Love to the loveless shown

[aron]

There was a line in a hymn that I always liked, and still remember: "Love to the loveless shown, that they may lovely be". When considering the "Ministry Churches" under the thumb of the LSM, I was wondering how to show love? Paul once wrote, "Love doesn't seek its own things but the things of others" (cf 1 Cor 13:5).

In the LSM program, the gospel of Jesus Christ is the "hook" to get ones into "the church, His Body" (never mind that WN abandoned "the church, His Body" nearly a century ago). The LC assembly is then the vehicle for people to come under the "ministry of the age". Which ministry, like a leech, continually cries "give, give." (Prov 30:15). This ministry only knows to seek its own things.

But the LC program is not unique in this regard. And none of us have been untouched by the fall. So how to show love? We are all of the "loveless" variety, in some manner: unloved, unloving, and unlovable. Yet God's love has come to us in His Son. God loved us so much that He sent His only begotten Son. To me, this revelation has so much power that we can never fully unwrap it. The heights, the depths, the breadths and widths, unsearchable in full. The Ministry Churches have deliberately limited their search, by allowing only "One Trumpet", and that the current Blendeds interpreting and re-speaking the output of a deceased brother in Christ named Witness Lee.

I argue that God's speaking is much broader than that. In order to "purify" or "restore" or "recover" God's speaking, the LC program limited itself to the output of one supposedly purified person. This man was supposedly so transformed as that little or no trace of the fallen human soul contaminated his ministry. Additionally, his position as "Deputy God" (their term, not mine) made him essentially "ex cathedra", i.e. in an untouchable position. Even when he was wrong, he was right. So God had supposedly raised up one man who was both dispositionally and positionally sanctified such that God could now entrust His current speaking to this one oracle.

But the record bears the fruit of this notion. I won't belabor it, put it out as a contrast to what God is perhaps doing. We all can partake of the unfolding revelation of Jesus Christ, and hold forth to LC'er and non-LC'er alike. This revelation is limited by the past speaking, but it expands and unfolds through the current discussion. First, it's limited by God's word, which is fixed. No Book of Mormon necessary to expand God's message. And second, this fixed canon is largely shaped by the Fathers, and those who studied them (not saying that we need to join the Orthodox or the RCC, but that the Protestant "sola scriptora" [i.e. 'me, my text and my logic'] has its lacks).

And finally, this discussion continues today. God's love is to continually speak the revelation of His Son Jesus Christ to us, continually drawing us to ourselves. We don't need to slag the counterfeits repeatedly. Deny them, yes. It was already being done in the composition of the NT. But pay attention to the reality. The shadows will fall away.

My point is to focus on the light, not on the darkness. WL supposedly held a position so exalted that he could characterize every other ministry as "dark" and "twisted". Nobody could cut the word straight like he could. But if we instead open to the speaking going on, which - "shocker" - might be going on at the nearby Presbyterian or Lutheran or even Armenian Orthodox church, or even some non-organized and unaffiliated Bible study in someone's home on Thursday nights, we might tap into God's speaking. I have a word, you have a word, that guy over in the corner may have a word. Nobody is so transformed to monopolize the word, and nobody is so deformed as to escape the word. Everyone has a part. Jesus is available to all, in all, through all. "It pleased God to reveal His Son in us". This is indeed the "fullness of the times" of Galatians 4. It pleases God to reveal His Son in the gentiles, in every tribe and tongue and nation. That sound you hear is the sound of many waters.