UNITY OF THE REMNANT

UNITY OF THE REMNANT

                The more alligators there are in the lake, the better your chances of walking on water. RL

                It was like the Lord dropped that thought into my mind like a bomb and I wondered, what does it mean? I thought about us using our troubles to overcome in life. If God sets a lake full of alligators in front of you, then use them as stepping stones. I also thought about ants that will attach themselves to each other to make a bridge so that the rest of the ants can cross the stream. Many of those ants will drown in the process but they will not let go and so the whole of the family will make it to the other side.

                I concluded that the two thoughts when put together form a picture of God’s Remnant people. The days ahead may be fraught with hardships greater than we can imagine right now. As such, we as watchmen are called to prepare people, to warn of the trials and persecutions (alligators) that lie ahead. We can either allow those things to eat us and rob us of our faith, or we can learn, right now, how to walk on trouble, or as the Bible says it, “Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and noting shall injure you.” Luke 10:19

                But as for the ants that lay down their lives for the good of the body of ants, the message is clear. We as God’s remnant people need to learn to live in a self-sacrificing unity not experienced since the early church.

                As a kid growing up, my father was a singing evangelist. We moved from city to city, church to church every 6 weeks all across America and Canada. My brother Bob and I sang in many of the meetings from the time they had to stand us on chairs to see over the pulpit until we were fully grown.

                As such, I never developed an attachment to any one body of believers. We were travelling performers. And later on when I left home, unless I had a part on the program I felt no particular need to attend. I drifted away from the church all the while studying and maintaining a sort of relationship with the Lord, but I was an individualist. I didn’t need the church. Iin fact; I grew to despise what I considered the small thinking of those who surrender to the pack.

                So, when I did start going to church again, I chose to attend large churches where I could come and go without attention. The idea of becoming known and accountable to other Christians was way down there on my list of priorities. I literally did not want to become attached. But that aloofness got me into trouble as I drifted into things that soon got me in over my head.

                It was in coming back that a group of Spirit filled people prayed for me. In short the Lord came into my life, He kicked the Devil out and he came into my life and filled me with His Holy Spirit and poured out His gifts upon me. On that day I discovered that I had not been truly attached to the Lord either. We are made one with Christ through the Holy Spirit.

                So the Lord came in that day in an unmistakable way, but even at that it took many years to come to an understanding of the Body of Christ in the way that the Lord is teaching it to me now.

                In Ephesians 4: 11-13 Paul says: “And He gave some as apostles and son as prophets, and some as evangelists and some as pastors and teachers to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.”

                Here we see a body of believers that is growing in unity, being ministered to by the five gifts of ministry until they come into a unity in which Christ is the head and His church is His body. As such Paul goes on to describe how each of the parts work together to bless the whole. Eyes, ears, hands, feet, organs and such are all intended to function together for the edification of the whole. In other words the gifts of the Spirit are given to us for the edification of the whole body.

                Soren Kierkegaard said: “When he (Paul) spoke to the individual, calling him to seek purity of heart and integrity of will, he was doing the thing he believed best calculated to fit men to act as a responsible community. If he spoke more of the individual than of the community, it was because the first thing necessary was to restore the true individuality without which true community is not possible. Individuality, not individualism, was his primary aim.”

                Then Gary Huffman goes on to say that “Through inner integration- that holiness which is wholeness- we are liberated from self-centeredness in order that the Head of the body can share with us His body-consciousness.” In other words, there are parts of our Christian growth that cannot be complete apart from the Body of believers. IT is this unity and love that perfects our faith.

                “When people are living in union with Christ, they are also in living union with one another.” (DeVern Fromke)

                So, while we most definitely need to grow individually in our relationship with Jesus Christ; that relationship will guide us into a loving relationship with His Body the church.

                When Bonnie and I finally came to our present Messianic Fellowship, we had come out of one of those big seeker friendly churches with its big band and great uplifting preaching, but we also liked the fact that we could come and go unnoticed. We are both rugged individualists and as such we liked our anonymity, But the Lord was teaching us and training us and now He was going to teach us about His Body.

