If
I did not believe so strongly in a personal, daily walk with God based on the
living word of God, through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, I would
think that this morning’s consideration of God’s word turned into the most
convoluted collection of thoughts I have ever seen. However, as puzzle pieces
may look disconnected straight out of the box, a clear picture develops as each
piece finds its place in connection with the others. Here is how it worked
today.
The Damaging Effect of Deceptive
Discernment
One
of my peeves of the present western church culture is the increase of ministry
groups claiming the status of a “discernment” ministry (hereafter referred to
as DM). They have become the untouchable Sanhedrin of the Church, deciding who
is in and who is out based on their limited understanding of what ministry
looks like when it “accords with sound
doctrine”[1]
in uncharted territory. They sit in judgment of the modus operandi of others,
adding to their judgmental publications anyone who fails to meet their dogmatic
requirements, while sitting in elite tribunals with none to do “discernment
ministry” on them and their teachings.[2]
The
reason this was an issue for me this morning was the awareness of Jesus’
servants coming under attack from the DM snipers when venturing to address
difficult life-experiences in a way that accords with sound doctrine. If the DM
snipers do not recognize a target, they are quite prepared to blow it/them
right out of the water, kind of like Saul putting Christians in prison to stop
that terrible sect of people claiming Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah.[3]
The Sound Doctrine of the All-Things
Ministry
As
I prayed my thoughts and feelings about deceptive discernment, I felt a growing
determination to follow Paul’s example of becoming “all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.”[4]There
is a way to relate to different kinds of people in different kinds of
life-experience with different kind of ministry. Paul says so.
Yes,
I fully agree with the necessity of discernment. Yes, I fully affirm the
constant diligence to live by sound doctrine. My contention is that some of
these DM’s are hurting the church because they do not know how to follow Paul’s
example in real life. They may be able to explain the doctrine in words, but they
do not put their doctrine into works the way Paul did.[5]
We
must seek to live by Paul’s level of discernment, as revealed in the sound
doctrine of God-breathed Scriptures,[6]
while becoming “all things to all people”.
We need to live by the plumb-line of God’s word even when that means living as
a target of the DM snipers who have no idea how many ways sound doctrine can be
fleshed-out into the real-life needs of God’s broken and wounded sheep.
I
know that the Bible does not mention drug addictions, childhood sexual abuse,
mental illness labels, dissociative symptoms, and other similar contemporary
problems. That does not mean that we are unable to help people who struggle
with these things. There is a way to become all things to all people so that we
can minister to one another in these areas, while doing so in accord with sound
doctrine. Paul sets the example.
Sheepish Security in Our Shepherd’s Steps
With
my revulsion of deceptive discernment on one side, and Paul’s overwhelming
example of living sound doctrine in an “all
things to all people” kind of way, the next puzzle piece out of the box had
to do with keeping in step with Jesus, my Shepherd.
Part
of our discernment of sound doctrine includes how to live that doctrine in
personal relationship to the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will never do anything
that does not accord with sound doctrine, but he will often do things that do
not accord with comfort zones, or DM snipers.
The
Holy Spirit is the personal presence of Jesus Christ. As Jesus is the perfect
image of the invisible God,[7]
the Holy Spirit is the perfect presence of Jesus, fulfilling Jesus’ promise to
be with his Church always, to the end of the age.[8]
While the Holy Spirit is the glorious expression of God’s light to his people,
one color of the spectrum stood out to me this morning in terms of Jesus as our
Shepherd. If Jesus is our Shepherd, as he clearly is, then the Spirit of Jesus is
our Shepherd in every way Scripture means.
What
I realized is that I wanted a keep-in-step-with-my-Shepherd experience that
looked like I was keeping up with Jesus more than it looked like Jesus graciously
slowing down to match my childish pace. I love it that Jesus takes into
consideration our maturity in life, obviously walking slow enough for his
little ones to keep up. I have walked with children enough times to know what
this feels like, both in the physical act of walking a lot slower than I would
on my own, and the emotional experience of loving children and where they are
at in their present stage of life.
