Everything That Can Be Shaken, Will Be
A few days ago a prominent pastor/teacher/theologian/writer in the body of Christ indicated in an interview that he would be supportive of a homosexual marriage. The body of Christ in the West was shocked as someone who represented the best of evangelical Christianity seemingly betrayed what the church has stood for for generations. Since that time, this leader has taken back his words, but needless to say the body of Christ was a bit shaken.
In a few months, some very conservative, prominent Bible believing pastor/leader/writer who has made a stink about this issue will be revealed to have fallen to one particular sin or vice in his life. This will correspond with the book tour of the next Evangelical leader who will write a book about how the Bible isn’t true.
These are not prophecies as much as they are expectations based on the season that we’re in. It seems as if we are in a season where leaders are falling left and right and causing us to doubt the validity of Biblical Christianity. One minute a trusted leader is caving to some new form of heresy. The next minute, the one who stood for Biblical truth against that leader is falling into sin. It makes us believe there is no one standing for Biblical Christianity.
The truth of the matter is I wish I could say that most of this was the devil waging war on the body of Christ. Honestly, while I believe that in part, there is a higher truth that I believe is going on in the West right now. God says, “Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens,” (Hebrews 12:26) and the writer of Hebrews goes on to explain that ‘[t]his phrase, ‘Yet once more,’ indicates the removal of things that are shaken—that is, things that have been made—in order that the things that cannot be shaken may remain,” (Hebrews 12:27).
I actually believe we are in a season where the Lord is shaking everything that can be shaken. This is leading up to the end of the age, but it is not the end. The goal of it is to shake those things that we put our trust in that are not Jesus and His Kingdom. These aren’t just evil things that are being shaken–they are good things that we have put our trust in other than Christ! Where our lust for leaders is greater than our desire to follow Jesus, Jesus is actually shaking us, in His mercy, so that we put our trust in the eternal things of the Lord that will never be shaken.
I believe this is a season, not a day or a week or a month or even a year. I believe it will happen in waves and we will think it’s passed. Then it will happen in another wave and we’ll get all stirred up again. And then same cycle will repeat itself. It will jolt us but if we’re not careful, we can be lulled to sleep in the times between the waves. I believe this is primarily affecting Christians in the cultural West, but it’s leading somewhere greater than that. It’s not the great falling away that Scripture talks about, but it is a shaking that will cause us to choose between what can be shaken and what can’t.
Why would God do this? He desires that we find our fulfillment and our satisfaction in Him. Not in leaders. Not in their piety. Not even in their good theology. He wants us to trust in Him because He alone is the only Thing that cannot be shaken. We’ve thought for so long that the great shaking would come to the world, and we would be okay, but Peter tells us clearly “for the time has come for judgment, and it must begin with God’s household,” (1 Peter 4:17). So while there will be shakings that happen to world systems, there is a shaking that right now is taking place in our midst–and God’s goal in it is that we trust in Him, not just the evangelical brand of Christianity we’ve become comfortable with.
In this season, we should anticipate more things being shaken in the cultural landscape of Christianity. What need to examine our lives and identify areas where we are trusting in things that can be shaken and give those areas to God. If we get good at building on obedience to Jesus and His Kingdom, our lives and the lives of those we serve will stand even though they are hit hard by forces beyond our control (Matthew 7:24-27).
Are you ready?
An All-Too-Common Story
It’s a story that I hear over and over again.
Go down the street to a church that has had a measure of success and grown fairly large and talk to the people who have been there since the beginning. Those people will tell you about the days when the church was small. In the days when the church was just planted, everyone knew everyone else. It was like a small group. They knew each other like family. “Man, I miss those days,” is how I hear people sum up those beginning days.
What changed? Well, the church was able to attract people. More people kept coming. They had to get a building. Then they had to get a bigger building. The number of people caused the feeling of family to disappear. There were small groups, sure, but they didn’t feel the same. There was more business that needed to be attended to. The pastor was busier. Those who were around at the beginning had responsibilities to help the new people who were coming.
