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Here’s What It Means To Be a 21st Century Apostolic By Sharon Ellenberg
I must admit that I truly don’t understand the question, “What does it mean to be a 21st Century Apostolic?” When did time change the truth of the Word? Pardon me if I seem a bit harsh in my reply. But as I consider the implications of this question there arises within me a boldness that grips my soul and like David of old I hear resounding in my ears, proceeding from my very own lips: Is there not a cause? Who is this uncircumcised Philistine of tolerance and compromise that would dare to exalt itself above the armies of the most High God? Is there not a cause? Is not the God we serve a holy God of Love?
Are we, as professing Apostolics, slipping into the abyss of modernism with the same secular world and the deceitfulness of its complacent pleasures we profess to be delivered from?
Wait, I hear a voice:
Are we truly submitted and committed to purity, honesty, modesty, and that old fashioned, “out of date” word holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. (Therein lies the power, the love.) Are we being worshipers in spirit and in truth? Or have we been lulled to sleep by the deceptive, deceitful mantra of “tolerance” in our century?
I do hope that throughout this letter I have not offended anyone and yet more importantly I pray that I have made a clear and certain sound.
Like David of old, I will send out a battle cry for holiness and proclaimed to God’s army that there is indeed a cause! It is my prayer and my intent that through this answer that I will with biblical truth, thoroughly cut off the head of that uncircumcised Philistine of tolerance and complacency that would breath out his ungodly threatenings and exalt itself above not only the armies of the most high God, but also above the eternal word of God Almighty Himself.
Perhaps this is a proverbial Shofar calling out the battle cry to each of us. A warning and admonition to us all that we do indeed serve an holy God and it is He that has called us to come apart and be ye separate in this present age!
I dare to wonder if the God-given, love-motivated doctrine of separation and sacrificial living which was given as the ultimate model of true love is somehow outdated? Or perhaps it is time that we as Apostolics run to an old-fashioned altar of repentance and allow the sharp sword of His Word to cut away the complacency of our comfort-driven, approval-addicted flesh and circumcise our hearts and lives afresh to walk worthy of the vocation wherewith Jesus has called us to.
What voice will you submit and commit to in this 21st century? Choose ye this day whom ye will serve, as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.
© 2007, Sharon Ellenberg
--------- Sharon Ellenberg is WNOP Prayer Coordinator for Bethel UPC Hillsboro, Oregon.
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