He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? The LORD’S voice cries unto the city, and wisdom shall see your name: Hear the rod, and who has appointed it. Are there yet the treasures of wickedness in the house of the wicked, and the short measure that is abominable? (Micah 6:8-10 KJ2000)

This morning I was led by a dear sister in Christ to read a blog of another sister who had been raped and had gone through all the mental and spiritual trauma that goes with it. She came out the other side even closer to our loving Father in heaven. Both these dear women had gone through rape and abusive relationships in their lifetimes and have been healed over a period of years as they cried out to Jesus for help. I am finding that there are many women like these two out there who want to have their story heard, be free of the stigma of those horrible events, and be vindicated. With the help of our loving Father, many of them are being healed and are reaching out to other abuse victims.

Vindication is tricky business. I have never been raped physically, but I have suffered much abuse from power hungry men in many church circles we have been part of over the years. It seemed like it would never end. No matter what church we became part of, it happened again! Then one day I was sharing my latest church abuse story with a sister in the Lord, and she said something very profound. “When you go into a yard and start up the front steps, and a big mean dog comes out from under the steps and bites you on the leg… maybe you should get the message that you don’t belong in that yard!” That was it for me. I knew that I had heard from God (not the first time) about this issue of trying to make Sunday church work. Now, I just keep walking down the street and no longer try to go to front door of any of the “houses” I encounter. I finally found out that Jesus does not live in houses made with hands (see Acts 7:47-51 and Heb. 13:11-14).

Now about this issue of seeking vindication. One of the many churches we tried was taken over by a cult with the pastor’s permission. At first I was taken with their message about living lives of holiness to the Lord, but then it became evident that only they had the right to determine who were living “holy lives” and who weren’t. One of these leaders wanted to come over and spend an evening in our home, and we were honored at the thought. We found out later that he wanted to come over to do a critical inspection of my wife’s housekeeping (not always totally orderly with four growing kids in the house) and anything else he could find fault with. He was not there for a loving time of fellowship as we had hoped. Only these two leaders had the right to determine who was “holy” and who wasn’t. If you knuckled under to them and did all their wishes, you were “holy,” but if you failed to do this in some way, you weren’t! They were heavily into the subjugation of women as well. After we left that group (and the town), we heard that they went as far as renting an isolated house and using it for a women’s prison for those poor sisters who needed “extra attention.”

The final outcome of trying to make this church continue to work for us and submit to the pastor, was to come under fire for not submitting to their heavy handed authority over us. We finally saw it for what it was, another damned cult! What started out with the promise of being a fast track to God’s holiness turned into a living hell.

After we “got out of Dodge,” we found out that a baby of a couple in the group had come down with rapid onset child diabetes. They treated the crying child as rebellious with spankings, and they deprived him of medical attention until he slipped into a coma and finally died. It was then the authorities investigated the group and it was all down hill from there.

Meanwhile, I had been “scape-goated” by the leadership and sent out into the wilderness to die with their sins on me (see Lev. 16:8-22). I was told later that they put out the word for no one to have anything to do with me because I had “seven demons.” It was almost ten years before we went back to that town and tried to make contact with various former members of that church. The trouble was that none of them wanted to be restored to us in any way. The group had fallen apart, yet despite my warnings while we were with them, somehow in their minds I just represented a bad memory. There was no real restoration with any of them. These were the same people I had been close to before the cult split us up–people who had been like family to me.

After we left I spent months, maybe years, praying, “God, vindicate my name! Show these people that I was right and correctly warned them not to follow these men!” I never got any vindication from men. That was not what God had in mind. But I was to eventually find out that HE knows how to vindicate the abused in His own way. But first He gave me this promise that I would be vindicated… but not by people.

 “No weapon that is fashioned against you shall prosper, and you shall confute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD and their vindication is from me, says the LORD.” (Isaiah 54:17 RSVA – emphasis added)

We have a saying in America that goes, “Pay-backs are hell.” With God this is not always literal, because He wants all men come to repentance and call out to Him for healing. But in some cases these molesters, rapists and murderers (both physically and spiritually) have to “pay the piper.” Paul wrote, “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap. For he who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption; but he who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8 RSVA). There is a sowing and reaping principle. God notices the things we do to others in our lives. If we sow judgment and cruelty, we will eventually experience the same in this life.

