I’m sorry for the lack of blogs during squad leading! It’s been a busy last 6 months!
What I’m writing about is a topic the Lord has been stirring in my heart for the last couple of months. On my race last year, I realized God placed a calling on my life for the American church. Since then, He has been developing that passion and lately has been highlighting specific things to me.
The main topic that I’ve been pondering for the past couple months is the various types of Christian denominations there are in the church. Specifically- the more conservative denominations and the more charismatic denominations.
To be honest, initially this blog was going to be me sticking up for the more charismatic side of things. Charismatic believers believe that the spiritual gifts are just as accessible as they were during New Testament times in the Bible. They also believe in the modern day works of the Holy Spirit and modern day miracles. During my past year and a half+ traveling around the world doing mission work, I’ve seen so many of these modern day miracles and spiritual gifts. I’ve seen demons casted out of people in various ways. I’ve seen people gifted with and speaking in tongues. I heard words of prophecy given that lined up exactly with what a believer was already hearing for themselves from the Lord. I’ve seen people miraculously healed.
So I began writing that blog and probably wrote about 3/4 of it, but it didn’t feel right so I didn’t post it. I sensed the Lord telling me to wait. So I did and since then, He’s given me a different perspective.
I feel the Lord has been talking to me about how He sees this situation. I believe He wants us to to stop focusing on our differences between denominations and just realize that together, we make up the church. We are the bride of Christ and Jesus wants us to love one another. In John 15:17, Jesus said to his disciples, “This is my command. Love one another”. Instead of picking a part what is wrong with each denomination, let’s see how we can learn and grow from one another.
“Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.” -Ephesians 4:2-3
“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.” -1 Peter 4:8
“My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.” -John 15:12
Sometimes I feel like we automatically seek to find things we don’t agree with and call them out. In the midst of doing this, we ignore the most important commandment Jesus has given us: to love one another.
To clarify: I know Jesus in His word has warned about false prophets and false teachers. I am not saying we should ignore these people. They are not who I’m referring to. I’m just talking about differences in denominations. Instead of being against another denominations because they aren’t exactly like the church we attend, let’s work on unifying as the church rather than causing separation, which is what satan wants.
