LIVING FOR AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

LIVING FOR AN AUDIENCE OF ONE

                “And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, “ Lord God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel let it be known this day that You are God in Israel and I am Your servant and that I have done all these things at Your word. Hear me O Lord, hear me, that this people may know that You are the Lord God and that you have turned their hearts back to You again. Then the fire of the Lord fell…” 1 Kings 18:36-38a.

                This Sunday, being the first Sunday of the New Year, Pastor Akers preached a sermon that will set the theme for the year 2019. His sermon was entitled “Living For an Audience of One.” In this sermon Pastor passionately called our church to live life for an audience of One. He cried out to those who have become lax, to live by the Word and to walk in the Word and in the Holy Spirit, who both teaches us the Word and transforms us by the Word

                He said that we are not here to parrot church doctrines or creeds, or to live to please people either in the church or in the world, but that we must all go to the Word and study the Word and then to stand on the Word as a people who are living for an audience of One.

                This is good council and it is council that I can relate to. Years ago when I first started writing articles on Facebook I did so to begin to share my journey of discovery with old friends and classmates. A percentage of them had fallen away from the Lord, while others lived with the presumption that they had the truth and even though many of them could not tell you what they believed from the scriptures, they were satisfied that they were on the right train so to speak.

                So I began writing the things which I discovered along the way with a certain conviction that the Bible does not call for complacency. We are to study to show ourselves approved unto God… to work out our salvation with fear and trembling… to be able to give an account of our lives before God and before mankind.

                I have never expected people to agree with me, but rather to seek foundations for what they believe and then to live by conviction as of a personal revelation rather than presumption and complacent membership.

                Early on when I first started writing and various people came on board to read what I had to say, a dear friend of mine called me on the phone and said to me, “Do you have any idea who you are writing to? This one is the editor of a certain church magazine and this one is a high ranking member of the conference and that one a professor at the university and so on.

                Well, at first this made me nervous and I began to wonder how I would tailor my messages to please such a broad and auspicious crowd. I knew that some of what I said would be controversial to some people, but if I was not free to explore the Word as guided by the Holy Spirit I would just become another parrot, writing to please others.

                Finally I asked my friend not to tell me who I was writing to and I made a firm decision to write for an audience of One. If we live to please God, then everything else will be as it should be.

                Ultimately every one of us must make it our goal to please God rather than man. And this all the more so in this politically correct age when an antichristian agenda is driving our nation into apostasy. So you don’t have to agree with me, but you do need to know what you believe, not because your denomination or your parents, or your school or any other entity told you what to believe, but what the Holy Spirit teaches you by revelation as you study the Word of God.

                The church, the Body of Christ has come a long way since the days of the first apostles and the home congregations that maintained their fervor because they were the first ones to announce to the world that our Savior had risen from the dead and “We are His witnesses.”

                John said: “”What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled concerning the Word of Life- and the life was manifested and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us…” 1 John 1:1-2.

                So over the past 2000 years the church has become institutionalized and organized and divided up into many and various theological camps… and so we attend an evangelistic crusade by this group or that, or someone comes to our door with material to read, or we just happen into a local church of one kind or another and there we become a card carrying member and just like football fans, we brandish our colors and root for our team simply because it is our team and we no longer remember what exactly brought us here, but by golly we are staying with the ship.

                Our Pastor challenged this kind of mentality and exhorted the people to get into the Word and to know what they believe and why and then to live by that Word as an authentic member of the Body of Christ and not just a person who presumes that the church creed is right.

                We desperately need this kind of authenticity in the body of Christ as we near the end of earth’s history. It is not enough to brandish our denominational colors. We need to get back to preaching Christ and Him crucified. We need to get back to the basics of the New Birth for even that subject has become so watered down so that many people join a church without actually having had a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, or received His Holy Spirit. “They often lack personal conviction and even more often they lack power to carry on the work of Jesus Christ in the world. (See Acts 19:1-6)

                Most denominations teach people to shy away from any outward manifestation that the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in them. The power of Pentecost is eschewed as a dangerous and fanatical thing and yet the early church lived by that power and changed the world by that power. Their truth was fresh and new and centered in Christ. Their scriptures were made up mostly of the Old Testament as Jesus had taught them concerning Himself in all of the scriptures… and even in those early days, they were believing in and treating the writings of the apostles (Our New Testament) as Holy Scripture as well.

                Today some dispensational preachers even teach that it is wrong to preach from the Old Testament in spite of the fact that Paul said: “Now these things happened to them (Israel) as an example and they were written for our instruction upon whom the ends of the ages have come.” 1 Cor. 10:11.

