Normal Christian?

The first book I decided to read on my Kindle is The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee. So far I love the book.  He has helped me to understand and see things in a way I had never though of before.  For instance he writes:

We shall see that the Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals with what we are.  The Blood disposes of our sins, while the Cross strikes at the root of our capacity for sin.

I had never before read or heard anyone make a distinction between the blood of Christ and the cross of Christ.  But why this distinction?  What is Nee getting at?

The heart, God says, is “desperately sick” (Jeremiah 17:9), and He must do something more fundamental than cleanse it:  He must give us a new one. We do not wash and iron clothing that we are going to throw away.  As we shall shortly see, the ‘flesh’ is too bad to be cleansed; it must be crucified.  The work of God within us must be something wholly new.  “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). No, I do not find it stated that the Blood cleanses our hearts. 

Yes, we need a new heart, the old one won't do.  But then he said what?  The blood doesn't cleanse our hearts?  What on earth is he talking about?

We need the Blood for forgiveness; we need also the Cross for deliverance. 

and here we go again with this blood/cross distinction.  So what is the difference between forgiveness and deliverance...why the distinction between the two?

The Blood can wash away my sins, but it cannot wash away my ‘old man’.  It needs the Cross to crucify me.  The Blood deals with the sins, but the Cross must deal with the sinner....We shall see that the Blood deals with what we have done, whereas the Cross deals with what we are.  The Blood disposes of our sins, while the Cross strikes at the root of our capacity for sin

So then the blood is for God to see.  God is satisfied with the blood to cover our sin.  But what about the sin factory that is our heart?  It is crucified with Christ!  When was our flesh, our old man, ourself who was a slave to sin crucified?  With Christ!  We died with Him!

Let me tell you, You have died!  You are done with!  You are ruled out!  The self you loathe is on the Cross in Christ.  And “he that is dead is freed from sin” (Romans 6:7, A.V.).  This is the Gospel for Christians.This is a remarkable revelation for every one who is in Christ!

This is what he calls the normal Christian life?  It doesn't seem normal to me.  My entire life I understood a normal Christian to be someone who regularly "examines themselves to make sure of their election", becoming ever-increasingly aware of our capacity for sin.  Yet, according to Romans 6 there is no room for examining the flesh of the dead man.  That man is dead.  The normal Christian, according to Nee, does not look upon himself and see a forgiven sinner who needs to improve, he sees himself as a forgiven sinner that has died already with Christ.  Now (to the normal Christian according to Nee) were are alive in Christ as we abide in Him.

What does this do to all the believers who focus on self improvement and the most effective methods of fighting against the flesh?  It is as absurd as dressing up a dead man just to beat him up.

This is all new for me and that means I must check it all out like a good  Berean would.

What do you think?

Purpose in the midst of suffering.

        I've requested my next book for review from  the blogging for books program.  I have decided on this one:

The Goodness of God Assurance of Purpose in the Midst of Suffering Written by Randy Alcorn

Here is a teaser from the publisher:

For those times when we’re wounded by broken trust, assaulted by disease, or victimized by evil—or when we’re crushed to see such things happen to people we love—Randy Alcorn offers something solid to hold onto. 

In this specially focused condensation of Alcorn’s If God Is Good…: Faith in the Midst of Suffering and Evil, we’re continually guided into a deeper glimpse of God’s loving ways and higher purposes—the very things we’re often most blinded to whenever we battle pain and anguish.

Alcorn avoids superficial or sentimental responses, and instead presses forward boldly to explore all the troubling doubts and questions that agitate within us when we confront suffering and evil.

The issues are far from simple, the answers far from easy—but Alcorn shows how the way of suffering—a path that Jesus himself followed more than anyone else—can ultimately become a journey into wholeness and even logic-defying joy.

bbc spoof on modern tech (blackberry and apple)

This video is sure to get a chuckle if you know anything at all about modern technology.

community via nativity

On the weekend before Christmas, my neighbors and my family got together and did a live nativity in our front yard.  It was all my wifey's idea and she gets all the credit for recruiting and organizing.  She is very gifted in that area.  My wife can get things done that completely blow my mind.  That said, this endeavor was a bit over her head.  The idea came to her just a few weeks prior and there were a lot of pieces she wanted in place in a very short time.  She immediately began asking our neighbors in the community (the same ones that we have been encouraging to meet with us on Sundays) if they would participate.  She also began asking every church in our community if they had any costumes we could borrow for the weekend.  The results were amazing!

