Jared Longshore's Blog, page 31

You Eat What You Kill

In certain business circles you may hear the phrase, “You eat what you kill.” The general principle being that your personal compensation is based on the revenue that you have personally generated. There is a good bit of truth baked into the idea. Scripture says that “each man should carry his own load” (Galatians 6:1) and “if you do not work, then you do not eat” (2 Thessalonians 3:10). But this phrase, taken in isolation, only tells half of the story. Where did you get your ability to hunt? Somebody fed you back before you knew how to fire a rifle. Who’s kill did you eat back then?

Man is a remarkable creature. We really can do extraordinary things. That is why is quite easy to begin to live by sight rather than by faith. We think we are in a mechanical universe and if we put in the time and effort, then out will pop a precisely equivalent and statistically verifiable reward. 

The truth however is that we live in a world where the LORD gives and takes away. He is good and generous. And at the end of the day, we don’t merit anything. At the end of the day, “What do you have that you did not receive?” Yes, you worked harder than the rest of them. And that wasn’t you, but the grace of God in you. Boast all you would like of that grace. You eat what God killed.

We come to eat at a rich banquet that we did not generate. It is a humbling meal. Delightful and humbling. What have we contributed to this feast? Greed, lust, bitterness, prostitution, abuse, and a host of other sins that made this salvation necessary. 

We go forth to conquer, to rule, work, and exercise dominion. We can do so because God feeds us with bread we did not buy and vines we did not plant. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Dealing with Discord

There are at least two ways to ruin a good harmony. The first would be to pay too little attention to your fellow choir member. There you are rumbling along to the beat of your own timpani. Everyone seems to know you’re off key except you. The other way to skuttle a good musical arrangement is to pay too much attention to the singers around you and thereby not enough attention to the music itself. One form of this latter error involves a fairly experienced choir member, who knows a thing or two about singing, attempting to make up for another choir member who apparently does not. But, come to find out, while leaning opposite ways in a boat may keep you afloat, leaning opposite ways on the scale does not a happy conductor make. There are lessons here for dealing with discord in the body of Christ.

As you seek to be of one accord, some of you must pay a bit more attention to those around you, ensuring that you are not off pitch. You’re a leader. But are people following you? You’re a mother. Are your unchecked emotions troubling the other members of your family? You’re a husband. Have you taken the time to understand what is going on with your wife? You’re a sibling. Are you always first to the mashed potatoes?

Watch out for the other ditch as well. We have all seen someone try (unsuccessfully) to smooth out slander by following it up with a compliment, or fix timidity in a child with brutishness. A daughter tries to remedy mom’s bitterness with gossip. A son looks to harmonize dad’s anger with a bit of his own. Then there is the age old maneuver of trying to settle an argument by pointing out that, though you were in the wrong this time, just last week your opponent was. These attempts don’t remove the discord, but sow more of it. 

Christ is our peace. We will stay in fellowship and harmony with one another as we look to Him in faith.

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Selfish and Sickly

The common way of speaking today is that the remedy for your weariness is found in you taking a little time for yourself. Now, a good night’s sleep is a good thing. And Jesus went away by himself to pray so there is certainly nothing wrong with a bit of solitude. But, the message we often hear today is that you simply cannot be well while considering the needs of others. You’re a limited being with limited resources and you better make sure to look at for number one first and foremost. This line of thinking begins to feel somewhat like a prison where each man must be for himself or else we will just wither up and die.

It is striking that things went just the other way around for the Corinthians. They grabbed at the Lord’s Table. They looked out for themselves, neglected one another, and the result was that they became sick. Paul identifies a causal relationship at this point. The Corinthians’ selfishness resulted in them not discerning the Lord’s body, and Paul says, “For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep” (1 Corinthians 11:30).

As you come to this table, you come to be nourished by Christ and you come with the body of Christ of which you are a member. He is the One who restores us. Your strength to go on is not found in you diagnosing yourself and operating on yourself. Your life and maturity are found in you coming to Christ, trusting Him, and acknowledging the saints around you, pouring out your life for theirs. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ. 

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A Word About That Dark Secrets Duggar Documentary

A new documentary is out on the Duggar family called Shiny Happy People: Duggar Family Secrets. After watching a bit of this documentary my pastoral Spidey-Senses went off. The mature can do multiple things at the same time, which this documentary requires. But not all are mature. 

