The topic is, if you are new in town, where to bring your family to fellowship with other believers? My point was that "to believe" 2,000 years after Jesus Christ is not so simple. Or, if it is simple, one has to pare away a lot of added "complications".
One of the complications of the past 2,000 years is the tendency of people, even Jesus-followers, to fool themselves into thinking they are something they are not. This can be seen in the gospels. The disciples wanted to know who was 'greatest', which is nothing more than the old "Alpha Dog" debate that surfaces on every playground, regardless of culture, among 10-year-olds.
My take home lesson is this: because of sin, one cannot simply do a Lebron James vs Michael Jordan comparison. It doesn't matter how many books you have written or churches you have founded. Because of sin, any tendency to think in terms of 'greatest' and 'least' is going to get hopelessly corrupted.
The only safe position is to be the 'least', and let the Lord of the feast call you higher in due season.
This is not to say we should not do 'works', on the contrary. Faith without works is vanity. You are not going to sit in a chair, doing nothing, and "absorb God" and "become God in life and nature", because that's the deluded "hearers of the word" position - it's only "doers of the Word" that receive the reward at the end of the race. But again, your works are nothing, of themselves... only God, at the Bema, will say what is what. Just take the least place, and labor in love on one another.
Many in the LC do just that, but there is a great, big, stinking carcass in the assembly and that is the Deputy God principle. Jesus alone is Deputy God. Only Jesus has passed the veil. The rest should take Jesus' advice and be nothing.
Of course there are prophets, and evangelists and shepherds and teachers. Some are able to give a revelation or a tongue or a psalm, others give an encouragement or an interpretation. Some are (apparently) one-talented, others two- or five-talented. But the fire will test everything. Let it go.
The Minister (or ministry) of the age is the "greatest" pile of doo-doo. Run away from such notions. Flee.
Quote:
Originally Posted by UntoHim
Don't believe me...just listen to the president of the Living Stream Ministry, Mr Benson Phillips:
“In any case, do not leave the Lord’s recovery. I can assure you that if you go away from the Lord’s recovery, you will have no way for the process of sanctification to go forward within you. Instead, you will just enter into a bankrupt situation. I know of no one who has left the Lord’s recovery and today is a great spiritual person on the earth. The sanctification process is carried out in the Lord’s recovery”(The Ministry Magazine Vol. 8, No. 1 Page 189, first paragraph)
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This speaker has not learned the Spiritual ABCs of life on this planet. Because of sin, nobody can claim to be a great spiritual person on this earth. Only God will reveal such things, in due time. If you use such words you are far from the mark. Jesus was made both Lord and Christ after the cross, not before it. Do you think, if the sinless Jesus had to pass through such a fire, that we can avoid it, and claim greatness while in the flesh of sin? Have we learned nothing from scripture? They tried to call Jesus "good" - he had none of it. Should any of us? Who among us Christian believers is a "great spiritual person on the earth"?
If you learn such basic lessons, you'll be able to have mutually profitable fellowship with believers near you. You'll be built up with others, and will see them built up with you. What a blessing!