Discerning the Paradigm shift that is now here: The function of The Body, A wheel within A WHEEL
Word for Today: March 25, 2020: Discerning the Paradigm shift that is now here: The function of The Body, A wheel within a wheel.
Beloved,
It is critical for us as church leaders and as the people of God to correctly discern what the Lord is desiring from us in the “reset” button the Lord just pressed in our nation and in the nations.
We must have not only the “new revelation” from God that many are proclaiming, but also the “right understanding” and discernment from God. Without it we are in danger of taking the “new paradigm shift” and bring into our own understanding.
This is greatest mistake the church and it’s leaders did in the 2000 years of the church age in the past. We would see God move, bring new revelation, and like every generation before us we began to psycho analyze, dissect what the Lord revealed to “fit it” as neat as possible into our own lives. Too often we took the revelation of God and brought into our human understanding and identity.
When we as individuals, families or church do that, we “touch the glory” sort of speak, though we are not killed like the two who touched the ark, we “kill the power and anointing of that revelation and replace with the “arm of the flesh, the work of the flesh.”
Question for us leaders to ask? Where is the present way we conduct our services found in the Bible? Where did the Lord say for us to the time of how long our services are, 1 hr, 2 hrs, 5 services a Sunday? Where did he say we get to decide on the agenda we want to follow for our services or what we thing God wants? Why are most services exactly the same form week after week, year after year? Where did say worship for 45 minutes, pick the songs you like, do 3 fast, 3 slow?
Come on beloved, we all have done it and may still be doing it because it is what we were taught and what we now. Many of my dear friends have said to me we can’t do business as usual or church as usual and that is true, but we don’t see that the false religious structure man has build by what we call services often keep people from the more of God and to get closer to him. That is why we are in “time out in this nation and in the nations.”
It is time consider our ways like Haggai said to the people of God. The Lord sent Haggai to the people and leaders to say, Why are you building your own paneled houses when my house lays in ruin.. consider your ways.. consider what has come to you? Is not God saying that to us as leaders of God’s people in our nation and in the nations?
I was taught that as a Pastor I was to stay in a back room until the height of worship and them come out and take over? Where is that in the Bible. Where did He say to share announcement of activities right after worship, or during the gathering?
When did he say make commercials of them that take people out of the Spirit and into “what we are doing? When did He to have 20 minutes to teach on tithes and offerings before every offering? When did he say that one person, (Pastor, Apostle) was to bring a message a sermon to people? Where in the word of God is that. Where does it say only one person is to bring a message when 1st Corinthians 14:26 sets a completely different purpose for our gatherings.
Why do we do that, because it was handed down to us as “traditions of men?” Israel did that as well, and I encourage all of us leaders to read Isaiah chapter 1 and see how God viewed their “services, their prayer times.”
He was not pleased with their gatherings then, and He is not pleased with ours now when the motives are wrong. He is not pleased when they are done in the wisdom and work of mans hands not led by the Spirit of God. This is just the beginning of the paradigm shift God is bringing to His people. We must come out of the old wineskin of church activity and services mindset to be formed into Royal Priesthood, a Holy nation.
We are to become an overcoming people formed as a wheel within a wheel upon the earth walking in our dominion authority of the Kingdom of God on the earth. We must have a new mindset that it is God that arranges the Body parts as He wills to knit us together where each part supplies what the other needs. The time has come and the hour is here.
Beloved, It is a new day. God has hit the pause button for us to realize what we prayed for is here. The new wineskin is here and we can’t, we can’t go back to doing what we just did or we very well may miss our hour of visitation that is here. You can’t put new wine in an old wineskin.
What does it mean to take the revelation of God into our own understanding and why is that called being bewitched by Paul? Before this pause or reset button was pushed by God, much of what we have tried to do with what God revealed to us has been worked in our own understanding, power and strength. God wants that to stop and STOP NOW!
We must hear God now from the deepest place of intimacy we have ever known get his perfect instructions, plans and timing. If we are to function with him in this new wineskin, we must stop trying to help God out, or tell him what to do.
We must truly spend quality time with him and a continual abiding in the Spirit of God like never before. He is here to help us do this, but we must want it. We must realize this new wine will never go into an old wineskin.
Knowingly or unknowingly because we have deserted Jesus as our first love we have cut off our connection with Him. Without that abiding first love and dwelling in him continually we have been left to take the revelation of God no matter what it is and “work it” in our own wisdom and understanding.
Because we didn’t stay long enough to get the understanding and power to do it in the Spirit, the body of Christ has not grown into maturity. Why, because we have tried to fit what God wants, his will, to fit into our present life structure as leaders, and the life structure of the saints we are called to shepherd. How do I know this.
No matter what church size you have and before the present events, if you were to call a fasting and prayer time what would be the numbers of people who would come? How many of them would come just to obey you verse those who could hear why they are to come? Would anyone get 90% to come 75%, 50% 20%. If you were fortunate to have maybe only 3-5 people then you might hit those number, but most don’t even come close. WHY, WHY, WHY
When most of our religious life in God is attending church and a weekly service why would they come? When they don’t come we have to “figure out how to motivate them to come, so lets feed everyone. See how easy it is to add to what God said and bring mixture when God did not tell you do that.