The same is true of sowing seeds of love and forgiveness in the lives of others. Eventually we will reap the same into our own lives. Paul goes on to say, “And let us not grow weary in well-doing, for in due season we shall reap, if we do not lose heart. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all men, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:9-10 RSVA). Sowing and reaping is a spiritual law in this world. It took me a long time after this church wounding to come to the place where I was determined to pray for the grace to do what Jesus said, “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: for he makes his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.” (Matthew 5:44-45 KJ2000).

When I finally quit back biting people who did me wrong, started praying for them and praying that Father would put His love for them in me, things started to change in my life. I found that all the critical people that attacked me started to disappear, too. After planting seeds in your garden, you can’t go out and start pulling up carrots the next day, but in due season you get back what you planted, and not just weeds.

So what happened to the two cult leaders who tore apart our church, and what happened to the pastor? It was not pretty. One of them died of cancer less than six months after the church split up. The other one went to prison for his part in the death of that child. And what happened to the pastor? The cult leaders won his wife from him. She divorced him and took their kids with her into the cult as the groups’ “prophetess.” I have since been restored to this brother. He has suffered much over the years, but is remarried to a widow. His kids have finally started to make contact with him now that they are adults. His heart has been broken and changed by God for the better, and he is a wonderful brother in Christ.

The one thing I hope to leave with you is that God is the one who vindicates us, but we first have to give all our pain over to Him. If we cling to our anger and bitterness, it binds us where we are. Do we have to trust those who wounded us and submit to them once again, even though we forgive them? No. Unless they have proven themselves to have been changed by God’s power and filled with His love, it would be wise to stay clear of them, knowing that they are capable of abusing us again and again. As for abusive husbands? I cannot tell a woman to hang in there when she and her kids’ lives are constantly under threat. Sometimes it takes a wife leaving the abusive spouse to finally get his attention and seek help from God. God is always in the business of restoring sinners to Himself and to wholeness, but not all will repent. I have also observed that most abusers were abused in their own childhoods, and they are only acting out what they have suffered. This is why Jesus was able to truthfully pray on the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.”

 It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery. (Galatians 5:1 NIV)

The following is from T. Austin-Sparks and says so well what has been on my heart as well as many of you. God is calling us into His kingdom in action and not just in word or theory and that requires that we love others more than we love ourselves. Sacrificial love is that which loves others even though it is humbling and it may hurt. Father, give such a strong love for one another that the world might once again say of the saints of God, “Behold how they love one another!” Amen.

Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them… Love each other with genuine affection, and take delight in honoring each other. (Romans 12:9,10 NLT)

“He loved them unto the uttermost.” And I think in that statement, there is the most wonderful thing that ever came into this world. Jesus had had a lot of trouble with those men. They had often misunderstood Him. They had often disappointed Him. They were really a very poor lot of men…. He knew what a poor lot of men they were, but He loved them unto the uttermost. That is the first thing about this love. It is not offended by our failures. He does not withdraw His love because we make mistakes. We may often disappoint Him, we may often fail Him, we may often grieve His heart, but He goes on loving us. He loves us unto the uttermost, right to the end. He is not offended by our failures. That is a very different kind of love from our love. This is God’s love in Christ….

You know, it is so easy to talk about love, to pretend to love, to use the language of love, to sing hymns about love, and it can all be sentimental; perhaps we all know people who have told us that they love us, but very often they are the very people who have hurt us most. Now, the love of Jesus was not sentimental, it was practical. He did not go in with His disciples and say, ‘Brothers, I do love you very much.’ He showed that He loved them by what He did for them. It was not sentimental love, it was practical love. And this is the love with which He loved them unto the uttermost…. These things which characterize the love of Christ for His own ought to characterize us in love for others. That is why the Holy Spirit has come. So that as He loved us to the uttermost, so ought we to love one another.

