It's a glorious thing Christian babyhood. You get on with seeking God and getting a totally new consciousness all the while assuming that as things get worse Jesus will come back and put everything right.....cos the Kingdom is coming right? Can't see it now....but you just watch it'll come rolling over the hill in the by and by like an angelic horse and cart with Big Jesus shouting Ha! Ha! With his horse switch in hand. I'll come back to that.....
Well God nothing. The Jews also experienced this when they came into their own land. In the old Testament they took their eyes off God. Next thing they are in Babylon. BUT is this the MATURE form of Christianity? What? You saying that while on planet earth you always need non Christians to steal your wealth....steal your land....run the media....run the political systems.....just cos you plan to stay being double minded .....to never graduate to the single eye.....of mature Christianity? You saying that being a 'see-througher' .....a person of wealth and standing like Abraham was like Isaac was, like Jacob was.....is no longer possible....that that immediately presumes you will rely on the arm of flesh instead of the greater supernatural supply of God? Ah Chris.....it says it is harder for the rich to gain the Kingdom than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.... Ok....but does that apply to Christ's life lived in us? Secondly how rich? Every white person is rich to a poor man in Burkina Faso? So no English are going to heaven? Not according to your logic? Oh....some are? Ok how rich is the cut off? All mortgage holders? All house owners? All those owning a business over £100,000? A million? A billion? A trillion? Oh so everyone except Rothschild and Richard Branson then? Well I am glad we got that sorted then? You know we really ought to put this in the New Bibles so new Christians understand how many pounds they can earn before the Pope says.....no more....we'll send in the Jesuit Inquisition now!! Why is this important? Because of ourstupid thinking we now have a Sound of Music film totally stripped of God content. We sloped shoulders onto the Illuminati film industry and said.....hey.....you put the film out....we are so weak and pathetic....and hey....we don't want to be rich or else we will blow everything on drink porn and drugs.....so you twist the storyline for us and take out the bit whereMaria gives herself wholeheartedly to the Lord of glory.....Oh and the bits where the children sing Monteverdi and Palestrina in awesome worship.....we are only Christians selling our birthright to totally unworthy forces so that we can be ready for the Jesus Cart coming over the hills to snatch us all away while He burns all the sinners in unbelievable atomic bomb torment. What we are doing by staying in baby Christianity is shameful. It is bringing down the wonderful Name of our God in the earth. WE MUST GROW UP IN HIM to be as He was.....having SINGLE VISION.
Maria von Trapp said for ages she wouldn't sign a contract on a book which became Sound of Music. Eventually when she sold the film rights she sold them for a one-off price. Well the rest is history. And apart from the initial relatively small sum the family made nothing out of the millions and the continuing millions made on the film. Her comment was a Christian one. "Well God saw to it that we made no money.....because we have seen Hollywood lifestyles.....and God kept us from all this."
This post is from Velveteen Rabbi, and I comment at length at the bottom.(I am never sure how many comments get through to Rachel the writer, so today to make extra sure I signed in via Type Pad and Facebook. So I am not sure how justified my frustration is. ie could be me pressing the wrong buttons)
The last couple of days I've been at the second meeting of my cohort of Rabbis Without Borders
fellows. It's been grand to see everyone again. One theme of our
session was the rabbinate and expanding technology -- social media, its
uses and misuses, who is our audience and how can we serve them, etc. I
enjoyed the session with Allison Fine, author of The Networked Nonprofit;
she had smart things to say. But as someone who's been active online
for 20 years, and active in the Jewish blogosphere for almost a decade, I
think I came to that conversation with a relatively high level of
competency. So I was more excited about the other learning we did
together.
For me one central question of the session came from Rabbi Brad Hirschfield: who is your Torah for?
Over the course of his session, he said several things which resonated
with me. He urged us to try to live in a way which acknowledges the need
for walls, but keeps the walls lowered as much as we can bear. ("Walls
keep us safe," he agreed, "but they can also become prisons.") He
exhorted us to live in a mindset of abundance. To recognize that the
spiritual and the material are always interconnected. To strive to live
in a spirit of both/and rather than either/or -- and to bring the same
compassionate both/and response to ourselves that we bring to the world.
We studied a short text from Talmud (tractate Avodah Zarah 2b-3a)
about the question of for whom the Torah was meant. And R' Brad noted
the fairly remarkable truth that although that text was written during a
time when Jews were tremendously persecuted (and by and large had a lot
of understandable anger and anxiety around that), the Talmud still
presumes that the Torah is not ours alone, that access to God is not
ours alone, and that anyone who studies Torah (in the language of the
text, even an idolater) is as elevated as the high priest. Here are a
few of the gems from that Torah study which I tweeted as it was
happening:
The most iconic Jewish text we have (Talmud) was written not in Hebrew but the English of its moment: Aramaic.
Talmud (Avodah Zarah 2b-3a) teaches: there's no boundary b/w Torah and the peoples of the world. ALL of them.
In my wished-for world, the full dignity of the ultimate outsider is affirmed along with the full dignity of the full insider.
I think it's easy for people today who don't have familiarity with
Aramaic to feel as though the Talmud is a kind of walled garden -- a
Jewish treasure to which they don't have access. But R' Brad reminds us
that Talmud was written in the vernacular of its day; it was meant to be
accessible. It wasn't an ivory tower text designed only for the
insiders. Beyond that, there's a thread in our texts, if we are willing
to look for it and follow it, which reminds us that the wisdom we've
been blessed to receive is not ours alone. This is the kind of
post-triumphalism which drew me to Jewish Renewal, and which I also find in Rabbis Without Borders/Clal. R' Brad continued:
Of course you teach the Torah you most need. But it doesn't end there.
The unfolding #Torah of our lives is also a sacred text.
I "use Jewish" to serve people. That's who my #Torah is for.
The idea that we teach the Torah we most need to learn is one which
was already very close to our hearts. And so is the idea that the
unfolding Torah of our lives is a sacred text -- different from the
written Torah we find in our libraries, but also holy. And the idea of
"using Jewish" to serve people -- bringing Jewish wisdom, Jewish tools,
to bear on the work of serving God and serving humanity -- is also close
to my heart. We were all asked to ponder, and to answer, the question
of "who is my Torah for?" As soon as I heard the question, my answer
arose in me.
My Torah is for anyone who is thirsty.
Anyone who's thirsty for connection, for community, for God. Anyone who
wants to make their lives holy or to become more conscious of the
holiness in the everyday. Anyone who wants access to the rich toolbox of
Jewish wisdom and traditions and ideas which I am blessed to have as my
yerusha, my inheritance.
And then I thought: that would have been my answer ten years ago when
I started this blog, too. I started writing VR for anyone who was
thirsty, as I was, for connection with God and with tradition. Maybe
especially for those who felt marginalized, who didn't perceive that
they had a place at the table but yearned to be welcomed in.
That in turn raises the question for me: has that changed? Should
it have changed? In the last ten years I've gone from being an aspirant
to being, thank God, an ordained rabbi. I've gone from being someone
who felt that I was outside-looking-in to being someone who feels
blessed to have access to these incredible riches of tradition.
But I think my answer is actually still the same as it was. Maybe
this is integral to who I am. My Torah is for anyone who yearns. I have
better access now to the tools my tradition gives me for helping to
connect people with meaning, to connect people with God. But I still
want my Torah to be for anyone who's thirsty. "Let all who are hungry,
come and eat; let all who are needy, come and celebrate the Passover
with us." That message from the Passover haggadah has long been one of
my favorite things; and I think it shaped me more than I know. My Torah
is for you who are reading this, whenever this is, whoever you are.
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Comments
Gershon said...
Rabbi,
This is another great article.
I hope you do not mind a long story. When evangalists knock at my
door, I invite them in. Some prefer to sit on the porch. I tell them
I'm happy to read from the "Old Testement" with them without serious
commentary by anyone. I ask if it is ok to read the Parsha for the
week. One time, two men in their 50's came by in suits and we sat at my
kitchen table for hours reading and drinking coffee. They were
fascinated by hearing the Hebrew and the translation.
