Functioning like a Body: Protecting the Weaker Members

This is an article I wrote in late May of 2014.

After a lot of prayer last night, I was shown this and I wanted to share it.

Have you ever been physically attacked? What does your body do?

In a split second, the stronger parts of the body move to protect the weaker parts. The hands will move to protect the eyes, throat and vital organs, and our bodies will naturally pivot in order to take blows to our arms and legs instead of the more vulnerable areas. God designed us that way, it keeps us alive, protecting our most vulnerable parts — placing bone in the way of flesh.

But the Body of Messiah as it is right now, doesn’t protect the weakest parts, but instead the strongest — the ministers. Ever see what happens when the pastor does something terrible to someone weaker? Sometimes some speak out, but most rally around the minister. Ministers out there are getting away with rape, molestation, theft, manipulation, lies, treachery (or even just sarcasm, contempt and pointless insults) against the weaker members of the Body, and the Body moves to expose, and not protect, the parts that most need that protection. Why is that?

Pure and simple, it’s religion. You can find it in Catholicism, Protestantism, Pentecostalism, Charismania, Judaism, Islam, Mormonism, and yes in the Messianic assemblies as well. Religion takes our attention from where it belongs and places it on a personality. Our attention belongs on God and His Messiah, and on the least of these. In a Body, the strong protect the weak. If we are doing the opposite, we are practicing Nicolaitanistic religion and not walking out God’s Covenant with us. It’s one thing to protect a minister from lies, quite another thing to protect him from truth just because he is your minister. That is a great evil, and it is one thing that I have not seen change no matter my denomination. I have no rose colored glasses on about any form of religion being “different.” Religion can’t act the way a body does – being more like a virus or cancer bent on taking over the body and eventually robbing it of its ability to respond and thrive in a healthy way.

People are zealous for their assembly, but in the wrong ways. I’ve seen people deny Messiah, because their leader did. I’ve seen people become harsh and sarcastic, because their leader is. I’ve seen people excuse sin and cruelty, because it came from someone who they enjoy listening to, someone who makes them feel important and closer to God through association. It comes down to a mistaken idea of who the leader is — as long as your leader is a mere man, that is going to lead to evil and compromise.

I think we should be zealous for the assembly, the ENTIRE assembly. We should treat the assembly as a virgin bethrothed to our King and we should be offended when someone molests her in His Name. We should be offended when someone is misrepresenting the character of our King. We should be holding the correct people accountable, and protecting the correct people, but right now we are upside down.

The most important people to protect in a family are the children, the little ones as they are growing. Nature understands this, and when you look at so many species, they will suffer and die to protect the little ones. And in properly functioning families it works the same way.

You want to know if you are still married to the Babylonian System, and if your religious leader is? How do you react when your leader has done wrong — do you move to protect and defend him, or do you move towards holding him accountable. Do you treat your minister like the king, or one of the subjects? Do you treat the person he hurt like they are expendable, mere cannon fodder in the way of a “great” preacher, the eggs that must be broken to make a cake, or are you helping them and making sure that you step in to accurately represent the character of God towards them? Yeshua said that the Good Shepherd will leave the 99 in order to go after the one lost — but religion will destroy the one in order to protect a hired man.