This doc is designed to play evangelicals and it has a good chance of doing so. Kristen Kobes Du Mez, the author of Jesus and John Wayne: How White Evangelicals Corrupted a Faith and Fractured a Nation, makes an appearance or two. And Russell Moore has already taken this documentary as an opportunity to lament that the young homeschool Christian boys are training in rhetoric and political philosophy. If they keep that up, then they may end up clerking for Supreme Court Justices or something and, well Russell wouldn’t want anything like that happening.

This documentary is also the kind that can put a damper the spirits with Cloudy, Unhappy People ensuring viewers that the Duggars were faking the Shiny, Happy People thing. The ethos is something like: Let’s just all be miserable together.

There are better things to attend to and thinking about whatever is true, honorable, right and pure comes to mind (Philippians 4:8). Nevertheless, this swampy documentary is out there and my gut says evangelicals are watching. So here are few points so that you don’t get stuck in the muck.

Gothard Problems

First, let me say right up front that the IBLP / Gothard world is a well from which you don’t want to drink. I don’t know much about the ministry. But what I have seen is enough to say that there are significant errors and problems going on there. I’ll say it again for those who are going to set their hair on fire about the point coming in the next paragraph. As the apostle wrote with big letters once, I will put it in italics: Albeit I only have a little knowledge of the Bill Gothard movement and teaching, it is nevertheless clear from that little bit that you do not want to be covered in the dust of that particular rabbi. The Duggar documentary addresses the sexual sin of Josh Duggar who was convicted of child-pornography and is currently in prison. This sexual perversion and other kinds of family structure problems, childrearing errors, and sexual mishaps are laid at the feet of the IBLP in the documentary. And this leads us to the heart of the matter.

LGBTQ+ Has No Light at All

Whatever the corruptions, anyone friendly to LGBTQ+ has nothing to say to the dark secrets of the Gothard / Duggar business. Everyone is pearl clutching about Josh Duggar’s sexual perversions while Mr. Biden just hung the sexual perversion flag on the White House, centered between two American Flags. I am not a fan of sexual corruptions wherever they are to be found. Anyone who stands against sexual perversion is welcome to state an opinion on the Gothard / Duggar situation. The microphone is open. We Reformed Christian types, you know the kind who still think Big John shouldn’t shower with your local high school girls volleyball team, are happy to take questions. 

But if you think that the sexually perverted should be in the White House, then you don’t get to decry the sexual perversions of Josh Duggar. You have the plus sign at the end of that LGBTQ. You have Open Marriages and Minor-Attracted-Persons right there alongside the Ls, Gs, and Bs. You have grown men entering the little girls dressing room and changing with them at Target. You cannot high-five Josh Duggar for what he did and be upset with him at the same time. You cannot want to get Josh Duggar out of prison and make him Chief Advisor to Mr. Biden on sexual matters in the United States and at the same time shun him and his family for his immoral sexual practices.

I mentioned that this documentary is designed to play evangelicals and has a good chance of doing so. So this second point is very much for those evangelicals. Those behind the Duggar documentary are not your friends and they are not more sexually pure and morally upright than the Duggars. It was something like four or five years ago when the liberal Lutheran lady encouraged all of the exvangelical ladies to send in their purity rings so that she could melt them down into a vagina. I recall that some Christians at that time took this as an opportunity to point out, not the problems with fashioning an idol in the form of female genitalia from purity rings, but the problems of purity culture.

The Duggar doc is round two of this kind of thing. If the producers of this documentary, and the many participants who lamented traditional family values, homeschooling, and spanking, would come out and renounce the rainbow flag+, then I will pay attention to their concerns about the sexual failings brought about by the teaching and culture of the IBLP. I will encourage evangelicals across this land to consider their take and give them a fair hearing if only they will say something simple like homosexual practice is a sin to be repented of and hospitals shouldn’t be places where men cut young women’s breast off in an attempt to make them men. Renounce PRIDE month and we will make time in the schedule. 

I’ll wait.

The Structure

The reason the Duggar family and this particular documentary catches the eye is because it touches upon both structure and spirit. These are age old principles with an age old relationship. The structure of the traditional family—the Christian family, the real family—testifies to a structured world, an ordered cosmos. 

