Jesus' Leadership: In Life

It is Quality of Life He has called His People to live out Together that is at stake here, not "meeting format"!

5/7/2006

Having said all that, it’s essential to say again that NONE of this really matters much if there is no Quality of daily Life as is described in 1Cor. 12-13 as the prerequisite for “chapter 14.” In fact, without that daily Life this is somewhat “dangerous.” We can’t simply talk about “meetings” without missing something very crucial. The Topic is much larger. This is about the Dynamic of Jesus’ Life in His People! And worldly, disConnected, self-centered living by religious people is why the pre-arranged show by a holy man became an obvious “safeguard” from strange, wild-eyed, sinful men using ‘“freedom” as a platform for their ambitions. Quality of daily life, 1 Cor. 12-13, is a prerequisite and assumption for the Freedom in 1 Cor. 14.

We must combine these previous “pictures” regarding the times when Saints are together en-masse as a Priesthood rather than “audience”, with the Intended (Eph. 3:10) daily Life of Acts 2:42-47, 1Cor. 12, Heb. 3:12-14, and a “HUNDRED mothers, brothers, and sisters.” Jesus said this IS the Plan. It is Quality of Life He has called His People to live out Together that is at stake here, not “meeting format”! He desires an Inheritance, not a “meeting” or “knowledge transference” or “emotional singing”. His Heart is for a Corporate Man, Luke 9:23-27, 57-62—true Christianity, “from the least to the greatest” clothed with HIS Spirit.

It is not about being a little more relaxed and flexible in having our planned or unplanned meetings, and labeling that as “led by the Spirit.” Just because we don’t know in advance what we’re going to do does not mean that things will then be “Spirit-led.” Hardly. It is NOTHING like that. Although “like Jannes and Jambres,” the counterfeits, viewed from earthly perspective, seem similar to Real things.

The difference between simply reforming denominational religion, versus living in the reality of the risen, living Jesus...is staggering. Creatively modifying “meetings” and “structure” (in a religious facility, or in a “house”) isn’t really all that important, compared to the Opportunity He places before us today. He’s not calling us to a “new and improved” structure. He is calling us into daily relationship eating together from the Tree of Life, with the Anointed One! Oh, YES, that will change our “meetings”—but that is the Fruit, not the goal. Just switching to new and improved doctrines, techniques, meeting dynamics, how close people live together, the unBiblical “common purse,” or any number of new folkways and mores is meaningless, in reality. What we are really after (if we desire what He Desires!) is a Habitat where JESUS can dwell and “circulate” (Rev. 1-2) unhindered, as Living, Reigning KING. This alone is the ZOE LIFE (as Jesus called it). SUPERnatural, Heavenly Life, of Indestructible and Eternal nature, all-encompassing Reality of an unseen Realm of Power and Truth and Love and Life. Jesus brought this “Life to the full,” “Rivers of Alive Water” Life to His People from another dimension, a Universe that cannot be seen with human eyes and in earthly light frequencies.

Life in Christ Together is not about “how to have meetings.” What Jesus brought to Earth with the Herald of the Angels could never be so shallow and external as all of that. “Meetings”—where more people get to “participate”—is THAT what Jesus died for? NO WAY! Jesus didn’t come to this earth to bring us a new way to have meetings or “have church” or some “movement.” That is so lame compared to “His Intentions, now through the Church!” (Eph. 3:10). He wants to publicly annihilate, decimate, and humiliate the enemy—and transform life after life after life, into the character and Life and Wisdom and Strength of the Son. He is “bringing many sons to Glory”—not simply to Salvation. He is building His CHURCH, which the gates of Hell CANNOT prevail against. By the Grace of Jesus Christ and on His Authority, we’re taking back our sons and our daughters and families and neighbors from the seduction and slavery of satan. Lives are changing. He brought us an entirely new Realm to inhabit by His side—new air to breathe, new eyes to see, new ears to hear, and a new heart to feel and love. This difference affects everything in life, including “meetings”!

Can you see that this takes courage? Can you see that this takes faith and obedience? Can you see that this will change your life if you begin to live in these things? You will no longer be roped to the bed! We are a Kingdom of Priests every day. And, meetings are just extra, really. Ninety percent of our growth comes from living together, and maybe only ten percent comes from meetings. That means you have to get out of your house and into other people’s homes. You bring water, or food, or clothing to their house. When you see they are angry with a child, you may need to pull them aside to talk with them and walk with them. When you see pride in their life, you put your arm around them and ask them not to have pride. When you see selfishness in a brother’s life, you put your arm around him and say, “Please don’t be selfish anymore.” We don’t just close our eyes until the next meeting. We live in the middle of each other’s lives every day as priests doing the work of God, and as “a hundred mothers, brothers, and sisters.” This, too, is an absolute command from God in Hebrews 3, and many, many other scriptures.

