I may have posted on this before, but today's quote by Bonnke on Facebook is worth requoting, with this side-note:
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones once made a similar remark, to the effect that "right doctrine" IS essential; it's equivalent to us building the altar. But we must ALSO call on God to send the FIRE from heaven! Thank you, Lord! ~L
Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke:
"Unless we are burning we can never set anybody else on fire. We can be so orderly, doing everything with dignity and decorum but … without fire! Correct but cold. On Mount Carmel the pagans laid everything correctly on the altar ready for the sacrifice but the devil could not bring a spark from hell to light it. Elijah then rebuilt the altar, stones, wood, sacrifice, everything according to the book, and called down fire from heaven. And it came! And it comes!"
19 December, 2011
"The Spirit of God is Arousing Us Within"
....
24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.
9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
12-14 So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21 That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
Romans 7:24-8:39 from THE MESSAGE
24 I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?
25 The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
1-2 With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ's being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3-4 God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn't deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. And now what the law code asked for but we couldn't deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5-8 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God's action in them find that God's Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn't pleased at being ignored.
9-11 But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won't know what we're talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God's terms. It stands to reason, doesn't it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he'll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ's!
12-14 So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go!
15-17 This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children. And we know we are going to get what's coming to us—an unbelievable inheritance! We go through exactly what Christ goes through. If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him!
18-21 That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
22-25 All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy.
26-28 Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God's Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That's why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good.
29-30 God knew what he was doing from the very beginning. He decided from the outset to shape the lives of those who love him along the same lines as the life of his Son. The Son stands first in the line of humanity he restored. We see the original and intended shape of our lives there in him. After God made that decision of what his children should be like, he followed it up by calling people by name. After he called them by name, he set them on a solid basis with himself. And then, after getting them established, he stayed with them to the end, gloriously completing what he had begun.
31-39 So, what do you think? With God on our side like this, how can we lose? If God didn't hesitate to put everything on the line for us, embracing our condition and exposing himself to the worst by sending his own Son, is there anything else he wouldn't gladly and freely do for us? And who would dare tangle with God by messing with one of God's chosen? Who would dare even to point a finger? The One who died for us—who was raised to life for us!—is in the presence of God at this very moment sticking up for us. Do you think anyone is going to be able to drive a wedge between us and Christ's love for us? There is no way! Not trouble, not hard times, not hatred, not hunger, not homelessness, not bullying threats, not backstabbing, not even the worst sins listed in Scripture:
They kill us in cold blood because they hate you.
We're sitting ducks; they pick us off one by one.
None of this fazes us because Jesus loves us. I'm absolutely convinced that nothing—nothing living or dead, angelic or demonic, today or tomorrow, high or low, thinkable or unthinkable—absolutely nothing can get between us and God's love because of the way that Jesus our Master has embraced us.
Romans 7:24-8:39 from THE MESSAGE
30 November, 2011
Worship is Enjoying the Presence of God
some bits from a really great, thought-provoking article I read today:
"WORSHIP IS [that is, this is the very ESSENCE, the defining nature of worship] ENJOYING THE PRESENCE OF GOD."
"Many Christians, today, do not have the conscious presence of God in their lives."
"The Holy Spirit is to us what the pillar of cloud and of fire were to the children of Israel. The Holy Spirit is God's manifested presence in our lives."
"Many people confess faith in the Lord Jesus, but do not have his presence in their lives; and [consequently,] they do not have the assurance of their salvation."
"Some of the most frightening words in the Bible are found in Exodus 33:1-3 where God gave the children of Israel his Protection, his Provision, and his Promise, but not his PRESENCE...."
"Do not settle for God's protection, his provision, or even the promised land [!] without his presence. When you have the presence of God, you need nothing more; and you should settle for nothing less!"
[note, I do not yet know who the author of this article is ~ but if/when I find, I will add as a comment to this post for future reference.]
"WORSHIP IS [that is, this is the very ESSENCE, the defining nature of worship] ENJOYING THE PRESENCE OF GOD."
"Many Christians, today, do not have the conscious presence of God in their lives."
