Kingdom & Culture
When we look at the New Testament pattern for the early church we see a stark difference between it and many of the churches we see today. Paul saw this coming and penned a letter to his spiritual son to warn him of the dangers ahead. As the Apostle Paul looks across the landscape of time, he issues a shattering warning to Timothy, who was stationed as a young leader at the church in Ephesus.
"But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come… having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away." (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
This list is not merely a description of the secular world. These could be called the "fruit of an unbelieving believer," an unrighteous manifestation of human nature operating from a place of radical self-love. Paul is warning us against a culture that builds an external shell of religion while completely eviscerating its supernatural reality.
If the Kingdom of God has a building code, the primary material is relationship. We are not a static organization; we are what Peter calls "living stones" being built up as a spiritual house. In a corporate model, people are treated as resources to build the organization. In the Kingdom, the organization is the resource used to build the people.
The modern church has engineered a devastating compromise. We have mastered the art of maintaining a "form of godliness" while functioning in a total void of the power of God. The Greek word for power in Paul's letter is dunamis, the miracle-working, supernatural ability of the Holy Spirit.
You do not deny the supernatural working power of God simply by preaching against it. You deny the power of God by acting without it. God never intended for His family to represent Him on the earth without the dunamis power of His Spirit working with His sons and daughters.
In Matthew 17, when the disciples could not cast out a demon, Jesus did not point to a lack of sovereign timing or a missing strategic formula. He said simply: "Because of your unbelief." The disciples allowed their natural eyes to subvert their spiritual sight. What they saw in the natural overrode their faith in the moment.
This is why the disciplines of prayer and fasting are vital. There are two distinct operations of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer: the infilling and the coming-upon. The modern church suffers from a severe deficit, not of the Spirit's internal presence, but of His resting upon us for power ministry.
Imagine a bridge. On one side is your spirit, completely united with Jesus. On the other side is your physical body, the instrument through which you interact with the hurting world. The problem is rarely a lack of power in the source. The problem is that the bridge of the soul is heavily cluttered: blocked by natural logic, past disappointments, emotional self-protection, and the over-analysis of what our physical eyes can see.
Prayer and fasting are not religious works designed to move the hand of an indifferent God. Fasting is the heavy machinery of the Spirit. It clears the bridge of the soul, subduing the natural senses so that the dunamis already residing in our spirit can flow unhindered through our bodies to change the world.