Three non-negotiable dimensions of Holistic Christianity
There are three non-negotiable dimensions of Holistic Christianity:
Up - Worship Jesus through song, spontaneous singing (Col. 3:16)
In - Host God’s Presence through unceasing meditation of scripture and prayer. (1 Corinthians 14)
Out - Preaching the Gospel and making disciples (Matthew 24:14; 28:18-20)
God thinks holistically. He has commanded us not only to love Him, but the second is as important as the first: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” I believe that God wants a holistic expression of loving Him and others. Imagine the personal, corporate, national and global revival that would come if we daily practiced these three dimensions. I believe that this holistic approach to personal/public evangelism is the answer to seeing revival. I believe that the way we view prayer, church and evangelism needs to change. They were actually meant to be one expression.
Worship is Warfare, Not Warm-Up
All of heaven worships Jesus. All of creation declares His worth. The whole Bible pertains to the Messiah. The Holy Spirit came to glorify the Son. Even demons know who He is and they tremble. Therefore, we must join with heaven and glorify Him. When we establish intimacy with Jesus through worship, the resources of heaven are accessed and our faith comes emboldened.
It’s so easy to treat our time of worship as warm-up, singing three to four songs to ease into the sermon, instead of viewing worship as warfare. I believe that our time of worship is closer to a war room, where we connect with our Commander-in-Chief to receive His directives for His mission, rather than a worship room, where we simply sing songs without thinking about the war that may be going on in the hearts of those in the room and outside the four walls of our churches. Worship is warm-up, it’s warfare. Imagine if people came to their Sunday services with that kind of mindset. There is a huge difference between civilians who come in the service expecting to be entertained, rather than soldiers who came with the expectation to encounter the living God. A change in perspective will bring about revival. It won’t be so much about my emotional needs being served, but coming in worship to serve our God, receive directives and fresh anointing to go out into our respective fields after our time of worship to impact the lost.
Worship essentially means to “give worth” to something or someone. It’s a compound word of two words: Worth + Ship. When we worship and give worth to Jesus, we make much of Him and position ourselves to submit to the leadership of our Commander-in-Chief.
Hosting God’s Presence is Preparation for War, Not for Worldly Living
There’s a difference between assuming the Anointing and actively accessing the Anointing through praying in the Spirit. We don’t want to make assumptions about our fellowship with the Holy Spirit, just as we wouldn’t make any assumptions in our other relationships. A good relationship is the one where you are actively being involved with the other person. The Holy Spirit is a person and He has revealed how He loves to be fellowshipped. When we fellowship with Him, all the blessings that come from God flow into our lives and we begin to experience greater fruitfulness.
Paul exhorted the Colossian church in this way: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” (Col. 3:16)
Notice the words “singing psalms and gyms and spiritual songs.” Not only did the church services during Paul’s time had songs with intelligible words, they sang songs that were spiritually inspired, namely praying in the Spirit.
One of the most controversial passages in the Bible is found in 1 Corinthians 14, which was Paul’s testimony and teaching on the gift of tongues. We can see that their gatherings incorporated speaking in tongues:
What then, brothers? When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up.
1 Corinthians 14:26
It’s unfortunate that due to misunderstandings of this passage, many Christians do not pursue the gift of tongues and prohibit the speaking of tongues in their services. Paul clearly said,
“..do not forbid speaking in tongues. But all things should be done decently and in order.
1 Corinthians 14:39
Paul did not denounce the gift of tongues. He affirmed the glory of praying in the spirit while establishing guidelines to create a culture of honor—a culture that made room for the gifts of the spirit while service and respecting the Body. Paul’s message to Corinth can be summarized thus: pray in tongues as much as possible, but not in a manner that will disrupt the corporate meeting.
Praying and Singing in spiritual tongues is a vital element of hosting God’s presence, because:
1. it speaks mysteries unto God (1 Cor. 14:2)
2. It brings personal edification (1 Cor. 14:4)
4. It satisfies Paul’s desire of everyone speaking in tongues (1 Cor. 14:5)
Praying in the Spirit allows us to pray mysteries to God and Paul encourages the church to pray that they interpret what they are praying, so that they could prophesy and build up the church. Personal edification would ultimately lead to corporate edification. When one is built up, they are filled with God’s Spirit and can become a conduit of blessing to the rest of the church. Praying in tongues, the gift of interpretation and the gift of prophecy was a normal part of their services.
“Therefore, one who speaks in a tongue should pray that he may interpret. For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays but my mind is unfruitful. What am I to do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will pray with my mind also; I will sing praise with my spirit, but I will sing with my mind also.” (1 Cor. 14:13-15)
Praying with one’s mind by filling it with God’s thoughts and interpreting them to prophesy is a powerful dimension. When tapped, we are able to tap into the unlimited resource of God’s wisdom and power. Therefore, praying in the Spirit accesses the Holy Spirit who informs our thoughts and guides our decisions. Perhaps this is why the devil attacks this gift and robbed churches and ministry of the false idea that the gifts of the Holy Spirit ceased with the Apostles. As long as the Holy Spirit is on the earth before the Lord returns, He has remained the same and even in my own life and ministry, I’ve seen the tremendous amount of breakthrough and wisdom that has come because of humbly submitting to God and exercising this simple, but profoundly powerful gift.
We need a reformation in the way of our thinking when it comes to fellowshipping with the Holy Spirit. We’ve relegated the Holy Spirit down to spiritual emotionalism, goose bumps we get during a worship service, rather than spiritual edification that leads to encounter with the most powerful being in the Universe, which prepares us to wage spiritual war by being a witness in a dark and perverse world. The Holy Spirit is not a spiritual force. He’s a person to be received and fellowshipped. If we miss this aspect of the born again life, we’ve completely missed the mark.
