Suffering in Silence

Scripture Reference: Luke 4:18, Isaiah 61:1

After seeing two people being purged and delivered from demonic forces over the past couple of weeks, I am compelled to raise the following questions:

1) How many more come through the doors of the assembly, sit amongst the body week after week, and have not been recognized as needing deliverance?
2) Who amongst the body suffers in silence and we are totally unaware?
3) How many go from week to week spiritually untouched, unnoticed, unacknowledged, and unloved within our houses of worship?
4) Why are we (the body as a whole) spiritually insensitive to their plight?

Deliverance can only come in an atmosphere that is free - free of judgment, free from man's rules, and free to allow the Holy spirit to operate in the saints who are commissioned to release the captive, heal the sick, mend the mend the brokenhearted, lift the downtrodden, and restore to wholeness the fractured souls that walk amongst us. The Body of Christ has not seen the manifestation of such power, due to a lack of compassion snuffed out by the spirits of religion, tradition and python - squeezing out and suffocating the believer. We don't see the suffering because we have either lack the compassion necessary in order to see past the flesh (spiritual sight), or feign ignorance such as to not be held accountable for those whose plight we do see.

We are bound by what others will say and think of us. We are afraid of how others will treat and respond to us - friends, family, fellow Christians, and strangers - if they knew what ails us, what broke us, and what we struggle with. We are bound by fear of recrimination. We are bound by the fear of offending someone and harsh rebuke if we inquire as to the spiritual state of those in our midst. We are bound by political correctness and the spirit of offence. We are bound to callous responses to others’ suffering through religious traditions and dogma - "Just have faith!” or “Hold on to faith" we flippantly tell them – none of which have much comfort and solace in the fiercest heat of the firestorm of trials and tribulation that the downtrodden find themselves in.

Likewise, we are blind to the brokenness. We are blinded by the lie that because a person dresses in their Sunday best, dances at the appropriate organ keys, claps and shouts at the appropriate utterance of the messenger behind the pulpit – that everything is o.k. with that person. We are blind to the condition of a person’s spirit, because their external appearance – race, color, culture, gender (i.e. their flesh) is different from us. Under the spirit of tradition and religion, it's a lot easier to be detached and not have the responsibility of love, or the burden of compassion.

Those within the church suffer in silence because we fear the condemnation and judgment of our fellow peers in the church. Because the church has not matured to the level where we view each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, the house of worship is reduced to a court of public opinion - a place absent of redemption and reconciliation, yet filled with judgment and condemnation. This is also true of those outside of the church - suffering in silence in fear of judgment by those in the house of worship. The body has not the power, authority, or state of perfection to do sit in judgment of itself, much less anyone outside of it; it is doing so before the appointed time in a corruptible state – resulting in both the body and those outside of it to persist in a state that is displeasing to the Lord.

As long as the Body of Christ remains spiritually blind and bound, it will be outside of the will of God, and scores of people will continue to suffer in silence because of it.