Hebrews 3:12-14: “Be careful then, dear friends. Make sure that your own hearts are not evil and unbelieving, turning you away from the living God. You must warn, encourage, admonish, be alongside each other every day, as long as it is called ‘Today,’ so that none of you will be deceived by sin and hardened against God. For if we are faithful to the end, trusting God just as firmly as when we first believed, we will share in all that belongs to Christ.”

Notice what this Scripture says—this is from God. Almighty God says to you and me that we must every day warn each other and help each other. We must be alongside each other every day. The Holy Spirit chose to say “every day.” He didn’t say every Sunday. He didn’t say every Sunday and Wednesday. He didn’t even say in meetings. He said get involved on a Truth level in each other’s lives every day. If others are available or could be, and you do not get involved because of lifestyle, or pride, or selfishness, or choice of living situation, God said you will become harder and unable to feel what He feels. You will be deceived into thinking that you know what is right when you do not. That is what Scripture specifically says! He didn’t just say to do it. He said if you don’t do this, it will hurt you greatly. If I don’t have brothers talking to me every day about my life—every day—I will become hard. I will become deceived. You may say, “But I read my Bible every day!” “But I pray every day!” “My wife is a Christian and I see her every day!” That’s not what God said. You can read your Bible and pray every day, but if you won’t be involved in each other’s lives every day, you will become more and more hard, and more and more deceived. God says this in Hebrews 3:12-14. Do you believe the Bible? Do you believe God?

Who wrote the Bible? God! God said that we have to be involved in each other’s lives every day. If you see me being selfish, you need to come to me and say, “Brother, don’t be selfish. That makes Jesus sad.” If you see me being proud, please help me and remind me that God opposes the proud. I don’t want God to oppose me! You have to help me, because I can’t see it all the time. No one can. “Admonish one another daily so that none of you are hardened and deceived.” This is an important (and almost totally disobeyed worldwide) part of our daily life together. This is one key way you are a priest using your gifts, and “an ambassador of Christ, as if God were making His appeal through you.”

If you put into practice these truths that have always been in your Bibles, you will be amazed at how much closer to Jesus you will be two years from now. “Admonish one another daily.” Be involved with each other’s children and marriages and workplaces “every day.” Go there! You must get out of your “comfort zone” and go there when you would not have done so before! Yes, I mean YOU! :) Please, for Jesus! Speak the Word “as of God” into each other’s lives, in a practical, loving, wise way, every day. “When you come together, brothers, everyone has a word of instruction, a song, a revelation.” “When revelation comes to the second, let the first one sit down.” As you walk this out, you may find that some whom you thought were Christians don’t love Jesus as much as you always thought they did. You also may find some whom you thought to be very weak are becoming stronger and wiser than you could ever imagine. God’s ways expose frauds and counterfeits, and make the weak very strong. Glory to God!

These riches are entrusted to you. Put them into practice for Jesus’ sake. You must define what a Christian really is by what Jesus said. You must understand leadership and what it is really supposed to be. Live your lives every day, together, encouraging each other, building one another up. Help each other to grow and love Jesus more throughout your afternoons and evenings. Come and meet together around King Jesus.

The Bible is 100% true all the way through. It is about Jesus and His followers. These are Stories of how they hurt and how they learned in their experiences with God. We can definitely learn from their stories, but we can also learn the same way they did: by facing God together in our daily lives. In that sense, we too are “living letters.” All the reading in the world could never change us the way the together-experience of Life can change us. Deep things we want to know never get all the way down into our hearts when they’re just read from paper. As we work things out together every day, Jesus teaches us the deep lessons of life that we could never learn from all the Bible study in the world, though these truths are in everyone’s Bible. “The pillar and foundation of Truth is the ekklesia—the church.” “The LIFE becomes the Light of men.”

Life was not meant to be like a grammar school where we learn ideas and then believe a certain list or “creed” of things. Instead, God has called us to become the same men and women of God as those who went before us—connected to the same God that they were—deeply in love with the same Jesus that they were. In order to do that, we not only need to know what they knew, but we need to feel what they felt. In order to feel what they felt, God has to take us on a Journey similar to theirs. So we take that journey in applying the Word of God together to our lives. We take that journey with tears in our eyes, with our weaknesses and our strengths, loving each other, and helping one another—in the bad times and the good times—with our eyes on our Hope, our Messiah. We are always moving forward, trusting that God will be our provider, helping us as we stay together.

If you love Jesus and build the right way, the gates of hell will no longer prevail. Sin will be crushed. Weakness and sickness will be healed. Sins will be forgiven. Kindness will lead many to repentance. Relationships will be built or restored, beyond what you could imagine in your wonderful dreams. You will shine like stars in the universe, displaying the goodness of God. And the Bride, the Church, will “make herself ready” and be ready when the Groom returns!! Amen?