From disunity to unity
The Holy Spirit works in several different ways to communicate to us. Sometimes He will speak directly to our hearts, sometimes through the Bible, sometimes through a book etc. In this case I saw a video with a message of Bill Johnson, a response to the fall of Todd Bentley. There are times when you hear or see something, when you immediately know that God is trying to tell you something. While watching this video, I heard a lot of keys regarding unity, family and Kingdom structure. I did not understand it completely after watching it one time, so I watched it several times and started to pray. I asked God to open my eyes and ears for what He wanted to teach me through this. It took me a few weeks before things started to become clear on this subject, but now that they are clear to me, I am ready to share it with you as well. I thank God for this great revelation, but I also thank Bill Johnson, although I do not know him personally, for the courage he took and the maturity he showed to share this message. When I write a study I am used to the fact that the enemy always tries to distract or to withhold me from writing. But I can honestly say that I never had so much resistance and distraction as while I was writing this study. The good thing is that the enemy lost. Jesus reigns. Here it is.
I ended the last study with the message that the biggest aim of the enemy is to divide the Church. The enemy knows how strong and invincible the Church becomes when it is united. God knows how strong, blessed and anointed the body of Christ becomes when it is united. It is just unfortunate that the Church seems to be the only one who doesn’t know it. The further I grow in realizing this truth, the more mistakes from the past I recognize in my life and in the Churches of today. In the last few weeks the Lord is teaching me a lot about unity and the need of a united Church. We all want the power. We all want the anointing. We all want the miracles. But until we understand His grace and love, which will always lead to unity, we’re not fully able to receive all these blessings. There’s no grace without love and there’s no love without grace. Before we get into all of this, it’s important to understand God’s heart and motivation towards us.
He who believes in Me, believes not in Me but in Him who sent Me. And he who sees Me sees Him who sent Me. I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. And if anyone hears My words and does not believe, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. He who rejects Me, and does not receive My words, has that which judges him—the word that I have spoken will judge him in the last day. For I have not spoken on My own authority; but the Father who sent Me gave Me a command, what I should say and what I should speak. And I know that His command is everlasting life. Therefore, whatever I speak, just as the Father has told Me, so I speak.
John 12:44-50
The first thing Jesus did was making the connection between the One Who assigned Him and Himself. He is Who He is because of the One Who assigned Him, because of the One Who gave Him His name. The pattern for Kingdom order and structure is family. Everyone receives his or her name from the Father. That name is identity, assignment and defines the course of direction. The same applies to Jesus as well. His identity was Son of the Father, His assignment was to restore the relationship between the Father and men, His course of direction was the cross, followed by the grave, followed by His glorious resurrection. The heart of it all was and still is salvation and restoration. What was the motivation behind that? Love and grace. How can love and grace exist? Only through unity. But brother, how can we test if that is true? Well, simply look at the fruits of division and you’ll have your answer.
That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.
John 17:21
When this is the aim and the heart of our God, then we can expect that the enemy will do everything he can to accomplish the opposite in the body of Christ, because that is the aim and the heart of satan. So instead of being surprised by this, we should prepare for it. It is true that it is not always easy to see, but yet it is possible to recognize it and to deal with it, simply by looking at the fruits, while staying focused on Jesus Christ. That was the key that Jesus gave us.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them.
Matthew 7:15-20
These verses are making very clear that it is impossible to have a divided Church and love at the same time. That it is impossible to judge our brothers and sisters and have grace at the same time. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. It is one or the other. How can such situations arise? Jesus warned very specifically for the two things that can cause these situations in the Church.
Take heed, beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod.
Mark 8:15
What is the leaven of the Pharisees? That is the spirit of religion. What is the leaven of Herod? That is the political spirit. Those two spirits work together very closely and are a few of the biggest enemies that are working against the body of Christ. These spirits will try to influence your emotions, influence your actions and influence your words. The sneaky part of this is that everyone who embraces these mindsets appear to be right by everyone around them. The danger that Jesus is warning for, is not coming from outside the Church. It’s coming from the inside and it is using our own brothers and sisters in Christ against us, resulting in division. Now let’s find out how we can recognize this.
The religious spirit
While Jesus was walking on earth, there were lots of religious spirits attacking Him. There are many examples of that in the Bible, but in the next part Jesus replied in a way that was very directly. A beautiful example of how Jesus did business.
