FROM: Banbury, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
ABOUT ME: Living the highs and lows of life in the adventurous pursuit of God Himself and of who I'm meant to be as the Bride of Christ.
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Friday, April 02, 2010,6:31 p.m.
I HATE THIS WAR
I hate this war.
Oh, not the war of the power of God versus the enemy of God. Not that war. Of that war I am not weary. Given a chance to fight it, I'm ready for the fight. That's not the war I hate.
I hate the war of Christian versus Christian. I hate the war of "my music is the right music and your music is nothing." I hate the war of styles and ages and preferences. I hate the war of 'this is the way it's always been so this is the way God likes it" and the war of "God is doing a new thing so your thing is passe." I hate the war of warriors pitted against one another instead of pitted against the enemy.
Of THAT war I am utterly weary.
And in my mind, when that's the war we fight more than we fight anything else the real enemy is winning. Hands down. This is his strategy in the real war - to keep us fighting each other and therefore blind to the real danger and the real enemy.
What happened to Jesus' prayer in John 17 that we would be one just as He and the Father are one? What happened to God's truth in 1 Samuel 16 where we learned that man looks at the outward but God looks at the heart? These are not "Oh well, better luck next time with that" prayers. We must choose unity.
I desperately love the Bride. But we are not fighting the right war - we are throwing punches and hitting each other instead, making us less and less able to fight the real enemy. We are wounding ourselves, and losing some of our best warriors in the internal fight.
What really matters? Whether we use organ or drums in our music? Or whether God is pleased with the fragrance of the offering we have set before Him? No one will argue that it's the latter. Why, then, do we still have this old and tired fight going on within our family?
I'm so tired of this war. And I know that the enemy probably wants nothing less than for me to give up the whole war altogether, since I'm so weary of the futility of this part of it. I'm not giving up in the real war. But I desire to leave some skill-less warriors behind. I don't want them beside me on the front lines of the battle. I know I'm not a perfect warrior. That's exactly why I want other warriors beside me who are trained well and who are focused on the enemy (or rather, on the strategies of God Himself) rather than on me and whether I am going to do something that they dislike.
Does this blog sound a little less encouraging than the others I usually write? Likely. But the truth is that I'm angry that some of the most bloody injuries I and people I love have ever sustained in this fight were from our own side. Here is the encouragement (which is in the nature of exhortation - and though I am usually careful to include myself in all these types of writings, I am deliberately writing in second person in an attempt to force some self-examination): Stop focusing on the things that other warriors do that you don't like. And don't deceive yourself - find where you do it and attack it at the root. Stop insisting that your way is the only way. INFUSE your language and your heart with love for your fellow warrior. Stop fixing your eyes on protecting your own preferences and fix your eyes instead on Jesus, the strategy-maker. Are you a divisive force in the Kingdom of God and in His Body? STOP. Serve one another. Love one another. Fight together, don't fight each other. Stop using your shield to protect you from the warrior fighting beside you. Instead, use it to protect him or her, and you'll find you are fighting alongside someone else as vulnerable and as useful as you are.
And with two shields in front of the two of you, both facing the real enemy instead of each other (which incidentally, foolishly leaves your sides vulnerable to the real enemy), you may find that you sustain less injuries than before.
Jesus prayed for us to be unified.
Change my heart, Lord.
Change the hearts of Your Bride.
Help us to be ONE.
Oh, not the war of the power of God versus the enemy of God. Not that war. Of that war I am not weary. Given a chance to fight it, I'm ready for the fight. That's not the war I hate.
I hate the war of Christian versus Christian. I hate the war of "my music is the right music and your music is nothing." I hate the war of styles and ages and preferences. I hate the war of 'this is the way it's always been so this is the way God likes it" and the war of "God is doing a new thing so your thing is passe." I hate the war of warriors pitted against one another instead of pitted against the enemy.
Of THAT war I am utterly weary.
And in my mind, when that's the war we fight more than we fight anything else the real enemy is winning. Hands down. This is his strategy in the real war - to keep us fighting each other and therefore blind to the real danger and the real enemy.
What happened to Jesus' prayer in John 17 that we would be one just as He and the Father are one? What happened to God's truth in 1 Samuel 16 where we learned that man looks at the outward but God looks at the heart? These are not "Oh well, better luck next time with that" prayers. We must choose unity.
I desperately love the Bride. But we are not fighting the right war - we are throwing punches and hitting each other instead, making us less and less able to fight the real enemy. We are wounding ourselves, and losing some of our best warriors in the internal fight.
What really matters? Whether we use organ or drums in our music? Or whether God is pleased with the fragrance of the offering we have set before Him? No one will argue that it's the latter. Why, then, do we still have this old and tired fight going on within our family?
I'm so tired of this war. And I know that the enemy probably wants nothing less than for me to give up the whole war altogether, since I'm so weary of the futility of this part of it. I'm not giving up in the real war. But I desire to leave some skill-less warriors behind. I don't want them beside me on the front lines of the battle. I know I'm not a perfect warrior. That's exactly why I want other warriors beside me who are trained well and who are focused on the enemy (or rather, on the strategies of God Himself) rather than on me and whether I am going to do something that they dislike.
Does this blog sound a little less encouraging than the others I usually write? Likely. But the truth is that I'm angry that some of the most bloody injuries I and people I love have ever sustained in this fight were from our own side. Here is the encouragement (which is in the nature of exhortation - and though I am usually careful to include myself in all these types of writings, I am deliberately writing in second person in an attempt to force some self-examination): Stop focusing on the things that other warriors do that you don't like. And don't deceive yourself - find where you do it and attack it at the root. Stop insisting that your way is the only way. INFUSE your language and your heart with love for your fellow warrior. Stop fixing your eyes on protecting your own preferences and fix your eyes instead on Jesus, the strategy-maker. Are you a divisive force in the Kingdom of God and in His Body? STOP. Serve one another. Love one another. Fight together, don't fight each other. Stop using your shield to protect you from the warrior fighting beside you. Instead, use it to protect him or her, and you'll find you are fighting alongside someone else as vulnerable and as useful as you are.
And with two shields in front of the two of you, both facing the real enemy instead of each other (which incidentally, foolishly leaves your sides vulnerable to the real enemy), you may find that you sustain less injuries than before.
Jesus prayed for us to be unified.
Change my heart, Lord.
Change the hearts of Your Bride.
Help us to be ONE.