"The Holy Spirit is to us what the pillar of cloud and of fire were to the children of Israel. The Holy Spirit is God's manifested presence in our lives."
"Many people confess faith in the Lord Jesus, but do not have his presence in their lives; and [consequently,] they do not have the assurance of their salvation."
"Some of the most frightening words in the Bible are found in Exodus 33:1-3 where God gave the children of Israel his Protection, his Provision, and his Promise, but not his PRESENCE...."
"Do not settle for God's protection, his provision, or even the promised land [!] without his presence. When you have the presence of God, you need nothing more; and you should settle for nothing less!"
[note, I do not yet know who the author of this article is ~ but if/when I find, I will add as a comment to this post for future reference.]
Being Built into a Spiritual House
I am still meditating on Monday night's powerful, loaded teaching by the pastor at my church.
We looked at, primarily, 1 Peter 2 ("spiritual house") and 1 Corinthians 2 ("spiritually discerned"), so the following is a kind of a swirl of the overall teaching from the other night, and it's swimming around in my heart and mind as if to suggest this is a SIGNIFICANT truth ~ that is, I can "feel" the Lord really impressing this to my heart:
What does it mean that the [authentic] church is being built into a SPIRITUAL house? We, governed by SPIRITUAL realities; We, having the MIND OF CHRIST; both individually (as living stones) & collectively (as a corporate Body, being "edified" - as in "edifice" - as in BUILT UP INTO) the TEMPLE of the Holy Spirit....
We, the very DWELLING place of God, his PRESENCE manifest AMONG, & IN, & TO & THRU us, making us a CITY ON A HILL, & thus a DECLARATION of GOD'S GLORIOUS GRACE!
We, an authentic church which has not merely the FORM of godliness, but which is unswervingly characterized by God's POWER, operating in dependence on his Holy Spirit, having been dramatically transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of HIS marvelous light!
WE, now, the "place" where God's PRESENCE abides, are both made FOR & (through Jesus Christ alone!) redeemed TO ~ WORSHIPPING GOD FOREVER, in SPIRIT & in TRUTH!
(1 Pet. 2, Eph. 1, 1 Cor. 2:1-5, 10-16, Ex. 33, 2 Tim. 3:1-5, a whirlwind survey thru the book of ACTS, Jn 4:23-24, et al.)
Oh, how we have TASTED, how we SEE that the Lord is GOOD!
We looked at, primarily, 1 Peter 2 ("spiritual house") and 1 Corinthians 2 ("spiritually discerned"), so the following is a kind of a swirl of the overall teaching from the other night, and it's swimming around in my heart and mind as if to suggest this is a SIGNIFICANT truth ~ that is, I can "feel" the Lord really impressing this to my heart:
What does it mean that the [authentic] church is being built into a SPIRITUAL house? We, governed by SPIRITUAL realities; We, having the MIND OF CHRIST; both individually (as living stones) & collectively (as a corporate Body, being "edified" - as in "edifice" - as in BUILT UP INTO) the TEMPLE of the Holy Spirit....
We, the very DWELLING place of God, his PRESENCE manifest AMONG, & IN, & TO & THRU us, making us a CITY ON A HILL, & thus a DECLARATION of GOD'S GLORIOUS GRACE!
We, an authentic church which has not merely the FORM of godliness, but which is unswervingly characterized by God's POWER, operating in dependence on his Holy Spirit, having been dramatically transferred from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of HIS marvelous light!
WE, now, the "place" where God's PRESENCE abides, are both made FOR & (through Jesus Christ alone!) redeemed TO ~ WORSHIPPING GOD FOREVER, in SPIRIT & in TRUTH!
(1 Pet. 2, Eph. 1, 1 Cor. 2:1-5, 10-16, Ex. 33, 2 Tim. 3:1-5, a whirlwind survey thru the book of ACTS, Jn 4:23-24, et al.)
Oh, how we have TASTED, how we SEE that the Lord is GOOD!
17 November, 2011
Perfect Grace!
God's perfect holiness requires our perfect holiness, OR his perfect (eternal!) judgment on us for LACK of it.
