Category Archives: Fellowship

What fellowship in Christ is and isn’t.

Growing Into the Fellowship of Christ’s Sufferings

by Michael

Woman and Jesus

“We can ignore even pleasure. But pain insists upon being attended to. God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”~ C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

I recently posted this in a comment on another blog and felt the Lord wanted me to share it with you all.

When we suffer pain, God has a purpose in it. First it makes us to turn to Him alone when everything else in our lives has “gone south.” I had to reach the end of myself before I surrendered to Christ in 1970. If He had not come to me when He did, I would have ended my life. He picked me up and gave me His beauty for my ashes, His joy for my mourning, and His praise in my heart for the spirit of depression and suicide.

Then phase two started, God’s child training. After a wonderful honeymoon with Jesus that lasted ten months, the pain started again, but this time it was my Daddy taking me out to the woodshed (see Hebrews ch. 12). I then went through years of church abuse and disillusionment with what calls itself “the church,” because I found it to be the same dysfunctional family that I grew up with. My father was an alcoholic, but this time the booze of choice was power over the people. God had to let me get kicked around in that system until I quit looking to men for what only He could give. Jesus’ words, “Call no man father, teacher or Rabbi (pastor)” finally took on new meaning and scope. Christ was to become my all in all and He shares that place with no man.

More recently another thing has been happening along the lines of what Paul alluded to in his letters. For years I have licked my wounds and felt the pain of what others have done to me, but now He is letting me feel the pain of what I have done (and am doing) to others instead. It is part of “the fellowship of His sufferings” (See Philippians 3:10). Paul said about a healthy body, “when one member suffers, all members suffer.” I rarely saw this in all my years of church going. Most of my life I have been so absorbed in my own pain that I could not feel what I was doing to others and could not feel Jesus’ pain. He stands before the Father ever making intercession for us as our High Priest who is acquainted with our humanity and sufferings in a very real way. He has been making me feel His empathy as well – feeling the pain and sufferings that others are going through whom I have not affected directly. Paul spoke of wanting to “know the fellowship of His sufferings” and “filling up the sufferings of Christ” in himself. This happens when we finally start to walk as He walks upon this earth, and gladly start embracing the pain that death might work in us so that life might abound to others. It is no longer about “our little owie ” any more, but us reaching out beyond our pain in Christ’s love for others because of our love for Him–such a great love that we even want to be conformed to His death.

“We must learn to regard people less in the light of what they do or omit to do, and more in the light of what they suffer.” ~ Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Letters and Papers from Prison

Love you all,
Michael

Do We Really Love?

by Michael

Religion-love affair

Why has God put in our hearts this need to be loved? We all seem to have this human trait in common if we take the time to get in touch with our emotions. Physiologists have found that infants which are not held and loved, but otherwise have their physical needs met, will eventually die. Then I would ask this… Is the need to love as strong in any of us as the need to be loved? Between these two longings seems to be a large chasm fixed. Why this deficit? Doesn’t it stand to reason that God created man with as great a capacity to love as he has to be loved? As I look at the scriptures it seems that God has both of these qualities equally. He speaks of Israel as His longed-for bride in the Old Covenant and in the New He speaks of the church as the bride of Christ. He longs for our devotion and love as well as defining Himself as Love. This deficit to love is at the root of the damage that came upon mankind when Adam and Eve fell. When they sought to be made “wise” without Him, they became self-centered and cold.

 John wrote,

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. He that loves not knows not God; for God is love. (1 John 4:7-8 KJ2000)

 Here we are commanded to love, but there is no command to be loved is there? No, the longing to be loved is innate in us and God put it there for God IS love. What a bold statement! But even bolder is the command written here to love one another, “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and everyone that loves is born of God, and knows God.” Do we really love one another, my fellow saints? Do we love one another the way God loves us? Isn’t this what John is saying, “Everyone that loves is born of God” Do we really live as if He IS our Father, living by the same attributes?

 I recently wrote the following in a letter to a dear friend in Christ, “Is love just a game? Is it some kind of sport where we maneuver with one another, each one trying to get into a position so that the other one needs us but we maintain control so we don’t need them? As I look around at all the relationships I have seen, it really seems to be the case. How often have you ever seen a married couple that both NEEDED each other the same amount with the same intense love? Or is it that I have come from such a dysfunctional family background that I perceive relationships this way?”

 How often in the relationship between two people do you see a mutually in-depth love for one another? Isn’t it almost always lopsided? Today I see so many marriages where one person loves the other and the other one seems indifferent and self-centered. There are many unequally yoke couples in Christendom today. The ones who have truly given themselves to one another spirit, soul and body in complete unity, the unity that the Father has with the Son are rare indeed. Yet, isn’t it something we all long for who are IN Christ? Grant it, not all are really IN Christ among even those who call themselves “Christian,” yet is not this the very gauge that John has put forth in the above quoted passage? If this malady is true of husband and wife relationships in the church, how much more is it true of the relationships that members of Christ’s body have with one another who are not so closely bound? I can’t get away from Jesus last will and testament:

That they all may be one; as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that you have sent me. And the glory which you gave me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one: I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that you have sent me, and have loved them, as you have loved me. (John 17:21-23 KJ2000)

 Christian unity, even marital unity and love for one another are bound together. John goes on to write,

 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. In this is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. (1 John 4:16-17 KJ2000)

Can you see how these two verses here tie right in with Jesus’ final prayer? “He that dwells in love dwells in God and God in him.” Coupled with, “I in them, and you in me, that they may be made perfect in one…” How many of us really dwell in love and unity? Don’t most of us spend our waking hours dwelling on our own needs and desires? Yet in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is this an attribute of the love of God? Here Paul wrote, “Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…” Is God really dwelling in us as we spend the day focused on our wants and desires? If so He must be pushed into a back room closet.

 “He that dwells in love, dwells in God and God in him.” Do we so dwell in the love of God that we are made perfect by His indwelling power of love in us? Are we made perfect in love? And if not will we have boldness on that judgment day? John seems to tie the love of God in with boldness as well for he continues to say,

 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and he who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because he first loved us. (1 John 4:18-19 RSVA)

 We love because He first loved us. His love for us and in us has enabled us to love as He does, also. Fear has torment, yet if we are dwelling in the love of our Father, if we really know HIM as the one who loves us so, we will have no fear from Him or anyone else for that matter. Love does that! It makes you bold. Bold enough to love others as God loves you without fear. How many of us love this way? Aren’t we afraid to be vulnerable with one another and as a result aren’t we really afraid to love for fear of being dumped or fear that if we share our most intimate secrets with a person they will not love us anymore or worse yet, blab them to others whom we do not trust?

