More Than Overcomers

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those that are in Christ Jesus". (Romans 8:1)

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Jackie and I were part of a leadership team with several other couples for a Catholic Charismatic prayer meeting that met for a good number of years in the basement of a local Catholic church. Even though I disagreed with a lot of Catholic doctrine, I always felt freedom to teach what I believed to be truth, careful to be respectful and not openly critical of Catholic doctrine. It was easy to do because most people, including Catholics, have limited understanding of the meaning of the doctrines their churches teach. I was transparent about my relationship with God, sensitive to the move of the Holy Spirit while leading a meeting, excited about worship and proclaiming His majesty, and people responded to that. After helping in leadership for many years, there came a time when a couple of people started to ask for more specific teachings on Catholicism (ideally by a priest or a nun). One time I gave what I thought was quite a good presentation about Mary, but as luck would have it, the people who wanted us to be more Catholic were missing that evening. It wasn't long after that, actually after one of the best meetings we had in a long time, that I felt a loss of freedom to present things the way the Holy Spirit was leading me. Overnight I developed a strong feeling that my time at that prayer meeting was over, and soon Jackie and I left.

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It was only a couple of months later that the Lord finally gave us a release to leave the Catholic church as well. When we did there were several other couples that also soon left, including one of the leadership couples who were very good friends of ours. We ended up going to different churches, and they went to a non-denominational Pentecostal church on the south side of town. Mike became very active in that chruch, but gradually he got sucked into their legalism, and without realizing it, he was being oppressed by their authoritarian pastor. One day he asked me to listen to a tape of one of his pastor's sermons that really made an impression on him. Later that day I put it in my car tape player, and was horrified at what I heard. The pastor began by browbeating some of his congregation, not by name of course, and then went on with some gibberish which made little sense. But it was easy to pick up, even from that tape, the main focus of his teaching. Stated simply, it argues that Christ is coming soon for a bride without blemish - before Christ comes there will be tribulation - people who do not live holy lives may falter in this tribulation and may even lose their salvation - for the bride to be umblemished, judgment will start first in the church -everyone must conform to the pastor's idea of holiness. Even though this was a church where the gifts of the Spirit were allowed, their misguided theology on the meaning of "a bride without blemish", and the subsitution of law for the leading of the Holy Spirit, put on the people a burden where no one ever felt truly redeemed. And anyone who questioned the pastor on this was considered a cancer, brought by the devil, to destroy that local church.

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I felt really bad for Mike. His wife knew that they were losing the freedom in the Lord they once so richly enjoyed, and she had wanted them to leave that church for a long time. I met with Mike to show him the red flags that the tape revealed, but he couldn't seem to comprehend any of my points. He is the type of person who will go 110% at anything he does, and so there was an appeal for what appeared to be a calling for a life totally dedicated to the Lord. But this was leaving him spiritually oppressed and confused. I interceded for Mike for over a year, asking God to lead him out of that place. Everytime during the two hours it took to mow our lawn, Mike was my special prayer focus. And praise God, eventually things came to a boil and he got burned enough that he realized he had to leave that church to retain his sanity. Leaving a church under those conditions can produce the same depression, grief and anguish that a death in the family does, and it took Mike well over a year to recover. We ended up having home church with his family and ours for seven years, and the Lord really blessed it.

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I relate the above as a word of balance, because it is the desire of the Lord for all of us to grow in holiness. In the first chapter of Ephesians is says; "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before Him, in love". God does indeed want us to be holy and blameless, and we became that way when we were born again by the rebirth of our spirit. At salvation our reborn spirit, which now is perfect as Christ is perfect, also became sealed by the Holy Spirit, to protect our spirit from corruption and separation from God. "In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation - having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory". (Ephesians 1: 13-14)

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So even though or mind and our body may struggle with being out of the will of God, our reborn spirit now belongs to Him, and is protected by Him. When we surrendered our life to the Lordship of Jesus, and our spirit united with His Spirit, from that point on our spirit belonged to Jesus. Many view salvation in the sense of a direction we are heading, which may change based on our actions. Christ then only lives in us while we believe, and proclaim Him as Lord. But I do not believe that a human spirit, once reborn in Christ Jesus, can become un-reborn. The world cannot make it happen, and we cannot. We are allowed to rebel in the body and the mind, but we lost the ownership, the lordship, of our spirit when we surrendered to the Lordship of Jesus. Rebellion will result in the loss of fellowship with the Lord, but we remain part of His family. We belong to Jesus, who is our Lord, our brother, and our good shepherd. And as a good shepherd, Jesus will not lose any of His sheep. "Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? . . . For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8: 35-39)

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This is a hard concept to grasp. We do not make ourselves holy by striving to conform our thoughts and actions to an ideal laid out in scripture, or presented by a pastor, or teacher, or even as directed by the Holy Spirit. We are holy by virtue of having a reborn spirit. Our minds and our bodies, even after we are reborn, may still struggle to understand or do what God desires for us. But holiness is not in what we do, but rather it is in who we are in Christ Jesus. We are saved by grace; "For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast". (Ephesians 2: 8-9) This grace came when we were still living carnal lives apart from God. But it caused our spirit to be reborn, making our spirit a holy temple for the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. His presence should produce in us a desire to live in a way that is holy and pleasing to God, because we were created by God to do good works and to live in them. And this will come as we allow the Spirit to transform our minds, so that our bodies also will learn to be submitted to His will.

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Jesus is coming for a church that includes both the living and the dead, the great and the small. And all will one day stand before God's throne, hearing the four living creatures proclaim; "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is to come". (Revelation 4:8) That is a promise to all who know Jesus as Savior and Lord.