But thanks be to God that his perfect LOVE provided a perfect substitute - Jesus! - so that he would pour out his perfect judgment & wrath on the only one who really WAS (& is & is to come) perfectly holy, so that he could pour out his grace & mercy on all of US who would find our lives hidden IN that perfect substitute - Jesus! - & WHY would God do this? Not just so we'd be LIKE him! But so that we could be WITH him! FOREVER!
This isn't fundamentally a "perfecting" story - though we are, in Christ, perfected.
This isn't ultimately a "we WIN!" story - though, in Christ, we do!
It's not a "look at us, we're so great!" story - though Christ is the lifter of our heads, and he will exalt us at the proper time! - or, as some of us tend to think, a "woe is me, if only I could be perfect without Jesus' sacrifice!" story - though our hearts ought to break with what breaks the heart of God.
This is not a "religious" story, or even primarily a "rescue" story - though we are, in Christ, really rescued!
No! This is, first of all!, a LOVE story!
****
Our holiness is not the END - it's the MEANS! That we might receive and ENJOY, NOT our own perfection!, but GOD HIMSELF!
****
If we do not have Jesus' perfection - which he FREELY gives to all who would believe on his name! - If Jesus is not our ark of safety, and we do not stand before God clothed in HIS righteousness, we cannot survive the eternal INFERNO of God's GLORY. But he does not give us Jesus' righteousness so we will merely survive; he gives us the nature and heart of Jesus so we could be one with HIM!
HE is our heaven! Glory to God for his perfect grace!
But thanks be to God that his perfect LOVE provided a perfect substitute - Jesus! - so that he would pour out his perfect judgment & wrath on the only one who really WAS (& is & is to come) perfectly holy, so that he could pour out his grace & mercy on all of US who would find our lives hidden IN that perfect substitute - Jesus! - & WHY would God do this? Not just so we'd be LIKE him! But so that we could be WITH him! FOREVER!
This isn't fundamentally a "perfecting" story - though we are, in Christ, perfected.
This isn't ultimately a "we WIN!" story - though, in Christ, we do!
It's not a "look at us, we're so great!" story - though Christ is the lifter of our heads, and he will exalt us at the proper time! - or, as some of us tend to think, a "woe is me, if only I could be perfect without Jesus' sacrifice!" story - though our hearts ought to break with what breaks the heart of God.
This is not a "religious" story, or even primarily a "rescue" story - though we are, in Christ, really rescued!
No! This is, first of all!, a LOVE story!
****
Our holiness is not the END - it's the MEANS! That we might receive and ENJOY, NOT our own perfection!, but GOD HIMSELF!
****
If we do not have Jesus' perfection - which he FREELY gives to all who would believe on his name! - If Jesus is not our ark of safety, and we do not stand before God clothed in HIS righteousness, we cannot survive the eternal INFERNO of God's GLORY. But he does not give us Jesus' righteousness so we will merely survive; he gives us the nature and heart of Jesus so we could be one with HIM!
HE is our heaven! Glory to God for his perfect grace!
03 November, 2011
Let the Truth Speak for Itself
I needed to receive this word, today...AMEN!
"People filled with the Holy Spirit should be marked with the true features of witnesses. They neither dither nor dogmatize. They are sure of their aim but are not arrogant. They have the cool assurance of knowing that two plus two equals four with no need to prove it - no polemics. They are passionate but not pushy (with a few exceptions). They let the truth speak for itself, no browbeating people into submission. They do not wear boxing gloves. The preaching formula is always 'thus says the Lord,' not 'I’m telling you!' Witnesses just pass on what they had heard and saw. It is not their business to defend it or even to invite questions. It is the Lord’s responsibility to confirm the righteousness of His own Word."