After much coercion, all the roles were filled.  The week before the event the Primitive Baptist church across the street had a Christmas play that they invited us to attend.  We did and the ended up giving us some of the props they were using for the scenery.  After a bit of re-engineering, the pieces were transformed into a stable in our front yard.  That saved us a lot of time and money on materials and construction.  But that was just the beginning of God's amazing work.  Soon we had boxes of authentic looking costumes from another local drama that just had their last night.  Everyone was on board and all the pieces were falling into place.  That is when the flu hit...

The day before the nativity we received a call from an entire family of participants that were home bound for the weekend with a horrible virus.  Now we were short and angel, a wise man, and a shepherd.  My clever and determined wife decided to dress as a magi and paint on a beard in order to give us three.  We were just going to settle and be without an angel and one shepherd.  Then at the last minute...and I mean last minute, literally one minute before 7pm (our scheduled start) a little girl we had never met before got permission from her parents and donned our angel costume.  She was well behaved and did a great job!  The entire production was a huge success.  We even made the local news at 11 where Jessica did a great job during an interview of talking about bringing the community together to focus on Jesus.  Painted on beard and all!  A cross dressing wise guy :-)

When it was all said and done I was most amazed at how not only our neighbors but the local churches came together and chipped in to make the nativity a success.  It was the talk of our community.  Pastors called wanting to know how they and their families could get involved.  Everyone seemed to have a great time and although we have yet to meet altogether with these families for a gathering of the church, we did come together and impact our community for Christ.  I'm still prayerful and hopeful that God will continue working to bring us together for much more and most importantly bring us together as the body of Christ in practice.  As we continue looking and listening for ways God wants us to minister in our neighborhood I am also hopeful that the local churches will be equally as generous and supportive.  Time will tell because God is faithful.

Sun Stand Still: A Review

Many people think that becoming a follower of Christ means that you have to leave behind everything fun and exciting that life has to offer and become a part of a boring, religious group of homebodies who get their kicks by talking about how everyone except them is messing up their lives and needs Jesus.  The Christian life is perceived as being nothing more than a schedule of rituals and a list of do's and don'ts.  Christians in general are satisfied with the status quo (rituals and rules) as the sum of our religion and we aren't inclined to seek out the miraculous power of Almighty God at work in the world around us, let alone through us.  Business as usual is the mantra, week in week out, same old same old until we go up into glory.

Stephen Furtick hopes to spur us on to something greater in his book Sun Stand Still.  In this work Stephen challenges all of us to ask God for the impossible.  We should not be satisfied with the mundane, ritualistic, and boring Christian religious events that we fill our weeks and months with.  We should be seeking to do great things for the glory of God by the power of God.  We can dream impossible dreams because nothing is impossible with God and know that He wants to do extraordinary things in and through us because He wants to display His greatness to all creation.  Stephen calls for something far beyond boring and mundane.  He calls us to the audacious faith that the God fearing men and women of scripture demonstrate for us.  To pray like Joshua for the sun to stand still in the sky until he could defeat his enemies.

The author gives numerous examples both from the scripture and from his own experiences that inspired me to seek the vision God has for my life and act on it.  He also did a good job of dealing with the tough issue of unanswered prayer and how these challenges to our faith don't mean that we weren't faithful enough or that God isn't great enough but instead reveals that God had something better in mind and we should continue to trust, especially when things don't go as we plan.  He paints God in a way that displays Him as the daddy who wants to give the whole world to His children if we would only ask.

