I just came across this paragraph from D Martyn Lloyd Jones:
"Take your New Testament as it is. Look at the New Testament Christian, look at the New Testament church and you see it vibrant with a spiritual life, and, of course, it is always life that tends to lead to excesses. There is no problem of discipline in a graveyard; there is no problem very much in a formal church. The problems arise when there is life. A poor sickly child is not difficult to handle, but when that child is well and full of life and vigour, well, then you have your problems. Problems are created by life and by vigour, and the problems of the early church were spiritual problems arising because of the danger of going to excess in the spiritual realm.
Would anybody like to claim that speaking generally that is the danger in the church today?"
If only it was.
I’ve been challenged significantly by books like Tozer’s "The pursuit of God" as well as "Who’s afraid of the Holy Spirit". We live in a post reformation and post enlightenment age where spirituality has been relegated to the back of our mind and replaced with intellectual rationalism. Many even deny the existence of the supernatural. Christians may not outright deny the supernatural, but many of us practically deny the supernatural.
But "God is spirit and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24).
Lloyd-Jones’ words are thought provoking. If we (western Christians) were more spiritual – i.e. if we were continually conscious of the presence of God, then the problems that the western church would be dealing with would be quite different. We wouldn’t be dealing with unrepentant money loving "believers" or adulterous spouses – no – we’d be dealing with misuse of spiritual gifts and a host of other completely different sins. It makes you think.
Certainly it can’t be said that we suffer from spiritual excesses.
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