It’s a NEW Covenant!

by Michael

A New Day

And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
(Revelation 21:5 ESV)

I was on the phone with a brother in eastern Montana, USA, a while back and the Lord had me key-in on one statement he had made, “Most Christians don’t know what the New Covenant REALLY IS!” I immediately asked myself, “Just WHAT IS the New Covenant anyway?” I know that I had gone to many churches and sat through years in time of accumulated sermons and Sunday school classes, but had I ever heard about the nature of the New Covenant and just what makes it NEW??? So, I admitted to my friend and brother in Montana that I did not know what the New Covenant was! I new that what we see, calling itself “the church” was NOT it for sure, for it in its present day form is not found in the Bible! I wanted to KNOW!

Bud started me on my search by referring me to a little known (at least in Christendom) passage in one of the prophet’s books in the Old Testament which was quoted again in the Book of Hebrews (a book that is ALL about the difference between the New and Old Covenants, by the way)…

“For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second. For finding fault with them, he says, ‘Behold, the days come, says the Lord, when 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 when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt; because they continued not in my covenant, and I regarded them not,’ says the Lord. ‘For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days,’ says the Lord; ‘I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord’: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.’ In that he says, A NEW COVENANT, he has made the first OLD. NOW THAT WHICH DECAYS AND GROWS OLD IS READY TO VANISH AWAY.” (Hebrews 8:7-13 KJ2000- emphasis added)

Ezekiel saw the nature of this NEW thing that God put in place 2000 years ago and said, “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and you shall keep my judgments, and do them.” (Ezekiel 36:26-27 KJ2000)

The Old Covenant was all hinged on man doing what pleased God, but NOT the New! In this NEW Covenant it is all about what GOD is doing IN US for it is “NOT by might nor by power, but by my Spirit says the Lord.”

HE takes out of us our stone cold hearts!
HE gives us a NEW heart!
HE writes His law (His will) upon our hearts
HE puts His Spirit in us!
HE removes our sins from us as far as the east is from the west!
HE will be the only Teacher we will need (see also 1 John 2:26-27)!

You see, it is NOT about US any longer (not a single “Thou shalt…” or “Thou shalt not…” to be found here), but it is ALL about HIM and what He is doing in our lives. Jesus said, “Apart from ME you can do NOTHING!” What part of “NOTHING” don’t we understand???

So, what is our part in this NEW and lasting Covenant that Jesus inaugurated with His own death and resurrection and the infilling of His Spirit that took place on the Day of Pentecost 2000 years ago? Our part is to only rest by faith IN HIM! In Hebrews we ALSO read,

“So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God’s rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. Let us therefore strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.” (Hebrews 4:9-11 ESV)

Did you get it? There is a rest in the here and now for those who walk by faith where we cease from all our striving, fretting and doubts, but rather we rest confidently in the finished work of Jesus Christ and enjoy HIS presence as we abide TOTALLY IN HIM and no longer in or of ourselves. This IS what grace really is, my friends. You see, once we are resting IN Christ; grace, peace, rest, obedience to God, abiding IN the Vine, following the voice of THE Shepherd… ALL these things become one and the same and part of what it means to be true members of this NEW and LASTING covenant. If you are NOT there, then pray that God kills that old sinful, striving religious nature in you that finds HIS GRACE to be such an insult to that Old Adam that still has possession of your heart.

Pray, “Father, whatever it takes! Do what you must to get your new heart within me which really believes that you love me and have made all provision for me IN your Son. Father, kill this old striving person that I have been and put the faith of your Son in me. Amen”

Then hang on, for NOTHING is going to be the same once He sets out to make you HIS NEW CREATION!

Note: this post was inspired by another blog that I read by a sister in Germany. Check it out:

Let’s get real, friends!

 

Walking with the Spirit Daily

by Michael

Jesus showing the way

The words that I speak to you are Spirit, and they are Life. (John 6:63)

This Life is a very vast Life. It reaches into God’s great purpose, and we are a part of it; we are “the called according to His purpose.” We want to know the purpose; we want to know our place in the purpose; we want to know our faculties, our functions. How shall this be? Not by studying up what they are, but by being in Life. It may be very interesting to have a scientific knowledge of the workings of our human bodies, but it is not necessary in order to live. Live, and the thing happens. You never have to consider whether you will take your next breath, to sit down and make a mental problem of it. You do it, and everything else is bound up with it, and follows in proper order. Breathing properly has a great deal bound up with it. Well then, live and everything else will follow. That is only saying, in other words: move, have your life in the Holy Spirit, and all the plan and order of God will follow. You are bound to come into it, you cannot help yourself.

