quickly discern what's going on in a situation and his spirit responds appropriately. 
• Able to discern the Body of Christ - he can touch the feelings of the church and is quick to recognize when he does something wrong to those in the church. "After our outward man is broken, we begin to live in that corporate awareness as related members of His body and are easily corrected."
• Teachable - "The greatest advantage of brokennes is...in enabling us to receive the supply of all the body. Our spirit is released and open to get spiritual help from whatever source in the body. Suppose, for example, a brother has a keen but unbroken intellect...Unless he meets one whose mind is sharper than his, he will not be helped. He will analyze the thoughts of the preacher and reject them as useless and meaningless...He is walled in by his mind...However, should the Lord come in and shatter this wall, showing him the futility of his own thoughts, he will become attentive as a child to what others may say...Whenever God's Spirit makes a move upon any brother, never again will he judge others merely by doctrine, words, or eloquence. (Nee goes on to define what it means to be taught: "It cannot mean expanded thoughts, nor improved understanding, nor greater doctrinal accumulation. It simply means that my spirit has once more contacted God's Spirit...")

Jesus, You say of Yourself that You are meek; thank You for the ministry of Your Spirit to break our outer man in order to make us more like You. We yield to Your good work! Amen.

Release of the Spirit - Ch. 8: What Impression do We Give?

In chapter 8 Watchman Nee teaches that what most impacts others about us is that which emanates or comes forth from within us: "What others sense in us is our most outstanding feature. If our mind has never been dealt with and is undisciplined, naturally we shall use our mind to contact people, and they will be struck by its forcefulness...Whatever our strongest characteristic is, it will stand out and impress others. We may be able to control our speech or action, but we are unable to restrain that which expresses our nature."

Nee illustrates this with the story of Elisha and how the Shunammite woman perceived that he was a holy man of God without hearing him preach or perform any miracles. He merely entered her house and ate with her and her husband.

He goes on to say that even though we may be good at giving spiritual teaching and preaching, if our natural life (strong points of our nature) haven't been dealt with by the Spirit, there is no spiritual impartation for the hearers. God will go to great lengths to break us in the area of our strength, and it can take years for His truth to become alive and real (though we may have heard it long before that).

This realization of what He is doing comes through His discipline as we have seen, and also through enlightenment when His light breaks through and we "see" as He sees. "The flesh, as we know, lives hidden in darkness...Once His light reveals the flesh to us we tremble, not daring to move...Pride seen in the light of revelation differs completely from the pride that we talk glibly about...Whatever is revealed 'in the light' is slain by it...light both reveals and slays.

"In that hour of unveiling, even noble deeds performed in His name and in love to Him will somehow lose their luster...What you considered as wholly for God now appears to be riddled with self. Self seems to permeate every vestige of your being, robbing God of glory."

How well I (Nita) remember such a time in my own life as a young servant of the Lord when I was around 30 years old. I was zealous for Him and wholehearted in wanting to serve Him fully. And yet at a critical point in my walk with Him as I sought His face during a 3-day fast, He wonderfully shed His light on me and showed me in an instant how I was filled with desire for glory and praise from humans in the ministry. Though I had not seen it before this, when the light came, I knew instantly that He was correct, and deep repentance was my response. And with the repentance and forgiveness came a sense that I was not to finish the 3 days of fasting (I was halfway through it), because He had accomplished what He wanted to do. The experience also affected how I walked out my service for Him after that because I had a holy fear of what I had seen in myself.

"At first He alone knows us, for we are always bare and naked before Him. But once God has disclosed to us the thoughts and intents of our heart, we are then laid bare before ourselves. How shall we ever lift up our head again?...Though we used to think we were better than others, now we know what we really are...

Chapter 8 concludes with Nee's contrasting between God's discipline and His enlightenment. His discipline is a slower process, repeated over and over again until the issue is finally dealt with. Enlightenment happens very quickly. God uses both to break the outward shell of our natural strengths. Most often His discipline comes to us through humans. Unfortunately, many of God's people don't recognize what God is doing through the hand of humans, and we can prolong the process by not recognizing the good hand of God in it (Psalm 66:10-12).

"When the (human) spirit is released, it supplies the needs of the world. No work is more important or thorough than this, and nothing can take its place. The Lord is not so much concerned with your teachings or sermons as He is with the impression you give...Do you impress people with yourself or with the Lord? Do you let people touch your teaching or your Lord?...Do not forget that every contact you make with another, there is something that comes out of you. It is either yourself or God flowing forth..."

Praise You, Lord, for Your loving and faithful and relentless work in our lives. Continue Your dealings with us so that what comes out from us to others is the pure life of Jesus...Amen.

Release of the Spirit - Ch. 7: Dividing and Revelation

In chapter 7 Watchman Nee deals with the importance of having a pure spirit; he emphasizes that purity of spirit is the greatest need in the servant of God: "...the first requirement in God's work is a pure, not a powerful spirit. Those who neglect this, though their work may be done in power, will find it destroyed due to the lack of purity. Though they may truly possess the power of God, yet because their spirit is mixed, they are destroying what they build."

