Functional Christianity

[RickyZ]

I hate labels, I think they're devisive and that most people can't be honestly described by them. Cessationalists, pre-millenist, Calvinist oy vey. But that's what people like. So as Easter winds down on the US west coast, I'm going to offer up a new one.

Functionalism. Functional Christianity.

As a Functionalist, we believe that if God tells us we are to cast out demons, we should function at a level that enables us to cast out demons. If Jesus tells us to heal the sick, we should function with the ability to bring healing to the sick. If Paul tells us to speak responsibly in tongues and prophesy, we should function with the freedom to speak in tongues and prophesy. If the Bible warns that spiritual warfare will increase in the end, then we should function in a manner that empowers us to commit spiritual warfare.

But if we proclaim that God is all powerful, and then take away His power by adding not here, not now, not these, not us, then we limit the Holy Spirit’s functionality to bear fruit in us as Jesus intends.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and we are called to function in His love and power which never ceases or takes pause.

 

[RachelBibleStudent]

actually this is already called continuationism...

 

[RickyZ]

Close but not the same... the difference is in believing they exist, and actually operating in them

 

[RickyZ]

I’m in the nosebleed seats at a Christian concert when something happens at the foot of the stage and security is called in to drag someone away. The Spiritsays “that’s not Me” and I’m burdened with this need to go talk to the performer. When his set is over I make my way thru an unlocked security door and into this long empty hall with no one there. I’m wondering where to go and this guy behind me says “can I help you sir?” I turn around it’s a security guard, expecting to be thrown out I say I’m looking for so-an-so’s room. The guard points down the direction I was headed and says 3[SUP]rd[/SUP] door on the right. I say thanks, turn and walk that way, expecting the guy to stop me and ask if I had credentials or something. When all I hear is silence I turn around and he’s gone, in a hall where he’d had to have run to disappear that fast and I’ would have heard that. I knock on the star’s door, he lets me in. I explain my impressions to him, and he says yes that he had been having the same feelings’ and really appreciated the confirmation.

 

[RickyZ]

We were walking down the Venice boardwalk, a beachfront tourist trap where the Krishna’s like to recruit. So we come across a group of about 15 of them, with more arriving. They’re chanting and singing and beatin’ the tambourines and drums, and showing every sign of just getting started. My friends stop to watch for a moment. My ‘spidey senses’ are in full alarm. I step back and quietly to myself I start praying in the Spirit to bind, silence, and disperse the dark spirits and their humans. Soon my friends want to move on and so we do. So we stroll another block and a half, decide that’s far enough, and turn around to start back.

When we come to the place the Krishnas had been, there’s no sign of them. Except for 2 down by the water talking to themselves they were gone with the wind.

 

[RickyZ]

A friend’s sister had been sick for 3 months with who knows what. They’d exhausted all the tests vailable and were at a dead end. I felt compassion for her and gently laid my hand on her shoulder and gently said “well in Jesus Name I pray that you be healed”. When I visited a week later she was fine.

 

[RickyZ]

I met a woman a while back, spiritually very strong and sensitive, even more than she knows. I knew from what she is involved with (heavily into Kabala) that the ‘darkies’ (I don’t like the word demon because there’s so much misinformation and thought about them) were present around her, and the first time I went to visit her they kept their distance while we chatted. But the moment I stepped out her door two of them escorted me down the hall, down the stairs, into the street to my car and watched me drive away. Plain as day, they don't even try to hide from me anymore because they know God's made me wise to them, especially in a situation like this.

When I pray for her, I often got this visual impression where it's night time, and I'm elevated like up in a tree to where I can see across the rooftops. Off a mile or so is her apartment building, and you know how buildings usually give off some ambient light, well the light from her building is much brighter than the surroundings. Bright enough that it shines up upon the bottom of what at first looks to be some very dark tumultuous clouds. But looking closer, I can see it is instead a thick black swirling cloud of dark spirits. They're like a ginormous nasty swarm of mosquitoes, just looking for way in to draw blood, being held back solely by the light.

So one night I'm praying for her, and it’s concerted prayer; the swarm is thick and heavy and really agitated - pressing in to the point where they were smothering out the light. I got a sense of real urgency, that something really bad was happening. So I got in there in the Name of Jesus and did what I could to bind and silence and swat at a few of them. But I was just one man against a swarm, definitely outnumbered. So I commanded angels to get in to fight and occupy the enemy; and I saw angels start charging into the darkness. And then I command more to move in and get her out and to a place of safety. And I see more of them rush off into the scene. And so that is how I fight, claiming the Authority of Christ to bind and silence them, and commanding the angelic host to go and do battle and occupy the darkies while others get in and get her out. And I'm watching this happen in my vision; I don't ever see her, but I see the forces rushing off to do battle against the swarm.