                You see, God never intended for any of us to live by the opinions of men. If we are to be authentic, then we must pray for the Holy Spirit, who alone can guide us into all truth. For as John said: But when the Spirit of truth comes He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative but whatever He hears He will speak and He will disclose to you what is to come.” John 16:13.

                This text brings up another hobby horse for me. In our intimate relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit (whom many Christians fear) He will tell us of things to come (prophecy which most of today’s churches avoid like the plague.)

                So our call to live for an audience of One, is a call to authenticity in which every member of the Body of Christ has had a personal encounter with Jesus, a personal encounter with and empowerment by the Holy Spirit and an authentic encounter with the Word of truth as it is planted in our hearts by revelation and transformation and obedience.

                During the Dark Ages the Bible was chained to a podium in the monastery, the Holy Spirit was replaced by a church hierarchy, the forgiveness of sins, was taken from Christ and usurped by the priests. Times and laws were changed and the Pope began to reign on earth in the place of Christ and they even took it upon themselves to create the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist. So Protestantism unchained the Bible and released it to the common man. They did away with the blasphemous authority of popes and priests and began to preach the Gospel of salvation to the masses.

                So, in various ways and flavors, the many denominations today have come out of that hierarchical system of manmade religion which was actually based upon pagan concept of religion and they have taken steps in varying degrees away from human authority. And yet, even to this day, many denominations still try to play God or to replace the conviction of the Holy Spirit with creeds and doctrines. Each one claims to have The Truth, even as they torture the Scriptures to fit their views and avoid the Holy Spirit as being dangerous… and friends what I am saying is that we desperately need to become authentic one on One people of the Word and of the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ has lost His central position… His cross despised and His Holy Spirit spurned.

                The very life of Christ was breathed into the church at Pentecost and yet how many Christians actually live by that life today? The Word was unchained during the Reformation and yet how many Christians actually derive their faith and their walk with the Lord from the actual scriptures?

                In many ways the church is still in Babylon. In many ways we are still daughters of the Harlot because we have never fully broken away from pagan religion… and the only way to break away from pagan religion is to personally dig into God’s Word with the guidance of the Holy Spirit and to take our stand on an personal encounter and new birth through the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

                Truth has been watered down by doctrines and opinions and interpretations of man to the point where nobody knows the truth anymore and so many are beginning to claim that there is no absolute truth. This idea that there is no absolute truth is known as Nihilism. It was introduced by Marx and Engles and Neitzsche and Freud and Darwin and Huxley, and Blavatsky and many others. It has become a foundational part of the liberal movement towards socialism and global government and it is leading the world directly into the waiting arms of the antichrist.

                The world is tuning against Christianity and if we are going to stand for Christ even in the face of death, we need to know what we believe and whom we believe and it needs to be authentic and firsthand rather than second hand.

                Again this is a sort of spicy article, but many of us need to get on our faces before God and not let Him go until He bless us with His presence and His revelation. We need encounters with the Rhema Word of God. What Rhema means is that when you are reading the Word of God suddenly something you read goes beyond information to revelation. In those moments of revelation our lives are changed and that truth becomes authentically ours to stand on and to live by.

                In the judgment, God is not going to ask you about your doctrine. He is going to ask you about your personal and transformational relationship with Jesus… how that relationship changed you and how you applied it in loving God with all of your heart and soul and mind and your neighbor as yourself.

As Romans 8:14 says: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.” And in that day Jesus will either say: “Well done my good and faithful servant” or He will say, “Depart from Me, I never knew you.”

                Has the Holy Spirit been conceived in your heart so that you have been born again as a son or a daughter of God, or are you just a member of an organization? It is time for all of us to make our calling and election sure.

                “Therefore brethren, be ever more diligent to make your our call and election sure, for if you do these things you will never stumble.”  2 Peter 1:10

                This is something that Peter said knowing that the laying aside of his earthly dwelling was imminent and he was about to depart. So in other words these were sort of his death bed words. So he summed up his ministry by saying: “For we did not follow cleverly devised tales when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty.  For when He received honor and glory from God the Father such an utterance as this was made to Him by the Majestic Glory. “This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” 2Peter 1:16-17.

                Peter, as one of only three disciples to see the transfiguration, lived for an audience of one. So also Elijah in his day lived for an audience of only One and in His day the fire fell. We need the fire of God to fall again and so we too need to begin living for an audience of One.