Category Archives: Fellowship

What fellowship in Christ is and isn’t.

The Fellowship of HIS Sufferings

by Michael

Rejection of ChristI know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot: I would that you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew you out of my mouth. Because you say, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and know not that you are wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked: I counsel you to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that you may be rich; and white clothing, that you may be clothed, and that the shame of your nakedness does not appear; and anoint your eyes with eye salve, that you may see. As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hears my voice, and opens the door, I will come in to him, and will eat with him, and he with me. To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne. He that has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says unto the churches. After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up here, and I will show you things which must be hereafter. (Revelation 3:15 to 4:1 KJ2000)

I have been through many sufferings and rejections through the years at the hands of well meaning but ignorant Christians in the church system. But remember, Jesus came to His own people with salvation and healing and they still rejected Him, yet He prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” As we read the scriptures we find that rejection is part of the package if we are to follow Him as our Savior and Lord. Yes, we can be rejected for being obnoxious and obstinate, but this is not what I am talking about.

Many of us have found ourselves marked for rejection by that apostate system and it often came without us knowing why! Dear saints, it is in our DNA… It is Christ IN us that they reject. We join a “church” and soon the initial welcome wears thin and we find that people start to distance themselves from us. We can never seem to get into that “inner circle” where everybody seems to be best of friends. Why? They know that we are NOT one of THEM! Even without making any waves, we may even eventually be asked to leave. Of course this is accelerated when we dare to point out that “the king (pastor, prophet, apostle, whatever the title) has no clothes” or that he is teaching things contrary to the scriptures. The kind of coldness and shunning that takes place afterwards proves that we were associated with a cult in the first place, not the ecclesia of God.

Jesus and Paul were emphatic about keeping the unity of the faith and maintaining fellowship through thick and thin. The early church leaders were never above being corrected when needed. Yet, in a system that is marked by schism (43,000 different denominations and sects) which is constantly dividing against itself, it easy for people to divide from one another at the first sign of disagreement, especially when the head wolf (“pastor”) is involved.

In all these seemingly negative experiences we go through in Christendom, we are given a chance to go beyond the hurt and bitterness and go through an open door in the heavens and obey His call to “come up here.” Jesus does not stand outside that closed door church system of Laodicea forever, begging to be let into the lives of individuals, but calls us out of it unto Himself. In this NEW relationship with HIM in heavenly places, as the One who truly loves us, we are healed. It is here that He shows us HIS heavenly perspective of what HIS kingdom is about. It is from this tearing and healing process that we are then given an opportunity to be used to comfort others who go through the same things. As Paul so rightly shared from his own experience:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer. Our hope for you is unshaken; for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-7 RSVA)

Remember it is in the sharing of Christ’s suffering, which we are allowed to experience, that we grow in love (Just read Isaiah ch. 53 and compare it to your life as well and you will see what I mean). This is the deepest form of fellowship, “the fellowship of HIS sufferings”(see Phil. 3:10). In the controlled atmosphere of organized religion, “fellowship” is a time when we get together, put on our plastic smiles, and share empty platitudes as we eat snacks in a special room called “the fellowship hall.” How empty compared to sharing in the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings and the comfort we receive from Him as we do. Comforting another with the same comfort we have received from Him is REAL fellowship and it just keeps getting richer. No wonder that the church in the first two and a half centuries grew in leaps and bounds as it was so heavily persecuted by the Jews and the Romans. It was all in the plan of God. It was when the Emperor Constantine banished church persecution and made it the official religious body of the Roman government that the church went stagnant and almost died.

So, dear saints, today we don’t have the Romans and the Jews to persecute and reject us, but we have a church system that has gone bad to do the job. I thank the Lord for what it has become so that the REAL members of the body of Christ might shine forth in His love. God bless you all.

