1. If we have the love of God (enabled by the Holy Spirit sent into our life by Christ) it will be evident by our love for one another. The love spoken of here is a combination of attitude, motivation, and behavior. If there is only "concern" or "feelings" or "thoughts" that do not manifest into deeds and action then there is no love. Love is movement of purpose outward into the world. That purpose is directed at "caring" for one another where ever there are needs and specifically the caring for the transformation that should be occurring in all believers where we take upon ourselves the mind of Christ. We are to be Christ Like. There are numerous passages that deal with our personal responsibility to develop (in conjunction with the Holy Spirit) a Christ Like mind and character. Without such a mind our attempts to be loving will be simply a carnal expression of some form of self-indulgence.

Therefore, it is important to study and emulate the model of love in human form - Jesus Christ. What therefore I am saying is that the "power" of the Holy Spirit is most importantly felt by those around us by our "caring" which is a reflection of our mind which is led moment by moment in obedient response to the Divine Will. This leading is as specific purpose for each one of us and manifesting through our thoughts, feelings, emotions, logic, and all those aspects that come together collectively and called the human mind.

So if our mind is "carnal" and not like the mind of our savior then the movement of Gods love through our soul outwards into the world will not occur. What will occur in its place is a pretentious righteousness - a kind of self-delusion - where we are not growing in the righteousness for which we have been imputed.

2. God ordained in the Body of Christ the environment within which believers are to grow "spiritually", that is, to be transformed in mind unto a Christ Like mind having the attitudes, motivation, and behavior of God incarnate. This environment is one of intimate collaborative social intercourse based on deep-seated trust and constant care for each others transformation in Christ - the transformation of our minds. To facilitate this kind of fellowship believers necessarily have to make time for one another, be there for one another, meet together to minister their care to one another.

Now that care consists of enabling each other, seeing Christ in each other, responding to Christ in each other called submitting to one another, and using our abilities and gifts to help facilitate a specific kind of caring aimed at developing one anothers transformation into the mind and character of Christ.

Therefore, it is the duty of church "leadership" to "serve" (as opposed to manipulate, dominate, and exercise authority over) by preparing and equipping the saints towards this kind of fellowship of intimate social intercourse. Needless to say, but I will anyway, this collaborative trusting social intercourse has associated with it a "holy" and "pure" mind along with other attributes associated with the term "fruits" of the spirit. In this environment there is to be both safety in this sharing partnership as well as reverential fear of offending the Spirit.

This social relationship is of such importance that it must be considered concurrent and an expression of our personal relationship with God through Christ. The two go together. From this Body - of one accord - we evangelize. Evangelism is more than voicing part of the gospel everywhere we go. Evangelism is "bringing into the assembly of believers" those from without. That is, bringing into this social relationship of caring as empowered by the Holy Spirit those that do not know Christ such that they can see and feel Christ in each believer and add themselves to this loving unity. It is a "rule" of Christ that we should be of one accord. Discord is an indication that true love is not present and in the words of Revelation "we have lost our first love" and the angel of the church (assembly) will be removed if we continue in that disregard of the Body. This disregard of the Body grieves the Holy Spirit.

3. The manifestation of points 1 and 2 above is a Pentecost Culture. A life-style of "caring" within a community of intimate trusting social intercourse. From that culture comes "power", the victorious life.

The problem then is that people try to be Christians by ignoring the above realities. God is to become our reality. Culture is an expression of the collective mind or mentality. The mind of individuals and the collective mentality is an expression of the culture. We do not see the Pentecost culture in our society because we have accepted the worldly culture. We have been raised within it. Our sense of reality, the possible and the impossible, the probable and the improbable, our values, that which we deem significant, that which takes our time, our effort and our energy, these things constitute our reality. That reality for most of us is NOT what we see working in the accounts of the New Testament regarding the Pentecost culture that formed in Jerusalem after the day of Pentecost following the ascension of Jesus Christ where believers were literally "baptized" by the Holy Spirit. They experienced healing and other things like a trust in one anothers words, agreement between word and deed, making time for one another, gathering together in one another’s homes to share and discover what God was doing in each of their lives.

In contrast to this we see our culture. We have been "bound" to a system of standards, values, practices, work, work ethic, schooling, and so on where believers no longer have time for one another and go to churches where many don't even know each others names let alone exercise intimate trust and social intercourse. And those that engage in "distant" relationships and have convinced themselves they are active members of the Body of Christ are living a lie. It is a kind of "adultery" where the purity of relationships between believers has been set aside for doctrine, form, and worst of all for lust of the things of this world.

