03 June 2022
We must discover the kind of unity that only heart-borne faith can engender.
One of the primary tactics of Satan is promoting pluralism and secularism. The more closely any faith group draws together into a strong identity, the more excluded and threatened his servants feel. They simply will not tolerate exclusion; sinners have an instinct to drag us down to their level. They cannot imagine a genuine otherworldly leading of the heart. Having a clear understanding of this arms you against the Devil's lies.
Not everyone seeks to serve the Enemy consciously; it's typically just a small portion of the world. But they are everywhere, not just in government or easily identifiable groups, always seeking by various means to force the world around them adhere to Satanic doctrines. There's no way we can protect humanity at large from this game. Don't waste time and energy trying to think up a way around it. You cannot create a nation on earth that sinners cannot infiltrate and control eventually. Human organization is always inherently vulnerable to this attack. We need to remember that all human organizing is futility; Satan has been granted this power. So, the only way we can defend against his servants is to keep our fellowship private.
We are a family. Granted, Satan has encouraged the State to intervene inside families, so we'll have to trust the Lord for that part. Still, the primary point is that we must regard each other as primarily a private family group. Don't bring outsiders in, but let them see from the outside. We are not a public accommodation. We are brothers and sisters in faith and conviction. And it's critical that you espouse some kind of covenant that reflects the Covenant of Christ. It's critical that you come under the covering of an elder, someone whom God has granted the wisdom to detect corrupting threats.
Thus, we know that a primary tactic of Satan is divide and conquer. The bonds between Covenant people must remain out of his reach. There is no particular method to follow here, but Satan cannot cut the bonds of genuine faith and love. When we choose to open our hearts to each other, the Enemy is excluded. His only hope is to create a perception of discord, of separation that is false.
It's not as if there aren't a great many valid barriers between people in this world. If we do not draw boundaries of conviction, we are not serving the Lord. Christ warned that the path of peace with His Father was narrow and steep. In any given context, the majority of human society will always take the easy path to Hell. It is God who draws the boundaries of exclusion from His peace. Our mission is to find the boundaries He has placed and stay inside of them.
Your boundaries may not look exactly like mine. This is the hard part for us, in that we have this false instinct that everyone's boundaries must look the same. The variations in our divine callings should result in a certain level of inconsistency, in terms of what we perceive on the human level. We need to spend a lot of time with the Lord working on understanding this, learning the difference between what our fleshly nature can see and what our hearts know. We need to build up a tolerance for divine variations versus those that threaten shalom.
It helps a lot if we remember Paul's warning not to flaunt our liberty in ways that shake the weak faith of those who struggle to identify their own boundaries. We need an awareness, a sense of nurture for those who aren't quite ready for the shocking changes faith requires. What kind of culture are they trying to leave behind? What kind of baggage do they still carry, and how can you help them drop it? This is why we compose our group covenants, something people can chew on like a bit of law code to bring them closer to grace. It's the kind of consistent behavior and dress that would characterize the majority of the covenant community. We learn to tolerate things that keep us together.
Only you and the Lord together can decide how you should act in any given context. If you build up the good habit of praying and sensing your own heart's guidance in every situation, you can't go wrong. It's not that you won't challenge people, but that the challenges will be according to faith. The issue is not "getting things done" but helping your brothers and sisters be stronger. We do things together for the sake of being together. The whole point is how we sharpen each other, not what we might accomplish with our hands.
This is the testimony the world must see. It's how we focus on the relationships themselves. Don't get hung up on the doing, but the relating. That's the mission.
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