Just Who Is Really “Forsaking the Assembling of Ourselves”?

by Michael

FamilyGatheringI wish someone would show me in the New Testament where it says we are supposed to “go to church on Sunday.” My Bible says we who are Christ’s ARE the church. How can I go to something I am already part of because I am attached to Christ who is my Head, not to Paul, or to Apollos, or Peter or Pastor Wonderful? The best thing that ever happened to me was finding my sufficiency in Christ instead of in educated men.

I am sure that someone will try to answer the above “going to church” question with the trite answer, “Brother, we are not to forsake the gathering…” I agree, but since when is sitting in rows, staring at the backs of hundreds of heads while being lectured by one man being gathered together into the fellowship of the Father and the Son?  THAT IS the context of this verse:

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus, by the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; and having a great priest over the house of God; let us draw near with a true heart in fulness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience: and having our body washed with pure water, let us hold fast the confession of our hope that it waver not; for he is faithful that promised: and let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works; not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another; and so much the more, as ye see the day drawing nigh. (Hebrews 10:19-25 ASV)

As you can see, we are to gather together by passing through the Veil–the torn flesh of Jesus Christ–and boldly enter into the presence of our Father, where Jesus stands forever making intercession for us as our ONLY High Priest. It is in this kind of intimate fellowship with the Father and the Son that we are called to assemble ourselves to as members of HIS body. It is in this realization of our high callings IN Christ that we can truly exhort one another as a kingdom of priests and not just fill a common building one day a week, listening to a paid Christian lecture.

The next question that might be asked is, “If you don’t go to church on Sunday, then where DO YOU fellowship?” Do we come together with other saints on a regular basis? Absolutely! We spend more hours per week by far, fellowshipping around Christ with the local fellow saints, than those who go to meetings under the control of a single man and sit there as passive listeners! Is it always on Sunday in a steeple house that we gather? No. But Jesus said that “wherever two or three of you come together IN my name, I am there in your midst”… and it doesn’t get better than that! He directs our hearts as to when and where to come together and the only overhead that we have to deal with is restaurant meals and tips or contributing to a great home-made meal we share together as we speak often together IN His name.

Am I bitter against the organized religious systems of men? Not at all. God delivered me out of that systematized religious order. In fact He about had to drag me out of it. My wife, Dorothy, and I had gone to at least twelve different churches in the years following my birth into God’s kingdom. I was constantly “Looking for Mr. Goodbar,” who walked in humility as Jesus did, but all these “church leaders” absolutely loved to have preeminence over the relationships that these saints had with one another and their Lord. They cast their own shadow over everything that happened in their churches. These religious leaders could be counted on to quench the Spirit if He tried to get a word in edgewise or in any way disrupt their pre-planned agendas.

God finally said to me one Sunday as I sat in a “service,” “Why do you keep seeking the Living among the dead?” Well, THAT got my attention! He showed me that unless Jesus is the functional Head over a body of believers and its members individually, and they are led by His Spirit in their daily lives, that “fellowship” is dead because those body members are disconnected from their Head. I had to come out of that system so I could learn to hear His voice as my Shepherd instead of constantly listening to the voices of men taking His place. For me it was like being “dried out” from an addiction. Now that I know His voice it is easy for me to discern when something preached or taught is askew. John put it this way:

“These things have I written unto you concerning them that deceive you. But the anointing which you have received of him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teaches you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it has taught you, you shall abide in him.” (1 John 2:26-27 KJ2000)

Is going to a Sunday church bad? No, unless you settle for a relationship with a church leader instead of submitting to Jesus as your Spiritual Head. Paul wrote:

“For as the body is one, and has many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ. 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.” (1 Corinthians 12:12-13 KJ2000)

“But my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19 KJ2000)

Being divided along party lines (called a “party spirit” in the New Testament) is not natural to the kingdom of God, but it is expected and accepted among the kingdoms of men. The Spirit of Christ is the supply we drink from if we are truly His. We who drink from that ONE Spirit are ALL members one of another and rest in the unity of the Spirit of Christ and the Father before the throne of grace and fellowship around their love. We are truly ONE in the Spirit from which we drink.