Then the scribes and Pharisees who were from Jerusalem came to Jesus, saying, “Why do Your disciples transgress the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” He answered and said to them, “Why do you also transgress the commandment of God because of your tradition? For God commanded, saying, ‘Honor your father and your mother’ and ‘He who curses father or mother, let him be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever profit you might have received from me is a gift to God” then he need not honor his father or mother.’ Thus you have made the commandment of God of no effect by your tradition. Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying: ‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, and honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’” When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.” Then His disciples came and said to Him, “Do You know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?”
Matthew 15:1-12
The Pharisees had chosen government above a heart to heart relationship with God. Their motivation was to appear good to men, and they succeeded in that, while their motivation was evil and their hearts were far from God. That is exactly what happens when we no longer focus on Jesus, but when government becomes the highest priority. Government is the wineskin. Wineskin was a animal skin, that was crafted in a way that they could put new wine in it. And that new wine would ferment and the skin would stretch. The whole lesson was that the structure had to be able to expand to contain what was put inside. That was a picture of the Church and a picture of Devine government. But no matter how hard we work on structure or government, the treasure is never the wineskin. The wine is always the treasure. We have to be able to stretch our structures and traditions to contain what God has put inside of us.
Much of the battles that are going on in the Church today are about doctrinal areas that are not absolutes. The majority of all Churches believe that Jesus is the Son of God and that the blood of Jesus is the only thing that can wipe away sin. Those aren’t the issues. Two of the biggest mistakes in Church history are to ignore sin and to pretend that nothing happened because the anointing is still great or to create a system of punishment. When a brother or sister has fallen, in general the only way to bring peace is to punish that person and to disassociate from that person. The religious spirit allows people to tolerate hatred and anger under the banner of passion for holiness. While doing everything it can to proof it’s right, by using this anger and hate, it masquerades as a passion for holiness. A culture of honor can only exist of there is a true culture of confrontation and Biblical discipline, that doesn’t has punishment as it’s core value, but that has restoration as it’s core value.
Again it is all about motivation. Our heart, our motivation, needs to be aligned with God’s motivation, which is restoration. There are religious people with the right motivation and there are religious people with the wrong motivation. Not all religious people were judged by Jesus. Some were (the Pharisees, because of their motivation) and some weren’t (John 3:2, because of his motivation). It depends on the attitude.
The political spirit
And then there’s the political spirit. This spirit works in two ways. The first is against our fallen comrades. The second is against those who remained standing, regardless of the seducing attempts of the enemy.
Against the fallen comrades
When there’s blood in the water, the sharks are gathering. Those political spirits require that we throw pieces of our fallen brother or sister to them. They want us to do that in order to proof that we are standing for righteousness. In history this has been the reaction to fallen comrades. We look clean and pure to everyone by washing our hands from that individual. And everyone applauds that decision, saying “Look at what that evil man has done”. We clean our hands, walk away, we have applause of men, but meanwhile we have just fueled the very thing that works against the Kingdom. Everyone who acts like this appear to be right by everyone around them. This spirit is also using a system of punishment, but this spirit demands that it happens publicly, so we can appear to be clean. The people who are under the influence of this spirit never have restoration as it’s aim. They are more busy with how they appear to the public and with what people might think of them.
One of the most beautiful examples about how to deal with this, is how David responded when Saul died. King Saul died at the judgment of God. He lived in great sin and was disobedient. On top of that, he also tried to kill David several times. David had every reason to be happy that this man had died and to announce it everywhere, so he would be justified and would appear right to men. Instead this is how he responded:
Therefore David took hold of his own clothes and tore them, and so did all the men who were with him. And they mourned and wept and fasted until evening for Saul and for Jonathan his son, for the people of the LORD and for the house of Israel, because they had fallen by the sword.
2 Samuel 1:11,12
The beauty of Israel is slain on your high places! How the mighty have fallen! Tell it not in Gath, proclaim it not in the streets of Ashkelon—Lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.
2 Samuel 1:19,20
What a different attitude! David also made the connection with the One Who assigned Saul and Saul. And even when Saul acted anything but a righteous leader, David honored him as a righteous leader. This is the way we should deal with such situations as well. Our aim should be to bring restoration to the individual and to stand with them, so that they can stand up again, be healed and delivered in order to be used by God again.
