My dear friends,
Many years ago I co-directed a play. It was Danton's Death by Georg Büchner. For many hours, my co-director and I had brooded over the play, agreeing on our basic message, on how to stage it. We had discussed to define the roles, to cast the expression, the way of playing and what is called dramatic climax properly. It is important when directing to choose the right cast for the appropriate roles. Only in this way will the play be a success in the end. That's the only way to create fascination and excitement.
It was never performed.
Why? Were we that bad?
Oh, no. But it was an open theater group, an amateur theater group. And we had the requirement that anyone who would join the group had to be included. The group was so mixed and the characters so different that we really got into trouble: People who had never been on stage before, but wanted to play the lead role. People who had been playing forever and had little understanding for those who were new. People who thought they could interpret the play better than we could as directors and just weren't ready to accept leadership.
You can do what you want- if the members do it "their own way" and are also completely intransigent in that position, then you despair and eventually quit if there is no way to expel or delineate individuals from the group. Conflicts escalate - not only between the director and the actors, but also among themselves. Chaos breaks out.
We had people who wanted a lead role so badly- but were not willing to learn their lines. We had people who thought they were so brilliant and unique that they put their own interpretation over the intended one, regardless of the consequences.
I smile a little: every director, everyone who has ever played theater, knows those whose creative self-expression brings tears to your eyes when the call goes out: "EPIC! I find this interpretation of mine EPIC!" The problem is: epic moments are created by the director in "collaboration" with the script or screenplay, not by the actor. He- plays his role within a given interpretive framework. And in this - he is free, but not beyond it.
To make a long story short: in the end the whole group was hopelessly at odds until the breakup. The ambitious were done with those who didn't learn their roles, we as directors were done with the reinterpretations, the interplay didn't work, the relationships were broken. And since everyone was right and no one gave in, we went our separate ways, even though we had previously been a nationally known theater group with sold-out houses. We threw in the towel in failure.
What does this have to do with spiritual warfare?
Everything, dear friends and brothers and sisters. Simply: everything.
When we lose sight of the director's goal, when we don't ask about him, but feel that our interpretation of the role is the only true one, when we simply cut entire scenes, shorten passages of text and get bogged down in the individual act, then chaos breaks out.
In recent years, I have observed with more than stomach cramps what is going on in the Christian community:
from complete reinterpretation of Christianity, spiritualistic practices, "complete lawlessness" as Jesus calls it, to robotic, narrow-minded and condemnatory tendencies, everything can be found in Christianity. But the most striking, the saddest, is:
Everyone argues. All are picking on each other. Everyone blames the other side for not succeeding. Some claim that they have found the only true direction and condemn all others. Others overreact to this, newcomers collapse under the merciless pressure, while eager individuals mildly smile and try to gradually pull the actors away into other groups, with promises they won't keep, but which seem enticingly harmonious. And then there are the moderates, the ones who are crushed in the middle because they look on stunned at this civil war in the Christian community that is driving the division ever further. The ones who look on stunned as brothers and sisters attack each other with axes and arrows and tar and feather each other.
Well. How shall I put it?
This IS the true spiritual warfare, friends. Anyone who can't see that the Body of Christ is digesting itself right now while Satan dances triumphantly on the tables and pulls the strings in the background must already be blind. There is no question of cooperation.
"They with their legalism are to blame! We must drive out the religious spirit!"
"Those with their inner healing are to blame! Nothing is sacred to them! This is not about us, but about God!"
"He's divorced, he's unholy! God doesn't tolerate that!"
"They exclude the broken from the church, Jesus would be ashamed of them!"
"They're so cold and unloving that you can really only flee!"
"They just want a feel-good gospel, as if Jesus would forgive anything!"
...add a thousand more accusations yourself.
... and meanwhile Satan laughs to himself and watches calmly as his seeds of discord successfully sprout. At some point, no one is in the mood anymore, everyone is unhappy, and the newcomers flee as fast as they can into the arms of the all-understanding, all-devouring world unity god who promises you such wonderful, worldly things - and whose henchmen make a good business out of the confusion. Well, and those outside? The ones who are to be recruited for the Kingdom of God? The ones who, to put it bluntly, are to be saved from the deepest darkness and from damnation, fear and being lost in sin? Honestly? They look at that and think, well, that can't be it.
And right they are.
Oh dear. Oh dear, we are deep in the mess with each other.
But what is the goal?
Well, Jesus was very clear on these points:
"He answered and said, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself" (Luke 10:27)"And when you stand praying, if you have anything against anyone, forgive him, that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses." (Mk 11:25)
You know, I've recently been thinking deeply about the Fall, about original sin, which, to be clear, was atoned for on the Cross. Jesus' sacrifice is a sacrifice of restoration to the reconciled, original relationship with God.
The problem is that we all recognize that the Fall destroyed man's relationship with God, and eagerly to overzealously strive to restore and maintain that relationship to its former glory. BUT:
There is just one more aspect to this Fall, a second level of sin - and this happened between Adam and Eve:
"The woman whom thou hast joined unto me gave me of the tree, and I did eat" (Genesis 3:12).
"I can't help it at all. You have put this (worthless) woman at my side. And she has made sure that I eat." Neither does Adam call Eve my companion nor does he call her " my wife." He rejects her for her failure and devalues her."
Even more, he accuses God that this woman he gave him is a total failure. He judges, even though he was not one iota better than her.
Well, and then there's this shifting of blame:
"Eve is to blame! And you, God! I have become a victim of circumstances."
"And the LORD God said unto the woman, What hast thou done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me[5], so I ate." (Genesis 3:13)
"I am not to blame, it was the serpent that deceived me. And that's why I ate, God."
It is always the others who are to blame. And they are also worthless. And in the case of doubt, if nothing more is found to get rid of own guilt, it was until today always.... the snake.
I wonder how the story of this failure would have ended if one of the two had overcome himself. If they had said, no matter how much fear and shame, "I am not perfect, Father, I am just very well made, I realize that now. Please forgive me, I have understood the lesson."
They didn't, and so both levels of relationship were broken: "After your husband will be your desire, but he will rule over you! " (Genesis 3:16)
The interpersonal level of eye level was also destroyed by the Fall.
And so God also tells Adam: " Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you: Thou shalt not eat thereof (...,) (Genesis 3:17)
Because you have listened to the voice of your wife. Not to the voice "of the woman whom you have joined to me." You have listened to the voice of your wife.
God's goal is the restoration of relationship with one another and His perfect order of all things. That is what Jesus came for.
Where are we as a church in our relationship with one another?
How do we treat our fellow brothers and sisters?
How ready are we to live love, to take back guilt to ourselves without passing it on to others-or the serpent?
Satan, see, does everything to keep relationships destroyed and broken and hopelessly down the drain through self-love, hierarchy and strife, devaluation and rejection.
But a theater play, an epic- can only succeed when all are one in their striving, one with the play and enrich each other in their roles.
May unity come to the communities, unbreakable, so that the world may recognize us by how much we are loved and love. For God's orders are not very good, but perfect. Unlike us.
Oh yes: The rabble-rousing hordes...
You know, spirits, ghosts and demons are incorporeal. Without the consent to be influenced by them, they do nothing. For that they need hosts who follow their impulses and whispers.
The ones who do the damage - that's us.
Weekly impulses to the post will be posted Wednesday, Friday and Sunday on my social media presence and associated groups:
For today, I'll close with the question: how's your respect for others?
Where in this battle do you stand?
God bless you.
Part 3: About the fourth dimension, an author and successful interaction will follow next week.
Looking forward to it.
With love and confidence,
Sibylle/ Daughter of Zion