FIVE FOR FIGHTING and Making Spiritual Babies! by Major Stephen Court Alright, let’s cut through the polite ... diplomacy for a day. It needs a rest. This one is for all the long-time, traditional, comfortable Salvos – officers and other soldiers – who have either slipped into or bought into a club-mentality, intimidated, woe-is-me, inferiority-complexed, ‘careful’ poor imitation of The Salvation Army. You are messing this whole thing up. Look, let’s set something straight – in love, of course. a. The Salvation Army is a revolutionary movement of covenanted warriors exercising holy passion to win the world for Jesus. If that does not describe your experience and commitment, then we invite you to join The Salvation Army right now. Otherwise, we invite you to lose the uniform and go to a church. b. The Salvation Army exists for the benefit of those who don’t belong. That is, we’re not here to wipe your spiritual nose. You need The Salvation Army as a place for training, accountability, an outlet for your calling, and release valve for your charismata. The Salvation Army does not need you, nor does it owe you ‘pastoral care’ – it does not exist for you, it exists for the majority of the 7.1 billion people in the world who are still headed toward hell. If you aren’t going to help us reach them, then please get out of the way. You are contaminating our identity. c. The Salvation Army is the fist of the body of Christ. And we punch above our weight! So, look, we are quite prepared and able to evangelise and disciple and train and strategise and deploy and invade and conquer with signs and wonders and miracles and healing and deliverance and prophetic and glory fits and heaps more through sacrifice and heroism and simplicity and daring and risk and FAITH. While we are happy (eager, even) to hand off many of the historical innovations that have since been picked up by charities and governments, we will not discard responsibility for the salvation of the world and rely [other Christians] to fulfill the great commission. They play their role, too, of course – the body is Big and we’re just the fist. But we ARE the fist. d. We love to fight and we fight with love. Read it again. It isn’t ‘we love to Home League and we Home League with love’. It’s not ‘we love to play in the Band and we play in the Band with love’. It isn’t even ‘we love to gather and we gather in love’. No – none of that. It isn’t about groups and traditions and some imitation Christian community over lukewarm coffee following lukewarm ‘holiness’ meetings (often called ‘worship services’ but don’t get me started - google “Blood and Fire Under Fire” or “Semantics Antics” for more on that). We love to fight. We fight for the souls of people. We fight demons. And we do it in the opposite spirit. They are motivated by hate. And we, by love. And we love to do it. William Booth summed it up: “Real soldiers fight, live to fight, love to fight, love the thickest of the fight, and die in the midst of it.” If we’re speaking GREEK to you it is because you aren’t (yet?) a Salvationist. The good news is that you can be converted today (or, please, go to a church). e. We are saved to save. We’re not saved to serve.... We’re not even going to try to compromise or convince people on this today. We’re stating it. The Salvation Army is not at all about serving people. Do we serve people sometimes as we serve God? Yes, in two ways – 1. As a means of accomplishing our mission (that is, to help us get them saved on the way to getting everyone saved), and 2. As a (super)natural overflow of Holy Spirit-compassion in our lives. That’s it. We are ALL about SAVING THE WORLD (and don’t start with ‘we don’t save anyone – God does’ – of course, but we’ll change the terminology once you convince Paul to change his use of it in 1 Corinthians 9 when he states his intention that ‘by all possibly means I might save some’). We are quickly running out of time on this mess you ... have made of The Salvation Army. It is time for you to repent or move on. We pray this – Lord, change their hearts or change their addresses. That is, we want God to fire you up as holy Salvos or move you on down the street to a church. Does that sound like a lack of love to you? Maybe it does. Or maybe it sounds like a lot of love for millions and maybe even billions of people whose salvation is being jeopardised by you jamming The Salvation Army. Maybe God is spawning a boundless love for the lost that is bigger than love for ‘the Army’ or the pale imitations of it in our generation that pass as an excuse for the Primitive Salvationism that can win the world for Jesus. Why not act today? Officers and other soldiers can repent and consecrate or hand in their epaulets and move to a church. God be with you.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Aug 2013 19:00:57 +0000
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