ON THAT DAY YOU WILL REALIZE THAT I AM IN MY FATHER, AND YOU ARE IN ME, AND I AM IN YOU. JOHN 14:20
This is a new season, and I’m not talking about our four seasons, but a season in God’s master plan. When I write to you it’s not just another letter or form of knowledge, but a way for you to come to know Christ in a fuller and more meaningful way by the power of the Holy Spirit.
The steps God has directed us to take, is challenging. I am becoming more aware of the lack of spiritual wisdom in the church and it has been one of the biggest challenges I have had to confront. Upon meditating on the weakness and spiritual state of the church, I realized that this lack is the cause of our spiritual eyes being blurred by traditions and customs, resulting in complacency, discouragement and frustration. This is a heavy burden on my heart. Some say we’re not to carry burdens, but it’s hard for me to agree. It’s impossible to see the condition of the Body of Christ and not feel burdened.
The Holy Spirit spoke to me concerning the condition of the Body of Christ. The word He gave me was, “Many believe in Me, but they don’t know Me.” This is a profound statement. We must pay close attention when God speaks. I believe this is one of the reasons that has delayed and restricted the development of the Body of Christ. We believe God heals and delivers us from troubles and situations, but we want to resist going through them. How can it be possible to know the Lord as my healer if my body has not been afflicted? We should not be anxious to escape the affliction. We must wait upon the Lord for the precise moment that He speaks a word in a particular situation. Whether it is a physical ailment or battle of the mind, we must know what He is saying and doing. We should not compare every situation with how He dealt with someone else. We are all different, and He deals with us individually. He wants us to know Him in our situation. We’ve strayed from the fact that the word must be a spoken word of God at that specific moment for that particular circumstance we find ourselves in. As we study teachings it’s easy to turn them into doctrines and a form of knowledge without the Rhema, spoken word, entering our spirit. We’ve taken the promises that were meant for a particular individual at a particular time and made it ours. When we don't wait upon the Lord to give us our Rhema word before you know it we grab a promise and confess it and the Lord says, “I’m not dealing with you in that way.” We are all different in the Body of Christ. Romans 12:1 (Message bible) reads, “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life - your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life - and place it before God as an offering.” He wants us to present our whole being to Him so He can use it according to His desire, where He can receive the glory and man is not looking to man for answers.
You and I are members of a whole, the Body of Christ, which is the fullness of Christ Himself as written in Ephesians 1. It is important to see and recognize what God is doing through us as individuals and how He wants to bring increase to the Body of Christ. I Corinthians 2:13 reads, “This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, . . .” God is making a definite distinction between the word of human wisdom and the word of the Spirit. God speaks to us in John 6:63 (Message) “The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don’t make anything happen.” The tragedy is that much of the church wants to bring programs of the flesh. I Corinthians 2:14 “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.” There were schisms, jealousy and divisions in the Corinthian church. God is dealing with the soul man who has become sidetracked.
The Spirit can make life. Sheer muscle and willpower don't make anything happen.
There is a law that is working contrary to spiritual growth, contrary to the laws of Christ. We have been careless in allowing mixture to enter the Body of Christ. In the Old Testament God set patterns and principles regarding this. When God was giving His commandments He said, “Don't yoke an ox with an ass. Don't mix the linen cloth with the cotton cloth.” God doesn’t like mixing the spiritual man with the natural man.
During the Old Testament time of rebuilding the wall by Ezra and Nehemiah, the enemy always had his instruments working contrary to their purpose in order to bring disruption, frustration, discouragement and disappointment to the work that God had given them to do. Now, we are the building of God and we are to bring increase. Ezra 4:1-2 reads “When the enemies of Judah and Benjamin heard that the exiles were building a temple for the Lord, the God of Israel, they came to Zerubbabel and to the heads of the families and said, “We’ll help you build. We worship your God the same as you. We’ve been offering sacrifices to him since Esarhaddon king of Assyria brought us here.” Here is mixture, when flesh wants to help the Lord. Many in the Body of Christ are not building on solid ground and God is shaking it now. Verse 3 reads “But Zerubbabel . . . and the rest of the heads of the families of Israel answered, “You have no part with us in building a temple to our God. We alone will build it for the Lord. . .” The leaders of Israel were defying the enemy on behalf of the people and not allowing mixture. This is precisely how the enemy attempts to enter; through leadership. The leaders of Israel said to the enemy, you have no part with us. Their answer was clear cut, there was no compromise. They didn't say we could use your knowledge or we could use an extra hand. No, they were discerning. The enemy is using his mixture tactic to frustrate the development and growth of the Body of Christ. Paul is dealing with those tactics in Corinthians. Being lead of the Spirit reveals true sons.
In I Corinthians, Paul makes clear the contrast of the soul and spiritual man. The soul brings human wisdom and the spiritual brings Gods word which is life. Human wisdom doesn't bring life or growth, although it might bring growth to your movement, organization or denomination. But God measures life and growth by how much of Christ is expressed through you and me. The true ministry of Christ is not how many sermons or how many teachings we bring, but how much of Christ are we bringing to the Body of Christ. Do you remember in the Old Testament when the angel came to Ezekiel holding a chord? He was measuring the temple and he documented exact measurements. God wants us exact, and that’s why his judgments and corrections separate the soul man from that which is the spirit.
