Spring 1978
The Church - His Body
Part II
Seeley D. Kinne

Order of Operation in the Church

Where two or three are gathered together in the name of Jesus, with Jesus Christ in the midst, in the power of His presence, that is, in the power of the Holy Spirit, there is a Church of Jesus Christ.

While Jesus, in the midst, is the Director and Controller of such a body of believers, whether large or small in number, there is His Church in manifest operation.

The beginning of operation and activity in such a body is worship, praise, and adoration, for where praise and worship carry the attention beyond self and surroundings to Christ Jesus, there the state of rapport obtains and lifts into felt presence Divine, bringing one into the Heavenlies with Christ. And wherever such order may be given by the Spirit, it will be easy and glorious to enter the realm of the Spirit.

While thus seated in the heavenlies, the chorus may burst forth. The Spirit may engage the people in prayer, and then every heart may seem to melt and flow out to God. An altar call may come forth by the Spirit in audible words, or by an inward movement that draws sinners and all present to seek God.

After experiencing such hallowed scenes, love of the world, earthly attachments and tendencies melt away and one feels that Heaven is the only place for him. This is in harmony with a great divine purpose of the Church, the perfecting of the saints.

For this reason the minister, who has been sent and used to raise up such a Church, will be on the alert for the discovery of the Spirit’s move to bring forth evangelists, teachers, prophets or others, called to the work of perfecting the saints. These, the Spirit through the overseer, will move to acknowledge and set in their place as such, members of the body.

A body of Christians proceeding to services without the direct leading and control of the Holy Spirit, can never come into the full will of God and His order, unless they wait for the moving and direction of the Holy Spirit. Just here comes in the substitutes of men’s leadership, which opens the way to apostacy, where most people, professing to follow God, have turned to follow men.

It is easier for fallen man and more to his nature to be led by the spirit of man, then to wait until God moves, but it is most disastrous.

The Gifts Operating
1. Divine Government

Government is authority and power to control. Government in God’s Church is by Jesus Christ through His Spirit.

In the Church of Jesus Christ, government is a gift of the Spirit. It is not merely a once for all delegated authority, but a flow of the Spirit into man, making him master of the situation in the Spirit. It has in it none of the elements of human lordship, willfulness, high-mindedness, disobedience, independence or self assertion, in its characteristics. These are disastrous elements in the Church and realm of the Spirit.

Divine government is a protection gift. It is like the spirit of a shepherd whose crook and staff guide, control, and watch over his sheep. Therefore, there can be no element of selfishness or lordship therein, but pure love and justice. All gifts and operations of the Spirit are under its sway. It holds all in order and protects from confusion.

Overseers must, in truth, be under Divine government themselves in order to control in God’s Divine government. The work can never flourish otherwise.

The Gifts Operating
2. Discernment

As a shepherd has a dog to watch his sheep, so God has a discerner to watch His sheep. This discerning or divine knowledge may be in the overseer and in others in the flock. It may be a large gift or a limited one. All gifts usually grow and develop under proper care and training. The realm of the gifts is so delicate and so sensitive in its workings that there is large danger to the careless or self-confident.

The perfecting of the saints in the working of the Spirit in gifts needs much careful training by those who themselves have been taught in the school of Christ. But the time has come when those things must come forth, for God will now set up His Church in supernatural operation.

We may not therefore draw back from those appointed things of God, for they lie across the path of spiritual advancement which God has marked out for us. But if we shall approach it with boldness of faith and yet with fear and trembling, reverence, and humility, we may confidently expect large liberty in the Lord.

Steps To and Into Church Activities

It must be well understood and thoroughly come into—a full separation from natural ways—for the natural and the supernatural should not be mixed. To do this man must cease his directing and controlling and wait for God to lead and while waiting, let the congregation enter into praise, worship, and adoration as deeply as possible. Though at first all seems dry and natural, offer the sacrifice of praise and the Spirit will begin to move and He will lift into worship in the Spirit.

Be patient and continue persistently, though you should have to wait a week or even a month, and refrain from your own workings.

After a while some little word of interpretation or prophecy may begin to come forth. Be obedient. Be not afraid. Be faithful in that which is least. Despise not the beginnings.

Do not be too fast and run ahead of the Spirit. Watch the Spirit. Learn to know His guidance. Be pliable. Be promptly obedient. Be willing to make mistakes, but be watchful to correct them, and humble to be corrected by others. God makes no mistakes but creatures do.

Be not hasty to decide a thing is a mistake, because you do not understand it. Prophecy often seems obscure and later becomes plain.

Spiritual things come by growth. You will have the beginnings of the gifts and they will develop.

Prove all things by the Spirit’s testings, not by natural men. Keep out of the natural. You cannot be natural and spiritual at the same time.

If your gift operations appear to be incorrect, be patient. Trust God to clear the matter.

Remember those in the beginnings of gifts are liable to mistakes. If a mistake is made do not throw down the gift or the person who has made the mistake, but pray and seek God until the error is remedied. We have this treasure in earthen vessels. The excellency is of God; the frailty of us.

Remember there is a great similarity between the workings of the flesh and those of the Spirit. It requires a training and development by reason of use, if the senses are going to discriminate in things spiritual.

We are mostly novices in these spiritual things; therefore it becomes us to be humble and teachable. Nor have we the spiritual fathers in the Church who are liable to teach us these things. We are fighting our way upward and back to where the Church was originally. But God is at the helm and will guide us safely.

There is a veil that hangs between the heavenly and the earthly. It was caused by the fall of man. Jesus pierced through that veil. He rent it in twain. And he who will diligently seek after God, and walk by the guidance of the Holy Spirit, may sometimes get beyond the veil on the heavenly side while still in this world.