To avoid conflict, we need to submit our character to the Lord's treatment

When there are people in the ministry who have not been sufficiently treated by the Holy Spirit and have not been conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, inevitably there will be sins, contradictions, conflicts, damage, exploitation of others and many negative things that are all works of the flesh.

When we work in the Kingdom of God, when we are involved in some type of ministry it is so important that we continually submit our mind, our character, our temperament, our way of being to the Lord's treatment.

Because when we enter the ministry all of us bring thought patterns, attitudes, a temperament that comes from the world; that militates against the passible, loving and benevolent principles of the Kingdom of God and we have to be continually asking the Lord to deal with us. May it break us, cleanse us, polish us, perfect us, prune us as the Lord Jesus Christ says that the Lord comes and prunes the branches so that we can bear more fruit. These are very powerful principles.

And I believe that unless the Kingdom of God is not led by men and women who have been treated and crucified, there will always be inconsistencies and difficulties and conflicts in Christian settings. We see in Matthew 20:20 that the first offender is the mother of these two disciples who comes before the Lord with a world mindset; she is thinking of Jesus as if he were a political candidate and these two sons of hers who are very close to her heart she sees them as: ok they are giving this political candidate who is Jesus Christ their services and their support and well it is important so that they receive something of profit.

And she wants to make sure that they get ahead of the other disciples by asking the Lord to put them in a position of preference, as it is done in the world that many people line up behind a political candidate so that when the candidate comes to power Well then they get a job, or get a position in your government or get money or whatever. This woman is thinking in terms of the world, not in terms of the Kingdom, and her two children lend themselves perfectly to this scheming mentality of their mother, allowing themselves to be carried away very advantageously by her and her carnal initiatives.

The language that she uses is interesting. She says to the Lord Jesus Christ: order that my two children can sit on Your right and on Your left. It's the language of the world, right? It is the language of: well Lord You have authority so You can do whatever You want so order simply as an executive decision on Your part, regardless of whether it was a fair or correct decision or according to the principles of the Kingdom. It is the mentality of power, the mentality of abuse of power many times that is the mentality that we see in the world where the strong and the leaders often do what they want, not caring about the well-being of their followers but simply making decisions because yes and because it is what they want to do or because of some personal preference they have, but not according to objective principles, benevolent principles that benefit all people.

We see then this mentality of the world, it is a carnal mentality that has not been treated or confronted with the principles of the Kingdom of God that are totally different. Interestingly when the other disciples find out what these two are doing with their mother they also react in a carnal way, they react with anger. Not so much because the Kingdom principles are being violated but because they are trying to take the positions that they may think they deserve.

So we see here that everyone is actually acting in the flesh and that is what happens many times in the ministries, in the cells and in the large denominations and that is what takes away credibility and takes away formality and elegance from the things of the Kingdom of God. The fact that many people in positions of power and authority have not submitted to God's treatment and are not dealing with Kingdom things according to Kingdom principles but are still working in the flesh.

When the world sees this, what it does is that it is scandalized and says: well, there is no difference between the Church and us, why then enter the Gospel if everything is always done the same? Today we see so many Christian ministries that project financial corruption, abuse of people, arbitrariness in the decisions that are made, a carnal attitude; so many sexual and marriage scandals there are, simply an abuse of the children of God and principles that do not obey the principles of the Lord Jesus Christ.

There are so many ministries nowadays in which Pastors like that we present ourselves as if we were movie stars and we create followers as if we were political candidates or yes, simply stars in the world; that's not the style of Jesus Christ. We see Christ acting in a very different way and so we too have to conduct ourselves in the Kingdom of God.

When the flesh intervenes in the things of the Kingdom, when the mind not treated by God is in operation in the affairs of the Kingdom, conflicts will always arise, there will always be problems and that is what we have to try to avoid.

In our next meditation we will continue dealing with this theme of the mentalities that often militate against the peace of the Kingdom of God. God bless you and until our next meditation.