By T. Austin-Sparks from: “That They May All Be One, Even As We Are One” – Meeting 3 

Over the past few years I have heard many woeful stories of people’s experiences in Christian churches. In the process they had many questions that church leadership could not answer or they gave them answers that were unsatisfactory. In my own search for a meaningful relationship with Jesus and His bride, I also had many questions, but the worst ones of all were about the way the church leadership treated people that just did not fit as a cog in their well-oiled machine. If you wanted to “have a ministry” in that system you had to swear unquestionable allegiance to the king and do everything HIS way. And even if you didn’t feel you had a “calling” on your life, well you had better financially support that kingdom or your Christianity was soon called into question. And worst of all, if you came into a “church growth” minded church with a boat load of problems from your past, even problems that were caused by other church leadership, you were classified as a “high maintenance” church member and not encouraged to hang around.

Well, I often seemed to end up in one of these undesirable categories for I started out with a lot of baggage from being raised in a dysfunctional, alcoholic Catholic family that was always at war. When I finally did get saved in my early 20’s I soon found out that the churches I tried to fit in were also dysfunctional families with leaders that abused their authority. I say, “soon found out,” but that is not quite the case. You see, this kind of leadership along with their own dysfunctional followers fit the mold in my mind as what a “family” is. So it took me submitting to many years of abuse and studying my Bible to finally figure out that THIS was NOT the kingdom of God that Jesus and the early church taught about and lived! Finally, after almost 30 years of “trying to find the right church,” my wife and I gave up!

But this was not all bad. I remember praying about my bad church experiences and I said, “God, I DON’T FIT! I JUST DON’T FIT!” To this He replied, “YOU are not supposed to fit!” I finally started to suspect that I was barking up the wrong tree when one Sunday (during another sermon by an egotistical pastor) I heard the Lord say, “Why do you keep seeking the Living among the dead?” Woe!!! I said, “Lord! Is that how you see all this?” Then shortly after that I was sharing some of my many bad church experiences with a sister that was heavily invested in that system and she said something that I did not expect, “Michael, if you go into a yard and are trying to get to the front door and a dog always comes out from under the porch and bites you on the leg… you should get the message that you DON’T BELONG IN THAT YARD!!!” Well, I finally got the message!

So, that was it for my wife and I. We have not been part of a Sunday church since about 1996. And you know what? The longer I have been removed from that man-made system, the clearer the voice of the Spirit has become to me. It is amazing, but true and just like John wrote while warning the early church that there were already many anti-christs among them, “You have no need any many teach you, for you have an unction and He will lead you into all truth.” And HE HAS! Praise God that “there is only ONE Mediator between God and man, the Lord Jesus Christ” and Father never meant for a hireling or thief and a robber to take Jesus’ place over His flock. And as we read in John chapter ten, Jesus calls us each by name goes out before us and we who are HIS sheep are meant to HIM. In Hebrews we read,

“Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever. Be not carried about with various and strange doctrines [all those conflicting pulpit sermons and Bible studies]. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace [the supply of Christ in us]… We have an altar [the Holy Spirit teaching us], of which they have no right to eat who serve the tabernacle [organized religions of men]… Therefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Let us go forth therefore unto him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.” (Hebrews 13:8-14 KJ2000)

Yes, it can be lonely outside the camps of Christendom, but I have found by experience that as we become securely attached to Christ as our ALL, He then leads us to find fellowship with others who have done the same. Remember, Jesus prayed, “Father that they might be ONE IN US.” As our unity is secured in the Father and the Son, then we can find unity with others who have this established in their lives as well. Until this is the common bond, our relationship attempts will always fail. We are only members one of another as long as each of us is holding to the Head as individual members of His body.

“As you have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him: Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving. Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. For in him dwells all the fullness of the Deity bodily. And you are complete in him, who is the head…” (Colossians 2:6-10 KJ2000)

 

“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 22:2 RSVA)

Many of you are familiar to the lyrics of this song by the Irish band U2

“Where the Streets Have No Name” by Paul David Hewson (Bono)

I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside
I want to reach out
And touch the flame
Where the streets have no name

I want to feel sunlight on my face
I see the dust cloud disappear
Without a trace
I want to take shelter from the poison rain
Where the streets have no name

Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
We’re still building
Then burning down love
Burning down love
And when I go there
I go there with you
It’s all I can do

The city’s aflood
And our love turns to rust
We’re beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled in dust
I’ll show you a place
High on a desert plain
Where the streets have no name

Where the streets have no name
Where the streets have no name
We’re still building
Then burning down love
Burning down love
And when I go there
I go there with you
It’s all I can do

The meaning in these lyrics show me the author has an understanding of true freedom that few have. I looked up the song in Wikipedia and here is what I found.