Thus the object is to get the Lord’s people to a place where they walk with the Lord, and are so open to Him that they are prepared for all that walking with Him means. Sometimes it will mean that they will have to leave a great deal that is of a secondary character; perhaps forsake many things, even religious things, the accepted things, to walk with the Lord. There may be a price attached to it; misunderstanding, and loneliness, and much besides; but if you are so open to the Lord that nothing else matters, and you mean to walk with God whatever the cost, (no matter what people say you ought to do as in their thought as they are a part of a great Christian order or religious machine), you will come into all God’s secret thought as naturally as a flower opens to the sun, and you will be making discoveries and finding that there is a vast realm of meaning and possibility and capacity and power that you never dreamed of. The Lord is not going to stretch it out before us, and show us it. We shall discover it as we walk in the Spirit.

T. Austin-Sparks “The Office and Work of the Holy Spirit”
http://www.austin-sparks.net/english/books/003083.html

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!

 

 

 

An Open Heaven vs. the Wilderness

by Michael

Jesus in the wilderness

IN CHRIST AN OPEN HEAVEN FOR US

Well, all that is, I know, very simple, but we shall not do ourselves any harm by contemplating what He won for us in that wilderness, how great a thing it was that resulted from that cry. The answer given to that cry – “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” – is our supreme and all-inclusive blessing: it is that we may never know any more forsaking of God. Oh, put your feet down upon that. It is not as simple as it sounds. No more forsaking of God! Have you, a believer, a believer perhaps for many years, in full devotion to the Lord – have you never been tempted to believe that God had forsaken you, God had left you, had given you up, washed His hands of you, parted company with you, withdrawn? If you have never had that temptation, I am not going to say that you ought to, but I will say that I do not think you will get through your course in a really spiritual life without having it, and more than once. As in Adam’s case, so with every son of Adam and every child of God, with every member of this human race, the Devil’s greatest work is to get between us and God. Once he has done that, if he can establish himself there between us and God, it is an end of all things, it is hopeless. But in the case of a believer he cannot now do that in actuality. He can only do it in effect, by the attitude that a believer takes toward this great thing that happened on the Cross, by the answer that the believer will give in his or her own heart to Christ’s question, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” If you really will give the answer, ‘In order that I might never be forsaken’ – if you give that answer and stay there, you have entered into the value of what the Lord Jesus accomplished in destroying the works of the Devil, especially his supreme work of getting between you and God.

Calvary is always an open door, an open way, to God’s face. You know that it was ever by Jordan that the place of God’s face was reached – always by Jordan. Of the promised land the Lord said, “The eyes of the Lord thy God are always upon it, from the beginning of the year even unto the end of the year” (Deut. 11:12); His face would be toward it, and so it was described as the land of unspeakable blessing. Israel never arrived there except by the Jordan. When they came back from the captivity to the land again, where God’s face was, they had to go across the Jordan again or through the Jordan. When the Lord Jesus went to the Jordan, He passed that way in order to come to the place where the heavens were opened, where the face of God was seen; always by Jordan to the place of God’s face – in other words, always by the Cross. It is by the Cross that we come into the light of His countenance.

This excerpt is from :

The Significance of Christ
by T. Austin-Sparks

Chapter 1 – In Relation to the Race as it is

May we always seek His face and may the wilderness never get the last word on defining who God is in our lives! mdc

 

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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Transparency and Light

by Michael

woman_rising in lightContinuing on the theme of God’s Light, I found this by T. Austin-Sparks that I wanted to share…

God is light and in Him is no darkness at all. (1 John 1:5)

Light is transparency; light is clearness; light is absolute purity; light is honesty; light is openness of character. Light hides nothing; its whole action and nature is contrary to hiding anything. It has nothing to hide; it shows everything; it shows all: in other words, it is not deceitful. It does not want to cover anything, or to pretend or make believe that something is other than what it is. Light is single; it is not double; there is no duplicity about light. And light is just – light! There is “no darkness at all” where there is light…. How many shades and aspects of darkness there are! – a whole vocabulary of words. The Spirit has come to bring all that to an end by applying the Cross, in which it was all brought to an end in the Person of the Lord Jesus; to work out the meaning of the Cross in our lives, so that everything that belongs to that kingdom of darkness is removed: so that in the end, with us too, there is no darkness at all. Is that really what we think of, when we think of having, receiving, and being filled with the Holy Spirit? Here again, perhaps, a little re-shaping of our ideas is called for. It is true that He is many other things, as well as light: He is the Spirit of Power, He is the Spirit of Wisdom; yes, He is many other things; but, with them all, He is this. And we must not make more of those “demonstration” aspects of the Spirit, in power, in gifts and capacities, in works, than we do of His character side. If He really does His work in you and in me, He will make us to be people who can bear to be “looked into” without any fear, without any drawing of the blinds. Our lives and our motives will bear looking into.