~ (Evangelist) REINHARD BONNKE
"People filled with the Holy Spirit should be marked with the true features of witnesses. They neither dither nor dogmatize. They are sure of their aim but are not arrogant. They have the cool assurance of knowing that two plus two equals four with no need to prove it - no polemics. They are passionate but not pushy (with a few exceptions). They let the truth speak for itself, no browbeating people into submission. They do not wear boxing gloves. The preaching formula is always 'thus says the Lord,' not 'I’m telling you!' Witnesses just pass on what they had heard and saw. It is not their business to defend it or even to invite questions. It is the Lord’s responsibility to confirm the righteousness of His own Word."
~ (Evangelist) REINHARD BONNKE
02 November, 2011
Does Our "Eschatology" Rescue the Perishing?!
Just thinking out loud. Particularly as the matter of "End Times" theology has paradoxically both excited/intrigued me AND irritated/deflated me....
I LOVE considering Jesus' return! I LOVE the urgency of seeing how current events line up with biblical prophecy.
But I DESPISE how matters of interpretation about prophecies that are still largely mysterious nevertheless manage to cause HUGE divisions in the Body of Christ, and to what end? (no pun intended....) If we are divided, on matters that are NOT intrinsic to the Gospel (see prev post - I am not advocating we abandon clear truths of Scripture - but where we have perhaps loved our TEACHINGS more than the WORD? let us lay those differences aside!), are we not in our division giving up the very ground to the enemy that WE should be conquering? Land that was promised to US?
So, lately, I find myself reading much about and also now in a church that holds to a kind of "end times" perspective that is a) quite different from my previously (albeit loosely) held assumptions, and that b) has VAST implications for how I might live, today, if this is an accurate interpretation of Scripture. So much so, in fact, that I am tempted to say every other "end times" view fits pretty squarely into the "not yet" category whereas this approach with which I now find myself presented is filled to overflowing with a sense of the "already." So, in my zeal, I whipped out the following as a status update on my facebook profile several minutes ago:
What if our "eschatology" - FAR from being a peripheral concern - were to not merely "inform" but absolutely TRANSFORM the way we live our life, NOW? That is, what if our "end times theology" is the wrongly held conviction that God's Kingdom is for THEN, but not NOW? What if the so-called tension between the "already" and "not yet" is so far much more defined by the "not yet" that we LOSE the ALREADY? What if "fixing our eyes on Jesus," and "setting our mind on things above," and praying "THY KINGDOM COME, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is - not some social justice march, per se, but rather the RALLYING cry for an army of Christ-followers who are storming the gates of Hell to take back all those lost and captive to sin, declaring Christ as King and Victor....NOW. ALREADY. AND FOREVER!
I wonder if anyone will have anything to say about this??
O, Church, where is our URGENCY? (And how and where along the line had I lost mine?!) Where is our dependence on God's GRACE and the leading of HIS SPIRIT so that we are STILL able to GO into the ends of the earth? Did he not say we are to make disciples of EVERY nation until the END OF THE AGE? Oh, it's there, right in the text! (cf Matt28) Because his promise is to be WITH us....until when? Do you see? This means AT LEAST until every last perishing one is rescued from the clutches of sin and death! (And of course, the "rest" into which we eventually enter is nothing less than the heaven of HIS PRESENCE, so he will NEVER leave us!)
O, Church, where is our HOLINESS? Where is our relentless mortifying of the sin in our own mortal bodies, so we may WALK in the freedom Christ purchased for us, not allowing the enemy to get strongholds in our thoughts and lives, setting up fortresses in our lives and minds AGAINST the knowledge of God! Where is our pursuit of the prize? Where is the JOYFUL EXPECTATION that our faith, ONCE FOR ALL delivered to us, is that SURE thing, kept and preserved by Christ himself - Do we not know whom we have believed? Are we not persuaded that HE is able to keep that which we've committed unto him against that day? And if we ARE, then why are we weak and whimpering and fattening ourselves in the day of slaughter when we were made MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Christ?!
O, ME of little faith! How I have sat, wearied by my own sin and frailty, longing and frantically searching for Home when I had the ruby slippers all along....GET UP, WOMAN!
You were made for more than this!
His grace IS sufficient for you!
His power IS perfected in your weakness!
Now is not the time for grieving! Now is the time for LAYING HOLD of the promises of God, not in weakness but in the strength of HIS might!
