“What is
of man uses manipulation to conform. What is of God uses implantation to transform.”
~A.W. Tozer
Church hurts are common and they
have been in every age of two millennia.
This is no mystery when we strip
God away from religious activities—whether it’s church leadership or schisms of
members. At these junctures of life, the spiritual pastime becomes bane, beleaguered,
and unspiritual and the power of God vanishes where the power of humankind
rises up.
Of course, church quickly becomes
a tricky business. It only works when God is inherently part of it; by wisdom
on the part of the serving leadership, which is subject to God, and by the diligently
cheerful subservience of the following mass. And, because the Spirit of God is
easily quenched by the presence of sin, the risen power of humanity against the
gentle purity of holiness is forlorn. It puffs out of steam.
Manipulation never wins, not
ultimately. Only by transformation, by the secret implantation of the work of
the Holy Spirit, is sustenance derived.
It Takes Two To Tango
Church is God’s manifestation of
life at its most beautiful; the Bride of Christ.
She is a streaming flow of wonder,
dripping with love. And what sounds so romantic cannot be unless there is sacrifice; the leader in wisdom guided by the Spirit,
alone, and followers humbly following that direction.
There are traps for the leader and
the followers, alike.
If the leader is given to pride,
due to a false step on the path, and many delusions are those, they take their
followers off the God-anointed way into tributaries of complaint and bypasses
of compromise. If followers, even one or two, get wind of doubt or lack the
vision, even by their self-deception, they may threaten the best of divine
work.
Going Higher To Transformation
There are manipulations everywhere
if we will see them, but the trouble is if we look for them we will see them. We are easily deceived in these
ways. What looks like a manipulation often is a transformative process
underway. The devil confuses us.
When we are on our guard,
especially against pride, we will seek counsel, walk carefully, be diligent in
what we say, and especially, we will be prudent by what we see. We are on double guard for deception.
Everything must be screened for truth and lavished with love.
Going higher to transformation is
a simple objective when we begin to stop looking for manipulation, and start
looking for the miracles of God in our daily lives.
Going higher to transformation is
a flick of choice to get onboard with the agenda of the Lord.
© 2012 S. J. Wickham.
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