3 September 2016

THEORY OR REALITY

By John Ollis

As a result of writing the 5th blog on God’s essential “R”s on RESTORATION and the development of what is now known as Restoration Theology. I began to think about why we embracing a truth, but the fact is that only embracing a truth  in our minds will not change our lives, the truth will NOT impact us the way God intends it too. Only when truth enters our hearts will be as Jesus said set free.
There are many streams in the Body of Christ, and I love ministering right across the Body, there are some fascinating “camps” in the Christian church. So often in fellowship with believers in a particular “camp” their particular truth seems to come out all the time. I guess it is human nature to “camp” around the doctrine or truth that your stream embraces BUT here are two potential problems.
Firstly, we need to be sure the truth has dropped from our head to our heart. Truth only sets you free, when it is embraced  in the heart, otherwise it is simply an ideology that we have mentally accepted.
Secondly, we must not make that truth the centre of everything and “camp” there. Truth has many facets like a beautiful diamond, and ALL TRUTH MUST BE HELD IN BALANCE.It is the inability to hold truth in balance that has produced all the major heresies the Church has faced over the centuries.
There are some truths I feel very strongly about, but I do not want to be known by the “camp” I am in. I want to be known as a Believer who loves and serves Jesus with all my heart.
I mentioned in the last blog, that God has been seeking to restore truth for a long time, and there has been many times when there  comes an emphasis on a  particular truth for a while, then it seems to be forgotten or totally rejected.
I mentioned how I so embraced Spirit filled worship, (and so miss it today) which included  the awesome Biblical teaching of the role and  Ministry of Singers and Musicians to lead God’s people in worship. Then there seemed to come an emphasis on “excellence” (which is sure not wrong in itself), but the spotlight came on the Singer and the Musician relative to  the quality of their voice or  ability to play their instrument. We began to move again towards a”spectator” form of worship.
The “in” word these days is “CONTEMPORPARY” that whatever we do in this area must be “attractive” to this generation. Worship is meant to cause us to be attracted to Jesus and worship Him in spirit and in truth. The Holy Spirit is the creative personality inn the world, we do not need to copy the world’s methods  to “attract” this generation to church.
I can almost hear some readers saying, John Ollis is becoming old and grumpy, I hope this is not the case in my life, for when you get a truth by revelation you really don’t want to discard or reject it.
Biblical teaching is so important if we want to see change, and the reality is there must be regular repetition of the teachings so that it stays fresh in our hearts if we want to see it continue to grow and develop in the life of the Church. As a Pastor/Teacher,  I need to keep meditating on these important “restored” truths and let them keep working in my life. . I have used the illustration before that truth is like a beautiful rosebud, and  we need to let the rosebud continue to grow and develop and open up, and its fragrance totally consume our lives.
So, my pray today is, that we open not only our minds, BUT ALSO OUR HEARTS to God and His Word, so that restored truth will change our hearts and lives, as we prepare for the soon return of Jesus for his Church.