FORM OR FUNCTION part one

There are two ways that the church can operate – form or function. When Jesus is head and the Holy Spirit is in control, the church functions with the gifting endowed by the Holy Spirit who gives severally as he wills. This opens the door to the priesthood of all believers through the power and anointing of the Holy Spirit to function in their given ministries. Such an endowment needs no approval or ordination of any man as the Holy Spirit makes way for the believers anointing (Luke 20 v 1/2). In a scenario of this kind, no one person needs to control anything as the Holy Spirit is the most effective executor of God’s perfect will.

What prevents this happening is a lack of faith in God, which spawns a belief that he cannot do anything without our help. After all, who is going to deal with the wayward and the immature, or those who disturb the status quo?

The simple answer is the Holy Spirit as God has no grandsons. His relationship with all his children is his and his alone to determine and if we consider that he is not doing a good job of bringing up his children, please realise that we have made a complete mess of it in our attempt to make God operate through our institutions.

There is only room for one boss in the church. If man assumes that role, the Holy Spirit will not stop him. Because he is so gracious, he will usually leave, and let us get on with our perceived importance with the end result being that form takes over from function.

If the Holy Spirit is not there to lead, guide, teach, admonish, empower, heal, save and build, something or someone has to step into the void left. History and experience shows that form, which is nothing more than man’s efforts to please God, takes over.

This reveals itself in religious observance and rituals which become the purpose of spiritual life and expression and an end in themselves.

The grace of God is rapidly replaced with salvation by works gained through religious observance and the dead letter of the law. This turns a living relationship with a powerful and loving God into a dead observance of religious rituals that have no power of any kind, except to bind and control, let alone to save by grace.

Once the church becomes captive to such dead letter bondage, it then becomes the master and the simplicity of Christ and a living relationship is pushed out the door. In its place is a misguided and completely fictional idea that by fulfilling certain expectations and a meaningless set of rituals determined by a man made system that has not changed in 500 years, one is guaranteed salvation.

It becomes a classic example of the Galatian church which was admonished by Paul when he said that having begun in the spirit, are you made perfect in the flesh?

We are no longer dependent on the Holy Spirit as we can do all that is necessary to gain our salvation through these religious observances which is meant to give us the impression that we have achieved the required standard that man decides is necessary. In essence, this is nothing more than living under the old covenant law.

This is done to justify the fact that the Holy Spirit has left the building, so power and position has to be legitimised as his replacement. What better way to do this than to impose a set of rituals and regulations as a means to measure a person’s devotion to the cause. What better way to keep shackled those of independent mind and spirit who might uncover the nakedness of those who are anointed by man but not by God?

Too often one is judged by how many meetings one attends, how one sings a song or hymn, how one shows their attention to “riveting” sermons, how much money you contribute to the church institutions, how one shows their devotion to the denomination and its leadership, even thought it is a leadership without anointing.
Perform a few miracles without the approval of the “credentialed” authority and you’re considered to be in rebellion against the God appointed church hierarchy. Run a meeting in your home that people want to come to because there is a visitation of the spirit every time that you meet and you are considered a loose cannon.