What I disliked about the book is the over use of certain vocabulary and terms that he coined like "Sun Stand Still prayer", audacious faith, and page 23 vision.  I also was disappointed that Christ did not take more of a central position in his reasonings as to why God hears and answers our prayers and shapes the things we should be praying for.  Someone who enjoys reading Joel Osteen and the word of faith clan would really dig this book.  There is not alot of talk of man's sin condition and only a few light hints regarding our need of the power of God for salvation.  I know that this wasn't the subject matter for the book but I don't think we can skip through all the blood and death of Christ Jesus and jump to the right standing with God with new life and power.  He totally dropped the ball as far as providing a solid foundation for the audacious faith he calls for.  A stronger focus on the gospel would have greatly strengthened his encouragements to the saints and challenged those who already think of God as a cosmic slot machine.

I would recommend this book.  It has elevated my expectations for God to do what is impossible for me and rekindled my prayer life to ask for things I know only Almighty God can do.  I think we can all use that kind of encouragement.  As long as we are seeking to diplay Christ more fully to a dying world we can be sure that the Spirit of God will empower us for that work.

I received this book for free from WaterBrook Multnomah Publishing Group for this review

but receiving can be really good

I wasn't hoping to receive anything this Christmas.  Usually I don't even have a wish list.  This utterly frustrates my wife because she doesn't know what I want.  What I want every year is for everyone to be enthralled with the love God has shown by taking on sinful flesh and laying his life down to bring us back to himself.

This year I was pleasantly surprised.  My lovely wife and best friend bought me two gift I didn't know I wanted. A Kindle and a ticket to the Ligonier Conference next March in Orlando!  She even purchased books from some of the speakers that will be at the conference and had them pre-loaded on the Kindle!  I have a lot of reading to do!  The list is as follows:

Feed My Sheep:  A passionate plea for preaching by R. Albert Mohler

Doctrine:  What Christians Should Believe by Mark Driscoll and Gerry Breshears

The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee

Prophetic Ministry by T. Austin Sparks

The ESV Study Bible (Kindle edition)

(soon to come) Think by John Piper

I just finished Sun Stand Still and I will be posting a review of it soon.  I also received my booksneeze book for review this week.  Not to mention wifey bought me another T. Austin Sparks paperback book entitled God's Spiritual House.

I'll be busy for a while.  Merry Christmas everyone!!!

better to give than to receive

Today is Christmas and like never before I have experienced this year that it is much better to give than it is to receive.  The Lord has truly blessed us in the most remarkable ways this year. In recent months my wifey has been selling fudge like crazy.  It started as an experiment to see if she could raise some extra spending money.  It turned into the cup that runneth over.

With money from the fudge sales, our usual money we set aside for giving, and recent side jobs that have exploded all over my calender this past month we have been able to provide trees, decorations, gifts, clothing, meals, and toys to several families that otherwise would have gone without.  Looking back I am amazed at what God accomplished.  I still have a hard time believing it.

It has given us the opportunity to participate in what Christmas is all about.  Christmas is about the incarnation of God to accomplish what we could not accomplish for ourselves.  Our family hasn't done anything that compares to that monumental work for the salvation of sinners but what we have done is glorified God by providing for those He has placed in our lives this season.  It has been a tremendous blessing to experience the joy that comes through serving Christ Jesus, especially during this season as we reflect on the humility He displayed by becoming like us in order to save us.

How has God used you to display His glory during this season?

new book for review: Jesus Inquest

Thanks to Alan for the heads up, I have also signed up to review books for BookSneeze .  They will send me free books for doing reviews for the books.  Nice!

The first book I chose is The Jesus Inquest The Case For and Against the Resurrection of the Christ by Charles Foster.  It kinda looks like Lee Stroebel's A Case for Christ but it is all about the resurrection and sounds like it may be more exhaustive in that area.  I like apologetics and so I think I will enjoy this very much.  Here is the rundown from Booksneeze:

An unbiased examination and compelling courtroom presentation revealing the undeniable facts of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Intelligent, fair, and remarkably compelling, The Jesus Inquest argues the case both for and against the resurrection of Christ. Point-by-point, Foster, in turn as both barrister X and Y, leaves no theological stone or dissenter's rock unturned as he digs for answers and the truth. In the end he is more convinced that Jesus is real, that He did rise again, and that He lives to offer forgiveness and hope to all who come to Him."

