Don’t allow Gods blessing to be kept from you

[Biblicist]

One of the problems that many Pentecostal and Charismatic believers may face, is that even though we can give head assent to the power of God, we can still be pushed back from his power as a by-product of the evil and wickedness that comes from with the wof and prosperity movements; to be fair, evil is not the sole domain of these two movements as it can be found in every aspect of church life and this can further push people away from walking in God’s bountiful blessings.

This is something that we must always be on the lookout for and I suspect that maybe there are very few of us who are not being effected in some way by what we see occurring around us - we must always ground ourselves on the Word of God and ensure that we walk in his promises on a daily basis.

For those of us who have work associates or who even look at our newspapers and television news programmes, it’s not hard to walk with a sense of shame when we see so many reports of evil being generated particularly from within ministries that talk about the power of God. When we see that our brothers and sisters in Christ are being manipulated by the so many charlatans who present themselves as being of the Body when in many cases they are simply wolves in sheeps clothing, then this can further isolate us from the Power of God and even away from his presence in our lives.

I had a friend over today who is not a Christian and in the background a news article came on regarding a Muslim sect in Russia that had apparently built an underground bunker where they kept over 20 children hidden, where many had never seen the light of day. He made the incredible remark that this turns people off Christianity! Once I regained my composure, I asked him how could the aberrant behaviour of a small band of Muslims be blamed on Christianity? He said, well don’t they worship the same God as you! If the world can confuse this type of behaviour as being a part of the Church, we can only wonder how they view the wickedness that exists within Full Gospel circles.

I've placed this topic in the non-wof forum so to avoid any wof/non-wof prattle.

 

[ByTheSpirit]

Great post, and for what it's worth, the last statement made doesn't necessarily mean the WoF/Prosperity movement will not argue this if one should see it, even though this is not a forum for them to debate on.

 

[Biblicist]

Great post, and for what it's worth, the last statement made doesn't necessarily mean the WoF/Prosperity movement will not argue this if one should see it, even though this is not a forum for them to debate on.

Even though this topic certainly has an emphasis regarding wof & non-wof distinctives, and of course it was the main motivation for posting in the first place; we should remind ourselves that poor doctrine and practices have been a part of all areas of the Full Gospel movement from its very inception and as such we cannot simply blame the wof and prosperity movements for the disastrous state of the contemporary church – we are just as much to blame!

How often have we heard well meaning but unwise comments from within even our own ranks regarding how we can obtain the blessings of God. Even though many of us would like to believe that we are immune from the affects of poor doctrine, the mainline Full Gospel movement has itself been prone to making exaggerated claims to both prosperity and healing from within a very poor Scriptural framework. This can occur not only by false brothers from outside of our own ranks who falsely claim some form of ‘anointing’ as harm can just as easily be created by those who feel that as salaried members that they need to be ‘doing the Pentecostal business’, which demands that they can demonstrate a few healings and miracles in their ministry.

I’m not all that sure where this topic will go, even if it does go beyond merely a few posts but we certainly all need to ensure that we are fully appropriating the blessings of God and as a result of doing so, we will in the end help to extend the Kingdom of God.