By T. Austin-Sparks from: The Holy Spirit, the Church, and the Nations – Chapter 5

 

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)

 

 

Thoughts on the “Five Fold Ministry”

by Michael

ImageThe other day a brother wrote and asked me if I was a prophet. I have come to the place where I believe that all the so-called “five-fold” gifts given unto men are all about Jesus and His graces given to all who are in Christ and not about us as individuals, but are rather about Him in us collectively. Like Paul said, “I can do ALL things through Christ who is my strength.” Was Paul extra special? Not according to his own words. So, I try not to limit Christ in me by saying, “I am a prophet, or I am teacher, or I am an apostle, etc.” No, “I am IN Christ and it is from there that HE can do all things,” IF I don’t limit Him by my flesh or preconceived ideas as to what my “calling” is. We limit Christ in us when we try to put Him in a box, whether that box be a church building and our church doctrines or even saying within ourselves, “I am an Apostle!” or “I am God’s Prophet!”, I, I, I, blah, blah, blah.

This Ephesians chapter four verse eleven is right smack dab in the middle of a chapter that has terms that are about ALL of Christ’s body, not an exclusive few. It speaks of being equal as we abide in HIM; “you have been called, with all lowliness and meekness,” [where is “all lowiness and meekness” if we claim an “office” that elevates us above the rest of the body of Christ?] words like all– “God and Father of us all, who is above all and through all and in all,” words like one, “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all,” words pointing to Christ as gift given to every one, “unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ… that he might fill all things,”

But now we get to this mystery verse eleven which all of Christendom uses to justify church “offices” (another word placed in the N.T. translation that has no Greek equivalent in the text) and elevated king like authority. Here in verse eleven instead of ALL we read the exclusive term “some.” This word translated by the king’s bishops as “some” is the same Greek work that was translated in John chapter one as “the.” “In the beginning was The Word, and The Word was with God, and The Word was God.” How would this read with the word “some?” “In the beginning was some Word, and some Word was with God and some Word was God…” Not quite the same. You see, the translators took quite a bit of license with this Greek word for, the definite article “ho” (a close look at the Greek in Matt. 28:11 will show the proper Greek word to be used for “some” is “tis” where it is used with the definite article “ho,” “…some of the watch came into the city…”).

The English Standard Version comes much closer in its translation of this passage, “He [Christ] who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things. And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip the [ho- the not some] saints for the work of ministry [service], for building up the body of Christ,” (Ephesians 4:10-12 ESV). When you look at the Greek for each of these five Spiritual manifestation of grace they are all in the singular, not plural; apostolos – one sent forth, prophetes – one who speaks for God, euaggelistēs – one who brings good tidings, poimen – one who shepherds and feeds, and didaskalos – one who teaches. It is Jesus that does all these things and many places in the New Testament refer to Him with these tiles!

So now let’s translate Ephesians 4:10-12 as it should be, “He that descended is the same also that ascended up far above all heavens, THAT HE MIGHT FILL ALL THINGS. And he gave THE apostle; and THE prophet, and THE evangelist,  and THE shepherd and THE teacher, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of service, for the edifying of the body of Christ.”

THE Word, Jesus Christ, fills ALL things, in this case He fills ALL the body (not just some) with THE Apostle, Jesus Christ. He fills ALL the body with THE Prophet, Jesus Christ. He fills ALL the body with THE Evangelist, Jesus Christ. He fills ALL the body with THE Shepherd, Jesus Christ. And He fills ALL the body with THE Teacher, Jesus Christ through HIS Spirit that abides IN ALL who are His. Why? Because God is NOT a respecter of persons and He desires that we ALL might be made perfect and be built up into the fullness of His Son… “to equip the saints for the work of ministry [service], for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge [perfect knowing] of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to GROW UP IN EVERY WAY INTO HIM who is the head, into Christ,” (Ephesians 4:12-15 ESV – emphasis added)

Dear saints, this whole “five-fold” hierarchic invention of the ecclesiarchs in the Christian religion has yet to build up the saints into the fullness of Christ and it never will. Why? Because by its very nature it divides the body of Christ against itself into two classes, the haves and the have-nots. the clergy and the laity, the clean untouchables and the unwashed masses. It is a system designed in hell itself, not in heaven. But like Paul brought forth in his letter to the Corinthians…

“For you are still of the flesh. For while there is jealousy and strife [divisions] among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving only in a human way? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not being merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed… Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, “He catches the wise in their craftiness,” and again, “The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile.” So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future–all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (1 Corinthians 3:3-23 ESV).

All things are ours as we abide IN Christ who is our strength. Let us live accordingly as we surrender to Him and if we are being led to minister Christ Himself to others, let us do it in all simplicity and humble ourselves as He did, “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us.“