We have been asking God, for some time now, to direct us into the places where He desires us to be. We are submitting our wills, our desires, our plans to God’s desire for us. How does this work out?
Do people individually discover God’s will and then collectively share how God has been leading them. Do we then decide how God is leading the church based on how He is leading each of us individually? This has been the assumption in many churches. God will lead people individually; the sum of this individual leading equals the direction of the church.
This is a false assumption. In our passage this week, God leads the church to direct individuals. The discerning of the Holy Spirit happens as the believers are gathered for worship.
While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” (Acts 13:2 NIV)
The Holy Spirit is mysterious, dynamic, and ever prompting his people. Reading Francis Chan’s Forgotten God has illuminated the work of the Holy Spirit for me. I would highly recommend this book.
The point I am making is that in Acts, the people discern the Holy Spirit as they are gathered. It is not a private endeavor. Sure, we each need to learn to be attentive to the Holy Spirit in our lives. He prompts each of us in different ways as we seek His guidance. However, Acts paints the picture of the church discerning together. Paul’s journeys in the New Testament lay the foundation for God’s work throughout the entire world. Paul and Barnabas are directed to go in Acts 13 as the church discerns through its worship.
May we continue to do the ever important work of discerning God collectively as we gather.
Wade, As I read your last two blogs, the word synergism came to mind – it means that the sum of the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts. This principle is very important in medicine, and in specific, cancer chemotherapy. Arch Mutter, for example, is receiving three different anticancer drugs. The rationale is that each drug has not only a specific pharmacologic activity against a specific tumor type but each drug also enhances the activity of one or both of the other drugs as well. Thus 1+1+1= 4 or 5, not three. (This is based on knowledge of cellular kinetics of the cancer cells and pharmacodynamics of the drugs, which is the result of basic laboratory research which I don’t have access to or entirely understand.) Nevertheless I believe it applies to the church as well. We can accomplish so much more as a body by coming together and discerning what the Holy Spirit wants us to do and then in accomplishing what we have been inspired to do. This thought invites a reflection on spiritual gifts (I Cor 12: 1-12) and serves to remind us that the church is made up of many different but essential parts (I Cor 12: 12-30). I think this means that one individual sitting home watching Joel Osteen or Charles Stanley cannot spiritually be all that God expects him to be.
Joe Songer