Overcoming Assumptions

This is a week where a couple of books that I read several years ago are proving to be quite useful again in reflecting where I'm at right now. Another of these books is A Divine Confrontation: Birth Pangs of the New Church by Graham Cooke (Shippensburg, PA: Destiny Image, 2000). Thanks Greg Vadala for having recommended another life changer.

I probably could cite over half of Cooke's writings here. But what has stuck out the most today is his section "Overcoming Assumptions" (pp. 150-155). Cooke writes:

Never assume anything with God. There is always something else He can teach us about the same set of circumstances. God will engineer every situation so that we can never quite rely on everything we know by truth and experience. We have to consistently learn that fellowship and relationship is the goal of all God's dealings with manking. (p. 151).

As soon as we forget that all truth must be made real in our experience so that we walk in the Word and the power of it (see 2 Jn. 4), then we make assumptions about what it means. Experience of the Word clarifies the revelation. Knowledge is made real by the experience of God. The Pharisees had a knowledge of the Messiah that did not compute with their experience of Jesus. The knowledge that they had was cerebral. It was probably sound in biblical terms and well-reasoned. On this and other occasions, their sound and well-reasoned theology was unable to receive the reality of Jesus as the Messiah. Most of His battles regarding truth and experience were with men of solid biblical reputation. (p. 152)

The early Church was a pioneer of change in its own society. It turned the world upside down with its revelatory teaching and the presence of God (see Acts 17:6). This Church altered the way people lived their lives, which provoked everything around them. They were a talking point; they caused consternation in the values of people everywhere. They could not be ignored (see Acts 4:32-5:16) (p. 154)

The early Church was a pioneer of change; the present Church is a refuge from change. We are now in the ugly position of needing a revival to restore us to the position we never should have lost! How many churches will not experience revival because they hold an assumption of how it will come? Student of previous revivals inform us of the signs of revival. That knowledge will tell us what God did, but it may not reveal what God is doing now. (pp. 154-155)

Past revivals often have been grouped around personalities who were catalysts for the move of the Spirit. This coming move will be a "people's revival" because God is raising up a nameless, faceless generation of people with a passion for souls and a zeal to cause a reformation in society. (p. 155, bold mine)

We cannot effect change unless we experience it. The Lord is challenging all our assumptions in these days. Jesus' walking on the water (see Jn. 6:16-21) provoked His disciples to reevaluate who He was. His appearance on the Mount of Transfiguration (see Mt. 17:1-7) demanded that the core group of His disciples enter a whole new level of spiritual experience, one completely foreign to their history. (p. 155)

Many of us are being radically challenged in these days of change and transition. Assumptions get in the way of truth and have a detrimental effect on our understanding of the process that God is using to restore the Church to her rightful place on the battlefield. (p. 155)