When Nee speaks of mixture, he's referring to the mingling of the person's spirit and soul, so that when he or she ministers, what comes forth is a mixture of the person's cleverness or willfulness along with the gospel that he/she is presenting. I can remember specific instances as a young missionary in which I shared truth with others but it came forth from my soulish powers. In one particular experience, I was sharing truth with a small group; although what I shared was true and good, I sensed the soulish strength of will imposing the truth on my hearers. Later I repented and asked their forgiveness for speaking with mixture in my spirit. Nee says it well: "We are doing the will of God because it happens to coincide with ours. In standing firm for God we are merely expressing our strong personality."

In order to accomplish this purifying work, the Lord must deal with our strong points. This is painful for us because it is in these very points that we are gifted and feel most confident in. But without His touching these natural strengths, we can easily do His work without Him in the energy of the flesh. (Prov. 3:5 contrasts leaning on the natural life with trusting in the Lord.)

God's primary instrument for the dividing of the soul life from the spirit life is the Word of God (Heb. 4:12). God's Word is both living and operative: "'living' refers to its nature, while 'operative' applies to its ability to fulfill the work on man." It is able to discern our innermost thoughts and motives. "You thought you loved sinners while preaching the gospel, but now the light has come, and you discover that your preaching stems mainly from your love of action, your delight in speaking, your natural inclination...Once you assumed that your thoughts and intents were of the Lord, but in this piercing light you know they are entirely of yourself...This unveiling of the real nature of things enlightens us to the true knowledge of what is of ourselves and what is of the Lord, how much is from the soul and how much is from the spirit.

"Deliverance comes from the light of God...So it is that even our denial of the outward man and our determination to reject it will not help...How foolish to imagine that we could expose our sin! Only in His light shall we 'see' and be exposed. It must be His work by the Spirit, not our efforts of the soul..." The soul cannot deal with the soul. Often when we hear truth such as this, we set out to cure ourselves by means of our soulish powers. If we are strong-willed, we determine to take control; if we are strong in our emotions, we feel that we can cure the problem with feeling a certain way; if we are strongly intellectual, we try to reason ourselves out of being ruled by our outward man. Only God by His Spirit with His Word can expose and deal exactly with the soul life; but we must desire Him to do it and ask for His help.

In the context of what Nee is teaching, he points out that we need "revelation" to be able to see ourselves as God sees us; in other words, we should be able to see what is soulish and what is of the spirit in ourselves. "Revelation enables us to see what God sees...Whenever you are enabled to discern the thoughts and intents of your heart, you can be sure your soul and spirit are being divided." Once you have revelation of this, you begin to have an inner knowing, and "on subsequent occasions, whenever it expresses itself we will instantly regret it and judge it...We will henceforth live before the Lord with our spirit released...the Word of God is effective, for it enlightens you to the casting off of the outward man."

I'll close this with the prayer that Nee suggests for one who reaches the point of wanting the light of God to shine and expose the truth of his/her condition:

"O God, I am absolutely unreliable. I do not know whom I am accusing, nor what sin I am confessing. Only in Thy light am I able to know..."

Come, Holy Spirit, and do the work that only You can do, for the sake of Jesus...thank You for Your faithfulness to do this!

Release of the Spirit - Ch. 6: Brokenness and Discipline

In this chapter Watchman Nee underscores the thoroughness of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives. Although the crisis of consecrating or surrendering oneself wholly to God is important, consecration is never a substitute for the follow-up work that He will do from then on.

"Consecration is merely an expression of our willingness to be in the hands of God...It is like entering the gate...It takes consecration plus the discipline of the Holy Spirit to make us vessels fit for the Master's use."

Nee goes on to point out that although our consecration is according to our limited spiritual understanding, the Spirit of God deals with us according to His perfect light, so His dealings with us transcend our consecration. In other words, even though our consecration to Him is weak, He takes it very seriously and does His perfect work with our imperfect understanding.

"Since the Holy Spirit works according to the light of God, His discipline is thorough and complete. We often wonder at things which befall us, yet if left to ourselves we may be mistaken in our very best choice. The discipline He orders transcends our understanding. How often we are caught unprepared and conclude that such a drastic thing is not what we need. Many times His discipline descends upon us suddenly without our having prior notice! We may insist that we are living in 'the light' but the Holy Spirit is dealing with us according to God's light..."

God's way of dealing with our soulish strength (the outward man) is through difficult outward circumstances. He wants the inner man (spirit) to be strong but His way of strengthening the inner man is to weaken the outer man (soul). Many believers struggle on their own trying to make things work without success until a moment comes in which, in desperation, he gives himself as fully as he knows how into the hands of God. "...Herein lies the importance of consecration: it allows the Holy Spirit to work without restriction."

Nee continues by saying that God will not leave one area untouched. "You may even be ignorant of your affinity for a certain thing, but He knows and will deal with it most thoroughly ...Sometimes He will deal with you through others, arranging for you to be with someone whom you are angry with, or whom you despise or are jealous of; very often it is through those who you love."