Transparency and Freedom

by Michael

woman_at_the_well

However, their minds were hardened, for to this day the same veil is still there when they read the old covenant. Only in union with Christ is that veil removed. Yet even to this day, when Moses is read, a veil covers their hearts. But whenever a person turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Lord’s Spirit is, there is freedom. As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are being transformed into the same image with ever-increasing glory by the Lord’s Spirit. (2Co 3:14-18 ISV)

Recently I had an exchange with a sister with whom I was in high school. We didn’t know one another back then other than by sight. In fact I find that I really knew very few people back then because of the veil we all projected for fear that we would not be loved for being simply who we were. There was always someone looking for a way to get a leg up and over another person so that they would look good and appear above the rest at their expense.

There is the spiritual man and then there is the carnal or worldly man. The world has been all about hiding and intrigue ever since Adam and Even sinned and covered themselves with fig leaves and hid from God. Men prefer darkness rather than light because their deeds are evil.

Anyway, my exchange by email with this sister (who I really met for the first time at recent at a high school reunion) has been going very well, because we can now communicate spirit to spirit with transparency because we both have the Holy Spirit within us and have been maturing in Christ.

It is interesting to read the gospels and Jesus’ encounter with the people of Israel in light of transparency or the lack thereof. Most didn’t have a clue where He was coming from or what He was saying. His greatest appeal to most of them was the fact that He could heal or give them a free meal when hungry. But there were a small handful that He could speak to who had an unveiled face and nothing to hide. Take the Samaritan woman at the well, for instance. What a contrast this “sinner” was with the learned Jews who constantly sough to trap Him from behind their veiled faces… the very meaning of the word hypocrite! To her He revealed great spiritual truths that the learned Pharisee, Nicodemus, couldn’t begin to understand and she was a “sinner” and a “dog” in their eyes. Her unveiled face and honesty made all the difference.

The root of the word hypocrite according to Merrium-Webster:

Middle English ypocrite, from Anglo-French, from Late Latin hypocrita, from Greek hypokritēs actor, hypocrite, from hypokrinesthai

These Greek actors wore masks to deceive and play the part of the person they portrayed. Their faces were “veiled.” So we see Jesus calling these sanctimonious, learned Jews who sought to trap him, hypocrites. He never once called a sinner, harlot, or a publican or even a hated Roman by that name. They all knew that they needed help and came to Jesus, the Great Physician, for that help and he turned none of them away. When criticized by the religious Jews for having contact with the sinners Jesus said, “Those who are whole need not a physician, but those who are sick.”

Have you, as one of His saints, every had a religious person come up to you and fain that they really liked you and wanted to be taken into their confidence, only to find that once you revealed to them what you really felt or believed,  they then turned on you and tried to capture or attack you in their vein philosophies and self-righteousness? Have you ever been wounded by such people simply because you laid open your heart to them and then were trampled into the ground? I have.

Jesus warned us to “be wise as serpents, but harmless as doves.” He warned us not to spill our pearls before swine because first they will stomp your pearls in the mud and then turn and tare you apart! Transparency is something that makes us vulnerable, but you will see in the Gospels that Jesus was cautious with the Pharisees and Scribes, but open with those who the Father gave Him. In fact He prayed regarding this contrast saying,

“’O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, thank you for hiding the truth from those who think themselves so wise and clever, and for revealing it to the childlike. Yes, Father, it pleased you to do it this way.’ My Father has given me authority over everything. No one really knows the Son except the Father, and no one really knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” (Luk 10:21-22 NLT)

Dear saints, we should be able to be “open faced” with one another, because the love of God compels us to reach out to one another in the bond of Christ as members of His body. If we find that we are being betrayed by a person we confided in or that they never reveal what is in their hearts to us and heart to heart communication is a one way street, chances are that we are dealing with either a wounded person that has not been healed or a hypocrite. Remember, our enemy has sown tares in among the wheat in the Father’s field.