At the end, one of them said, "Why don't Jews evangalize door to
door." Without thinking, I said "I sit at home and wait for God to send
people to me."
Heaven forbid God should send someone to Torah and I should be the
one to stand in their way. All I ask from people with other faiths is
we do not debate. We can read and enjoy each other's company. I never
say anything against their faith when we read.
Shalom,
Gershon
David Waterman said...
This
Rachel is so true and I think that you live this out. There are
multitudes of blogs out there but yours does, I think, truly stand out.
You have a way of bringing insight from many aspects including Renewal
Judaism and kabbalistic influences so that we may study Torah through
the light of your teaching.
And the Torah is all of ours. Of that I am sure.
Thanks again
From a Christian perspective, ultimately Jewish of course:-)
All who are thirsty,
all who are weak,
come to the fountain,
dip your heart in the stream of life.
Let the pain and the sorrow
be washed away
in the waves of his mercy...
(by Brenton Brown)
Tom
My
experience on here has not been good. Rachel indeed has walls. In the
world we are trying to create it is necessary to talk and maintain open
lines of communication. Jews at the moment have been so used to being
persecuted they are suspicious of too much cross border talk. In the
book of Daniel it talks of a world that is completely overrun by a dark
figure who uses manipulation to obtain total world rule. So we are NOT
looking for a world where people manipulate the idea of Unity to form
world government, we are looking for a world where that unity begins
genuinely within and expands to encompass everything. The first form of
government manipulates the Shiloh verse of the prophecy given to
David...."until Shiloh come", the true unity issues from the God of
Psalm 19,who without speech daily declares His truths,dreams,desires,
for those who are listening.Then adjustments will be made, that will
again come from within, not by coercion. So Buddhists will turn and
say....hey...you know what...those stirrings within while I was
meditating were really from the Real God... And the Muslims worshipping
Allah will realise that a lot of their prophecies about the End Times and
a False Messiah, were indeed true and already in the prophetic
scriptures of the Old Testament (And New ofcourse) and that the nature
of Allah is actually quite different, and loving , and in truth an Abba Father. And
so on through every belief system.... gradually crumbling round the base of the
false "New World Order belief system" to realise how life really works...
by faith
by faith Abraham received that Psalm 19 subterranean call and acted on it
but the promise was NOT given to manipulation via a servant to Hagar
and although Hagar then received her own prophecies ready for
consummation in the end times...in other words God's Father heart is
always there to carry up the effects of "manipulation", His original
promises remain true.
But that is so, for every life on Earth, if they listen. The faith
dreams will actually manifest if we carry on firm in our believing. It's
not only Rachel and her Torah. Others indeed are allowed to share in
this process of listening, hearing by faith and acting. This is just how
life works. It's built into the fabric of this universe, whether people
read it in a Torah, or Old and New Testaments, or any other book.
Rothschild may manipulate the Shiloh verse with his own trillions of
dollars, but he is not hearing by God faith, because God has already
declared who Shiloh is, and it isn't Rothschild's Shiloh.The Rothschild
dynasty set up Israel, but they confuse the Isaiah scripture about
Lucifer the lightbringer with the Mornng Star of the Messiah, and right
there the inspiration behind everything they have done reveals itself.
Is that a problem? No. Because God wrote it all thousands of years ago
in Ezekiel 28. He writes about a King of Tyre. He writes that the first
kingdom would be Sidon (Tel Aviv) and that this kingdom would be
rebellious. But later
after calamity Israel will be properly formed and ruled from Jerusalem.
Now American Christians have it all lined up to do with a rapture...but did the God of the Torah say that?
What is clear and spelled out is that Israel and Jerusalem is the
epicentre of interest for all the circling nations, and for God those
lands are central to His Covenant keeping.But it His covenant
keeping...NOT Rothschild's.
All this happened once before. The guy's name was Jacob. Which means
supplanter,deceiver,usurper. Did that phase God? Nope. There was a
wrestling match with an angel, or God in some human form at Peniel, and
this usurper had his name changed to .....yup....Israel.
So is God phased by current Israel, the product of engineering ,usurping,manipulation on a world scale. Nope.
He wrote about it. And it is all dovetailed into the plan of waking
mankind up, of tearing away his top surface blindnesses to see the One
who is to be praised forever and ever. The One true vine, into whom has
been engrafted now not one nation, but every nation. Not by
manipulation,but because people want relationship FROM WITHIN.
from a Facebook note this week.... The Kingdom Comes In the beginning of the Kingdom there was a lone prophet called John, standing in the wilderness sent to proclaim its coming.
Jesus said of John, of the sons of men there is none greater, but even the least in the Kingdom would be greater.
There was nothing greater about the apostles. They were all ordinary guys. What made them "greater" than John was that this was "the time appointed" for the activation of the Kingdom of God through the "0n" switch that was the manifest life of the second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ who grew up in Nazareth.
The three training years with Jesus was a collapsed form of the complete revelation that is
the revelation of God as the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
Anybody who has anything to do with God as one "willing" and "hungry" will find themselves on a kind of Divine seminary course where God will transplant into you
in different times
in different ways
in different orders
over different lengths of time periods
in different , unique manifestations
the revelation of the God of Abraham - God who is our faith and justification apart from works, and our introduction to the Melchizedek order and the faith life in general
the revelation of the God of Isaac- which is the grace manifestation of supernatural wells of salvation and power - the powers of the age to come - baptism in the Holy Spirit and anointings- some we have seen- many wacky ones still to come
the revelation of the God of Jacob - where God takes you on deeper supernatural roads - but where He deals with the very root of your identity - where like Jacob also - the most profound hunger takes place in you to want to be "of that eternal Company who seeks the face of the God of Jacob AND YOU PREVAIL - having your name, your root identity completely changed by a new revelation of the Cross.
Churches,assemblies,groups of Christians are no different.
The most helpful picture of this is given by Ezekiel when he describes the workings of God, the very atmosphere of his functionings, as WHEELS within WHEELS.
If you are in a church you are somewhere in this route march at a corporate level.
Historically we are somewhere in this arc of revelation too. But this is on a global, much wider fulfilment.
It is hopeless. from a perspective of justification to compare John the Baptist with the Kingdom.
His unique role was to round up the previous order and announce the new.
It is hopeless to look at a 1700s saint, praying for 6 months with fasting, for an inner confirmation of salvation, to draw any firm conclusions about our commitment and his or her commitment. the fact that they were prepared to stand alone - to stick out among their peers- to seek God with desperation at a time when most of London were drunkards and brawlers....is an amazing comment on who they were.
But, that, at least in the living part of today's church, we don't now have to do that, but simply respond to a gospel message, is just a comment on how the faith level for an experience of salvation has risen over the 300 years since.
Church history IS NOT the account of God’s failure.
I wrote to someone the other day that the "apparent" failure of Church history is not failure at all really.
God has a Divine filter system called His Son Jesus. Church history, like a massive Romans 7 sweep, is a record of us trying to "do" Christianity. Largely, it hasn't passed the Jesus filter test. But without the "trying" we would never have found what DIDNT work.
The Divine seed of the gospel of the revelation of Jesus Christ, had after its initial blooming, to fall again into the ground in order to rise again in a completely unhindered form. For as free as the initial churches were, including the penetration by Paul and others into huge swathes of Asia Minor, India,Africa,and Europe, the seeds of the original outward form: Judaism were still present.
In the Old Testament and on into Jesus own life in Judea, we are presented with both:
the pure streams of revelation coming through the main Biblical chracters
as well as the BAD things, even in the heroes such as David, Noah, and Moses.
We see also, later in Israel's history the "mad desire" to have a King,to be like other nations, to succomb again to Pyramid living. "It's not you they have rejected Samuel, it is I the Lord"
We see the structures, the strictures...the complicated adherences to "tithing dill, mint and cumin" while missing altogether simply looking after those around you. All this Jesus railed against.