 Aren’t most of us afraid to let our real emotions show for fear of criticism or being crushed? So there we go living life wanting to be loved by others, yet afraid to let them know it? You see, for real love to work it requires great vulnerability and many opportunities to be wounded. This is why John inserts here the fact that perfect love casts out fear. We must be so moved by the love of our Father that we can openly communicate His love to others and be willing to keep loving them even when that love is not reciprocated. This is the kind of love that Jesus had for those who killed Him, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you would not!” (Matthew 23:37 RSVA).

 It is said that the apostle John whom we quote, was the longest living of all the apostles and as such he was the last one living that had seen and lived with Jesus Christ. They would bring him into a gathering of saints on a stretcher and they would wait to see what this old saint would have to say to them and he would rise up on one elbow and say, “Little children, it is enough that you love one another.”

 So, dear saints, I pray that we might all be so changed by the love of our Father that we become instruments of His love to others regardless of how they do or do not receive us. “Father forgive them, they know not what they do.” THIS is the way God loves and it is here that we will manifest whether we are truly mature in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

 A new commandment I give unto you, That you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one to another. (John 13:34-35 KJ2000)

Two or Three… Intimacy in Christ

by Michael

last supper“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20 KJ2000)

What does it mean to have intimacy with our Lord? Jesus often indicated that God desires intimacy with all of us. For instance, in John chapters ten and fifteen, He is a Shepherd that calls His sheep by name and leads them in a personal way. He is the Vine and we, His branches, are attached directly to Him and we get all our nourishment from Him. Even evangelical churches call Him our Personal Savior. But after we get saved in one of these institutions, how “personal” does He become to us?

Most of us grow up in families that are very fractured and in most, even the best of them, time spent with our parents in an intimate way is very rare due to the pressures of supporting a family and so many other distractions like TV. Then there is “church.”

In my own experience with “church,” the machine divides the family from having time together more than it promotes family intimacy. There is the need to be at the church every time it is open; Sunday morning service that ushers the kids off to “children’s church;” Sunday school that is divided up by age groups; Wednesday night prayer service that doesn’t welcome kids; and all the kid and youth activities at the church during the week. Let’s not forget to mention Royal rangers and church youth camp. On and on it goes, all in the name of promoting a “Godly family.” Go figure!

The same thing happens with our own “personal” relationships with Christ. We get “saved” and then what happens? We are told that we need to sit and listen to sermons delivered by one man. We have go to Sunday school classes with their man-made curriculums (and even fill in the blanks) in a one-size-fits-all lesson plan. If we dare to share what is really on our hearts on “prayer meeting night,” it is sure to become the gossip for the church “prayer chain” during the week. So we learn to be secluded, isolated and divided instead of truly becoming members one of another as the Church was meant to do.

The Machine prevails in the lives of most Christians. Their “relationship” with who they think God is becomes like that scene our of 1984, where all the people have blank stares on their faces as they watch Big Brother on the screen and are filled with his mind controlling propaganda. Is it any wonder that Christian circles have a “group speak” that is blindly followed that dictates what is proper to say and what is not?

So, what must happen in the life of a saint that is caught-up in this system for him or her to find that intimacy with the Lord Jesus had in mind when He saved them? Soren Kierkegaard wrote,

“We warn young people against going to dens of iniquity, even out of curiosity, because no one knows what might happen. Still more terrible, however, is the danger of going along with the crowd. In truth, there is no place, not even one most disgustingly dedicated to lust and vice, where a human being is more easily corrupted – than in the crowd.

 “Even though every individual possesses the truth, when he gets together in a crowd, untruth will be present at once, for the crowd is untruth. It either produces impenitence and irresponsibility or it weakens the individual’s sense of responsibility by placing it in a fractional category.

“For instance, imagine an individual walking up to Christ and spitting on him. No human being would ever have the courage or the audacity to do that. But as part of a crowd, well then they somehow have the “courage” to do it – dreadful untruth!

“The crowd is indeed untruth. Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.

“His work is to be involved with all people, if possible, but always individually, speaking with each and every person on the sidewalk and on the streets – in order to split apart. He avoids the crowd, especially when it is treated as authoritative in matters of the truth or when its applause, or hissing, or balloting are regarded as judges. He avoids the crowd with its herd mentality more than a decent young girl avoids the bars on the harbor.

“Those who speak to the crowd, coveting its approval, those who deferentially bow and scrape before it must be regarded as being worse than prostitutes. They are instruments of untruth.”

There is so much truth here! When they were spitting on and mocking Jesus, it was the crowd who persecuted Him. The same soldier who spit on Him never would have come up to Him privately and done so. The same thing is true of worship and prayer. When we come together in a crowd and try to express openly what we feel, we are shut down and end up singing a canned song from a hymnal or praying a canned prayer from a prayer book. At best, we might pray something out loud that we know won’t get us ridiculed by the rest of the crowd.

How did Jesus really teach? He was always intimate when He taught. Yes, he taught the crowds in parables, but He gave the meanings of those parables to His hand-selected disciples, and often spoke to them individually as He addressed their heart issues. Even the twelve were whittled down to three when he went up on the mountain to meet with His Father, and only John had the title, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” A herd mentality or a mind imprisoned by a church system won’t let you hear the truth about what it means to be intimate with Jesus. It saddens me when people who claim to be Christians have a group identity that is more important to them than their true identity that is found by abiding IN Christ.

Jesus was and is intimate! He taught the woman at the well privately. He taught Nicode’mus (or at least tried to), but not the Sanhedrin. He had a close friendship with the family of Lazarus and especially Mary. He spoke to Nathaniel about what He saw him doing under the fig tree. He called Matthew the tax collector in a personal way and no one else that day. He spoke salvation personally to the woman caught in adultery and condemnation to her religious persecutors. He picked out Zacchaeus from the crowd and had dinner with him. Jesus was and is a Personal Savior! Imagine the intimacy of the woman kissing His feet, washing them with her tears and drying them with her hair in Simon’s house. All Simon the Pharisee could was to judge them both. Religion is cold and impersonal at best, and so are church services, for the most part. Many people like it that way and feel “safe” lost in the crowd at their mega-churches. Toward the end of the time when I was still trying to find Jesus in church services and conferences, He always spoke to me about things that were unrelated to the service. He was becoming my personal Christ!

