Sometime ago I was invited to speak at a conference. I was setting on the front row, not really knowing what I was going to share. So I just sat there, waiting to see what the Lord would drop into my Spirit. As the worship team began to sing, I was feeling a bit irritated by their sound. I remember thinking, "These songs are extremely old, don't they have anything new?" As the night went on, I became so restless that I left the room and went out into the corridor. As I paced back and forth, I began to pray something really spiritual like, "God what are they doing? How do they expect me to hear from heaven with a sound like that?"

 

A short time later I rejoined the crowed just in time for the last song. Suprisingly, before the night was over, God showed up and we had a wonderful encounter with heaven. A couple days later I was setting at the airport waiting for my flight home. While setting there I relfected on how God moved the night before. I thought, "Thank God there was enough anointing on my life for a breakthrough."

 

Hopefully your thinking, 'Is this guy full of himself or what?' Your assesment would be pretty accurate. Without negating the importance of God's anointing on our lives, we must never allow it to exclude others from feeling like they are just as capable, of walking in the same glory and power of God's kingdom as anyone else. During that night of the mentioned conference, the spirit of exclusion kept me from offering the worship team the grace they needed to break through. I allowed my thirst and hunger for a higher level of  worship to exclude the measure of God's Spirit that was upon thier lives.  

 

The power of exclusion knows no boundaries. This spirit has been rampant on high school and college campuses. At a very early age, students are groomed in their thinking to exclude those who don't sound like, or dress like they do. It is camaflouged with phrases like, "fitting in" and "being in style."

 

This ancient spirit, reaches as far back as the Pharisees and Saducees. They continually rejected anyone who did not fit their religious profile.  Jesus' rebuked the disciples for attempting to exclude those who did not measure up to thier agenda. 

 

 "Now it came to pass, when the time had come for Him to be received up, that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and sent messengers before His face. And as they went, they entered a village of the Samaritans, to prepare for Him. But they did not receive Him, because His face was set for the journey to Jerusalem, and when His disciples James and John saw this, they said, "Lord, do You want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them, just as Elijah did?" But He turned and rebuked them, and said, "You do not know what manner of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man did not come to destroy men's lives but to save them." And they went to another village." (Luke 9:56 NKJV)

 

 I remember how disturbing it was when I first read these passages of scripture. James and John were so caught up in their life with Jesus, that they were ready to call down fire upon anyone who would not accept Him. My first thought was, "How ridiculous! Why in the world would anyone want to see someone else die such a horible death, as being burned up by fire?" It was then when I realized, just how deceptive an exclusive spirit can be. It trys to conceal itself in the life of the Spirit, to alienate or injure the corporate body of Christ.  

 

There are people in the world who refuse to have anything to do with Christianity, no matter what form it comes in. However, a lot of Christians in the church are more apt to recject a form of Christ, that is anything other than thier own. It's time we disarm the enemy by not allowing him to manipulate our experiences in God, into compartments of division. While the glory of God continues to increase in the earth, there will always be people encountering Him at different levels. 

 

The unity of Christ's body cannot come into fruition, until we embrace every measure of Christ, not just the measures of personal preference. Durring some of Pauls most challenging moments in life, he was still ready to offer grace to those who were quick to take advantage of his own captivity. 

 

 "Some indeed preach Christ even from envy and strife, and some also from goodwill: The former preach Christ from selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my chains ; but the latter out of love, knowing that I am appointed for the defense of the gospel. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice." (Phil 1:15-18)

 

As spiritual leaders, it's time we learn to rejoice over expression of the kingdom of God in the earth.

 

In Him

Michael