But, oh, what a joy it is when we can communicate in loving safety with another in the Spirit and go away knowing we have found a true member of our Spiritual family and just been edified by the experience. This experience keeps us searching and hoping for a broader manifestation of the kingdom of God where unveiled faces abound. Remember, “Only in union with Christ is that veil removed.”

What a promise there is connected if we live with an unveiled face! “As all of us reflect the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces, we are being transformed into the same image with ever-increasing glory by the Lord’s Spirit.” Transparency leads to transformation! We are not being conformed to this world, but transformed into the same image of Jesus Christ by the mind of Christ within whom we behold with open faces and are changed from glory to glory. Remember it is for freedom that Christ has set us free and with that freedom comes transparency and a release from all fear. This transparency affords the revelation of Christ’s true beauty deep from within, the beauty of the Lamb abiding there.

Where Is the Love?

by Michael

Archie BunkerIt seems that most of us have had less than perfect fathers and as a result dysfunctional families that gave us our definition of what words like father, brother, sister, mother and family mean.
In 1970 after spending the first 25 years of my life in churches and with an alcoholic father in a dysfunctional family, I had still not seen a group of people that really loved one another… one that functioned in the love of God for its members. Then God heard my heart’s cry. He put me in touch with some young Jesus people and the gospel for them was all about the love of Jesus and they lived it. I soon could not live without being around them and I became a member of their family and ministry.

I didn’t know that that kind of love was possible and that Jesus had anything like that for me! After all, I never saw it working in the churches, neither Protestant or Catholic and in my mind that reflected directly on God whom they represented. You filed in on Sunday, got lectured by the “father figure” and then were shown the door. You were “loved” as long as you didn’t ask any hard questions or make any waves. It fit my “family” expectations.

All that said, I have been thinking a lot along this line, lately. If the saints of God can’t show what it means to be ONE in Christ and love one another as the family of God, whose fault is it that people cannot feel the love of God? Is it the fault of the broken and unloved in this world and the church? Are we not Christ’s body here on earth? Are we not His face and hands who live to manifest His heart for this sick world?

Just before He was crucified Jesus prayed,

“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.” (Joh 17:22-23 KJ2000).

What will we say as members of His body if we neglect so great a salvation?

“Dear children, how brief are these moments before I must go away and leave you… So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other. Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.” (Joh 13:33-35 NLT)

If the body of Christ is functioning as it should people will know that they are loved by Him.

Where There Is No Light, There Is No Fellowship

by Michael

Zoo Fellowship

What is fellowship? If you ask a dozen Christians this questions you will probably get a dozen different answers.

John wrote,

This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to 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 practice 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 Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:5-9, NKJV)

It would seem, that according to John, true fellowship hinges not on the club or group we belong to or even the pet doctrines we all might cling to, but whether all who seek true fellowship (koinonia) are drawing every closer to the Light of God which exposes any darkness that may still abide in us and not making any place for the flesh of Adam to operate within. God is Light and in HIM there is no darkness. If we truly desire to live IN Jesus Christ we will make no provision or place for the flesh in ourselves. What fellowship does light have with darkness?

“If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth.” Truth is a practice, it is a lifestyle. It is also where all true worship of Jesus stems from. Light exposes the lie within. Without this being dealt with we can not say we are true worshippers of Jesus for He said, “…those who would worship God must do so in Spirit and in truth.”

