People are becoming more selfish and deeply immature, while lacking in Christ like love or even natural human love. The list in 2 Timothy 3 says it all!
2 Timothy 3:1-5
"3 This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
2 For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
3 Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
4 Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
5 Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."
Those who are spiritual fakes will use gossip and bullying to control those who do not fall into line with their idea of spirituality.
When we have trusted Christ and turn to Him for our guidance, there will be those who attempt to intimidate us into submission to them, not to God, it's all about them.
Some forms of bullying in the church gatherings are the demands for tithing, intimidating to do work in the church that God never called you to do, as well as many other things that are not mandated in the Scriptures.
If someone cannot give you Scripture for their demands, then the answer for them is very simple, here it is; "I cannot help you with that because God didn't call me to do that." Then if they object you can instruct them to go and fight with God over it.
Wild dogs run in packs to have power over their prey. They need one another and will not go it alone.
If you are a person who cannot be strong unless you are with the pack of dogs to guide you, then you are not strong. Those who are spiritually weak are those who must have the support of others to maintain a level of superficial spirituality.
When we are strong in the Lord, we do not feel a need to act like, look like and think like the pack. We are free to think with the mind of Christ without the pressure of non-thinking packs who intimidate their victims to be just like them.
Matthew 23:15-16..."… 15 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You traverse land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are. 16 Woe to you, blind guides!"
"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
17 So this I say, and affirm together with the Lord, that you walk no longer just as the Gentiles also walk, in the futility of their mind,
18 being darkened in their understanding, excluded from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the hardness of their heart;
19 and they, having become callous, have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity with greediness."
"Everyone who goes on ahead and does not abide in the teaching of Christ, does not have God. Whoever abides in the teaching has both the Father and the Son. If anyone comes to you and does not bring this teaching, do not receive him into your house or give him any greeting, for whoever greets him takes part in his wicked works."