So, Church history, far from being a foundation Pillar for Dawkins-style atheism, should be seen in the context of Jesus' own parable.
The (good)Farmer sows His seed in the field, then an Enemy comes at night and plants his wicked seed.In this case the seed of "earning your salvation","works religion". Counter-intuitively, both seed types are to be left in the same field to grow up together. Why? Because of the law that "by these fruits shall ye know them". In other words, because of this law of outer manifestation of inward realities,the contrast would be EVEN more stark than if they were in separate fields, and by it, the good seed becomes even more resilient.
This same methodology has been used on Jewish history. The very God-hatred that is centered on the Jew for bearing the Name of God through history, has meant that when they leave their furnaces of affliction - be it pogroms in Russia or Ausschwitz or wherever scattered....normal life is a doddle...so they rise to the cream of the crop in intellectual life, creative media, science,educatiion and government. The very idiocy perpetrated against them as they stand for God's Name and calling in the Earth, actually aids the fulfiment of those same prophecies given millennia ago. This is the Joseph principle we see in his life in Genesis, rising instead of falling, to become 2nd in command in Egypt itself.
Does this mean we should continue persecuting God's natural Israel just so they are more able to fulfil scripture? No way!Have you seen the equally valid prophetic scriptures which describe the end of those who lay a finger on Israel? Look them up.
The Death of the Church Seed So the revelation of Christ as expressed through "the Vision of the Glorious Church,His Bride" had, itself to go into the ground and die.
Every trace of good idea.
Tradition of man.Way of man.Theory of what Christianity was.Human tendency to go down into Egypt and borrow a set of steeds for going out and doing battle humanly...
had to crash down in failure as it collided with some immutable verses of scripture
"Not by might, nor by power but by my Spirit" says the Lord
"Neither on this mountain, nor in Jerusalem shall they worship Me, but in time to come people will worship in Spirit and in Truth."
and of the final cry as the capstone is heaved into place with the shouts of "Grace to it, Grace to it".
And in the midst of the middle ages rubble , the very first glimpse of a stalk broke through the surface of the parched spiritual desert. Just as hard as it is to imagine that 2 merged and rapidly dividing cells can ever form themselves into a human being, so it is hard to imagine that from a simple declaration of faith from Martin Luther....that we are justified by faith alone....could be the signal throughout the Earth for a return of the spiritual tide.
And little by little in God's timing dashes of revelation have been coming down out of heaven. With each revelation comes a tearing, a breaking away from the mediaeval atrocity that the church had become.
What is the nature of this revelation? It is the UNENCUMBERED heavenly blue print that is the fulfilment of the Word Jesus prophesied...they shall worship in Spirit and Truth. Because, like Paul's prefiguring writings, the teachings and revelations come pure out of heaven
they don't come by Man
they are not tainted with University degrees
they are not infested with ecclesiastical baggage
and they are above all quite simple, but contain within them the Power of God.
They contain the very means needed to get us from stage A to the next stage B.
How is this described in the book of Hebrews? Paul talks of the "Heavenly Tabernacle".
The heavenly Tabernacle
Christians through lack of revelation, think of the Tabernacle as an old Testament Pattern that Jesus fulfilled and did away with.
When, as recent key of David meetings have been revealing, the heavenly Tabernacle is God's House. It's where He's always dwelt. The earthly Old testament pattern was a rather weak and weedy graphic example of the heavenly original.
I insert this paragraph about David Swan's "Moving Into the Holy of Holies" not because I learned this information through him. I ,like many in our generation have had to learn by gleaning what we could from third level ministries who could squeeze through the filter system of a UK charismatic movement run in the main by clever leftbrain souls who unfortunately came into a leadership vacuum before they had actually progressed far in the Spirit themselves. But better they did, and hold the thing together while we were learning, rather than the even more hidebound denominational systems on the Continent of Europe.I picked this one up off a RiverCamp bookstall last summer. (This year Heidi Baker will be among those speaking) This book is rare in that perhaps even more than the George Warnock material, it captures just about every Bible picture and reference to the three stages of growth.See also this post from the book
If you've asked Jesus into your heart, then today you have to do with the heavenly and first and only real version.....the True Tabernacle not made with hands. Each piece of furniture represents a piece of pure revelation that has been given by the Holy Spirit in His time scale, at the appointed time, to those hungry for the Now Word of Jesus in the Earth.
Martin Luther and others uncovered Faith apart from works: the First and Only way of entering God's House through the work accomplished by Jesus at the Cross.The Brazen Altar.
Next came the Anabaptists who rediscovered Water baptism by immersion for believers only. This is God's pattern for baptism as represented by the Laver...where we are washed clean...both in baptism as the outward sign and inwardly by the "washing of water with the word".
Francois DuToit has been writing a version of the Bible as “mirror”. http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=403954118018&comments
Mirror is the Laver which shows us the Jesus who now lives inside us and as we behold this Jesus that is the mirror of the Eternal Jesus at the right hand of God the Father, so we are changed from one degree of glory to another. See my blogpost here to learn more:
As Terrible as An Army with Banners Beyond these two pieces which are in the Outer Court, is the second area of the tabernacle: The Holy Place. There is no natural light here. The only light is the candlestand. This whole area marks out the area of the supernatural church.
This was marked in history at the beginning of the 20th century with the birth of the Pentecostal church, then as the ideas began to break into the traditional denominations, what came to be known as the charismatic movement. This later became the new independent churches who explored these areas more thoroughly.
Gradually, as first Pentecostal forerunners like George Warnock found in the 1950s, http://www.georgewarnock.com/
as Gene Edwards was to discover as an evangelist at the same time
http://www.geneedwards.com/autobiography.shtml
then later The Move under Sam Fife,
as Mother Basilea Schlink was discovering in their unique non-charismatic Lutheran community in Darmstadt,
as Ed Miller found as he sought God alone, as a missionary in Argentina,
and as Norman Grubb found as he in turn tried to define in his books what it was that marked out the bible men of history and present day extraordinary Christians in many books culminating with “Yes I am” linked to on my blog…..
THERE WAS A WHOLE UNDISCOVERED THIRD AREA or LEVEL that the present day church knew nothing of corporately…but that individuals had been entering into for generations, and sometimes leaving writings for us, namely Jacob Boehme, Fenelon, Madame Guyon, Brother Lawrence and so on and so on.
What are the shortcomings of the secondlevel church ? Part Two looks into this.
Updated 23 hours ago · Comment ·LikeUnlikeJames N Sally, June Melanson and Cindi Estep like this.
Cindi Estep Ms. Estep is longing for Mr. Welch to enlighten her more as he shares this revelation of Truth....You are One of the reasons that I have come to Know such wonders. You are a Father♥
Yesterday at 13:38 · LikeUnlike · Nancy Gilmore We have all three levels IN us when we have Christ in us.
Yesterday at 14:00 · LikeUnlike · 2 people · Chris Welch Shhhhh Nancy that comes in part Two
Yesterday at 14:00 · LikeUnlike · June Melanson LOL
Yesterday at 14:11 · LikeUnlike · Cindi Estep Nancy, some of us are just now finding such out. I stand in Wonder at it all...Love you Sis♥
Yesterday at 14:20 · LikeUnlike · Nancy Gilmore :))) heeeheehe.... got to watch out for 'that' Chris... LOL! ♥ - 'cause he knows the final revelation IS Christ, all in all! However, it remains to be seen just exactly HOW Christ is the all in all, but nevertheless, He IS.
Yesterday at 14:37 · LikeUnlike · Cindi Estep Amen Nancy my Dear One♥
Yesterday at 14:43 · LikeUnlike · Cendee Crawford Total Higher Conciousness...the Mind of Christ ♥ ♥ GLORY!!! The fullness of the Deity ♥
Yesterday at 14:49 · LikeUnlike · 1 person · Judy Lawrence Trabernacle,yes I have heard this word in my Spirit.
