The river of life is a river, not a lake or a pond. It is always moving, flowing, going somewhere. Such will be the nature of the congregations that are being built by the Lord. Even if a congregation has not seen all the characteristics listed last week, if it is moving forward in its faith and love for God, it will in due time.

The Lord builds His church with people, not just principles. So, if a church He is building is lacking in an area, He will send people to help fill this void. If you have a burning vision for the body to grow in an area, you may be the one He is sending. Such will be known because they are builders imparting vision and purpose, not just critics condemning those who do not yet have it.

If we have a vision, the best way we can help others is to grow in it ourselves, not just talk about it. If we are growing in a vision that is truly of God, others will be drawn to it. The Lord did not badger anyone into following Him. He called them once, and if they did not respond, He moved on. It does not appear He ever repeated those calls.

In Revelation 3:20 we have the remarkable picture of Jesus standing at the door of His own church, knocking to see if any would open to Him. In this age, He will not go where He is not wanted. Since many churches are being built on what the people want and not on what the Lord wants, He will usually bless them as best He can, but He will not inhabit them. There is a difference between what He blesses and inhabits.

In the age to come, He will rule with a rod of iron, but until then, the call is to “whosoever will.” If we pressure people to respond to His call, it will likely end poorly. This includes the call to go higher in Him. The best thing we can do to help others is to go higher ourselves and let others be drawn by the results they see in us. There is nothing on earth more contagious than a person who is getting closer to the Lord.

         If we are maturing in Christ, we will manifest more of Him. We do this by growing in all He is. He is the Wisdom of God and Truth of God, so we should be growing in wisdom and truth. He is manifested through His people by the fruit and gifts of the Spirit, so we should be growing in them. The Spirit may have us focus on one aspect of His nature at times, but this should never prevent us from growing in the others.

Since the Lord’s ways are higher than our ways, there are times when it seems like what He is doing in us is counterintuitive. For example, the Apostle Paul called the Corinthian Church “still carnal” because they were splitting over their favorite teachers. Paul’s prescription for this was: “Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy” (I Corinthians 14:1).

Some teachers and theologians have contended the Corinthians were “carnal” because they were devoted to spiritual gifts. That is a basic misunderstanding of Paul’s teaching in this epistle. On the contrary, he was prescribing the pursuit of spiritual gifts as a remedy for their carnality. In fact, it’s a carnal mentality to assume that if people are pursuing spiritual gifts, this would result in more division, when the opposite is true.   

We must consider how this applies to maturing Christians in the body of Christ. When they are not allowed to find their gifts and callings and function in them, the result will be conflicts and divisions. That is because they are not able to be what they were created to be.

God’s unity is a unity of diversity, not a unity of conformity. He made every snowflake different and everyone different because He wasn't seeking boring uniformity. There can be no true unity until each part of His body can be who they were created to be, and we cannot be that until we fit in with the rest of the body. God made each of us unique, and we should not compromise this for unity but rather embrace our uniqueness. This requires a higher maturity, yet that is how we find the higher unity that will truly glorify Him.

© 2022 Rick Joyner. All Rights Reserved.