Christians are fearful of intimacy! Prudish religion tells us that intimacy is an evil word and is something to be avoided at all costs least the flesh rise up and get involved. In true conversion and salvation, our stoney fleshly heart is removed and we are given the heart of Christ! Our old sinful minds are replaced with the mind of Christ and His commandment of love is written on our hearts (read Jeremiah 31:31-33, Ezekiel 36: 26-27 and Hebrews 8).

Jesus insists that He is coming back for His bride and loves her very much. She loves him with a love that is without blemish. God speaks of being a Husband to Israel all through the Old Covenant. Jesus never called His Father “God,” but rather “Father.” He tells us to call NO man father, but only our Father in heaven. He calls Himself the Son and tells us that we are all siblings or “brethren.” He tells us that He is the Good Shepherd. Even David had that figured out when he said, “The LORD is MY Shepherd…”

Dear saints, don’t fear intimacy with God. He is not the great and fearful Oz who stands behind a curtain flicking levers and pulling ropes as He tries to portray an image that scares little people into submission. The curtain between us and our Father was torn from top to bottom when Jesus died for us on the cross. He even tears down the veil of separation between us as individuals as we abide in Him. In Christ there is no slave nor free man, no Jew nor Gentile, no male nor female, but a new Creation (see 2 Cor. 5:17 and 21) that abides intimately with the Father and the Son and with one another as well. You can’t do this in a crowd!

This is why the early church met in homes. Their homes were not like our 2000 square foot plus homes in America, but much smaller and many only had one room. Families were intimate, so it was not a fearful thing in the early church. We fear it because of our socially imposed distance, the big buildings we meet in, the isolated cars we travel in, fenced up yards that keep us isolated from our neighbors, the cubicles at work, and so on. If we get into an elevator, we all turn and face the door and no one dares to speak. Even in church we look straight forward at the lecturer and rarely venture a side long glance at “our neighbor” unless told to do so by the man up front. When the “service’ is over we scurry to grab our kids and get out to the car so we can beat the crowd out of the parking lot. It is all a lie. The crowd is a lie. This is NOT the church!

Jesus never said, “Where two or three hundred are gathered together, I will be there…,” but He did say, “If any man (not any church or any nation) will open up to me I will come into him and sup with him and he with me.” He did pray, “Father, that they might be one even as we are one, I in you and you in me that they might be one in us.” It is always about intimacy with the Lord. The intimacy that the Son has with the Father is to be ours with each other as we are ONE with one another. Then the world will know that the Father sent the Son to be a personal Savior with each person in His creation. Will we say, “Yes Jesus! I want that personal intimacy with you! I want to know you as the lover you have called me to be IN you. I want to know my fellow saints who want this same intimacy that is lived by the Father and the Son”? This should be our prayer and deepest heart’s desire if we are truly called and chosen by the Father.

Bless you all as you seek His wonderful face.

 

A River Runs Through Us!

by Michael

RiverLife

Nevertheless I have somewhat against you, because you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you are fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto you quickly, and will remove your lampstand out of its place, except you repent. (Revelation 2:4-5 KJ2000)

 

This is a sobering warning from the Lord Jesus to His church at the end of the first century. This church was doing everything that He wanted of them, but one thing. In their zeal for the Lord, the “things” of “doing church” had replaced their love for Him and for one another. Sound familiar?

But, God is doing something to remedy that problem. How many of you have felt this special move of God in your hearts, lately? It is like a river flowing out of your belly… a river of His great love that seems to have no end and who’s intensity just keeps growing! God seems to have sent His Spirit into us to restore the love we once had in those early days when Jesus first came into and made His abode in us. I have been totally taken by the love of the Lord over the last few weeks! It is so strong and it is flowing out of me for all who He puts me in touch with, even on the internet!

Well, as I have shared this experience with a few others that He put me in touch with in a special way, it turns out that they are also feeling this within them– an artesian force that can’t be contained. Jesus told the woman at the well, “…whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life”(John 4:14 RSVA – emphasis added). In John chapter seven we read,

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart shall flow rivers of living water.” (But this spoke he of the Spirit, whom they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet given; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.) (John 7:37-39 KJ2000).

Yes, this flow is of the Spirit of God and the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace… I have been experiencing all of these aspects of His fruit flowing out of me and it is exciting, but the most intense of them is His love and with it the joy of the Lord springs up in me as well. This river is His healing power for dry and thirsty souls.

In Psalms we read, “There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God, the holy habitation of the Most High. God is in the midst of her, she shall not be moved; God will help her right early.”(Psalms 46:4-5 RSVA). You see, with this river of love comes great joy that makes us so glad to be in the City of God and among His people! Now couple this last passage with what David says here, “How precious is thy steadfast love, O God! The children of men take refuge in the shadow of thy wings. They feast on the abundance of thy house, and thou givest them drink from the river of thy delights. For with thee is the fountain of life; in thy light do we see light.”(Psalms 36:7-9 RSVA). Here we see the love of God, the river of God, and His fountain of living water which brings Light and Life! It is all the same flow coming down from the throne of God and flowing out from we who are IN the flow of His Spirit as His individual streams that make up the river.

Ezekiel saw this river (see chapter 47) and John saw this river in his vision of heaven,

 Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. (Revelation 22:1-2 RSVA)

So, as I contemplated how this love of God flowed from me to those who were also in the river it was like it was a continuum that replenished itself. The more I let his love flow through me the more I got! My stream of love flowed into them and theirs flowed into me and the love has just kept building and increasing! It has been like Jesus said in Luke, “Give, and it shall be given to you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over, shall be given into your bosom: for with the same measure with which ye mete it shall be measured to you again.”(Luke 6:38 Darby). Sometimes my “bosom,” my breast, feels like it is about to explode if I try to hold it all in!!!

For the first time I am starting to understand the depth of what Jesus was saying here in John…

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you: continue you in my love. If you keep my commandments, you shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you. (John 15:9-12 KJ2000)

Where the love of the Father abides in us, His fullness of joy will also be there with it. What is His commandment that we are to keep? “This is my commandment, that you love one another, as I have loved you.” We abide in Him… by abiding in His great flow of love for each other!

While meditating on all these things, I got this picture of a flow that was circular… there are these rivers that flow in a circle in water parks in our area. They flow in a circle and are moved along by large pumps and underwater jets from the pumps. I saw this as the flow of love as I have been experiencing it. The love flows from me to the next person down stream. Did it originate from me? Yes and no. The flow originated from the Father and the Son and the love that they have for one another and it spills forth onto us and then through us to others and then back to them again from our love filled hearts. John in his first letter wrote,

 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him. In this is our love made perfect… because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love… He that fears is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us.(1 John 4:16-19 KJ2000)

So we see here that the “pump” that makes this river of love flow is the love of the Father and the Son and as WE dwell in the flow of their love we dwell IN THEM and are made perfect in their love. As His body we become like Jesus to this thirsty world by letting the love of the Father and the Son flow to them through us.

