Sunday, 7 September 2025

To churches blessed

 It is great when you get a meeting of disciples where the Holy Spirit is clearly, undoubtably giving the words spoken. Maybe you have been a part of such a blessed thing. Several times I have prayed at home before attending such a meeting and have asked for certain truth to be made known, and then in the meeting several people have all spoken saying that exact thing, even using the exact words to which my prayer had related. This is one kind of blessing. Another is when someone speaks a message in tongues by the Holy Spirit, and then more than one interpretation is given, clearly by the Holy Spirit because the interpretation words are identical although independently received, and because the words honour the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a sign that faith of those in the meeting is being blessed by God. Maybe you speak by the Holy Spirit like this, participating in the blessing. Maybe you lead meetings like this. Maybe in faith you devoutly listen. Do you then go away and revert back to dishonest pretences in reverting to the traditions of mere men? In John 4 we have Jesus and a Samaritan woman discussing the way your upbringing and your ancestry and location influence your worship. If you notice, your church probably has a fixed theology it claims is biblical, but actually is fully contingent on the location of its founders, their ancestry, the other churches around them, because they cannot afford to differ from the norms too much. If you were in Ethiopia your church might have one kind of theology. If yoy were in the East of Eurasia it might be a different theology in some ways. If it were Western it might be a particular kind of theology. You leaders might insist it is from Bible reflection and the Holy Spirit, but the reality is it probably depends on location and heritage, avoiding a charge of being a heretical sect or cult. This is not honest. Jesus responded clearly to address this. Two points he stresses were these: The leading of the Holy Spirit is vital to please God, more than any historic theological stance, and the truth is vital, so any pretence or misleading claim at being biblical will not please God in worship. We cannot play it both ways. If we are to worship as God requires, it must be in Spirit and in truth. Let the Holy Spirit lead you into all truth, and we will have fellowship with each other, and with God, in our meetings and worship.