Faithfully Following The Holy Spirit

According as His divine power hath given

 unto us all things that pertain unto life 

and godliness, through the knowledge of Him 

that hath called us to glory and virtue: whereby 

are given unto us exceeding great and precious 

promises: that by these ye might be partakers 

of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption

 that is in the world: through lust. and beside this,

 giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; 

and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge 

temperance; and to temperance patience; 

and to patience godliness; and to godliness 

brotherly kindness; and to brotherly

 kindness charity.

2Peter 1:3-7 

     The Holy Spirit by many is "batted" around giving rise to false teaching about the Holy Spirit and how the Holy Spirit works in a person' life. False manifestations of spiritual experience and the abuse is produced when the Holy Spirit is not understood and allowed to work in a person's life. Argument are forwarded in favor of some sort of experiential Christianity and are acted out be some who go so far as to act "drunk" in stage before an unaware people who are seeking truth but are given a stage act. Some will argue that to rely so heavily on the Holy Spirit will remove personal responsibility and even gives way to laziness. When cultivation the virtues of moral character become the focus of a religion, this removes, at least in some sense, their commitment to Jesus Christ. 

     We are, those who are Authentic in their Christian Faith will add virtue to their lives, yet they will not become lazy and just wait for the Holy Spirit to do what they should be doing as an Authentic Christian. Jesus gave us a command to "go and make disciples, teaching them to observe all that He had commanded: therefore laziness is not in the picture, in fact, the opposite is true. To be virtuous means to be  conformed to morality and ethical principles, to be morally excellent, upright, chaste, to deny oneself and follow Jesus Christ becoming in His image. We are to add to our virtue knowledge, not knowledge by some man, even though they may say or write that which is Scriptural, follow that, but make sure that it is Scriptural. It is be false knowledge that heresies are forwarded and unScriptural actions take the place of true worship. We can see this plain and clear when looking at the types of so-called worship services that are all about anecdotes, claims of the working of the Holy Spirit that are not substantiated. False teaching brings forth false zeal, and this is due because there is a devoid of any accurate understanding of Authentic Christian Faith. Those caught up in such non-Scriptural antics attempt to justify their actions in the name of Christianity, but in reality it has virtually nothing to do with believing in Jesus Christ. 

     We must admit that Christianity has been guilty of such things: i.e., inquisition, the focus on experience over proper worship, doing such things as reported to have been done at Bethel's School of the Supernatural where students would lay on tombstones to somehow receive the spirit of the dead, or running through tunnels of fire, as though this is true Christianity. These type of people who have a wrong understanding of the Holy Spirit is due to their false understanding of what it means to be an Authentic Christian, they have become cultural Christians in the least and heretics in the most. The Holy Spirit and His activities are used to justify some of the most bizarre actions in the history, and in the present Christiandom. 

     Ideology, theology, even science can be distorted and misused to justify the most bizarre behavior. This is so dangerous for what is intended to motivate goodness and restrain evil becomes the instrument of that which they desire to restrain. Look at history, not just the Church, but history, and you can see examples how virtue, i.e., virtue, liberty, patriotism, have become twisted and in Christianity there is a separation from a healthy and Authentic Christian Faith. This twisting is to get what they want: there is no denial of themselves and to become formed into the image of Jesus Christ. Some say they are becoming formed into the image of Jesus Christ, yet, their idea of Jesus Christ does not conform to Scripture. 

     Authentic Christians must look beyond all this cultural Christianity, to look beyond the surface behavior and the motivation that is the foundation for such bizarre behavior. That is why Peter wrote that we should add virtue but to that virtue knowledge, and that means we must understand what is truly a pure heart and what it means to love Jesus Christ, to have a pure ardent zeal in your service to Jesus Christ, you obedience, meekness, courage, and to have a quiet consistency. If you have this, there is no argument that you need to defend. This requires a change from the inside/out: will you change, will you contend for Authentic Christian Faith? I pray that this is you zeal.

There shall be no strange God in thee:

     neither shall thou worship any strange god.

                       Psalm 82:9

If you find yourself following false teaching; RUN!

Richard L. Crumb