The next is one of my most favorite passages in the Bible… Jesus final prayer to the Father,

“… that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and thou in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that thou hast sent me and hast loved them even as thou hast loved me.”(John 17:21-23 RSVA – emphasis added)

We just read above that we are made perfect in the love of the Father and the Son. Now we see Jesus saying the same thing calling it being ONE. If a pitcher or a cistern is broken it is no longer perfect and good for nothing for it can hold no water (see Jer. 2:12-13). Through God’s love for us, we are being made into perfect vessels of His love from which He can pour us out on the thirsty and loveless world around us. It is in this same love as we abide in it that we are made perfectly ONE. We as the Bride of Christ are making ourselves ready for His soon return by fellowshipping and abiding IN His Love!

Do you want to evangelize the world?

Only as we are in the unity of the love of the Father and the Son will the world know that the Father has sent the Son and how much HE loves them. When our evangelism is just so many empty platitudes and throwing scriptures at people without the love of the Father flowing through us to then, they will never see the Son for who He is and love Him because He first loves them.

So, dear saints of God, pray that God might open up your hearts and heal you of anything in you that blocks the flow of His great grace and love for your fellow members of Christ’s body and for all who are starving for a touch from the Father’s loving heart. And as He heals you of your wounds you will be amazed at the love He pours through you for people that you once hated and disliked.

 But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them who despitefully use you, and persecute you; That you may be the children of your Father who is in heaven… (Matt. 5:44-45)

 

What Has Been Happening?

by Michael

But who may endure the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appears? for he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap: And he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver: and he shall purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the LORD an offering in righteousness.
(Malachi 3:2-3 KJ2000)

We know that God has said that in the last days, He would be doing a deeper work in the hearts of His saints AND that He would use our fellow saints to work in and prepare us for the second coming of our Lord Jesus.

Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the sound of many waters and like the sound of mighty thunderpeals, crying, “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to be clothed with fine linen, bright and pure”– for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints. (Revelation 19:6-8 RSVA- emphasis added)

Yes, WE as members of the Bride of Christ are what HE uses to make us ready for His coming. It seems that in the last month and a half He has gone after one issue after another that was still lurking deep in my heart, some of them lingering there even from my childhood. I have gone for years before this, without Him really touching any new issues in my heart. He seems to do these things in seasons and I have been in one of those painful, yet wonderful periods of my life.

God in His wisdom has used a wonderful sister in Christ to reach into my heart and bring to light a lot of places that my attitudes toward different classes of people had not been healed. It was about 24 years ago that a lady counselor told me she could go no further with me after about three sessions. Then she told me a curious thing… that when God got at the rest of what was holding me back He would use a woman, not a man as He had previously years earlier (in 1979)… Well, this has all come to pass as He used a very unsuspecting vessel over the internet to touch my heart. This dear sister slipped right in “under my radar” if you will and God started using her to do what no other person could do before.

Once the first area of darkness was brought to light, my hatred for pastors and disdain for ecclesiastical authority, then the others came tumbling down as well. And get this! She didn’t even know that God was using her this way. Jesus just showed up in her words! Yes, He still uses the weak things to confound the mighty and the foolish things to confound the wise. I don’t know how many more issues are going to show up, for at one point the Lord showed me my heart with the top removed and it looked like a cone-shaped coffee filter with grounds in the bottom. When I saw that, I gave Him full permission to empty me out once again.

As a precursor to all this He had me meditating on this passage (and I am still marveling over it in its simplicity)…

And we are writing this that our joy may be complete. This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not live according to the truth; but if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
(1 John 1:4-7 RSVA)

Light! God’s pure light! This is the power that exposes darkness and makes it flee away. But it also heals that scar that is left behind when our darkness is banished. A study about light is a very interesting thing. Light not only illuminates, but it bleaches things out like a fuller’s soap (see Malachi 3:2) and it also kills bacteria and purifies.  But here we see John revealing to us that LIGHT is integral to REAL fellowship in the Spirit of God.  IF we are walking in the Light as HE is in the Light…. God is Light and in Him there is no darkness… true fellowship is found where hearts are open to HIM and to one another.

Later in John’s letter we read that God is Love as well. So, can we have real healing fellowship with one another without HIS healing Love there, too? I don’t think so. Love is what it takes for us to open up to His light… We love Him because HE first loved us… and His love in His saints is what holds us together and enables us to trust one another and to open up to one another so HIS Light can shine in!!! This is when the blood of Jesus does its cleansing work! It was being loved unconditionally by a bunch of hippie Jesus People in 1970 that got me to open my heart up to God and be healed from a spirit of hate that was left over from my part in the Vietnam War.

“We have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” You see it all fits together… I was having fellowship in openness with this sister and God came into it to open me up and heal me. Some of you might read this and think, “Poor sap! What is HIS problem? I got perfectly healed when Jesus came into my life!” Well, good for you! But with me the next verse in 1 John has great meaning as well… “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

So, dear saints let us boldly enter into His throne of grace and let His light do its work with one another… no more silly church games of parading around in our righteous robes like so many Pharisees of old! Let us open up our hearts to those whom God has given us in a special relationship (the spiritual ones we can trust [see Galatians 6:1]) and get REAL with one another…

Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
(James 5:16 KJ2000)

Do you see the context of effectual and fervent prayer? It is for one another’s healing as members of Christ’s body. I hope we will all find that special person, as I have, who God uses to heal us and get to the bottom of our heart issues that hold us back.

“You use steel to sharpen steel, and one friend sharpens another.”
(Proverbs 27:17 MSG)

God bless you all!

 

 

 

When One Member Suffers…

by Michael

He aint heavyIt has been about three weeks since I last posted on this blog. The reason is that God has been doing a deep work in my heart and going after things that I had not given Him as of yet due to my own pain from things in my past. It has been a very intense time while Jesus ministered to me through a couple of precious saints who have suffered much in the last few years.

Paul wrote,

“For by one Spirit were we all baptized into one body, whether we be Jews or Gentiles, whether we be bond or free; and have been all made to drink into one Spirit… That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and members in particular.” (1 Corinthians 12:13-27 KJ2000)

Have you ever thought about the depths of Paul’s love for Jesus when he wrote, “That I may know him, and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death” (Philippians 3:10 KJ2000)? “The fellowship of HIS sufferings! What a curious thing  to say, Paul. Isn’t fellowship suppose to make us feel all warm and fuzzy?