More please.
Yesterday at 15:38 · LikeUnlike · 1 person · Jamie Weeks Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles. Outer Court, Inner Court, Holy of Holies. David's Tabernacle without walls. The Ark of the Covenant. Are you by chance talking about US, my dear friend? :D
Yesterday at 23:50 · LikeUnlike · 2 people ·
Secular life understands only the achievement of steps or grades.When you finish one you move onto say,university.When a Christian like me talks of levels non Christians and young Christians hear that phrase through secular headphones.But in Gods house steps are banned,unlike in any other temple on Earth.The levels are Rooms that anyone is free to enter at any time because Someone else paid the price.So in our meetings when a 5 year old gets the direction for a meeting that's OK cos he or she is free to roam.You spend your lifetime in a series of larger and larger arcs exploring all 3 levels.When you are grownup you don't stop drinking milk just cos you can eat meat do you? Facebook 31st May AC Welch ******************* Note by AC Welch on Facebook 5th May 2010 The Full Gospel just got Fuller
Heard of Pentecostals talking about the Full Gospel? Heard of the Full Gospel Businessman's Association? Well it turns out this is actually the 2/3 full gospel.
Now that's a shocker to many many folk. But it turns out to be true. There are three distinct layers to this salvation of ours, and God took a lot of time to prepare us with prototypes. I mean, it's not like He thought, how can I bamboozle those children of mine....I know I'll rustle three stages to this Christian Life right past 'em that they'll not know what's hit them!! I'll do it so fast, just so Me and the angels can sit up in heaven and have a good laugh!!!
NO. NO WAY.
Now our problem is we just don't listen. God has spent thousands of years over this deal. And that's just on Earth. From time past immemorial He has been dreaming this one up.
It's something like the way a baby develops. Core sets of cells have to develop first, but what do you know? Each of these core sections subdivide into more and more intricacies.
Or it's like brain development. In the last decades we have discovered a bit about what type of things the brain is doing at what age. And if vital input is missed at certain stages....well....maybe its only the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit that is going to put that stuff into us and effectively "heal" us at a much later stage. Last year, reports came out about how different the teenage brain is, as it prepares for the onslaught of adult understandings.
But you can go too far with this and just assume that life is an endless passage of spiralling development. But ofcourse it isn't. There are three, possibly four clear stages for each of us. Children,teenage,parents and perhaps grandparents.
Now the Bible in 1 John 2 only talks of the first three in spiritual terms.
No, the point of what I am saying is that God has mostly left us examples of threes. You can learn more about this in the talk Introduction to the Third Level 1989 here: http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2010/04/hudson-taylors-holy-spirit-lineage-part_26.html
Perhaps the initial example par excellence is the three generation revelation given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Later on we had the three stage picture of the Tabernacle. Outer Courts,Holy Place,Holiest Place. Then we had the three main Feasts; Feast of Passover,Feast of Pentecost and Feast of Tabernacles.
This last example gives us a wink and a nudge to the fact that in the Spirit, these stages or levels are going on INDIVIDUALLY and CORPORATELY in a people. Why else would you have a Feast?
A ONE MEMBERED FEAST IS A BIT SAD!!!!!!
Now my friend John just wrote this succinct phrase: " Mine was a Rom 1-5 and Rom 8 church with gifts of the Spirit on top."
Think about it. That sums up most of the last century's Pentecostal teaching right there.
And it sums up the full extent of most pulpits in churches worldwide, and that's saying it's a church which also teaches being born again and filled with the Spirit. Ofcourse the greater number of churches don't even get this far.
Now we shall be diplomatic and say it is their own ignorance that is causing preachers to confine themselves to John's phrase. Seminaries don't generally teach anything more than a "spiritual airy fairy" salvation. Who thinks that's why most non-Christians think Christianity is "airy fairy"?
The less diplomatic view is that as we pay tithes to leaders it is not in their interest that the congregation ever grow, so if they can continuously teach the first principles .....what Steve Mc Vey is calling "Lies", then people never get to actually learn the trade secrets of the Divine Supernatural Indwelling Christ who is actually the one bringing forth His Life in us.
If preachers can miss out the "threefold " pattern of how Christ grows in us... If they can allegorize, or teach that Romans 6 and 7 is only for non-Christians, so don't fuss your little heads about that one.... If they can keep churches from in any way resembling the middle pupae phase of a butterfly, and keep Christians in the caterpillar stage indefinitely...
they can be receiving several decades of tens or hundreds of tithes , amounting to a lot of money. Also pastors can rest assured that as the ones listening will never grow much, these leaders will never have any competition and can remain as King of the Pyramid , as Church Pastor No.1.
That's the undiplomatic view.
But the same Jesus growing in me, is the same Jesus growing in you. The same grace is available for all. People used to describe certain Christians as "special". "Oh they're so lovely. So special"
NOPE sunshine. They are not! The technical Kingdom word for that "special" brother or sister is NORMAL.
They just got to understand a little sooner that it was all about Jesus growing inside them.....and actually that we were never independent beings in the first place......
So I'm all for preaching the Full Gospel. And we can safely say this, because the gospel isn't going to suddenly develop more levels! But rather we are going to go higher deeper wider further into the immensity of God's love for us as we carry on exploring all three levels.
Sometimes months will pass before I mention our conferences. Sometimes I relay what has been going on straight away. The Conference was good. Very good. Greg Haslam of Westminster Chapel was excellent.He did 4 hours of teaching on the life of Moses which he'd never done before. He said if it went well he'd use it in his church! ******************** Perhaps rather foolishly, I'd posted "Normal Service will be resumed" .The reality is if God touches you, you will actually never be the same again. I wrote to another blogger, Jamie Weeks, about what had been going on. Some of the things that touch us very deeply, that flick switches on our insides are often pretty meaningless if explained to others. Because it is NOT the things themselves, it's our own internal world that is being affected . The Expressionist Movement tried to express the internal worlds in an external visual way, the most well-known being Edvard Monch's "the Scream".
One of the things going on was Nancy Gilmore stating that I was like Peter at the Transfiguration...suggesting that we all build booths. Something defining was going on, but it was some of the other things that really needled me.
I am NOT here to move furniture around...to make people comfortable with booths. And I guess for that reason I have entered into straighter dialogues. Here is one, which I want to add to in this blog in the manner of the Don Francisco song.
The dialogue begins, triggered by Jamie's post on how coccooned Christian believers can be. Facebook Dialogue Chris Welch Song of Solomon 5:2-6. The delay in going out to "them". See Jamie's blog post. The love relationship never changes,but its form does.I suppose I am being bold to declare that the time of the charismatic movement worldwide is now over.It is now time for the Third Level in all the Earth.Where we learn to walk Him as me in my form upon the mountains and in the suffering places, the places of myrrh.Nothing forced Norman Grubb to ... See morestart learning this level faster than a spell out in the Congo. He then spent the next 65 years defining how it works precisely for this coming generation. It was always there in scripture but somehow apart from a brave handful absolutely no one seems to know about it, less still,articulate it for others. Fri at 09:46 ·
Paul Noble I think the charismatic movement has been over for at least 10 yrs! Trouble is, people of the generation that grew up in that revival are finding it hard to transition and leave the old behind ( especially leaders). Thats how I got into trouble at LCC when I shared a vision of the church that God was building in Gosport. People just stone the ... See moreprophet because God isn't building church their way. What I have found in family church is interesting because its not particulary "charismatic" but it is reaching the lost ( 65 people saved in a month) and touching the young effectively.
