Sitting Out the Flesh Wars

Conscientious objector

I don't get into the denominational wars among Christians for one simple reason: every single person or group of persons is under some level of delusion about his/her/their relationship to God.¹ It's the nature of things after the Fall.

It's easy to look over at the next person and think that your doctrine is better than theirs and you are, therefore, closer to God than he is. (See: the Parable of the Priest and the Publican.)

But if God is quadrillions of miles away and you are five feet closer to Him than your neighbor is ... it's like two ants talking about taking a trip to the moon. Only the Holy Spirit can close this gap and guess what! He is doing it at this very moment.

17 And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh: and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams:

18 And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my Spirit; and they shall prophesy:

- Acts 2:17-18 which is a paraphrase of Joel 2:28-29

All flesh. Catholic flesh. Protestant flesh. LDS flesh. Jewish flesh. Muslim flesh. Black flesh. White flesh. The list goes on. And it is up to each sentient individual inhabitant of a house of flesh to listen to that Spirit or reject it.

And if you accept it, you have to keep listening to God because He knows what you need to do with it. And I'm going to guess that bashing your brother or sister over the head over the possibility that you may be five feet closer to a God who can close any distance in the twinkling of an eye is not on your to-do list.

I know that it's not on mine.

(Thanks to Pastor Melissa Scott)

1. A friend who is probably reading this says that he has had reality smash his pre-conceived notions about the world so often that he refers to his contemporaneous way of thinking about the world as his “current level of deception.”