Wisdom from such a selfish and fleshly perspective does not come from God and should never be the norm for the body of Christ. Where it has become the norm will be obvious when it is played out like popular culture and the results leave lives upturned, discouraged, wounded to the heart, and tossed aside as losers. In other words, if the players act out like those on TV, resulting in the ugly hatefulness mastered by Hollywood, then rest assured, it is not the pattern to be imitated by a follower of Christ.

Even when hidden among pious comments like, “God is cleansing His church,” “I prayed about it,” “God led me to do this,” or “His will be done,” it is still a lie. There is no biblical example of God ever using TV tactics and soap opera attitudes to cleanse His church. He never sets member upon member in His body, never promotes or condones hate, lies, deceit, selfish ambition, distrust, misconduct, unfaithfulness, or disunity, and never leads us to tear down, negatively divide, or harm the bride of Christ in any way. And most importantly, God never tells us to do something that contradicts or goes against what He has already clearly instructed us to do. It’s as twisted as the person who shared with me years ago, “I’ve prayed about it, and God is leading me to leave my wife and marry this other girl.” Yeah, right—God wants to satisfy all our lustful selfish desires at the expense of character, integrity, and faithfulness!

In the New Testament when God did any cleansing there was no doubt about it, and people inside the church and without fell down in fear before the powerful hand and presence of God. Just ask Ananias and Sapphira or the gentleman of 1 Corinthians chapter 5 fame or those guilty of eating and drinking unworthily of the Lord’s body. God’s cleansing is quick and consistent, embraces discipline, and results in order, salvation, spiritual growth, humility, and glory to Himself. His mode of cleansing never involved believers moving their “membership” from Colossae to Philippi and then back to Jerusalem. That really never cleanses God’s Church at all, because it’s nothing more than a mere reshuffling of unresolved disobedience. Our nearsightedness leads us to mistakenly believe that just because some individuals are no longer seated in the same building means that all is well and we are once again pleasing God and living within His will. Indeed we are not if there remains bitterness, anger, and proud unconfessed sin.

The easy way out is to fight like immature spoiled brats and hope the other guy leaves. The Godly way is to keep our roots deep in Him and have our lives built on Him. Being strong and thankful in the faith as we were once taught is always and forever the right thing to be, and its reward is unbounded.