In order to increase we must go through the cross. This is Paul’s message, “We preach Christ and Christ crucified.” We cannot continue to grow without the cross which separates the natural from that which is of Christ. Notice the title over the cover picture ‘Christ the Center and Sphere of our Being.’ Scripture is clear to reveal that if we are in Christ everything that flows from our being should be an expression of Christ. No matter what you do or where you go, there should be an expression of Christ. The expression is registering Christ as King and Lord not only in this world but to the principalities and the powers of the air. This is what we were chosen and called for. Before time was, we were chosen in Christ for this. Before the world existed we were chosen for this. Many think if you attend service on Wednesday night or Sunday night, this is church. That is not church, we are the church. If you find your satisfaction in going to church, something is wrong, because our satisfaction should be in Christ. If my attending a fellowship or an assembly doesn’t bring me to a fuller satisfaction in Christ, then I’m being held back. When our Lord came to the river Jordan to be baptized, He was submerged and came up out of the water and the heavens were opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him like a dove. God spoke, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” If God, creator of all things, is satisfied, content and finds pleasure in His son but you and I, the creation, are still looking to the natural things in this world to satisfy our being, we have a wrong concept of who Christ is. If God is fully pleased with Christ, we should be fully pleased with Christ. Think about it. Meditate on it. Let it locate you. My prayer is, ‘Lord nothing in this world can bring satisfaction like Your son.’ Since You, mighty God find contentment in your Son, then I a mere creature should find contentment in your Son.’ Partner we have gone astray and this is why I am excited for this awesome season in God’s plan. Not everyone entered into their inheritance in the Old Testament, and I’m not talking about heaven but coming into the fullness of Christ. Christ Himself and everything that He is, is our inheritance.
Since you, mighty God find contentment in your Son, then I a mere creature should find contentment in Your Son.
We are in the season that God is bringing judgment to His people. We are God’s chosen people, His vessels to the Body of Christ. He will first bring correction to His house, then deal with the world. This is not a word to draw back from. If we love the Lord and the testimony of Jesus Christ on this earth and universe, we must say ‘yes Lord you bought me with a price.’ We won’t accept His judgment when we don’t understand that He is separating what is of the natural man and what is of Christ. He’s not just thinking about you, but the whole of His eternal plan. In the Old Testament when His people continued in rebellion in the books of Isaiah and Ezekiel, their hearts became hardened, dull of hearing and they could no longer see. I don't want that for you, but we all choose based on the word that is released to us. The church is in confusion, contradiction and hypocrisy. I don't agree with the message that judgment is coming to the nations. God has the nations on hold. The slowing economy is not God’s judgment on the nation, but on His people. Isaiah 48:10-11(Message) reads, “Do you see what I’ve done? I’ve refined you, but not without fire. I’ve tested you like silver in the furnace of affliction. Out of myself, simply because of who I am, I do what I do. I have a reputation to keep up. I’m not playing second fiddle to either gods or people.” He will not share His glory with anything natural, only his Son.
We were chosen in Christ, before time was, to be an expression of the absolute Lordship of Jesus Christ. He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords. He is the true and faithful witness, the great I Am. It is a tremendous honor to be chosen to represent our Lord on the face of this earth and bring adjustment. We are the new creation mentioned in II Corinthians 5 that the principalities and powers of the air must witness. We are the new creation that has come into existence through the birth, death, resurrection and ascension of Christ. My heart wants to bring you into this tremendous revelation that must be governing our lives. Precaution: in the Lords day, in the disciples and Paul’s day, much of the animosity and much of the anger didn’t come from outside the church it came from within. We have become so consumed by our traditions and overwhelmed by our programs that when He does raise someone in the assembly to break the mold it’s those from within the church that the enemy uses. This happens because they aren't seeing the whole they just see themselves as the sole object of God’s affection and if you begin to threaten that position, the resistance and opposition begin. Not everyone is going to accept you. The attendance is great at our conferences, but not everyone is there for the same purpose. Remember “No one comes to the Father lest the Holy Spirit draws him.” The Lord of the house is cleaning house. It’s all Christ. II Corinthians 5:14 reads, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died.” He’s positioning the cross. Before entering the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament tabernacle, the first piece of furniture you confronted was the altar of sacrifice. If you love the Lord you will accept rejection and any other adverse condition that comes against that love. This revelation comes from the same Holy Spirit that led Jesus Christ through His moments of confrontation. The Holy Spirit is the same within us, the same power, and the same might is within us. That’s the spirit of the Son and the wisdom of the Son. He knows how to get us there, but many times we want to do it our way. He is our wisdom. So we read again, “For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again.” Not only did He die but He was raised and with that He sealed our position in Him. See your brother in the same position. There is lack in the Body of Christ because we don't see others the same way Christ sees us. One of the tricks of the enemy is having us look at their weaknesses and say I can’t put up with that. If those weaknesses are in Christ they are part of you and part of me. Continue to verse 16, “From now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God.” We are a new creature, and our nature is of God and we are in Christ and Christ is in us, thus the title ‘Christ the center and sphere of our being.’ This is why God is cleaning house, because not everything in the church is bringing increase. I am excited to spiritually see what God intends. Let the Holy Spirit open your eyes.
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