The
thing I wanted to avoid all day long is the kind of keeping-in-step-with-Jesus that
magnifies his grace towards dawdling sheep, and to experience the walk with the
Spirit that magnifies his worthiness to be followed with an all-day-long
devotion to being where he is, doing what he is doing. I am far too familiar
with the first (for which I am very thankful), but I long to experience the
second in a constantly maturing way.
The Freedom to Pray our Bleating Pain
Acknowledging
this desire to keep in step with the Spirit of Jesus in the genuine obedience
of faith led me to realize I had some deep-seated heartaches that were my
Shepherd’s next order of business. Yes, keeping in step with the Spirit
includes following him into the work he is doing to heal our brokenheartedness
and bind up our wounds. When we pray, “why
are you so cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?”[9] we
must expect the Holy Spirit to sometimes take us into the cast-down turmoil and
show us how we can know the hope of Christ in ways we have not yet experienced
it.
One
of the practical things I have learned in life is that God will sometimes use
circumstances to show us ways in which we do not yet know him. I remember back
to one situation early in our marriage where we did not have the money to pay
our rent. At that point, I could not say that I knew God as Jehovah Jireh, my
Provider, at least in dealing with material things. God’s prayer-answering
provision in the midst of a gut-wrenching weekend led me to know him in a new
way.
Since
that time I have discovered this nuance of God’s work many times myself, and
now recognize when other people are in similar situations. While I once
distressed over the impossible situations I faced, I have grown up into a faith
that wonders what God is doing when there is no room for me on the stage, so to
speak. As he draws all my attention to him, I find that I get to know him in
new ways, gaining new understanding of how life works in accord with sound
doctrine, and how he strengthens us with daily grace to face daily demands, and
divine appointments.
How do these puzzle pieces come
together into a clear picture? First, in that way that says there is a lot more
to the picture than one morning can reveal.
Second,
with the encouragement that I was given the Monte-sized part of the picture that
is sufficient for today. If I live out my place in the script, the Director
will make sure it fits in to whatever else he is doing.
Third,
I can face my day knowing that the Shepherd I am trying to keep up with sees
the whole rest of the picture in every possible dimension including every
person on this planet, and all that is taking place in every nuance of the
spiritual realm. He is handling his part of the picture. All is well.
Specifically,
God did one more thing to clear up my long-standing fear of sniper rifles. He
reminded me that Mr. Sound Doctrine, and Mr. All Things To All Men are very
good friends. And, if I will let them both help me at the same time, I will not
only experience the comforts of my Shepherd ministering to me in fellowship
with my bleating prayers for help, but my keeping in step with him will help
someone else to do the same. It will also help us all get to know God better
than we have ever known him before.
I
think I will laminate those puzzle pieces together in prayer, and watch for
those ways I will need to live as something to someone in an unexpected way
that accords with sound doctrine, and blesses the heebie-jeebies out of us both
in the process.[10]
Wearing the bullet-proof vest of faith, of course, because those DM snipers
have a habit of shooting at anything that moves before finding out whose side their
target is on.
© 2014 Monte Vigh ~
Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8 ~ in2freedom@gmail.com
Unless otherwise
noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible,
English Standard Version Copyright © 2001 by Crossway
Bibles, a division of Good News Publishers.)
[1] Titus 2:1
[2] Often the DM’s way of
judging other ministries is significantly lacking in sound doctrine!
[3] Acts 9:1ff
[4] I Corinthians 9:22
[5] I have yet to see a DM
present how they do ministry the right way to people facing the things they
accuse others of ministering to in the wrong way.
[6] II Timothy 3:16-17
[7] Colossians 1:15
[8] Matthew 28:20
[9] Psalm 42:11
[10] “heebie jeebies: A feeling of minor fright, anxiety, nervousness,
apprehension, "the willies", phobic” (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=heebie+jeebies)
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