Jesus made it clear that the goal of the Father is for us who are His to walk in this world just as He did, motivated by the love of the Father and being poured-out for those in need. And that means that we should not be indifferent to the pains of another if we are truly living IN Christ. We are in touch with their pain because HE is in touch with their pains and sufferings! We are to be their “Jesus with skin on,” and be His conduit of love and comfort in their time of need.

So, how often do we find this same sacrificial love of Christ among our fellow Christians when WE are the ones who are suffering? Sure, they will often offer “sound advice” when we are troubled and maybe even be given the name of  “a good counsellor,” but they either want to get  away from our pain or quickly put the “fix” on us to make themselves more comfortable. They don’t want us to rock their perfectly orchestrated worlds.

One time I was going through a hard time in my life when nothing seemed to be going right. I went to church one Sunday hoping to find comfort. A brother walked up, shook my hand and said, “How are you doing, brother? Good to see you!” As I started to share with him just how I was doing  and shared the first thing that had befell me, thinking he really cared, he said, “Well, that’s great, brother, see you next Sunday,” turned and walked away!

How often has someone like this or even a family member just sat there with us, held our hand as we poured-out our hearts, cried with us and really entered into OUR sufferings and pain? Yes, true love and fellowship with another member of Christ’s body sometimes requires that we suffer with the one who is hurting and just love them through it all without doing our best to put a “FIX” on them, until Christ heals them in HIS time. We live in such a shallow world when we look for REAL fellowship and enduring love and no one wants to be bothered. When we are suffering it can be a very lonely world, but Jesus leaves the 99 sheep, goes out, finds us, and personally loves and heals us.

Paul wrote, “Bear you one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ” (Galatians 6:2 KJ2000). This requires getting down in the trenches with those who are burdened and helping them with their load. May we all search our hearts and ask the Lord to change us so that we walk as Christ does with all those He puts in our lives, for better or for worse, in their triumphs and their sufferings. As one pastor used to say, “This is a test! This life is ONLY a test.”

Let Us Be Made Perfect in Love

by Michael

Sharing LoveIn 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen, often called “the love chapter,” Paul starts out by continuing his thoughts written in chapter twelve where he wrote much about “spiritual gifts” (tongues, interpretation of tongues, prophesy, healings, works of faith, miracles, etc.). In many church circles these have received a lot of attention, but dear saints, there is so much more! Paul goes on to write,

What if I could speak all languages of humans and of angels? If I did not love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. What if I could prophesy and understand all secrets and all knowledge? And what if I had faith that moved mountains? I would be nothing, unless I loved others. What if I gave away all that I owned and let myself be burned alive? I would gain nothing, unless I loved others. (1 Corinthians 13:1-3 CEV)

When we abide in our Father’s seventh day of rest in heavenly places (see Hebrews 4:9-11), the “then” spoken of by Paul becomes the ever-present now for the Father with whom we dwell IN Christ is the Great I AM, not the I Was or the I Will BE. In this rest the implications of the above passage from Paul are eminence! Our former state spoken of here is “when I was a child” spiritually speaking, the “when I BECAME a man” speaks of spiritual maturity in THIS life which goes on into the next. Way too much of what is ours if we abide IN Christ has been put off in our thinking as “pie in the sky, by and by.” I believe this is because of the traditions of men in the churches led by immature leaders who have yet to entire into God’s rest, but are driven by carnal human forces (see 1 Cor. 3:1-5).

Paul continues in this famous “love chapter” to describe the attributes of God’s pure love…

Love suffers long, and is kind; love envies not; love vaunts not itself, is not puffed up, Does not behave itself rudely, seeks not her own, is not easily provoked, keeps no record of evil; Rejoices not in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails… (1 Corinthians 13:4-8 KJ2000)

 

Then Paul starts telling us the nature of a life living in and perfected by love saying,

“But when that which is perfect has come, that which is in part [spiritual gifts] shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I felt as a child, I reasoned as a child; when I became a man, I had done [away] with what belonged to the child. For we see now through a dim window obscurely, but then face to face; now I know partially, but then I shall know according as I also have been known. And now abide faith, hope, love; these three things; and the greater of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:10-13 Darby)

For the mature saint of God the old “now” of seeing obscurely and seeking powerful spiritual gifts — lives motivated and filtered by the lusts of that old Adam within—this kind of life is over! Our NEW life of knowing Christ and others even as WE are known by Him have now begun. What was once the “then”  becomes our ever present now! It is here that ALL things become ours as we abide IN the Vine, Jesus Christ, and He abides in us. It is here that we finally start being the womb in which true spiritual fruit of the Father can take form and be brought forth into HIS kingdom. Oh, how we long for such in-depth, abiding fellowship first with the Father and the Son and then with one another. It is here that the greatest spiritual gift of all flows freely, His great gift of pure love which shines forth His presences within and gives His life to others.

Paul went on to write about this state of being saying, “For we see now through a dim window obscurely, but then face to face; now I know partially, but then I shall know according as I also have been known. And now abide faith, hope, love; these three things; and the greater of these is love.”

The old “now” of seeing obscurely– vision filtered by that old Adam within– are over! Our NEW lives of knowing Christ even as WE are known by Him have now begun. Oh, how we long for such in depth fellowship with one another in Christ wherein the greatest spiritual gift of all flows freely, His great gift of pure love!

“Father, make is so in each of us. Do what needs to be done to bring our Old Adam to naught. Make us into your broken vessels and let the sweet perfume of your love fill the whole house wherein we dwell, the very temple of God made not with hands but by you with Living stones.”

In His agape love for you all,

Michael

Intimate Love Divine

by Michael

Two Eagles soaring

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, the wonders of that blood,

That washes and cleanses our souls,

In His Spirit from above,

Fanning us like burning coals,

In God’s eternal love.

 

There was a time long before,

We were considered not a people,

Struggling in the house of the whore,

Those buildings with tall steeples.

 

With tender love Jesus found us,

Calling us unto Himself,

“Be washed in my blood you must”

And rescued us from isolation’s shelf.

 

Oh, the joy of fellowship divine,

We have found with Him within.

Oh, this wondrous love sublime,

We share with those freed from sin.

 

To some “intimacy” is a word to fear,

As with the Pharisees of old.

To others it is a joy so near,

These to whom He bids, “Enter bold.”

