Re: The Living Word Fellowship, The Walk, John Robert Stevens
Date: June 12, 2014 06:35AM
I think the point in bringing up drinking alcohol by the leadership of TLWF still is indicative of a deeper problem. Whether you are drunk or not, why do you want to take the place of God in the lives of others? When you secretly know that God is not really in control in your own life, it breeds a deep insecurity that makes you want to control others. When you truly surrender to Him, you stop wanting to control others – that’s His job, not yours. I also noticed as I dried out from my time in TLWF (30+ years) the need for alcohol to cope with life diminished. I still drink an occasional beer or glass of wine, but not for the same reason. I no longer need a six-pack to cope with the “spiritual warfare”. Much of what was branded warfare was nothing more than unhealthy living or disobedience to God’s commands and then having to live in the consequences.
Prophesying judgment and death on those who do not share your doctrinal views is not exactly what Jesus had in mind when he said to “Love your enemies”. What you send out comes back. Martha lived and John died. You can’t be fearful to look at the fruit, no matter how great your imagination of inflated self is or how detached you become from reality. I would suggest that if you cannot cope with everyday life without crutches, you are not really being empowered by the Holy Spirit anyway – just your old nature. Even people in the world manage to get rid of a few crutches without God. It was quite liberating for me to find out Satan was not running up my credit card debt. At least I was finally able to correct the real problem - me. Otherwise, I would still be prophesying judgment to this day and nothing would have changed.
Actually, much of my “warfare” was simply spiritual abuse by the leadership. There was the never- ending search by those pretending to be God, to find creative ways to “cross up my old nature”. The result was a pretty miserable life – and they had no power to change me, just keep me condemned, so the cycle never ended. I used to think it would be nice to just be a guest – at least the leadership would say “Hi”, and I would not have to do all this work for the privilege of being “disciplined”. It also would have been nice to have spent more time with my family. Instead, I spent numerous hours listening to sermons about my need to have relationships, but I had no time to actually have relationships because I was too busy sitting in church listening to sermons about my need for relationships. A vicious cycle. :) Because I was an easy going guy, my designated relationships were often with those others could not handle – not genuine friendships but more “warfare”.