Consider Forming a Splinter Cell

A friend of mine has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. His name is Leo. He used to be the head armorbearer at Trinity Church (where I used to serve). He got disgusted with the leadership and left, just like many other armorbearers.

God keeps showing me things. A lot of it has to do with my faults. Correction is important, because error causes suffering and weakness. Most people don’t want to hear it. They get very angry when you tell them they contribute to their own misery. Leo, however, has been listening.

For quite some time, I have been having prayer sessions in my house with my friend Travis. Over the last two weekends, Leo joined us. Now he says he has a friend in his area who is going to join him in sessions up there. He says this is a splinter cell from my own group.

This is what I have been hoping for. I will never lead a church. I will never have another title. I want very little to do with churches, because inevitably, they become controlled by men who are controlled by the devil. But I do want to see people get together in highly effective meetings, and I don’t want to be there, because if they can’t do it without me, I wasted my time talking to them. I pointed them to me instead of God.

Leo used to have a lot of sin in his life, and he feels that he opened doors to things like cancer. I can’t argue with that. That’s how I feel about my own life and problems.

It’s really something to see someone embrace this idea.

Back in the time of Jesus, people were obsessed with justice and painful punishment. They were really excited about these things. Jesus came along and steered them toward love and humility. Satan said, “Fine. Let’s see what I can do with that.” So now we talk about love, and we pretend it’s all God cares about. We pretend justice doesn’t exist, that God thinks all people are wonderful just as they are, and that we don’t have to change. We have the insane idea that what God really wants–his main priority–is for us to be nice to each other. We teach that he doesn’t really care about salvation or repentance, because that’s “legalism.”

It’s amazing that anyone can call preaching the crucifixion, which ended legalism, “legalism.” But there you are.

Now people don’t like to hear about accountability. We hate it the way the religious Jews of Jesus’s time hated permissiveness.

Leo feels differently. He is not just praying for healing; he is praying for inner change. This is wonderful news, because this will bring him results.

I told him that if he and the people he prays with keep praying in tongues and putting the Holy Spirit first, they’ll be fine. They will make mistakes, but God will keep steering them back onto the right course.

I can’t micromanage them. I am not God, and anyway, you can’t go through life with training wheels. This is not God’s plan. It’s tempting to try to be a compass for other people, but you have to limit the frequency of your corrective messages. If you over do it, they will never grow, and you will start to think you’re God.

In my own walk, I am getting all sorts of unpleasant but welcome revelation.

God is increasing my self-control. Who wouldn’t want that? It’s obviously good. It’s a fruit of the Spirit, so we know we should have it. But what happens when you get increased self-control, and you find that it’s hard to make yourself use it? What if you find yourself in a position where you know you can use supernatural self-control to prevent you from doing something bad, and you resist using it?

That actually happens.

The horrible lesson here is that I don’t want to serve God with all my heart.

You have to be honest about things like that. God knows already, so the honesty isn’t for him. It’s for you. It will help you get his help. Denial is pride, and God resists the proud. Like a drug addict, you have to admit fault if you want to get better.

Now that I know the truth about myself, I admit it to God. It is literally sickening. I feel mild nausea when I do it. It is disturbing. I feel like I’m asking him to destroy me. But I know it’s actually part of the healing process. It will definitely increase your humility, and to increase your humility is to increase the assistance you get from God.

Today God told me that correction is better than physical healing. That’s true. No one goes to hell for being sick, but plenty of people who resist correction are burning there right now.

God did not force Jesus to accept being tortured to death so God could become our genie and make our lives perfect. He did it so the Holy Spirit could come into us and turn us into copies of Jesus. This is what matters. The other stuff is peripheral.

In connection with this, I have come to understand what “dying to self means.”

We think dying to self means behaving less selfishly. Some of us think it means working hard at church. Some think it means devoting our lives to the poor. The main meaning, however, is to give up on the project you were building in yourself.

We decide whom we want to be. We see behaviors, attitudes, and personality traits we consider desirable, and we try to incorporate them into ourselves. We don’t have complete control, but we have substantial input. Who we become, in large part, is a reflection of what we consider admirable and desirable.

When you start asking for correction, God shows you that some of the things you like about yourself are filthy garbage. They have to be burned off, no matter how much you like them.

Culture plays a big role here. I can give a lot of examples.

I know a lot of black people. Black men are taught that anger and physical violence are good. They are taught that if they reason instead of using their fists, people will think they’re soft, and they will get no respect. As a result, it’s very easy to get black men to commit crimes. You just have to insult them. Hitting people is a crime, unless you have a reasonable fear that you’re in danger. It doesn’t matter what they say to you; you can’t touch a person who offends you verbally, even if he says your mother is a whore. But black men are taught that you hit people who insult you.

Hispanics are taught that pride is everything. A real man doesn’t listen. He tells. And they’re taught that it’s good to be highly emotional. So if you try to give them advice, the walls go up, the chin rises in the air, and you’re done.

I’m from Appalachia. People up there think acting crazy is a good thing, and they like solving their problems with firearms. They think it’s flattering to be told that they can’t be controlled. So people act stupid when they’re young. A lot of people get shot. There is a lot of alcoholism and drug abuse.

You can come up with examples all day. Our cultures destroy us with attitudes we think are cute.

To die to self means to give up the stupid parts of yourself which you think are cute, cool, attractive, profitable…whatever. You have to give them up. And you don’t know the person you will be when God is finished removing the garbage. That’s scary. Will you like that person? Will you want the life he leads?

That’s dying to self. And it’s also dying to Satan. In creating a misguided personality, you have given demons permission to rule you. When God cleans you up, instead of demons who rule you by force, you will have the Holy Spirit, ruling you by consent.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow. It would be nice to say it isn’t, but that would be a lie. Accepting and embracing the rehabilitation takes the power of the Holy Spirit.

That’s where I am now. God keeps showing me the filthy parts of myself, and I am trying to be honest and get them fixed. When the nausea hits, I do not tell God to take it away, because I’m not praying so God will make me feel better. I’m praying so he will repair me, and if pain is a sign that I’m being repaired, then I want it.

Knowing these things makes me even more disgusted with the Joel Osteens and T.D. Jakeses. People who could be transformed go to them for help, and they receive a poisonous package that prevents them from finding the door. Misguided preachers don’t just fail to help people. They assist in their destruction.

In Jesus, there is only one race, one family, and one people. They have one culture, and that is the culture of heaven. To the extent that you preserve your earthly culture at the expense of heaven’s culture, you make yourself weak and vulnerable. You unlock your doors and take them off the hinges.

If change sounds appealing to you, the Holy Spirit may be talking to you. Get baptized with the Holy Spirit. Learn to pray in tongues. Spend long sessions praying in tongues every day and asking for correction and honesty.

If you can manage it, find someone else to do it with you. Every married couple should be doing this daily.

Try this: get together and say a brief prayer for God to help you with your session. Then talk briefly about the issues you want to cover. Put on some peaceful worship music (not dance music) and pray in tongues for 20 or more minutes. Then take turns getting up and praying, blessing, and cursing aloud.

This approach puts the Holy Spirit, not your misguided mind, in charge. It brings him honor. It will produce results.

If you don’t pray in the Spirit, you will eventually fail, because you will be easily deceived and drive off course.

Correction is what you’re after. The other things are just mission support.

I hope you get good results. I know God will come through if you do things his way.