SOMEONE SAID RECENTLY THAT BISHOP WILLIAM NICHOLSON ORDAINED A NUMBER OF INDIVIDUALS AS REVERENDS AND THESE ARE NOT TRUE ORDINATIONS. THE ORIGIN OF THIS WAS FROM FROM A TRADITIONAL PASTOR.
Please remember that we have also heard in a good many of our worship services that the “Spirit of Religion Kills”. So what is the spirit of religion and how does it impact the local church? Understanding this will help our Traditional Churches and our Moravian Revival Churches.
As someone has said, “The spirit of religion is a shift from joyful obedience in God and a transformed life, to simply doing the right things and abstaining from the wrong ones. The spirit of religion only allows for outward righteousness. It does not transform the person or the heart. Rather, it puts on a front and appearance that is no greater than skin deep. This impacts the local church by creating divisions between individuals and stealing the joy, freedom, healing, and transformation that comes through the power of God.”
In light of the Spirit of Religion, we read in Romans 16:17-18
(English Standard Version) the Apostle Paul final instructions and greetings: “17 I appeal to you, brothers, to watch out for those who cause divisions and create obstacles contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught; avoid them. 18 For such persons do not serve our Lord Christ, but their own appetites,[a] and by smooth talk and flattery they deceive the hearts of the naive.”
Spiritual heritage is wonderful; its good to look back and see what God has done in history, which we can celebrate. But sadly what has been SLOWLY lost by the Moravian Traditional Church is presentation of the simple “saving gospel of Jesus Christ” and going to the world, not to build a religion, but instead building the Kingdom of God. As a result of losing the saving gospel and losing this essential mission, the Traditional Church has slowly declined in NUMBER AND INFLUENCE FOR CHRIST’S KINGDOM IN the last several decades. This is a sad reality, but it is my prayer and love for this Church that someday “Revival” will come and blessing, and affluence in energy and mission for Christ will result and that the Church will have a more positive impact upon our societies around the world.
The following is ok with us, because God ordained it. The Traditional Church leaders threw the Anchorage Moravian Church out in 2016 in Jamaica. Praise God it set our Moravian Revival Churches free to grow the Kingdom of God. Our UIMM and World Fellowship of Moravian Revival Bishops and Pastors have been called of God, ordained of God, not by the Traditional Church, but by the Will and Power of God. All of our pastors are truly ordained of God.
Ordination by religious bodies is not the primary issue. The primary concern is that we are known by our fruits. The Moravian Revival Churches continue to grow in grace and in number and power throughout the world. This is awesome, which we humbly and with meekness acknowledge, which God has done; not us!
God’s historic concern as addressed by Count Nicholas Von Zinzendorf, the Renewed Moravian Church father (in the 1700s), that we should not be building a denomination or religion, but instead building a true spiritual family in true intimacy with our Savior Jesus Christ. It’s really a spiritual family with a mission of heart. Zinzendorf said, “Missions, after all, is simply this: Every heart with Christ is a missionary, every heart without Christ is a mission field.”
Here is another one of ZINZENDORF’S quotes: “I have but one passion – it is He, it is He alone. The world is the field and the field is the world; and henceforth that country shall be my home where I can be most used in winning souls for Christ.”