 The lyrics were inspired by a story that Bono heard about the streets of Belfast, Northern Ireland, where a person’s religion and income are evident by the street they live on. He contrasted this with the anonymity he felt when visiting Ethiopia and said, “the guy in the song recognizes this contrast and thinks about a world where there aren’t such divisions, a place where the streets have no name.”

 Our cities, our lives in “civilization,” seem to hold us captive. You can actually tell a person’s religion and social status by the street they live on in Belfast! Our identity can become our own prison. We build our city walls based on our insecurities. After years of sectarian upheaval based on the religions of men, Belfast has become a name associated with hatred and violence.

God never commanded man to go forth and build cities to dwell in. Cities were an act of rebellion from the beginning when Cain was cast out by God for killing his brother, Abel. God told Cain that he would be a wander without roots, but what did Cain do? He went out and started building cities and naming them after his children. It is a parable of how we react to the sin in our own lives and the sins of others against us. We build city walls and fortresses to protect ourselves from the consequences of sin. It is here that we find ourselves both building up and then burning down our love for one another because the wounding never ends inside our city walls.

 I have observed that as we receive an emotional wound, unless we release that wound to God for His healing touch and forgive the one who wounded us, the “bullet” lodged in us becomes a weapon from which WE fire upon others that get too close to or bump up against that wound. The wounded now become the wound-ers and the process of wounding and division is continued and multiplied even among the ones we love until we have a world filled with people reacting against one another and filled with hate and blood lust that seeks revenge.

 We’re still building
Then burning down love…

The city’s aflood
And our love turns to rust
We’re beaten and blown by the wind
Trampled in dust

 We, like Cain because of sin and rejection, set out to build up our fortresses, our city walls and they become our children. We hide behind our walls and our streets all have names that define who we are… names like, Molested Child Blvd, Forsaken Lane, Rape Victim Alley, Rejected By Parents Circle, Rejected By Spouse Court, Ravaged By War Avenue, and so on.

But our heavenly Father wants to heal us and eventually as we turn to Him for help, inwardly we feel His love and hear His call to, “tear down the walls that hold us inside and reach out and touch the flame where the streets have no name.” He calls us to be healed by letting go of the pain that so defines who we have become! In the plan of God His love seeks to define who we are not our pain.

 There is another song that deeply touched me as He was bringing me out of my own pain formed by a life of rejection. It is called, “I Will Change Your Name” by D.J. Butler and the lyrics go like this…

I will change your name.

You shall no longer be called,

Wounded, outcast, lonely or afraid.

I will change your name.

Your new name shall be,

Confidence, joyfulness, overcoming one,

Faithfulness, friend of God,

One who seeks my face.

After experiencing many years of rejection and becoming the thing that I hated so much, I heard Jesus sovereignly speak these words right into my heart. It not only healed me, but started me on a life of change where His Father is conforming me into the image of His Son. Jesus has gone out before us, leading the way to “the high desert plain,” to the Zion of God where the streets have no name. It is here that we only build one another up in love and never burn it down again as we reach out and touch HIS holy flame–His flame of love that cleanses and purifies us of the ravages of sin.

 So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go forth to him outside the camp [our city walls]… For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city which is to come. Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name. Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God. (Hebrews 13:12-16 RSVA)

For in him [the Son of God] we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. Forasmuch then as we are the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and man’s device. And the times of this ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent,” (Acts 17:28-30 KJV).

It has been almost two millennium since Christ rose from the grave and here we are on another Easter morning with many of us celebrating that event which took place so long ago. I think it is a time to reflect on this deciding event that we as Christians have made into a tradition called “Easter.”

The life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was a pivotal point in the annals of man’s history, but I am not sure that any of us fully understand just how big a turning point those thirty-three years lived on this earth by the Son of God really was. How much of what we call “Christianity” today is still patterned after the Old Covenant that Christ came to bring to an end and usher in a NEW Spiritual order among His Father’s creation which the writer in Hebrews called “a new and living way”(see Hebrews 10:19-23)?