We don't have time because many are tired from their work made necessary because of their pursuit of the things of this world. Most today are bound to debt that dictates they must find work to feed their families and life according to the social standards. And if they don’t their children may be taken from them. These things which we take for granted are the "ways of the carnal world". They are inconsistent with the Pentecost culture. We have become part of a society that has evolved to create pressures that are aimed to keep us from ever moving into a Pentecost culture.

Just think for a moment of the pressures we have yielded to without even noticing that we were binding our souls to the world. Here is just one little example among thousands. It is Sunday, shortly before church services begin. Suddenly the parking lot in front of the recently built new church begins to fill. This church was a bargain costing only several hundred thousand dollars not including maintenance, heating, and insurance. The church was relocated on the edge of the city so most of the congregation shows up with their families in their cars. Within the church can be heard the sounds of musicians who had just finished their musical rehearsal. The new sound system seems to be working okay. The pastor and the assistant pastor are both paid salaries. Everyone lines up in the pews or chairs all lined up to face the pulpit from where spiritual nourishment is expected. A few people who know each other, who went to school with one another form a clique. Someone met the strangers at the door with a smile and maybe a hug. And about 60 percent of those in the congregation did not know the names of 30 percent of the people in the congregation. The sermon was about love, the songs were about love, and the readings from the bible were about love. During the service a large special collection was raised for the poor and volunteers were requested to help out in several fund-raisers. At the end of the service everyone got up and left and would not see each other again until the following Sunday if company did not come by their homes. A few met for a couple hours during the week to do bible study which was "conducted" almost in the same orchestrated way the service was conducted. No one was very intimate and everyone recognized that it was important not to offend anyone, social correctness was in mode, and what they did in their personal lives was no one else’s business anyway.

If the above example does not highlight a difference between the so called Christian culture in our modern society and the Pentecost culture God provided as a model in the early church then I am wasting my time saying anything. People talk about revival. Groups build large buildings promising those that make donations that the large buildings will become revival centers. Revival is not getting people all stirred up about God so that 10 years later it has all died away. Revival is reconstructing our culture into a Pentecost culture and putting God and our fellow saints first before any kind of a decision is ever made about anything.

God wants us to change the world we live in by expressing His Love. We cannot do that by enslaving ourselves to a worldly system controlled by the principles of business for profit. We need to construct a culture fed by a community of believers who value a mind and character that is Christ Like. This culture will shape the society. But what we have on our hands are a bunch of so called professing Christians that justify their ineptitude in social reform with the belief that they are not to be part of the world while in the world and Jesus may appear in the clouds tomorrow.

If Jesus made one thing clear it was this. Don't worry (become preoccupied) about his Second Coming (he said watch) rather get busy and form the Pentecost culture. He commanded us to love one another and to be one with each other even as he was one with the Father. It is disgraceful. Now, nearly two thousand years since the resurrection and Christians are still in discord and don't seem to appreciate that our mandate to evangelize is wrapped up in the concept of the Body of Christ.

The protestant movements were all reactions to something unacceptable in either the Catholic Church or with other protestant efforts. Reaction is not love. So Protestants have been separating for quite some time now giving rise to a religion of "denominationalism" as unscriptural as worship of the Virgin Mary or buying your way into heaven. Worse than this, they may have rejected things about the Roman Catholic Church but they accepted the Roman Catholic Church assembly template. This template was the physical organization of the congregation and the rigid orchestration of services and the pulpit as the pivotal human point of control of the congregation and the source of spiritual nourishment.

And this template violates the Body concept of Christians ministering to one another in an intimate trusting social intercourse of caring for each others transformation into the mind and character of Jesus Christ.

Becoming a Christian is freely available to anyone. Everyone is welcome. But becoming a Christian is not a "free ride", rather it is a total commitment and a believer must be prepared to give all as all was given by Christ for us. There is a great price to pay for being a Christian. It is anything but a joy ride to heaven where we can sit back and hide behind the imputed righteousness. That righteousness was imputed so that we might have grace to become that for which we were imputed. We must make, as did Jesus, God to be our total reality.

This web site: http://www.help-for-you.com. is dedicated to the above 3 points.