Chris Welch Family church is interesting, like a lot of numerically growing churches. I like that Andy Elmes spent some time getting zapped out with Vaughan Jarrold in New York State in His Early Days. Traditionally evangelistic churches haven't been good at growing people. I felt God put it on my heart that He wants to change that in these days. Although it ... See morewill be a true miracle. Jesus moved simultaneously with the the three levels of children young men and fathers in His ministry. This is where John got it from (1John2)This is in the Spirit not age. And in recent years the three stages keep themselves to themselves. They don't mix very well.But as it becomes more normal to have a 3 level church again, I believe that is the challenge God is giving us.People like Ed Miller have had to stay in the backrooms up until now, because the people in the first two level cannot take them. This happened to Jesus halfway through, when He started explaining about fusion..."You must eat my body and drink my blood" and nearly everyone cleared off. Immature people don't like fusion. They like God at arm's length.This way if they sin, they can still say they are poor miserable sinners and what else can you expect? So the challenge of Song of Solomon 5 is that here is a prepared people, that know Christ is their life, but rather like sticking around in worship and praise, and is it really necessary to go out among all those nasty people? I have done a blog post to answer this more fully because it will literally shape the future of the church how we respond to these things ... How do we grow in a safe Church environment without the bustups and the Rifts?
Paul Noble Yes Chris I like the allusion to three stages of growth. Three is an interesting number in scripture. I think that there are not many Fathers in the body of Christ and so many people get stuck and don't grow beyond a certain point. I'm trying to understand where we are at the moment (FC) because I was very interested in the growing Simple Church ... See moremovement which seems the opposite model! Maybe all these expressions are valid though - your fusion? Here is a thought - three primary colours mixed together? Sat at 11:11 ·
Chris Welch you've answered your own questions by creating a circular proposition. There are not many fathers.People get stuck.I'm trying to understand.... Everything changes in that circular loop once you insert the third level. You're right we are stuck. And when does that remind you of in the Bible? Spending 40 years in the wilderness walking round nowhere...by any chance?
Paul Noble The only problem is what is the third level really? Trouble is over the years I have heard so many new fads that God's people chase after and then end up where they started! Look at the Toronto blessing, Tod Bentley etc. Nothing wrong with any of it but I know the only thing that changes and brings real fruit is the word of God & the Holy Spirit. The big problem for most of the UK church is we are not reaching the lost which has got to be a major weakness.
Chris Welch There is a powerful dynamic in going in Jesus Name which is behind the True Fast of Isaiah 58 and it certainly drives Family Church and my friend Elaine....and it is a great way of learning on the job too.Which is how Jesus taught. But the third level only kicked in after the disciples had faced who they "thought they were"...independant selves who were well capable of handling anything that was thrown at them...so no they would never deny Jesus,that would be unthinkable!....but ofcourse all did. Only after this learning of personal failure were they prepared to hear His total message...presumably the 40 day catchup course before the Ascension.Pentecostals are very quiet about this and preach Acts as if it's only a two level gospel missing out the inconvenient three years that do not fit their theology.
Paul Noble Sorry Chris I do not follow? Three years - what three years? Actually its the teachings of Paul that completed the new testament - not the teaching of Jesus. Acts is actually a transitionary book as the Gospel goes to the gentiles. Paul was given the mystery of the church by Jesus and a complete revelation on grace I think. This could be third level - Paul went there! The third level could be the Holy of Holies? The presence of God?
Chris Welch The Jesus being with the disciples three years. The Father stage may or may not be linked with "going up to the third heaven." Absolutely no idea.Is interesting that church meetings are getting more and more "Presencified!" No the third level is what happens when everything we try fails, and we realise we were never an "independent" being and we come to an end of trying anymore...and just agree with what the scriptures say about us, which is I actually died 2000 years ago, and the life I now live in the flesh is Christ living as me. Not a schizoid dual personality thing...actually Christ living as me in my spirit, expressd through my soul, my personality,and through my body. That's what happened to the disciples by the time of Acts 2. 7 hours ago · ********************
I continue here:
So the three years is an inconvenience to a Pentecostal, because they teach
we come to Jesus
we get baptised in the Spirit and enter into ministry
ofcourse...for many this includes going to a seminary if they are going to do it right.
But the basic 2 level model is how YWAM works
It is how Morris Cerullo World Evangelism works
It's how lots of evangelistic new churches work
The advantages:
It gets people moving from the "get go"! (UK-"the word go")
You learn fast on the job
This is what Jesus did with the disciples
The confusion:
A Pentecostal thinks this is the same as Acts 2
A Pentecostal doesn't understand "Children,Young Men,Fathers" , it's all unnecessary fussiness.
To them, Acts 2 was about people needing to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to do ministry after Jesus breathed into them in the upper room after He was resurrected.
To a Pentecostal, the disciples just had their seminary training the other way round, because Jesus hadn't gone to the Cross yet.
A Pentecostal equates the three year on the job training with Bible School, or like an elongated
Youth With A Mission run.
My experience in the late 70s and 80s.
I wrote to my old pastor last night, so this is to the forefront of my thoughts.
Emsworth was interesting. We knew we weren't Pentecostals because we were receiving intensive life training in the in-church Live-in Bible College called Bible House. In those days of submission and authority you had to ask permission to blink! Breathing was permitted on Tuesdays. We were actually trained in the ways of faith and saw outstanding results amongst us.
We were trained in seeking and finding the Presence of God...a subject described by Rob Rufus on Dan's latest post...which is absolutely excellent by the way.We were trained in both seeking that Presence of God for our whole lives and also for running meetings in the Presence of God.
Had we just had a bit more exposure to the Third Level, I am certain you would have heard of us....but as it was ... well....the story is still ongoing. It was a forerunner environment. It was a prototype third level church at say Level 2.2. It was a transition thing on the way to what is breaking out now all over Facebook and other settings worldwide.
Spelling Acts 2 Out
Morris Cerullo and Rheinhard Bonnke and Benny Hinn and most of the Word of Faith people of the 80s talk about the Empowering of the Acts 2 Baptism of Power that the disciples received.
The birth of the Church.
Instantly.
From on high.
And they then describe how Peter was empowered to preach and open the doors to the Kingdom for 3000 new Christians on day one.
Then they describe WHAT he preached "Repent, be baptised,be filled with the Spirit."
In recent years this has been embellished with....
The Holy Spirit begins with the manifestations and this OPENS a door for us to speak. People's questioning gives us an in, an opportunity for sharing. All this is 100% correct.
Now it's time to remove the Pentecostal Specs and really read the Bible.
Pentecostalism and the charismatic churches exist in a paradigm of their own making. It hovers gently somewhere above the soil of Israel without ever making any contact. Morris Cerullo, being half Jewish himself on his mother's side, at least goes further than this.
A Pentecostal just has no time for the third feast of Israel, the Feast of Tabernacles. It is something to waft your hand at vaguely muttering about Jesus coming again, while you get on with the important job in hand....in Jesus words " Going miles to convert one soul and make him twice the son of hell that you are!" As I have said, to a Pentecostal and a charismatic it's all too fussy to give any attention too. People are about to roast in hell, so we've got to tell them how to come to the front at a meeting, and sign on the dotted line, and get Jesus into their heart. Then as soon as possible get them filled with the Spirit. To be fair, some groups, do not rely on their human strength as much as others and surround a lot of what they do, immersing themselves in a lot of prayer and waiting on God. This would certainly be true of Rheinhard Bonnke's team, and a lot of the thriving churches of today.
God the Father however did not bring Jesus into a vacuum.
He initiated the whole of Israel in His way of doing things long before Jesus even got a look in.
So when Jesus came, He could say, this is that bit, and they'd immediately have some pigeonhole to stick His revelation into. The most wellknown pigeonhole phrase which ofcourse Gentile Catholics completely miss because, again, they too are hovering way above the land of Israel, making no contact with our origins whatsoever is:
This is My Body and This is My Blood
at the very point in the Passover meal when Jews again do the same repeated actions every year , breaking and sharing the Unleavened Bread and drinking the wine, to represent both aspects of the manner in which they left Egypt never to return.