 

“Too heavenly minded,

To be earthly good,” they said.

In self-righteousness they are blinded,

To these we have this to say,

“You are the ones who are binded.”

 

With Christ and Father we are one,

That is the eternal key.

To find most intimate love in them,

And knowing what it means to be we,

A people bound in ONE big family – intimately.

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An Intimate Relationship in the Light of God

by Michael

Adulterous & Christ

And, behold, a woman in the city, who was a sinner, when she knew that Jesus sat to eat in the Pharisee’s house, brought an alabaster flask of ointment, And stood at his feet behind him weeping, and began to wash his feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed them with the ointment. (Luke 7:37-38 KJ2000)

 

What a moving story about love we read about here in the Gospel of Luke! Have you ever thought of the Bible not as a text book on God and His Kingdom or a rule book or bylaws for the church to follow, but rather a group of love letters bound in a book from Jesus to us? Man once knew true intimacy with God. Adam and Eve walked in the garden with God in the cool of the day and they were totally naked and knew no shame or separation from God. They were one. Adam named the animals with Him and He saw that Adam could not find an appropriate counterpart among them so He put Adam to sleep and created Eve out of one of his ribs. These two were one flesh by God’s design. She was bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. It was not until they tried to take the fast track and become like God, knowing both good and evil that knew shame and hid from Him and covered themselves with fig leaves. They hid from God and they hid from themselves out of shame. When God came looking for them He knew where they were… He is the all-knowing God, but He said, “Where are you, Adam?” He wanted Adam to know where he was and from where he had fallen and the fellowship he had lost by this simple act of trying to be like God without God. I think that God was heart-broken. “Where are you, Adam? Why have you left me?” Paul wrote many millennia later that Christ was crucified from the foundations of the world. He was way ahead of the wiles of the wicked one and we who are His were crucified with Him and all our sins were nailed with Him on that cross.

Adam and Eve lost their deep spiritual intimacy that fateful day. Christians seem to be paranoid of it. If a person speaks of an intimate relationship with Jesus as the one who loves them and speaks to them, many people will call them a “mystic”: and go running the other way! The words “intimacy” and “mystic” are not found in the Bible, but this experience is spoken of in many ways. God desires intimacy with His creation and always has. After the fall we read about Enoch who walked with God and God took him. We read about Noah who found grace in the eyes of the Lord, Abraham being a friend of God. God spoke with Moses as a man, face to face and Samuel was so close to God that all his words were God’s words with none of his words falling to the ground. David, even though he sinned grossly, was still a man after God’s own heart who also knew how to repent. All these relationships speak of intimacy with God.

We also read in many places where God speaks of Israel as His wife or bride and of their infidelity to Him down through the years after they left Egypt as His chosen people. Stephen was so bold as to say to the leaders of the Jews,

 

And they [the Hebrews] made a calf in those days, and offered sacrifice unto the idol, and rejoiced in the works of their own hands. Then God turned, and gave them up to worship the host of heaven; as it is written in the book of the prophets, O you house of Israel, have you offered to me slain beasts and sacrifices by the space of forty years in the wilderness? Yea, you took up the tabernacle of Moloch, and the star of your god Rephan, figures which you made to worship them: and I will carry you away beyond Babylon. (Acts 7:41-43 KJ2000)

They were unfaithful to His love right from the beginning! And it was this unfaithfulness to His love that made them go on to kill the One whom the Father sent to them to redeem them from their sin, Jesus Christ. Stephen went on to say,

 

But Solomon built him [God] a house. Yet the most High dwells not in temples made with hands; as says the prophet, Heaven is my throne, and earth is my footstool: what house will you build me? says the Lord: or what is the place of my rest? Has not my hand made all these things? You stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted? and they have slain them who showed before of the coming of the Just One; of whom you have been now the betrayers and murderers: (Acts 7:47-52 KJ2000)

All those years they had the tabernacle of meeting which was located by His order outside the camp because of their sin. They would stand in the doors of their tents and watch Moses walk by every day outside the camp to meet with the Lord and none of them joined him! God was just a curiosity to them, yet they would meet at the tabernacle of Moloch and worship Rephan! How cruel they were to His loving heart all those years.

So, Jesus, God’s own Son, was sent to earth to show us what an intimate relationship with His Father looks like. He spoke of God as “our Father.” And God spoke of Jesus as His Son. Then we read in Paul’s letters that it was God’s plan all along that he might have many loving and obedient sons and daughters unto His glory and that Jesus Christ was only the First Born of many brethren. Luke quotes Jesus saying that we will be like the angels of God in heaven, not marrying but I believe that we will all be equally bonded to Christ and one another in one great fellowship of love. Heaven is a place of great intimacy, not a place where Bible scholars endlessly speculate on the things of God by the power of their intellects like the Sadducees, the scribes and the Pharisees did 2000 years ago while they ignored the One who loved them. Yes, the Bible is a love letter showing us the heart of God toward us not a text book.

Let There Be Light!

John the apostle had much to say about light regarding God. He spoke of Jesus in these words, “In him [Christ] was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it… [He is] the true light, which enlightens everyone…” (John 1:4-9 ESV). Jesus is the Light that illuminates everyone. We are without excuse if we go on seeking to cover up our sin and live in darkness.

John later would write, “This then is the message which we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:5-7 KJ2000).

Jesus Christ is God’s Light, piercing and purifying light. When He, Christ, comes again He will destroy the devil and his word with His pure light. Christ sheds His light upon us we have a choice to make, to run from the Light out of fear of being exposed, or to run to the Light and be cleansed and made pure and free from sin that has controlled us, destroying the works of the devil. To be a follower of Christ is to walk in the light as He is in the light of the Father. Again we see God’s great call for intimacy and fellowship with His creation.

Light by its very nature generates intimacy… there is nothing left to hide. If you hold your hand up to a bright light you can see your bones inside of them! How much more intense is the Light who’s Father is the Father of Lights? Those who walk in the light as He is in the light are God’s lights in this dark world. Through the work of Christ in our lives we can be restored to what was lost before the fall of man, walking with God in an intimate, spiritual nakedness before Him and we can also become one with one another in this same Light of Life. In this passage is where Christ’s Light and Life come together. His light purifies us so that we can walk in the light with one another without reaching for our religious fig leaves of doctrines and our coverings of self-righteousness.

