THE CHURCH UNDERMINES ITSELF BY REJECTING THE HOLY SPIRIT

Why would a man undermine himself? Why would the Church undermine itself? There are many answers or reasons, but the Bible says, “A man in honour and does not know it is like a beast that perishes” (Psalms 49: 12, 20). This is what Myles Munroe said, “The most important person on earth right now is still the Governor, the Holy Spirit. Why? Because where the Governor is, the Kingdom is. That is why Paul said, the Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but it is love, joy, peace in the Holy Spirit.” The most wonderful thing to have happened to the Church of Jesus Christ is the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Church of Jesus Christ is the Kingdom of God on earth and the Holy Spirit is the Governor of this Kingdom.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Concerning the Holy Spirit, Jesus said, “And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counsellor,* who will never leave you.  He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world at large cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you do, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.  No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you...  But when the Father sends the Counsellor as my representative—and by the Counsellor I mean the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I myself have told you. I am leaving you with a gift—peace of mind and heart. And the peace I give isn’t like the peace the world gives. So don’t be troubled or afraid... But I will send you the Counsellor* —the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will tell you all about me... But it is actually best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Counsellor* won’t come. If I do go away, he will come because I will send him to you.  And when he comes, he will convince the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment.  The world’s sin is unbelief in me.  Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more.  Judgment will come because the prince of this world has already been judged...  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not be presenting his own ideas; he will be telling you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future.  He will bring me glory by revealing to you whatever he receives from me.  All that the Father has is mine; this is what I mean when I say that the Spirit will reveal to you whatever he receives from me” John 14: 16 – 18, 26 – 27; 15: 26; 16: 7 – 11, 13 – 15 (NLT).                                                                                                                                                                                    “And now I will send the Holy Spirit, just as my Father promised. But stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven” Luke 24: 49 (NLT).                                                                             “In one of these meetings as he was eating a meal with them, he told them, “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you what he promised. Remember, I have told you about this before. John baptized with* water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit... But when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, you will receive power and will tell people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” Acts 1: 4 – 5, 8 (NLT).                                                     

 In spite of all that Jesus informed us about the Holy Spirit, the most tragic thing to have happened to the Church of Jesus Christ is the rejection and relegation of the gift of God to His Church, the rejection of the Holy Spirit. Much of the Church leadership have rejected or relegated the Holy Spirit by not allowing Him His proper place in the Church.                                                                                                                                                Graham Fitzpatrick was spot on when he said in his book: How To Recognise God’s Voice. I quote: Much religious activity in the Church at present is merely the flesh busy doing a lot of things supposedly for Jesus. Much evangelism, prayer meetings, building projects, teachings, school activity and so on, is not controlled by the Spirit of Jesus, but by fleshly minds. This is why so much effort at present in the Church activities achieves very little. Galatians 6: 8 predicted that this would happen. Partly because of the lack of emphasis on obedience to the Holy Spirit (Obedience is one aspect of being controlled by the Holy Spirit), there are thousands of people in the Church at present who have not got their reason and common sense made subordinate to the Holy Spirit. They decide who to marry, where to live, how to run their church, what to teach their church members, who should help with the singing at church and so on. Instead, they should ‘sow to the Spirit’ by allowing the Holy Spirit to show them what to do. Then as Romans 8: 6 and Galatians 6: 8 say, they will see spiritual life released from God into their lives and local congregations. Much religious activity is a great sowing to the flesh, which will reap decay, ruin and destruction for those churches and for those individual churchgoers who continue to do it. God in Galatians 6: 8 said this would happen. Meditate on this verse! End of quote.                                                                                                                                For the Christian, it is vital to let your mind and activities be controlled by God. In the same vein, it is expedient that the Church and her activities be controlled by the Spirit of God. God wants the Church to change back to how it was in the Bible book of Acts of the Apostles. They had their challenges and mistakes but they were largely dependent on and controlled by the Spirit of God corporately and individually, especially the leadership.                                                                                        When you study the Bible book of Acts of the Apostles well you will see or observe that fantastic manifestations of God’s power occurred in their time, not only in the lives of the church leaders; they occurred in the lives of thousands of ordinary church attendees. These manifestations occurred because more people in the Church in those years day by day sought to know what the Holy Spirit wanted them to do and they obeyed these instructions.                                                                                 