Agenda Driven or Accepting of Diversity?

[Apprehended]

Originally Posted by crakjak

Apprehended,

I happen to agree with you, I believe you post is very insightful of what happens when believers in Jesus Christ fellowship in the areas of agreement.
Honest and open discussion of the areas of disagreement, all the while loving and worshiping together in the unity of the Spirit.

I am considered lib and heretic on this form by most, but I still fellowship with my family, and friends from our UPC days. I have friends that my wife and I "won" to the Lord that are still in the UPC and we fellowship and love them all. I do not have an agenda toward any of them, they are true believers, and they treat us the same. Do they think differently behind the scenes? Who knows? We have great fellowship anyway. JMO

Anyway, I loved your post, blessings to you.

Amen. Glad someone was able to see what I was talking about.

Remembering the Word ask the question, "how can two walk together except they agree," does not imply that they must agree on every single minute item of insignifance. Agenda driven dogmatist use those minute items to divide the body of Christ in the presence of pride.

I visited with and preached for Billy Cole in Thailand when he was there. We had blessed fellowship together for serveral days. I believe it was as much blessed for him as it was for me. We discussed many, many things from the Word which gave me a insight on some of the things that he believed at the time.

While there, we went swimming at his retreat down on the Gulf of Siam. He told me that after being in Thailand for a very long time, he had no fellowship with another Christian of any sort as most of his time was spent in the hinterlands of that country. He had become starved for some sort of fellowship. (Kind of hard to believe since we have so much of it here) Nevertheless, he had become so starved that when he happened upon an old Greek Orthodox priest, he was so happy to at least find someone who believed that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, he fell on that old priests shoulder and wept. I've never forgotten that. The only, absolutely ONLY basis of that fellowship for that brief moment was that they both rejoiced in the knowledge that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Imgagine THAT.

That illustration is far afield from the original thought of this thread, nevertheless it underscores the idea that there are basis on which another christian and yourself, as you noted, can have good fellowship but for the obnoxious personality trait of the dogmatist.

You find dogmatist in every camp. They come in all stripes, shades and sizes. They give no latitude. Little do they understand that we have fellowship with Jesus Christ found in each other. When I see another Christian, I listen for the voice of the Spirit rather than the voice of the person himself. The voice of the Spirit is often...yea, all too often obscured by the voice of the dogmatist who inisist upon his minute point over which he is willing to divide the body of Christ. With that understanding, I was able to have sweet fellowship with Brother Reynolds, the AOG preacher. The fellowship was with Christ IN HIM.

Hard spirits are a source of great grief in the heart of Christ since it is so much the element of pride in that personality. Pride of the agenda driven dogmatist lifts one up just a notch above his bretheren. Often they do not recognize what they are doing. While it is the motivation of the dogmatist to seperate fellowship with his bretheren over the mundane and insignificant, the Spirit of Christ will break fellowship with such arrogance. The dirty little secret is, there is a great cavern of spiritual failures in such a one. If it were possible to pull back the curtain to see behind the veil of that personality, the darkness and horror would be shocking. They are far from living a life of victory in Jesus.

Should I ever see you, Crack I will not seek to have fellowship over some of the DUMB things that you believe, but I will seek to have fellowship with the Spirit of Christ in my brother for whom Christ died, in whom the Spirit of Christ dwells. Having found that, I will scarcely remember those far out things that you believe and we will share the joys of knowing Him and the fellowship of His hope and promise, while you overlook some of the dumb things that I believe. That fellowship in Christ will not be broken by our differences in opinions.

Love you, bro. Crack.