Lately, the Lord has been showing me that the truth the ekklesia is to manifest is simply Christ and His love to one another. It's always been and will always be Jesus in me reaching out to the hand of Jesus in you. And together, "with nothing between ourselves and Christ, and nothing between one another but the love of Christ" we are being the "church" or properly called, the ekklesia, the called out ones. And via this unity in Him, "church" life happens everywhere, anytime, anyway imaginable -- via a phone call, a two-person chat on a bus, in a meeting place, in praying for one another, in studying the word together, at a meal with saints, during laughter, tears, coming alongside our brother and sister to help them, the ekklesia are being and doing and living "church". Now that Jesus has come, died, rose again, and sent His Spirit within and among His people, we need no place, no way, no system, no agreed structure to function as the ekklesia. We are the place, the household of God.
God is doing a new thing in these last days.
I am beginning to think that even those hallowed, 1st-century, New Testament "meetings" were just fine for them, back then, as God spoke in their ancient now. Paul discussed ideas of their way of meeting so as to function as best as possible for them, back then. Of course, Christ is to be Head and the ekklesia is to function as His body. This will never change. But other specific details of their meeting together possibly related more to their day and that culture's needs. We need to discern these things by the Spirit as to what matters to Him today and what doesn't anymore. Too rigid an adherence to things done 2,000 years ago is legalism and dead tradition masquerading as godliness. Form has no power. Only the Spirit of Christ uninhibited brings life. A simple test: if it brings death, strife, and chaos -- it is the law and the flesh operating. It is not of Christ.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty, and He will lead us out into the spirit of truth in our worship and coming together as one people where ever we are. God is about the now, and not about any cookie-cutter way of His life functioning among His people. What works for one small group of His ekklesia in Ghana may not be His way for North Carolina, and may not be His way for a gathering in India or for His people in California.
As a local body of believers come together under the Headship of Christ alone, the Spirit will guide them, not ritual, not patterns, not tradition, not even our cherished 1st-century New Testament, ancient culture of house church meetings.
We have to get this.
It must be life, His life that happens, not our agreed upon religious mind-sets so ruined by millennia of dead traditions.
GCM,
ReplyDeleteI would like to share something that G.H. Lang wrote in his book, "Pictures and Parables," that strikes me as I read what you wrote here concerning us, the "ekklesia."
G.H.Lang writes about the church, which is spoken of as itself being "a building," rather than it meeting in a building...
He writes:
"[The church] is a 'holy temple... for a habitation of God in the Spirit' (Eph. 2:20-22; I Cor. 3:16; 6:19,20 ; I Pet. 2:4-8). This temple is formed of 'living stones,' a striking figure, not known in nature. But we know that electricity can electrify iron. Similarly, by the new birth and the indwelling Spirit, the life of God suffuses the believer, so that his former death gives place to life. It is such living persons alone that Christ incorporates into His church. They have responded to His call and become part of the ecclesia, His called out company.
Note i. They are called out; they forsake the world entire, or its separate national or other subsections, and 'go forth unto Him' (Heb. 13:13).
Note ii. They do not obtain the Divine life by 'joining the church'; life has been begotten in them by faith in Christ, and it is as stones already living with spiritual life that Christ builds them into this company of the saved. Salvation by 'joining the church' is a putting the cart before the horse, a fatal perversion.
...
Note iii. It is the Lord alone who builds this building: 'the Lord added to them day by day those that were saved'; (Acts 2:47). Men have built organizations, denominational, national, or even, as is alleged, universal (Catholic), and have miscalled these 'churches'; but the church which Christ is building has no universal or national or inter-church exhibition. It is visible only in the individuals who manifest the Spirit of Christ indwelling and ruling them, and in any local company of such individuals in each place where they live."
Amen to that.
Amen and amen!
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