Emmanuel and the Kingdom Nigh Part Two

There is no in crowd. There is just God going on. God developing His human self and growing Himself in them. Jesus said I am the Vine and you are the branches. When He said this, and the very inflection of His voice would have carried the meaning if the disciples could.hear at that point......which they couldn't.........somewhere at the base of.their agenda was Yahshua Mahsheach conquering ruler, and reinstalling kingdom to Israel from Roman rule.......nope they weren't yet in hearing mode.
Neither are you I suspect.
When Jesus says I.am the Vine and you are the branches.......does your hearing still read that as
I am the Vine and you are the minions.....???
Or.do you hear it as Jesus meant it.......
I am the Vine.......trunk and branches the whole thing and you are Christ the branches?
People get angry with me talking about a third growth stage, a thirdlevel to this Christianity thing. Well blame Apostle John in 1John 2. Is he writing about an in crowd?
Nope. There isn't one. There is just God going on. It takes three whole levels to catch it inwardly. Before we catch it it doesn't make it any less true. Just because a baby can't relate to you about what its synapses are doing in its brain as they multiply at the fastest rate, doesn't mean it isn't so!!!
Why not the charismatic move Chris......surely that's the ultimate? Well if.I pressed you.for what they teach.........would you.say......Union? Would you say Jesus total vine teaching? Or would you.say they were more caught up with signs and wonders and anointing?
By the confession of our own mouths are we known. And Charismatics continually confess Jesus out there somewhere and they are the little minion branches crying out More Lord More.Lord, as if they are unattached orphaned branches.
But Jesus says........if you are a cut off branch you can't bear any fruit. But by this He didn't mean for.you to fast and pray that your little branch be attached again........HE MEANT.......SEE YOURSELF ALREADY IN........I AM THE WHOLE VINE NOW........THE TRUNK AND THE BRANCHES......YOU ARE RIGHT NOW THE CHRIST BRANCHES !!!! Why are you struggling?
The Kingdom is not Lo over here........with you crying endlessly. More Lord.over here please.
The Kingdom IS NEAR YOU EVEN IN YOUR MOUTH.
I AM EMMANUEL. GOD WITH YOU.
I AM NOT APARTUEL.......GOD.APART FROM YOU.
GALATIANS 2.20 is now true of you.
There is no in crowd. There is only God going on.
Or if there is an in crowd.........
THEN U ARE ALREADY IN IT!!!
SELAH

The Sticking Point of the Charismatic and Pentecostal Movement

Something like David's new cart, as he confidently brought the Ark of the Covenant back from its exile towards Jerusalem, the charismatic and pentecostal movements also  hit a bump in the road.

You can tell a bump in the road, an obstacle. It's the point beyond which churches do not move. Pastors repeat the same sermon over and over again in different forms, with ever greater frustration and pressure on the sheep.

And if they don't get John 15, it doesn't get easier going through John 16 and 17.

Perhaps it is true to say this is precisely where everyone lost hope with Maurice Smith's John 17 prophecy.

Around 1974 having just read Brother Lawrence's book , Marcus Roberts and I were on a bus, thinking we'd like to try practicing "Praying Constantly"...or "Abiding".

Hmm....didn't even make it to the end of the bus journey!

And it doesn't matter how much pastors lean on this concept of the importance of Abiding in the Vine, it still gets no nearer becoming reality in charismatic and pentecostal frameworks.

And there is a very simple reason.
It's the same reason that repentance actually comes from the Greek words meta and nous....metanoia.
Or  meta...moving out beyond the confines of....and nous....(nowce) the conscious thinking mind....or leftbrain sliver at the frontal cortex of our brain.

The conscious mind doesn't do abiding!. It's not meant to. It's meant to be given different tasks to solve.To think about. To plan.Once it's completed it's task, it doesn't just hover in the air feeling content to do nothing. It wants the next thing to get its teeth stuck into.

So everywhere in the world, these poor charismatic and pentecostal pastors are piling on more and more pressure to get a piece of us doing something it was never geared to do, and getting more and more frustrated at the failure.

YOU CAN'T MAKE JOHN 15 WORK IN THE LEFTBRAIN.

Proverbs 3 puts it this way.
Trust in the Lord with ALL of the BIT that can handle the Lord, and Abiding....namely the Heart.
And don't rely on that slender bit of restrictive apparatus that can only work with the limited parameters of sense information that you give it to work with.

It cannot work with a Kingdom that is appearing out of nowhere, out of the heavenlies.
Now the leftbrain will say, like any confident atheist,....there....the fact that I cannot see the Kingdom tells me I can confidently relay that you Christians are speaking a load of tosh.

Nope. All it's saying is that bit of the Kingdom that HAS ARRIVED...that the leftbrain now exploits and calls evolutionary appearance under man's own steam....is not the bit of the Kingdom that our heart already perceives from afar off.

So back to abiding?
Proverbs 3 continues to give the lowdown on how abiding works.
Acknowledge God IN ALL YOUR WAYS...driving,building, washing,measuring,laughing, shooting at goals,whatever..... And He will make straight your paths.

Acknowledge does not mean try your hardest to think continually about...
Acknowledge means tip your hat to...
Expect and trust in God's Life within you to settle itself within the context of that particular task.
As the disciples asked Jesus....
^{John6:28 -29}Therefore they said to Him, “What shall we do, so that we may work the works of God?” ²⁹ Jesus answered and said to them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in Him whom He has sent.”
In our context we trust in that Life that is Christ within us 
to get us to that place of Abiding
in whatever sphere of life we are acknowledging.

This is a very similar principle to the principle of balance when we are learning to ride a bike.
We have to believe that eventually "flow"...or grace....or however you call the Life of Christ will rise to undergird us.  First comes trust. Taking God's Word over us by faith.

But the Pentecostal charismatic technique of revving ourselves up enough in the Presence of God in a meeting, or "our quiet" time, and then, quickly as possible getting into a task before the Presence of God dissipates...is NOT TRUST.
And It's NO WAY TO LIVE.
And it actually blocks the people of God from ever moving into chapters 15-17 of St John's gospel as a reality.  In short. Galations calls that state being bewitched, because we are relying on things other than God to do that which only He does within us.