We all know the gospel message, “You must be born again. That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” But just how far has this message gone into the depths of our thoughts and lives? Paul wrote, “First the natural and then the spiritual.” That which is born of the flesh is natural, earthly, but that which is born of the Spirit is super-natural and heavenly.

In the Old Covenant God made provision for a fleshly people, the Hebrews, and gave them a system of government and worship that spoke to them on their fleshly level. They had just come up out of Egypt and had been captivated in a pagan culture for over 400 years and as a result they thought as pagans do (remember the golden calf). They thought of the gods as being present in temples, in their temple niches, where temple priests offered up sacrifices and incense to the gods for the people. These Egyptian gods were represented by earthly things, the sun, a frog, a bull, a hound, etc. So what did God do, He gave these newly escaped slaves earthly and tangible things for their worship of Him. He winked at their superstitious ways, so He gave them a tabernacle, a portable temple. He gave them a niche, the most holy place where His presence abode. He gave them animal sacrifices and incense to offer up before Him. He gave them a priest cast to do the “spiritual work” for the people of tending to Him in His temple. He gave the priests special vestments to wear and special services to perform before the people. BUT instead of giving them a carving of something earthly of God’s creation to worship, He gave them the Ark of the Covenant over which two golden angels, heavenly beings, presided with their wings stretch out over the lid of the ark. It was between these to representative beings that the Shekinah glory of God presence was manifest (BTW, the word shikinah is Hebrew, but not found in the O.T. text, but was used by the rabbis to describe the presence of the Lord upon the Ark and among the people when it happened).

Now let’s take this forward 1500 years. By the coming of Christ the temple system had been “refined” by man quite a bit from what God gave the Hebrews during their exodus from Egypt. They now had a massive temple built in the Promised Land by a despot king named Harod the Great in the city of David, Jerusalem, and no longer a moveable tent. As a result this temple had many more officers and functions that were needed to preserve its order that went beyond the original priest cast and heavenly design given to Moses by God. In fact Harod was not a Jew and he had killed the rightful high priest and installed his brother-in-law, Aristobulus III in his place in the temple. Herod was a murderer who was appointed by Rome as the “King of the Jews” and he killed many people that he felt were a threat to his little kingdom. He had his own secret police and anyone that even thought of going against him often ended up dead.

His temple also had an extensive bazaar incorporated into it which at the time of Christ was presided over by Annas the high priest, where people bought and sold animals and exchanged currencies for the temple currency. The temple had so change from God’s heavenly pattern given to Moses on Mount Sinai, that Jesus made a whip of cords and made havak of the place saying, “It is written, my house shall be a house of prayer, but you have made it a den of thieves!”

Jesus was not a natural man as we think of men of the world today. He was a heavenly man with a heavenly relationship with God His Father. He did not march to this world’s order of things. In fact He told Pilate at his trial, “My kingdom is NOT of THIS world…” He was a heavenly Man! And being a heavenly Man, he was constantly on a collision course with all those who were intent on preserving their earthly kingdoms including the Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees and temple priests as well as the Chief Priests of that Jewish system.

This should explain many of the things that Jesus taught and why Jewish scholars like Nicode’mus were so bewildered by His teachings. Nicode’mus came to Jesus by night representing the Pharisees and temple leadership saying, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him.” It is here that Jesus interrupts him and sets things straight saying, “I say unto you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” In other words, “Buddy, I am telling you that with all your learning about the Old Covenant, you don’t have a clue about God’s REAL kingdom is or who I am.” That is a pretty harsh thing to say to a ruler of the Jews.

Then Jesus continued to speak to this man born of the flesh about what it means to be born of the Spirit of God and HIS kingdom, “I say unto you, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit… The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell from where it came, and where it goes: so is everyone that is born of the Spirit.” All old Nick could say was, “How can these things be?!”