John continues, “…if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” Interesting sentence here! We have all believe that the blood of Jesus washes away our sins, but John puts a condition on our part before this can happen. We must walk in the Light as Jesus is in the Light, have fellowship with those who do and at the same time the blood of Jesus will be cleansing us from all unrighteousness. Wow! This is a very inclusive statement here. We each must seek the light of Christ to expose our secret faults. Close fellowship in the Light can be used by God to do just that as long as we prayerfully restore one another in a spirit of meekness. This is a part of being cleansed by the blood of Jesus. He did HIS part and we have our part. All too often we see salvation as a blank check written out to us to do with whatsoever WE will. This is not the case and it this fleshly mindset that surely makes for the collision of a lot of private agendas when we come together. Yes, it is by grace that we have been saved, but we are not only to be saved from our past sins, but from SIN (falling short of the glory of God) as a principle of life as well! We are to be dwelling in HIS LIFE and LIGHT, always. Light is an ongoing work that does away with the darkness in us that we MIGHT have fellowship IN the Father and the Son. Remember, salvation was not only given us to keep us out of hell, but it was given to us that we would grow up INTO the fullness of Christ and leave our childish ways behind and live to the glory of the Father just as Jesus did and not our own.

There is another part of walking in the Light. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” When we discover darkness (sin) in our lives we should do the opposite of what the flesh and the devil wants us to do, cover it up. Rather we should run to the Light! My father-in-law once lived out in the country when my wife was a young girl. They had a skunk move into the crawl space under their house and those critters smell even if they don’t spray (sin manifest). So, he put a bright light under the house and the skunk moved out. Sin stinks! Light exposes our darkness so that we can confess our sins to Him and be forgiven and cleansed from all our unrighteousness that is still in us as a breading ground for sin. Not too many of the “easy grace” persuasion we see today among Christians, have taken a serious look at the “If” statements that go with the New Covenant. Jesus did His part and it is up to us to walk in HIS Light by making no place for the flesh in us. Only then will we be fit for true fellowship with one another IN Christ… A fellowship that is uplifting and found abiding in heavenly places IN Christ Jesus and not one that tares one another down.

Jesus Prayed, “That They ALL May Be One…”

by Michael

God would have us all be single-minded and with the Mind of Christ in each of us it is possible. In Acts we read of the infant ekklesia in Jerusalem, “And they were of one mind and in one accord.” Jesus prayed just before He died on the cross:


“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.” (Joh 17:21-23 KJ2000)

I have been absorbed, pondering the depths of this prayer as of late. The thought of such unity in the Father and the Son that Christ has made available to us is overwhelming to me. I just now coupled for the first time Jesus’ prayer with something that Paul wrote,

“For you are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as have been baptized [immersed] into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:26-28 KJ2000)

If we are ONE in the Father and the Son because we have been immersed INTO Christ through faith true faith in Him alone, then it stands to reason that there can be no divisions among us whatsoever unless someone is failing to be ONE by clinging to their self-life and individuality, more than they cling to Jesus. Maleness (macho) or femaleness (feminist), Jewishness or pride in nationalism, free people lording over their servants and slaves, the rich looking down their noses at the poor, etc., all these things have their roots in pride, the ugly pride of fallen Adam and Eve who ate of the wrong tree so that THEY could become their own gods separate from the Father.

But true unity IN the Father and the Son is found by abiding IN them alone and being totally caught-up in the love they have for one another and for us and being caught-up in that love until our only identity is one great fellowship of love in Christ and in one another.

But whoever keeps his [Jesus’] word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: by this we know that we are in him. He that says he abides in him ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. (1Jo 2:5-6 KJ2000)

Forsaking the “Box Job”

by Michael

People Leaving Church

Today we hear about the “Big Box” stores that seem to have taken   over everyone’s shopping experiences. Gone is the day of the little family operated, Mom and Pop corner grocery where personal service from caring neighbors meant something.

As for “not forsaking the assembling together of ourselves as is the manner of some…” (Hebrews 10:25) We hear this a lot from our church going friends when they find out that we no longer attend their highly organized gatherings on Sunday mornings. I have yet to hear one of them quote the verse just before it which reads, “And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works” (Heb 10:24 KJ2000). How much “one anothering” actually takes place during a Sunday service? Isn’t what happens there pretty much one way?

