Word for the Church: The Dirty Teacup

I'm keeping this brief and to the point. 

As I was falling asleep last night, I saw a vision, and immediately had the sense that the Holy Spirit was showing me something. I have learned to tell the difference between normal floaty thoughts as I sink into sleep, and whispers -- or even loud, insistent messages -- from the Holy Spirit.

What I saw was the underside of a porcelain teacup. It was packed with potting soil, and a green plant grew out of it, but looking at the outside of this teacup, and underneath it, soil had spilled over the edges and coated large portions of the outside of the cup. It looked dirty and gross, and was in sore need of cleaning.

The one holding the cup had grabbed a rag and was preparing to wipe off the dirt when it became clear to me that the dirt was moving, and I realized with a good bit of horror that the dirt was vermin, thousands of tiny bugs and gross things on the outside of the cup.

I heard this word: What is on the inside will come outside. As I prayed about this, I thought of Jesus when he accused the Pharisees of being whitewashed tombs, where they are "beautiful on the outside, but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean" (Matthew 23:27-28). There, Jesus was accusing them of hypocrisy, but hypocrisy is a symptom of the disease of sin, and very much a tool of the enemy's.

So what I think the Lord was telling me was this: The state of our nation, the state of the church, right now, currently, September 4, 2021, is dirty. Many of us have not been walking in the cleansing righteousness of the Lord, because we have been standing in accusation and disunity. Getting rid of that dirt should be a simple matter of cleansing, right? It should be a simple matter of wiping it away, but even as we realize this, it becomes obvious that the dirt is not the problem.

The problem is that the church is allowing itself to live under demonic, active influence, and many of us are not even aware of it. The pottery is not broken, the plant is not dead, but the "dirt" is living and working to kill and destroy the life that is there. The "dirt" is not dirt at all, but is active and at work. Y'all, Paul is frustrated in Colossians 2:20-23 with the church, because it has lost touch with the real battle, the real issue. He says: "Since you died with Christ (the victory is already in place) to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 'Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!'? These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence."

The real issue comes out in Colossians 3:1-4: "Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Sent your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory."

If we are under the illusion that masks and vaccines and Covid are truly the issue we're fighting, we are under a false illusion, because the division that is happening is spiritual and real, and the enemy is taking a real physical issue (Covid is a real disease, and hygiene should be exercised -- please don't think I'm saying it's imaginary), and using it to fight a spiritual war, in order to divide and destroy, and to eat up our roots where we are planted. When we're focused on earthly things, the things that are "destined to perish with use," we are not setting our hearts on things above.

David Jeremiah reminded me this morning that we are commanded four times in Ephesians 6 to stand strong. We often mistake that passage for preparing to fight, because we are gearing up in armor, but the command is to stand.

Jesus has already won our victory for us, and David said this: "From the spiritual perspective, we're not fighting FOR victory, but FROM victory, and this changes everything."

We are in a spiritual war, but we have already won it through Christ. Now we are supposed to stand in our victory and armor ourselves against attack -- to stand strong. But there's this trick that the enemy is playing: If he can make us think our debates are just about the debates and not about the division that he is actively trying to bring out in the church, he is going to retake the ground where we are supposed to be standing firm.

Stand on the Word, not on accusation and disunity. Stand in our victory. We've got to stop thinking that the warfare happening around us isn't real, because it is, but through Christ and unified in Him, we stand in our victory.