Nowhere in Israeli thought is the bread or wine magically changing into another substance. (Transubstantiation). Now as a sacramental act, God can supernaturally touch us afresh as yet more of the reality of Christ's actual Death and Life break in on us....but you'll have to find a Catholic to ask who thinks all the stuff up that they have gotten used to. It's an Israeli religion at its root, this Christianity business, not a Catholic one. And as Jesus kept yelling under the power of the Spirit in the Temple precincts...it's NOT actually a religion....IT IS LIFE. Anything outside of Him is DEATH!!! So forget....do you want to be religious....and think...do you want to LIVE???!!
Personally I am grateful to the Post Green Community of Dorset coming to Emsworth in the 80s for the last paragraph, but there are many converted Jews who will give you the heads up about it all.
Some of the Three Main Pictures grafted right into the warp and woof of the Israeli Community to describe God's corporate and individual dealings with us are:
1.The God of Abraham,Isaac and Jacob. Not- you'll notice- the God of Abraham and Isaac.
Nor conversely- the God of Abraham, Isaac,Jacob,Joseph,Moses,Rahab,Ruth,David,etc etc etc Why? Because the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is an encapsulation of a complete package of revelation. Without the New Covenant and the Holy Spirit, it's just more than one man can take in his lifetime and still remain sane. And even now with the Holy Spirit you will notice it's taken hundreds of years to get from Luther (Abraham salvation by faith) through 20th Century Pentecostalism and Charismatic scene (Isaac and all his wells of refreshing) into a generation who seeks the God of Jacob as at present...then learns about the internal Name change.
Its more than we can handle in one generation to crash through all of this corporately.
2.The Tabernacle
This completely flies in the face of a Pentecostal's theology. You come to know Jesus in the Outer Courts, you get baptised in the Spirit, the Holy of Holies.....so what is the third area about then? Oh must be heaven!End of story. Who else can I convert?
3. The Three Feasts
The three feasts and the Tabernacle are the Way of God. The same God who set this thing up thousands of years ago, revealed it in the Spirit way way before it happened...(as it says...who is a God like unto thee who tells us it all before it is to take place? Mohammed didn't. The Buddha didn't. Krishna didn't)
Pentecostals and charismatics are a sweet rebellious bunch. You have never seen a sweeter rebellion. Before being fully circumcised themselves, they'll rush off to the farthest lands to circumcise the others with their incomplete gospel. This is because to a Pentecostal, circumcision is a spiritual thing. Oh so spiritual. The minute I get Jesus inside me!
No friend, Jesus was very clear about what you've got inside you. To begin with it is a mustard seed,with yes, all the DNA inside it to grow and become the largest of all garden plants....large enough for the birds of the air to make their home there, but the New Covenant has to properly engraft itself inside you. And the process is described in the three pictures above.
This is what took three years before the disciples came to Acts 2. Jesus has invented a great machine to do the same thing with you and me.It's called the Living Body of Christ Machine:the local church. But it's nothing like the design models on every street corner. In comparison those churches are more like Museum machinery. Jesus has got something state of the Art for every individual. Just right for them.
A Pentecostal just cannot understand what Pilgrim took so long about in Pilgrim's Progress.He only arrived at the Cross a long long way into the story.
Nor why the Day of Atonement is stuck right at the start of the Feast of tabernacles, the third feast. God, you're having a laugh with us right? It should've been positioned during Passover? You're just mucking around with us God aren't you?
Nor can a Pentecostal understand what on earth that funny little altar of incense thingy is doing at the end of the Holy Place. Oh....surely God You got that really wrong. The altars should be where I came in right?
Come to the altar. Ask Jesus into my life. Then enter into full ministry. Bring others to the rail. Wind them up. Switch them on and Kazaaaam...we can evangelise a whole town. Simple! What's the problem God? But you must move that 2nd altar! It looks untidy there and very confusing. Tell you what God, I'll move it for You to help You out. You are obviously not quite getting this evangelism thing. So I'll get on with the job....is that OK?
And this, obviously to an extreme caricature, is how a Pentecostal/charismatic looks at Acts 2.
This is what actually happened.
The twelve disciples were totally sold out from a human point of view. For three years they went through a lot of the processes we have described above , all the while accompanying and doing ministry with Jesus.
But after all this, after a special Passover meal where Jesus poured out His soul, His deepest revelations with them one last time in His earthly life....He knew where He'd reached with them.
He knew what was in man. Pentecostal/Charismatics don't. The best they can offer is to chuck out a few demons. Every time they see oppression that's how they think. Basically humans are OK right?
Jesus didn't think so. So the Cross weekend for the disciples was like one of those X Ray flash photos. Or like the images on the walls of Hiroshima as the atom bomb "took photos" of the people it incinerated in just a microsecond. They were "caught" in the act of their Eternally unacceptable behaviour.
Their lives just went up in smoke. Like a holocaust. Like the Cross halfway through Pilgrim's Progress. Like the day of Atonement immediately before the action starts in the Feast of Tabernacles. Like the Table of Incense where your life just fizzles away upwards...never to be the same again....before you enter the Holy of Holies.
All of us who have lived through this can describe it to you. Can reassure you that you will live.Just about. But it won't quite be the same you that lives on eh? the Christ -you can take it. But the Satan-you. The Adam line from the Fall onwards cannot. From that time on you will know who you are. It won't be theory. It won't be scripture memorization. You see, you will feel flayed alive. Circumcised....but ALL OVER! Quintuple OUCH!
Is this a reality? You'd better believe it brother! sister!
But afterwards you won't be religious. It'll hurt too much. and you will be free!
So back to Acts 2. The non-Pentecostal version. Peter, the proud one. The one who told us all that no way would he ever ever betray Jesus. Totally but totally betrayed every last minute of Jesus time with him. And in a passive way.....like Germans with the Jews in the last War....sent Jesus to His death.
Now Acts 2 was not just the miracle that someone like this should ever, ever be the one to open the gates of the Kingdom. He was so clear about his new identity, Peter did not preach "Repent be baptised and filled with the Spirit" in a generic Bill Johnson-esque "What's going on here....Oh this which you see and hear is that which Joel spoke of...." This is also the Morris Cerullo version.
No the wonder of the First Gospel message is that it laid a pattern for the advance of the Kingdom for all history. This man who had passively crucified Jesus said
at the top of his voice
to a whole nation represented by those present
This Jesus Whom You Crucified!
And the first 3000 came in. Caught in the act! Broken!
This is what Acts 2 is about. Not the faffy generalised spiritualised sterilized version that pentecostals take onto the streets trying to convince modern people, who feel no need, that they should ask Jesus into their heart for some reason, best known to the Pentecostal group.
Acts 2 was Christ moving as the apostles, with full Holy Spirit authority to move against a particular, specific manifestation of darkness...and overcome it in the Name of Jesus. And because it really was a clash of Kingdoms....and not some play acting....
the ensuing clashes were real, and not the usual modern laughing stock as contemporary people view us. The apostles REALLY got under people's noses and they wanted to kill them. REALLY!
Don and Wendy Francisco on Peter and He's Alive. Thanks Merrill Thompson!
Tuning To God : Part Two - Concert Pitch/Normal Pitch
Saying this is where it's at you know
Couldn't understand now
If I realised that the chances were slim
How come I'm so surprised when the tide rolled in
I wanna live on solid rock
I'm gonna live on solid rock
I wanna give I don't wanna be blocked
I'm gonna live on solid rock
Well I'm sick of potential
I'm sick of vanity now
I'm sticking to essential reality now
I don't know what's worse
Try to make a silk purse
Living an illusion living in confusion
I'm gonna live on solid rock....
