A Conversation on the Failure of 35,000 X 2000's Repentance

As sometimes happens, what I write here generates a response that is sent to me privately.

That was the case with last week's post using the CGGC as a case study in repentance that the Lord has not blessed.

The response came from one of the CGGC's most careful thinkers, Pastor Phil Wilson. Phil is a man who loves the Lord more than other people, serves the Lord, thinks little of churchly traditions and who has committed his life to a walk in the Spirit.

He emailed me a reply to my recent blog post and concluded it by giving me permission to use his comments here.  I am doing that.  I am also including my response to him.

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Bill,

You said:

 

"The question I'm asking is, why?  The Lord to Whom the framers of 35,000 prayed is the Lord of all power and grace and mercy and authority and love and blessing. Yet, He did not bless. And, He is not blessing."

To this I disagree in this respect: Ephesians 1:3. God put this in the past tense meaning that the blessings we have need of are already provided for us by the shed blood of Jesus. 

 

We do not have to go and 'seek' after God's blessings.  For this amounts to trying to get what God has already placed within us by the Holy Spirit. There are many other scriptures that point to this as well.

 

This is more than a play on words for which ever way we perceive what God is doing will determine our faith and our actions

NOW, why are we not seeing the affects of God's blessings? Here I believe is where your call for repentance comes. 

 

We must change.  We are called to walk in the Spirit Galatians 5:16.  Jesus tells us (John 6:63) that the Word is Spirit and life.  So to walk in the Spirit is to live according to the Word. 

 

The Word must have more importance than surveys or the newest fad. 

 

The reason for the deadness in much of the CGGC, but not all, isn't a lack of knowing the Word but rather, like the Pharisees, who knew the Word, there is no difference in the character from the knowledge.  2 Peter 1:1 - 12. We have to have a desire not just to change but to conform to the image of Christ.  Until Proverbs 3:5 - 12, 4:20 - 23 becomes a heart driven desire nothing different will happen. 

It is not God's fault for the decline because God has blessed and is blessing us but an unwilling (hard) heart cannot receive.  The fault is with us not God. 

 

You and I have witnessed so many opportunities for growth and expansion & then to watch as someone in power becomes territorial and derails what God wants to do. 

 

So the call to REPENT and do the works that you first did is God's desire for us to receive what He has already been provided. 

 

God wants to bless us we are failing to receive because we are waiting on God whereas the truth is God is waiting for us to believe Him (John 6:29) and then to do the works that Jesus did.

Phil Wilson

Yes you may use this

 

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(I wrote this in response to Phil's note. Please excuse any problems with formatting:)

 

Phil,

I appreciate what you say and substantially agree with it.

I was making the observation that Paul's, well, formula from 2 Corinthians 7, that describes a repentance that leads to salvation hasn't applied to what the CGGC has done and as you note, in my blog post, I concluded by asking the question, why. 

In that 2 Corinthians verse, Paul also says that worldly sorry brings death.

I wonder if the motivation that eventually prompted 35,000 X 2000 was actually worldly sorrow. The CGGC certainly seems to be in the throes of death at the moment. 

While I agree with you that what we need was accomplished in the past in the shed blood of Jesus, I believe that there comes a time when, due to hardness heart, the Lord turns away from a person--or a church. 

In the Revelation 2 passage you mention in the Lord commanding, "do the things you did at first" comes with the warning, "I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place."

I'm not suggesting that the CGGC has come to that end, but there are times that I do wonder.

That Galatians 5:16 command to walk by the Spirit is a point of need in the CGGC. My calls to repentance have packed into them the call to abandon love for the institution and to live in the power of the Spirit.

We, in the CGGC, again and again, want the Lord to bless what we are doing when the spiritual truth is that He calls us to join Him in the work HE is doing.

As we both know, that repentance has not happened in the CGGC. 

Blessings on you,

 

bill

 

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I love Phil and admire his willingness to stand for the authority of the Word and the Spirit and for his ability to say that, for the most part, the people in the CGGC are Pharisees in their response to the Word and that many of the people in the CGGC do not walk in the Spirit, 

 

And, that he says these things with a boldness I lack the gift (courage?) to muster.

 

My prayer is that the people of the CGGC will read these words and that will be cut to the heart by them and that they will repent.

 

Thanks, Phil.

 

Blessings.

 

May you not be defrocked.