There is only one Lord and that is Jesus Christ and there is only one real church and that is the Church of Jesus Christ. At this point you’re all wondering where I’m going with this and what I’m going to say next?

Every since I started reading Christian blogs and websites three year ago, I have been concerned and distressed about how much time and energy well meaning Christians spend tearing down other sovereign ministries and churches.

I can understand one being convinced about their own church and movement. Yes, there are issues and practices in the church that need to be addressed from time to time. By why is it always necessary to tear down, cast aspersions, innuendoes, gossip about, and violently separate from, and totally demonize other ministries.

Why can’t issues be civilly addressed among fellow brothers and sisters?  Christians are exposing more dirty laundry on the world-wide web than they are bearing positive testimonies of the Lord Jesus Christ. Millions of unbelievers come across this junk on the Net everyday—what a shame and what a lost opportunity!

Here’s today’s devotional from Charisma Online that got me started thinking about this. Written by Graham Kendrick who has written some of my all time favorite worship songs:

Divisions in Church

Today’s message is from Graham Kendrick.

Satan’s power is vested in division. His initial power base came because he succeeded in dividing creature from Creator through sin. Within a generation, motivated by jealousy, brother had murdered brother. Before long, nation was slaughtering nation. In the crucifixion of Jesus every dividing wall of hostility was broken down. It remains for us to step over the rubble, embrace one another and celebrate what He has achieved.

Interestingly, of all the songs in the Book of Revelation, not one is a solo. The twenty-four elders sing and cast down their crowns before His feet, the united voices of countless angels resound, every living creature in heaven and earth and under the earth and all that is in them are joined in one song. In every case multitudes of peoples or angels unite in the same song with absolute unity, with one voice.

Though we can’t imagine the sounds of heaven, we can begin here on earth to offer worship in cooperation with other believers because God is building believers together into a spiritual house of worship. (See 1 Peter 2:5.) We do not wait for heaven. We take hold of heaven’s kingdom now and bring it into the earth. We do not sit waiting for perfected Christians to show up with whom to be united. Rather we seek those whose eyes are also fixed adoringly upon Jesus, and we agree to march together in celebration that in Him every dividing wall has been broken down. And as we do, we find ourselves moving like an army, shoulder to shoulder, our feet and hearts in step with one another and with heaven’s battalions.

TODAY’S PRAYER:

Lord, break the divisions that exist between Christians in my city. Let us praise You with one mighty voice in the unity of the Holy Spirit.

J. Lee Grady recalls an interesting event from the past this week in his Fire in My  Bones article for March 7, 2008.

Apparently in 1999, Kenneth Hagin Sr. called many of the leaders of the prosperity movement’ together to read some of them the riot act. He warned them that some were distorting his teachings but more importantly distorting the Bible. He was hoping to bring correction to the movement he had founded before he passed on.

Here are some of the points he was addressing that was also covered in his last book-  The Midas Touch:

1. Financial prosperity is not a sign of God’s blessing. Hagin wrote: “If wealth alone were a sign of spirituality, then drug traffickers and crime bosses would be spiritual giants. Material wealth can be connected to the blessings of God or it can be totally disconnected from the blessings of God.”

2. People should never give in order to get. Hagin was critical of those who “try to make the offering plate some kind of heavenly vending machine.” He denounced those who link giving to getting, especially those who give cars to get new cars or who give suits to get new suits. He wrote: “There is no spiritual formula to sow a Ford and reap a Mercedes.”

3. It is not biblical to “name your seed” in an offering. Hagin was horrified by this practice, which was popularized in faith conferences during the 1980s. Faith preachers sometimes tell donors that when they give in an offering they should claim a specific benefit to get a blessing in return. Hagin rejected this idea and said that focusing on what you are going to receive “corrupts the very attitude of our giving nature.”

4. The “hundredfold return” is not a biblical concept. Hagin did the math and figured out that if this bizarre notion were true, “we would have Christians walking around with not billions or trillions of dollars, but quadrillions of dollars!” He rejected the popular teaching that a believer should claim a specific monetary payback rate.

5. Preachers who claim to have a “debt-breaking” anointing should not be trusted. Hagin was perplexed by ministers who promise “supernatural debt cancellation” to those who give in certain offerings. He wrote in The Midas Touch: “There is not one bit of Scripture I know about that validates such a practice. I’m afraid it is simply a scheme to raise money for the preacher, and ultimately it can turn out to be dangerous and destructive for all involved.”

The movement started out with a sound observation made by Hagin that “God was not glorified by poverty and that preachers do not have to be poor.”  However, some of the excesses and greed within the movement bothered even ‘Dad Hagin’ before he died in 2003. Unfortunately his warning went largely unheeded.