We live in a time when there is quite a movement to burn down the ordered cosmos, which means deconstructing the divinely ordered family. Leftist revolutionaries have been after this for decades. Kate Millett, one of the leaders of second wave feminism, was gunning for this back in the 60s when she held here meetings and chanted about destroying the American Patriarch. How would she do it? By promoting prostitution, abortion, and other sexual perversions. 

That’s right, we can deconstruct the family by pimping out the women. So reasons feminism. 

The truth is that our problems are not found in the structure. They are found in our hearts. I’m not denying the existence of systemic sin. I am ousting the lie that the problem is in hierarchy, order, structure, and God’s design of male, female, and the natural family. That is the central lie of the Duggar documentary.

Modern man has lost his head so this natural order is fascinating, especially when it goes full Duggar style with all of those children. And modern man will have all sorts of flesh enjoyments when he sees failure amid this structure. Carnal man likes to see people fall while attempting to adhere to the Creator’s design. It makes him feel better about himself for all the ways he has fallen short of that standard. 

This is where hot gospel will do you better than peering into the “dark secrets” of the Duggars. 

The truth is God made them male and female. A wife is to submit to her own husband. The husband is head of the wife. Sex belongs in marriage. Children should obey their parents. Boys are boys. Girls are girls. And homosexual practice is contrary to nature. 

We have made a mess of this order. And then we have blamed it on the order. But the problem is our devious, corrupt hearts. The problems is that we are dead in our sins.

It is for this reason that Christ was born of the Virgin. That he lived a righteous life and died on a cross, taking the sins of His people to the grave. You have two options. Salve your conscience by objecting to God’s created order. Or repent of your sins, looking to Jesus Christ. The message is simple: The dark secrets you wanted to find in the Duggar home are found in your very own heart. There is one way to deal with them: You must be born again.

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Thank God for the Sore Spots

There is nothing more natural than asking God why a particular sore spot hurts. We are not stoics. We are not rocks. There are no real iron men among us. When a particular pain comes—and there are many forms—our human response is to say first, “God, please make it stop.” And second, “Why is this happening?”

There are a variety of pains that come our way in this game called-life: chronic illness, financial strain, a plaguing depression, hospital visits, routine anxieties, and the like.

What are we to do when one of these bruises get pressed yet again? Well, asking God why is natural. But hearing His answer is supernatural. You don’t need faith to ask why trials come. But you do need faith to hear God’s reply. His answer is that His power is made perfect in weakness.

Paul knew that he was in danger of being exalted above measure. This danger was not the result of Paul being a particularly prideful man. It was due to the many revelations he had received. God gave Paul a thorn in the flesh. And after Paul asked God three times that he might be rid of that thorn, God replied, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9).

If you don’t already find yourself in this condition, you will soon enough be infirm, in need, and distressed from without and from within. When these troubles come, you must know that they are not random or vain. All of your suffering is suffering for Christ’s sake. The thorn in your flesh is not causing less power to flow through you, but more. God’s power is made perfect in weakness. 

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In the Presence of Our Enemies

God prepares tables for his children in the presence of their enemies. We can sympathize with someone who is caught off guard by this. That phrase from David’s psalm certainly has a ring to it. But it is quite a line when you really take it in. What human would truly opt for dinner in the presence of his enemies over dinner far far away from his enemies?

Nevertheless, God makes better meals that we do. And He knows what He’s doing with the context of this meal. Our Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper and sat down to eat and drink with his disciples when He was literally surrounded by enemies who not only wanted to kill Him, but would do so in only a few hours. 

He was not terrified by His adversaries. He was not terrified by adversity either. He wasn’t too anxious to eat.  We have been. And this is just another testimony to the fact that we are not Jesus. 

But, we belong to this Jesus. And this Christ belongs to us. He is always giving Himself to us, strengthening us even in this life so that we find more and more of His Spirit at work in our lives. 