I use to work in a saw and small engine shop. Once in a while we would get what we called a “box job.” It usually was something like a chain saw or a lawn mower which had been torn completely down by the owner who hoped he could fix it, but gave up once they had it torn apart and saw that they were over their heads [it was in parts]. So it came to us to be fixed in a box. THAT is what “organized religion” is like to me. Men have man-handled the Church to the point that Jesus cannot recognize it and then they want Jesus to show up and make it all better so they can man-handle it some more.

The other thing is that the mower or chain saw in that box was technically “assembled together,” but Jesus has a hard time using it for HIS purposes, because it is not assembled together the way HE meant it to be. It is just a bunch of loose pieces that are not interrelated in any form He can use. The pieces are not “fitly joined together” as members of HIS body should be.

So, do we not come together at all? No, we seek organic gatherings where all there can “consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works.” The other thing is just “playing church” while we who assemble in this way get to BE the Church, His body, as the Spirit orchestrates our gatherings in an organic way with Christ as our Head.

“But when that which is perfect [perfectly assembled] is come, then that which is in part [in parts… the box job] shall be done away. When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” (1Co 13:10-11 KJ2000)

“Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God.” ~ Lenny Bruce

Knowing One Another After the Spirit in Us

by Michael

For the love of Christ constrains us; because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then were all dead: And that he died for all, that they who live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again. Therefore from now on know we no man 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. (2Co 5:14-17 KJ2000)

Do we seek to know one another after the Spirit? The apostles and many in Israel knew Jesus after the flesh. They saw this man from Galilee walk among them, do miracles among them, heal many of them. He taught them and even fed them food when they were hungry. But did they know Him after the Spirit of God within Him? Most did not. When Jesus asked the disciples who men said that He was they answered, “John the Baptist. But others say Elijah, and others say one of the prophets.” They only knew him after the flesh, but Peter was given revelation of something more. Jesus asked them again, “Who do YOU say that I am?” To this Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter in that moment was given revelation by the Father as to the spiritual nature of Christ and would eventually know Him after the Spirit and not just after the flesh.

Two disciples were walking along the road to Emaus after Jesus died on the cross and this man came along and walked and conversed with them. The only knew that Man after the flesh, even though He opened the scriptures to them and showed them that Christ must suffer many things and die and rise again. It was not until He took some bread and broke it and gave it to them that their eyes were open to see Him “after the Spirit.”

Paul was not one of the disciples and it is not know if Paul ever saw Jesus in person before He died on the cross, but that would all change one day when he had an encounter with the living, resurrected Christ on the road to Damascus where he was heading to persecute the members of Christ’s body. He was so shocked by the vision of this Being that He asked, “Who are you, Lord?” To this Jesus answered, “ I am Jesus whom you persecute…” OOPS! Imagine what was going through Paul’s head right then! The people who believed in Jesus who Paul hated WERE Jesus, this all powerful Person who just knocked him down and blinded him! Members of HIS body were suffering and dying at the hands of Saul the Pharisee who later became Paul the apostle. Back to the drawing board! All stop! His self-righteous Pharisee days were over and he became a member of the body of Christ that went forth to give life and nurture it in every way he could.

Oh, that we who are called Christians today would first know Jesus after the Spirit and then start to know one another after that same Spirit that abides in Him and one another. How differently we would treat each other. How we would prefer one another in the love of God. How we would honor one another and honor the gift of the Spirit that abides in each of us. How we would nurture each member as Christ loves His church and gave His life for each person in it. Paul exhorted the church saying, “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good; love one another with brotherly affection; outdo one another in showing honor [in honor preferring one another]. Never flag in zeal, be aglow with the Spirit, serve the Lord” (Rom 12:9-11 RSVA). Do we prefer one another over ourselves? Do we prefer Christ in one another over our selfish estimate of who we are and the love we have for “our own ministry”? Do we try to outdo one another in showing His love for each member of the body?