Sit no longer under the weight of merely enduring this life until you can be holy in the next!
O, Church! The Gates of Hell cannot prevail against us - Since when do gates launch an attack? Are they not stationary, trying merely to prevent OUR advance?
So what ought we to be doing? Standing STILL??
I LOVE considering Jesus' return! I LOVE the urgency of seeing how current events line up with biblical prophecy.
But I DESPISE how matters of interpretation about prophecies that are still largely mysterious nevertheless manage to cause HUGE divisions in the Body of Christ, and to what end? (no pun intended....) If we are divided, on matters that are NOT intrinsic to the Gospel (see prev post - I am not advocating we abandon clear truths of Scripture - but where we have perhaps loved our TEACHINGS more than the WORD? let us lay those differences aside!), are we not in our division giving up the very ground to the enemy that WE should be conquering? Land that was promised to US?
So, lately, I find myself reading much about and also now in a church that holds to a kind of "end times" perspective that is a) quite different from my previously (albeit loosely) held assumptions, and that b) has VAST implications for how I might live, today, if this is an accurate interpretation of Scripture. So much so, in fact, that I am tempted to say every other "end times" view fits pretty squarely into the "not yet" category whereas this approach with which I now find myself presented is filled to overflowing with a sense of the "already." So, in my zeal, I whipped out the following as a status update on my facebook profile several minutes ago:
What if our "eschatology" - FAR from being a peripheral concern - were to not merely "inform" but absolutely TRANSFORM the way we live our life, NOW? That is, what if our "end times theology" is the wrongly held conviction that God's Kingdom is for THEN, but not NOW? What if the so-called tension between the "already" and "not yet" is so far much more defined by the "not yet" that we LOSE the ALREADY? What if "fixing our eyes on Jesus," and "setting our mind on things above," and praying "THY KINGDOM COME, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven" is - not some social justice march, per se, but rather the RALLYING cry for an army of Christ-followers who are storming the gates of Hell to take back all those lost and captive to sin, declaring Christ as King and Victor....NOW. ALREADY. AND FOREVER!
I wonder if anyone will have anything to say about this??
O, Church, where is our URGENCY? (And how and where along the line had I lost mine?!) Where is our dependence on God's GRACE and the leading of HIS SPIRIT so that we are STILL able to GO into the ends of the earth? Did he not say we are to make disciples of EVERY nation until the END OF THE AGE? Oh, it's there, right in the text! (cf Matt28) Because his promise is to be WITH us....until when? Do you see? This means AT LEAST until every last perishing one is rescued from the clutches of sin and death! (And of course, the "rest" into which we eventually enter is nothing less than the heaven of HIS PRESENCE, so he will NEVER leave us!)
O, Church, where is our HOLINESS? Where is our relentless mortifying of the sin in our own mortal bodies, so we may WALK in the freedom Christ purchased for us, not allowing the enemy to get strongholds in our thoughts and lives, setting up fortresses in our lives and minds AGAINST the knowledge of God! Where is our pursuit of the prize? Where is the JOYFUL EXPECTATION that our faith, ONCE FOR ALL delivered to us, is that SURE thing, kept and preserved by Christ himself - Do we not know whom we have believed? Are we not persuaded that HE is able to keep that which we've committed unto him against that day? And if we ARE, then why are we weak and whimpering and fattening ourselves in the day of slaughter when we were made MORE THAN CONQUERORS through Christ?!
O, ME of little faith! How I have sat, wearied by my own sin and frailty, longing and frantically searching for Home when I had the ruby slippers all along....GET UP, WOMAN!
You were made for more than this!
His grace IS sufficient for you!
His power IS perfected in your weakness!
Now is not the time for grieving! Now is the time for LAYING HOLD of the promises of God, not in weakness but in the strength of HIS might!
Sit no longer under the weight of merely enduring this life until you can be holy in the next!
O, Church! The Gates of Hell cannot prevail against us - Since when do gates launch an attack? Are they not stationary, trying merely to prevent OUR advance?
So what ought we to be doing? Standing STILL??
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