As you come to this table, your own crosses await you just like Christ’s did Him. And you must come to eat and drink. But this is not merely a matter of a Father telling you that you must sit through a boring meal and finish your food. You sit at table with joy Himself. He has prepared this table for you in the presence of your enemies. And He gives you His very self here. He smiles at you saying, “Yes, we will rise to go to adversity. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart, I have overcome the world.” So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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Postmillennialism for Such a Time as This

Introduction

It would not be surprising for someone to look around at the present state of things and ask the cheery Postmillennialist, “Oh, so you think things are getting better, do you?” Many things could be said in reply. But the chief response would be, “Yes, there are giants in the land. They are very big. Too big to miss.” We are with David selecting stones by faith. We are with Esther going before the king given the bad news that Haman wants to destroy us. 

You can find us alongside Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, not bowing to false gods, knowing we will soon take a fire bath; the Son of God will be with us in the flames. We are with Israel in Egypt right up against the Red Sea before it moves out of the way—”And Moses said unto the people, Fear yet not, stand still and see the salvation of the LORD” (Exodus 14:13). Why are we cheerful, confident, and laboring in a time like this? Well, the battle belongs to the LORD and we have seen this story before.

Summary of the Text – Psalm 110

David says that the LORD said to his Lord, “Sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool” (v. 1). Jesus cites this verse when tying the Pharisees up in knots, establishing that he is David’s Lord who will soon ascend to heaven and sit down at the right hand of the LORD. He will remain there until all of his enemies are placed beneath His feet (v. 1). 

Even so, while seated there, the LORD will send the rod of his strength out of Zion. He will rule on earth from heaven (v. 2). This can be accomplished because this seated Christ will have people on earth who offer themselves freely in the day of His power (v. 3). The earthly reign of Christ through His people is not something up for grabs for the LORD has sworn that Christ is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (v. 4). Kings will be struck through by Him, kings over the whole wide earth (v. 5-6). He will not break off His pursuit of the fleeing enemy. He will drink from the brook by the way and rise up to advance His reign (v. 7).

The Millennium

Generally speaking, there are three views of the “thousand years” John speaks of in Revelation 20:1-6. Premillennialism teaches that Christ will return to earth and then comes an unprecedented “thousand years” of blessing for the church. Amillennialism teaches that Revelation 20 speaks to the spiritual or heavenly reign of Christ now resulting in the parallel growth of good and evil. Postmillennialism teaches that the millennium is a present reality for Christians now, as Christ reigns on earth from heaven; and Christ will return at the end of the millennium once the knowledge of the Lord covers the earth as the waters cover the sea.

The rule and reign of Christ announced in Psalm 110 is something we are in the midst of. Kings are falling all around us. We offer ourselves freely in the day of his power. And when the conquest of Christ has reached the ends of the earth, He will stand up from His throne, and return bodily. 

Heaven and Earth

How you conceive of the interplay between heaven and earth is more important than it may first appear. Christ our Head is seated in heaven and we are his body on earth. Christ is our Great High Priest in heaven, in the true tent. And we are a kingdom of priests, as was promised in the Mosaic Covenant, who announce good news on earth saying, “Be reconciled to God.”

The Amillennialist position can be charged with leaving Christ’s reign up in heaven and neglecting the kingdom of God coming on earth. When Postmillennialism goes wrong, it could begin to neglect heaven in the attempt to see the kingdom come on earth. The goal is to live in the flesh by faith. As the old phrase puts it, we must be in the world but not of the world; we must be in the world and of the heaven. Our prayer is not, “Thy kingdom come in heaven as it is on earth.” It is, “Thy kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven,” and that prayer is addressed to our Father in heaven. 

Dominion

Postmillennialism highlights the need for Christians to do Christianity and not merely think it. It has a special place for blisters and callouses. One temptation we want to avoid is living in the cloud, where all of our music, documents, and text messages are stored. As Christ approached his Calvary—Tomb—Mount of Olives Exodus, He prayed to the Father saying, “Now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to thee” (John 17:11). He went on, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world” (John 17:15). 

As John Newton was making his way to glory he said, “I am still in the land of the dying; I shall be in the land of the living soon.” That day will come for us all. But while we remain in the land of the dying, we must die well. While in this body, we use it, spend it, lose it for Christ and His kingdom. 

The Melchizedekian Priest

The only way to spend and be spent for Christ is to come to Christ. We want to fill the earth and subdue it, pressing the crown rights of King Jesus into the four corners of the earth. And the only way to get there is to look by faith to one spot, the place where the Priest offered Himself as the sacrifice. 