Where He told them to go, they went. Where He told them not to go, they declined. What He told them to do, they did. Whomever He told them to choose or appoint, they did. They waited on the Holy Spirit and were sensitive to His voice. They were eager to always obey Him.                                                    This is not so now and it is a shame. This is the reason the Church appears lame duck. The Church now is a sleeping giant and she must wake up from her deep slumber.  The point to note is that the great expansion of the Church of the Acts of the Apostles and the occurrence of many miracles of God show that there was more sowing to the Spirit and a willingness to obey His voice in those times.                                                                                                                                                                                       That was their secret and it hasn’t changed. The Church of this present age must go back to the basics and surrender the Church back to the Holy Spirit who is the rightful person in charge and control. All usurpation of the role of the Holy Spirit must stop. All usurpers must be kicked out because time is running out and the devil is preparing the world for the government of the Anti- Christ and the man of sin. Bible prophecies say this man will war with the Church and lead many to hell and perdition.                                                                                                                                                                         If you look at the statistics – the 7 billion people of earth, how many are converts, how many are Christians, how many are real disciples of Jesus and so on, then you would know that we have a very long way to go. But this gap can be bridged by the Holy Spirit. The task of the Great Commission can only be successfully and speedily carried out when we listen to the Holy Spirit. Only Him can give us success and make the obstacles we are presently faced with surmountable but only through His voice, His ways, His wisdom and His choice. Anything else is just flesh and the Bible says the arm of flesh and human wisdom will fail inevitably.                                                                                       According to Graham Fitzpatrick these ill of undermining the Church is a problem at the door step of both the laity and the clergy. He says those who decide to rely solely on the Holy Spirit will not be liked. I quote from his book again: Some churchgoers are too apathetic or lazy to learn how to know when the Holy Spirit is speaking to them. This must change. Other churchgoers are too proud, self-sufficient and independent of God, to want to know how to recognize the voice of God the Father and God the Son speaking to them in the Person of God the Holy Spirit. They don’t want to learn because they want to be their own lord, even though they go to church and call Jesus “Our Lord” or “My Lord.” Many pastors and preachers, who preach the idea that the Holy Spirit must control our decision-making (which is the same as making Jesus our Lord), will be persecuted by members of their own local congregation or their denomination who sow to a mind of flesh. They must expect this if they preach as God would want them to. They should not let this worry them. This is because Jesus said in Mathew 5: 10 – 11 that you are blessed when people including churchgoers who sow to the flesh and are not controlled by the Holy Spirit, persecute you. In fact, Paul said that all people who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus must expect persecution (see 2 Timothy 3: 12). Persecution includes great criticism and lies against one (see Mathew 5: 10). In fact, if you are a church leader and you are not being criticised, Jesus, in Luke 6: 26, suggests that you are possibly no better than the false prophets. You had better check your spiritual life if unbelievers and fleshly churchgoers speak well of you. You are possibly not controlled by God very much (if at all). End of quote. In conclusion, I leave you with the following scriptures to think on:                                                                  “But I say, walk not and live habitually in the (Holy) Spirit – RESPONSIVE T and CONTROLLED and GUIDED by the Spirit, THEN you will certainly not gratify the cravings and desires of the flesh of human nature without God” Galatians 5: 16 (Amplified Version).                                                                                 “Now the mind of the flesh (which is SENSE and REASON WITHOUT THE HOLY SPIRIT) is death – death that comprise all of the miseries arising from sin; both here and hereafter. But the mind of the (Holy) Spirit is life and soul peace (both now and forever)” Romans 8: 6 (Amplified Version).                                              “The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to PLEASE THE SPIRIT, from Spirit will reap eternal life” Galatians 6: 8 (Amplified Version).                   “For all WHO ARE LED BY THE SPIRIT OF GOD are sons of God” Romans 8: 14 (RSV).                                                                           “If we live by the (Holy) Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit – if by the Holy Spirit we have our life (in God), let us go forward walking in line, our conduct CONTROLLED by the Spirit”                                                  Galatians 5: 25 (Amplified Version).                                                                                                                              “Remain in me, and I will remain in you. For a branch cannot produce fruit if it is severed from the vine, and you cannot be fruitful apart from me. Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who REMAIN IN ME, AND I IN THEM, WILL PRODUCE MUCH FRUIT. For APART FROM ME YOU CAN DO NOTHING.  Anyone who parts from me is thrown away like a useless branch and withers.                          Such branches are gathered into a pile to be burned.  But if you stay JOINED TO ME AND MY WORDS REMAIN IN YOU, you may ask any request you like, and IT WILL BE GRANTED!  My TRUE DISCIPLES produce much fruit. This brings great glory to my Father” John 15: 4 – 8 (NLT).