                If God can literally talk to people, and He does, then He was literally guiding us to this body of believers and He told us to love and to serve. I had originally gone there to learn more about the Feast Days of the Lord, since they are about to be fulfilled, but the Father had more in mind than mere information. He wanted to integrate us into His Body. He wanted us to become functioning eyes and ears and hands.

                As such, He poured out upon us a kind of love for His Body such as we had never known. Our sense of individualism and detachment melted away as we fell in love with His Remnant people. We have never experienced such joy and a sense of purpose as we feel in our oneness of His Body.

                This does not mean that we put our minds in neutral and ride the train without question? No… not at all.  In fact every individual is called upon to study and to develop a strong individual relationship with the Lord and His Word, so that our unity as the Body of believers will be strong and functional. We each have an individual calling and purpose, but that calling will edify the rest of the Body as well as to reach out and bless the community beyond the four walls.

                I have spoken before about people that look like organs in the body, but they take from the body and give nothing back. In the human body we know these as tumors. Tumors draw strength and sustenance from the body, but they contribute nothing to the whole. In time a surgeon must cut them out because they have become a cancer to the body.  Jesus became a surgeon in His temple in Jerusalem when He drove the money changers out of the temple. His temple was to be a house of prayer, not commerce.

                Of course the Lord walks with us individually and His Holy Spirit ministers to us individually, but His eye is on a bigger picture. He is forming a body in which Christ is the head and we are the body and as such we are being formed and shaped into one new man in Christ.

                “God’s vision is not centered so much on the individual as on the Church; nor are His mighty works done through the single member, but through the Body.” DeVern Fromke, in his book “The Ultimate Intention.”

 I also highly recommend a book called “The Revealing,” by Gary Huffman and Douglas Woodward. In it they talk about unlocking Hidden truths on the glorification of God’s children. They speak about the glorification of the Body of Christ as we become one in Him. There is a sense in which the whole Body will be glorified together and reunited with the Head, even Jesus Christ.

                The Holy Spirit is gathering together a Body of believers that are filled with the Spirit, united in faith in God’s Word and with supreme love for one another as we grow into one body in Christ who is our head.

                Satan is also forming a global body. It is based upon compromise, distrust of God’s Word, a growing unity/disunity in the spirit of Satan, of false doctrine and pagan worship in disguise, of twisten truth and a perversion of the gospel, of idolatry and self-centered worship, in hatred of both Jews and fundamentally sound Spirit filled, born again, biblical Christians. We can see the lines being drawn in the world. So it is highly important that we have spiritual discernment as to the spirit that lies behind a congregation or a denomination. In which direction are they tending?

                Nevertheless, God is forming a Remnant people. They are perhaps within every organization at this point, and this is where we can see that the individual relationship with God and His Word is important. How would we ever leave a false church if we did not pray to God for individual revelation?

                But once you find a Body that is biblically sound (don’t expect them to be perfect in every way) then get in there and learn how to love and to serve and to contribute to the Body. In the end we will be judged by our love and not by every modicum of doctrine. If we are centered in Christ and living in the Holy Spirit and the Word, He will guide us into all truth and a big part of that truth is in our love for one another.

                Throughout all of Biblical history we can see that God designed every part of worship to be a social and a community experience. From the Feast Days to the Sabbath Days everything was designed to be experienced by a Body of believers. The Lord has not changed His mind about this and He is in the process of forming ONE NEW MAN in which Christ is the Head and we are all parts of the one Body.

                As Christians, we will be known by our love for one another. “For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another… We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brethren. He who does not love abides in death.” 1 John 3:11, 14.

                I am so thankful that the Holy Spirit keeps teaching us and drawing us deeper and deeper into His ultimate intention… the uniting of the Body with the Head that will take place at the first resurrection and rapture of the Church. So we must learn to love the brethren even if it means laying down our lives, being attached to one another to form a bridge so that others can get across. Selah.