Only let us live up to what we have already attained

Philippians 3:16

I am glad that Martin Luther posted His 95 thesis to the door.  Despite what other things he may have gotten wrong, including anti-semitism, he saw faith, and knew it was worth losing everything else in his entire life to not only obtain it himself, but to have it overflow and spark a revolution.

I am also glad, however, that John Wesley was not satisfied with the Lutherism of his day.  In this conversation between Wesley and Count Zinzendorf, the two saw eye to eye.  John Wesley separated from the Moravians after this conversation, and was known for his holiness church of Methodism.  What Martin Luther had brought forth with justification by faith, Wesley saw a step to sanctification, to holiness, not in exclusion to it.  What Count Zinzendorf couldn’t see, John Wesley couldn’t deny, and so they had to part ways.

Later William Seymour, after experiencing some of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit with Charles Parham, saw fit to branch out even further.  What had been restored through Martin Luther and John Wesley was now growing and bearing fruit into Pentecostalism.  I am quite glad that William Seymour was not satisfied enough with the Lutherans or the Methodists in that he helped to usher in a wave of the Holy Spirit into this nation and the world.

Beyond that, I am glad that people like John Wimbur in this century have pioneered other aspects of God’s Kingdom, bringing forth gifts, the idea that it is the saints (the body) who are do the work of the ministry (Ephesians 4:12), and restoring understandings of prophecy and the offices of prophets and apostles.

I am also glad, despite how things turned out, that people have been unable to stand back and sit in a slumbering church, but rather, have forced themselves violently into the Kingdom, as Jesus indicated (Luke 16:16).  They have learned more about His Heaven, His angels and messengers, His anointing, and life by the Spirit.  They have continued  forward movement into a restoration of the Body of Christ.

Yet, in all of these, probably looking back over time, most all of these various aspects were in some level of operation throughout history.  William Booth, the founder of the salvation army, well before the outpouring of Azusa street, once said,

The chief danger of the 20th Century will be religion without the Holy Spirit, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, politics without God, and heaven without hell.

William Booth

As pointed out before, quoting RT Kendall’s insight, Dr. Breese, the founder of the Nazarene church’s message to the church in the last days was “Keep the glory down.”

When all is said and done, you can have all the right words, but if God doesn’t show up, you’re a fake.  Jesus said this.

Believe Me that I am in the Father and the Father is in Me; otherwise believe because of the works themselves.

John 14:11

There is a special something when it comes to the Kingdom in a body.  The Nazarenes knew it in the glory.  William Booth knew it in the presence and agency of the Holy Spirit.  Martin Luther and those rightly following the Lord in his day had the same thing, or they would not have had the courage to stand.

What we can miss when we look back on history is the spirit of the people.  Too often today, worldly Christians look back on people such as the Puritans with a disgust, and distaste, and a disdain.  With too much of the flavor of the world in their lips, they wrongly assume that the only way to live holy is to be dull.

Among loaves of bread, there is little more dull than the unleavened kind.  A little yeast will quickly perk up a loaf, give it a flavor, make it chewable, and make it more tasty.  Up until Pentecost, there was no legitimate yeast for a follower of the true God.  God might touch a person now and then, or rest His Spirit on one of His prophets, but that was it.  But, today, in the New Covenant, the Kingdom is likened unto a leaven.  While we are still to avoid the wrong leavens, or yeasts, such as those of the Pharisees and Sadducees, there is a leaven that is available to the Christian that was not available to the Jew before Pentecost.

What we do not see, what the carnal man cannot see, is the fulfillment of Psalm 34:8, “taste and see that the Lord is good”.  Each move of God encountered God, not doctrine, and in that encounter, revelation came forth, understanding was birthed, and written down, recorded for us, which we today regard as right doctrine.  The study of that doctrine is a right thing, and it is useful in understanding, but without a true encounter of faith with that doctrine, all it can remain an abstract thought.  The doctrine, while still true, only makes contextual sense in the scope of the God about which it is written, and hence, further encounters.  The possession of the doctrine itself, as it turns out, can be one of the greater hindrances to meeting God Himself, to experience.  When the intellectual supposed ‘understanding’ takes the place of experience, there has been a propensity towards rigidly enforcing only the doctrine, and rejecting the original encounter in which it was revealed.

But, the very same God that came and sat and ate with Abraham, the same God that rescued Noah, the same God that came in the flesh, the same God that crushed and raised God back up from the dead, the same God that encountered Martin Luther, John Wesley, and all the rest, and the one that compelled them to change, encounters us.  Jesus quoted, saying,

It is written in the prophets, ‘AND THEY SHALL ALL BE TAUGHT OF GOD.’

John 6:45

As we encounter the truths of those gone by, let us not settle with any form, any mere teaching, but let the teaching lead you into the very same encounter with the very same part of the Father which they encountered, produce that and greater results, and lead you into new things.  Not new in the sense that they particularly deviate from the main and plain of the gospel, but that they, like they did for William Seymour, lead you to a place of knowing God, experiencing God, and having God overflow.  And in that overflow, comes all the rest.

The truth is, many people have gotten saved on bad doctrine, simply because they met a man named Jesus Christ.  The flip side is also true, some people have so focused on doctrine that they have lost their first love, and missed God.

Right doctrine DOES matter, but it is only when life is energized into faith, and we, with a whole heart work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, so that we stand on our own faith and not on another’s, because we have seen for ourselves, that the world is forever changed.