In recent years, many of us have gone through almost traumatic changes in our Christian experience relating to our concepts of the church, leadership, and the essence of fellowship (koinonia) itself. Part of this trauma comes from our having to go “outside the camp” where we have been so very comfortable for many years, from where we truly have thought that we had been seeing things “clearly” from the Lord’s perspective – only to find that our “light had become darkness”, and that we ourselves had fallen into the very sins that we have so fervently criticized and condemned in others – even to the point of becoming a total contradiction to our claimed purpose for being.
Indeed, these have been years of repenting of many sins, and a continuing to repent as the Lord gives light and grace. What is so interesting is that the same process seems to be occurring all around the world among God’s people in many, many places.
I thought it would be a great tragedy if we truly fail to learn from our sins of the past. As T. Austin-Sparks closed his article, “I Will Overturn, Overturn, Overturn . . .”, he wrote, “AND THE THRONE ABOVE SAYS, “IF YOU CAN’T READ HISTORY, YOU WILL LEARN IN EXPERIENCE.”
For us to repent and confess them most completely, it would be best to verbalize them – to name them, to call sin – sin. So that in our turning, we may indeed “gain” Christ Jesus, and Him alone.
What follows is a feeble and certainly incomplete attempt to do this. May His grace and Holy Spirit fill where I so lack. If, in reading this, the reader is inclined to not want to read further, I would request that you go to the very last point made at the very end of this article and at least read it. It is a section titled, “The Most Important Issue” found just before the “Conclusion”.
Full article here