I like the fact that the author will present the case from both sides.  More often than not, when making arguments we (or at least I) tend to present a strong case for our own argument and put it up against a strawman from the other side.  This should be good.

the way to the promised land: faith

So I signed up for the Blogging for Books program about a week ago and my first book for review has arrived. I began reading it last night and it has turned out to be much more than I bargained for. Let me explain.

I didn't give the title much thought as I picked it. It was the authors teaser that caught my interest. Now that I have read the beginning and I see how the title fits with the teaser, God's providence has been displayed for me personally in the most marvelous way.

Here's how: lately I have written about my thoughts and struggles as I left the "Egypt" of the traditional church and entered into the "wilderness" of a time between that and entering into the "promised land" of a more organic assembly of believers. Right now I am in the wilderness. In the book Stephen Furtick inspires audacious faith by using Joshua as our example. You see, after Moses died, Joshua was determined to lead Israel into the promised land and one of the prayers He made to God to accomplish this monumental task was he asked God to make the sun stand still in the sky while he defeated his enemies. God answered his prayer, they entered into the promised land and the rest is history.

Do you see why I am so excited about the potential impact of this book? Acting on audacious faith to enter into the promised land, that is precisely what I needed to hear! What wonderful good news! I am very eager to finish the book and when I do I'll post my review. Same bat time, same bat channel.

who's preaching?

What comes to mind when you hear this question? If you are like most, immediately your mind sees a man on a stage behind a pulpit sermonizing to a listening audience. Why? Where do we get this practice from?

To the astonishment of many, this practice (along with nearly every other practice in organized church services) has unbiblical and pagan roots. Yet, many well meaning pastors and teachers participate in this performance week after week. For most preaching a sermon on Sunday is a necessary event. In fact, the sermon is the central portion of protestant worship services. This is due to the understanding that the gospel (good news) must be preached because news only comes through words. This is true, but if weekly prepared sermons were Gods intended vehicle for the proclamation of Jesus Christ, why is it absent from the New Testament record of early church gatherings?

I believe that preaching (speaking, telling) the good news of who Jesus is and what He has done is a necessary response to the life changing power of the gospel for every believing follower of Christ. Every believer should tell the good news to everyone they come into contact with, believer and unbeliever alike.
The gospel changes lives and only by preaching the gospel (good newsing) will lives be changed. I long to see church gatherings where the gospel is preached not by one paid professional, but by everyone who has experienced the transforming power of Christ for themselves.

Lets good news one another instead of having one who good newses all the others.

desperate persistence

Mr. Grumble has left the building.

Everyday I find myself tempted to grumble to God for calling me out of Egypt and into the wilderness. If you have been reading my blog you probably know by now that I use Egypt as a symbol of organized religion.

Having faith that God will bring me through to complete my journey is my only refuge and hope.  I miss having regular fellowship with my brothers and sisters that are still in the institutional church.  I love and miss them all very much. Knowing that the only real fellowship we can have is in Christ; that is my most comforting thought.  All is not lost, relationships built are not wasted.  I haven't left the people in my heart and spirit but I could no longer remain present with them in the services and programs.

Jesus may be known in the institution and in the wilderness but he is experienced in his fullness in the promised land. We are still united in Christ (at least in thought) but I want it to be more real.  No polite cordiality, no programs to hide behind, no paid professionals expected to do all the work, no systems to maintain and be devoted to to.  Just Christ in us, that is what I want to be a part of.  Christ is all and in all.  He is the beginning and the end.  The firstborn from the dead.  He learned obedience through what he suffered.  Oh! how I want to know him more!  To know more fully what it means to be IN him and have him IN me and to be a part of a gathering that is devoted to putting all our energies into building one another up IN Christ.

I want him in his fullness, I'm done with good enough.  God help me not to grumble or to turn back.