He will deal with our thought life..."We feign to be wiser than others. Then it is that the Lord allows us to crash into a wall and hit the dust - all to show us that we dare not use our thoughts inordinately..."

He deals with our emotions..."Some people are extremely emotional. When they are elated, they cannot contain themselves; when they are depressed, they cannot be comforted...(God) places them in situations where they dare to be too happy when elated, nor too sad when depressed. They can only depend on the grace of God and live by His mercy..."

And He deals with the will..."the greatest and most prevalent difficulty is with the will...We may be able to mouth the words, 'Not my will but Thine be done,' but how often do we really allow the Lord to take over when things happen?...Only after being dealt with by God do we really see how hard we are and how ready we are to have our own opinion. God must deal with us to make our wills tender and docile. Strong-willed people are convinced that their feelings, ways and judgments are always right. God will allow us to make mistake after mistake until we realize that this will be our pattern for the future...We truly need the grace of the Lord."

Nee finishes this chapter by suggesting that we can know when the power of the outer man is beginning to be destroyed: "...when you dare no longer to trust yourself." To this I want to add that this should not be confused with unhealthy self-hatred. Some people don't trust themselves because of unhealed issues in their lives; some may be naturally reticent and less assertive in their personality, or silent in giving opinions. This doesn't mean that such people don't have strong opinions. The most silent person can have strong opinions burning in himself and even be ignorant of his own condition; but the Lord knows and deals with all that is hidden in His time. (I speak from experience.)

Lord, we praise You that You know us and love us enough to weaken our natural life so that we may live by the spirit. Thank You that, just as a good and loving parent disciplines his child in love because he knows the child will eventually be happier and fruitful as a result, so You care enough to allow us to suffer a little now for great abundance later on! We love you and we love Your ways...

Release of the Spirit - Ch. 5: The Church and God's Work

In chapter five Watchman Nee speaks of how intricately tied together the breaking of the outward man is to God's work.

"It is true to say that God is much restricted by man...There came a time when God committed Himself to human form in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Before the Word became flesh, God's fullness knew no bounds. However, once the incarnation became a reality, His work and His power were limited to this flesh. Will this Man, Christ Jesus, restrict or manifest God?...far from limiting God, He has wonderfully manifested God's fullness. ...The basic teaching of the Gospels is the presence of God in one Man, while that of the Epistles is God in the Church...God formerly dwelt in one Man Jesus Christ, but now God is only in the church, not in any other thing."

It's because of this, Nee says, that the discipline and dealing of the Holy Spirit with His people is critical so that God can have His way with us and have a way through us to the watching world.

Breaking - God's Way of Working
The breaking of the outward man (soul life) will affect how we read and relate to God's Word:

I. Reading the Bible - often we rely on our unrenewed and confused mind to understand the Word of God; the fruit of this is our own thoughts and we don't touch the spirit of the Scriptures. Our own intelligence is an obstacle if we have not been broken. There are two basic requirements for reading the Bible:

a. First, our thought must enter into the thought of the writer of the book (John, Paul, etc.); in other words, our thoughts must be geared into his thoughts. This helps keep us from interpreting the Word subjectively and reading into it what was never intended by the Spirit through the human writer. Without the breaking of the outward man, we cannot do this.

b. Even more importantly, "the Bible is more than words, ideas and thoughts. The most outstanding feature of the Bible is that God's Spirit is released through this Book." Not only does the thought of the writer come forth, but the spirit of the writer united with God's Spirit comes forth and it's only possible to touch that when our spirit has been released, in other words, when the outward man is broken and is no longer a hindrance to the operation of the the inner man (spirit). Nee illustrates this by saying it's like a naughty boy who deliberately breaks a neighbor's window. He is scolded by both the neighbor and then by his mother, but there is a vast difference in the scoldings; the one is ill-tempered and angry in spirit while the mother's scolding is full of love, hope and training. Without the breaking of the outer man, our spirit can't receive the correct spirit of the Word.

II. The ministry of the Word - not only does God want us to understand His Word but He wants to put it as a burden in our spirit to minister to the Church. "In Acts 6:4 we read, 'But we will give ourselves up to prayer and the ministry of the word.' 'Ministry' means serving. So the ministry of the Word means serving people with the word of God." The ability to receive this burden from God and then to deliver it to others comes with the breaking of the outward man.

"Many have the erroneous notion that clever (intelligent) people are best able to be used. How wrong! No matter how clever you are, the outward can never substitute for the inward man...The shell of the outward man must be smashed by God. The more it is shattered, the more the life in the spirit is released...Unless your inward man is released, people can only hear your voice; they cannot touch life..."

III. Preaching the Gospel - we often think that people believe the gospel because they have been mentally convinced of the truth or emotionally stirred by it, but those who respond for either of these reasons alone don't last long. "Intellect and emotion need to be reached, but these alone are insufficient. Mind may reach mind and emotion may reach emotion, but salvation probes much deeper. Spirit must touch spirit. Only when the spirit of the preacher blossoms forth and shines do sinners fall down and capitulate to God."

May the tender mercies of God rest on you this week as you live and walk in Him by faith!