Well a house of cards
Was never built for shock
You could blow it down in any kind of weather
Now two solid rocks two solid blocks
You know they're gonna stick
Yeah they're gonna stick together
Because the heart you break
That's the one that you rely on
The bed that you make
That's the one you gotta lie on
When you point, your finger cos your plan fell through
You got three more fingers pointing back at you
I wanna live on solid rock
I'm gonna live on solid rock
I wanna give I don't wanna be blocked
I'm gonna live on solid rock
I'm solid rock now Greenwich Meantime sounds posh, but for those in Britain it denotes normal time. English people have a problem with the phrase "concert pitch". It sounds too posh. So now I ask them if they would like me to tune their piano to normal pitch.
Which is exactly the same.
What is tuning to normal pitch viewed spiritually? Christ was the most normal guy that ever lived. There was nothing a bit off about Him that Moliere, or Brecht, or any other playwrite such as Shakespeare could caricature. Once into His Ministry after His baptism into water and the Holy Spirit, yes, He did extraordinary things....but , if you could stand His penetrating insight into the depths of your soul, He was the most joyful of guys to be around. He was....er....normal.
If a person has asked Jesus into his or her life, once you strip everything away. Once you touch rock bottom in your life, like Mary Magdelan (some question whether the commonly held view that she was a prostitute is in fact so...perhaps that was another Mary, or not a Mary at all) or the apostle Peter after his denials of Christ.....once you reach this place, however it happens for you....
All you are ever going to discover is this:
The reason you fail so is that you believe you have a separate life in your own right. This is the hubris we gained at the Fall. It's the healthy taste of hell, whereby in our failure we learn we cannot manage our own life. We were never made to. We were always only ever containers. Spirit containers of either a false spirit deity - the devil, or now a container of Christ.
We don't all have to experience what Job did. What David in the Old testament did.What Abraham did. What Jacob did. But however it works out in your life, none of us it seems gives up believing this "independent self" lie without one heck of a fight. Like the Book of Proverbs says, we prefer to sit in the seat of scoffers for a very long time. And this is after we become Christians.
Singing all the songs.
Doing all the meetings.
Maybe as in my case living in community for years.
Perhaps in ministry for years and years, preaching our sermons, always wondering why there is an almost complete lack of fruit.
What is it as a Body of Christ in the Earth that we are tuning to? Why is it all taking so darned long?
It's obviously not just tuning to "asking Jesus into your heart and believing on the blood of Jesus to forgive sins" That is believing upon God for righteousness apart from anything we do, and entering into this new life where things work by faith! This is correct but look around you...it obviously isn't enough! This is to worship the God of Abraham only.
It's obviously not to tune only to the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit message". A message of supernatural enablement. A Holy Spirit who is still apart from us. Or maybe in us, to help our poor "independent life status". (see that lie again?) This is to worship the God of Abraham and Isaac. Isaac was the one who spent his life uncovering water wells. But look at the charismatic movement! Have you noticed the deluge of people all rushing into the Kingdom impressed by charismatic churches? No. There's still something else to tune to.
It's obviously not tuning to the first bits of Jacob's life. Manipulating everything for his own self-preservation. But there is something different later on. Jacob had a name change. Something at the very core of how he lived his life from thereafter changed. And taken as a whole package this is what we are tuning to : The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! THE WHOLE PACKAGE.
So this is what Jesus meant when He talked about building a solid and normal life! We build upon a rock. Not the Sunday school tale of building upon some laws, ideas or precepts of Jesus. We build upon Jesus Himself.
Let me break that down, before your Sunday school brain rises up again.
Building upon the rock as opposed to upon sand is:
You,leaving behind this dreadful and damaging lie that you are an independent being, strutting around making your choices, living your life...
instead catching yourself in the act....squaring up to yourself and saying
YOU DON'T HAVE A SEPARATE LIFE....right now you are either falling back into independence which is a whole Satan lie
Or you are Christ going on as you, through your soul, through your body. And in this way you start consciously only doing what Christ is actually doing through you. It's a learned thing. It's a faith thing. But pretty soon you become aware when He hasn't budged an inch...but you have.
This is how Christ lived His whole life and is what he meant when He said I can only do what I see the Father doing.
This is building your life upon a rock! As the world famous evangelist!!!! Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits sings in Solid Rock:
Chris Welch has tuned for LSO, LPO, NIGEL KENNEDY. ANDRE PREVIN. DEMIDENKO, MARC-ANDRE HAMELIN, ST GEORGE'S CHAPEL WINDSOR, THE BARBICAN, FAIRFIELD HALL. CROYDON, LONDON COLISEUM, ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL. CARL DAVIS, PAUL WELLER, JOOLS HOLLAND, TOBY SMITH EX JAMIROQUAI and many others
Greenwich Meantime sounds posh, but for those in Britain it denotes normal time. English people have a problem with the phrase "concert pitch". It sounds too posh. So now I ask them if they would like me to tune their piano to normal pitch. Which is exactly the same.
What is tuning to normal pitch viewed spiritually? Christ was the most normal guy that ever lived. There was nothing a bit off about Him that Moliere, or Brecht, or any other playwrite such as Shakespeare could caricature. Once into His Ministry after His baptism into water and the Holy Spirit, yes, He did extraordinary things....but , if you could stand His penetrating insight into the depths of your soul, He was the most joyful of guys to be around. He was....er....normal.
If a person has asked Jesus into his or her life, once you strip everything away. Once you touch rock bottom in your life, like Mary Magdelan (some question whether the commonly held view that she was a prostitute is in fact so...perhaps that was another Mary, or not a Mary at all) or the apostle Peter after his denials of Christ.....once you reach this place, however it happens for you....
All you are ever going to discover is this: The reason you fail so is that you believe you have a separate life in your own right. This is the hubris we gained at the Fall. It's the healthy taste of hell, whereby in our failure we learn we cannot manage our own life. We were never made to. We were always only ever containers. Spirit containers of either a false spirit deity - the devil, or now a container of Christ.
We don't all have to experience what Job did. What David in the Old testament did.What Abraham did. What Jacob did. But however it works out in your life, none of us it seems gives up believing this "independent self" lie without one heck of a fight. Like the Book of Proverbs says, we prefer to sit in the seat of scoffers for a very long time. And this is after we become Christians. Singing all the songs. Doing all the meetings. Maybe as in my case living in community for years. Perhaps in ministry for years and years, preaching our sermons, always wondering why there is an almost complete lack of fruit.
What is it as a Body of Christ in the Earth that we are tuning to? Why is it all taking so darned long? It's obviously not just tuning to "asking Jesus into your heart and believing on the blood of Jesus to forgive sins" That is believing upon God for righteousness apart from anything we do, and entering into this new life where things work by faith! This is correct but look around you...it obviously isn't enough! This is to worship the God of Abraham only.
It's obviously not to tune only to the "Baptism in the Holy Spirit message". A message of supernatural enablement. A Holy Spirit who is still apart from us. Or maybe in us, to help our poor "independent life status". (see that lie again?) This is to worship the God of Abraham and Isaac. Isaac was the one who spent his life uncovering water wells. But look at the charismatic movement! Have you noticed the deluge of people all rushing into the Kingdom impressed by charismatic churches? No. There's still something else to tune to.
It's obviously not tuning to the first bits of Jacob's life. Manipulating everything for his own self-preservation. But there is something different later on. Jacob had a name change. Something at the very core of how he lived his life from thereafter changed. And taken as a whole package this is what we are tuning to : The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob! THE WHOLE PACKAGE.
So this is what Jesus meant when He talked about building a solid and normal life! We build upon a rock. Not the Sunday school tale of building upon some laws, ideas or precepts of Jesus. We build upon Jesus Himself.
Let me break that down, before your Sunday school brain rises up again. Building upon the rock as opposed to upon sand is:
You,leaving behind this dreadful and damaging lie that you are an independent being, strutting around making your choices, living your life...
instead catching yourself in the act....squaring up to yourself and saying YOU DON'T HAVE A SEPARATE LIFE....right now you are either falling back into independence which is a whole Satan lie
Or you are Christ going on as you, through your soul, through your body. And in this way you start consciously only doing what Christ is actually doing through you. It's a learned thing. It's a faith thing. But pretty soon you become aware when He hasn't budged an inch...but you have.