Against those who remained standing
Satan is known as a seducer, that is what we see everywhere in the Bible. He will try to seduce everyone, but especially the ones that were called for special tasks. In some cases he succeeds to make a person fall, resulting in the description above, and in some cases he does not succeed because the person remains standing. When that happens, he changes his tactic and starts to accuse that person of things he or she has not done. In this situation there is also a political spirit involved. This is not really a new method, in fact it is very old already. When we allow this power to work in our lives, by accusing brothers and sisters, then we usually have something to hide in our own lives. That something is always sin. How was Uriah killed? Read the story in 2 Samuel 11. Uriah had done nothing wrong, he remained standing and kept his righteousness. David committed adultery with Uriah’s wife, Bathsheba, and she became pregnant. Now how would David have appeared to Israel if they found out that he slept with the wife of another man and that she became pregnant of him? It would have been a disgrace. Again the political spirit started to do his job and David became concerned about his appearance to the people of Israel. So he tried to cover up his sin by commanding to sent Uriah back home, so that he could sleep with his wife as well. In that way David and Bathsheba could pretend the child was from Uriah and the sin would have been covered up. But Uriah was a righteous man and he refused to go home and to sleep with his wife.
The ark and Israel and Judah are dwelling in tents, and my lord Joab and the servants of my lord are encamped in the open fields. Shall I then go to my house to eat and drink, and to lie with my wife? As you live, and as your soul lives, I will not do this thing.
2 Samuel 11:11
Even after a few attempts of David, Uriah still didn’t go home to sleep with his wife. That must have made David very nervous, since his sin was not covered up and the truth would have come to light because of it. At that moment the political spirit changed his tactic. It was the moment when David did the unthinkable. He wrote a letter to the commander of his armies, saying: “Set Uriah in the forefront of the hottest battle, and retreat from him, that he may be struck down and die”. Now take a moment to think how this appeared to the commander of his armies. Why would the king request such a thing? That Uriah must have committed sin against the king, otherwise the king wouldn’t order that, right? Wrong. In every step he took, Uriah remained loyal and righteous. But by now he appeared as a sinner to the commander of the armies. He didn’t knew anything about what David did, he just saw the request of the king and assumed that Uriah must have done something bad. The result was that in the middle of the hottest battle, the army was retreating (disassociation) from him, leaving Uriah all alone against the army of the enemy, where he died. David appeared righteous and clean again, but beside the fact that he committed adultery and murder, he also fueled the political spirit. It is exactly the sort of behavior we see in Church history. Every time we respond to error, we create another error.
And what happened to Joseph? He was a righteous man and remained standing. Potiphar’s wife tried to seduce him several times, to sleep with her, but he refused and remained standing, just as Uriah did. At one day she didn’t ask, but she just took Joseph by his garment and again demanded him to sleep with her. Again Joseph refused and he ran outside, leaving his garment is her hands. But that would make Potiphar’s wife look bad. When someone would find out, she would be the only one to blame and she never could accuse Joseph of anything. So the political spirit changed his tactic again and falsely accused Joseph, resulting in the fact that he was thrown into prison (disassociation). You see, the same tactic is happening over and over again. It is exactly the same what’s happening in the Church of today. Lots of people are falsely accused, while the majority assumes that it must be the truth. Again, the danger is not coming from outside the Church. Satan always tries to get us at the point where it hurts the most. Jesus knew that when He said the following:
Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
Matthew 5:11,12
There you have the solution to this as well. If this is happening to you in this time and hour, them rejoice because your reward will be great. The interesting part, why all of this can happen, is only because the Church has forgotten or refuses to test all things (1 Thes. 5:21). Let’s make something very clear. You can never test someone according to the opinion or the endorsement of others. Never. If we do that, we’ve already fallen in the trap of the devil. It doesn’t matter from who the opinion or endorsement comes from, if it is your pastor, your best friend or even family. We all have the obligation to test all things ourselves. How do we do that? By testing their fruits ourselves (Matthew 7:15-20). You will know them by their fruits. Where do we compare those fruits with? With the word of God and with the heart of God, not with the opinions or endorsements of others. Remember, His heart is to save and to restore. Everything else is a lie from satan and will eventually harm us, because we might have falsely judged an anointed servant of God.
Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself will not stand.
Matthew 12:25
This is the way we do business in God’s Church. We reach out to the lost, to the lonely, to the fallen, to the falsely accused. And what we do is bringing the heart of God, which is complete salvation, deliverance, healing and restoration. Unconditional love.
The spirit of denominationalism
For centuries people have gathered around their common doctrines to promote their truths. This may all sound acceptable, but this is working against the Kingdom. The Church needs to be reformed from denominationalism to family. Denominations are not bad or evil, but denominationalism is not healthy. The reason is because denominations were initially formed because groups of people had agreement in common doctrine and that agreement is what brought them together. When your foundation is doctrinal agreement, you have to remove anyone or anything that does not conform. And that is exactly what happened in the last centuries. Schism after schism. Denominationalism requires disassociation to proof devotion to truth. The evidence is that you cut of the part that hasn’t aligned. How cruel is that.
You don’t have to abandon your denomination, because there are people in denominations who don’t have a spirit of denominationalism, and there are people outside denominations who do have a spirit of denominationalism. It’s not the sign on the door, it’s the structure in the heart.
One of the most important thing the Church of today needs are fathers. Not the kind of fathers that judge or always have something to complain about, but Godly fatherhood. The kind of fatherhood that encourages and is full of grace. This spirit of denominationalism is very specifically working against this sort of fatherhood. The result is that people are kept small and are not able to grow to spiritual maturity and/or in the ministry that God has for their lives. Recently I saw a statement of Albert Einstein, which was very to the point: “Every human being is unique. But when you judge a fish on it’s ability to climb a tree, it will spent it’s life believing it’s stupid”. The thing that a father after God’s heart would do, is to pray and search for the gifts of each person and to encourage that person to grow in those gifts. Devine fatherhood also offers room for mistakes. Nobody is able to grow when there isn’t a grace available to make mistakes. Making mistakes is not the aim, but we can expect that mistakes are being made when we start to move forward. The way we respond to those mistakes will determine how fast someone may grow and how fast we will grow ourselves in Devine fatherhood.
People within certain circles are so afraid what or who to be associated with. Yes I admit, this wasn’t one of my strongest point either. The most easy thing to do with people, ministries or Churches that you do not completely trust or with people, ministries or Churches that could give you a bad image, is to disassociate from those people in order to bring peace and to appear right towards others. In that way we might feel that we moved out of the danger zone and are safe again, by washing our hands from that individual. Yes, from my own experience I can tell you that it feels so good to do this. And yes, we appear right towards others. But the only thing we did is defending our truths or the truths of others above the unity, love and grace of our heavenly Father. When we do such a thing, we make the wineskin the treasure, instead of the wine. We just fueled the spirit of denominationalism when we do this, one of the things that is working against the Kingdom. Only recently God brought His truth about this to my attention and it shocked me. It mainly shocked me because I recognized so much of my own behavior in it. The sneaky thing is that we don’t recognize this, until our eyes are being opened for it. It is my great desire and prayer that your eyes will be opened while you’re reading this.
The three spirits that were mentioned in this study have a few things in common, but one thing in particular. Their biggest aim is to bring division, to bring disunity, so that the Church is not able to grow further in love, in grace, in power or in anointing. Do we really have love, grace, power and anointing? Or are we just faking an atmosphere? Is there really unity? Or do we disassociate when people have a different opinion then ours? Is there really grace? Or do we use a system of punishment? Ask God to open your eyes and ears, look and listen to the fruits and you will have your answer.
If you feel judged after reading this, it is just the enemy who is judging you, not me. I do not judge anyone. My opinion is not important. I just speak the words that the Holy Spirit gave me for my own life and to share with all of you. It is satan who judges, the Holy Spirit only will convince you. However, I hope you won’t feel judged, because that is not the aim of this study. The aim is to open eyes so that we can change the way we act towards each other, so that we really can grow to unity. The Church needs fathers, Devine fatherhood, with hearts of encouragement and hearts of grace. I hope and pray that you may become one of those fathers after God’s heart. Someone who is willing to stand with someone, to encourage, to discipline if needed, but to show grace at every possible opportunity.
