The Missing Link

Life has a way of showing us just how complex things are. I think when we are young we expect we can do almost anything until we have accumulated some failures under our belts. As bad as failure often feels, it teaches us what will and will not work; at least in the simple things. As we grow in knowledge and wisdom, we discover that some things can be challenged even when past experience has taught us otherwise. Failure is not always going to be failure if new elements are added, just as success doesn’t always work because something new has been added to change the outcome.

When I was young I loved WWII movies and books. Even in difficult battles, victory seemed simple on paper but as we experience real life struggles, we find that some things aren’t as easy to overcome as we thought. When I grew older I learned the complexity of battle strategy. It wasn’t just those with the biggest and greatest amount of weapons who won the day. It also depended on how they used them. Looking at many of the major battles in WWII, the Germans had smarter generals and better weapons and should have won the war if it hadn’t been for a few key factors, which affected not only their strategy of the war, but also the outcome.

I look at Christianity in similar ways. It’s easy to read passages in scripture and then follow some simple formula to obtain the desired outcome. Unfortunately there are far too many teachers in the body of Christ that are teaching simple fomulas for being a strong and successful Christian. As these teachers get a name for themselves, they sell books and give messages that claim wonderful and easy paths to strength and power with God. Conferences are then scheduled all over the country or the world and these teachers become rich and famous while the rest of the body of Christ can’t figure out why these principles and good words don’t work for them. Eventually, many in the body of Christ simply look for a new teacher to tell them how to get what they are looking for and the cycle continues. Believers stay weak and the mighty get more powerful and richer.

If I sound sarcastic, I am. When I came to a saving knowledge of Christ and began to understand his ability to forgive and transform my life, I, like so many others hoped for a quick path to the transformed life. But I soon learned that even Christian teachers will often feed people what they want to hear. As teachers in the body of Christ, they are susceptible to deception just like the average believer is and in fact can move in that direction very quickly without realizing their error. The apostle Peter wrote about how knowledge, although a desirable thing to have, can also be a problem to handle.

2 Peter 3:18 

Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:2-3 

Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence.

So Paul advocates increasing in knowledge and at the same time warns that knowledge without love is dangerous. Paul talks to the Corinthian Christians about eating meat sacrificed to idols and he says a profound thing about knowledge without love to balance it.

1 Corinthians 8:1

Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.

The point I’m trying to get at is the importance of the work and counsel of the Holy Spirit. Without his help, the enemy of our soul uses the knowledge we have gained and leverages it against us causing more harm than good. Remember Satan got Adam and Eve to desire knowledge and power outside of their relationship with God in Genesis 3. Without the Holy Spirit’s constant counsel, the enemy can influence our heart through hurts, jelousy and pride. If we are teaching the body of Christ while harboring these negative influences, a perverted knowledge can often corrupt us as well as those that follow our teachings and principles.

Paul prays and advises the Ephesian believers to rely on the Spirit of God to go deeper in their personal relationship with Father God. Therein lies a huge key to being healthy and strong. Are we pursuing knowledge and power to feel good about ourselves or to get us closer to the Father’s heart? That motive makes all the difference in the world.

Ephesians 1:17 

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better.

Remember the words of Jesus instructing us that he was going to give us the Holy Spirit? He then challenged the first disciples that they had a part to play in receiving. The first disciples had to cooperate. They had to go to Jerusalem to wait for “Power From On High”. Teachers in the body of Christ have cheapened our expectation of what is required of us and told us that when we receive Christ we get the Holy Spirit as a bonus. No work or labor involved. This simplified concept short-circuits the motivation of each believer to cooperate with the Holy Spirit, which is required. How sad for believers to claim to have the Holy Spirit in their lives all the while living without power!

Acts 1:4 & 8 

On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.    But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Paul prays for the believers’ “Eyes Of The Heart” to be opened. Why? Because often we are gaining knowledge without heart transformation and the outcome is disastrous.

Ephesians 1:18-20 

I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms.

The missing link in so many believers’ lives is the absence of the intimacy with the Holy Spirit, thus the absence of real power. We argue about what the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is and we become fools in our fighting. Shouldn’t we know when the Holy Spirit is at home in our souls? Shouldn’t we know when we are getting sound wisdom for our daily walk from him? The answer is pretty plain and yet we look for some magical prayer from some “Special Teacher” rather than seeking our Heavnly Father to release the power of the Holy Spirit.

Questions:

Do you know Dear Saint, that God desires to give you the Holy Spirit because you need him? Above all else, seek that relationship.

Have you been captivated with the hunger for “”Knowledge” without relationship? Repent and asked to be filled.

Longing for the Body of Christ to have a transformation that is not skin deep!

Pastor Dale