Blogging for Books

I read a lot and I always think about writing a review of the books I read but I never do it.  I don't know why, I guess I'm a slacker.  Alan has pointed me to a program called Blogging for Books where I can get free books if I write a review on my blog about them.  This is cool.  I get books for free and I also get pushed toward doing reviews of what I read.  It will be good practice and hopefully will become a habit of mine to share my thoughts on all the books I read.
The first book I chose is Sun Stand Still by Steven Furtick.  He wrote his own teaser for the book and it sounded edgy, like something my wifey would say.  We all know how much I love her and if you have ever read her blog you will see why this reminds me of her writing.

"This book is not a Snuggie. The words on these pages will not go down like Ambien. I’m not writing to calm or coddle you. With God’s help, I intend to incite a riot in your mind. Trip your breakers and turn out the lights in your favorite hiding places of insecurity and fear. Then flip the switch back on so that God’s truth can illuminate the divine destiny that may have been lying dormant inside you for years. 

   In short, I’m out to activate your audacious faith. To inspire you to ask God for the impossible. And in the process, to reconnect you with your God-sized purpose and potential."

    —STEVEN FURTICK, from Sun Stand Still

I am very much looking forward to reading this book and doing my first "official" review.  Thanks to Alan for the referral and to Multnomah Publishers for this awesome program and opportunity.

Grace + Christ = The Result

Result is a local gospel rap artist.  His music appeals to me because our testimonies are somewhat similar.  So to hear him rap resonates with me on many different levels; who I was, who I am, and who I hope to become.  One of my favorite songs of his is titled "Show Me".  In the song he expresses our need to see God for who he is and then He reveals who God is by pointing to Christ in every book of the Old Testament.The lyrics are written below. I recommend that you stream the tune while you read the lyrics. Enjoy!  (By the way by clicking on the song title above you will be taken to a Myspace page where you can stream the song.  By clicking on Result you can read his page to find out more about him, read his testimony, or buy his music)

{first hook}
Show me show me your grace
Show me show me your love
Show me show me your face
cuz you're the only one that knows me

Show me show me my filth
Show me show me my self
Show me show me my guilt
cuz you're the only one that knows me

Show me show me you care
Show me show me your mercy
Show me show me you're there
cuz you're the only one that knows me

Show me show me I'm dark
Show me show me my sin
Show me show me my heart
cuz you're the only one that knows me

{verse one}
Show me show me your grace
grace you provide me to build
build me a spiritual place
place me inside of your will
will you abandon me now?
now when I need you the most
most of my prayers hit ground
ground me to seek you in hope
hope you can use me to serve
serve me a plate of your bread
bred in my nature to swerve
swerve in the lane of the dead
dead in the sin that we fear
fear when you show me your weight
wait your servant is here
here and you show me your face
face me time on the watch
watch me and lead me to truth
truth in my innermost thoughts
thoughts of me being with you
you are infallibly wise
why is it so hard to know?
No! I know I can't hide
hiding my hardness I go
go before me and talk
talk is cheap and I'm broke
broke apart when you call
call me to speak and I choke
choke my sin with your hands
hand me Jesus' clothes
clothed to roam in this land
land your seed in my soul.

{repeat first hook}

(spoken) look I know we all feel that way sometimes. Just crying out to God begging for Him to show you. God show me who you are, show me what you want from me. You are just crying out to God praying for him to show you, show you who he is. I used to be that way myself man. But you know what?  He did show me.  I asked him and he did show me.  In Hebrews 1:1 it says that in many times and in many ways God has spoke to our forefathers in the prophets but in these last days he has spoken to us through his son, Jesus Christ...who is the Word.  So hopefully, as he has shown me, I can show you who he is.

{second hook}
I can see him in hope
I can see him in faith
I can see him in grace
the word of God is where he showed me


I can see him in mercy
I can see him in love
when I'm seeking his face
the word of God is where he showed me


{second verse}
Lord show me the images of you in Genesis
you are the seed that crushed the head of the nemesis
in Exodus with Moses, you are the staff in his hand
the blood on the doorpost, yeah the passover lamb.
high priest in Leviticus, the Nazarite in Numbers.
In Deuteronomy the righteous law I was under. 

