No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. -- John 15: 15 (ESV)
Standing alone, this verse may lend support to such teachings but the key verse today is the context. It is the verse that immediately precedes this and it plainly states that you are my friends if you do as I command. Is that how friendships work in this world? For Kris Vallotton, these verses show that God wants to move us from slaves to friends but that is not what they say at all. They are saying that you cannot be my Friend without first being my slave! It has to start with obedience! We are friends beloved through His Word. These are the things heard from the Father that He has made known to us! Kris Vallotton is so busy chasing the Charismaniacal Holy Ghost goose bumps which he thinks is God's presence that he cannot see the sheer biblical lunacy he promotes by pointing people away from the promises of God. It is not really the promises per see. For Kris and Bethel it is always about this experiential Christianity over the constraints of doctrine. So he mashes up some verses he clearly does not understand and creates a doctrine of demons unlike we have seen before. That people who chase the subjective "presence" of God are His friends while people who cling to the objective verity of Scripture, His promises, are slaves. He does this without even realizing that every time he has read us described as servant or even helper -- the actual word there is slave. Because people like Kris Vallotton will have hard time understanding the state of the believer as a slave, let us start with some basics. Slaves are owned.
Now it is God who makes both us and you stand firm in Christ. He anointed us, set his seal of ownership on us, and put his Spirit in our hearts as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come. -- 2Corinthians 2: 21-22 (NIV)
The Holy Spirit is a seal of ownership beloved. We belong to God! He bears responsibility for us. It is the reason none may pluck us from His hand. Why in the world would you run away from this truth? The Bible does not say we cannot serve two bosses -- because we could. It says we cannot serve two masters -- because we can't. A master is one who we answer to. Who has control over us. God is not our friend if He is not our Master! That doesn't sound like the way we understand carnal friendship? Too bad! He is God! His ways and thoughts are higher than the heavens are apart from us. I might add here that when someone came close to experiencing the actual presence of God in the Bible what happened:
And I said: "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!" -- Isaiah 6:5 (ESV)
When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, saying, "Fear not, I am the first and the last, - Revelation 1: 17 (ESV)
This is Isaiah and John -- not exactly spiritual lightweights. Beloved there is no sipping a latte with Jesus. The reason why Kris Vallotton and Bethel is left with selling Relationship Jesus is that they refuse to be mastered by Him. They refuse to be subservient to Him. They want Him to be more relatable. They want Him to feel more like a friend than a master. The truth is the world is their master and they have no intention of giving it up. Kim Walker-Smith is the worship leader for Jesus Culture, which arose from Bethel. She has one of the most demonic testimonies ever told in which Jesus gives her a waking visitation and whisks her away to the throne room where she meets the Father face to face. She giggles like a school girl and asks Him a couple of questions before the Father rips out a piece of His own heart to mold a miniature Kim Walker to dance for Him. I kid you not beloved. Now we know this did not really happen as Kim thinks because the Bible tells us no one shall see the Father and live. Kim however was raised and taught at Bethel where personal experience trumps doctrine so she dismisses what the Bible says about this. This is the danger of leaving the surety of the Holy Word of God. Our experience is rooted in our own hearts, which the Bible assures us is the most deceitful thing ever made.
Beloved, every time you proclaim that Jesus is Lord you are essentially admitting that you are His slave. This should be a source of great comfort as we know He is a Good Lord. His yoke is easy and His burden light. Perhaps one of the greatest road blocks to accepting this is the false notion of freedom and independence. What the Kris Vallotton's of the world fail to see is that they are already slaves to this world and to the lord of this world, Satan. Like Bob Dylan once wrote, you're gonna have to serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you're gonna have to serve somebody. Those who are found sealed by ownership will go on serving Jesus Christ. Those who are not will go right on serving the devil and no Kris. You cannot change God's mind about it.
