Because of Me

“And when two or three of you are together because of me, you can be sure that I'll be there."

Why is it such a brain freeze to think apart from continued revelation (remember Jesus said, “Upon this revelation I will build my church”), that it is pretty much a sure thing that any new expression of getting, meeting together as believers will somehow still strongly resemble the only template we have ever known, or got to know?

What is the “church” the called out ones, called out from anyway if its not the reality of being transferred out of this religious world’s direct influence and according to our brother Paul, “[The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love.”

I believe that from the very beginning, there has always been in one form or another a true expression of what it means to BE the church, but, because the over riding distorted influence of the spirit of this age then and now, every time a glimpse of His reality defining us as His church was evident, it came under great opposition.

I see the Father using all things including this anti-Christ spirit of religion to bring forth in a tangible living way, His glorious church.
All and any nuances, variations from the religious matrix are being used of the Father to generate a absolute loathing of trying to mix law with grace, and until the appointed time of the Father, we are put under tutors and governors. He already knows those who will come to themselves, as did the prodigal sons, at least one of them did.

Rich

I love what Austin Sparks has to say on this matter.

"... that I might preach him." Everything hangs on that. "It pleased God... to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him," or proclaim Him; underline the last word "Him," that goes to the heart of everything, that interrogates everything, that weighs up the value of everything, Him! Since Paul's day so very much of Christian activity has been the furthering of a movement, the propagating of a teaching, the furthering of the interests of an institution. It is not a movement, nor to establish a movement in the earth and to get followers, adherents, members, support. It is not an institution, even though we might call that institution the Church.

The Church has no existence in the thought of God apart from the revelation of Jesus Christ, and it is judged according to the measure in which Christ the Son of God's love is in evidence by its existence. It is not a testimony, if by that you mean a specific form of teaching, a systematized doctrine. No, it is not a testimony. Let us be careful what we mean when we speak about "the testimony". We may have in our minds some arrangement of truth, and that truth couched in certain phraseology, form of words, and thus speak about "the testimony"; it is not the testimony in that sense. It is not a denomination, and it is not an "undenomination," and it is not an "interdenomination". It is not Christianity. It is not "the work" - oh, we are always talking about "the work": "How is the work getting on?" - we are giving ourselves to the work, we are interested in the work, we are out in the work. It is not a mission. It is Christ. "... that I might preach HIM."

If that had remained central and pre-eminent all these horrible disintegrating jealousies would never have had a chance. All the wretched mess that exists in the organization of Christianity today would never have come about. It is because something specific in itself, either a movement, a mission, a teaching, a testimony, a fellowship, has taken the place of Christ. People have gone out to further THAT, to project THAT, to establish THAT. It would not be confessed, nevertheless it is true, that today it is not so much Christ as our work. It is true! Now beloved, an inward revelation is the cure of all that, and all that - am I saying too hard a thing, too sweeping a thing? - the existence of all that represents the absence of an adequate inward revelation of Christ.

If Christ the Son of God's love is central and supreme in the heart of the believer so much else goes down, it must go down. Dividing things will go, insofar as they are things which are not controversies with the Lord. Controversies with God will divide, but those artificial things, those things resultant from man's activity and his projecting of himself, insinuating of himself into the interests of God, those things cannot abide where there is an adequate inward revelation of the Lord Jesus; they cannot be. These two things are before us: one, because of the revelation of Jesus Christ in our heart we have a passion for Him; on the other hand, because of the absence of a sufficient revelation of Christ in our hearts we are out for other things which we would say were in His interests, and for Him, but which can never, never satisfy God's heart. It is the satisfaction of the heart of the Father which is in view.