IN Joshua you're the trumpets sound of judgement

and you are the angel of the Lord found in Judges

In Ruth you are Boaz, sent to redeem

In Samuel David prefigured you as the king

In Kings you are the prophet:  Elijah and Elisha

the temple builder in Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah.

Deliverance in Ester, suffering and glory of Job

The sympathy in Psalms and the wisdom that Proverbs showed.

The true satisfaction Ecclesiastes implied

The perfect love in the Song of Solomon, we the bride.

Restoration in Isaiah the warning in Jeremiah

Lamentations sorrow your people reject you as Messiah

Ezekiel exposes your future empire

In Daniel you are the fourth man in the fire.
The husband in Hosea
The  judgement of Joel, Amos, and Obidiah for the one who disobey you, Oh
and you're the gentile salvation in Jonah
the shepherd in Micah.  The fire in Nahum,
you're shown to be the righteous one in Habakkuk
The wrath of Zephaniah
Haggai's promise, the path of Zechariah, yeah
In Malachi you're the refining fire
All things point to you when I inquire.
You showed us who you are before you even came 
and let the world hear the sound of your coming before they seen the train.
You planted me in soil of truth to grow in.
You showed me, hopefully I just showed them.


{repeat second hook}

still wandering...

I have previously written about what God has been doing in our lives as we have gone out of organised religion and been moving toward an organic assembly of believers. Today I would like to share what we are continuing to go through as we wander in this wilderness.

In months past we were meeting with a few families in a home about twenty minutes from our own. It was a time of learning and refreshment as we gathered with them and saw first hand that our unity and fellowship is in Jesus Christ and not in confessions, creeds, denominations or our favorite preacher. Our meetings consisted of times of mutual edification and also a meal. All activities were centered on knowing, adoring, and becoming like Christ.  It has been great to see Christ work through the various members of his body without constraint and still with decent order.

In recent weeks my wifey and I have become burdened over the families in our own community that profess faith in Christ yet have nowhere in which they are comfortable to gather with other believers. We know that God is calling and using us to bring our neighbors to a fuller knowledge and a closer walk with himself. What we don't know is if it is his desire for us to continue trying to gather in our own home or if we should gather with other established assemblies across town.

We hope that you would join us in prayer for discernment and patience as we seek the Lords will in our decisions. It is tough walking in what seems to be a wilderness but it is building our faith in ways we never before considered. I thank God for the road we are on and I look forward to being a part of bringing about his eternal purpose and the advance of his kingdom through obedience to the gospel.  Still yet it is hard for me to fight against my own frustrations and impatience when I see in scripture how beautiful the church is as she gathers with Christ as her only head.  Oh, how I long to reach the promised land, but I want it now and God obviously wants to test my faith first.

freaking out on the Jesus freaks

With all the talk in the blogosphere lately about popular culture and its usefulness in formal worship services I thought I would throw my hat in the ring.

Let me begin by saying that I don't see where what are often referred to as worship services have any foundation from the New Testament. In light of this I don't see how different types of music that are popular today can add to or detract from an already unbiblical practice. I mean, really let's be consistent brothers. If you are gonna be against gospel rap, Jesus freak rock music or christian contemporary music on biblical grounds then lets look at everything in the worship service through that lens.

Personally I enjoy listening to gospel rap in my car. I love how poetic the lyrics are and how faithful these brothers are to sound doctrine and their biblical convictions. In fact, in the near future I plan to jot down some of those verses and create some pages so you see the depth and skill that these artists demonstrate in their music.

What do you think about the rise of christian artists using genre's from popular culture as a style suitable to preach the gospel?

free the pastors! pastor for free!

Building on my last post, here is a post from Alan Knox at the assembling of the church describing how being a pastor in a participatory gathering of the church contrasts with being a pastor in an institutionalized traditional church.  First He shares many of the things he has read and heard lately describing what he sees pastors worrying about.  Then he shares his own experience and how he is free from these kinds of worries to do what pastors are called to do.

Alan writes:

Because of many of the above, I don’t worry about how many people meet with us each Sunday. I don’t have to worry about filling the pews (or chairs). I don’t have to worry about recruiting people to fill ministry program slots. I don’t have to worry about how much money people give.
Instead, I can focus all of my time and energy on people… caring for people… serving people… discipling people… teaching people… sharing my life with people.

