PROPHETIC WORDS

CHECKING OUR HEARTS IN A TIME OF REFORMATION

by Lyn Packer

September 2024.

I love God's commitment to our wholeness, growth, and freedom. He is not willing that we stay bound in any way. 

We can look at all that is happening within the church at the moment and think it is in a time of disarray, with traditional beliefs and ideas being challenged, people going through times of deep questioning, and some even dismissing much of what they previously believed, and think it is the work of the devil.

Yet Jesus Himself often disrupted people's thinking in order to move people beyond the status quo. He did so to bring change, challenge religious mindsets, and release a move of God into the earth that carries on even today. In John chapters 3–4 we see a couple of examples of Jesus disrupting people's beliefs to bring truth and change. First, He tells Nicodemus that he needs to go back and start over, to be born again — perhaps the most apt image for disruption ever. Then He speaks to the Samaritan woman at the well and tells her that the location of worship doesn’t matter at all. That was the equivalent of Jesus saying that the temple practices of their day, were not what worship was about. Jesus was saying that what matters is the attitude (or spirit) and authenticity (or truth) of the worshipper. Jesus was calling for a radical disruption in His religion, and a similar disruption and migration are needed no less today in the religion that names itself after Him. 

Reformation is not comfortable and it is not pretty. It can feel chaotic at times, and extremely disconcerting as God challenges our thinking, and realigns us with the truth about Himself and the way His Kingdom works.  We only have to look back through time to see this. 

We are currently in a time of God-initiated reformation. During a reformation, ideas, traditional beliefs, and mindsets are challenged and shifted, people feel out of place like they no longer fit where they did... and more. 

In times of reformation, or new moves of God, those who are wedded in their heart to old moves and have become dogmatic in their beliefs will tend to attack the new move.

Because we don't understand what God is doing, we turn instead to categorizing or labeling people or ideas. Instead of taking time to ask those people what has led them to their conclusions we distance ourselves from those brothers and sisters in the Lord, dismiss them as being wrong, and end up calling those people names like heretic, deconstructionist, woke, demonized, and more. We shun them and sometimes gossip about them, tainting others with our misguided, and often wrong, opinions.

These past few weeks I have felt the Lord saying very strongly, "The name-calling has to stop."

We are called to see our brothers and sisters after the Spirit, not through our fleshly mindsets (2 Cor 5:16,17), to love one another as Christ has loved us (John 13:34,35). Within the church, there should be no looking down on people who have different perspectives from us. God is calling us to love our brothers and sisters, even if they have come to some different conclusions than we have on certain subjects. He is calling us to see them as He does and love them as He does, despite our differences. There should be no “us vs. them” mindset. 

In this time of reformation here are some questions we can ask ourselves...

• Have I become dogmatic in my beliefs (feeling I have the truth and nothing I believe could possibly be wrong)? Has religious pride found a foothold in my life?

• If I feel upset by things others are saying - Why am I feeling threatened? Am I afraid of having my beliefs challenged? Why do I feel defensive or want to go into attack mode? 

• Have I stopped to ask the Lord whether He is challenging my thinking – or is it the devil, or is it just the human response of feeling challenged by someone not agreeing with what I believe? 

• Have I taken the time to ask the person what brought them to their new beliefs, or did I make an assumption and jump to a conclusion? 

• Am I willing to allow God to challenge me and my current thinking? Am I willing to allow Him to give me new revelation? 

• Am I willing to see my brothers and sisters as God sees them, and lay down fleshly thinking?

• Am I willing to undergo personal reformation, to enable me to work with God in what He is doing, rather than work against Him?

This word has been a weighty one, but one that is necessary at this time. Let's each use the questions above to check our hearts, and make a fresh choice to walk in the fruits of the Spirit – especially self-control – taking control of the way we think and speak about each other, bringing our thoughts and words into submission to Christ ( 2 Cor 10:5, James 1:19,20,26). 

BIO