Life - or a System?

What is it that brings definition into our lives as sons of God? Is it a religious system or is it Life - His life in us, as us, as our only life? Remember, we are “in the world but not of it.”

Within and throughout the worldly systems and institutions, there are living sons (seeds), that God has fathered by His word alone. Whatever the institution of this world: automotive, educational, nursing, law enforcement, food processing, drug testing, religious, etc. etc., God the Father has secretly invaded them all by birthing many sons after the glorious image and likeness of His only begotten son, Christ Jesus.

After listening to a recent podcast by a brother about the origin of the “church,” I could readily see how his definitions muddied up the already blurred and out of focus picture of the Church, which is His body on earth. As far as I know the “government” of His church which IS His body, is still resting upon His shoulders alone and not upon some man-made criteria. I’ve often wondered why so many who are moving away from one form or another of the religious establishments, end up once again imbibing in the residing matrix of religion within them by simply creating through the energy of fleshly wisdom the same old thing, only painted up and marketed in a different format! This can take many forms – one of them being a ‘home church’. After a while, the same old hierarchies emerge. They’re only given different titles. Can anybody smell the stink rising from the diabolical sweating of man’s flesh?

Many moving away from the “institutional” establishments are eager to try and clone a facsimile of the first century church as being the most perfect template there ever was. Why? Why is it necessary to clone anything? Isn’t He, Jesus, the one who dared to say, “I will build my church and the gates of hell will not prevail against it,” fully able to define what and where the church is supposed to look like according to His infinite direction and wisdom?

I realize that in the book of Acts it says, “And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved,” but it is important to understand that in my opinion the church that was in its beginnings was a far cry from what it was about to become. For example, consider Saul of Tarsus: “Now Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest, and asked for letters from him to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any belonging to the Way, both men and women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem.” Consequently there was a great dispersion that unfolded scattering the early believers in every direction. It is my opinion that until (Saul), Paul showed up on the scene, at best what was happening in Jerusalem, what many call ‘the early church’, was nothing more than a “Jewish Boy’s Club”!

What the Father did in birthing His life into lifeless humans, transforming them into His sons, was not the product of a new and improved hybrid version of Judaism! Even at this time before the scattering of believers occurred, being a “Christian” was shrouded, veiled, and cloaked in the grave clothes of religious Judaism. It was the Holy Spirit who revealed this to Paul, giving him a living blueprint of who and what the church was, and what it was going to be. The “Church” as an entity as well as the modern day definition of “Christian” has been so badly disfigured by the earthly, natural, demonic logic of those who do not have eyes to see or ears to hear what the Spirit is doing in the hearts of His body, which is the Church.

Father continue to give us, your Church, a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the “true knowledge” of your Son. Open the eyes of our heart to see, let us be flooded with the light and glorious true knowledge of Whose we are.

Rich