So in the economy of God’s plan for this world, first we have the natural manifested and then the spiritual. The old things were passing away right before the eyes of the religious Jews and by the time forty years went by from the above encounter with Christ, all the outward and natural vestiges of Judaism would be gone. The temple which they worshiped would be destroyed just as Jesus prophesied (see Matt. 24:1-2). The priesthood would be murdered by the Romans and done away with. The veil of the temple was torn top to bottom as Jesus died on the cross, thus making way for all who believe to enter into the presence of His Father. Even Israel as a nation would be no more until it was re-established in 1947 by the Jewish revolt. But how many of us get the full significance of all this and what God did 2000 years ago through Jesus Christ? Paul wrote,

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. (Romans 8:2-6 KJ2000)

Paul, speaking of the New Covenant that is ours IN Christ wrote, “The old has passed away and behold ALL things have become NEW.” ALL THINGS! The church was established with the outpouring of the Spirit on all flesh on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus rose again. They were a NEW people who personally knew that God is Spirit and they worshipped Him IN Spirit and in Truth as the Spirit abode in them. They knew that they were all a kingdom of priests and that all who had been given the Spirit were living stones in a spiritual temple and that the old temple system and all its observances had no relevance any longer. In fact the very first martyr, Stephen, was killed by the Jewish leaders because He dared to preach this very message to them (see Acts Ch. 7).

They also knew that they were now born of the Spirit and that they also had spiritual senses with which to communicate with one another and with their heavenly Father. They no longer needed to worship Him by natural smells (burnt offerings and incense), by natural sight (magnificent temples, vestments, temple decorations, earthly priests worshipping before them, etc.), by natural hearing (trumpets, bells, incantations being spoken by priests, etc.), by things felt (anointing oils, temple tapestries, vestments, stone work, etc) or by things tasted (special feasts, covenants of salt and so on). Being newly born of the Spirit of God and having been made spiritual beings, they now had spiritual sight. They knew one another after the Spirit in them, not by the flesh (see 2 Cor. 5:16-17).

They even had visions of heaven, Jesus and the Father! They now had spiritual hearing and could hear the voice of Jesus and the Spirit as Jesus admonished them saying, “Let he who has [spiritual] ears hear what the Spirit IS saying to the churches.” It was Jesus who said, “My sheep hear my voice and another they will not follow.” They also had spiritual smelling and knew when another spirit that was not of God was present and could discern hypocrisy in their midst. They had spiritual taste as well. They were able to “taste and see that the Lord is good.” And they had spiritual touch and were touched by the presence of the Spirit among and in them as He changed their lives.

With all these thing being true we cans see why Paul was so emphatic in his letters to the Corinthians who had gone back to being carnal and living in the flesh and to the Galatians who had had done so well starting out in the Spirit and had gone back to serving God in their flesh by Old Covenant law keeping and traditions. It is this emphasis on walking after the Spirit and not after the flesh that made Paul’s letters a shining light pointing us to a New and Lasting Covenant with the Father and the Son.

The whole Letter to the Hebrews was written to us so that we could see how all those types that were so tangible in the Old Covenant were only a shadow of that which is perfect in the New. To these Hebrews who were clinging to their fleshly connection to the Old Covenant the writer admonishes, “If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchizedek [Jesus Christ], and not be called after the order of Aaron? For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.”(Hebrews 7:11-12 KJ2000). Or as Paul wrote, “When that which is perfect is come, that which is imperfect shall be done away with.” He finally gets even more emphatic about the insult it is to God that they were casting-off the covenant of grace under Christ and going back to the covenant of law under Moses saying,

“He that despised Moses’ law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much worse punishment, suppose you, shall he be thought worthy, who has trodden under foot the Son of God, and has counted the blood of the covenant, with which he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and has done insult unto the Spirit of grace?” (Hebrews 10:28-29 KJ2000).

So here it is another “Easter” and what do we have today among Christians who call themselves, “the Church” with all their man-made services, temples, churches, chapels, universities, bible schools, seminaries, a special priest cast called “pastors” or “priests” and “bishops,” special rites, ceremonies, feast days, holy days, vestments, tapestries, paintings, stained glass windows, sacramentalism, holy cards, religious jewelry and key rings, statues and figurines, and all the “Jesus junk” that can be imagined in our local “Christian” book and gift store where one can find everything that appeals to the flesh, even books on how to be successful and prosper in THIS world!