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An Open Letter to Moscow on Christian Flags in June

Some of the Moscow citizenry are bound to both notice and question the appearance of a few Christian flags around town in June. I had the privilege of moving to town in November 2021. So I am still fairly new to this little northern Idaho hamlet. I have been struck by the charm of this town. While at the same time, I have noticed the fairly widespread presence of—what shall we call them—signs of the left. Not a few Moscovites appear to fly their ethics and politics on the front lawn.

Additionally, there has been a fair amount of vitriol that has come the way of Christians even in my short time here. Christ Church offices and New Saint Andrews College, to name a few, have been decorated by the spittle (and sometimes urine) of the troubled passerby. It has really been something to see—we have video footage from the security cameras. Then there was the time some disgruntled people blasted a horrendous noise through a speaker while we were singing Christmas carols in friendship square.

Several of our congregants have their businesses “blacklisted” by people who can’t seem to get through the day without getting their knickers in a knot. Then there has been more than one petty legal maneuver against stand up Christian citizens here in Moscow that has garnered national attention.

These shenanigans roll on while the Christians around here go on with normal Christian living. The town appears to be undergoing something of a revival with businesses and restaurants popping up downtown, with Christians at the helm of this renewal. One of my favorite examples of the silliness around here was some unfriendly fellow saying online how great the beer is out one of the downtown establishments. He added that it was a shame because he could not frequent this establishment since it is owned and operated by a Kirker.

Now, these local events are a small picture of the increasing difficulties in our nation. June has been designated PRIDE month and Target is teaching the little boys the advantages of cutting off their testicles. I really do hate writing sentences like that. I hope that future generations who look back on these days will pardon me. Let it be known that I am merely a weather man accurately reporting on the climate. I would not write about groomers training boys to cut their testicles off if there were not Target groomers doing so. But, alas, how can one point out the storm that is upon us without pointing out the storm that is upon us? 

It is easy to grow accustomed to the most vile practices such that you lose your grip on just how troubled the waters are. We all like to think that we would have done the right thing had we lived under the Third Reich. But that sentiment must be measured by how we are comporting ourselves under our modern day human rights offenses, particularly the murder of the most vulnerable among us: the preborn in the womb.

In God’s kind providence—He always writes the best stories—He overturned the wicked Roe Supreme Court decision on the very month our nation has determined to puff our chest and tout our PRIDE. You do not have to be the hyper-spiritual type to see that something heavenly is at work in our earthly affairs. Tucker Carlson recently noted that he is a mere Episcopalian, what he called something like the least serious faith tradition, and even he thinks something otherworldly is at work and now would be a good time for us all to pray.

So some of the Christians around town have hoisted up a Christian flag in celebration of Roe’s overturn. Ours flies right next to an American flag. It is something of an age-old sentiment: “God bless America.” This month, as we remember Dobbs, we celebrate that murder of innocent children is no longer protected by Roe. The flag is a testimony to our gratitude for the Triune God who treats us better than we deserve.

I anticipate that there will be different responses to the Christian flags around town. A small group of people will likely be downright hostile. Their lack of tolerance in the name of tolerance may be put on display. On the other end of the spectrum would be those who honk in support, or roll down the window to shout something like “‘Merica!” while wondering to themselves where they can obtain one of these Christian flags.

Then, I suspect there is a large swath of people who are a bit unsure about the whole thing, ranging from not caring much to quite worried about all of the competing flags and signs which seem to crop up unceasingly these days. This middle group has reasonable questions so I’d like to head some of them off here.

In the first instance, it is hard to be upset with those flying a Christian flag for one month out of the year when so many fly their LGBTQ and BLM flags every month of the year. Answering twelve months of symbolic perversion with one month symbolizing the good news that a Nazarene laid down His life to save the world is, by any objective standard, quite mild. We’re coming in around Mother Teresa levels if you step back and think it through.

But must we escalate the situation? Well, the Christian flags are not an attempt to escalate our tensions. But the question is warranted given that such an escalation is a reasonable result of flying the Christian flag in June. The fact that such a result could come from such a mild and reasonable action, (not to mention the very fact that you have to ask the question), is itself that troublesome smell coming from beneath the hood telling you how bad things are.

You do not live in the nation you used to live in back when Barack Obama thought marriage was only fitting for one man and one woman. The times really have changed and pointing out that they have done so is most necessary. Some folks have decided to do so by flying Christian flags in June.

