1 Cor. 3:3-4 for you are still fleshly. For insofar as there is jealousy, strife, and factions among you, aren’t you fleshly, and don’t you walk in the ways of men? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” aren’t you fleshly?
During the Catholic inquisitions, as millions of Christians were being killed by the Jesuit Priests for apostasy, throughout Europe, Christians were fleeing. In Bohemia alone, there were an estimated 4,000,000 Christians before the Jesuit inquisition, and ten years later, only 800,000 people remained in Bohemia – all of whom were Catholic. These terrible events prepared the ground for one of the greatest moves of God that have ever been recorded, the Moravian Revival, which lasted for over 100 years. Gustav Warneck, the German Historian of Protestant Missions, testified, “This small church in twenty years called into being more missions than the whole Evangelical Church has done in two centuries.
It began with a young man, Count Zinzendorf, who was 27 years old when he opened his estate to welcome believers escaping persecution and inviting them to settle there. There were different groups, Bohemian Brethren, Moravian Christians, Reformed Christians, and unsatisfied Catholics. After a few years, this fragmented community of some 300 individuals with differing spiritual convictions and loyalties was so rife with conflict and disunity it seemed destined to fail.
One of the village founders, Christian David, got so caught up in apocalyptic fanaticism that he referred to Zinzendorf as the “Beast of the Apocalypse,” while the estate manager of the village, Johan Andreas Rothe was termed the “False Prophet.” In this impossible environment, Count Zinzendorf devoted himself full-time to reconciliation and conflict resolution, visiting each home for prayer and exemplifying the persevering love of Christ.
Amazingly, this personal attention and devotion to unity and reconciliation opened the way for an awakening that would come in just a few weeks. Yet what would have happened if Count Zinzendorf had lost patience and, in justified frustration, thrown everyone off his estate? Instead of a 100-year spiritual awakening…NOTHING of spiritual significance would have happened. The enemy, working through the carnal attitudes of believers [1 Corinthians 3:3-4], continually slandered this young man and one another, but his response was to disarm those persecuting him with the love of Christ. The result was a genuine revival.
Disunity, and slander are deadly to spiritual life and will absolutely kill any hope of enjoying God’s presence. This is true in the smallest company of two or three, or in a local church community, or in any size gathering at all. When the Lord is moving, He will bring humility and love as Zinzindorf did. Let this humble Count be your example in any sphere of responsibility God places you. God is always desiring to birth something supernatural!
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[worthy_plugins_devotion_single_body]There is a sacred truth buried deep in Scripture that many believers never fully embrace: you have been given authority through the Messiah, not someday, but now. It is not reserved for the spiritually elite. It is not earned through effort. It is your inheritance as a child of God. And this authority was purchased at the Cross and activated the moment you were born again.
Many of us can recite Yeshua’s (Jesus’) words about the two greatest commandments—loving God and loving our neighbor—but we often miss how deeply intertwined they are. We treat them like separate tasks: one for God, one for people. But in Greek, Yeshua uses the phrase homoia aute, which means “like to it.” The second commandment isn’t just next in line—it shares the same nature. This small detail radically changes how we understand the passage: loving others is essential to loving God.
In today’s culture, freedom is often defined as doing whatever you want—living without restrictions, chasing your happiness, and controlling your destiny. But when you dig into the Greek word eleutheros, meaning “free,” you discover that real freedom isn’t about cutting all ties—it’s about being connected to the right things. True freedom isn’t found in isolation, but in surrender to God.