When was the last time you asked Jesus to show you how HE see that brother or sister you fellowship with, especially the difficult ones that just seem to rub us the wrong way? Can you see that gift He has placed in them and nurture it and encourage them to function in the gift? Do you see the treasure that God has put in them for the benefit of the whole body and not just “your ministry”? Do you see each member of Christ’s body as a jewel in the crown of God?

Then they that feared the LORD spoke often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, says the LORD of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spares his own son that serves him. Then shall you return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serves God and him that serves him not. (Mal 3:16-18 KJ2000)

Or worse yet, are we persecuting Jesus in the way we treat members of His body? I hold that if we have no fear of God, we will also not have any fear of damaging or doing harm to the bride of Christ. Remember, the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. Let us be wise in the way we treat one another and “outdo one another in showing honor,” preferring one another over ourselves.

Let us mine the depths of the riches of Christ in one another, dear saints. The church of Laodicea is seen by Jesus as poor, miserable, blind and naked. The church is sick today because we do not rightly discern the body of Christ. It might be well if we would often ask when confronted with another member of Christ’s body what Paul asked that blinding day on the Damascus road, “Who are you, Lord?”

Losing Our Lives– But Alive IN Christ

by Michael

Jesus told His disciples,

And he who does not take up his cross and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conforming wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also] is not worthy of Me. Whoever finds his [ lower] life will lose it [the higher life], and whoever loses his [lower] life on My account will find it [the higher life]. He who receives and welcomes and accepts you receives and welcomes and accepts Me, and he who receives and welcomes and accepts Me receives and welcomes and accepts Him Who sent Me. He who receives and welcomes and accepts a prophet because he is a prophet shall receive a prophet’s reward, and he who receives and welcomes and accepts a righteous man because he is a righteous man shall receive a righteous man’s reward. And whoever gives to one of these little ones [in rank or influence] even a cup of cold water because he is My disciple, surely I declare to you, he shall not lose his reward. (Matthew 10:39-42 AMP)

I have never notice the importance of the context of verse 39 before today. It happened while fellowshipping with a dear sister in Christ who lives in South Africa. The cross of Jesus, the one He has made for us to bear, has cut us off from finding our life in this world. As a result the life of the cross can be very lonely. I know that many of you who follow this blog know what I am talking about. But isn’t it interesting that Jesus did not leave this discussion with only the losing of one’s life, a life cut off, hidden and alone? No, He gives us a promise of finding our higher life in the Spirit with comfort along the way.

He goes on to speak of even finding a life on this plain… one where we are not always rejected by the people on this earth. He speaks of those who have taken up His cross as being received, welcomed and accepted by others who have also received, welcomed and accepted Him. Jesus knew how lonely this life of following the will of His Father could be and it is as if He is making provision for us to not always be alone and rejected. There are those who receive His prophets and those who have found their righteousness in Him and who respond to His life in us. There are even those who receive the least of His brethren in His love. It is as if the Lord is making provision for those who are pilgrims that we would receive encouragement along the path He has set before us. He is even offering those who show us His love and kindness a reward for doing so.

I know that for many of us, these “love oasis” have been few and far between, but even in that Jesus has made a provision in promising that He would not leave us alone, but would come to us again in the form of the Comforter, the Holy Spirit. It is interesting that even thought the Spirit gives us spiritual powers, he is not called “The Empowerer,” but the Comforter. Jesus knew that we would need comfort on this journey and that our fellow believers would not always be there to provide it. A life alone and set apart seems to be the norm for those who have chosen the way of the cross.

Yet, in all this, loneliness is not the goal, but part of the flesh killing process that we must go through that we would have no confidence in ourselves. One time a pastor asked me how I was doing. I said, “Not to bad… under the circumstances.” To this he replied, “What are you doing under there?” We are promised that we who persevere will find our higher lives in Christ where we sit together with Him in heavenly places with the Father. I often marvel at the spiritual place where Paul and Barnabas were in that Philippian jail. They were first whipped and then chained to the wall in a darkened dungeon. Yet, they were singing their hearts out with praises to the Lord in that very situation. I think that they were more caught-up with the presence of the Lord than with their circumstances.