When we surrender to the Holy Spirit, we will see an Acts 2 revival.
The purpose of becoming full of the Holy Spirit was to be built up for war, not built up simply to live like the rest of the world. The temptation is to experience presence and the power of the Holy Spirit, only to waste our anointing on temporary pleasures. The anointing of the Holy Spirit was given to us to complete a mission.
Finishing the Mission
When we enter in our ‘war room’ and we view Jesus as Lord, our Commander-in-Chief and we access Jesus through the Holy Spirit who brings revelation to God’s mind, will, emotions, plans and purposes, the natural manifestation is mission. Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes, He will make us witnesses (Acts 1:8). Henry Martyn said, “The spirit of Christ is the spirit of missions. The nearer we get to Him, the more intensely missionary we become.”
The deep longing of God’s heart is the restoration of the Greatest Commandment of loving God and others.
I believe that this kind of holistic way of approaching evangelism will catalyze a great awakening and movement on the earth.
Richard Baxter’s Example
Richard Baxter (1615-1691) was an English Puritan over four centuries ago, but his works remain in print and are widely read. A famous pastor, J. I. Packer said he was “the most outstanding pastor, evangelist” listing Baxter’s The Reformed Pastor (1656) as one of the top five books that have influenced him the most. Baxter’s commitment to house-to-house visitation, discipleship, and counseling transformed an unconverted town into a vibrant Christian community.
He urged those who are on mission to always keep a watch over their lives:
To make sure saving grace a regenerated their own souls, before going after souls. Don’t be content just existing in a state of grace.
To make sure one’s grace they have received from the Lord to be vigorously exercised, preaching sermons to oneself before preaching them to others.
Baxter’s biblical insights are as relevant in the 21st century church as they were in the 17th. When we are engaging with God’s mission to save the lost, we cannot neglect the first two non-negotiable dimensions of holistic Christianity.
In my own personal walk with God, when I began to make worship and praying in tongues a daily part of my life, I saw more fruitfulness in ministry. I saw more people getting saved and divine appointments made when I would submit and surrender to the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus’ last command to the church is clear — Go and make disciples of all nations. When the gospel is preached to the whole world, Jesus is coming back. To that end, we must must labor to make disciples and plant churches. We cannot settle for American Christianity. We need to reclaim Biblical Christianity and as soon as one is saved, we must disciple them and help them flourish in their faith to be on mission for God.
These dimensions are interconnected. A good way to illustrate this Holistic understanding of Christianity is an arrow.
Polished Arrow (Worship)
An arrow starts as a piece of wood in the branch of a tree. There is a grueling process involved in the branch becoming a polished arrow. It first needs to be purged — cut from the tree, stripped of its leaves, bark, and fruit. It is immersed in hot water to make it easier to tear the bark off and to straighten it by applying pressure to it. The shaft of an arrow must be straightened and polished before it can be used. If it is crooked in any way, it will not hit the target.
The reason why worship has become lax in the church is because of our mentality. We go into worship often times with a mentality that God is a cosmic vending machine to serve our emotions and meet our needs by putting in little to no sacrifice. But when we see Jesus as God Supreme who deserve all of the honor, praise and glory, we bring to Him not only the sacrifice of our lips, but our lives. When we come to God with this kind of reverence, Jesus receives a pleasing sacrifice.
Once it’s purged and straightened, it’s ready to be polished and used. When we worship Jesus extravagantly like the elders who bow down before our King, laying down their crowns, and allow God to purge away darkness and polish us unto righteousness, we will be used like arrows in the hands of God to be launched for His purposes.
Hidden in the Quiver (Hosting God’s Presence)
Once an arrow becomes straightened and polished, it’s hidden away in a quiver. Quivers are worn on the back. This represents our hidden times in prayer with the Holy Spirit. While the world considers a prayer life as weakness, it is not weakness before the Lord. When we “hide” ourselves in God and simply enjoy His presence by communicating with Him in the Spirit, God transforms our emotions, shapes our character and we become usable by God.
When we spend time with God in the secret place, the Father has greater access over the person who has fully surrendered to Him. They can become the conduit and channel of heaven. When we pray in the Holy Spirit for extended periods of time, the mental fog lifts and clarity comes upon our minds. Heaven invades our prayer time and you feel emboldened by the Holy Spirit. We need this kind of awakening back into the church.
When we learn how to surrender and flow with the Holy Spirit, God shoots us at strategic moments to fulfill His mission.
5 Day Adventure in Asia
Back in 2018, we were in a specific province in Asia that was very resistant to the Gospel. Our team went there on mission to scout the area, hear from God and save souls. We had a total of 5 days in this city. Every day, we would meet in the morning to worship and receive directives from the Lord.
The first night we were in that city, we stepped into a small grocery store, where we met the owner and prayed for his neck. The power of God came upon him and he was totally healed. On the last morning of our 5 day adventure, we worshiped and felt the leading of the Lord to go back there. We obeyed and shared the gospel to the owner, his wife and his friend who was an ex-gang member. All three of them received the gospel and were baptized right in front of their store. We didn’t have a bathtub so we got some buckets and baptized them under the water. God did the unexpected in a gospel restricted area. I wholeheartedly believe that these breakthroughs came about because we chose to begin each day with worship and submitting to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2 Model
The Book of Acts in the Second Chapter, it reveals this holistic way of ministry. When they were worshipping Jesus, awaiting on the Holy Spirit, He came and changed a room full of cowards hiding from the government into courageous leaders singing and praising God in unknown tongues. These fearful disciples turned into courageous lions, as they streamed out of the Upper Room and into the streets, testifying Jesus Christ.
We’ve been so caged in by church tradition, that many in the church have become domesticated cats, when we’ve been called to be lions. Shouldn’t this kind of Acts 2 experience be the norm for our churches today?