Click over and read the whole post, it paints a clear picture of how our structures and traditions of having paid professional pastors actually distract us from what we are called to be in Christ.

concerning budgets and buildings

Recently a friend of mine told me of a budget meeting that they held at her church. Lately the church has had scores of members leave and its numbers continue to dwindle fast. These facts provide a framework for a very uncomfortable meeting as the money coming into the church is in short supply.

I don't grieve over dwindling numbers in dying churches. In fact the meeting gave a perfect opportunity for the members of this church to show where their treasure is. I wish I could say it was good news but it wasn't. What I learned is that many of the people who had in the past greeted me with a smile and welcomed me (and especially my babies) into their fold (and more importantly their nursery) behaved in a very un-Christlike manner when faced with decisions about what to do in the economic crisis facing the church.

I want people to realize the trappings that come from having a "church" that belongs to them. Forming some THING that is named and claimed eventually leads us to think we have can control and authority over it. It just goes to show how counter productive it is to have a piece of real estate and a set of facilities can be to the life of the body of Christ. There are endless distractions associated with buildings such as maintenance, bills, and staff. So much money and so much effort put into preserving this THING leaving no money and no time left over to serve one another.

Serving, exhorting, admonishing, teaching, loving, etc. one another is what the church should be in the business of doing. Instead, what we do is build structures and systems and programs to help us do that and ignore the fact that the things we build take us away from what we should be doing. It is time to ask what we love. Do we love Christ and one another or do we love our building and its system of programs?

this means war

The more I look at the big picture given by scripture, the more I see that the ultimate intention of God in creation is an issue of government.  The question from the beginning was who is going to rule the creation?  Will man trust God, enjoy the paradise he has placed him in and govern according to the nature of his creator?  Will he take of the tree of life for his nourishment and have faith that God will give him all he needs to live out his purpose or will he take the knowledge of good and evil and thereby do things according to his own devices?  This is what was going on in the beginning and we are still fighting this same battle today. 

Satan's lie that we would be like God if we know good and evil brings us into the realm where we trust our own wisdom to live our lives rather than trusting in God to supply everything for us.  This issue of government, of who is going to rule, of who we will trust is what the purpose of all creation rests upon.  The cross was not ultimately about salvation, evangelism or sanctification.  These are part of the gospel but they are not the gospel.  These things are a part of what God is ultimately after and that is a kingdom.  The gospel is the kingdom of God having come through the man Jesus Christ and by faith in him all the trappings of the fall, the old man of sin is put to death and we can walk in the newness of life according to the spirit that now dwells within.  We come into this new corporate man, Christ Jesus, and we make up his body as he is our head.

We have now come into the new city, the kingdom of God and we are here to wage war against the powers of darkness.  All  authority has been given unto me THEREFORE GO...  In order to go and have impact we need to have the mind of Christ.  A mind that recognized that all authority has been given for a purpose.  We have been saved for something, we are being perfected for something and that something is to rule and reign with Christ.  To battle against evil.  Both the evil of our former selves (which is a lifelong battle made up of little deaths) and also the evil in the lives of others.  Notice I did not say that we are to battle against others.  What we battle against are spiritual forces in high places.  It is a fight between the kingdom of Satan and the Kingdom of God.  Christ is the Lord and He is victorious!  The creation was made by him, through him and to him and he is coming to claim it once and for all.  But let us not forget that he is here now, he is living within each and every believer and his kingdom is a spiritual kingdom.  We are part of a spiritual kingdom and are sent with a purpose of proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom of Christ.

I really don't know where I am going with all this.  The only thing I know for sure is that I have been way too focused on the physical, material world and not at all concerned with the things that I have been called to do.  I have not been focused on the war.  I have not been in the battle.  I am like dead weight in the kingdom, a lazy soldier who hides while my brothers and sisters fight the good fight.  At least, I hope someone is fighting...I just want to encourage you and be encouraged to do what matters.  To serve, encourage and admonish one another.   Don't forget, this is war.