So the next day I'm talking to her and before I can say anything she starts telling me about how she has always had trouble dealing with certain critical issues. They had been recently piling up and squeezing her to the point where she was starting to come apart and panic attack over how she was going to deal with them. She confessed that she’d dealt with issues like that before by cutting herself (including her wrists) and that night she was ready to do it again. Then she said, 'it was so weird, because all of a sudden this voice started telling me to get out, get out, leave, and something grabbed me by the arms and dragged me out of the apartment and down to my car.' She ended up finding a bench at the beach where some people and things she encountered helped her find peace.

 

[RickyZ]

I have a Cockatoo I've taught to fly and play freely among the trees around the neighborhood. In nearly 15 years since I started her training, she's never failed to come home at night. Until a couple of weeks ago. My wife and I searched the surrounding neighborhood until after midnight. We Googled a map of the area and laid out a search grid for the morning... another layer of neighborhoods, the park, put out some flyers. My wife was going to start walking the grid at sunup, and I was going to post notices at the animal shelter and pet shops in the area.

And of course we prayed for her safety, directing the angelic to take her to a place of safety, and to bring us back together again.

For some reason this grove of tall trees gnawed at my mind. They were farther off, and in a direction I figured she'd least go, but it just wouldn’t go away. I started to figure that if she'd been grabbed by a hawk, it might head towards the nearest grove of tall trees for it’s meal. So, I figured once we'd done what we'd planned, as a last resort, I'd go check this grove out for a carcass.

Next morning, I'm heading towards the shelter as my first stop and it takes me in the direction of this grove of trees. Something just keeps telling me "stop and look, stop and look, stop and look...". So I find a side street and a place to park and hike about a half mile back in along the railroad tracks, and work my way in about as far as I could go, seeing no hide nor hair of her in the trees or on the ground. So finally I stop, hand on my hips, doing the hmmm what now thing, when I hear her call. I turn around, and up in this tree right over my head she steps out from behind a clump of leaves. She makes her way down to me, and we head home.

 

[RickyZ]

For 2 weeks I'd had a growing premonition about having a car accident. Finally one day as I was getting gas two cars hit outside the station. As I watched the drivers get out of their cars something taps me on the shoulder and says 'you're next'. Less than a mile and a half later boom it happens.

 

[RickyZ]

I know I take it too personally when people say this can't happen. But it is kind of personal to have your entire life dismissed by those who say it can't.

 

[Nancyer]

But if we proclaim that God is all powerful, and then take away His power by adding not here, not now, not these, not us, then we limit the Holy Spirit’s functionality to bear fruit in us as Jesus intends.

God is the same yesterday, today, and forever, and we are called to function in His love and power which never ceases or takes pause.

I love this explanation, Ricky. I may have to use this with others, here and elsewhere. I've said here before, a lot of people discount God, argue, say He isn't listening because they don't like the way He's doing things. It's His world, after all. I will pray for the ability to function in whatever capacity God would have me. Thank you.

 

[TomL]

I agree, Christians in this age should function as Christians. But some the specifics given in this thread, such as casting out demons was not given for us to do. It was given to the disciples/apostles to do.

 

[Elizabeth619]

I know I take it too personally when people say this can't happen. But it is kind of personal to have your entire life dismissed by those who say it can't.

Well, when you put it like that it is very understandable why you sometimes get frustrated on the subject. If I continue with discussion like this one I will do my best to consider that, and how one may feel completely and totally insulted.
Right now, I am not getting in to the conversation. I am tired. Want a nap. Won't get one. I should be used to this by now.

 

[RickyZ]

I don't feel insulted. Dismissed is the right word. And the price I've paid to learn about this stuff has been high. That's what makes me so passionate about it.

 

[sinless]

Ricky, let me ask you this. As a functional Christian who believes we can cast out devils, raise the dead, do all the Jesus did (and so do I), do you believe we as born again believers can live without sin?

 

[sinless]

Ricky?????

 

[RickyZ]

I believe that we have the tools to minimize sin, but as long as we inhabit this flesh we are prone to failure.

I was hoping someone would question that last example I posted, it wasn't of God. I chose to ignore it and paid a price for that failure. Is failure to act against a plan of the devil a sin?

Sorry if I don't reply right away. I only have so much time to spend here.

 

[sinless]

I believe that we have the tools to minimize sin, but as long as we inhabit this flesh we are prone to failure.

I was hoping someone would question that last example I posted, it wasn't of God. I chose to ignore it and paid a price for that failure. Is failure to act against a plan of the devil a sin?

Sorry if I don't reply right away. I only have so much time to spend here.

Before a believer can walk in any power at all they must first forsake all and every sin. We cannot use this flesh as an excuse.

Romans 13:[SUP]14 [/SUP]But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

 

[RickyZ]

Every minute of every day...