They grew out of that season.
There is a way to grow without losing that close-knit family. You can make more disciples without giving yourself to keeping the doors open and the lights on. It starts with a commitment to meet as a house church, to birth more house churches instead of growing large, and to make disciples who make other disciples instead of growing a crowd. Not all church plants have to lose the spirit of family and discipleship.
It’s a path we chose.
Related: So…Why Haven’t You Started A House Church Yet?
Photo Credit: City Group 07-07-2017 by Parker Knight
Dealing With Prophetic Disappointment
Recently I wrote about disappointment with prophetic words about revival and how God has surer promises that we can depend on. What I wasn’t necessarily expecting was that for many people, this brought up a larger issue about disappointment with prophetic words in general, not just about revival. I think what I found was that, for many, prophetic disappointment is real and can lead to dangerous places.
First, for those not initiated, the Bible talks about the Holy Spirit gifting people who are part of the body of Christ to hear what God is saying and speak it forth. God loves to speak to His people, so much so that Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit told the Corinthians (who, by the way were known for the over-use of spiritual gifts) that he wanted everyone to pursue spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy (1 Corinthians 14:1). This is still a reality that happens today but everything that the Holy Spirit says should be grounded in and not contradict what God has clearly said in the Bible.
I’ve been part of groups that have believed these truths for the past 20 years and I’ve seen some incredible good come from people sharing things that are clearly from God. I have also seen some people hurt by people abusing the gifts of the Spirit or just through people being wrong about what God is saying. Neither the good or the bad has swayed me, however. Instead, Scripture’s admonition that the gift of prophecy builds the church continues to encourage me forward in hearing God’s voice and sharing it with others. So how do we navigate prophetic disappointment?
Paul actually gives us the following encouragement in regards to those who are struggling with discouragement around prophetic words:
Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies, but test everything; hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.
There are two areas here where we miss the Lord’s will here: We can despise all prophecy or not test any of it. Each of these is a pitfall that can lead to prophetic discouragment.
Despising prophecy is the first pitfall. It’s actually a form of bitterness of the soul that comes from being hurt. Not only will despising prophecy not profit you as a believer, but the accompanying bitterness can spring up and defile you and others. The fix here is that you acknowledge that just because people have used the gift of prophecy poorly in your life, doesn’t mean the gift of prophecy is evil or wrong. We have to be willing to allow God to use prophetic gifts to speak into our lives–it’s part of learning to be the church.
Failure to test prophecy is the second pitfall. Not testing prophetic words sets people up for prophetic disappointment. Because New Testament prophecy is given en masse to the body of Christ, there is the potential for error. This is why Paul calls us to test the prophetic and hold to those declarations that actually pass the test. For many of us, we’ve been so hungry to hear from God in this way that we’ve blindly accepted every word that someone has spoken. This actually sets up ourselves and others for disappointment later. Test everything. Hold to what is true.
The best example I can give you in this arena is Shawn Bolz. Shawn is a legitimate prophetic voice in the body of Christ today and he’s known for giving incredibly accurate words of knowledge.He walks in a powerful prophetic anointing and teaches others to do the same. But Shawn is well aware of the hurt that has come from failed prophecy. He has repeatedly taught in his classes that a sign of maturity in this gifting is being able to go back and apologize for the places where we’ve inaccurately shared a prophetic word. This is the side of the prophetic most charismatics don’t want to talk about, but keeps us from growing as those who hear from the Holy Spirit.
God longs to speak to us today. If we want to grow in His likeness and mature as believers, we need to begin to open ourselves to His voice. In order to do that, we must repent of despising the prophetic and begin to believe in it so much that we test the words others give us and hold onto the ones that survive that test. When we do, we begin a journey of powerfully hearing from the Holy Spirit. This marked the New Testament church and propelled them into amazing things. Don’t settle for less than this.
Cluster Map
Pursuing Glory 