Notice that John says that in the Light of Christ we DO the truth, not just study and give mental assent and lip service to it. It is walking in this truth and light with one another that we have opportunity for such rich fellowship and honesty with one another IN HIM and in His great love. Regarding true fellowship, Paul wrote something that is becoming richer to me by the day,

 

“Therefore from now on know we no man [or woman] after the flesh: yea, though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet from now on know we him no more. Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creation: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-17 KJ2000)

How quick we seek to know one another “after the flesh.” How many of us have asked God to help us see our brothers and sisters after the Spirit? The disciples had known Jesus after the flesh… in His earthly body, but Paul had seen Him in His spiritual body and was converted from a hater of Christ and His body on earth to one transformed by His blinding light and changed forever into a lover of Christ and those who are His. None of the apostles saw the meaning of the Old Testament with New Covenant eyes like Paul.

It is dangerous in our old Adamic way of thinking to be exposed to God’s light and to be truly open with one another in His truth, so most Christians live a life of pretense with one another out of fear. The challenge is to pray that God puts us into fellowship with those who have embraced the Light of Christ so that we can walk with them in all honesty without pretense. This makes us vulnerable to them and they to us… this is what real love relationships are all about; openness, faith, love, hope, forgiving one another quickly when we blow it… knowing that in this great fellowship with Jesus, His blood is there to cleanse us from all sin that we might be restored to Him perfectly and to one another as we seek His love for one another (see 1 John 1:7).

Intimacy, Faith and Light Go Together

The Father’s desire for us has never changed from the very beginning! Here we see that for us to have intimacy with Him requires that we draw near unto Him and walk with Him in His marvelous light, in so much of HIS light that it rids us of any darkness that is still in us. It is here that we start to walk in the truth as God sees it… no darkness, walking in the light as HE is in the light as sons and daughters of God. Jesus told the woman at the well that those who would worship the Father must do it in Spirit and in Truth, not by going to some holy building or shrine on a mountain. The light of the Spirit of Christ is needed so that we will BE truth, not just talk about it for He is the Spirit of Truth. What a purging this requires of us! It requires us to take up the cross of Christ that pursues any darkness in us and puts it to death. Then we see in this passage one more thing… if WE (two or three who gather in His name) are walking in the light as HE is in the light we have fellowship not only with the Father and the Son, but with one another as members of that Light. Yet,

I as a child always longed for an intimate relationship with another. My own father was distant to all of us in the family and I remember my mom complaining to me as a young teen about feeling used, but never loved. My own experience was the same. I remember how treacherous my peers were. They would fain love or friendship to get me to reveal something intimate about myself and then run out and reveal it to others and make a mockery of me. After becoming a Christian and finding Christ’s love for the first time I only assumed that His people would be different and that at least I would be part of an intimate functional family. Well, that hope got dashed as well. Living with Christians was like tip-toeing through a mine field. I was never sure what would set the next one off. So here I am writing an intimate letter about God’s love and light, hoping that you will relate and be able to respond in kind.

There are some important things in the above passage from First John that seem to escape most Christians. The message, the very Gospel of Christ, bids us to come into His light and let all our darkness be expelled and this requires trust (a.k.a., faith)! Can we trust ourselves over to Him? In the book by C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe there is a dialogue about Aslan (a Christ figure) that is very telling, “Is Aslan safe?” “No, He’s not safe! He is a Lion, but He is good!” Once we take the plunge of faith in Christ we find out that God really is good, but after a while we find out that He also requires us to trust Him to an ever greater extent if we are to keep following Him into greater light. As our Great Physician we must yield once again to Him in this role in our lives while He cuts out of us all that is cancerous to our eternity and intimacy with Him. It is here that most Christians seek safety rather than total healing, abandoning themselves totally to Him. The world is full of Christians, but there are few Kingdom of God saints that have totally thrown their trust on Him and allowed Him to do some painful things in and to us which require an even greater faith than “the slipping up on one little finger with every eye closed and every head bowed.” We must follow Him into the Valley of the Shadow of Death in total trust and most will not go there out of fear. Many start out following Christ, but like the ancient Hebrews, they fail to enter into God’s rest by the same example of fear and unbelief which kept them from receiving all that was promised them. They fail to go in and posses the good land, Zion which is above, where Christ dwells with the Father in a unity and intimacy that is begging to be ours as well.

It is here, I believe, that the rubber starts to hit the road in HIS kingdom. In Christ’s kingdom where HE is King there is light and everyone’s secrets are revealed, in short, Intimacy is required. No more fig leaf garments. No more listening to the Serpent who constantly is telling us that we or “so and so” is naked, tempting us to know one another after the flesh. It is here that we can dare to walk in His light and we are covered by HIS righteousness and not our own. It is here that we can know one another after His Spirit in us.

We can spend our whole life as a nominal church Christian and never have to be honest with one another as we dance “the dance of the seven veils,” but never remove them all. We can get away with this lukewarm approach “in church” for we only have to fake it for one hour a week! THAT is not true fellowship. THAT is a form of prostitution where we use God and one another to do our weekly spiritual “duty” without entering into the vulnerability of His love! Christians as well as the people of this world tend to be like two porcupines trying to stay warm on a cold winter night. We are constantly coming together for warmth, being poked by the other and then fleeing apart once again seeking safety instead of warmth. Each time this happens it takes longer for us to enter into a close relationship where we might find His love again. Fear has caused many of us to stay at a distance from one another all these years and keep Christ at a distance as well.  John wrote, “If you don’t love your brother whom you can see, how can you say you love God whom you can’t see.”

Yet, we love movies and books where the couple portrayed finds intimacy and love (“The Lake House” is one of my favorites), but this is done safely at a distance in the privacy of our minds. We live out our longings and lives in a vicarious way and as a result we are never satisfied. Women choose romance novels and men choose pornography and they can never get enough. This is exactly what religion is… a holy man up front doing all the relationship stuff with God for us vicariously while we remain safe in our padded pews at a distance, just like the Hebrew children did when God invited them to sup with Him on the holy mountain… “You go up, Moses! He is not safe!” Love and intimacy are not safe, but they are good! When I find another dear saint that longs for intimacy with Christ and His body the way I do, it can be a dangerous situation. I am never sure whether we will start down that road together and then turn on one another out of fear as the light of Christ gets ever brighter. This kind of tension is shear torment. Fear has torment. Further on John wrote,

And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him. Herein is our love made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment: because as he is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. We love him, because he first loved us. If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? And this commandment have we from him, That he who loveth God love his brother also. (1 John 4:16-21 KJV – emphasis added)