This is how Christ lived His whole life and is what he meant when He said I can only do what I see the Father doing.
This is building your life upon a rock! As the world famous evangelist!!!! Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits sings in Solid Rock:
Well take a look at thatI made a castle in the sand Saying this is where it's at you know Couldn't understand now If I realised that the chances were slim How come I'm so surprised when the tide rolled in
I wanna live on solid rock I'm gonna live on solid rock I wanna give I don't wanna be blocked I'm gonna live on solid rock
Well I'm sick of potential I'm sick of vanity now I'm sticking to essential reality now I don't know what's worse Try to make a silk purse Living an illusion living in confusion I'm gonna live on solid rock....
Well a house of cards Was never built for shock You could blow it down in any kind of weather Now two solid rocks two solid blocks You know they're gonna stick Yeah they're gonna stick together
Because the heart you break That's the one that you rely on The bed that you make That's the one you gotta lie on When you point, your finger cos your plan fell through You got three more fingers pointing back at you
I wanna live on solid rock I'm gonna live on solid rock I wanna give I don't wanna be blocked I'm gonna live on solid rock I'm solid rock now
Chris Welch has tuned for LSO, LPO, NIGEL KENNEDY. ANDRE PREVIN. DEMIDENKO, MARC-ANDRE HAMELIN, ST GEORGE'S CHAPEL WINDSOR, THE BARBICAN, FAIRFIELD HALL. CROYDON, LONDON COLISEUM, ROYAL BALLET SCHOOL. CARL DAVIS, PAUL WELLER, JOOLS HOLLAND, TOBY SMITH EX JAMIROQUAI and many others
I was encouraged to get a message from Paul Anderson Walsh. He and his church are at a really interesting stage...extremely prophetic even. Download these messages to understand more. Given very recently.
Perhaps you'll understand my excitement when you have heard them. If any others out there are going through the same thing you might find his message and my testimony from Bible House days interesting. If born again church is Church version 1.0, then we as youngsters who'd all been baptized in the Spirit, living together and seeking God for our lives were Church version 2.0. That didn't work either. So now time for Church version 3.0 in these days. Scattered here then are our pictures from Bible House Emsworth,Barcelona and Quilmes Argentina,around the early 80s.
Paul Anderson-Walsh Hi Chris, No I have never lived in High Wycombe, but I am fully possessed of such middle-class aspirations; we live a bit further East in Ealing (Perivale to be precise). I was really interested in your comments on my little note. Having read it makes all the more sense of your interest in the Intercessor manuscript that I am working on this summer. We have just returned from Finland where I was talking to our group there about the Father-Level. I think that you make an excellent observation about the role of the church in our day. This idea of Christ being fully-formed in us is to my mind at least the key to it all. I see you're in Portsmouth - we have some very good friends who really have a wonderful grasp of this life we have if only we knew it who live in Waterlooville. We were there visiting with them the last Bank Holiday. We also have friends in Haslemere (will be there next week to record the Premier radio shows). It would be good to try to connect at some time.
My reply: The High Wycombe question referred to a motivational speaker I met there while tuning his piano. He had Kenneth Copeland videos on the shelf so I asked him about all this. In my memory he was not that dissimilar to you.Clearly not you. I have spent the day listening to your last 2 messages which is the first thing I have heard. I can see why Joel B and Jamie Weeks rate you. I think you are at a very interesting point with your fellowship.I also felt very at home when you were talking straight Norman Grubb. Unless ofcourse you've picked it up via others in between. Other Lovers. One Person in the Universe. The difference between the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil and Tree of Life....(Lydia and Shawna should recognise this)You've got me intrigued about friends in Waterlooville and Haslemere. This is all my stamping ground in my Kingdom undercover life as a tuner. "Your mission Jim, should you choose to accept it, is to so co-labour with Christ that you do what we never achieved here in Emsworth in the eighties, that is see the world's first truly 3rd level church." This Facebook message will self-destruct in the next 10 seconds. Last weekend I was searching in the attic for Ern Baxter's 1976 Capel Bible Week message on Covenant Love. True to all 3rd level messages, the first one ever being delivered in the Upper Room Jn 13-17, exactly the opposite happened, and the major streams in Britain tore apart straight after. For me that only proves the integrity of the message.
Jesus birthed the church in the 3rd level....often confused by Pentecostals as the 2nd and only level....and in these days he has set into place an acceleration programme to make sure the Church winds up in the 3rd level....and more some! The Feast of Tabernacles. Greater is the glory of the latter house...etc. Well Emsworth was kind of living with this vision from the late 70s onward. Having input from both Ed Miller ( who hit the 3rd level in the 50s and was probably the one who birthed the 50s Argentinian Revival) and Jorge Pradas who carried in his being the Vision of the Church. This area is very much Frank Viola and Gene Edwards territory.
So like Norman Grubb (but not just before finals as he did) I felt God call me to leave University and by hook and by crook...and more of the latter,I ended up in Emsworth at precisely the right time to get these foundations. A whole host of Argentinians, English, Spanish and French, gave up all to live together in Bible House. The vision was exactly yours. Not to be a standard seminary. But how to LIVE CHURCH. We prayed and prophesied morning and evening. We did have teaching sessions, like Morris Cerullo did in his famous San Diego Schools of ministry. But during the day we either held down jobs, or later all worked together under one roof making Quilmes Creations..attractive sentimental gifts which were sold into gift shops all over Southern England. What typically happens in the "womb of the Church" while sons of God are being developed, is that all the junk surfaces in lives. Thankfully not in all 30 lives simultaneously...so like it was for the disciples in the NT, a co-operative labouring with Christ occurs to see each one come through things. It can be agony. At this point just about all the revelation we had was that we should, like the Amos verse:" Seek God and live"
So last Saturday I never found the 1st cassette I was hunting for, but I found loads of old Bible House photos which I have put up on Facebook. We never quite knew enough to make it the other side of the wilderness.A huge number, very very high number of these Casa Biblica people are married and sadly divorced already. I nearly married , but my own sin shattered my prospects. I was at the time a leader in worship, a published somgwriter, and with an anointing that at times brought healing when I played. But as the others found to their cost in divorce....just the same as the Corinthians....the first and 2nd levels are just NOT IT. My blog is all about this.The complete revelation cycle of God in the Earth is I am the God of Abrahamof IsaacAND of JACOB. Pentecostals and charismatics only know about the first 2, they haven't a clue about Jacob.But in these days God is raising up a generation who seek the face of God as did Jacob. And it was after this that Israel's calling and history really swung into action. So it is for the 3rd level Church More on the vision of the Church as Holy Ghost Growth machine can be read here:http://080808onnowto.blogspot.com/2008/08/holy-ghost-growing-machine-body-of.html
Maria von Trapp said for ages she wouldn't sign a contract on a book which became Sound of Music. Eventually when she sold the film rights she sold them for a one-off price. Well the rest is history. And apart from the initial relatively small sum the family made nothing out of the millions and the continuing millions made on the film. Her comment was a Christian one. "Well God saw to it that we made no money.....because we have seen Hollywood lifestyles.....and God kept us from all this."
This is another great article.
I hope you do not mind a long story. When evangalists knock at my door, I invite them in. Some prefer to sit on the porch. I tell them I'm happy to read from the "Old Testement" with them without serious commentary by anyone. I ask if it is ok to read the Parsha for the week. One time, two men in their 50's came by in suits and we sat at my kitchen table for hours reading and drinking coffee. They were fascinated by hearing the Hebrew and the translation.
At the end, one of them said, "Why don't Jews evangalize door to door." Without thinking, I said "I sit at home and wait for God to send people to me."
Heaven forbid God should send someone to Torah and I should be the one to stand in their way. All I ask from people with other faiths is we do not debate. We can read and enjoy each other's company. I never say anything against their faith when we read.
Shalom,
Gershon