That’s is how “weekly services” came into being, and how many the ministries can be birthed by the spirit but then done in the power of man’s hands instead of Gods.
Beloved, we know it is the heart of God to gather together with Him. What we have made that gathering with Him to be is not. The heart of God to preach and minister to people is from Him as well, but it was never meant to be done in our own understanding and power. Beloved, God is exposing the motives, and the “means we have used” to advance the gospel.
The question is have we taken the revelations God has given us and then do them in the flesh? This is at the heart of why everything has come to a stop. God has been telling us, warning us, giving us fresh outpourings, fresh revelation but we continue to put it in an old wine skin. We have continued to build the revelation of God in the arm of the flesh. We have taken the holy of God and tried to work it in the power and wisdom of man’s understanding and not God’s, or at best in mixture of both. So God hit the brakes!
Let us read the Word of God to the church at Galatia who exemplifies this very point to us in Galatians chapter 3: 1-5
1 O you foolish and thoughtless and superficial Galatians, who has bewitched you [that you would act like this], to whom—right before your very eyes—Jesus Christ was publicly portrayed as crucified [in the gospel message]?
2 This is all I want to ask of you: did you receive the [Holy] Spirit as the result of obeying [the requirements of] the Law, or was it the result of hearing [the message of salvation and] with faith [believing it]?
3 Are you so foolish and senseless? Having begun [your new life by faith] with the Spirit, are you now being perfected and reaching spiritual maturity by the flesh [that is, by your own works and efforts to keep the Law]?
4 Have you suffered so many things and experienced so much all for nothing—if indeed it was all for nothing?
5 So then, does He who supplies you with His [marvelous Holy] Spirit and works miracles among you, do it as a result of the works of the Law [which you perform], or because you [believe confidently in the message which you] heard with faith?
Let us read the message Bible to truly hear why taking the revelation of God into your own understanding is dangerous and even harmful to the Body of Christ.
1 You crazy Galatians! Did someone put a hex on you? Have you taken leave of your senses? Something crazy has happened, for it’s obvious that you no longer have the crucified Jesus in clear focus in your lives. His sacrifice on the cross was certainly set before you clearly enough.
2-4 Let me put this question to you: How did your new life begin? Was it by working your heads off to please God? Or was it by responding to God’s Message to you? Are you going to continue this craziness?
For only crazy people would think they could complete by their own efforts what was begun by God. If you weren’t smart enough or strong enough to begin it, how do you suppose you could perfect it? Did you go through this whole painful learning process for nothing? It is not yet a total loss, but it certainly will be if you keep this up!
Look at verse for the question it asked us, Have you taken leave of your senses? Did someone put a hex on you, you crazy Galatians? How did your new life begin?
Here is the key.. was it by working your head off to please God? Or was it by responding ( rightly) ( my addition)to God’s message to you?
FOR ONLY CRAZY PEOPLE WOULD THINK THEY COULD COMPLETE (DO THE WORK OF GOD) BY THEIR OWN EFFORTS (OWN UNDERSTANDING) WHAT WASA BEGUN BY GOD.
Beloved is that the very first rebuke Jesus says to the church in Ephesus standing with eyes like fire and feet like burning brass? Isn’t he revealing to them their “own efforts of trying to serve him and please him” he can’t accept their work because they deserted Him as their first love. This means all their works “trying to please God, even the good things” Jesus says is crazy and unacceptable.
He even tells the church at Ephesus to repent and realize how far they have fallen. Beloved if we miss this truth in the “pause or reset button” by God, we will go right back to doing what the Lord is not asking us to do. What is that, trying to do his will in the power of human wisdom and strength.
Beloved, the church is in the mess we are today because most of God’s leader don’t spend time with God to hear him and then long enough to gain correct understanding timing and who God wants to do the work. We stop the process of truly hearing God when we think “we got it.” Our “we got it” is our own understanding.
When we gain our “own understanding” of what God wants, then we make plans, programs and agenda to advance the “mixture of what God said, in the way we think we have to get it done.
This is the exact opposite of God’s instruction to us in Proverbs 3:5-6
5. Trust in and rely confidently on the Lord with all your heart And do not rely on your own insight or understanding. 6 In all your ways know and acknowledge and recognize Him, And He will make your paths straight and smooth [removing obstacles that block your way].
Beloved, the wisdom of men is foolishness to God. Let us repent today of taking the revelation, the word of Jesus, the plans of Jesus and then trying to work them out in the flesh, or the mind of the flesh rooted in human reason. Let us see that God says this is crazy?
Let us hear God and repent say, FOR ONLY CRAZY PEOPLE WOULD THINK THEY COULD COMPLETE (DO THE WORK OF GOD) BY THEIR OWN EFFORTS (OWN UNDERSTANDING) WHAT WASA BEGUN BY GOD.
The Message Bible shares it this way: Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go; he’s the one who will keep you on track. Don’t assume that you know it all.
This is a word for all of us to hear. He that has an ear let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. A new paradigm, a new day is here. Let us not miss it!
Much love and blessings!
