Press Into The Power Of God
Not all congregations are mature houses in which believers move past just being hearers of the Word into becoming doers of the Word. Not all Christian Churches are equal in terms of how they nurture and develop beyond that very first step of salvation.
This is the case when looking at the spiritually-reborn people who make up the church in Corinth. I say spiritually-reborn people because when we accept Jesus, our spirit is reborn. Nothing happens to our bodies unless God gives us a healing and nothing happens to our soul, we have to work our soul out.
When we look at the people in Corinth and hear what Paul has to say to these spiritually-reborn people, we realize that not all churches are actually producing people who go beyond being hearers of the Word to being doers of the Word.
When you see people causing division inside of a congregation, look closely and
watch for the spiritual immaturity in the people who are keeping or starting the division. That’s what happened in Corinth, Paul verifies their immaturity by explaining how choosing it was a choice. How choosing to remain in the flesh has caused their spiritual diet to remain on milk of the Word.
As a result, Paul says in chapter 3, “You are still on milk.” I had to give you milk even though by now you should be on meat but you can’t handle meat. Why? because they made a choice to stay at an immature level. This congregation in Corinth, these are Christians, spiritually reborn people. They’re spiritually born again but they chose to stay in the flesh.
This is a situation in which Paul is trying to get to the heart of the matter. Paul is addressing people who have been taught the Word but they chose not to apply what they had been taught. They were preoccupied with being in cliques. They have no real concept of their place in the Kingdom. They have no real concept at all that their bodies are actually the temples of God.
Not all congregations are mature houses nor are all congregations houses where a convert who gets saved can actually grow into maturity. These people in Corinth show us this clearly that they can’t handle the kingdom lifestyle. They can’t handle kingdom leadership. They can’t even handle kingdom lessons.
It’s clear in the reading of Chapter 4 that this congregation specifically and others who hold the same characteristics as this church in Corinth, have a problem handling leadership. In Chapter 4:1, Paul explains to them how they should be handling leadership i.e himself and the other apostles for whom they had been exposed. What were they doing that Paul made it necessary to announce that to them?
They were criticizing and accusing these apostles of not being trustworthy. Chapter 4:3, Paul clarifies who is qualified to judge him. He just deals with it straight and he wants them to understand that none of these immature Christians who quarrel and stay in constant jealousy are qualified to judge him.
Some things hide in darkness but they can only hide for a while but God does disclose the purposes of everybody’s heart.
These Christians who live in Corinth who make up this church don’t know how to handle this leadership that God has sent to them, instead they have placed the apostles as inferior to themselves in their own mind, telling these apostles, “You’re not this and you’re not that and but we are better”.
Paul tried to help these people because Paul had to be under house arrest. He tried to help the church in Corinth and he tried to help by sending Timothy and the scripture says “to remind them of what he had already taught”.
Behavior of the congregants is not automatically a reflection of your commitment to lead them. Sometimes people forget on purpose. People don’t hold in their minds, the lessons that they have been taught.
Timothy was sent to these converted Christians because they obviously had forgotten and had become as Paul called them, arrogant. In Chapter 4:19-20, he says “When I come, I am going to be looking for power. For the Kingdom of God depends on power”. Not human power, intellectual power, nor political power but the Kingdom of God depends on Holy Ghost power.
God will be gracious to help people to remember what they said they had forgotten but Paul is saying, “When I come, you can stop all your talking. You can stop all of your arrogant talk and what I’m looking for is power because the Kingdom depends on power”.
You need to remember that you’ve got Holy Ghost power and the power of the Lord makes all of the difference. The power of God will cause things that are out of order to get in order. The power of God will cause the things that are in darkness to come to the light.
You don’t even need to be premeditating about it, it’ll just boil up in your spirit. The power of God will cause you to know things that people are trying to keep secret. The power of God will cause you to be able to stand up just like the prophets of old when they had to stand up against the enemy.
What you need to do is just show up with your Holy Ghost power, let them do all the talking they want to do. Let them get wherever they want to get and do all the talking that they want to talk but when you show up, don’t you show up talk and you just show up with power.
There will always be people who will make the choice not to grow up in God but but will stay on the milk. There will always be people in the church who will choose not to be willing and obedient. Who will choose not to walk in faith and not take big bold leaps for God.
God wants you to remember you have his power. Let them talk but you have his power. Walk in his power. Speak in his power. Teach in his power. Lay hands on in his power. Cast the devil out in his power.
The power of the Holy Spirit works when he lets you know what you’re dealing with. It comes through in the gifts of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit will rise up in prophecy. The power of the Holy Spirit will rise up in the gifts of faith. The power of the Holy Spirit rise up in the diversity of tongues.
Press into the power of God. Don’t press into their words. Don’t press into their foolishness.
When we look around and we see what’s happening in the Kingdom of God in this day and time, why isn’t the church standing? Because all churches are not created equal and people don’t grow up and mature just because they go to church.
I want to say to some people today:
1. Make sure that you and the Lord are on the same side which means you have come to his side. You’ve accepted Jesus as your Lord and Savior, that’s the first thing you need to do
2. The Lord loves you and he’s married to you that means you can act a fool but he’s going to still say “come on back here”.
3. Not all houses are equal and it has nothing to do with architecture. It has everything to do with the authenticity of the Word.
The Kingdom of God depends on Holy Ghost power. You need to talk his talk.You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You need to pray in tongues for the Kingdom of God to rest on Holy Ghost power.
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