Even the word “Easter” was morphed by the translators from the Greek word that was translated “Passover” throughout the rest of the Bible. In Easter we have a word with its roots in Ishtar, the goddess of fertility, thus all the symbology of rabbits, eggs, virgins dancing around the May pole… a carryover from the pagan rites of calling upon their gods to bless their herds and crops with fertility.

My dear church going Christian friends, isn’t it fair to ask the question, “Are you yet carnal and not walking after the Spirit of God, but rather the fleshly traditions of men?” Is it any wonder that the church without all these material “blessings” and things was able to turn the world upside down and spread throughout the whole known world by the end of the second century? They were walking after the Spirit of Christ and NOT after all things which appeal to the flesh as Christianity does today. THAT is the difference! No wonder the dark ages soon ensued once the Roman government in the fourth century made the church into an arm of its own ruler-ship and control. Once man got his carnal hands on it, the move of the Spirit that was started on the day of Pentecost almost 2000 years ago was soon dead and forgotten.

My friends, many of us are still in the dark ages spiritually speaking! Many of us are still titillated by all things carnal and of this world as we gather together in our church buildings and name the name of Christ. We still heap after ourselves teachers that point us to the natural things of this world with their traditions and doctrines instead of pointing us to Christ and the Kingdom of His Father which is totally Spirit.

Dear saints of God, first of all search yourselves to see if you are still IN Christ… walking after the Spirit and not after the flesh. Where is your heart? Is it on the things of the world and a worldly church or is it on the Kingdom of God and all things of the Spirit? What do you spend your time talking about after the “service” is over? Out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks. Do you as a Christian spend your time talking about sports, kids, houses, cars, politics, world news, clothes, food, TV programs and movies? Or do you find yourself speaking with others all day long about Jesus Christ and HIS kingdom? Those of the former group are YET CARNAL. The later group of Christians are obviously member is God’s kingdom and like Christ, not of this world order. They also are finding out that they don’t fit so well in a church system that is of this world.

So, I would ask all of us to do as Paul admonished the Corinthians on this Easter, “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to your faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?–unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5 RSVA)

If He is alive in us, our lives and conversations should glorify the Father for that is what Jesus does and our Christian walks should not just be something that is done on one day a week to be seen of men or on special “holy days” or in a special religious building, but rather 24/7 and should exemplify our Father’s kingdom.

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 5:17 KJ2000)

Him that is weak in the faith receive ye, [but] not to doubtful disputations.
(Romans 14:1 KJV)

I can remember when I would jump on any differences that others had from the way I saw Christ and the church and would confront people over them without much love. It got worse once I got burned a few time in authoritarian churches. Then one day God showed me that I was getting back from pastors, church leadership and others the same thing I had been handing out! You reap what you sow. He showed it to me with this passage…

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man sows, that shall he also reap. For he that sows to his flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption; but he that sows to the Spirit shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting. And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not. As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” (Galatians 6:7-10 KJ2000)

What I got out of it with the help of a brother who confronted me in love was that if I sowed division and received others “unto doubtful disputations” I could expect the same treatment. I had to get tired of being rejected by others and getting back from them what I had been doing. God teaches us that way. He lets us get a boat load of flack back of the same kind thing that we have been handing out to others that we might learn… He rubs our nose in the very thing that He wants us to never do! If we sow love and acceptance among the saints, we will get that back. If we sow disrespect and judgment among them we will get that back as well.

The next thing I share here is important… Notice in this passage above the words, “let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap…” There is a delay. We go out and sow to others the way we want to be received by them and it takes a while for that new crop we are sowing to come to fruit, so we need to hang in there and keep sowing to the Spirit of Christ’s love and eventually we will get the same back from others.

In short, I had to get tired of having ME shoved back in my face! I had to come to the place where I hungered for Christ so much that I didn’t want MY point of view to be heard at the expense of finding HIM in others. Yes, I do draw a line, but it is only when people attack Jesus for what the church has done to them and even then I am patient and ask God to show me how HE sees their hearts. I don’t jump on differences in doctrine, but rather try to stir the conversation back to focusing on our Lord. Christ has to be our center if we are ever to have any meaningful fellowship IN HIM. If we keep beholding Him as His body, we will eventually become what we behold.