I don’t want to have left my comment on a condemning note… and particularly don’t want to deepen any bitterness or hurt in the hearts of anyone with difficult pasts.

It’s just that I hate to see the Church fragmented and feel we should all be working toward His goal, which is His One Body and Kingdom, His glory and not our own comfort. It’s easy for us all to give up and withdraw. (Dare I ask if that is part of someone’s deceptive plan?)

How grateful I am that Jesus did not take the easy and comfortable way out. He could have been much happier in Heaven fellowship-ing with His Father — the only one who could fully understand and appreciate Him, not to mention the only other truly spiritually like-minded.

I particularly hope that I did not offend anyone when posed the question about idolatry and selfishness. They’re both things for which I personally find myself daily confessing. I was being sincere when I posed the question and only meant it as a question for introspection, not an accusation.

I wish everyone His presence and joy.

Alice

I believe that the article is invaluable as an exhortation and encouragement to submit to the Lord, finding complete satisfaction and sufficiency in and connection to the Lord. Having said that, I’d also like to caution people from taking the article as blanket sanction for being out of fellowship, thinking that He actually desires to keep His people out of fellowship or to belittle it’s importance or His command for it in His Body.

His presence and sufficiency is of utmost priority and necessity, but along with that intimacy comes His call for doing what one sees the Father doing (as Christ said He was always and only doing) — and God is always and ultimately at work in and for His kingdom.

Surely the Lord may call us to spiritual “desert” experiences for a time and we can never substitute anything or anyone for His constant presence — but we must be careful to discern correctly from where comes the call we hear to separate ourselves from any and all churches. We will never find ourselves completely amongst members of The True Church until we are in Heaven, after He has separated the sheep from the goats — and that judgment and separation is His responsibility, not ours.

I’ve been convicted that when I have been dissatisfied or discouraged with church attenders being less than what I expected from “true Christians,” it was out of self-righteousness and selfishness and more significantly out of a lack of compassion and love, which quenched any sincere desire to serve and intercede for others.

Our pastor just spoke on Nehemiah last Sunday. He pointed out that Nehemiah was deeply dismayed and disgusted by the state of “the church” but he took it to the Lord, and in the Lord’s hands, his dissatisfaction turned into passion and eventually action which all ended in the Lord’s glory and blessing for His people and kingdom. Even today, Nehemiah’s story continues to be replayed in the lives of many earnest and godly Christians. (I know it’s redundant to add the adjectives to describe a Christian but I do so for emphasis.)

If the “fruit” of our leaving fellowship is a dwindling of compassion or concern for others, a critical and condemning attitude, a lack of intercession, and being rendered ineffective for His kingdom, then we must reexamine the source from which our “call” to leave or remain in our current solitary state comes. If we are in the desert in which He has placed us, we should be being prepared even more so for ministry, for service, for manifesting His Spirit and presence to the world, to be a light in the darkness, a lamp on a hill, not hidden.

Jesus went to the desert in preparation for His ministry. Jesus walked His life “alone” in the level of His intimacy with the Father, but He looked upon others with eyes of unfathomable love and compassion, and walked, lived, and ate with people, who were His treasure, His sheep, because He came not for Himself but for others.

I would challenge people to find in the Bible an example where God called someone specifically to live their entire life on earth truly “alone” and in isolation — with no responsibility to hold out Truth or Light to anyone else and with no purpose but to “enjoy Him.” Surely, He means for us to enjoy Him from the moment of salvation into eternity, but biblical Faith is not an inactive, self-centered, and ineffectual faith; it is a faith which pours forth the blessings of His Spirit and fruit, producing growth in His kingdom. It is inspiring and God-glorifying.

I wouldn’t encourage joining any arbitrary church, and surely a church’s statement of faith must first be examined and found biblical, but I would definitely encourage people not to cease in prayerfully and proactively looking for a biblical church and for fellowship — not out of an anxious and selfish, idolatrous heart, but out of obedience to the Lord. If not careful, not doing so might very well be just as much out of a selfish and idolatrous heart.

We have talked recently about Jesus’ parables of the Kingdom of God; those parables which speak of mixture, the dragnet, the field of wheat with tares, the sheep and the goats, the king who called all manner of men to the wedding feast of his son but rejected those who weren’t prepared, many are called but few are chosen. Have we been too concerned that there are few in the body of Christ amongst the Sunday worshippers and perhaps negligent of the fact that there was always going to be a mixture? Perhaps our desire to join only with those of like mind has been too exclusive?

We are simply asking ourselves these questions while wanting not to be too dismissive of those in the institutionalised churches. We know only too well how much these places kill your spirit, even the ‘healthy’ churches are so focused on mindless religious practice that they forget they are worshipping a real live person. I remember the days of my youth in a very large pentecostal church, I was always looking for the abundant life, while my young friends were looking for husbands, or parties to go to. It was a social club, and so few wanted to genuinely seek God.

There is one thing that is clear…God has much more to reveal to us about this life than what we have previously learned in the last thirty years. Who would have thought?