“But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin.” Notice the order of things here. First we have to walk in the light, intimacy, and have intimate fellowship with Jesus and with one another. It is here that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. Sin is a fact of life’s interactions, but God has made provision for that so we can keep going and learn to walk in greater holiness as we are conformed into the image of Christ. I think that we have a too narrow definition of sin. Sin in the old English means to “fall short.” God’s idea of us falling short is when we settle for a Christian life that has not come into the fullness of His Son within us. Is intimacy safe? No! Some will slip back into sin because of the openness with one another that it requires. BUT the blood of Jesus Christ is there to cleanse us from all sin so we can continue to press into His Life and Light reality, the Kingdom of God in our midst. Intimacy with God first leads us to walk in God’s light as Jesus is in the light, THEN we who are secure in that fellowship with the Father and the Son can have true intimate fellowship and walk in the light of truth with one another. What a travesty that the sons and daughters of God are so fearful and distant with one another when we could truly be ONE even as Jesus and the Father are ONE, just like Jesus prayed before He went to the cross,

 

 “I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth. “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:15-26 ESV)

 

 

“The Word Was Made Flesh and Dwelt Among Us”

by Michael

Jesus-washing-feetBehold, you fast for strife and debate, and to strike with the fist of wickedness: you shall not fast as you do this day, to make your voice to be heard on high. Is it such a fast that I have chosen? a day for a man to afflict his soul? is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? will you call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that you break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and that you bring the poor that are cast out to your house? when you see the naked, that you cover him; and that you hide not yourself from your own flesh? (Isaiah 58:4-7 KJ2000 – emphasis added)

 

In 1979 I was all about ministry “out there.” I was a “prophet” on the make and the kingdom of heaven was all about me and “my ministry.” During this time many elderly saints came to me with the same message, “Go home! Tend to your wife and children. They need you,” Then one day God got my attention with the above passage. These words of Isaiah are a rebuke to religious people who think that they can get God’s favor by fasting, all the while hiding their sins under a cloak of religiousness and “ministry.” God showed me that by my thinking that “ministry” was out there– always something to be done outside my home to be seen of men– that I was “hiding myself from my own flesh,” my own flesh and blood. My household was out of order and I had no business trying to “minister to” the saints of God until I took care of the first things first.

There seems to be two extremes that Christians fall into. One is that of thinking all service to the Kingdom of God is done outside our homes and that our kids and spouses will just have to be satisfied with the crumbs that fall from our table, thus neglecting our first God-given responsibility (see 1 Tim. 3:4-5). And the second extreme is becoming so taken up with Bible study and introspection (spiritual navel staring) that we never get out and mingle with people that really need help and a touch from the Lord through us. In a way, this also is “hiding from our own flesh”… those who are members of the body of Christ and people in general who need a personal touch from Jesus in us. Selfishness takes on many forms.

In the first chapter of John we read…

 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men… That was the true Light, that lights every man that comes into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the children of God, even to them that believe on his name: Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. (John 1:1-14 KJ2000- emphasis added)

Here we read about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who dwelt with God and was used of God to make all creation. Christ could have continued to live at the right hand of the Father, but God had a plan to send His Son into a world that had gone bad from trying to live their lives without Him. Though Jesus thought it not robbery to be equal with God, He came down to earth and took on the form of an infant, born in a stable to a poverty stricken couple. Not only that, but He took on the form of a servant to all mankind, not a high and mighty king or even a temple high priest. Jesus did not cloister Himself away from humanity, but dwelt among them as a lowly servant. He was not a holy hermit out of touch with the sufferings and rejections of fallen man, but rather, “the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.” Not only that, but the Word of God was among us full of grace and truth! In Hebrews we read,

For we have not a high priest who cannot be touched with the feeling of our weaknesses; but was in all points tempted like we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. (Hebrews 4:15-16 KJ2000)

Jesus was full of grace and truth while He abode among mankind here on earth. How did that grace manifest itself? He fed the hungry, clothed the naked, healed the sick, cleansed the lepers, cast out demons, and forgave sinners. Today He continues to be our fountain of grace at the right hand of the Father where He ever lives to make intersession for us. Jesus was not only Living Truth before all who saw Him here on earth, but He is still God’s word of truth. He speaks through His Spirit and continues to lead us into all truth just has He promised. The Word became flesh in human form and dwelt among us 2000 years ago and He still lives among us in Spirit form today if we will receive Him. He continues to serve those who are in need and He, the Word of God, continues to speak and lead us into all truth if we have ears to hear.

In Hebrews chapter two we read,

For verily he [Christ] took not on him the nature of angels; but he took on him the nature of Abraham. Therefore in all things he had to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people. For in that he himself has suffered being tempted, he is able to help them that are tempted.” (Hebrews 2:16-18 KJ2000)

As we find ourselves becoming over-comers as we abide in His grace and help, we should also be available as instruments so that His grace can flow through us to others who are in need. We who are Christ’s are members of His body here on earth.  He wants to reach out through us to those who need His touch. This takes sensitivity to the prompting of His Spirit in us. On the one hand, He may be telling us to “go home” and not hide ourselves from the needs of our own flesh and blood, our spouses and our children. And on the other hand He might be telling us to mingle with the saints of God and be there for our neighbors and fellow workers on the job. We need to be aware of His divine opportunities that He gives us in our daily lives.

There is no such thing as a “holy hermit.” The love of God has always compelled Him to be in touch with His creation. The love of the Father in Christ has always compelled Him to be there for everyone in need. Yes, Jesus would go aside into the wilderness for a few days, but it was only so that He could be with His Father, pray, and hear His will as to what He wanted Him do. Jesus was above all a Servant and we as members of His body are called to be servants as well. He told the disciples, “The Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and lay down His life for many.” Our lives IN Christ are not all about us, but rather about Him and His will for His creation.

Jesus was such a Servant that finally He offered up His own body and blood that we might be saved saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me… This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood” (Luke 22:19-20 RSVA). Like the woman with the alabaster box of precious ointment, He was broken and poured out for us and the fragrance of His sacrifice is meant to fill His whole household with sacrificial love… YOU “do this in remembrance of Me!” His love compels us to be broken and poured out for the needs of others, whether they are members of our own families or those who He puts us in touch with as we go out into all the world with His Good News.

“Love it is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way [does not seek its own]; it is not irritable or resentful [does not resent being pushed in on by the needs of others]; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends… but when the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away… the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:5-13 RSVA – emphasis added)

Father, put your heart of love within us and let us be poured out just as your Son was poured out for others as He lived and finally died on that cross. Let your resurrection Life dwell in us and let that Life be the light of men. Amen.