I admit there is something quite childlike in the whole thing. And this is something that distinguishes the Christian flag flyers from the leftist flag flyers. They are far more serious and shrill. I say childlike as my household, at least, is hoisting the flag with something of a Narnian chuckle. Lewis described these Narnians well in his book The Horse and His Boy, and his description paints a picture of the spirit in which Christian flags are hoisted in June—

“Instead of being grave and mysterious like most Calormenes, they walked with a swing and let their arms and shoulders go free, and chatted and laughed. One was whistling. You could see that they were ready to be friends with anyone who was friendly, and didn’t give a fig for anyone who wasn’t. Shasta thought he had never seen anything so lovely in his life.”

The Christian flag is no sacrament. A man can fly one if he’d like or not, of course. The whole flag flying endeavor nearly borders on a joke. We Christians are serious about many things. But the flag flying does not fall in the sacred category. We’re taking a month to celebrate the overturn of Roe and say, “Yes, we of course do notice all of the rainbow flags out front. We have a flag, too. 

But don’t mistake our cheerful and whimsical flag flying as a cagey or disgruntled attempt at a local culture war. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal. They are Word, water, bread, and wine. Our sword is a book that contains a message of genuine liberty, not the faux liberty of the rainbow revolution. That message is: Christ Jesus came to save sinners. God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall never perish, but have eternal life.

June belongs to this holy, gracious, and Triune God just like every other month. This month, if you happen to see that old, plain and simple, Vacation Bible School Christian flag waving in the breeze, then hear—

“The Spirit and the Bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely” (Revelation 22:17).

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Suffocating Leadership

You don’t have to live too long in life to find yourself under the leadership of a Mr. Micromanager. David said that the one who ruled in the fear of the Lord dawned on others like the morning light. But the leader who does not fear God dawns on other like the influenza, and everyone finds it difficult to breath. Jesus called this Gentile leadership and warned his followers not to lead like them, lording it over those under their care.

God designed a hierarchical world so nearly every one of you find yourself both under leadership and, at the same time, leading others. This leadership can be challenging, even if you’re not a tyrant. It doesn’t take much for your good aspirations to see the true, good, and beautiful formed in those under your leadership turn to into a spirit of legalistic dictatorship in which nobody is ever good enough. An organization characterized by this spirit is like an overheated engine soon to lock up due to lack of oil.

It is striking that when our Lord determined to advance His kingdom on earth, He departed earth bodily. He would not stay with his apostles to be looking over their shoulder constantly, correcting them every time they split an infinitive in their preaching. Rather, He poured out His Spirit upon them, empowering them to live and preach with authority. The whole thing is quite shockingly free, “Don’t even think about what you’re going to say when they drag you before the authorities. The Holy Spirit will speak through you in that hour” (Mark 13:11).

Learn from this to trust the Spirit in the lives of those you lead. My point is not to forbid teaching and correction. Neither is it to abdicate the leadership assignment you’ve been given. But it is to remind you that fearing God, praying, and trusting God to bring the growth are the hallmarks of leaders that fan into flame God’s gift, rather than throw a wet blanket on it.

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One Bread and One Spirit

We have gathered around one table to partake of one bread, and this is a symbol of our unity. There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all. Paul adds to all of this that there is one Spirit. You are, no doubt, individuals. Each of you have particular body with a particular soul. But you all do not have a diversity of Holy Spirits in you. You all have the same One Spirit living in you. He is not a mere force, but a being. He can be grieved. He comforts you. He convicts you. He produces His fruit in you. 

The Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our inheritance. And similarly, He is the guarantee of our future unity. We have not yet attained this perfect unity. There are still many fractures in the bride of Christ. You still have relationships with other saints that are bumped and bruised. Even so, consider what our future holds given the One who already dwells within us. He will heal all of our diseases. He will mend us together into perfect unity. As you come to this table, no matter your past or present conflicts, rejoice that the Spirit is in that business. 

While you should not run ahead of the Spirit and attempt to mend a particular fracture on your own, you should walk in the Spirit, being eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Trust God for it. He has already given you the down payment. We really are one in the Spirit. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit Himself, and He is a stream of living water that brings healing to all wounds. So come in faith and welcome to Jesus Christ.

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