Let us always believe that He is there with us in this journey even when others are not. May the Lord open our eyes to see and our hearts to accept who we are IN Christ Jesus and understand and experience that “IN Him we live and move and have our being.”

Are We Forsaking the Gathering?

by Michael

There are two forms of assembling together. On the one hand you can have a lawn mower that has been fully assembled, fueled, oiled and made ready to use by a qualified mower dealer and then you can have one that the home owner has tried to repair and is brought back to the dealer in a box with the guarantee that all the parts are there. Yes, they are both “assembled,” but only one of these machines is usable.

In the Book of Hebrews we read,

Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, By a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh; And having a high priest over the house of God; Let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; (for he is faithful that promised;) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as you see the day approaching.
(Hebrews 10:19-25 KJ2000)

As we read above, we are to come together as the body of Christ in a NEW AND LIVING WAY. What is that new way filled with the life of God? The writer alludes to it earlier in the chapter saying, “The Holy Spirit also is a witness to us: for after this he had said before, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws into their hearts, and in their minds will I write them’ (Hebrews 10:15-16 KJ2000). He was speaking of the passage in Jeremiah 31 where we read about the nature of this NEW Covenant we should be partaking of…

Behold, the days come, says the LORD, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: Not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; my covenant which they broke, although I was a husband unto them, says the LORD: But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, says the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people. And they shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. (Jeremiah 31:31-34 KJ2000) [see also Ezekiel 36:26&27]

Here the prophet alludes to a new people who will be made ready to walk in His NEW Covenant. Everyone of the points in the above passage starts with, the words, “I will…” There is not a single work of the fleshly arm of man needed to make it come to pass… not a single “thou shalt or thou shalt not” needed to be obeyed. And what does this New Creation in Christ look like? He has a new Spirit within and a new heart upon which is written a New Commandment (see Hebrews 7:12 and John 13:34&35), His agape love. This new man in Christ is so plugged into the Spirit that he no longer needs human teachers… for all who are of this New Covenant can hear the Spirit of Truth speaking within them (see 1 John 2:26&27). In every way this New Covenant life is a “NEW AND LIVING WAY”!

So with all this in mind how does a New Covenant people assemble together when each man and woman is a priest of God and each one can hear His Spirit speaking and all have been given gifts to profit the whole body of Christ? Do they line up in neat rows all facing an elevated pulpit (and the backs of the other members’ heads) upon which stands one man who has been licensed to preach to them while they sit there in dumb silence? That is not NEW and neither is it LIVING! That is Old Covenant at best and Roman at the worst and it sows seeds of death and discouragement, making the gifted saint hide their gifts in a napkin and bury them out of fear of the “holy man” up front who will not allow any man to interrupt the high Protestant sacrament called, “The Sermon.”

The writer of Hebrews continues, “Let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works…” There is that phrase that is so New Covenant, “one another.”

consider – Grk. katanoeo – to consider attentively, fix one’s eyes or mind upon.
One another – Grk. allelon – one another, reciprocally, mutually

We are to fix our eyes and minds upon the Spirit in one another mutually as we gather, not on some pulpeteer up front, or the one who loves to take over the meeting and control it for his own glory. We know that God has put something in each of our hearts that is for the benefit of the whole body of believers and do what we can to draw it out of one another for the benefit of all.

As it is easy for anyone to see, coming together as Christ’s re-created New Covenant beings and in this mutually edifying manner is not going to Sunday church services as they have become. But Jesus did assure us that wherever two or three of us gather together in His name, He will be there. Don’t let anyone of the “Sunday church” mind-set condemn the liberty you have in His Spirit in this New and Living way.